The Intruders (2 page)

“I like all American towns,” he said softly. “I’ve never yet been in
one I didn’t like.”

“You men are So hard to please.”

He laughed, and she joined in.

He’s here! She felt delicious.

She found a parking garage within the Loop and they went walking hand in
hand, looking, laughing, getting reacquainted. After lunch with a
bubbling crowd in a pub, they walked and walked.

Of course Callie wanted to hear an account from Jake’s own lips about
his shootdown and rescue from Laos, and they talked about Tiger Cole,
the bombardier who had broken his back and was now undergoing intensive
physical therapy in Pensacola.

When they had each brought the other up-to-date on all the things that
had happened to them since they last saw each other, Callie asked, “Are
you going to stay in the Navy?”

“I don’t know. I can get out after a year in this shore tour.” He was a
flight instructor at Attack Squadron 128 at NAS Whidbey Island,
Washington, transitioning new pilots and bombardier-navigators (BNs) to
the A-6 Intruder. “The flying is fun,” he continued. “It’s good to get
back to it. But I don’t know. It depends.”

“On what?”

“Oh, this and that.” He grinned at her.

She liked how he looked when he grinned. His gray eyes danced.

She thought she knew what the decision depended on, but she wanted to
hear him say it. “Not finances?”

“No. Got a few bucks saved.”

“On a civilian flying job?”

“Haven’t applied for any.”

“On what then, Jake?”

They were on a sidewalk on Lake Shore Drive, with Lake Michigan
spreading out before them. Jake had his elbows on the railing. Now he
turned and enveloped Callie in his arms and gave her a long, probing
kiss. When they finally parted for air, he said, “Depends on this and
that.”

.”On us?”

“You and me.”

The admission satisfied her. She wrapped her hands around one of his
arms and rested her head on his shoulder.

The gulls were crying and wheeling above the beach.

The McKenzies lived in a brick two-story in an old neighborhood. Two
giant oaks stood in the tiny front yard between the porch and the
sidewalk. After apparently struggling for years to get enough sunlight,
most of the grass had surrendered to fate. Only a few blades poked
through last autumn’s leaf collection. Professor McKenzie appeared to
be as enthusiastic about raking leaves as he was about mowing grass.

Callie introduced Jake to her parents and he agreed that he could drink
a beer, if they had any. The professor mixed himself a highball and
poured a glass of wine for each of the ladies. Then the four of them
sat a few minutes in the study with their drinks in hand exchanging
pleasantries.

He had been in the Navy for five years, liked it so far.

He and Calhe had met in Hong Kong. Wasn’t this June pleasant?

Callie and her mother finally excused themselves and headed for the
kitchen. Jake surveyed the room for ashtrays and saw that there weren’t
any. As he debated whether he should cross his legs or keep both feet
firmly on the floor, Callie’s father told him that he and his wife
taught at the University of Chicago, had done so for thirty years, had
lived in this house for twenty. They hoped to retire in eight years.
Might even move to Florida.

“I was raised in southwestern Virginia,” Jake informed his host. “My
dad has a pretty good-size farm.”

“Have you any farming ambitions?”

No, Jake thought not. He had seen his share of farming while growing
up. He was a pilot now and thought he might just stick with it,
although he hadn’t decided for certain.

“What kind of planes do you fly in the Navy?” Professor McKenzie asked.

So Callie hadn’t mentioned that? Or the professor forgot.

“I fly A-6s, sir.”

Not a glimmer showed on the professor’s face. He had a weathered, lined
face, was balding and wore trifocals. Still, he wasn’t bad looking. And
Mrs. McKenzie was a striking lady. Jake could see where Callie got her
looks and figure.

“What kind of planes are those?” the professor asked, apparently just to
make conversation.

“Attack planes. All-weather attack.”

“Attack?”

“Any time, anywhere, any weather, day or night, high, low or in the
middle.”

“You . . . drop . . . bombs?” His face was blank, incredulous.

“And shoot missiles,” Jake said firmly.

