Captain O'Reilly's Woman - Ashes of Love 1 Page 13

  The last thing David remembered doing before sleep claimed him was brushing his lips against her forehead and stroking the side of her breast with the tips of his fingers.

  * * *

  David had barely registered the sound of the alarm going off in the pre-dawn darkness when he began shivering. Samantha was easing her delightfully warm, delightfully soft body away from his. He groaned when she hit the switch in the head, flooding the hallway and the bedroom doorway with light. David rolled over and dragged the covers over his face.

  “Come back to bed, woman,” he choked out miserably. “What kind of asinine bastard sets a duty roster that drags a woman out of her lover’s bed at O-five hundred?”

  “You,” Samantha replied with forced sweetness. She kissed the top of his head then slapped the alarm into silence. “Get your tasty behind out of that bed, Captain, and re-set that thing or you’ll be late.”

  His groggy brain and taxed body protested and he faded in and out of wakefulness. The sound of the shower running then a hairdryer prevented him from falling fully back to sleep.

  “You haven’t re-set it, David,” Samantha admonished him as she padded back into the bedroom. She opened a dresser drawer and selected a serviceable, satin-trimmed bra and panty set, along with a khaki shirt, cargo pants and a light field jacket. She dressed quickly and sat on the edge of the bed to do up her jump boots.

  “David,” she called out, laughed at him and smacked his backside.

  “All right...jeez,” David barked and sat up blearily. But the kiss he gave her was warm and engaged when she pressed her mouth to his. He wove his arms around her waist and pulled gently. “Come back to bed.”

  He made a low sound of protest when she stepped away from him. “I love you,” Samantha said gently. “Now re-set that thing so you can catch some more sleep before you have to get up.” She watched him fondly as she slid the trailer keys into her pocket then stepped out into the hall, turned off the lights and the exhaust fan in the head and left the trailer for the mess hall.

  * * *

  “David! Hey. You in there? Dave?”

  David awoke with a start when someone started pounding on the front door. “Shit,” he muttered as he glanced over at the clock. Grabbing a blanket off the bed, he wrapped it around himself and hurried out into the hall. “Coming,” he barked out, unlocked the door and yanked it open.

  His ADC snorted in his face. “Jeez you look like hell,” was all the man said before he walked in and set the big thermos he was carrying on the kitchen counter.

  “Come right on in, Tom. Make yourself at home,” David grumbled to the empty air in front of him then shut the door. He hiked the blanket up higher then secured it around his waist. His mood improved only marginally when Sergeant Tom Stevenson uncapped the thermos and poured hot coffee into a mug from David’s cupboard. Tom shoved the mug at him. “Thanks,” David muttered. He took a sip of the scalding brew and forced himself to swallow. The second mouthful went down easier.

  “Er, good leave?” Tom said dryly. David spun around. His ADC was standing behind him now, beside the nearest sofa. He straightened and there was a lacy, pink and decadently low-cut bra dangling from his index finger.

  David snatched it away but not before Tom had eyed the size of the cups with open approval.

  “Is she still here?” Tom asked conversationally.

  David shot him a look and took another sip of his coffee.

  “I’m only asking because the alternative isn’t good, David. I know you were checked in at the front gate last night with passengers numbering one. Female. The guard on duty failed to ask her for ID or for you to sign her in—an oversight that a week’s worth of KP duty is no doubt well on its way to correcting. No visitors have left the base this morning and, judging from the state you’re in, it’s no wonder.”

  “Smug bastard,” David muttered and retreated down the hall, coffee mug in hand. He dropped the blanket and Samantha’s bra in the bedroom before going into the head and grabbing his electric shaver.

  “So if she’s not still here and she’s not a visitor, that means she’s Army.”

  David froze.

  “I don’t recall seeing any transfer orders for an incoming female officer. All the ones currently on base are married or dykes. That leaves the enlisted women.”

  David sighed then tipped his head back to shave his jaw. “Yeah. I know,” he admitted coldly.

