Chapter Seven

“How’s it going, sis?” Maggie—dressed in a pink tank top, white shorts and her favorite, very worn tennis shoes—stepped into the foyer of Callie’s apartment and gave her a measuring look.

“Okay, I guess. Come on in. How was work today?”

Maggie grinned and walked slowly with Callie to the living room. “Same as always—exciting.”

“I don’t know which you love more, Wes or that F-14 you fly.”

“They’re both lovers, only in a different sort of way,” Maggie answered with a laugh. “Wes is number one, however, in my life.”

“Whew, that was close!” And Callie joined Maggie’s lilting laughter.

Flopping down on the overstuffed lavender couch, Maggie tossed her purse aside and pushed off her tennis shoes. She brought her long legs up and folded them beneath her. “How did it go with Commander Ballard this morning?”

Callie lowered herself into a pale blue chair and lay her crutches on the carpeted floor next to her. “This morning? We didn’t get done with the report until late this afternoon.”

“Really?”

“He’s thorough, Maggie. And a lot smarter than I gave him credit for.”

“Both are in your favor.” Maggie smiled a little as she assessed Callie. “Are you still so distrustful of his intentions in taking on your case?”

“No…not as much,” she conceded. “He’s sincere. Still, he doesn’t realize what it’s like to be a woman in the navy.”

“And the harassment of different sorts we put up with to do a job we love,” Maggie added grimly.

Callie sighed. “I think he’s starting to get the larger picture, though. Since the article came out in the newspaper yesterday, I’ve gotten over twenty calls from other navy women, both enlisted and officer, who had been harassed.”

Maggie’s brows shot up. “Are you serious?”

“Never more. What’s heartbreaking is that some of the women have had a lot worse done to them than what happened to me.”

Sitting up, her feet on the floor now, Maggie clasped her long, thin hands between her thighs. “Did you tell Ballard about that?”

“Yes. He wanted their names so he could talk to them, but I told him no. These women want to stay anonymous because they’re afraid of being punished by their male superiors, or of losing their job.”

“You could lose yours,” Maggie warned.

“I know, and I’m scared to death. I mean, what else am I trained for? Who wants an intel officer who can read satellite and photo recon maps?”

“There’s no great call for it in the civilian world,” Maggie agreed glumly. “Now that Ballard knows the whole story, does he think you’ve got a chance of being cleared by the board?”

Callie told her sister everything, and by the time she was done, Maggie was agitated.

“Remington’s a slick bastard,” she muttered defiantly. “I never liked him—he’s such an arrogant jerk. He thinks he’s irresistible to any woman.”

Shivering, Callie said, “When he touched me that first time, I felt nauseated. His touch is so slimy. Every time he looks at me, I feel as if he’s undressing me.”

“I just wish he’d tried that on me.”

Callie smiled a little. “You’d deck him. Maybe I should have.”

“Then he’d have you up on assault charges. No, but you could have told him to get his slimy arm off you and never touch you again.”

“He’s the type that would have taken my rebuff as a challenge, Maggie. Then he’d have dogged my heels more than he has already.”

“I’m looking forward to being here for the hearing,” Maggie said, changing the subject. “I called Ballard this morning before he came over here, and told him that if he needed me as a witness, I’d be more than happy to go before the board in your behalf.”

Touched, Callie said, “You could be hurting your career by doing that, Maggie.”

With a snort, her sister rose to her feet and put on her tennis shoes. “It’s time women learned to stand together and fight. If we don’t, these guys will keep singling us out, destroying us, and then going on to the next woman victim. No, we’ve got to start banding together and defending one another in any way possible.”

“I think it’s already beginning to happen,” Callie said. “The women who called me all asked if there was anything they could do to help me—short of testifying. I was really touched, Maggie, by their outpouring. Several of them are coming over—a sort of group meeting. They wanted to meet and talk with other women who’ve had similar experiences. If nothing else, I think it will be good group therapy for us.”

