Ethan looked at David warily for a long time before, slowly, extending his hand. David shook it then watched the skinny man turn and walk back to his wife and baby. When Samantha appeared, David grinned and looked at her feet. She was now wearing blue paper slippers instead of the pretty little sandals she’d put on that morning.
“Don’t ask.” She cut him off when he opened his mouth and pointed at her feet.
Chapter Six
About fifty minutes later, the two of them were sitting in the hospital’s small boardroom along with Cheryl, two other members of the hospital board, the administrator and their lone OB/GYN.
As much as David was put off by the idea, he agreed to lending his name to the new emergency wing. Construction would start that summer and it would double the available space. In the fifteen years since the Army had come in and reclaimed the town, the population had grown. Babies had been born, certainly, but most of the increase came from outside. Word had spread about what a good place it was to live, raise a family, and the trickle of people kept coming.
The meeting was over quickly and, as she rose to leave, the Gynie placed his hand on Samantha’s forearm. She and David waited for the others to leave.
“Doctor Nichol,” he introduced himself, although they’d already been told his name. He looked pointedly at Samantha. “You’re a medic?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “A, what, a sergeant?”
“A corporal,” she answered evenly.
“Hmm.” Doctor Nichol looked at her carefully. “You’re twenty?” Twenty one?”
“Nineteen.” This time it was David that answered. He ignored the way the much older man’s brow came up.
“RI,” Samantha supplied as she felt David’s arm come around her waist.
“Ah,” Doctor Nichol breathed, “well desperate times and all that. I’m actually a dermatologist,” he explained. “But after the Great War, there was a lot more need for delivering babies than treating acne. So I changed specialties on the fly. But you,” he fixed his dark eyes on Samantha. “You’ll make a good obstetrician. You should apply to medical school.”
“She’s going. Next year,” David spoke up. He gave her an apologetic grin. “I signed your admission papers last month.”
“Good,” Doctor Nichol replied decisively then headed for the door. “Come back here to finish your residency, Corporal. We’ll have a spot open for you.” With a final nod, he left.
“Listen, David, I’m telling you, you should think this through.” Cheryl paced her kitchen then stood in front of the window, plucking at the oven mitt on her hand. Looking over the back yard, she watched her two oldest children play.
Cheryl, David and Samantha were alone in the house, except for the baby who was napping. Dinner, a roast of pork and potatoes, was simmering in the oven while they waited for Cheryl’s husband to get home from work. Jason had been an investment broker before the war. Older than Cheryl by at least fifteen years, he’d moved to town after plague had wiped out what was left of his family in the city. They’d owned a cottage up here and he’d sought shelter after their deaths in the only other place he knew. The year after Cheryl had turned sixteen, they’d married. He now managed the local bank and was the town’s treasurer.
David rubbed his forehead wearily. “If we want to start a family, it’s our business and nobody else’s.”
Samantha kept her mouth shut but mentally cursed the grocery-store manager who, as predicted, had spread the news that she and David were there to get pregnant. Instead of getting in the middle of their argument and stirring things up even more, she pet Cheryl’s dog. The big, rangy mongrel smiled up at her adoringly. With his long tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, he turned in front of her, offering up various body parts for her to scratch.
“You wouldn’t say that if you saw that little girl, Rebecca, like I did today. Barely a scrap of meat on her bones. Little more than a baby herself.” Cheryl glanced over at Samantha compassionately. “Jason and I waited. We’d been married six years before I got pregnant with Alicia. Samantha’s still so young and—”
“You gave up any right to have a say in my life when you married Jason instead of me,” David bellowed. He turned on Cheryl and his eyes were hard and cold like ice. “Our friendship will only carry you so far, Cheryl.”
“Er, did I come in at a bad time?” A man, balding and in his fifties, walked into the kitchen and set down a leather satchel beside the counter. “David,” he greeted their guest, nodded, then walked over to Cheryl and pressed a fleeting kiss to her cheek before stepping away from her bristling anger.