  “So who is she?”

  Looking up, David saw his ADC’s unmistakable silhouette standing in the doorway. Short and stocky, Tom looked like a balding bull terrier. He folded his arms across his chest. David opened his mouth to explain but Tom didn’t give him a chance.

  “Look, David, if you’re banging an enlisted—”

  “Hey,” David shouted. “We’re not banging. We’re...” He held his tongue, getting a grip on his anger. He switched off the shaver then turned on the shower. “We’re not banging,” he repeated, gentling his voice, then finally answered Tom’s question. “Cooper. Samantha Cooper.” He stepped into the flow of water.

  “Corporal Cooper?” Tom blurted out. He dropped his head back dramatically. “Oh your ass is grass, friend, if anybody finds out about this. Look...you’re the best CO I’ve ever served with and I have not come this far with you to watch you throw it all away.”

  Tom was many things—many good things—but he had a tendency to try and bully his Captain. David got a perverse pleasure out of listening to him squirm. “Hey, Tom, I’m sorry,” David apologized in an appropriately remorseful voice.

  “Shoulda known something was up. Shoulda put it together when the two of you took leave at the same time,” Tom muttered to himself.

  David had to hand it to him—Tom had the best memory of anybody he’d ever met. Which he delighted in using to catch David off-guard at odd moments. David hid his grin as he savored the payback he was about to administer. “Yeah. You’re right. Listen, does anybody else know?”

  “No. ‘Course not,” Tom huffed. “I made sure the in and out headcounts matched.”

  “Hey, you’re the best, Tom.” David shampooed his hair quickly then ran the bar of soap across his body. Remembering, for the briefest of moments, how Samantha’s hands had felt on his body last night as she toweled him. He rinsed quickly. “I’ll owe you forever if we could keep this between ourselves.”

  “At least tell me you won’t see her anymore,” Tom demanded imperiously.

  David turned off the water. Stepping out of the enclosure, he wrapped a towel around his hips that was still damp from Samantha’s shower that morning. “Can’t promise that, friend,” David answered with quiet honesty. He slapped Tom’s shoulder for good measure as he walked past him and headed back into the bedroom to dress.

  * * *

  David would have let Tom in on his relationship with Samantha later that morning if the man hadn’t still been acting so smugly superior. And he would have told him after lunch—except all hell broke loose after lunch. The town’s power grid fried and it looked like it would take a few thousand man hours to rebuild. The Army had handed over control of the system to the locals only a few days earlier. Either somebody had screwed up or not been fully trained because the whole system had switched back on itself and most of the conductors had to be replaced.

  That was bad enough. But sending people back to the dark ages just when they’d started to take cold beer and street lights for granted again had created a near mutiny. Everybody in town was pointing fingers, mostly at each other and it was all David could do to keep a lid on things.

  He sent in crews to work around the clock. He logged a lot of hours himself to ensure that all the appropriate locals were fully trained and up to speed. He scheduled extra military police who often did more good just by hauling buckets of water and entertaining bored children than policing the streets. David didn’t know how he would have made it through if Samantha hadn’t been there for him. Despite her full workload, she took care of him. She made
sure he ate and had clean and pressed uniforms to wear, demanded he sleep instead of staying up late and doing paperwork. But by the middle of the second week, things were easing off. The power was back on in town and in most of the surrounding countryside. Those areas still without would be up and running in another day or two.

  When he finally had a chance to sit back and take stock of the past weeks, he realized with a start that Samantha hadn’t bled yet.

  “Could you be pregnant?” he broached the subject one morning when her alarm went off. Switching on a light, he watched her face for a reaction.

