Solfleet: The Call of Duty (35 page)

He sighed.
Marissa. Damn his big mouth anyway. He didn’t genuinely love her, not really, but
he’d as much as told her otherwise. So now what was he going to do? He liked
her well enough as a person, of course—very much, in fact. She was a great girl
who was fun to be with and fun to play around with a little once in a while. He
certainly didn’t want to hurt her. But it wasn’t love that he felt for her, it was
lust. Pure, unadulterated lust. He would have loved to have had sex with her
right there in the shower when he had the chance, but the idea of carrying on a
romantic relationship with her held little appeal for him. She was a Marine,
and a Ranger at that—essentially one of the guys, except for her gender. Not
his idea of serious relationship material at all.

He drew
another deep, deep breath, yawned, and then exhaled slowly. He was too tired to
think about it anymore. Short as it had been, the FTX had
seemed
like
one of the longest, most grueling ones he’d ever been a part of. Two weeks,
bivouacked high up on the barren, hard, dusty gray-faced slopes of the western
range. The nights had been bitterly cold, the days almost oven-like. But now,
finally, he was home, breathing in the minty, pine-scented air and gazing down
at the lush, living garden, enjoying some much needed peace and quiet.

“You’re home
early,” Carolyn said as she stepped out onto the deck behind him, pulling her
bathrobe on around her. She made it sound as if it were some kind of miracle.

So much for
the peace and quiet. But at least she couldn’t give him the old ‘you’ve ruined
my plans again’ speech, since she’d only just climbed out of bed. For that he felt
eternally thankful.

“We cleaned
most of our gear in the field as soon as we broke camp last night,” he told
her. “All we had to do when we got back to the base was put everything away. We
knocked out our leadership debriefing and got released by about four-thirty
this morning.”

He leaned
close to kiss her good morning as she reached his side, but only because it was
the proper thing to do. His heart certainly wasn’t in it. Neither was hers
apparently, as at the last second she turned her face away so that his kiss
landed on her cheek.

She tied off
her robe, then leaned on the railing next to him and gazed down into the
garden. “In that case you should have been home over two hours ago, shouldn’t
you?”

“They had a
big breakfast buffet set up for us when we got back. They put a lot of hard
work into it and there was a ton of food there. I knew you’d still be asleep,
so I stayed and had breakfast with some of the guys.”

“Of course
you did,” she said sarcastically. “Just you and some of the guys. No big deal.
God knows there’s nothing more enjoyable than spending time with some of the
guys. Especially right after you’ve been with them day and night for two solid
weeks. Certainly wouldn’t want to go home and get into bed with your wife.”

He looked at
her. If that was an invitation—it didn’t sound much like one, but she
had
slept
in the nude, knowing that he was coming home—he was certainly ready to accept
after what had almost happened back in the shower stall. “It’s still early,” he
pointed out.

She returned
his semi-amorous gaze with a much colder one of her own. “I’m up now,” she pointed
out, her tone making it very clear that she had
not
been extending an
invitation.

Dylan didn’t
respond to that. How was it that she could go for days or weeks at a time
without seeing him or even being able to speak to him and still greet him with
such a poor and spiteful attitude? He just couldn’t understand it.

“So how did
this latest in a very long chain of field training exercises go?” she asked,
changing the subject. What she didn’t say with words came through as clear as
crystal in her icy tone. She didn’t much care how the FTX went. The question,
like his attempted kiss moments earlier, was only offered out of perceived obligation.

Dylan shook
his head, almost imperceptibly, thinking about Marissa again. The urge to ask
Carolyn for a divorce had been weighing heavily on him for several months. So
far he’d been able to resist it, to bite his tongue and not bring up the
subject. But now that he’d come so close to telling Marissa that he loved her—he
didn’t truly love her, he reminded himself, but perhaps he could
learn
to
love her, given the chance—now that he’d held her in his arms and kissed her
and very nearly made love to her...

