Navy Wife

The insight came to her then – it seemed to be the night for them – Rush wanted her out of the apartment. When she’d gotten the job with Boeing, it had been understood she’d need to wait for a couple of paychecks before she could afford to rent her own place. They hadn’t actually discussed it, and at the time Lindy had let the subject drop because she’d wanted to spend as much time as she could with Rush. He hadn’t asked her about it, and she’d assumed that he wanted her with him just as much. Once more, she’d been wrong.



Quickly calculating her limited funds, she realized that with what remained of her savings and her first check, which was due on Friday, she could possibly afford a studio apartment. If she asked around at the office, there might even be someone there who was looking for a roommate.



The muscles in her throat constricted as she fought down the regret. She’d been such a fool.



Rush noted that Lindy left the apartment as soon as she’d finished preparing their dinner, not bothering to eat anything herself. For that matter he didn’t have much of an appetite either, but he sat down at the table, propped his book open in front of him and pretended an interest in both the book and the dinner.



It had been on the tip of his tongue to ask Lindy where she was going, but he’d swallowed the question, realizing how stupid it would sound after the way he’d laid into her earlier. He hadn’t meant to start a fight, hadn’t even been looking for one. It had just happened, and he was as shocked by his insensitive demands as Lindy had been. He hadn’t meant a thing he’d said. The hurt in her expressive dark eyes returned to haunt him now. When he’d asked her about the book, she’d stood looking at him in confusion, the violet smudges that appeared beneath her eyes a silent testimony to the trauma his words had inflicted.



As for the suggestion she see other men, that was downright idiotic. Talk about inflicting self-torture! He wanted to see Lindy with another man about as much as he desired a bladder infection.



The problem, Rush knew, was that he loved Lindy Kyle. She was stubborn, headstrong, proud… warm and vibrant. She might as well have branded his heart, because he belonged to her.



Rush pushed his plate aside and wearily wiped a palm across his eyes. Hell, this was the last thing he’d planned would happen. He was thirty-two years old, for God’s sake. Mature enough to recognize when he was headed for trouble. He’d known what was going to happen with Lindy from the first night he’d seen her standing, all soft and feminine, in the hallway outside Steve’s bedroom. He’d known the morning she’d blasted the rock music loud enough to hurl him out of bed because she was hurt and angry. He’d known when she’d held his head between her hands and stared into his soul and whispered so sweetly that she loved him.



Rush stood and walked out onto the lanai, hands buried in his pants pockets. The dark green waters of Puget Sound were visible and Rush snickered softly. So much for not seeking a bridge to tie him to the mainland. He was trapped on shore now and he dreaded leaving. He used to think of the navy as the only wife he’d ever need. But recently, when he crawled into bed at night, it was Lindy he longed to wrap his arms around. Lindy he longed to love. He wanted her to be a permanent part of his life. She was laughter and sunshine. She’d made him feel again, laugh again, love again. He couldn’t bear to think of what the future would be like without her. Two weeks. He’d only been with Lindy for two weeks. Before that she’d been a name, the sister of a good friend. He couldn’t ask her to share his life based on a two-week acquaintance. It was crazy. No, he’d be patient with her, force himself to wait. The six-month separation would do them both good. Time would test the strength of their love. Time would reveal the truth.



It was only a little after eight-thirty when Lindy returned to the apartment. She would have preferred to stay away much longer, but after reading through the evening newspaper for apartment rentals and wasting five dollars on a horrible movie she didn’t know where else to go or what else to do. Eventually she’d need to return anyway, and knowing Rush, he’d probably left the apartment, as well.



He wasn’t in the living room or kitchen, and she didn’t bother to check any of the other rooms, not wanting a recurrence of their earlier argument. It was obvious he wasn’t in the mood for company.



Sitting at the table, Lindy spread out the classified section and read the apartment-for-rent advertisements once more.



Quite by accident she found a section she hadn’t thought to look at before: roommates wanted. She read a couple of those and decided to phone the one that looked the most promising.



"Hello," she said brightly when the woman answered. "I’m calling about your ad in the paper."



Rush walked into the kitchen, hesitated when he saw her and opened the refrigerator to take out a cold can of pop. Lindy strove to ignore him as much as possible. Her fingers gripped the pen unnecessarily hard as she doodled while the woman on the other end of the line explained a few of the details regarding her ad.



"It says here that you’re looking for a nonsmoker. I… I don’t smoke and I’ve recently moved into the area and need a place to live. I… have a job."



"Lindy."



Rush called her name, but she pretended she hadn’t heard him. Besides she was already involved in one conversation and if he chose to be rude that was his problem.



Undeterred, Rush waved his hand in front of her face. "Get off the phone."



