YOU’RE IN THE NAVY??? WHAT THE H IS GOING ON???
The words made her cringe. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him to be blindsided like that. Probably just turned on the TV and Whammo! There she was, in a second-class petty officer’s uniform.
On his ship.
She hoped he’d been alone so he hadn’t embarrassed himself.
Guilt continued to roil through her gut. Hallie rose and paced the Public Affairs Office. So far the watchstander had paid her no mind, too busy proofing tomorrow’s newsletter. Now he glanced up. “You okay, McCabe?”
“Yeah. I’m just waiting for a message. Sorry if I’m bothering you.”
“No bother. You were good tonight. I think the show really needed that shot in the arm.”
“Thanks.” She sat back down. Pacing wasn’t going to work. She did not want to talk to anyone. Well, there was one person she would love to talk to, but apparently he wasn’t interested in talking. She glanced back at her computer: Another proposal of marriage and…ewwwww. That one was so nasty, she stuck out one finger and hit the delete button. And it felt so good, she hit all the ones with suggestive subject lines. One by one.
They popped up as fast as she could delete them.
Pop. Delete. Pop. Delete. Pop. Delete. Pop.
[email protected]. re: What the . . . ???
Her heart stopped. Fingers flew away from the keyboard as if burned. She found herself paralyzed, too afraid to open it. What if he—?
“You sure you’re okay?” She hadn’t even seen the watchstander walk over to her desk.
“Yeah. I’m okay. Sorry, I just…” She tried to laugh it off.
“All right.” He walked away. “Let me know if you need anything.”
She took a deep breath against panic. Her finger snaked toward the keyboard to click on his reply.
Library 2130 hours
Hallie’s chest tightened. She swallowed, attempting to keep her throat from closing up. He wanted to see her.
Tonight.
She glanced at her watch. 2100. She had just enough time to run to berthing and change, but these were still going to be the longest thirty minutes of her life.
Philip thought the ship’s library would be a quiet, unobtrusive place at 2130, but it wasn’t. This was an aircraft carrier, and it operated twenty-four seven. This was where the computer banks were housed for the folks who didn’t have access to a computer in their daily jobs. Email was checked at all hours of the day and night. And he didn’t feel unobtrusive because he was apparently meeting with the newest celebrity on the USS Blanchard.
Everybody recognized her.
He watched while men stopped Hallie to congratulate her on her debut as a newscaster, and to try to worm their way into her inner circle. Several others gave her a thumbs-up as she passed. Some just nudged their friends and pointed as Hallie walked toward his table in the corner.
God, she even looked beautiful in baggie camouflage—complete with enlisted insignia on her collar.
His brain registered that he had repeatedly had sex with a second-class petty officer.
Without a condom.
A new pang of anxiety shot through his gut. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that he’d trusted her with the birth control. Hopefully she wasn’t lying about that too.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” she said, on the verge of tears.
“Sit down, Petty Officer McCabe.”
“I brought a clipboard. We can pretend I’m interviewing you—about your job or something.”
“If you like. I happen to know you’re very good at pretending.”
But he was impressed that she’d thought of it because people were watching them. Fortunately, she had her back to them when her tears started.
“Philip, I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s Lieutenant Johnston,” he snapped at her.
She flinched. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Johnston.”
“Now, what would you like to know about my job, Petty Officer?” he began in a harsh whisper. “How the heads work on the Blanchard or would you rather hear about how I can’t keep them running smoothly because there is too much other crap in my life. How about how hard it’s been to concentrate on my job because some conniving little sailor broke my heart? Maybe you would like to hear about how I find the time to get away from work for a few minutes to grab a bite to eat and catch up on the news, only to find that the woman I thought I loved and respected is now the heartthrob of the entire wardroom? The part where I sit and listen to the guys cheering on the new McBabe in the newsroom? Is that the part you want to hear?”
Hallie’s shoulders shook as she tried to stifle her sobs.
He glanced around and handed her the handkerchief. “Don’t make a scene. People are watching you. You made your bed,” he said, then laughed. “And mine. What were you thinking?”
Hallie blew her nose, dabbed at her tears, and pulled herself together. She sat up straight, locked eyes with his, and said soberly and respectfully, “Lieutenant Johnston, I apologize for not being completely honest with you. I apologize if I hurt you in any way. I apologize for jeopardizing your career. I apologize for everything except for loving you…sir.”
Philip took that one to the gut and softened. “What did you do to your hair? I loved your hair. I loved you. Do you have any idea how hard it was to see you on that TV? To have to put two and two together and keep coming up with nine? I didn’t know. I know you tried to warn me, but I didn’t see your letter until just now. The guys. Jesus, the guys went crazy. The things they said about you. I wanted to hit every one of them. They were talking about you. My Hallie.