  Samantha smiled thinly. “Let’s not get excited okay?” she said calmly. But there was an unmistakable light in her eye before she looked away and padded off to the head. “Cycles can be unpredictable. Another couple of days and I’ll be officially two weeks late. I’ll run a test then.” She knew a lot of first pregnancies spontaneously aborted before then but she wasn’t about to share that with David. He followed her and sat on the closed toilet seat while she stepped into the shower. “We’ve been having sex a lot and that’s a whole new set of variables and, well, pounding for my body,” she said bluntly, almost talking to herself as she washed her hair. She laughed softly. “I’m surprised I haven’t come down with a raging case of cystitis the way we’ve been going at it.”

  Not sure what she was talking about and not really sure he wanted to, David kissed her good-bye and went back to bed to grab another hour of sleep before getting up for the day.

  * * *

  Samantha kept her outward cool the morning she followed David’s ADC into his office. “Make yourself comfortable, Corporal,” the sergeant said, although his usual warmth was conspicuously absent. He nodded toward one of David’s guest chairs. “Captain O’Reilly won’t be too much longer. He’s attending the dedication of the new primary school in town.” Without his customary nod and wink, the sergeant turned on his heel and left her alone.

  Pulling the pregnancy test kit out of one of the cargo pockets in her fatigues, Samantha walked into David’s private head. She shut the door behind her and proceeded to pee on the stick, checked her watch, sat down on the closed toilet seat and waited.

  After what seemed like forever, she heard the outer-office door open.

  “Samantha?” David called out.

  “In here,” she said. Reaching over, she pushed the door open.

  “What are you doing?” he asked with laughter in his voice.

  “Waiting to see if the plus sign comes up.”

  “What the...?” David walked in, pulling off his dress cap and unbuttoning his tunic. “Is that a...?” he asked excitedly.

  “Uh huh,” Samantha answered, glancing at her watch. “Five more minutes and we’ll know.” She watched him swing his weight onto the sink counter effortlessly then the two of them sat without talking, staring at the white, plastic stick, willing the little plus sign to come up.

  “What’s it doing?” David asked nervously as a waver of blue started to appear on the indicator.

  Samantha smiled up at him. She was used to such tests, used to distributing them to other women. It was different this time and his nervousness mirrored her own. “Give it another few seconds,” she said quietly. She sighed in quiet delight when the little blue plus sign appeared. “Yes,” she breathed, shutting her eyes for just an instant then jumping up and rushing over to him, launching herself into his arms. “Positive for pregnancy.”

  He hugged her so fiercely she thought her back would crack. “Well done, Captain,” she purred next to his ear then kissed it softly.

  David laughed quietly then pulled his head away from hers so he could look down at her. Grinning from ear to ear, he touched her. His fingertips resting low on her abdomen. He looked at his hand on her body, picturing their child forming inside her.

  “Do you want a boy or a girl?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes.”

  It took him a minute to figure out what she’d said. Then he laughed again—that deep, unchecked and lusty laugh that was David’s alone.

  Picking her up easily, feeling her arms and legs wrap possessively around his body, David carried her into his office. He just stood in the middle of it while she brought her mouth down on his. At first, she kissed him gently, then sank her tongue into him so deeply there was no part of him that couldn’t feel her heat. Her taste.

  “Shit on a stick...Dave!”

  His head shot up at his ADC’s incoherent shout of outrage. The sergeant was standing in the doorway, glaring at them. His fists were balled up at his sides.

  “They’ll bust you down to private if anybody sees you. What the hell—?”

  “She’s pregnant,” David interrupted happily.

  “Double shit on a—”

  “Can you start the paperwork to authorize us to get married?”

  David grinned foolishly when Samantha gasped then hugged him with every ounce of strength she had.

  “No I can’t do that,” Sergeant Stevenson blurted out, appalled. “You’re a Captain. She’s a Corporal. You’ll never get authorization.”

  “She’s RI.”

  “Oh. Well I guess they will authorize it,” the sergeant replied quietly. Then his expression darkened. “And you couldn’t have told me this two weeks ago?” he bellowed then calmed himself visibly before shooting his boss a wry look. “Er, yours, I’ll assume?” he asked, glancing down at Samantha’s waist. He caught his boss’ arch look but didn’t back away from it.

