“Top Secret? Since when does a secretary have Top Secret security clearance?”
“When it is necessary.”
“To console some widow? There are thousands of widows right now and they—” Halting, he looked at her. “There is no widow, is there? This is something altogether different, and neither you nor that loudmouthed general you kiss up to told me anything. Damn you!” he said. “You’re talking something dangerous, aren’t you?”
“It’s none of your business what’s going on. You’re just the driver.”
“And you’re just the secretary!” he said, his face nearly touching hers.
“Oh, dear,” came the woman’s voice from the doorway. “I’m afraid I’ve caused a bit of a tiff between you two. That’ll be ten pounds six,” she said.
“Ten pounds?” Edi said, aghast. It was an enormous amount of money. “I don’t think—”
“I think that’s fine,” David said, getting out his wallet. “Could I have the map now?”
“Of course, dear,” she said, not looking at Edi. She handed him a folded piece of paper, and he took it without looking at it.
“I’d help you out with the boxes but it’s a bit damp out there, so…” She trailed off, then left the room.
On one of the tables were six large white boxes, each tied with string for handles. “I think she did this on purpose,” Edi said, “and I think she had these ready and waiting for dumb Americans to come back and pay a king’s ransom for them. Give me the map.”
“Not in this lifetime,” David said as he picked up four of the boxes. He reached for the other two, but Edi took them.
“I want the map now.”
“No,” he said as he opened the front door and ran out. He tossed the boxes in the backseat of the car, then held open the front passenger door for Edi. It was raining so hard she could barely see the car and she didn’t want to take the time to fight with him. Besides, she wanted that map.
She got into the passenger seat, put the boxes in the back, then waited for him to get in the car. He put his stiff left leg in, then had to twist his whole body to get his other leg in.
She pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and wiped her face. “What happened to your leg? Did you shoot yourself?”
“You know, if you weren’t a girl, I’d—”
“You’d what?” she asked, her eyes narrowed at him.
“Don’t use that tone with me and don’t tempt me.” He slammed the door, then spent the next ten minutes trying to get the old car to start.
“I thought you could fix any mechanical engine.”
“I was given this piece of junk this morning. I didn’t even get to see the motor.” When it started, he gave a sigh of relief and turned out of the parking lot.
“So let me see the map,” Edi said, and David reached inside his shirt and pulled it out. It was damp, but the ink hadn’t run.
“Ten pounds for this,” she said in disgust. “It says you go to the church, turn right, then keep going until you reach Hamish Trumbulls’s farm. That seems easy enough that even you can do it.”
David gave her a look that told her she was treading on thin ice with him and she’d better watch out.
18
WELL,” JOCELYN SAID when she’d finished reading. Between them, she and Luke had eaten nearly everything in the basket, plus Luke had eaten a large serving of pot roast. “Not a great way for love to start, is it?”
“Sounds all right to me,” Luke said. He was stretched out on the cloth, his hands behind his head. “What else do you want?”
“I don’t know, a meeting of the minds. I guess I thought that Miss Edi and her David looked across a room, their eyes met, and they were in love. Instant and without any doubt to it. I thought that they’d go out to dinner and talk, and find out that they were exactly alike in everything. But this man…”
“This man, what?”
“He doesn’t sound like her…I don’t know how to say it without sounding like a snob. He doesn’t seem like her type. She’s educated, from a long lineage of, well, society, but this man is…”