Empire and Honor (Honor Bound 7)

And you smell good. You must have used half of that bottle of Chanel No. 5.

“Do you have a knife?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“A knife,” she said. “To cut things.”

He searched in his pocket and came out with a pocketknife adorned with the insignia of the Boy Scouts of America. It had been a present on his promotion to Star rank in BSA Troop 36, Midland, Texas.

He extended it in the palm of his hand. She took it.

“That should do nicely,” she said. “Thank you.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“That’s what you do in the CIC,” he said. “Protect secrets.”

“The CIC? I saw that on the door of the Alte Post Hotel. What does it mean?”

“It stands for Counterintelligence Corps.”

“Like the German Sicherheitsdienst? Secret police?”

“Something like that.”

“You don’t look to be old enough for duties like that.”

“I get the least important duties.”

“Like taking care of someone like me?”

“I didn’t mean that,” he said.

“Major Connell said he was throwing you to the wolves,” she said. “That you were sort of expendable.”

“I think Major Connell forgot—or never knew—that you speak English. I can’t imagine him saying what he did otherwise.”

“That’s what I thought. Well, I will try to do nothing that will get you in trouble.”

“Thank you.”

She met his eyes. Hers were blue, and they made him uncomfortable.

“What are you going to do with the knife?” he asked, looking at it.

“I don’t want to keep calling you Mr. Cronley,” Elsa said. “What’s your name?”

“You can call me Jimmy or Jim.”

“What’s the difference?”

“In Texas you can call a man Jimmy and it’s all right. Other places—up north, in the Army—you hear a man called Jimmy, you suspect he’s a little funny.”

He made a waving gesture with his hand.

“I take it you’re not a little funny,” she said, smiling as she mimicked the waving gesture.