Point Of Departure

“Lieutenant Maggie Donovan has been very influential,” Lipinski murmured, continuing to fill out the forms. “I admire her very much. She’s done a lot to help women in the military be seen as equals.”

Callie felt the doctor’s gaze, felt the accusation in her voice at Callie’s weak stance. Well, that was too bad, because she didn’t have Maggie’s guts. All her early confidence had been taken from her back in her plebe year at Annapolis. Once she’d been the kind of fighter that her sisters were, but she wasn’t anymore. She’d learned the hard way. It didn’t pay to fight back.

Bitterly, she sat, quietly answering the doctor’s pointed, specific questions, hands clasped tightly in her lap. Callie thought the inquisition would never end. Finally, forty-five minutes later, Dr. Lipinski released her.

“I’ll take you home,” Ty volunteered. With her right ankle injured, she wouldn’t be able to drive her car.

“Good idea,” Dr. Lipinski agreed. “I’m issuing you a pair of crutches for the next two weeks, Ms. Donovan. Commander, perhaps you’d be kind enough to go down to Supply, on the right, and pick them up for her?”

“Of course,” Ty said, and he left with the chit authorizing the crutches.

Callie remained on the gurney, feeling very much alone in a way she had hoped never to experience again. Dr. Lipinski had given her a mild sedative to take tonight in case she couldn’t sleep. Stuffing the pills into her purse, Callie squeezed her eyes shut in the silence of the now-deserted examination room. How could this have happened? It was her fault. Somehow, it must be her fault. Had she dressed too provocatively, bringing on Remington’s unwanted attention?

Burying her face in her hands, Callie tried to get a grip on her roiling feelings. If Dr. Lipinski turned in that report, her career was as good as dead. She had no other training. There were no intelligence jobs in the civilian world. It was all she knew. Job security meant everything to Callie—much more than it did to her three sisters. They moved through life with a freedom that she envied. But then, her freedom had been taken from her long ago.

Feeling like a trapped animal, Callie slowly eased off the gurney. As torn up as she felt, she needed Ballard’s company on the way home. A part of her wanted his continued support, even as another part—the part that distrusted men—wondered what his ulterior motives were. Ballard was a Top Gun—he was an instructor at the station. Someone like him didn’t get that plum assignment unless he was the very best at what he did—aggressive, arrogant and selfish.

No, Ty Ballard was a pilot—and she’d be wise to remember it.

Chapter Three

“For whatever it’s worth,” Ty said as he drove the car off the station, the darkness surrounding them, “I’m sorry about what Remington and those two other pilots did to you.”

Callie sat tensely in Ballard’s car. She’d been silent since leaving the dispensary. Wearily now she said, “You don’t need to apologize. It’s not your fault.”

His mouth barely pulled into a one-cornered smile. “In a way, it is.”

Callie stared at his rugged profile for a moment. There seemed to be a vulnerability about him, although it was carefully closeted, and that appealed to her.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, before I got married, I caroused around a lot, too. I spent plenty of weekends drunk at the O Club, chasing the groupies.” Ty shrugged and avoided her wide, intelligent gaze. “I don’t believe that you teased Remington into following you out into the parking lot. From what you said to the doc, he was upset about that newspaper article and taking it out on you.”

His apology, his insight, startled Callie. “I can’t believe any navy pilot has the guts to admit he might have been wrong in chasing groupies. Most of those girls are eighteen and nineteen years old and don’t know what they’re getting into. The navy pilots at the O Club own that turf, and they see them as little more than property to be squabbled over.” Bitterness hardened her words. “You’re a surprise, Commander. I’ve been in the navy since I was eighteen, and I’ve never heard a man display those feelings.”

With a teasing smile, Ty said, “Hey, we’re not all bastards, you know.” He desperately wanted to make her smile, but she had such an abandoned look that he felt helpless. When she didn’t respond to his comment, he sighed. “I…I guess I never really realized until just now that the pilots play rough with a woman—whether she’s asking for it or not. It makes me feel guilty.”

“Then I guess that’s one good thing that will come out of this mess,” she muttered, “if one navy pilot sees that his chasing, his harassment of women, is wrong.” Misery settled around Callie. Ty Ballard piqued her interest, but the threat of losing her career kept intruding on her emotions.

“I can’t argue with you,” he said, feeling bad for Callie. Streetlights flooded the car with cyclical regularity as Ty guided his sports car into the La Mesa area, where Callie had told him her apartment was. Finally, he pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine. Her two-story apartment building was covered in stucco, of Spanish design with a red tile roof. Several palms lined the small, well-groomed lawn in front of the building.

“Let me help you to your apartment,” he offered, turning toward her.

“No, you’ve done enough, Commander. You’ve more than done your duty.”

Ty accepted her mutinous and accusing look. As he opened the door to get out, he murmured, “You’ve got every right to be upset. Use me for target practice. But I’m helping you to your apartment, no arguments.”

