My Only One by Lindsay McKenna Read Free Book Online

not, Abby grinned. “Clint Eastwood, an actor from Hollywood, was just voted in as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea.”
    “Is your country run only by actors?”
    “Sometimes,” Abby said seriously, “I think so. But, that’s a personal opinion. President Reagan is very popular with a lot of people.”
    “Yet, you don’t care for him?”
    “I don’t care for some of his politics,” Abby stressed. “In our country, we’re allowed to dissent and voice our own opinion, whether it’s popular or not.”
    Denisov’s bushy gray brows rose, but he said nothing. “Your brush with the Japanese whaler is only the tip of the iceberg, it seems.”
    “Oh?”
    “Hasn’t your president just blocked three-million-dollars worth of Japanese merchandise from coming into your country in retaliation for Japan not honoring a trade agreement regarding semiconductors?”
    Abby gave the captain a blank look, rummaged through her memory and then said, “Yes, he did just impose that embargo.”
    “What of sports?”
    “I don’t know very much about sports, Captain.”
    “Boxing? Is there anything going on? It is my favorite sport.”
    “I think I recall Sugar Ray Leonard beating Marvin Hagler for the middleweight championship of the world.”
    Grinning, Denisov said, “Good! Sports are the lifeblood of men.”
    Silently, Abby agreed. She hated football and any other sport. To her, it was a waste of time to be glued to the television set for an entire weekend, watching one sporting event after another. “You and every man in America agree upon that,” she muttered.
    “What other bits of news do you recall?”
    Abby sighed inwardly. Were the next four days at breakfast going to consist of Denisov questioning her at length? She wondered if she should be speaking about anything at all, but then decided that she knew so little of matters related to national security that it wouldn’t hurt to entertain the cagey captain.
    “Let’s see…one of our huge oil companies, Texaco, just filed for bankruptcy. That’s been a real shock to the nation. My friend Susan is a stock broker, and she says it’s going to send a scare through the financial district of Wall Street.”
    With a nod, Denisov pushed aside his plate. Immediately, one of the stewards came and picked it up. “I heard that one of your air force Centaur rockets blew up less than a minute after takeoff from Cape Canaveral.” He studied her intently. “A year ago, you lost the
Challenger
in that unfortunate mishap. I understand your country is having a hard time placing satellites into orbit without the space shuttle. This Centaur was supposed to have been struck by lightning, veered off course and had to be destroyed. Is this true?”
    Squirming, Abby shrugged. “Got me on that one, Captain. Things like sports, military or entertainment items don’t interest me. I sort of ignore them in favor of politics, which is an area that interests me greatly. Sorry, I don’t know anything about the rocket exploding.” She was lying, of course, but didn’t care. Looking down at Alec, she saw him frowning.
    Abby tried to relax and adjust to the situation. Denisov was going to pump her, and she was simply going to evade and play dumb when she felt it necessary. In one way, Abby wanted the next four days to pass quickly. But on a personal level, she wanted them to stretch out and slow down. She suddenly wanted the time to know one Alec Rostov better.
    * * *
    O N THE FIFTH MORNING ABOARD the
Udaloy,
Abby spent breakfast with the officers, as usual. Denisov was in a good mood, smiling often and laughing easily. In the past week Abby found ways to manipulate the conversations with the curious captain. She talked about several books she’d brought aboard the
Argonaut
to read at night when their whale-watch duties were done.
    Denisov found
Destiny
by Sally Beauman interesting, although he wasn’t much of a reader of women’s fiction. The entire table became animated and engrossed when