save you the embarrassment.” She stepped forward, reached across the desk,
and gently placed the wings in front of him. Her hand lingered on them for a
moment, as though saying good-bye. Then she stood, straight and proud, and
looked him in the eyes.
“Thank you for seeing me, Admiral. I’m sorry to have disappointed you.”
She turned and walked toward the door.
Shock held Tombstone in place for a few seconds. Tomboy quit? Why would
she ever think that’s what he wanted? How could she?
As she reached for the doorknob, his throat suddenly unfroze.
“Commander! Tomboy! Now just hold on one damned minute!” He was out of his
chair and around his desk in a split second. He grabbed her by the shoulder
and spun her around to face him. Face to face, her head barely reached his
wings. She was looking down, but he saw one tear trace its way down her pale
cheek.
“Sit down, Tomboy,” he said, shoving her gently toward the couch. Her
call sign came to his lips automatically. “That’s an order.”
She resisted for a second. “Please don’t make this any harder than it
is, Admiral. You don’t know what it took to come here. I won’t change my
mind, no matter what you say.”
“Just sit down. I’m not asking you to change your mind-” not yet,
anyway, he added silently “-I just want to talk to you for a moment.”
She nodded jerkily and walked around the coffee table to sit perched on
the edge of the couch. Her eyes were still locked on the floor.
Tombstone sighed, berating himself for having let it come to this. Of
course she’d thought he wanted her out! How could she not, when he’d avoided
getting near her for the last month.
He lowered himself into the chair at right angles to the couch and leaned
back. It was his mess, and it was up to him to straighten it out.
“I have a problem, Tomboy. Not you, me. Somewhere between the Kola
Peninsula and the Spratly Islands, you started to be something to me besides a
RIO. I don’t know exactly when or how, but I do know that’s true. When I
realized it, I started avoiding you. I didn’t want to put you in an
uncomfortable position, I told myself. You couldn’t handle it–at least
that’s what I wanted to believe. The truth is that I couldn’t.
“Do you know I almost called you every day while you were on shore duty
and I was at the war college? Every day I thought about you, wondered what
you were doing. I didn’t, though. I was afraid that I’d call you and hear
you act surprised, or that you’d just treat me like your old pilot. I’m ten
years older than you are, Tomboy, so I use that word literally. Or maybe
you’d feel uncomfortable with a rear admiral calling you, asking if you’d like
to go to a Patriots game some weekend. So I took the easy way out. I was
afraid of rejection.”
“I wish you’d called,” she said softly.
“Let me finish,” he said abruptly. “In the last month, I’ve been running
scared. You’re one of the finest RIOs I’ve ever flown with, male or female.
You’re good, so good it almost scares me. I’d rather fly with you than anyone
else. But then you and Batman seemed to hit it off, and–and, damn it, you’re
assigned to my ship! I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t do anything. Do you
understand?”
Finally, she looked up. Miraculously, the tears had cleared from her
eyes. “That’s not what I thought.”
“I know what you thought, and I should have figured it out before. You
can’t quit, Tomboy. I don’t want you to, and the Navy needs you. Those
junior women pilots coming up behind you need you, too.”
“And what about us? Is there an us?” she asked. “Not now, I mean. But
this tour won’t last forever, Tombstone. In another year, we’ll both be
rotating back to shore duty.”
“Do you want that, Tomboy?” he asked, suddenly afraid his voice would
crack.
“Yes. Very much so.” Her eyes were shining, and the color had returned