Frustrated, Callie felt on the verge of crying in earnest. She couldn’t fight Ballard’s continued perceptiveness and solicitude. Was it just an act for her benefit? She’d never met anyone like him—a man who had so much awareness of other people’s feelings. Most navy pilots were so egocentric that they existed in a very lofty, private world—a pilot fraternity they viewed as a close-knit brotherhood. Even family came second. Callie knew that divorces were the norm for navy pilots, and they frequently married two, even three times.

As Ballard opened her car door, she pulled the crutches from the backseat and fumbled with them. He stood back patiently, allowing her the time she needed to maneuver herself and the crutches out of the car.

“I hate the idea of being on crutches,” she said tightly as she lurched to her feet, favoring her right ankle. Placing the crutches beneath her armpits, she glanced over at Ty. There was such sympathetic understanding in his eyes that Callie momentarily froze. Despite the heavy contrast offered by the streetlight, which seemed to carve his rugged looks with light and shadow, she not only saw but felt his compassion. Angrily, she shoved it away. He was merely another representative of all the problems she’d ever had with pilots over the years.

Ty stepped aside as Callie began hobbling toward her apartment. He smiled briefly as he shut the car door behind her. “I have a feeling you don’t like any kind of help,” he told her as he walked slowly at her side, her purse tucked under his left arm.

Jerking a look at him, Callie said, “Commander, at Annapolis I got the message loud and clear. There is no support for women. I learned that lesson in my plebe year. No, I don’t lean on anyone. Not ever.”

The anguish in her tone needled Ty. “I went through Annapolis, too, so I know what you’re talking about. We had three women in our group, and they took a hell of a lot of harassment,” he admitted. “Two of them dropped out. Only one made it the entire four years.”

Callie swung her way awkwardly up the concrete sidewalk. Luckily, her apartment was on the ground floor. Ballard was a product of his environment, there was no doubt. And the fact he was a fellow ring-knocker didn’t thrill her, either. If she were a man, she’d be part of the vaunted brotherhood, that clique of male Annapolis graduates. But because she was a woman, she was coldly excluded.

“Square pegs in round holes,” she said, stopping at the door of her apartment. Taking her purse from Ballard, she finally located the set of keys.

“Women have it tough in the military,” Ty agreed quietly as he watched her open the door. A soft light emanated from inside, and he saw that the apartment was filled with green plants and the pale, Southwestern colors of sandstone, pink and lavender. Wanting to do more to atone for what had happened to Callie, he opened his hands. “Can I help you in any way? Make a phone call for you? I think your sister would like to know how you are. Or maybe a friend who can help you tonight?”

Touched by his concern, Callie shook her head. She saw care burning in his eyes, and heard real emotion in his voice. Giving him an odd look, she said, “Commander, I think you’re a dream of some kind.”

Ty cocked his head. “A dream?”

Callie tried to smile but failed. “I’ve never seen a pilot be so sensitive. You’ve been wonderful, and I don’t know how to thank you. I’ll be fine now,” she answered steadily, although she felt anything but fine.

The shadowed look in her eyes convinced Ty that she was lying. But maybe she didn’t even know it herself. He shrugged. “Like I said, we’re not all cold, callous bastards. I know a lot of pilots who are good men, have families and a decent home life. Not all of them spend the other half of their life at the O Club.” And then he sighed. “Not that I’m one to talk.” When he saw her tilt her chin and give him a perplexed look, Ty smiled a little, as if to brush off the deprecating comment about himself.

“Thanks for everything.”

Ty moved forward and touched her shoulder before she turned to shut the door. “Look, let me leave my phone number with you—just in case.”

“No…thanks.” A flash of panic darted through Callie. Ballard was a figment of her imagination. She saw the disappointment in his eyes, but he stepped away and shrugged. Now she’d hurt his feelings, and that was the last thing she’d meant to do. Torn by the evening’s events, she whispered, “You’re one in a million. I can get along by myself, now. Thanks.”

“What about your car?” Ty said, grasping for straws, for any reason to see Callie again under less-pressured circumstances. He’d sworn he wouldn’t even consider getting involved with a woman for at least another year. But Callie’s blend of femininity, vulnerability and quiet strength drew him.

“I’ll have my sister Maggie help me.”

“Oh…”

“Good night, Commander.”

“Call me Ty?”

Callie hesitated. She heard the hope in his voice and saw the plea in his eyes. As much as she wanted to, the past overwhelmed her. The last nine years of hurt were just too much to overcome. “No…I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Ballard knew enough to back away. “I’ll be seeing you, Lieutenant Donovan.”

The urgent knock on Callie’s apartment door startled her, and she glanced at the clock. It was nine p.m. She’d been home exactly an hour. Picking up the crutches she hobbled disgustedly to the door and opened it.

Maggie stood there tensely, wearing jeans and a pink blouse. Her hair, usually pinned up on her head, swung loose around her proud shoulders. “Callie? What happened?”

Callie moved aside to let her sister in, then shut the door. “A run-in with my boss,” she muttered.