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The mutual realization that he wouldn’t be around to explain crew rest...or anything else...hung in the air until he broke the awkward silence.
“My crew is one of ten being ferried across the Atlantic in the back end of a C-17. The transport crew will do the flying. The rest of us will spend the whole flight sawing z’s.”
“Can you tell me where you’re going?”
“No. Sorry.”
The silence stretched a little longer this time. Alex took another cautious sip of coffee and was hit by the unsettling realization that the kitchen she’d so lovingly decorated was just the right size for her and Maria. She’d painted the walls a sunny yellow herself and spent hours haunting Old Town’s bazaar for the terra-cotta sun faces arranged above the cooktop. Ben, however, seemed to shrink the kitchen’s proportions by at least a third.
It wasn’t his height, she had to concede, or those broad shoulders. It had to be that Special Ops confidence. The quiet air of authority he exuded even with his back in a lazy curve and his hips propped against her kitchen counter. Somehow, some way, he owned the room.
“Why don’t you hang here for a while?” she suggested.
He looked interested. Very interested.
Reluctantly, Alex popped his bubble. “We could go into the living room, put up our feet and talk.”
“Right. Talk.”
“I might need to know more about my...uh...husband than his name, rank and serial number.”
Dammit! She’d better learn not to stumble over the H word. And, she realized as she led the way into the living room, she actually had no clue what his serial number was.
“It’s the same as my Social Security number,” he replied in answer to her embarrassed question. “I’ll take a photo of the SS card for you. Also my military ID, which has a different number. You might need both.”
He laid them on the coffee table, clicked a quick photo and texted it to Alex’s cell phone. The JPEG nestled next to their wedding certificate and the picture with Chelsea and Pink in her phone’s photo album.
She bit her lip as she studied Ben’s face on his military ID card. She had absolutely no intention of making any spousal claim on him. All she wanted—all she needed—was his signature on a marriage license. She wasn’t about to risk being accused of fraud by the air force. Or by the state of New Mexico, although she skated closer to the line with the state than she did with the military.
The thought caused a little flutter in her stomach. Resolutely, she banished it. Maria was worth the risk. A thousand times over.
Which brought her back to name, rank and serial number. If she was going to sway the Neanderthal judge who’d sustained Eddie’s objection to the adoption because of Alex’s single status, she needed to know more about her groom. Kicking off her shoes, she sank back against the overstuffed sofa cushions and tucked her feet under her.
“I know this sounds really manipulative... Okay, it is manipulative. But it would help if you tell me a little about yourself. Just in case I need to provide some details about my absent spouse.”
Ben stretched out in the saggy armchair opposite her. “What do you want to know?”
She shrugged. “Your favorite ice cream. Your shirt size. Your mom’s and dad’s first names. Where you graduated from high school.”
“Plain vanilla. Fifteen-and-a-half neck, thirty-three sleeve. Alice and Ben Senior. Although,” he added sardonically, “the ‘senior’ part’s a little iffy. My mother was fairly sure the trucker she lived with for a few months fathered me, but they parted ways long before I was born. Never saw him, never wanted to. Mom took off when I was about eight or nine. It was pretty much a series of foster homes after that.”
Uh-oh! The casual way he’d tossed that out didn’t pass the smell test. With a quick kick to her gut, Alex guessed he’d just shared the real reason he’d agreed to her outrageous proposal. Apparently, his childhood had been as rootless and haphazard as Maria’s. His next comments confirmed her guess.
“As for high school, I dropped out after my junior year. The oil fields were hiring,” he related with a careless shrug. “I’d had enough of foster homes and didn’t see the need for a diploma, so I lit out on my own. The air force recruiter who had me in his sights didn’t see it the same way.”
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