“And then when you looked down and that fucking piece of hair fell, guess I can swear around you now, since you’re a sailor. When that golden tendril—my golden tendril—fell down and you looked so sexy and they saw it and they loved it, I just went into shock. I guess that’s good, because I would have torn them limb from limb otherwise.” He shook his head in disbelief. “First you stabbed me in the heart by saying you didn’t love me anymore and then you twisted the knife by being in the Navy. Or do I have that backwards?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t love you. I said we couldn’t be together.”
“Same thing. You fucking slayed me,” he hissed, looking around to see if anyone had heard him.
Hallie winced. “Do you think it was easy for me?”
“No, I guess you had to be pretty busy, sneaking on and off the ship and coming up with stories for why you couldn’t meet my friends.”
“No, it was hard because I loved you and was trying to protect you. As long as you didn’t know about me, we were safe. And it hurt to my very core to know that one way or the other, as long as I was still in the Navy, I was going to end up hurting you. I knew that if I told you, it would be our death sentence. And I loved you so much. I still do.”
“Well, don’t. Okay?” He felt torn in half. Did he want her to love him or not?
“Would you rather I’d never come into your life?”
Philip recoiled when she hit that nerve. “I would have appreciated it if you’d been upfront with me from the start.”
“So you could have told me to take a hike? I can just see you saying, ‘Sorry I can’t get involved with you, because you’re enlisted and I’m a major rule follower.’”
He dropped his head, and shut his eyes. She was probably right. That’s who he was. And he would’ve walked away from the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Hallie continued to whisper. “Do you remember that Saturday night at your place? The night before we made love for the first time on the sailboat?”
Philip lifted his head, eyes wide at her audacity. Then he nervously glanced around the library, looking anywhere but at he
r, all the while wondering if anybody else in the room could possibly be privy to this whispered conversation.
Did he remember it? It was seared in his brain, along with every other second he’d spent with her.
He could feel himself getting aroused under the table at the mere mention of that night. The night he’d first met her breasts. Taken them in his mouth…Damn it. He was torn between wanting to throttle her and wanting to drag her to the closest fan room and take her right on the deck. Or over there behind the DVDs.
“Hallie, don’t. You’re not fighting fair.”
Philip couldn’t believe they were talking like this in the ship’s library, especially when two hours ago he hadn’t even known she was on board. He continued to look anywhere but at her. He couldn’t even get up and walk out of there now.
“I bring it up for a reason.”
Well, don’t because all kinds of other things are coming up with it.
Somebody walked close to the table, looking on a shelf right behind Philip. Hallie didn’t miss a beat in the current charade. She looked down at her notes and the tendril slipped out so that when she looked up to ask a professional question, there it was, draped across her forehead. She swiped at it, but it didn’t stay put.
Philip thought he was going to die.
She raised her voice to a stage whisper, so the interloper could hear her. “So tell me how hard it is to control the air conditioning system? I mean it just gets so hot here. Do you ever have problems keeping up with the demand?”
The patron moved on and Hallie went right back to her original conversation.
“That night. Tell me if the words, ‘Belay my last’ ever entered your brain after I said I couldn’t stay?”
How had she known?
“Because if you hadn’t said anything and I hadn’t turned you down, we might have continued like that for who knows how long.”
She knew him so well.
“Did you almost wish you could take it back so we could’ve gone back to what we were doing…you know?”
He didn’t answer though. Just looked at her. Because he was still trying to find any kind of possible control he could. And because he couldn’t get over how she had gotten into his head like that. It was exactly what he’d thought.
“Every time I came close to telling you the truth, I found myself seeing you walking away from me, and me running behind you saying, ‘Belay my last. Belay my last. Just pretend I didn’t say that. Delete button. Let’s go back to five minutes ago.’ And so I very selfishly chose to let us enjoy every single moment together until the last possible day. And yes, it was probably not the right thing to do, but it felt right being with you for the time we had together. And yes, I have no excuse for not coming clean before we left, but I was just so ashamed of deceiving you because you’re such a good man. And there was no way I deserved to meet your parents. I just flat-out panicked, Philip. I loved you so much. You are everything I’ve ever looked for in a man. You stripped away my ability to reason.”
She seemed to have forgotten they were in the library, so lost in his eyes and his pain. “Look, Lieutenant Johnston—”
“Fuck Lieutenant Johnston,” he hissed.
Her mouth curved up in a smile. “Oh, I’d like that.”
“It’s not funny, Hallie.”
“Can I call you Philip?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now. My whole life just changed in the last two hours. I need time to digest all of this.” He bowed his head to absorb it all and remained quiet. “Give me some time to think. We can’t meet like this again. Too many tongues will wag. I have a feeling you’re going to be a very popular girl and everybody will be watching you. They’re watching you right now. All I know is I need to go lick my wounds for a few days. Let’s just leave it at that. Okay?” And he damn well hoped she didn’t take up with someone else while he was doing that.
“Okay.”
“And I mean it. Do not contact me in any way. Give me some time. As somebody recently said, I have some weird trust issues.”
“Ouch.”
Philip pushed back his chair because it was finally safe to stand up. He reached across the table to shake her hand, squeezing it against his better judgment.
