Point Of Departure

Inwardly, Callie winced. The article. The light in Remington’s assessing gaze was neither kind nor friendly. No, she saw savagery linked with a hatred that made her blood chill. He was smiling, but the expression never reached his eyes. Callie felt trapped—there was no place to run.

“Look, Commander, I’m in a hurry. I’ve got a class to teach tonight—”

Reaching out, Remington grazed her cheek with his fingers. “Damn, you’re a nice piece of flesh. Why did you have to side with your red-haired witch of a sister? Are you an ice queen like her?”

Paralyzed with fear, Callie allowed Remington to stroke her cheek for several seconds before she slowly pulled away. She felt heat flare up from her neck into her face. Blushing had always gotten her into trouble at Annapolis, she thought distractedly. Remington was her boss. She couldn’t make a scene or he’d put low ratings in her personnel record, and the promised rank would be pulled from her. She couldn’t overreact. Belatedly, Callie thought about what Maggie would have done: she’d have called him on his drunken behavior and insisted he leave. But Remington wasn’t Maggie’s boss….

Her mind whirling with options that might defuse Remington, Callie stammered, “My—my sister has her opinions. If you read the article, you probably noticed that I had very little to say about it. I’m not the pilot, she is.”

Remington slowly straightened, looked back to the bar and raised his hand. Two other aviators, obviously young Top Gun students, waved back, big grins on their faces. He smiled lopsidedly and placed his hands arrogantly on his hips.

“Honey, you got the same fighting blood in your veins. I don’t care whether you’re a pilot or not. You Donovans are nothing but man-hating Amazons. You think you’re better than us, don’t you?”

The pulse at Callie’s throat was throbbing. She’d completely lost her appetite. She felt like a cornered animal beneath Remington’s attack. In vain, she tried to smile again.

“Maggie is happily married, Commander. I don’t think that classifies her as a man-hater, do you?”

With a snort, Remington leered at her. “You know what, Donovan? You need a real man. You’re skittish. You’re distrustful. I can see it in your eyes. I see it at work. You don’t like to be touched. You don’t like men’s attention at all, do you?” His smile was deadly as he asked, “What’s the problem? Do you prefer the company of women over men?”

Callie gasped. Remington’s voice was deep and carried a long way. Inwardly, she felt as if she were dying. She was sure that Lieutenant Clark could hear every word. This wasn’t the way Callie wanted to start out three years of duty at Miramar. She knew what happened to women in the service when they got labeled; fair or not, the rumors followed them like a disease and could destroy their career.

With a brittle laugh, Callie sat back and held Remington’s gloating look. “Commander, I think you’ve had a few too many drinks.”

“That may be, honey,” he said as he lurched toward her. “Are you a lesbian?” He held out his hand and touched her cheek again. “Maybe what you need is someone like me. You split tails are all alike. You need a little taming.”

Callie froze again at Remington’s touch. There was no end to this torture, to this horrible, escalating humiliation. The few other patrons in the dining room were far away and mostly couples. She didn’t dare look in Andy’s direction, too mortified to ask for help.

Moving away from his touch again, Callie whispered, “Commander, I have a class coming up in less than an hour. If you don’t mind, I’d like to finish my meal.”

Backing away, Remington grinned and flipped off a salute. “Sure, honey. You feed that beautiful brain of yours.” He winked at her. “I’ll take care of that hot property you call a body. Be seeing you around….”

Shattered, Callie shivered in terror and relief as Remington staggered back to the bar, toward his two young charges. Callie could see them slap him heartily on the back when he returned. Remington leaned over and said something, and all three broke out into raucous gales of laughter.

Thoroughly humiliated, Callie wanted nothing more than to get up and run out of the O Club as fast as her legs would carry her. But she thought of Maggie, who always accused her of running from showdowns. She’d run from them at Annapolis, too. There was no safe place. Callie knew from firsthand experience that knights on white horses no longer existed. There was such polarization between men and women in the military that the old ways were dead. Instead, Callie, like everyone else, was left floundering to find and establish new rules for dealing with the opposite gender.

After ten more minutes that felt like an eternity of forcing herself to nibble at her now-cold hamburger and fries, Callie decided she could leave. Her ears seemed keyed to Remington’s harsh, loud laughter, which rose above the din of voices. Gripping her white shoulder bag, she made herself get up slowly, as if nothing was wrong—even though everything was wrong. Now Remington was harassing her off duty as well as at work. What was she going to do? What could she do?

