Forgive & Forget (Love in the Fleet)

by Ashby, Heather

  “Swear on John Paul Jones’ crypt.”

  Sky whistled. “You mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Holy shit, Batman. The One?”

  A broad grin split Philip’s face. “Yup.”

  They’d used the term, The One, to mean the perfect woman that each of them would meet and marry someday, if and when they ever grew up. Neither of them had ever used the term seriously thus far. It had only been used as a negative, as in “Well, she sure as shit ain’t The One,” when discussing the lesser talent that frequented their local watering holes or hookers in liberty ports overseas.

  “Yeah, I’ve met The One. Now I just have to make sure she wants to be The One.”

  “Roger that. When do I get to meet her? You know, some night after Final Jeopardy.”

  “Sorry, I’ll be busy.”

  “Maybe Saturday. No Jeopardy on Saturdays.”

  “That might work. I’ll give you a call.”

  “Okay, and be sure to let me know when it’s time to get my mess dress pressed and polish my brass buttons for a wedding.”

  “I wouldn’t hold your breath. I’ve only known her a couple of weeks and I’m hoping we can keep this thing going after we ship out. It’s going to be hard to leave an awesome woman like this on shore when I go on cruise, but I do feel safe about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  Philip smiled wickedly. “You’ll be on the cruise too.”

  Sky huffed out a laugh. “No, Billy Boy. The official rules state that once you find The One, nobody else can touch her. But I do have one request.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Promise me none of the bridesmaids will be double baggers. Okay, Cowboy?”

  Philip and Hallie settled into some semblance of a routine, stealing time together at Philip’s apartment whenever he could get away from the ship. Hallie ramped up their sex life when she presented him with her clean bill of health statement. Philip followed suit and condoms became a thing of the past, as did sailing.

  They rarely ventured out on the weekends after that. She wanted to spend every waking moment with him, knowing this dream would end soon.

  The weekdays were grueling for Philip, and Hallie’s heart ached for him. Engineers on a ship rarely see the light of day, and poor Philip was exhausted since he was doing double duty: being an engineer and being in love.

  His job became even more hectic as they neared the deployment date, with several short trips out for sea trials to test engines, propulsions, weapons systems, catapults, and arresting gear. Hallie tried to give him time to rest, but he kept telling her he could sleep for the next six months. Fat chance, but it sounded good. He said he wanted to spend every free minute with her.

  Sea trials hadn’t been a problem for Hallie because they both went to sea. She just laid low on board. Except she made a mistake once, knowing the exact time of day he’d be back, when he hadn’t specifically told her. He’d even questioned her about it. She’d gotten a wicked gleam in her eye and said she’d consulted her crystal ball so she’d know when to be ready for him.

  Philip left for the ship at 0600 on the mornings he slept at home. Hallie followed thirty minutes later and always beat him back to The Towers, since his job was more demanding than hers. Meals at home were catch-as-catch-can. Hallie ensured they rarely dined out. Jeopardy was a special bonding time for them whenever he made it home on time. She loved challenging him and she could tell he was impressed with her knowledge of intellectual trivia. Since they were on the same duty schedule, duty nights weren’t a problem either. And, of course, she never joined him for dinner in the wardroom on those nights, or for a tour of his ship. She always “had too much schoolwork.”

  There was rarely time to dine out or socialize with friends. Dinners with Rebecca and her husband were about it. Philip offered to take her out, but she always said, “I’d rather just stay here,” and then she’d smile seductively at him, and that was all she wrote. Philip was like putty in her hands. This pattern continued quite smoothly until the night he asked her to meet Sky.

  Chapter 10

  “We met our first day at the Naval Academy,” Philip told Hallie as they sat on the couch. “There are three of us who are still close. We call ourselves ‘the Highwaymen’ after a rainy night of drinking illicit beers under an overpass in Annapolis when we were midshipmen. Nick is on a ship out of Norfolk right now, but we keep in touch by email. Sky is here in Jacksonville, over at the air station. He’s actually the one who named me Bill Gates. He’s a real cut-up. And okay, he’s kind of wild and a total player, but he makes me laugh. What’s really cool is he’s going to be on the cruise with me.” Philip looked at Hallie. “So do you want to meet him for dinner on Saturday?”

  “Wait. He’ll be on the Blanchard? For the cruise?”

  “Yeah, his squadron’s deploying with us.”

  “I don’t think so, Philip.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like military pilots.”

  Philip’s gut registered another freaking landmine. He was getting a little leery of Hallie’s weird trust issues.

  “That’s quite a blanket statement,” Philip said. “You haven’t even met the guy and you already don’t like him. I’m really surprised to hear that coming from you of all people, Hallie. Make the world a better place, don’t call people names, don’t judge people, and all that. And yet you’re prejudiced against pilots?”

  “They remind me of those guys in high school, with their cocky arrogance.”

  “Oh, come on. Some aviators are kind of wild. They have a dangerous job. They work hard and play hard. But there are lots of pilots who are mature and responsible guys. My dad was a pilot and he’s a good guy. You’re not being fair.”

  “You just called this Sky a player. Are you now telling me he’s one of those responsible, mature guys?”