“That’s wonderful,” Maggie said. “Your standing up and saying, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not taking it anymore,’ may give them the courage to come forward, too.” She picked up her purse and walked over to Callie. “I just wish Remington had tried this on me and not you.”

Callie reached out and squeezed Maggie’s offered hand. “Your career means just as much to you as mine does to me.”

“I can always get a job in the civilian world pushing passenger planes around in the sky,” Maggie chuckled. Becoming serious, she squeezed Callie’s hand in turn. “I’ll drop over and see you tomorrow night before I go home.”

“Isn’t Wes due back tomorrow?” Callie knew that as a pilot for the worldwide conglomerate of United Parcel Service, he was frequently gone a week at a time, hauling cargo from one country to another.

“Yes, but he’ll understand. See you later, sis.”

Ty couldn’t contain his need to see Callie the next afternoon. He’d worked all morning at his office, gathering evidence, making phone calls and piecing together vital information for her case. Now he stood quietly, waiting for Callie to answer her door. Inwardly, he wasn’t still at all. Last night he’d dreamed about her—soft, lush, torrid dreams. Since the divorce, he’d shied away from women. Callie was reawakening him to his desires. But the feelings went beyond sexual. There was some intangible, magical gift that she gave him simply by being herself. And more than anything, Ty wanted permission to continue to explore this new and exciting experience—something he’d never encountered with any woman before Callie had unexpectedly fallen into his life.

Right now, he wasn’t sure how she felt toward him—or if there was a shred of hope that she might be interested in him as he was in her. They were caught in a cross fire, brought together reluctantly. And he knew Callie didn’t trust him to bring her safely through the storm that threatened her and her career. But Ty wasn’t going to let her down. The divorce had given him new awareness and insights—about women in general, and about himself as a human being. Armed with that hard-earned knowledge, Ty was determined to make this work between them.

Laughing at himself—at his longings that only days ago he’d thought had died, never to return—he waited impatiently for the door to open. When it did, he couldn’t help but smile down at Callie. Today she was dressed in a bright, flowery print blouse and fuschia cotton slacks. And again she was barefoot.

“Are you sure you’re a naval officer?” he teased as she smiled at him in greeting. It was the first real smile Callie had given him, and he felt the warmth of it flow through him like sunlight across a frozen expanse. Callie was like the spring sun, slowly dissolving many of the old wounds he’d garnered over the years of his marriage.

Flushing, Callie gestured for him to come in. “Sure. Why?” How handsome he looked in his uniform, she thought. There was a stalwartness to him that she had never noticed in any other man. Perhaps it was the way he squared his shoulders and carried himself so proudly. Or was it the dancing light in his eyes—or the heat that promptly embraced her as he smiled down at her?

“I can’t get over the fact that you’re a barefoot kind of woman. I’d never have thought it. You really belong in nature, not the navy,” he said, smiling back at her as he headed for the kitchen.

Callie shut the door and followed Ty down the hall. Unaccountably, her spirits lifted in his presence. His smile was very male, yet there was a gentleness to it, too. It was a rakish smile, but one that told her that he was genuinely happy to be sharing time with her.

Ty set his garrison cap aside and opened the briefcase. As Callie entered the kitchen, he glanced at her. Her cheeks were flaming red, and he was touched by the knowledge that she wore her feelings so close to the surface. Then, switching to the thought of what Remington had done to her, he truly began to grasp the emotional trauma it had caused Callie. That discovery only made him more angry toward the pilot, but he clamped down on the feeling.

“How is the investigation going?” Callie asked as she poured two glasses of iced tea and set them on the table.

“Interesting,” Ty said. He put the briefcase aside and waited for her to sit down.

Once seated, Callie squeezed a fresh slice of lemon into her tea. “Oh? In what way?”

“You remember Lieutenant Clark? The officer who was sitting two tables away from you?”

“Yes?” Callie added several spoonfuls of sugar to her tea and stirred it.

