Debbie Macomber Navy Series Box Set. Debbie Macomber
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.
“I didn’t mean it. Not a word.”
“You don’t believe that I love you, do you?”
He waited a long time before he answered. “I don’t know. I think it’s too soon after Paul for you to know what you’re feeling.”
Lindy closed her eyes in an effort to control the urge to argue with him. She did love him, and never more than now. She’d just learned he’d be sailing out of her life for half a year, and her only thought was how she would manage without him.
She watched as a small pulse started in his temple. “I don’t want to leave you, Lindy.”
Her gaze shot to his, and her eyes widened with astonishment. Rush loved the sea. The navy was more than his career. It was his life, the very reason he got out of bed every morning. She’d listened for hours while he described for her the warm sensations that went through him when he was on the open seas. She’d felt his pride and exhilaration when he spoke of standing alone against the force of a fierce storm. He loved everything about navy life. It was his dream, just as the oceans of the world were his destiny.
And he didn’t want to leave her. What he felt for her was stronger than the lure of the sea.
Tears shimmered in her eyes and she bit hard on her lower lip to hold them at bay. Rush wouldn’t tell her he loved her—not with words. It would have been more than she could expect. But by admitting that he didn’t want to leave her, he said everything.
When Lindy had composed herself enough to look up at Rush again, she felt the tension in every line of his lovingly familiar face.
“I want you to stay at the apartment,” he said, and his hand continued to rub hers, holding her fingers in a grip that was almost painfully tight. “Steve will be back soon, but he’ll only be here a few weeks, if that long.
Lindy nodded.
“Then the place will be empty for months.”
Again she acknowledged his words with an abrupt movement of her head.
“It would be better if there was someone living here. As it is now, an empty apartment is an invitation to burglars. You’d actually be doing Steve and me a favor if you agree to say.”
“I’ll…I’ll want to start contributing toward the rent.”
“Fine. Whatever you want. When Steve arrives the two of you can work it out.”
“What about when Steve is here?” Lindy asked. “Where will I sleep?”
“He can have my room.”
“But what about when you’re both here?”
Rush frowned, and then a strange, almost humorous light entered his eyes and a soft smile crowded his face. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Anything else?” he asked.
She dropped her gaze to his hand, which was holding hers. “I love you, Rush, and I’m going to miss you like hell.”
He raised her hand to his lips, closed his eyes and kissed it gently.
* * *
The coffee was ready by the time Rush met Lindy in the kitchen the following morning. Although she’d been physically and mentally exhausted, she’d hardly slept, managing three, maybe four hours of rest at the most. Now her eyes burned and she felt on the verge of tears.
Rush joined her at the table. He wordlessly reached for the morning newspaper and buried his face in it, not speaking to her—apparently pretending she wasn’t there. Lindy stood it as long as she could.
“Would you like some breakfast?” she asked.
He shook his head. The stupid newspaper still presented a thin barrier between them.
Whereas Lindy had felt loved and reassured after their talk the night before, this morning she felt lonely and bereft. Rush hadn’t