  “Well, not exactly. Okay, no.” And then he knew there was something else. He could see it in her face. Something big was coming. She didn’t say another word for the longest time. She just looked at him. And he just looked back at her. Had he done something wrong?

  And when she said, “Sit down, Philip. I have something to tell you,” he did what she asked, because those words were almost as bad as we need to talk, the four scariest words a woman can say to a man in love.

  Hallie sat on the end of the sofa, staring straight ahead. “When I turned fourteen, my mom told me something I’ve never shared with another soul, except Rebecca. Mom waited until a week after my birthday because she didn’t want to spoil my special day. I give her points for that.”

  Hallie looked at him and continued. “One night I came home from a friend’s house and Mom was sitting in the living room waiting for me. She had an open bottle of wine and I could see most of it was gone. She said she needed it to get up the courage to say what she had to say. I could see she’d been crying and was very upset.”

  Philip moved closer and stroked her arm. Hallie turned to him. “I loved my mom, Philip, and she loved me. I miss her so much, but she made me very angry that night and I stayed mad at her for a couple of years. Now that she’s gone, I feel bad about that. I know she did her best.”

  Hallie tucked that loose tendril of hair behind her ear, and then wrapped her arms around herself as if to hold herself together. “She said it was time I knew the truth about my father. I couldn’t imagine what she was going to tell me, because Sam McCabe disappeared from my life after their divorce when I was six. I mean it really hurt that I never saw him again and he never called. Even divorced kids get to see their dads sometimes. And then she told me Sam McCabe wasn’t my father.”

  Philip put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, kissing her gently on her temple. Hallie didn’t respond in any way, simply stared at the opposite wall.

  �
�Mom said she had to tell me everything because I was getting attention from boys and she didn’t want me to make the mistakes she had.” Hallie absently swiped at her hair again, folded her hands and worried her thumbs against each other, then turned and looked at him. “My mom was in the Navy in the mid-eighties.”

  Philip’s mouth dropped open.

  She went back to drawing figure eights with her thumbnails. “She was a weather girl—an aerographer’s mate, in Atsugi, Japan. She told me my real father was a Navy pilot who she met when she was stationed there. He flew F-14 Tomcats. His name was Rick. She’d never tell me his full name because she didn’t want me to find him. It’s not even on my birth certificate, which I hadn’t seen until that week.” Hallie turned to him.

  Philip made sure his face showed he was listening, but his brain was churning.

  “Mom said he was handsome and exciting and a very smooth operator. That’s why I was upset when you told me about your friend. Naval aviators have left a bad taste in my mouth since that night.”

  Philip pulled her to him and kissed her on the forehead. Then she turned back to look at the wall. He was stunned by the information, but touched that she would share this painful part of her life with him.

  “He was on an aircraft carrier that pulled into a shipyard in Japan for repairs and apparently the planes flew off to the air base at Atsugi, where they met. They had a blazing love affair for a couple of weeks. She’d had too much wine and told me things, details, that she never should have.”

  Hallie looked down, then back at the wall again. “Her name was Suzanne. Apparently he called her his ‘Little Suzie Q’ and she called him ‘Her big, strong Irishman.’ When she popped up pregnant, she wrote him and you know what he did?”

  She turned to look Philip in the eye. “He sent her five-hundred dollars and told her he was sorry, but she ‘needed to take care of it.’ She wrote back asking him if he’d consider marrying her, at least until the baby was born. And that’s when he informed her he was already married.”

  Philip pulled Hallie into his arms and stroked her back. Didn’t say anything. Just held her. And rocked her gently. But he was thinking that if her mother had been enlisted and her father was a pilot, they couldn’t have gotten married and remained on active duty because fraternization between an officer and an enlisted member was illegal.

  “I knew the word, but I’d never used it. I understood the meaning though, so I said, ‘You mean I’m a bastard?’ and I’ll never forget how she answered me: ‘No, Hallie, your father was.’”

  “So she raised you by herself?”

  Hallie nodded. “She gave birth to me and when her enlistment was up she moved back to the States to live near her sister. She named me Hallie, which is Greek for ‘thinking of the sea,’ which is pretty ironic. She didn’t meet Sam McCabe until I was almost two years old. They married and he adopted me, so I got his name. I never knew any of that. I thought Sam was my dad. And that’s why it hurt so much when he left. Thank God I had my Uncle Pete in my life.”

  Philip wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hair. “I’m so sorry to hear all this. I mean, about your dad. And Sam. Every-body should get to have a dad.”

  “I’d always wondered where I got my blue eyes, because Mom and Sam had brown eyes. And neither of them was particularly tall either. Mom told me that night that Rick was six-foot-three and that’s where I got my height. Oh, God, she kept telling me about his eyes. The wine was talking and she said it over and over. She just kept looking at me and saying, ‘You have his eyes.’ I’ve wondered since that day how hard it must have been for her to look at me and not think of him. She held that secret for fourteen years. Not being able to say anything.”

  Hallie turned to Philip, curled into his embrace, and wept against his chest. He held her, rocked her, and muttered soothing words into her hair.

