Project Reunion by Ginger Booth Read Free Book Online Page A

here as my girlfriend.” Emmett waited until we were parked at the Coast Guard Academy to drop this little bombshell. He casually proceeded to unbuckle his seatbelt and hop out of the car.
I sat gaping at him. That was the second time in two weeks I’d been informed that he wouldn’t consider me his girlfriend for the next bit. The first time hadn’t gone so well. For a moment I was just stunned. Then I started getting mad.
Maybe he felt the vibe. Maybe he just noticed that I wasn’t moving as he wanted me to. He bent down to peer in through the door. His familiar bushy brown hair was gone. Somehow he’d managed to get a precise military haircut after we’d quit work last night at midnight, and before he picked me up this morning for the trip to New London. His cropped hair was topped with proper red beret over cammies, the trousers bloused into combat boots. That look hid his tight wiry body even better than the dress blues. He looked padded. Why he wasn’t wearing dress blues, I hadn’t a clue. I was certainly wearing navy blue blazer and chinos, my old corporate standard. Suspicion dawned that I didn’t know who this man was, or what he’d done with my lover.
“Dee,” he said. “We’re both presenters here? Colleagues.” He sighed. “Just trust me on this? We cannot have a scene right now. We’ll talk later in our room.”
Our room , yes. How exactly weren’t we here as lovers, when we were sharing a hotel room? Oh, yes, there would be a talk. I pulled his messenger bag out of the back seat and thrust it at him. Then I flashed him my sunniest steel-edged smile. “I look forward to that, Major MacLaren!”
He grinned crookedly. “Shit. I’ll see you in the meeting, Ms. Baker.”
By the time I’d clambered out of the car with my own laptop case, and straightened my clothes, he’d been swallowed into a small flock of a half-dozen cammie-clad men of similar 30-something age. They clapped each other on the shoulders, shook hands, sometimes combined with half-hugs, and other close physical male bonding. At a guess, they were the Connecticut Rescos, minus their commanding officer, Lt. Colonel Mora, the only other Resco I’d ever met. The Cocos were civilians, or at least reservists. But the next tier up, the Rescos, retained their commissions as Army officers.
I sighed, affixed another false smile on my face, and looked around for anyone else I knew cluttering up the little campus green in front of the entrance. Finding none, I headed for the door. Just inside, I met an armed security screening checkpoint, yet another thing I didn’t miss from life before the borders.
“Corporal Tibbs!” I cried, with a sincere smile this time. “So good to see you again! Thank you for your help last winter.” The stolid young marine had been my jailer the last time I’d visited New London harbor, on an aircraft carrier converted to an ark. He’d been dutiful enough as a jailer. He’d also surreptitiously gotten word of my incarceration to the right people. That probably saved me from death at the hands of Homeland Security. I was glad to see it didn’t get Tibbs fired.
“Ms. Baker. Good to see you well.” A certain sharp glance suggested that Tibbs would prefer I not get too specific, in this context, about the incident last winter. He inspected my laptop bag thoroughly. He ran me through the stand-up X-ray. He photographed me and took a retina print. From all this, he produced a very high-tech version of a ‘Hi! My Name Is Dee!’ name tag. It proclaimed my affiliation as ‘Presenter, Amenac Resource, New Haven County.’
I slung its lanyard around my neck, and tried not to dwell on how many trillions the Defense Department had added to the national debt with toys like this. It was all moot now.
I re-affixed earrings and shoes, and gazed around the sea of cammie-clad men, as the after-images from the retina scan abated. They were all men. The different color berets and camouflage probably meant something.