The Captains' Vegas Vows. Caro Carson
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going to take it off. You want it off, you take it off yourself. I never will.”
Her lips parted in surprise, but she didn’t make a sound. Nothing made a sound—not her, not Tom, not even the brigade commander, who was no longer typing. In the silence, Helen’s heart beat as if the man before her had said something romantic, but the hard look on his face had nothing of love in it. It was a challenge. He was going to make her be the bad guy.
The brigade commander cleared his throat. “Well, now that you’ve had a chance to say hello, sit down, both of you.”
Tom took the seat to the left of the desk. Helen took the one to the right. They sat as stiffly as if they were still standing at attention. Neither of them spoke.
The colonel sat back and looked between them. “I watched your wedding video online.”
There was an online video? Helen gave up and let her shoulders droop. This was a frigging nightmare. Professionally, personally...nightmare, nightmare.
“I want to know what happened between that ceremony and now? Why are you two so...at odds?”
Helen looked at Tom, who looked at her. He doesn’t know what to say, either.
“Let me try this again. Captain Cross tells me you want a divorce. Is that true, Captain Pallas?” The colonel’s tone of voice demanded an answer.
Helen took a slow breath. It was time to salvage what she could from this disastrous introduction to her superior officer. “We’re not at odds, sir. We are in agreement that we’ll get a divorce as soon as possible.”
“Why?”
“We met and married the same day, sir. It was...illogical to get married. We’re strangers.”
“You didn’t look like strangers at the altar,” he replied.
Sleep deprivation was making her delirious, because the colonel sounded almost sad. Kindly, paternal, sad.
Tom interrupted. “She doesn’t remember the ceremony, sir. She doesn’t remember anything. She—we—must have celebrated too hard.”
She felt flushed from different emotions. Embarrassment, anger—Tom made her sound like a black-out drunk.
I know better. She didn’t know why she couldn’t remember much about Vegas, but she’d never been a heavy drinker. She resented being painted as one now, here, in front of her new commander.
“That’s not true, sir. I remember some things.” She stated it as the truth that it was—but there was no way she could look at Tom, because he knew exactly what one thing she remembered.
Roses are always going to remind me of sex with you.
She kept her expression neutral. “But what I remember is not enough to base a marriage on, sir.”
Tom’s expression wasn’t quite neutral. She could see that he was clenching his jaw, probably biting back a comment about her memories that the colonel shouldn’t hear.
The colonel let them stew in silence for a good, long moment. “In the end, only the two of you can decide that.”
“Yes, sir,” Helen answered dutifully. She already knew the truth, though. She’d learned it the hard way in Seattle with another man. She wasn’t very good at being a wife. She didn’t care to try again and prove that twice.
“Now that we’ve got the initial shock over with, let’s try this again. Good morning, Captain Pallas. Welcome to Fort Hood.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re authorized five business days to complete your move to Fort Hood. You know the drill. Medical records, parking passes, physical fitness test, arranging delivery of your household goods.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tomorrow will be day one. Today, you need to recover. Get some sleep. You’ve had a big weekend, you’ve been driving for twenty hours straight—”
Damn it. The colonel had heard every word she and Tom had exchanged in the corner.
“—and you’ve apparently had quite the surprise just now. Regroup. Recover. Sleep. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tom, there’s been a change in our lunch plans, obviously. Escort your wife to your house instead.”
“Sir?” Tom sounded as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard that incorrectly.
Helen rushed to clear up the colonel’s misunderstanding. “I’m going to check into the BOQ, sir. Or VOQ.” An apartment-or hotel-style building on every post served as the BOQ, or Bachelor Officer Quarters, a place where single officers could live either permanently or for a few weeks while house-hunting. A big post like Hood might have a separate VOQ, Visiting Officer Quarters.
Colonel Reed corrected her. “There is no BOQ on post, Captain Pallas. It’s been privatized. It’s now a Holiday Inn.”
That sounded good to her.
Colonel Reed lined through an item on her paperwork and initialed it. “But you are no longer authorized a stay there. You are not a single soldier.”
“I really am, sir. Vegas was a mistake. We’re planning on a divorce.”
“You are not in any physical danger from your spouse, are you?”
“No, sir, of course not.”
“Then you will reside in the housing the army has provided. Tom already lives in a single-family home designated for a captain. Or captains.”
She looked at Tom in alarm. He took over the argument. “Colonel Reed, I need to point out that this would be a waste of time and energy. Once we’re divorced, she would have to move all her household goods again.”
The colonel raised one brow. “Do either of you know how long a divorce takes?”
She only knew the law in Seattle, Washington, where she’d married Russell. She wasn’t going to tell the colonel she’d already been divorced once. She’d seem deranged, getting married again so quickly in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“No, sir,” Helen said. “I haven’t had time to look up Nevada’s laws.”
“Nevada has nothing to do with it,” the colonel said. “That’s where you got married. You must file for divorce in the state you live, and that is now Texas.”
Helen had a sinking feeling she wasn’t going to like Texas’s law.
“One of you has to have lived in Texas for six months before you can begin the legal process—and yes, that is true of active duty military personnel, too.”
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