Page 67 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

“No, I don’t,” Jasper said, stopping himself before adding his own sir to the end. He might have a lot to answer to for his behavior, but this man had no power over him.

His daughter, however…

“And is it your custom to show up uninvited and sow disorder among the ranks of the armed forces?”

“Not usually, no,” Jasper said. Emboldened by the thought that things literally couldn’t get any worse, he added, “But this is a special circumstance.”

The Major narrowed his eyes in a way that might, had Jasper been one of his enlisted men, have made him cower where he stood. Instead, he straightened his spine and met the man’s stare.

For some reason, this seemed to please the officer. “What’s your name?” the Major asked.

“Jasper. Jasper Holmes.”

From the way the shorter man suddenly flinched, as if a divine hand had swatted him from above, Jasper knew that he had the whole story. Also that there was about to be serious hell to pay.

But all he said was, “I see,” before turning to the man nearest to him in rank. “Captain Lindholdt, be good enough to assume command until I return. Please see that the training exercises are carried out at their usual hour. I’ll be escorting this young man home.”

“Actually, I drove myself—” Jasper began, but his protest fell on unheeding ears.

“That will be all. You’re dismissed.”

If Jasper hadn’t already been terrified, the speed with which the men dispersed would have done the trick. In a matter of seconds, he was left standing on a dusty patch of earth with only Catherine’s father to witness what happened next.

“Come along, then,” the Major said as he brushed lightly past Jasper. “I don’t have all day.”

“Uh…can I ask where we’re going?” Jasper asked. He flexed his hand involuntarily, a tight bruising already starting to take shape around his knuckles. He’d pay for that injury at work tomorrow, but he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it. “Or would that be an impertinence?”

The Major paused just long enough to cast a look over his shoulder at Jasper. “It is an impertinence, but you might as well know now. You’ll have plenty of time to repent when we get there.”

“Get where?” Jasper asked.

“To my house, obviously,” he said as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “My wife would like to have a few words.”

Jasper wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or dismayed when he stepped onto the driveway of a pristinely white two-story house to find that Catherine was nowhere in sight.

On the one hand, he quaked to think of what his lover would say if she knew what he’d done—driven up to the radar base in a blaze of impotent fury, attacked the man who was to make an honest woman of her, and confronted her father on his own turf. On the other hand, he wasnotgood at parents. Not by any stretch of the imagination, and certainly not when he was handling them on his own.

“Come along, then,” the Major said as he closed the door of his green Chevy Bel-Air and started making his way to the front door. He didn’t even check to make sure Jasper was following. “Mrs. Martin is eager to meet you.”

“I doubt that,” Jasper muttered, but he followed anyway.

Now that he was at Catherine’s house, he found himself more interested in his surroundings than he’d have previously thought possible. It had never occurred to him before to drive by her family home or even to wonder what her life might be like outside the library and their clandestine meetings. That her parents were overbearing, he knew from their conversations. That she yearned for more than the picture-perfect cutout life of an obedient daughter and wife, he also knew.

That was what made this situation with William McBride so frustrating. Catherine didn’t want a life of safety and security, of white picket fences and military precision. She wanted to go on adventures. She wanted to squeeze the most out of every day. She wanted to explore the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, never flinching from either extreme.

He, Jasper Holmes, had taken that from her. He’d robbed her of the life she deserved. And she, in agreeing to marry William McBride, had let him.

Her house was typical of the few upper- and middle-class homesin the town. Anything that could be called “stately” around these parts had been around since the turn of the century, the historical features pristinely maintained over the decades. Unlike his own family home, which was a skinny town house squeezed between too many others along the log-jammed waterfront of the Chehalis River, everything here was picture-perfect. The couches sat at perfect right angles in the living room, a silver tea service tray already set out in expectation of this visit.

This was bad enough, but nothing could have prepared Jasper for the little signs of Catherine everywhere he looked—a copy ofBreakfast at Tiffany’slying facedown on a side table, a bottle of her light-pink nail polish next to it. A little notebook and a stub of a pencil for jotting down in it, probably for quotes she found meaningful in the book.

And, more damning than all the rest, an exact replica of her standing in an apron at the far end of the room. Jasper knew, from a few chance meetings around town, that this woman was Catherine’s mother, but he’d never seen her up close before. Now that he had, he wished the meeting undone. The gently wisping lines around her eyes and the slight strands of gray in her hair hinted at her older age, but the two Martin women were otherwise identical. It was like catching a glimpse into Catherine’s future—a future he would make no part of, and a future he wanted so much that it ached.

“Mrs. Martin?” he asked as he came to a halt in front of her. He brought up his hand to shake hers before realizing that his knuckles still bore the imprint of William McBride’s face. He tried shoving his hand behind his back before she noticed, but there was no point. Catherine and her mother didn’t just share features; they shared the quick, ready understanding he found so appealing.

“Oh, you poor thing,” she murmured as she clasped his hand gently between her own. “Let’s get a steak on that before it swells up. I have a lovely rib eye that should ease the sting.”

“I thought that rib eye was for supper—” the Major began, buthe caught his wife’s eye and immediately clamped his lips shut. With a curt nod, he began to back out of the room. “I suppose you know your business best. I’ll wait in the car until it’s time to drive him back.”