Hating the crutches, she made her way on bare feet back out to the kitchen, from which wonderful scents were originating. Hungrily, Callie inhaled the aroma of frying bacon. Automatically, as she entered the kitchen, her pulse began to bound a little. Ty Ballard had tied one of her aprons around his waist. His sleeves were rolled up to just below his elbows, and he stood happily stirring eggs in the skillet. As if sensing her presence, he lifted his head and turned to look at her.
“Smells great, doesn’t it? Come on, have a seat. I’ve set the table.” Ty quickly moved over to pull out a chair for her. Trying not to stare like a slavering wolf, he forced himself to pay attention to the scrambled eggs. Callie looked like the proverbial girl-next-door in her simple slacks and blouse. And he liked the fact that she went around barefoot. Despite being one of the elite academy ring-knockers, she possessed an intriguing innocence that he ached to explore.
Callie moved to the table, which had been set with her good china, pink linen napkins rolled neatly beside the plates. A cup of recently poured coffee and a small glass of orange juice awaited her. Everything was perfect. She sat down and set the crutches aside.
“I’m in shock,” she said.
Ty twisted to look over his shoulder as he added cream cheese and bacon bits to the scrambled eggs. “Over what?”
“You. This.” Callie waved to the table. “Everything is so neat—thoughtful, I guess….”
“Brother, you must have had some bad experiences with men,” Ty teased as he whipped the scrambled eggs furiously. “Some of us are kitchen trained.”
His heartrending smile shattered her tension, and Callie laughed lightly. “I guess I had that coming, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know,” Ty said smoothly as he brought the skillet over and served half the scrambled eggs to her and half to himself. “Maybe you haven’t run into very many thoughtful men of late.” He put the skillet in the sink, ran water into it, then quickly brought over the just-popped-up toast. Untying the apron, he laid it on the drainboard, then sat down at her elbow and grinned. “A meal fit for a queen. Dig in, Callie. You need some color back in those cheeks of yours.”
Nonplussed, Callie picked up the knife and buttered her toast. Ballard seemed like a happy little boy instead of a serious navy pilot. “I don’t know what to make of you,” she muttered between delicious bites of the scrambled eggs.
“Why?”
“You’re different.”
Shrugging, Ty launched into his meal with gusto. “My ex-wife said the same thing.” She might as well know he had a failed marriage. If nothing else, he had learned to be honest and keep all his cards on the table when it came to relationships. He knew he didn’t want to make the same mistakes twice. Especially not with Callie. Even as the thought passed through his head, Ty wondered what kind of crazy magic had come over him. From that first moment of seeing her helpless in the parking lot, something had sprung loose deep within him. What was it? Loneliness? God knew, he’d been like a lost wolf without a mate since the divorce.
It was impossible to ignore Ty’s upbeat presence. Callie glanced over at him when he mentioned the divorce. “You’re single now?” she asked pointedly. Once, she’d fallen in love with a pilot who’d said he was divorced. It had been a lie, but he had strung Callie along, getting what he wanted from her. When she’d discovered the lie, she’d confronted Mark. He’d laughed and shrugged it off as if it didn’t matter—as if she didn’t matter.
Ty held up his left hand to show the absence of a wedding ring. “Single.”
“How long were you married?”
“Five years.”
She pushed the eggs around on her plate. “That’s a long time for a navy pilot. Most of them seem to get married and divorced in two years.”
“Or less,” Ty agreed. He saw the wariness in Callie’s face again. There was a lot of unspoken pain there, too, and he surmised that she’d been burned by a pilot at some point. “I liked marriage,” he went on. “I liked the idea of having a home.”
“Do you have any children?”
He shook his head. “No….”
“Is your ex-wife a civilian?”
“Yeah. She lives in San Diego. She’s a bright, intelligent woman.”
Callie heard the hurt in his voice, although he tried to hide it with bravado. “You said she called you ‘different,’ too.”
“Well,” he sighed, “‘different’ wasn’t used in a complimentary way, Callie.”
Callie thrilled to hear her name slip from his lips. Trying to ignore the feelings it invoked, she found herself wanting to continue pursuing Ballard’s past. Why? she asked herself. Callie had no answers, and it left her feeling terribly vulnerable.
“Five years is a long time to spend with someone. You must have meant a lot to each other,” Callie hedged. She saw her comment strike Ballard with a direct hit. His smile slipped, and a shadow came across his eyes.
“Jackie wanted the divorce,” he said quietly. “I didn’t.”
“Oh.”
Ty felt Callie’s interest. He hadn’t meant to get into a discussion about his personal life—at least, not this morning. He’d wanted to come over, cheer Callie up a little and head to work. He frowned, pushing the last of the eggs onto his fork. There was pain from the past to deal with, now, too.
“I guess I wasn’t around when she needed me,” he began. “I was gone a lot. Most of the time I was out on carriers—I didn’t get the land-based assignments I’d hoped for.”
“That ruins a lot of marriages,” Callie agreed soberly. She reached over, placing her hand on his arm for just a moment. “I’m sorry. You seem nicer than most of the navy pilots I’ve known. It’s too bad it had to happen, Ty.”
Ty rallied under her soft, hesitant touch and the use of his first name. It was a start, and for that he was grateful. “Yeah, well, as the saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Look, I gotta run. I’m due to teach a class at 0800 over at Fightertown.” He pushed the chair away and stood up. Before he left, he placed his dishes and silverware in the sink.
Callie blinked at the abruptness of Ty’s departure. She sat back and watched a mask drop over his rugged features. Unable to take offense at his sudden retreat into silence, she felt deeply for him. Ty had really loved his wife. That was a new twist for her. Most navy pilots loved ’em and left ’em without so much as an “I’m sorry,” in her experience.
“Thanks for coming by…for everything,” she managed in a small voice. She wanted to apologize for raking up the painful coals of his past. His suffering was obvious.
“Thanks for letting me barge into your life,” Ty said. He picked up his cap and settled it over his military-short hair. “I’ll be seeing you around. Maybe I’ll call you in a couple of days—see how you’re recuperating?” He’d never wanted anyone to say yes as he did now. Callie’s upturned features were bathed with a pink blush that made her blue eyes sparkle with life—and suddenly Ty realized that his presence had helped her a bit. He felt good about that. He was just sorry he couldn’t hide his hurt over the divorce. He cursed himself for bringing it up in the first place.
“A phone call would be fine,” Callie agreed quietly. She saw a fierce longing burning in his gray eyes as he stood so proudly before her. The aura of a navy pilot was enough to knock any woman off her feet, she thought dizzily. And Ty Ballard was a very special man. Very special.
“Great.”