She slid her feet into plastic gardening clogs and walked out onto her patio.
The cottage-size home afforded her a wonderfully wild garden area out back, nourished by the moisture and rain-forest climate of Puget Sound. Her patio was the only level spot in her entire backyard. The ground sloped up to her neighbors’ wooden fences—fences she never saw except when she did her annual cleanup of brambles and fallen branches.
Ferns, junipers and other low-climbing evergreen growth blanketed the yard, offset by random patches and containers of flowering plants. Roses thrived in the upper left corner of her garden, while the half dozen whiskey barrels she’d planted with fuchsia and seasonal bulbs gave the green carpet pops of vibrant color.
She took a swig of her water and smiled when the bubbles tickled her nose. Even if she only had five minutes of free time in a day, she spent it here.
With her knitting needles, of course.
Her fingers itched to go back in the house and get the chemo cap she was working on but she wasn’t convinced she had enough time. She looked at her sport watch. Miles had said they’d “connect” after dinner; she assumed he’d call her on her cell within the next half hour or so. She made a mental note to go out to Whidbey Fibers, her favorite yarn haunt on the island, as soon as her work schedule cleared up. Which, judging from today’s events, wasn’t going to be until the commodore felt the entire investigation was over. She’d completed a few of the knit hats she was donating to the yarn shop’s charity drive. The owner collected hand-knit or crocheted hats for chemotherapy patients who’d lost their hair. Ro heard they donated the caps to head trauma patients, too, down at Madagen Army Hospital in Fort Lewis.
If nothing else, focusing on someone, something, other than herself gave her a sense of belonging in the community. Plus it kept her close at heart to her deceased Aunt Millie, her mother’s sister, who had died much too young from cancer. She still missed her, fifteen years after her passing.
Knitting also took her mind off her job.
Impossible at the moment.
It bothered her that the commodore had basically assigned her and Miles to be his lackeys. His orders to them weren’t by any means illegal or unheard of; commanders used their staff subordinates to be their proverbial eyes and ears all the time. It was an effective way to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks. But this could turn into a freaking murder investigation and, for the life of her, Ro didn’t see any reason the commodore needed to put both her and Miles, two of his busiest staff officers, on the case.
Of course, he was probably worried about political fallout.
Being politically correct had become ingrained in the navy and other armed forces in the fourteen years since Ro had graduated from the naval academy. Every commander, no matter how morally upstanding he or she was, needed to be very careful when it came to personnel matters. One mistake, one instance of even the appearance of a mistake, could and did end otherwise stellar careers.
Of course, she’d witnessed commanders who should have been fired and never were. And she was justifiably proud of her service to her country and the navy. The great majority of her bosses had been of the highest integrity and served their nation well.
There had been a few jerks, too. Some got their due.
She couldn’t say the commodore here was a bad leader and certainly not a bad person. She just didn’t respect him with the intensity she had other leaders. Maybe if she’d worked with him earlier in her career, she’d have witnessed a more enthusiastic leader when it pertained to the operational side of their missions. She knew him now, when he was gunning for flag rank, and she found it difficult to see past her impression of him as a bit self-absorbed and career-motivated. Again, nothing surprising given his rank and résumé.
The commodore wanted her and Miles to cover his ass, period. So the wing wouldn’t be sullied by unfair comments in the press, sure. But she couldn’t help assuming that the commodore wanted to ensure that he made the next rank.
Wasn’t that what they were all aiming for, no matter where they were in their careers?
Wasn’t she?
* * *
“GOOD GIRL, LUCKY.” Miles scratched the boxer-mix behind her cropped ears. She rolled onto her back and bared her belly for a proper rub.
“It’s okay. Sorry I was gone so long today, gal.”
Lucky was staying with Miles while her owner, another staff officer, was deployed to Afghanistan. Brad had never stated it aloud but Miles knew that leaving Lucky with him had been more of a favor to Miles than anything else.
Miles’s explosive ordnance partner when he’d been in combat had been Riva, a Belgian Malinois. Riva had lost her life saving Miles’s when a land mine detonated in an area they were sweeping. She’d received a hero’s burial with honors, as she’d so valiantly and selflessly earned.
Her death had nearly crippled him emotionally. He’d known the odds were against both of them when he went into that godforsaken field but it didn’t make losing her any less painful. His counselor and doctors told him his extended grief for Riva was how his mind kept him from focusing on the loss of his leg and his operational career. On a mental level, he knew that. In his heart, however, there’d always be a special place for Riva.
He figured he’d get his own dog in time. He wasn’t ready yet. It wouldn’t be fair to compare a new pup to Riva.
“Woof!” Lucky gave him the sign that she needed more than a belly rub.
“Okay, let’s go for a little walk. You can’t come with me tonight, okay, gal?” The boxer possessed nowhere near Riva’s mental acuity but Lucky’s ability to perceive his mood changes rivaled that of anyone—human or canine—he’d ever met. He allowed himself to wonder what Lucky would make of Ro.
Miles never had a problem focusing on a mission—it was a vital result of the rigorous ordnance disposal training he’d had. Lose focus, lose your fingers, a limb, your life.
But today he’d been distracted by Ro ever since he’d seen her standing in the middle of Deception Pass Bridge. He’d instantly known it was her—he could recognize her petite, well-toned body, not to mention her wisps of sexy curls, even under a knit cap, anywhere. Although she’d turned him down when he’d asked her out all those months ago, he didn’t harbor a grudge. It wasn’t as though he’d been looking for anything serious. He found her attractive and figured it was mutual, judging from the way she got her back up whenever he was around.
He laughed as Lucky gave him a sharp bark.
“Hey, girl.”
Lucky butted her head into his thigh, seeking another belly rub.
As he rubbed her chest he thought about the animal shelter where he volunteered on weekends. He needed to call and let them know he wouldn’t be in tomorrow morning as usual. He had a feeling his time at the no-kill shelter was going to be limited until this investigation was put to bed.
* * *
THE CHILLY SPRING evening proved too much for Ro’s cotton sweater. She closed the sliding glass door behind her, cheered by the bright colors of her family room while she waited for the warmth of the house to chase away her goose bumps.
She didn’t remember when she’d started, but sometime during her carrier tour she’d begun knitting decorative accessories out of the brightest hues she could find. She’d collected skeins of lush yarns in fibers she relished and brought a box of them on her deployment. Her downtime on the ship was basically nil, but every now and then she’d find a moment to pull out the yarn and start a pillow cover. The bright colors perked up the drab navy-gray and olive hues of her carrier stateroom, and gave her mind a brief escape from the pace of wartime carrier operations.
Once she’d returned stateside, the pillowcases turned into afghans, and then she found herself working on the wall hanging that hung over her bed. Her knitting wasn’t anything she shared with others—she