Running his fingers through his hair, Ty muttered, “I talked to him late this morning.”

Her hopes rose. “And?”

“He stonewalled me.”

“What?” Her heart plummeted. She saw the anger in Ty’s eyes and in the grim set of his mouth.

“It was just as you said—ring-knockers stick together.”

Laying the spoon on the mat beside her tea, Callie nodded and felt a sadness replace her hope. “I knew it.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

She heard the frustration in Ty’s voice and looked over at him. “Now you’re getting just a little taste of what will happen. They won’t break ranks against the brotherhood, Ty. Not for me. I’m a woman, remember?”

“You’re an Annapolis graduate just like them. What about the stuff they pound into us about truth, integrity and honesty—never lying or cheating?”

“Remember? Men have one set of laws, women are treated under a different set?”

Shuffling a bunch of papers together, his eyebrows dipping into a scowl, Ty growled, “I saw it today. Firsthand. I guess I never realized it before. Clark knows a lot, but he’s not talking. I went to the O Club and sat at the table where you had your meal that night. I put a tape recorder on Clark’s table. Then I talked in a low voice, a medium voice and a loud voice. When I played the tape back, it recorded very clearly at all three tonal levels, so I know Clark not only saw Remington harass you, he heard everything, too.”

Admiration for Ty’s cleverness made her smile a little. “Maybe you missed your calling.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re a legal eagle at heart.”

“I’m good at investigating,” he said bluntly, “but I don’t think I’d make a very good attorney.”

“Why?”

“Because I get too emotionally involved. I know you’re innocent. You’re the victim. I’m angry because we have a witness who could help us, and he’s not going to squeal against one of his brothers—even if his brothers are wrong. Frustration is something I’m living with right now, and I’m not a happy camper about how this case is developing.”

Callie felt his disgust. “Now you know what we women live with every day of our lives.”

“If I were a woman, I’d be changing things in a hurry. I wouldn’t take this. Not for a moment.”

“If you had been beaten down by a culture that devalues its women the way this one does, you might not have much fight left in you,” Callie said softly. She saw Ty give her a confused look. “From the time a woman is born, she’s told both verbally and nonverbally that she’s not worthy of the same attention, the same importance, the same schooling that a man can get in this country. There are all kinds of studies to prove what I’m saying, Ty. Further, women are taught never to get angry, never to stand up for their rights, and that the only ones who really have rights are men. That’s been proven again and again in the courts. Mothers can’t get money from divorced husbands to feed their children—that’s just one of many examples.”

“I can’t say you’re wrong about that,” he admitted heavily. “But you come out of a family that prided itself on your individuality. Look at Maggie—she’s making the military sit up and realize women are capable combat pilots. And I’ve heard her say that your other two sisters are doing similar things.” He gave her a searching look. “Except you. What happened, Callie?”

Uneasily, Callie sipped the tea. “I used to be more like Maggie,” she agreed quietly. “But things changed. I changed.”

Ty heard the underlying tenor of pain in her voice again. As much as he wanted to dig into that with Callie, he saw the warning in her eyes. Respecting the nonverbal request, he shrugged. “I was planning to call Maggie in before the board on your behalf, and I found out just before I left the office, that they’re cutting TAD orders for her to spend the next two weeks doing night landings on a carrier off San Diego.”

“What?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

Callie sat back, feeling utterly defeated. “Someone is pulling strings, Ty. They don’t want me to have any witnesses.”

“It’s beginning to look that way,” he said with disgust. He glanced over at the phone. “Any more calls of support today?”

She smiled a little. “Yes, I’m up to twenty-five calls.”

With a shake of his head, he muttered, “I never realized how pervasive sexual harassment has become.”

“The navy’s zero-tolerance policy is a sham,” Callie said quietly. “They feed that concept to the public, to the government, but sexual harassment is alive and well in our ranks.”

“Well, there won’t be a change unless our navy flag officers start giving zero tolerance some teeth. This case could do that.”