‘How’d the
field training exercise go?’ Carolyn had asked. “It was a little too long,” he
answered. “Only two weeks, but somehow too long.” And then, for whatever it might
be worth, he added, “I’m really glad to be home,” even though he wasn’t.

She didn’t
respond. A quick glance her way confirmed that she wasn’t even listening to
him. Not really. He could have asked her what was wrong, but if he did she’d only
refuse to discuss it as usual. She’d just insist that nothing was wrong, which
would annoy the hell out of him and most likely touch off an argument because
if there were nothing wrong then there was no good reason for her to behave the
way she was behaving. Then again, she’d never needed a reason, had she? God! He
was so sick and tired of her childishness!

Yes. He’d be
much better off if he didn’t bother to ask. That was a lesson he’d learned a long
time ago, the hard way. Don’t ask. Just don’t ask. He’d tried it for the first
time right after Ranger school, and again soon after they moved into their present
home. Eventually he’d quit asking for good, preferring the long periods of not
speaking over all that arguing. Now that he and Marissa had started...whatever
it was they’d started, he wasn’t all that sure he cared about his marriage any
more than Carolyn did, despite the fact that he’d always tried harder than she
had to make it work.

“Too long,”
he repeated, referring both to the length of the exercise and to what he was
beginning to see as a pointless struggle to save an already failed marriage.

She peered
at him out of the corner of her eye. “And what about the platoon’s resident
beauty queen, little Miss Marissa? I’ll bet
she
didn’t think it was too
long.”

Dylan looked
over at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on,
Dylan. We’ve been to a lot of unit social functions since we got here. I’ve
seen the way she watches you. She wants you in a bad way.”

“You’re
imagining things,” he told her as he looked away.

“Am I? Then
why are you so uncomfortable all of the sudden?”

“What makes
you think I’m uncomfortable?”

“Look me in
the eye and tell me there’s nothing going on between the two of you.”

“Oh, here we
go again,” he remarked as he straightened up. She was going out of her way to
pick a fight, and she wasn’t going to give up until she got one. He should have
asked her what was wrong after all, he now realized. Her refusal to discuss it
would have led to a short argument, then to one of those long periods of
silence between them, which would have been uncomfortable but a lot easier to
deal with than her petty, jealous accusations.

Especially
now that there was actually something to those petty, jealous accusations.

“That’s
right,” she confirmed, standing with him. “Here we go again.”

“I’ve told
you at least a dozen times, Carolyn, there’s nothing going on between Marissa
and me,” he reminded her as calmly as he could manage. Then, looking her square
in the eye, he asked, “Why do I have to tell you again?”

“Because you
haven’t convinced me it’s the truth,” she answered, glaring back at him.

“It
is
the
truth, Carolyn,” he proclaimed. Now of course, for the first time ever, that
often repeated proclamation was a lie. “There is absolutely nothing going on
between us.”

Lying usually
left a bitter taste in his mouth, but in this case he didn’t have a choice. If
he told her about what had happened earlier she’d probably accuse him of having
been in a sexual relationship with Marissa for months. Convinced of that, she’d
not only file for divorce, which he would probably welcome at this point, but
she’d likely try to hurt his career as well.

“Maybe there
is and maybe there isn’t,” she said after a moment, “but she’s attractive
enough to tempt you.”

There was certainly
no denying that fact, and Carolyn would never believe him if he tried. She knew
him far too well. In her eyes a denial would be akin to confessing all, even though
there really was nothing to confess. Well, almost nothing. Damn her anyway. She
could be almost psychic sometimes. No, even worse than a psychic. A wife, with
several years of experience.

“So she’s
attractive,” he admitted as he turned away and leaned on the railing again. And
why not? She
was
attractive. Hell, she was downright gorgeous. That was
an obvious, objective fact. “So what? So are several billion other women in the
known galaxy, including you.”

“Don’t even
try to sweet-talk me, Dylan,” she warned. “We’ve been together too long for
that to work.”

“Well, you
are.” She was. That was the truth.