  “This one. And every one of the others she’s going to have too,” David answered coldly.

  His ADC sighed quietly then turned away. “I’ll get started on it right away, boss. Guess we’ll have to cover up the electrical outlets...” he muttered as he walked down the hallway, talking to himself, “...if we’re going to have a bunch of ankle biters crawling around the place. Guess I’ll call my mother. She knows about baby-proofing and shit like that.”

  Chapter Eight

  Two days later, Sergeant Tom Stevenson sent out an electronic memo to all personnel on base, advising them of Captain David O’Reilly’s impending marriage to Corporal Samantha Cooper, RI. The memo included an invitation to an informal reception in celebration.

  At the reception, for the first time, Samantha was sporting an obscenely large, diamond engagement ring. It had been David’s mother’s and he’d taken it out of his safety deposit box at the bank back home before they’d returned to base. When he’d told her that after putting it on her finger, she’d burst into tears. At first he’d been dumbfounded. His Samantha wasn’t a crier. But while he’d held her and soothed her, he figured that mothers-to-be were entitled to their emotions.

  They took four days off. Two of them were spent with her family. The military-transport flight to what used to be Michigan had taken only an hour. They were married there in a quickly arranged ceremony. Neither of them were big on splashy gatherings and besides, it was a little awkward...the Cooper’s nineteen-year old daughter dragging home the thirty-one year old CO who’d knocked her up.

  Samantha’s father—the splitting image of her except for the beard—looked like he wanted to pop David one but when Samantha’s mother closed her fingers over his forearm and squeezed, hard, he became civil if nothing else.

  David was surprised by two things. First, the difference in her parents’ ages. Her father looked only a few years older than him while her mother was almost sixty. Secondly, Samantha was by far the shortest member of her family. Both her parents, her younger brother and even her younger sister were tall...courtesy of her fraternal grandmother’s genes, she’d said. And as they lay together that night in what used to be Samantha’s old room, surrounded by garish flowers painted on the walls and sleeping beneath a pink coverlet, David smiled into the darkness. He held her and stroked her bare arm where it lay across his chest. Holding in his arms, for the first time, his Missus. O’Reilly.

  After Michigan, they returned home. The people in town would accept nothing less than their
Captain O’Reilly and his bride getting married there. So they kept their earlier wedding a secret from all but their closest friends and, on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in the town square, had a second, public marriage ceremony. They had two gloriously solitary days at the cottage before heading back to work.

  They were promptly thrown into the ordered chaos of moving base. Private JT Winters was assigned to work with Samantha as she did her part packing up the infirmary. The chief medic, a sixty-year old surgeon, had taken over personal oversight of Samantha’s prenatal care and he refused to let her lift anything over eight kilos—and absolutely nothing over her head.

  For his part, JT liked the assignment. He got to hang with Samantha for most of the day and his awkwardness with the Captain began to fade. It took two days to pack up the base. It took another three to move the convoy of trucks and trailers over an endless series of bad roads until they reached the town of Montpelier in what had once been the beautiful state of Vermont. Years ago, wildfires had ravaged much of the state but the old Jones Forest, directly to the east of town, had survived. The town, with a clean river running to the south, was centrally located to other populated areas and had once had two good interstate highways nearby. It was a perfect candidate for the Army’s Reclamation Program.

  * * *

  “Lieutenant Edward Ramos.” The commander of the reconnaissance unit that had been patrolling the area for the past month stepped up to the heavy transport truck David and his ADC rode in, introducing himself. Recognizing the captain’s insignia, he saluted smartly.

  “Lieutenant.” David nodded, returned the man’s salute then looked around the base site. Off to his left, heavy diesel-powered equipment powered up and began driving out of transports. One was a well-digging rig. The rest, following a set grid pattern, began to tear neat furrows in the ground, laying out the grid of water and sewage pipes that would run beneath the camp for the next six or so months...when it would be time to pull up stakes and move again.