Lindsay McKenna - Point Of Departure

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.

The woman fell to the asphalt, and Ty elbowed his way between the hard-breathing pilots, forcing them back from where she lay. He glared at Thorson and Oakley.

“Enough!” he ordered. Then he whirled around to face Remington, who was glaring malevolently at him. “Commander, what’s this all about?”

Remington wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ballard. I might have known it would be you.” He thrust his hand toward the woman. “This is my woman—go get your own. She’s my property.”

Ty gripped Remington’s arm as the man pushed toward her. The sound of her sobbing assured him that this wasn’t a game, and that she wasn’t enjoying it. The smell of liquor on Remington’s breath was overwhelming. “Leave her alone.”

“Screw you, Ballard. She’s mine! She asked for this.”

Ty held on to Remington’s arm and glanced behind him at the woman, who sat on the asphalt, her hands pressed against her face. “She’s not anyone’s property,” he said through gritted teeth, giving Remington a shove backward. Glancing at the two lieutenants, who had backed off and were looking a bit guilty, Ty added, “Get the hell out of here. Now.”

“Yes, sir!” Thorson said thickly, trying to rearrange his flight suit.

“Yes, sir,” Oakley added, with just a trace of sarcasm.

Remington jerked out of Ty’s grip. “Get away, Ballard. This woman asked for it. She’s a tease. And this time she isn’t getting off so lucky. She wants it. She wants me.”

Not trusting Remington, Ty remained where he stood. “I don’t care what she asked for, she’s not enjoying your attack, Remington. Why don’t you leave her alone?”

Smirking, Remington glared down at the woman. “Bitch,” he spat. “Maybe you’ll think twice before you go around proclaiming women are the second coming.” He raised his head and pinned his dark gaze on Ty. “You did a stupid thing coming out here and breaking up our fun, Ballard.”

Ty tensed, wondering if Remington was going to throw a punch at him. The woman’s sobs had softened, but there was no doubt she’d been hurt in the scuffle. “Take off,” he told Remington. “Go get a drink and cool off, or better yet, go home to your wife.”

His mouth lifting in a snarl, Remington retreated and placed his cap on his head. “You’re one to talk, Ballard. Your ex-wife was smart to drop you.” He grinned a little, his arrogance back in place. “Hell, you can’t even keep a woman.”

“That’s enough.”

Flipping Ballard a salute, Remington turned and walked unsteadily back toward the Officer’s Club.

Ty turned around. Darkness was following on the heels of twilight, hiding the woman’s features as he crouched over her.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, and reached out to put a comforting hand on her small, shaking shoulder. Instantly, her hands flew away from her face as she shrank from his touch. Ty’s eyes widened and he froze in shock.

“Lieutenant Donovan?” he croaked in disbelief. “Is that you?”

Callie nodded and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes. “Y-yes.”

“Oh, God,” Ty muttered. He reached into his back pocket and withdrew a linen handkerchief. “I’m sorry. Here, take this. I thought you were a groupie….” Quickly, he began to assess her condition. The front of her blouse had been ripped open, exposing part of her white cotton bra. Her hands, elbows and knees were covered with numerous bloody scrapes. She was trembling badly, and her blue eyes looked huge and shocked. Because of his duties as an instructor, Ty knew about Callie Donovan coming on board Miramar about a month ago, although they’d never been officially introduced. He’d read the Sunday newspaper, though, and he recognized her from the photo.

“Are you all right?” he asked, again placing his hand on her shoulder. There was such devastation in her eyes that he automatically tightened his grip. For a year now, Ty had been in a no-man’s-land of emotional deprivation, but now, searching her face, he felt his heart squeeze in response to her suffering. Caught off guard, Ty could only lean down, lost in the luminous blue of her eyes.

“Y-yes, I’m fine,” Callie quavered. “Fine…” Ensnared by the officer’s penetrating gray gaze, Callie felt paralyzed. She was just beginning to feel the smarting pain of the scrapes that covered her palms and legs. She tore her gaze from his, the handkerchief fluttering nervously in her hands as she dabbed at her bloody knees. Her heart refused to settle down, and she gulped back tears, longing to howl like a wounded animal.

“No, I don’t think you are all right,” Ty whispered more firmly. “I’m Lieutenant Commander Ty Ballard. I was coming out of the O Club when I heard you scream.” As Ty gazed down at her long legs, he noticed that one foot was without a sandal, and he could see swelling around the ankle. “What the hell was going on? Why did Remington and those jerks attack you?” he demanded, his voice tightening with anger. Remington was Callie Donovan’s boss in the Intelligence section—what did he think he was doing?

Sniffing, Callie looked up at the pilot. Commander Ballard had a strong, narrow face with glittering gray eyes that missed nothing. He wasn’t heavily muscled. Instead he possessed the lean, catlike body that so many pilots had because of the severe demands flying made on them. He looked like a hunter in every nuance of the word, from his eyes, which assessed her minutely, to the thinning of his mouth into a line that spoke volumes about his real feelings.