“Tell me
something,” she said, brushing off the compliment like so much worthless dust. “Was
Marissa one of the ‘guys’ you had breakfast with this morning?”

“Yeah, she
was there. Her and about twenty-some other people from the platoon, out on the
back patio. So what? She’s just another Marine, Carolyn, just like I am. She
just happens to be assigned to my squad.”

“Exactly.
She serves the Corps directly under you, which is exactly where she’d love to
serve you personally. I’ll bet getting naked with you in the showers is the
highlight of every mission for her. Probably for you, too.”

“We don’t
get naked together!” Dylan shouted, glaring at her. He was quickly losing what
little patience he had left.

“Oh no?”
Carolyn asked, unperturbed. “You told me yourself there’s only one locker room
in the whole barracks.”

“Oh, for God
sake, Carolyn! Are you listening to yourself? Do you have any idea how childish
you sound?”

“What’s
wrong, Dylan? Can’t answer my question without lying?”

“The showers
are in separate stalls with their own private changing cubicles,” he pointed
out. It wasn’t anything she didn’t already know. “Just like the ones you’d find
at a public gym or a health club. We couldn’t see each other even if we wanted
to, and you damn well know it!” He looked away again, then added as an
afterthought, “Besides, Corporal Ortiz has her own shower in her own room in
the barracks. Another fact you were already aware of.”

“Yeah, I
know that. But did she use her own shower in her own room this morning?” she
asked, her tone growing even more challenging.

Dylan just
shook his head in disgust, completely exasperated. Why did he even bother? “I
don’t know because I didn’t look for her,” he lied without a second thought.

“That’s what
I thought,” she said, drawing her own conclusion. “She used the locker room
showers with everyone else.”

She faced out
toward the garden again, but didn’t lean on the railing with him. “I still can’t
believe the Corps lets men and women who work so closely together take showers
together, even if they
are
in separate stalls. Especially when some of
them are married to other people. It’s just too easy for a couple of them to
step into the same one and...how should I say it?...spend some quality time
together.”

“Carolyn, would
you please just...” Dylan stopped short, trying to keep his temper under
control. Whatever it was that was
really
bothering her, it was bothering
her a lot. She was really going all out this time. Good thing he’d never told
her about how the Rangers’ field expedient procedures ignored gender
completely.

“You know
what? Forget it,” he said as calmly as he could. He looked up at her. “Just let
it go, all right?”

“Fine,” she
said, looking back at him.

“Thank you.”

“But it
looks like the two of you are going to be spending some more time together
again real soon.”

Her
expression made it clear that she had something more to say. He waited, but she
said nothing. She was going to wait him out and make him ask. More
childishness. “What makes you say that?” he asked immediately. He was in no
mood for any more of her stupid mind games—mind games that easily rivaled any
of those he’d experienced in Basic Training, Advanced Marine Infantry Training,
or Ranger training.

“Your lieutenant
just called,” she answered, “personally.”

A personal
call from the lieutenant? That wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all. Such a
call so soon after an FTX could only mean one thing. Something serious had gone
down, real world as he would say, and SpecOps was being called on to respond.

“What did he
say?”

“You’ve got
what he called a ‘real-world’ mission tomorrow.”

Dylan sighed
as his eyes fell to a point in space somewhere between himself and the garden. “Tomorrow,”
he mumbled. “Great.”

“I thought
you’d like that,” she went on. “Who knows? Maybe now you’ll have a chance to
sleep with her, too...assuming you haven’t already. I know that’s what you
want.”

Yes it was
what he wanted, perhaps even more than she suspected. Perhaps even more than
he
suspected. But despite her suspicions she couldn’t possibly know that for sure.
So why was she being such a bitch this morning?

He looked up
at her again and said, “I thought you just agreed to let it go.”

“Truth
hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Carolyn!”
he shouted, pounding his fists on the railing and glaring angrily at her. All
right. For the first time, her suspicions were correct. So what? He’d still had
enough. “Just shut the hell up, okay! This whole argument is so damn stupid!”