As Callie walked out of the dining room and toward the main entrance, she knew that any complaint over Remington’s head would be stonewalled. Remington was a “ring-knocker,” an Annapolis graduate, just as she was. And so was Commander Ferris, their boss. “The brotherhood” was alive and well in the navy, and Callie was familiar with their code: they would never squeal on one another. If she complained that Remington was bothering her, Commander Ferris would conveniently hush up the whole thing—and her job ratings would go down.

No, no one who valued her job would dare take on the male-dominated navy, especially over this kind of unprovable harassment. Compressing her lips, Callie blindly headed out the door. The huge parking lot was packed with all models of cars, and twilight hovered across the Southern California landscape. The soft plop of her sandals mingled with the sounds of jets taking off at a nearby concrete airstrip. Sea gulls were always present here, and a few still winged across the parking lot, silent and graceful. The lights above the lot had already come on in response to the rapidly fading light, and Callie glanced at her watch: she had forty minutes to get to her class.

“Hey! Sweet thing!”

Callie gasped and whirled around at the sound of Remington’s grating voice. She saw him hurrying toward her, the two other pilots in tow. No! If she didn’t escape, Remington would make her life miserable. She hurried to her car. Her hand shaking badly, Callie dug in her purse for the keys.

“Hey!” Remington boomed out, closing the distance.

Unable to locate her keys, Callie stopped digging and turned coolly toward Remington and his buddies. They couldn’t even walk a straight line, she noticed. They had to grip each other by the arm or shoulder. She saw a look of pure, unadulterated glee in Remington’s shadowed features, and his predatory smile was chilling.

“What is it, Commander?” Callie demanded in her firmest, most unruffled tone. Maybe if she came across as being in charge, they’d back down and leave her alone. She gripped her purse, tense and wary as the three pilots came to a halt less than a foot away from her, effectively trapping her against the side of her car.

“I wanna know—” Remington’s voice slurred as he reached out to slide his hand down her cheek, to her neck “—if you’ve got any fire in those icy veins of yours.” He laughed harshly and glanced at his friends. “Now, Neil, here, says you’re the original ice queen. My other buddy, Dale, says you’re just like all the other split tails in the navy.” He caressed her neck and then allowed his hand to trail provocatively down her shoulder and arm. “So which is it, honey? We gotta know.”

Callie’s eyes widened enormously as Remington’s touch became shockingly intimate. As he draped his fingers down her arm, he deliberately brushed the side of her breast. With a small cry, Callie shrank against her car, its still-hot metal burning through her clothes.

“Leave me alone!” she begged hoarsely.

The second pilot, the blond called Dale, reached out and gripped her by the shoulder to stop her escape. “Hey, doll face, don’t be hasty. I’m God’s gift to women. Why would you want to run from me?” His mouth twisted into a snarl. “According to that article, you think you’re just as good as me in every way.”

Trapped, Callie tried to jerk out of Dale’s grip. In doing so, she collided with Neil. She found herself pressed against his chest, and his long, strong arms wrapped around her waist. His hair was dark and his equally dark brown eyes narrowed with intensity.

“Hey, look at this, guys—the ice queen has fallen into my arms!” he crowed triumphantly. Leaning forward, he tried to kiss Callie. Dodging his attempt, she threw her hands upward.

“That’s not nice,” Neil muttered. “I’m wearing all the right clothes, I got a Corvette and Armani suits, honey. I’m just what you need….”

With another cry, much louder this time, Callie shoved him away. Wanting only to escape now, she realized she was in serious trouble. These pilots were drunk, and they were angry at her because of the article. Remington stepped on one of her sandals as she struggled, tearing the leather strap. The shoe fell aside, leaving Callie’s nylon-clad foot defenseless against the blisteringly hot asphalt.

“Ow!” she cried, and tried to dodge Remington’s outstretched hand.

“Bitch,” he breathed savagely. Grabbing her by the arm, he jerked her toward him. “She’s mine,” he snarled to the other two pilots, who gripped her shoulders, holding her captive so that Remington could touch her.

Tears flooded into Callie’s eyes as she saw his hand rise. Was he going to strike her? Wincing, one hand held up to her face, she tried to scream, but all that came out was a feeble, short-circuited shriek. In the next instant, Remington had jammed his hand inside her blouse, fumbling for and finding her breasts. She heard the other pilots laughing as they held her in a tight grip.