“Good luck,” she murmured.

“Have you gotten any calls from newspapers or television stations?”

“Several, but I’ve declined all interviews.”

“Good. We don’t need half truths or portions of our defense broadcast right now.”

Rubbing her arms, she said, “I worry a reporter will misquote me—the way they did when Maggie and I did that article for the San Diego newspaper. Look what kind of stink that caused. No, don’t worry, I’m not talking to anyone. Except you.”

Ty’s mouth lifted in a brief smile. “Do you feel a little better about me representing you?”

Callie wanted to tell Ty that he was much more important to her than just that trickle of trust that ebbed and flowed between them. Despite the bad news he’d brought, she still felt safe and protected in his presence. “I do….”

He looked around her kitchen. “This is strictly off the record. We’ve got a lot of work to do and it will probably take three or four hours to plow through it all.” Glancing at his watch, he said, “It’s almost dinnertime. How about I take you out to eat? That way, you don’t have to hobble around here fixing food for yourself.”

Callie suddenly found herself hungry in another way: she wanted the opportunity to get to know Ty Ballard on a personal level. “Do you think if the board gets a hold of the fact that we went to dinner together, it could work against me?”

He shrugged. “Good question. I don’t know, Callie. We can always say it was business, not pleasure. Besides, the place I have in mind, a small seaside restaurant down in La Jolla, is off the beaten path of most of these guys.”

Her smile broadened. “How did you know I love seafood?”

Ty glanced down at her feet beneath the table. “Any woman who likes to be barefoot has to like sandy beaches.”

“You’ve got a lot more insight than I gave you credit for, Commander Ballard.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Lieutenant Donovan. Well? May I take you to dinner? Afterward, we’ll come back to your place and work on the hearing.” Never had Ty so much wanted a woman to say yes to his invitation. He saw the joy in Callie’s blue eyes and heard the joy in her voice. But he also saw wariness, and some worry. If only he could find out who had made her react this way. If only…

“Frankly, I’d like the chance to get out of the house for a while. I’m going a little stir-crazy right now.”

“A change of scene is what you need,” Ty agreed. With me. He hoped his elation hadn’t transferred to his face, being all too aware that Callie was particularly sensitive to body language.

“This restaurant, is it a fancy one?”

“No. All you need to do is put on a pair of sandals or shoes and you’ll be allowed in the door,” he teased. Her smile was heart-stopping, and Ty gratefully absorbed her momentary happiness. As Callie got to her feet and hobbled out of the kitchen on her crutches, Ty felt life moving through him so strongly that he closed his eyes and savored the intense sensation.

A year of hell had numbed his senses and pulverized his emotions into a nonfeeling state. But whatever it was about Callie, regardless of the pressures on her right now, she affected him deeply. Forever. His unraveling feelings felt like a dam had burst within him, allowing joy to flow through him. Ty took a long, ragged breath. He hadn’t believed that Callie would go out with him on a personal invitation. A major miracle had to be at work, he realized, for such a thing to happen.

“What a hell of a bind this is,” he muttered as he got to his feet and retrieved his garrison cap. If the situation involving Remington hadn’t happened, Ty would never have met Callie. And now he had to defend her at the board hearing. If they lost, it might destroy the relationship he had in mind for them. Callie could, at any point, again perceive him as part of the problem because he was a naval flight officer. That could kill any hope of a relationship, too.

With a shake of his head, he settled the cap on his head and moved to the foyer to wait for Callie. Each moment spent with her had to count. And like a man without water, he found himself thirsting for Callie. More than anything, Ty wanted the dinner to be a positive experience for Callie—and for them.

“I feel like that stuffed lobster I just ate,” Callie groaned, patting her stomach. Ty sat across from her in the oak booth appointed with red leather. The restaurant, a laid-back place that was spare and simple, served gourmet-quality food. To be truthful with herself, Callie had to admit that although the food was excellent, Ty’s company was the real dessert for her. She’d watched his naval and military image fade to the background during dinner, and the man emerge.

