Bird Dog pulled up in front of his apartment in his rental car. He parked at the sidewalk, leaped out, and ran to the door. Fumbling with his keys, he finally got the knob to turn. He slammed open the door.
“Callie,” he yelled. “Callie, where are you?”
“Bird Dog?” Her voice rose, high and excited. “You’re back!”
Callie Lazure came hurtling out of the back room, barely pausing before she threw herself at him. He pulled her close to him, felt the warm familiar curves of her body.
“Oh, Callie, I’ve missed you so much.”
She buried her face in his neck, murmuring nonsensical phrases and almost crying. Bird Dog wisely remained silent and held her.
“Don’t ever do this to me again, Bird Dog,” Callie said finally, pulling away from him.
“Do what?”
“Go off and leave me like that. Promise me.”
Her eyes were pleading.
At that moment, no one would have guessed that Callie was a career Navy officer herself.
“There’ll be cruises, dear,” Bird Dog said gently. “For you, and for me. You know that.”
“I can’t do this again.”
She returned to the safe embrace of his arms, holding him hard against her.
“Callie Lazure?will you marry me?”
Bird Dog startled himself, the words out of his throat before he could even think them through. Get married?
What in the world was he thinking?
He was headed back to sea after this, and there were so many things he had yet to do. Yet at that point in time, all that mattered to him was that Callie agree to spend the rest of her life with him.
She pulled back slightly and looked up at him, her face streaked with tears. “Marry?” Her voice was tentative and uncertain.
“Marry,” Bird Dog said firmly. “That is, if you want to.”
An awful feeling that he’d just stepped on his dick invaded him.
“Okay.”
Callie snuggled back up to him.
Bird Dog clasped her to him, an odd mixture of terror and delight sweeping over him.
“You did well, nephew,” Thomas Magruder said. He gazed levelly at his nephew, his eyes unreadable.
“Thank you, Admiral,” Tombstone said. He swayed slightly on his feet.
The last sixteen hours had been a frantic rush of airlifts, commercial airliners, and one final last harrowing taxicab ride to the Pentagon. He’d caught a few catnaps, but not nearly enough sleep to keep him going. At the moment, Tombstone felt light-headed.
“That captain on La Salle,” his uncle said, shaking his head in disbelief, “Your idea?”
He shot Tombstone a look under bushy eyebrows.
Tombstone shook his head. “Not mine. That was sheer surface-warrior ingenuity all by itself. Surprised me as much as it did you.”
His uncle grunted. “Well, she’s hardly operational?your relief is going to have to stay on Jefferson for the time being. Six months at least in the shipyards, maybe longer. But she was there when it counted, wasn’t she?”
Tombstone nodded. “She was indeed.”
“Well.”
His uncle seemed to be grappling for a way to broach his next subject. “Are you ready for another job?”
Tombstone laughed. “I’m ready for some leave,” he said bluntly.
“Sir, I have some personal things to take care of before I take command of Southcom. The last couple of weeks have been interesting, but-“
His uncle waved aside his objections. “Take two weeks. Southcom can wait, although I have to tell you that the situation down there is getting critical.”
He arched an eyebrow and smiled at Tombstone. “But from what you’ve been through, you’re just the man to handle it.”
Tombstone stood, turned toward the door, then paused. He turned back to his uncle, an odd expression of uncertainty in his eyes. “Do you have a few minutes for some family business, sir?”
Caught off guard by the change in his nephew’s voice, the CNO simply motioned him back down into the chair. “What’s on your mind, Matt?”
Tombstone took a deep breath. “It’s probably nothing. Just something one of the Ukrainians said on board Jeff?it was about my father.”
The senior Magruder sucked in a hard breath. “What about him?”
“He said Dad survived. That he was taken to Russia after he was shot down. I think he meant?Uncle, he wanted me to think that Dad might still be alive.”
Tombstone stared off in the distance. “I know it was probably just a psychological ploy but?is there any chance?”
His uncle shook his head slowly. “You know there’ve been rumors for decades about that. The faked photos, the false reports. Matt, you can’t even begin to think about it being a possibility. It’ll eat you up if you do. And there’s no chance?none.”
His voice was filled with sympathy but decisive. He motioned at the office around him. “If there were any chance there were survivors, don’t you think I’d know?”
Tombstone nodded slowly. “Yes, you should.”
He sat silent, appeared to reach some inner decision, then stood. “Thanks.”
He started for the door.
“Matt?you do believe that, don’t you? That we did everything we could?”
There was an almost pleading note in his uncle’s voice.
Tombstone paused, his back still to his uncle. “I don’t know. But I’ll find out.”
He left quickly, not waiting for his uncle to answer.
Matthew Magruder, son of Sam Magruder?it felt odd thinking of himself in those terms instead of just as a Naval officer. The Ukrainian’s claims?well, there were ways of investigating them, he supposed.
He retrieved his GTO from the parking lot, and inspected it for damage. Somehow it had managed to survive without a nick. He slid behind the wheel, and started it. It roared into life, sounding as close to a Tomcat’s howl as anything he’d ever run across ashore.
Tomboy?he could see her now, feel the shape of her body, breathe the smell of her hair. With a little more force than necessary, he slammed the gearshift into reverse and screamed out of the parking lot.
“So, Miss. Drake, you actually had a hand in deciphering the events over there?” the anchor queried. Pamela gazed at him for a moment, tempted beyond all endurance. She started to speak, then remembered the last time she’d seen Tombstone.
Finally, she shook her head from side to side. “No, I’m afraid not.”
The anchor looked startled. The back-briefing he’d received had indicated that Pamela had been on the carrier the entire time of the incident, and he’d been expecting her usual detailed firsthand account of her intervention in the conflict.
“Then what happened?” he said, unable to come up with a more piercing, provocative question.