Professor McKenzie took a deep breath and stared at this young man who
had been invited into his house by his daughter. His only daughter.
Life is amazing-getting into bed with a woman is the ultimate act of
faith: truly, you are rolling cosmic dice. Who would have believed that
twenty-five years later the child of that union would bring home this
… this …

“Doesn’t it bother you? Dropping bombs?”

“Only when the bad guys are trying to kill me,” Jake Grafton replied
coolly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, sir, maybe I should take my bags
upstairs and wash my face.”

“Of course.” The professor gestured vaguely toward the hallway where the
stairs were and took a healthy swig of his highball.

Jake found the spare bedroom and put his bags on a chair.

Then he sat on the bed staring out the window.

He was in trouble. You didn’t have to be a genius to see that. Callie
hadn’t told her parents anything about him. And that look on the old
man’s face! “You drop bombs?”

He could have just said, “Oh, Mr. Grafton, you’re a hit man for the
Mafia? What an unusual career choice And you look like you enjoy your
work.”

Jesus!

He dug in his pocket and got out the ring. He had purchased this
engagement ring last December on the Shilo and carried it with him ever
since, on the ground, in the air, all the time. He had fully intended
to give it to Callie when the time was right. But this visit … her
parents … it made him wonder. Was he right for this woman? Would he
fit into her family? Oh, love is wonderful and grand and win conquer
all the problems-isn’t that the way the songs go?

Yet under the passion there needs to be something else …

a rightness. He wanted a woman to go the distance with. If Callie was
the woman, now was not the time. She wasn’t ready.

And he wasn’t if she wasn’t.

He looked disgustedly at the ring, then put it back into his pocket.

The evening sun shone through the branches of the old oak. The window
was open, a breeze wafted through the screen. That limb-he could take
out the screen, toss down the bags, get onto that limb and climb down to
the ground.

He could be in a taxi on the way to the airport before they even knew he
was gone.

He was stiff sitting there staring glumly out the window when Callie
came for him thirty minutes later.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, rising from the bed and stretching. -Dinner ready?”

“Yes.”

“Something is wrong, isn’t it?”

There was no way to avoid it. “You didn’t tell me your Dad was Mr.
Liberal.”

“Liberal? He’s about a mile left of Lenin.”

“He looked really thrilled when I told him I was an attack pilot.”

“Dad is Dad. I thought it was me you were interested in?”

Jake Grafton cocked his head. “Well, you are better looking than he is.
Probably a better kisser, too.” He took her arm and led her toward the
stairs. “Wait till you meet my older brother,” he told her. “He can’t
wait for the next revolution. He says the next time we won’t screw it
up like Bobby Lee and Jeff Davis did.”

“How would you rate me as a kisser?” she asked softlyThey paused on the
top stair and she wrapped her arms around him. “This is for score,” he
whispered. “Pucker up.”

That night when they were in bed Professor McKenzie told his wife, “that
boy’s a killer.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Wallace.”

“He kills people. He kills them from the air. He’s an executioner.”

“That’s war, dear. They try to kill him, he tries to kill them.”

“It’s murder.”

Mary McKenzie had heard it all before. “Callie is in love with him,
Wallace. I suggest you keep your opinions and your loaded labels to
yourself. She must make her own decision.”

“Decision? What decision?”

“Whether or not to marry him.”

“Marriage?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know what was going on?” his wife said
crossly. “I swear, you’re blind as a bat! Didn’t you see her at dinner
tonight? She loves him.”

“She won’t marry him,” Professor McKenzie stated positively. “I know
Callie!”

“Yes, dear,” Mrs. McKenzie muttered, just to pacify the man. What her
husband knew about young women in love wouldn’t fill a thimble. She
herself was appalled by Callie’s choice, believing the girl could do a
whale of a lot better if she just looked around a little.

Callie was inexperienced. She didn’t date until college and then
couldn’t seem to find any young men who interested her. Mrs. McKenzie
had hoped she would find a proper man while working for the State
Department-apparently a futile hope. This Grafton boy was physically a
good specimen, yet he was wrong for Callie. He was so … blue-collar.
The girl needed a man who was at least in the same room with her
intellectually.

But she wasn’t going to say that to Callie-not a chance.