Then said loud enough for the benefit of the other sailors, “You’re welcome, McCabe. Hope that helps. Again, good job tonight.”
He pushed in his chair and left her there to gather up her clipboard, her pen, and one linen handkerchief.
But just before he left the space, he walked back to add one more thing. “Oh, and McCabe?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Find a bobby pin.”
Chapter 16
Hallie lay in her rack at midnight with the curtain closed, hoping she’d be able to sleep after unloading her burden.
Almost asleep, she jerked awake when her earphones piped in the strains of Eric Clapton’s “Bell Bottom Blues.” How many times had she and Philip made love to that song? Ha, did she ever have some bell-bottom blues now. She bet most of the kids on board didn’t even know bell-bottoms had originated in the Navy, so sailors could roll their pants to swab the decks. She might not be wearing bell-bottoms anymore, but she sure as shit had the blues.
The lyrics reached down now and grabbed her in the gut, but she wasn’t going to crawl across the floor and beg. She’d told Philip everything and now the ball was in his court. Shutting off the music, Hallie refused to feel guilty anymore. That had been her M.O. for close to two months now and she was done with it.
Maybe even jets taking off and landing overhead wouldn’t disturb this first night of guilt-free sleep. She’d confessed the truth, and although he was noticeably upset, she knew Philip still cared for her. She could tell by the way he’d squeezed her hand and held on to it a heartbeat longer than necessary when he said goodbye.
What he was going to do about it was anybody’s guess. He would definitely need time to process everything. She had promised him that she wouldn’t contact him, but she would be available to talk if he ever wanted to. Hallie had repeated what she’d said in her letter:
“I will do whatever you want.”
The most important thing was that he now knew for certain he’d done nothing wrong. It had torn her up that he might be beating himself up for something he hadn’t been responsible for. She also felt lighter because now she’d have free movement on the ship again. She’d been hiding out since mid-June. Now she could go to the gym, the library, the ship’s store, and topside for fresh air and sunshine.
Visiting liberty ports was more of an option now and she hoped he’d ask her to meet him somewhere so they could talk off the ship. That’s all she expected from him. Talking. They were pulling into Palma Majorca, Spain in a few days and maybe he’d ask her to meet him there.
She was so hung up on the Philip thing, she’d forgotten how awesome the newscast had been. She knew it was good. She couldn’t wait to get to work tomorrow to see if anybody had emailed her boss to comment.
Yes, this definitely deserved a good night’s sleep.
After spending the last hour online reading about fraternization and the UCMJ, Philip climbed into his rack where he tossed and turned for most of the night. There was a lot to digest. He’d found nothing more than what he already knew.
Fraternization between officers and enlisted personnel had torpedoed and sunk many a commissioned officer’s career.
And then his mind turned to Hallie and what she’d done. He thought about his sleepless nights trying to figure out what “we can’t be together anymore” had meant. No way in his wildest dreams did he ever consider she might be a sailor. What was the first thing he’d said to her when he met her on the beach? “You a sailor?” How was that for irony? And what had been her answer?
“I can find my way around a boat
.”
It had been right in front of him the whole time. Staring him in the face every day. She’d been in the Navy and on his ship the entire time. Maybe he couldn’t see the forest for the trees, maybe because the forest was so well camouflaged. Well, at least she wasn’t a vampire. And definitely not a peacenik.
And then he thought about how good she’d been at keeping her secret. She’d pulled it off for over a month while they were on shore. Probably checked the UCMJ the day after she met him. She must’ve worked overtime to orchestrate all that sneaking around. Actually, he was flattered. She did all that so she could keep seeing him.
No wonder she didn’t want her picture taken. Or go to a wardroom party with him. Or have dinner on the ship. But all that sneaking around must have been a lot of work and he couldn’t imagine the stress. Why would she go to all that trouble? But the answer just kept coming back and smacking him upside the head.
Because she loved him, and she knew he’d end it if she told him the truth. He’d used the words “rule follower” the night they met when they talked about Rules of Engagement. Okay, so he let her know he followed the rules. She said that’s what she liked about him.
But how could she have pulled it off without ever giving him a clue? Okay. One clue. Seventeen dead on the Cole. He bet very few sailors could quote that number off the top of their heads. But hadn’t her knowing the number seventeen been the thing that had reached in and grabbed him by his beating heart? Wasn’t that the moment when he looked past her beauty and realized she was The One? That she cared enough about the Navy to know that? And the Navy was his life. Philip knew without a shadow of a doubt he would be out of his mind to simply throw this away.
Well, he’d give Hallie this. She hadn’t said, “Oh, come on. Fraternization isn’t such a big deal. It goes on all the time.” Because she knew it was a big deal to him. And he was the one whose head would roll if they were caught. So yes, an eventual reconciliation was definitely a possibility. But first he needed time to wrap his brain around the whole deception thing.
Forgive & Forget (Love in the Fleet) Page 14
