Captain O'Reilly's Woman - Ashes of Love 1 (17 page)

*
   
*
   
*

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.

Not for the first time, David was thankful that Samantha was riding with the rear-guard a full day behind them. She was now almost two months pregnant and had started feeling queasy in the morning. That and being jostled over bad roads made him grateful that, when she arrived tomorrow, he’d at least be able to offer her a fully set up trailer with indoor plumbing and electricity. He turned his attention back to the officer beside him.

Lieutenant Ramos was probably David’s age, around six feet with that powerful, hungry build that defined most recon soldiers. He had dark eyes, a deeply tanned complexion and long, dark hair he wore pulled back into a loose knot at the back of his neck. His look was bizarrely at odds with his standard-issue army cap and fatigues. But then recon soldiers weren’t supposed to look like regular Army. They were supposed to blend in with indigenous populations, peaceful and hostile alike. They were ghosts, trained observers and lethal in weaponless combat.

David himself had spent two years doing recon work so he appreciated the sacrifices and the risks they took.

The Army had only six reconnaissance units and they were sent out all over New North America, checking on the viability of communities that submitted proposals to the Reclamation Program. Checking the truthfulness of their claims, they made sure a reclamation unit, when it arrived, wasn’t walking into an ambush. They were the cowboys of the modern Army and it was the kind of work that often attracted wilder and rougher recruits.

But since the reconnaissance operative standing beside him had made it to the rank of lieutenant, David assumed he’d mastered the less staid aspects of his personality. “Any new developments since your last report, Lieutenant?” David asked.

“None, sir. The town’s got a head man and a rudimentary town council. There’s a local gang that strong-arms the population in these parts. They drop in from time to time.”

“Define time to time,” David asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at the lieutenant. He had great respect for the work recon units did, but because they operated outside of normal Army structure, their leaders often fell into the habit of not fully reporting their moves or situation. Instead, they relied on themselves and their unit. That was important but Lieutenant Ramos knew he was operating under David’s command for the next week or so. He had to get back into the habit of sharing detailed information.

“Yes, sir,” Edward replied, sounding properly chastised. “The local gang...twenty to thirty men. The numbers vary. They come into town roughly every two months, shake down the population for food, supplies and use strong-arm recruitment tactics when their numbers are low.”

“When were they here last?” David asked, thinking that a group that organized would have to be infiltrated, their leaders identified and their members arrested. He wondered why the Lieutenant hadn’t jumped in and started the job himself. It was the kind of proactive work that got officers recognized and promoted. Ramos, with his years of experience, should have been all over that.

“Just under six weeks ago.”

David nodded. “And the state of the town’s water, electrical and food-supply network?” Jeez, getting information out of this guy was like pulling teeth.

“Well water and two jury-rigged solar-panel fields. Enough power generation for approximately two hours every afternoon. The farm land around here is good so they’re fairly self-sufficient as far as food goes. But they’re not on anybody’s regular delivery route so if they need additional supplies or food they can’t grow themselves, they send a couple of trucks out and barter for what they need.”

“Have you tested the water quality?” David felt his patience slipping away and his ADC, who was standing by his elbow taking notes, raised a brow when he caught the tone in his voice.

“Um...yes and no,” Lieutenant Ramos hedged. He grinned up at David apologetically. “We took samples but our medic was transferred out two weeks ago. There’s no one else in the unit who knows how to test them.”

David nodded. “Well we’ll take care of that. Today.” He glanced back down at Ramos. “You’ve arranged for me and my staff to meet with their head man today?”

“Yes, sir. All set,” Ramos nodded firmly. “Would it be possible to set up a rudimentary health clinic before the rest of your squadron gets here? The town’s been without medical care for some time.”

“Yes. Absolutely.” David turned to his ADC. “Tom, make a note that Lieutenant Ramos has requested that medical aid be one of our top priorities.” He shot the Lieutenant a pointed look. This was more like it. At least the man was capable of
some
proactive thinking.

David, his heads of staff, Lieutenant Ramos and Ramos’ sergeant arrived in town before their thirteen-hundred meeting with the interim mayor of Montpelier. They and the MPs with them walked the two main streets in town. They looked over the row of rough stalls, currently empty, that served as the community’s open-air weekly market. One of the Army’s massive, armored medical RVs pulled up nearby, beside what had likely been, at one time, a public park. It was now rank with overgrown weeds, refuse and derelict vehicles. The base’s head medic, like David, was an old hand at spotting the possibilities in locations. David, himself, couldn’t have chosen better.

Montpelier, like other such communities, would continue to operate on the barter system for at least another two months. Before then, their economy wouldn’t be stable enough to revert to government-backed currency. The market would stay, but the Army would see that it improved. The most visible and meaningful, public site for reclamation would be the town’s central park. Having their first clinic on that site, beside the market, meant that everyone would see—and take pride in the visible proof of their return to prosperity.