Ty gave her a good-natured look and handed the two large, oval plates to the waitress, who took them away. He wiped his hands on his napkin. “Stuffed is a mild word to describe how much I ate.”

“Piggy?”

He chuckled indulgently. “Possibly.”

“I ate like one.”

Ty held her smiling gaze. “You probably haven’t eaten much since all this happened, so you were catching up tonight.”

Again, his insight was startling. Since the harassment, Callie had, in fact, eaten very little. She’d had no appetite at all.

The waitress cleared the rest of the table, then brought them each a piece of cheesecake topped with strawberries and a cup of fragrant Colombian coffee.

“When I was a kid growing up in Phoenix, Arizona, I lived out near Luke Air Force Base,” Ty told her. “I used to stand next to those huge cyclone fences, hands gripping the wire, watching those birds take off and land. I couldn’t get enough of it. All I dreamed of was flying someday.”

“Sounds like you started early,” Callie commented between bites.

“I guess I did. How about you? Did you dream of a military career?”

With a laugh, Callie said, “Not hardly.”

“What did you dream of?”

“Being an artist. Painting.” She shrugged. “In a way, I do that now.”

“Oh?” Ty was thrilled that she would share some personal information with him.

With a shy smile, Callie said, “On my days off, I take my camera and equipment and go to the seashore to photograph things. I also teach a class on photography at the local college.”

“What kind of things?” Ty held his breath, wanting so much for Callie to continue to reveal her real self.

“Oh, you know, tidal pools, pretty clouds that make interesting shapes in the sky, sunsets, the ice-plant flowers you find along the cliffs.”

“Black-and-white or color photographs?”

“Both.” She smiled softly. “I’ve always dreamed of someday selling a book to a publisher just on seashore topics.”

“Why not?”

“Ansel Adams I’m not,” she parried wryly, warming beneath his intense interest.

“You could become Callie Donovan, photographer.”

“There’s not a lot of money to be made in an artistic kind of career.”

“Maybe that’s true,” he hedged, “but you could apply yourself, hang in there and eventually create an opening for your work.”

“It’s not really that good….”

“Do you have some of your work at home?”

Startled, Callie looked across the table at him. The shadows of the restaurant accented his rugged features, but all she saw in his gray eyes was genuine sincerity and a smoldering warmth that made her feel a little breathless. “Well…sure.”

Ty glanced at his watch. “It’s time we got back, anyway. I’d like to stay here another couple of hours, but that isn’t to be. Ready?”

Callie placed a large photo album before Ty. He was sitting at the kitchen table and had refused to start working until she showed him her photos. Nervously, she stood at his shoulder as he opened the album.

“I don’t show these to anyone,” she murmured, clasping her hands in front of her. “To me, photos are very personal. They tell a great deal about a person, their feelings….”

Ty absorbed the first photo—a color print of a golden sunset with silver lining the puffy cumulus clouds that rose like small turrets above a glassy ocean. The sun’s rays shot through the towers of clouds like magical, translucent spokes on a wheel. The effect of the photo was profound and moving. Ty took a deep breath, then glanced up at her.

“This is an outstanding photo. Why should you be nervous about showing this kind of work? It’s pretty awesome, if you ask me.”

With a slight laugh, Callie shrugged, relieved that at least he didn’t think it was awful. “You know how artist types are—they think everything they do is gorgeous. I try to keep a discerning eye on my work. I might take thirty or forty photos, and maybe only one will be worth keeping or working with.”

Ty nodded and turned the page. The next photo was of a little girl, perhaps four years old, in bright red coveralls and a tiny white T-shirt. The child’s hair, thin and blond, glinted with sunlight, creating a halolike effect around her head. She was crouched over a tidal pool, a small brown-and-white shell in her hand. Callie had captured the awe in the child’s face to perfection. The pool itself was clear, so that a bright red starfish and a purple sea anemone could be seen, like undersea flowers.

