He started to move then in a long, slow stroke that plunged him deep within her. She whimpered when he withdrew, but he quickly sank into her again and again and again, bringing them to a shared climax several moments later. Together they cried out, their hearts sailed and they soared into a new shining universe as their voices shouted in joyous celebration.

Still sheathed inside her, Rush whispered urgently, " You’re mine, Lindy. Mine."

"Yours," she whispered in return. "Only yours."

Lindy had never seen so many people gathered in one place in her life. It seemed the entire navy had come to watch the tugboats tow the Mitchell out of Sinclair Inlet.

Susan Dwyer stood at Lindy’s side on the long pier, looking at the huge aircraft carrier as it sliced through the dark green waters. Helicopters from the local television stations hovered overhead and small planes zoomed past to get pictures of the carrier as it was tugged away from the Bremerton shipyard.

"How do you feel?" Susan asked, shouting above the noise of the cheering crowd.

"I don’t know." Lindy shook her head, feeling a little numb. A lump rose in her throat. When she’d kissed Rush goodbye, she’d felt the reluctance and tension in him, but no shrinking. As much as he wanted to stay with her, as much as he longed for them to be together, he longed for the sea more. He was going to leave her because it was his duty, his destiny. He belonged to the navy, and she had only been granted second rights.

"I’m not going to cry." That much Lindy knew.

"Good girl." Susan was dry-eyed herself. "You’re going to do just fine. We both are. These six months will fly by. Just you wait and see, and before we know it they’ll both be back, randy as hell and – " She stopped abruptly and heaved in a deep breath. "Who am I trying to kid? It’s going to be the pits." Her gaze clouded and she bit into her trembling bottom lip. "I think I’m pregnant again."

Lindy didn’t know what to say. "Does Jeff know?"

"Nope. I went off the Pill last month when they left the first time. There didn’t seem to be any reason to keep taking them when Jeff was going away for all those months. I forgot to take the stupid things half the time anyway. Then Jeff was home and I didn’t even think about it until yesterday morning."

"Why then?"

"I threw up."

"Oh, Susan. Are you going to be all right?"

"If I said yes, would you believe me?"

"Probably."

Her friend sighed. "Well, don’t. I have miserable pregnancies. And I don’t think Jeffs going to be pleased, either. We’d agreed to wait at least another couple of years."

Lindy found a tissue in her purse and handed it to her friend, who quickly wiped the moisture from her pale cheeks.

"Tears are another sure sign with me."

"I’d better keep track of these symptoms," Lindy muttered absently.

Susan paused, blew her nose and turned to face Lindy. "What do you mean?"

"Rush and I weren’t using any birth control, either---It wasn’t the right time of the month for me to start the Pill, and well, to be honest, we didn’t discuss it."

"Oh, Lindy, how do we let these things happen?"

Lindy didn’t have an answer to that. Not once during the last two nights had she given any thought to the fact that she could become pregnant. It certainly wouldn’t be any great tragedy, but she would have preferred to wait a year or two before they started a family. Rush hadn’t said a word, either. It seemed improbable that he hadn’t thought of the possibility.

"You want to come back to the house with me and share a hot fudge sundae and a jar of pickles?" Susan asked seriously.

Lindy shook her head. "My brother arrived yesterday. We haven’t had much of a chance to talk."

"Keep in touch."

"I will," Lindy promised.

Steve was watching the newscast that showed the Mitchell pulling out of Puget Sound when Lindy entered the apartment. He didn’t so much as look away from the television screen when she entered the living room, and Lindy paused, anticipating the worst.

"If you’re going to yell at me, do it now and get it over with," she said, standing just inside the room. After saying farewell to Rush she didn’t need anything more to dampen her already low spirits.

Her brother leaned forward and pressed the remote control dial, turning off the television set.

"Dear God, Lindy, what have you done?"

"I just said goodbye to my husband," she answered him, in a steady, controlled voice.

"Why’d you marry him?"

"For the usual reasons, I assure you." Steve wiped a hand down his face. "I wish to hell I could say how happy I am for you, but I can’t. I know you too well, Lindy. This marriage just isn’t going to work. You’re not the type of woman who’s going to accept the life-style the navy demands. How can you possibly expect to know a man well enough to marry him in three weeks?"

"I know everything I need to."

"I suppose he told you about Cheryl?" She squared her shoulders and stiffened her spine in a defiant gesture. She knew there’d been someone else, but Rush hadn’t filled in the details. She hadn’t told him everything about Paul, either. "Did he?" Steve pressed. "No," she flared.

"You’re married to a man and you know nothing about his past."

"I love Rush and he loves me. That’s all I need." Lindy was painfully conscious of her brother’s adverse feelings toward her and Rush, but she was at a loss to understand his hostility. Unless his divorce had completely tainted his views on marriage.