  “I didn’t fully forgive her until she got sick. I had to. I learned that life is short and you have to forgive someone you love, so you can move on with your life. So at least we were at peace with each other before she died.”

  Philip continued to hold her close, stroking her back rhythmically. But, Hallie pulled away.

  “Anyway, learning that at fourteen was hard to deal with, but when I started high school that fall, things got worse because that’s when those pictures started floating around and the older guys started hitting on me. And now I knew this secret. I felt like I was being punished for something when I hadn’t done anything wrong.”

  Her eyes pleaded with him. “I tried hard to blend in at high school and stay away from those kind of boys, like my father had been. Why do you think I’m here with you? Because you’re not like them. You’re like an anchor for me.”

  Philip’s heart ached for her, but his ego soared. His mother had been right: “Just be yourself, Philip. Be your sweet, wonderful self. The smart women will be looking for a nice guy, someone they can count on.” And the fact that Hallie was allergic to anything in a flight suit gave more Surface Warfare guys like him a fighting chance. Most chicks glommed to the jet jocks.

  Aw, hell. Hallie was hurting. This wasn’t about him. So he just rocked her. “Shhh. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

  “I know it’s a sore spot for you, but can you please be patient with me when I get all weird about things? I’ve been working on this for years, but I’m not there yet. And I really don’t want to meet your friend right now.” She attempted to smile through her tears. “See? There are still things you don’t know about me.”

  Philip held her for the longest time. His mind raced. Major landmine. Doesn’t trust aviators. F-14 pilot named Rick. Richard? With an Irish last name? Mid-eighties.

  Did she want to find her father? He could tell by her angst that she hadn’t let anything go. Should he put his dad on this? The aviation community was pretty close-knit, especially as they got older and attended reunions so they could re-live some of their youth.

  He just wanted Hallie to be happy, and he was more than willing to keep dancing around landmines and red flags as she worked this stuff out. He knew Sky would tease him that this woman had more secrets than Colonel Sanders had recipes, but he didn’t care. He figured it was a small price to pay for the rest of her that was utter perfection. So he continued to comfort her and snapped the red flags in half and buried them in the sand, along with the landmines, as soon as she kissed him.

  The guilt of deception deepened its hooks in Hallie. Philip was too decent a person to deceive, but she loved him too much to put him in jeopardy, or lose him. Once she told him the truth, he would be honor-bound to walk away. How could she willingly push this wonderful man out of her life? He was a tonic for her soul.

  She’d managed to avoid all get-togethers with his shipmates, pleading too much homework, but she could tell he was tiring of her excuses. The clock continued to wind down and a week before the deployment, Philip arrived home with an invitation that nearly knocked her socks off.

  “Hey, good news. My parents are driving down for a couple of days to visit and see the ship off. I can’t wait for them to meet you.” His face beamed with pride.

  Hallie felt the blood drain from her face. “Your parents. How nice.”

  He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’ll try to get away a little earlier on Wednesday so we can all go out to dinner. Maybe Thursday, too. What do you say? Or are you too busy with homework again?”

  Hallie straddled his lap, dug her fingers into his shoulders, slid her thumbs up under the base of his skull and hoped her nervous laugh covered her trepidation. “I’m not too busy to do this.” Then she kissed him. Gently and tenderly, tracing his lips with her tongue, murmuring what she was going to do to him, all the while digging at his aching muscles. She hoped he’d think her pounding heart was due to passion, not anxiety.

  There was no way she deserved to meet his pa
rents.

  Philip groaned, kissed her back, and pulled away long enough to ask, “So what about dinner?”

  Hallie kissed her way down his neck. “Plenty of time to figure it out. What you need right now is a little appetizer.” She pasted a smile on her face. “Come on, skin down and I’ll give you a backrub.”

  “Well, I’m sure not going to turn that down.” Philip pulled his shirt over his head and lay on the carpet.

  Hallie retrieved lotion from the bathroom and lathered her hands. She knew he thought this was about loosening up his muscles, but it was more about loosening him up before spilling her guts. This had gone on long enough. The parent thing was the last straw. She would tell him today. And if he was going to ask her to leave after she told him, she was going to make damn sure it was after a lovemaking session that neither of them would soon forget.

  “Nope, pants too,” she said.

  “I need my pants off for a backrub?”

  “You know, your buddy, Sky, would probably say, ‘Don’t ask stupid questions.’”

  “You got that right.” He stripped off his jeans and lay back down in his briefs. “Okay, honey, have at me.”

  Hallie started at his feet. She knelt down and bent his knees, then dug her slicked-up thumbs into his arches, her fingers massaging the small bones on the tops of his feet and the joints of his toes. He grunted in sweet pain and she knew she’d found the right spot.

  “Reflexology says your feet rule the rest of your body. If your feet are relaxed, then you should be relaxed all over.”

  He answered with another guttural sound.

  Hallie thought about the first time she’d seen these toes, thinking them sexy as the “Geek god” dug them in the sand on the afternoon they’d met. Here it was more than a month later and she was madly in love with the man. Not just in love with him. She loved him. Deeply and fully. A dull ache echoed in her chest at the thought of what she was about to do.