J.T. sat down at last and fastened his glare on his root beer float.
Gail patted Aria’s hand. “I think you were right, Princess. Never let a man use the Lord’s name in vain. Once he starts, he’ll never stop.”
Aria looked at the strawberry sundae someone had ordered for her and wished the floor would open up and swallow her. Mitch still had his arm around the back of her chair but it was different now. He was no longer leaning toward her but, instead, leaning a little back.
Once again she was a freak. Just as she had been the day they had arrested her. They had put her in a glass-walled cage and stared at her and laughed at her. Everything she did seemed to amuse them. And the only person she had known in America—Lieutenant Montgomery—had treated her the worst of all. Yet she had tried so very hard to please these new people. She had tried so hard to fit in.
“Let’s go to the beach,” Dolly said cheerfully. “We’ll get our suits and go swimming at sunset, and J.T., you can catch us some lobsters and we’ll grill them.”
“I have work to do,” J.T. muttered, moving his straw up and down in his untouched drink.
Dolly leaned forward. “Then maybe you’d be so kind as to drive your wife”—she emphasized the word—“to my house so I can loan her a bathing suit.”
“Sure,” J.T. said, fumbling for his keys. “You want to go now?”
Dolly stood. “On second thought, why don’t you and I go and we’ll all meet at Larry and Bonnie’s apartment in an hour? Take care of our princess,” she told Bill, then had J.T.’s arm and was leading him out the door.
“You bastard,” Dolly said as soon as they were in the military car that was at J.T.’s constant disposal. “Bill told me everything and I think you’re being a bastard.”
“I’ve had all the abuse from women today that I can take. Don’t you start on me.”
“Someone should. The way you’re treating that lovely girl is disgraceful.”
“Lovely? Lovely girls don’t allow men who aren’t their husbands to drape themselves all over them.”
“Hallelujah! You noticed,” Dolly said sarcastically. “Mitch likes her, as we all do except you.” Suddenly, she softened. “J.T., I’ve seen you charm lady sergeants, tough old broads who terrified every other man, but you had them eating from your hands. So why aren’t you using some of your charm on your wife?”
J.T. turned a sharp right. “Maybe it’s because she hates me, or maybe it’s because she looks down her nose at me. She thinks I’m a commoner. Or maybe because she can’t do anything useful. My job is to teach her to be an American and I’m doing that.”
There was something in his tone that made Dolly change hers. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
“She’s all right if you like the overbred type.”
“I see,” Dolly said.
“You see what?” he snapped.
“You’re afraid of her.”
“What?” he yelled, and slammed on the brakes at a stop sign.
“You’re afraid that if you unbend a bit, you’ll find she’s quite courageous and rather likable. I’d never be able to do as well as she has. Bill said she couldn’t even dress herself when she came to America but now she’s cooking your breakfast.”
“Sort of. She burned herself.”
“Yes, but she’s trying. Did you ever think how lonely she must be? She’s in a strange country married to a man who despises her, but she’s made the best of it. In spite of you, she’s surviving.”
“In spite of me? Because of me she’s surviving.”
They were silent for a while then J.T. spoke quietly. “I don’t want to get involved with her. As soon as the army takes the imposter princess, she goes back to her throne. Then, no doubt, she’ll hold out her hand for me to kiss and say ‘so long, sucker.’ Or maybe she’ll give me a medal on a ribbon and she’ll hang it around my neck.”
“You didn’t mind getting ‘involved’ with Heather Addison, or Debbie Longley or Karen Filleson or—what was the redhead’s name?”
J.T. smiled. “Point taken. Aria’s different, as you well know. You can’t very well have a one-night stand with a royal princess. She doesn’t dream of cottages with white picket fences, she dreams of castles and land management and lifelong servitude. Kings have no privacy or freedom.”
“So you’ll be mean to her instead.”
“I’m not mean exactly, I just keep my distance. As that Mitch goddamn well better do. Oh, sorry.”