Steve shook his head, his face pinched in a deep frown. "I’m afraid you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life, Lindy Kyle."

She stepped into the room and sat on the sofa arm. "The name’s Lindy Callaghan, now."

Chapter Eleven

Susan Dwyer met Lindy at the front door. "Welcome," she said, bringing her inside the house. A group of women sat in the living room and smiled enthusiastically when Lindy entered the room. She recognized several of the faces from the restaurant where she and Rush had eaten their wedding dinner, but remembering all their names would have been impossible.

"Hello," Lindy said, cordially nodding her head toward the others. She took the only available chair and crossed her long legs, hoping she gave the appearance of being at ease. Susan had invited her over for a late lunch the week before, but her friend hadn’t mentioned that anyone else would be present.

"I thought it was time you got to know some of the other wives," Susan said as a means of explanation.

"And if no one else is going to say it, I will," an attractive blonde with wide blue eyes piped up. "We’re all anxious to get to know you better."

"We’ve all been crazy about Rush for years. I’m Mary, by the way."

"I’m Paula," the blonde who’d spoken first added.

"Hello, Mary and Paula." Lindy raised her hand.

Four of the others quickly introduced themselves. Sissy, Elly, Sandy and Joanna.

"Did you get the wives’ packet?" Joanna wanted to know scooting to the edge of her seat.

Lindy’s eyes shot to Susan. "I don’t think so." The Mitchell had been gone almost a month now and because Lindy had been so busy with her job and worrying about her brother, she hadn’t been able to get together with Susan as soon as she’d wanted.

"I’ll take care of that right now." Joanna opened a briefcase and brought out a thick packet. She stood and delivered it to Lindy. "This is a little something the navy hands out to new wives so they aren’t completely in the dark about what they’ve gotten themselves into having married a man in the military."

"A sort of finding-your-sea-legs-while-still-on-land idea," Susan explained.

Lindy opened the packet to find several brochures and booklets. There was one on the social customs and traditions of the navy – guidelines for the wives of commanding officers and executive officers, another on overseamanship, and several others, including one that gave the history of the U.S. Navy.

"An issue of Wifeline should be in there, too."

"Joanna’s one of the ombudsmen for the Mitchell" Susan explained.

Lindy wasn’t sure what that meant. "Oh," she said weakly, hoping she didn’t sound completely stupid.

Joanna must have read the confusion in her eyes, because she added. "I act as a liaison between the command and the families. If you have a problem with something, come to me."

"Wonder Woman here will take care of it for you," Sissy commented and smiled at Joanna. "I know she’s helped me often enough."

"I’m not completely sure I understand," Lindy admitted, with some reluctance. Although Steve had been in the service fifteen years, as long as Rush, Lindy had little technical understanding of the way the military worked.

"Let me give you an example," Joanna said and tapped her index finger against her lips while she thought. "Let’s say you get sick and need to go to the hospital when Rush is on a cruise, and there’s some kind of screwup there and they won’t take you."

"Call Joanna." Seven voices chimed in unison.

"I see."

Joanna playfully cocked her head and slanted her mouth in a silly grin, which caused the others to laugh. "Mainly my job is to be sure that no one feels they need to face a problem alone. When you married Rush, you married his career, too. You belong to the navy now just as much as Rush does. If you’ve got a problem there will always be someone here to help."

"That’s good to know." Lindy hadn’t thought about it before, but what Joanna said made sense. The knowledge that someone was there to lend a helping hand gave her a comforting sense of belonging. Although she knew Susan was her friend, Jeff’s wife had been her only contact with Rush’s life.

"When the guys are around there aren’t that many problems, but once they’re deployed we have to stick together and help each other," Sissy added, and a couple of the others nodded their agreement.

"What do you mean there aren’t that many problems with the guys around?" Mary, a slim redhead, cried. "I don’t suppose anyone happened to mention to Lindy the hassles of shifting responsibilities and…"

"Hey, the poor girl just got married. Let’s not hit her over the head with everything just yet."

"No," Lindy interrupted. "I want to know."

"It’s just that we – meaning we wives – are left to handle the domestic situations when the men are at sea. It’s not as if we have a whole lot of choice in the matter. Someone’s got to do it. But then once our husbands sail home we’re supposed to return to the docile role of wife and mother and automatically let the men take over. Sometimes it doesn’t work that well."

"I don’t imagine it would," Lindy said thoughtfully, and sighed inwardly. Briefly she wondered what problems the years held in store for her and Rush. She’d never thought about the shifting roles they’d need to play in their family life. It was a little intimidating, but she’d only been a bride for a month and didn’t want to anticipate trouble.