“This is incredible,” he breathed. “That kid’s expression is priceless.” Twisting to look up at Callie, he murmured, “You must have spent a long time waiting for just the right moment to snap that.”

“Actually, I shot two rolls of film to catch it,” she admitted.

“Yes, but you had the patience to wait and watch.”

“That’s the story of a photographer’s life—catching the right moment,” she said with a laugh. Thrilled that Ty appreciated her work, Callie began to relax. She pulled a chair up beside him. The next photo was of a woman riding a horse bareback through the ocean surf. “Wow,” Ty said, “will you look at this….” He grew quiet, absorbing the photo. The young woman was in her late teens, her hair black as a raven’s wing, tinted with bluish highlights as it streamed across her shoulders. The horse she rode at a gallop was also black. The rider wore a green blouse and faded blue Levi’s, her feet bare. A look of sheer joy radiated from the woman’s face as she leaned forward, the horse’s long black mane flowing around her arms and hands. The horse looked equally joyful, with thin, transparent veils of water on either side of him rising in sheets as he galloped full-speed through the shallow ocean surf.

So much in the photo spoke to Ty about Callie. The blue and green of the woman’s clothing combined the colors of sky and ocean, making horse and rider a part of the landscape and vice versa. The utter freedom, the abandonment of the moment came across vividly in the photo. He lay his hand across the plastic protecting the print.

“Have you ever ridden a horse?”

“No. I’d like to, but they’re pretty big and I’m pretty small. I’m intimidated by size,” she murmured, seeing the admiration in Ty’s face.

He nodded. Every photo, twelve in all, had a reoccurring theme: freedom and a wild, joyful intensity that affected him deeply. Some were of flowers, others, the ever-changing sky, and others still of women or children. Wanting to see more, he begged Callie to show him the photos she didn’t really think were as good.

For the next hour, Ty poured over the huge box of neatly dated and captioned photos. Callie’s talent was overwhelming. The obvious sensitivity and care that she put into each shot amazed him. Finally, he set the box aside and just shook his head.

“You’re wasting your talent as an Intelligence officer,” he muttered. “Those photos are incredible.”

She smiled softly. “What did they do for you, Ty?”

“They made me feel. They made me remember back to when I was a kid, or a time when I felt like that woman on the horse—that sense of absolute freedom. You’re really something, lady, and I mean that sincerely. I think you ought to send your stuff to magazines, to book publishers. You’ve got the background—nine years in the navy developing and poring over photos. I mean, what more could a publisher ask?”

His enthusiasm made Callie feel drunk with unexpected happiness. The burning light in his gaze drew her, and she wondered blankly what it would be like to kiss that strong, smiling mouth, to be enveloped in his intensity, the passion he so obviously felt for life.

Her mouth suddenly dry, she got to her feet and nervously took the box and set it on the counter. “Maybe someday I’ll do those things,” she said. “I just don’t feel I’m good enough yet. I see the flaws in my photos.”

Frowning, Ty watched her come back to the table and sit down. The real Callie Donovan was an earthy, breathtaking creature with a sense of whimsy—and a shyness he couldn’t understand. Forcing himself back to the business at hand, he growled, “For my money, you’re already a professional photographer. All you lack is enough belief in yourself to do it.”

“That’s the confident jet jock talking,” Callie retorted with a laugh. “But thanks for looking at them. It’s nice to be appreciated for something other than being able to look at microscopic details on a satellite photo.”

Ty wanted to appreciate Callie in a lot of ways. Without thinking, he reached across the table and captured her tightly clasped hands. “You remind me of a butterfly that’s trapped in a chrysalis, Callie. I see the freedom in your photos. And I wonder how much freedom has been taken away from you.”

Shaken, Callie looked down at the table, feeling the heat from Ty’s hand enveloping her own cool ones. “My freedom was taken away from me a long time ago,” she choked out.