No! Callie focused on screaming as loud as she could. The pilots had her pinned against the car, and with their combined strength, it was impossible to escape. The groping of drunken hands across her breasts, hips and thighs sent a sheet of fear through her. Concentrating on her scream, she jerked out of one pilot’s reach. As she made the quick movement, Callie lifted her leg, her knee connecting solidly with Remington’s thigh.

Remington leaped back with a roar, and this time Callie’s scream shattered the twilight. Thrown off balance as the other two pilots tried to reestablish their grips on her, she slammed backward onto the asphalt, roughly shredding the skin on her legs and knees as she rolled over to try and escape. Remington leaped forward and Callie screamed again as she lunged upward toward freedom. If she didn’t, she knew he was going to rape her. The power of that fear pushed her to her feet, but the pilot’s hand shoved full force into her chest, knocking her backward again.

Sharp pain shot up Callie’s ankle as her foot twisted beneath her. Wouldn’t this nightmare ever end? As she fell to the ground once more, she screamed a third time, but now her cry sounded like that of a frightened, beaten animal.

All three pilots crowded around her, reaching and groping, their laughter making her plight all the worse. Kicking out with her feet and hands, Callie sobbed, tears blurring her vision as she cried out for help again. The nightmare of Annapolis came crashing back. Once again she was being brutally attacked—and no help had come for her then, either.

Chapter Two

A woman screamed, her voice carrying through the stifling California-desert heat. Lieutenant Commander Ty Ballard stood by the open door of his sports car. He’d just had a beer at the O Club and was ready to leave. Another shriek drifted across the huge parking lot. Squinting in the twilight, Ty could barely make out the handful of pilots clustered around a compact car at the rear of the lot. To his left, he saw a group of young civilian women walking toward the O Club. Had one of them screamed? But Ty knew it couldn’t have been. This had been a scream of terror. Gripping the frame of the door, he frowned as he scanned the lot again.

Still, how many times had he heard shrieks and squeals out here? On Friday and Saturday nights the pilots and groupies partied to all hours—inside the club and outside in the parking lot—and to say they were boisterous was putting it mildly. Ty lifted his chin and tried to evaluate the direction from which the scream had come. His frown deepening, he slowly closed the door, his gaze locked again on the spot, almost a quarter mile away, where the group of pilots huddled near the small car.

It wasn’t any of his business. Often he’d seen a pilot and a civilian woman tussling playfully in the parking lot—only to move into a passionate embrace and torrid kiss. Sometimes it seemed as if they were fighting at first. Sometimes they were, Ty admitted, and he didn’t get involved in the fracas. Soon they’d be making up just as passionately. Slowly, he moved around his car and started walking toward the end of the parking lot. He felt foolish. It was probably just a girl or girls having fun with a bunch of drunken pilots. If he came barging in, they’d all tell him to get lost. Still dressed in the day’s uniform, his one-piece green flight suit, Ty ruefully rubbed the back of his neck as he hesitantly moved forward.

The abject fear in the third scream sent a chill down Ty’s spine and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The sound could no longer be confused with youthful hijinks. He broke into a trot, weaving among the parked cars. The twilight offered only poor visibility and he couldn’t quite make out who the pilots were, or where the woman was. He could see what appeared to be a lot of shoving and pushing going on around the car.

As he drew closer, Ty recognized two of the pilots from the class he taught at the Top Gun facility, lieutenants Neil Thorson and Dale Oakley. Thanks to his daily five-mile run, Ty was breathing easily as he approached the group—and recognized a fellow officer of same rank, Hal Remington. Ty felt a sudden sense of dread. Remington was a known stalker of anything in heels. Although he was married, he made no bones about keeping score of how many females he’d bedded. In fact, he displayed a gun holster in his office, with red, wooden bullets in the leather loops to announce to his fellow officers how many women he’d laid.

Ty’s concern shifted to the woman jammed up against the car by the pilots’ bodies. He couldn’t get a good look at her—only enough to see that she was in civilian clothing, probably a groupie. Again he heard her shriek and then sob as she struggled to escape the groping hands.

“Hey!” he snarled, gripping Remington’s broad shoulder. “Ease off!”

Remington whirled around, throwing his arm up in reaction and knocking Ballard’s hand away. “Get lost,” he growled.