"Excuse me a minute please." Lindy spoke to the woman, enunciating each word as she held her temper by a fragile thread. She pressed the receiver to her shoulder blade and glared up at Rush. "Just what do you think you’re doing?" she hissed between clenched teeth.



"There’s no need for you to find an apartment," he told her, returning her heated stare.



"I beg your pardon, Rush Callaghan, but this is my life, and if I choose to leave this apartment, I’ll do so with or without your permission."



Rush cursed beneath his breath and walked away from her.



"I’m sorry to keep you waiting," Lindy said sweetly into the telephone receiver. "Perhaps it would be best if we met?"



"Damn it, Lindy," Rush shouted, twisting around to face her once more. "Will you kindly get off the phone so we can talk?"



He might as well have been speaking to a stone wall for all the attention Lindy paid him. "Yes, Tuesday afternoon would be fine."



Rush’s returning glare was hot enough to peel thirty-year-old wallpaper off a wall, but still Lindy ignored him.



"You won’t be meeting whoever that is," he told her sternly, looming over her. "You’re only wasting time."



"Kindly excuse me again, would you?" Lindy asked softly, deliberately calm. She turned to Rush then and half rose from her chair. "Would you shut up? I can’t hear a word she’s saying."



"Good."



He was making Lindy more furious by the minute, and she tried to tell him as much and still keep control of her temper. "I’m sorry to keep interrupting our conversation," she said to the woman on the phone.



Rush walked around the table a couple of times, looking like a man trapped in a small space – or a shark circling its kill. Finally he stopped, standing directly across from her. He closed his eyes and rubbed a hand along the back of his neck as though to relieve an ache there, then paused and looked at her. "Lindy, I’m leaving."



The words were nearly shouted. She hesitated and prayed for patience, and when that didn’t work, she counted to ten. Flippantly she raised her hand and waved goodbye. Still, he didn’t move.



"I’m twenty-two," Lindy answered the woman’s question. "No…no you needn’t worry about that sort of thing. There isn’t anyone important in my life at the moment." She swallowed tightly at the lie.



She exchanged a look with Rush and feared he was going to explode. "I thought you were leaving," she whispered heatedly, cupping her hand over the mouthpiece. "Don’t let me stop you."



"Not the apartment," he raged, staring at her as though she were completely dense. "The Mitchell is sailing out."



"I know---In two weeks."



"The catapults are being tested tomorrow and possibly Wednesday. If everything works out we’ll be gone by the beginning of next week."



"The beginning of next week," she echoed, hanging up the phone. She kept her hand on the receiver feeling numb with shock, numb with fear. "But you said it would be at least a month."



"As I recall, I told you it could be as long as a month. As it happens, it’s only two, possibly three weeks."



"Oh, Rush." She turned to him, her eyes wide with a hundred emotions she didn’t know how to define. She’d accepted long ago that their time together was limited. But she’d counted on every minute of these remaining weeks. Needed them. Needed Rush.



"It shouldn’t come as any great surprise," he told her, and pulled out a chair to sit across from her.



"It isn’t…. It’s just that… I don’t know." Her stomach twisted into hard knots and for a painful moment she couldn’t breathe. She was stunned, and she felt Rush’s eyes slowly search her face. With everything in her, she met his gaze, determined to appear cool and composed. Her heart might be quivering with apprehension, but she’d die smiling before she’d allow him to know it. He’d already told her once that he didn’t want her clinging to him when he left. And she wouldn’t. She’d stand on the dock with a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye, and wave until her arm dropped off, but she’d never let him know it was killing her.



"About tonight," he started again. "I didn’t mean any of what I said."



He dropped his gaze, but not before Lindy saw a strange mixture of regret, desire and remorse. In the two weeks they’d been together, Lindy had thought she’d witnessed all Rush’s moods. She’d seen him at his cynical best, when he’d been purposely aloof and brash. She’d experienced his comfort, his tenderness as he held her in his arms while she sobbed against his chest. And she’d heard the music of his laughter, stood transfixed by his sometimes warm-heated, playful moods. Oh Lord, she was going to miss him. Miss everything about him.



"Lindy, I’m sorry for what I said."



His hand reached for hers, rubbing warmth back into her chilled fingers. She shook her head, hoping that would suffice as acceptance of his apology.



They were silent for a moment, caught in the surging tide of their individual thoughts.



"I don’t have any right to ask you to wait six months for me."



"I’ll wait," she offered quietly. Lindy had no other choice.



"If you meet someone else…"



"Is that what you want?"



"No." Anger flared briefly in his eyes. Then his expression changed to that cool, watchful look he wore so often. "No," he repeated softly.



"That isn’t what you said earlier." She tried to laugh, but the sound of her pain was carried in the mirth.