Pointed comments would probably be resented, perhaps even resisted. In
this new age of liberated womanhood, covert pressure was the proper way,
the only way. One had to pretend strict neutrality-“This is your
decision, while radiating bad vibes. She owed her daughter maternal
guidance–choosing a mate is much too important to be left to young
women with raging hormones.

Secure in the knowledge that she was up to the task that duty had set
before her, Mrs. McKenzie went peacefully to sleep while her husband
stewed.

At breakfast Professor McKenzie held forth on the Vietnam War. The
night before at dinner he had said little, preferring to let the ladies
steer the conversation. This morning he told Jake Grafton in no
uncertain terms what he thought of the politicians who started the war
and the politicians who kept the nation in it.

If he was expecting an argument, he didn’t get it. In fact, several
times Jake nodded in agreement with the professor’s points, and twice
Callie distinctly heard him say, “You’re right., After the senior
McKenzies left the house for the university, Jake and Callie headed for
the kitchen to finish cleaning up.

“You sure handled Dad,” Callie told her boyfriend.

“Huh?”

“You took the wind right out of Dad’s sails. He thought you were going
to give him a bang-up fight.”

She was looking straight into his gray eyes when he said, “The war’s
over. It’s history. What is there to fight about?”

“Well…… Callie said dubiously.

Jake just shrugged. His knee was fairly healed and the dead were
buried. That chapter of his life was over.

He gathered her into his arms and smiled. “What are we going to do
today?”

He had good eyes, Callie thought. You could almost look in and see the
inner man, and that inner man was simple and good. He wasn’t
complicated or self-absorbed like her father, nor was he warped with
secret doubts and phobias like so many of the young men she knew.
Amazingly, after Vietnam his scars were merely physical, like that slash
on his temple where a bullet gouged him.

Acutely aware of the warmth and pressure of his body against hers, she
gave him a fierce hug and whispered, “What would you like to do?”

The feel and smell and warmth of her seemed more than Jake could take
in. “Anything you want, Miss McKenzie,” he said hoarsely, mildly
surprised at his reaction to her presence, “as long as we do it
together.” that didn’t come out quite the way he intended, and he felt
slightly flustered. You can’t just invite a woman to bed at
eight-thirty in the morning!

His hand massaged the small of her back and she felt her knees get weak.
She took a deep breath to steady herself, then said, “I’d like to take
you to meet my brother, Theron.

He lives in Milwaukee. But first let’s clean up these dishes.

Then, since you so coyly suggested it, let’s slip upstairs in a Freudian
way and get seriously naked.”

When Jake’s cheeks reddened, Callie laughed, a deep, throaty woman’s
laugh. “Don’t pretend you weren’t thinking about that!”

Jake dearly enjoyed seeing her laugh. She had a way of throwing her
head back and unashamedly displaying a mouthful of beautiful teeth that
he found captivating. When she did it her hair swayed and her eyes
crinkled. The effect was mesmerizing. You wanted her to do it again,
and again, and again.

“The thought did flit across my little mind,” he admitted, grinning,
watching her, eyes.

“Ooh, I want you, Jake Grafton,” she said, and kissed him.

A shaft of sunlight streamed through the open window and fell squarely
across them in the bed. After all those months of living aboard ship,
in a steel cubicle in the bowels of the beast where the sun never
reached, Jake thought the sunlight magical. He gently turned her so
their heads were in the sun. The zephyr from the window played with
strands of her brown hair and the sun flecked them with gold. She was
woman, all warm taut sleek smoothness and supple, sensuous wetness.

Somehow she ended up on top and set the rhythm of their lovemaking. As
her hair caressed his cheeks and her hands kneaded his body, the urgency
became overwhelming. He guided her onto him.

When she lay spent across him, her lashes stroking his cheek, her breath
hot on his shoulder, he whispered, “I love YOU-”

“I know,” she replied.

Theron McKenzie had been drafted into the Army in 1967. On October 7,
1968, he stepped on a land mine. He lost one leg below the knee and one
above. Today he walked on artificial legs. Jake thought he was pretty
good at it, although he had to sway his body from side to side to keep
his balance when he threw the legs forward.