“Fine then,” Cheryl spit out at David and threw the oven mitt onto the counter. “My mouth is shut on the subject.”
“Good,” David barked back, although less vehemently than earlier.
“But you’re still getting fat,” Cheryl tossed out at him, her eyes narrowing.
David’s mouth thinned and he shot her a dark look, but he held his temper and his tongue. Eventually, he shook his head wryly. “Well, that’s none of your business either. Now can you please feed us before we find something else to argue about?”
“I’ll second that,” Jason piped up happily then, grinning, held out his hand to Samantha.
* * *
David cut the ignition on his Jeep after pulling into one of the garages on the access lot for the cottage. “Some day, huh?”
“Some day,” Samantha agreed wryly then reached out and wove her fingers into his.
While he’d taken Ethan to the auto repair shop, she’d stayed in the ER to help out. Working with Doctor Nichol, she’d sutured wounds, dispensed antibiotics, been an ear for people more lonely and distressed than hurt. She monitored a patient with an irregular heart rhythm before he was taken to intensive care.
Everyone she spoke to told her how happy they were that their David had found a woman for himself, and a new doctor for them.
Maybe Cheryl’s right,” David admitted grudgingly. He got out of the Jeep, came around Samantha’s side and gave her a hand out. She didn’t need it, he just liked doing it.
“About?”
“About waiting to have children. I saw what happened today. That kid almost died, didn’t she?”
Samantha couldn’t lie to him or sugar-coat what had happened. She nodded and watched him secure the garage before he took her hand and led her down the stairs to the dock.
“Look, Sam, I know women die in childbirth. More than need to. That’s why we move into every town with a full medical staff and push obstetrics training on our medics.” He held her hand when she stepped into the boat. Instead of taking the seat behind the wheel, he sat on the gunwale, watching her. His eyes were bright and intense. “I’m not going to lose you.”
Reaching out and taking his hand, Samantha stood and walked over to him. She nuzzled her breasts into his chest and stroked his broad shoulder. “There are differences between her situation and mine.” David opened his mouth to argue but she didn’t give him a chance. “One is prenatal care. I’ll get plenty. She had none. If there is a problem, we’ll see it coming weeks in advance and do something about it. I’m taking prenatal vitamin supplements. Yes, already,” she added when David looked at her sideways. “Two...my health and living conditions. I’m well fed. I have clean water to drink and bathe in. I’m healthy, not to mention the fact I’m three years older than her. It makes a big difference. My body’s strong enough to handle childbirth. In nine months from now and twenty years from now. Third, I have access to medical care. She didn’t.”
With a deep, quiet sigh, David wrapped his hand around her waist and lowered his head to her chest. “You made a difference today, Sam. You were there and you saved them.”
“Yes,” she answered without vanity. “And because you run your squadron like you do, I was given the training I needed to do that. It wasn’t just me in there today, David. It was me and the Army’s medical corps.” She watched him for a long moment. “Still scared?”
David bristled at her words before he realized she was right. He was scared. For her. Of losing her. Of not being able to do a damn thing about it.
“You’re entitled to be,” Samantha continued with quiet surety. “Every good father-to-be is. It’s part of what makes you a good man.” She brushed his short, soft hair lightly then kissed his forehead. “It’s the same, healthy concern that makes people use child seats in cars. Makes them teach kids to look both ways before crossing the street and not jump off the edge of a bridge just because everybody else is doing it.”
She chuckled and, after a moment, David did too. Then she smiled and tipped his head up to hers. “So...let’s talk about the other elephant in the room,” Samantha changed the subject quietly and looked at him pointedly.
“Cheryl,” David sighed. “Just don’t let her hear you call her an elephant. She’s got a phobia about getting fat.”
“Ah. Well that explains some of it, anyway.”
“Some of what?” David asked, grinning.
“Why you two are always at each other. How long were you together?”
David sighed then stroked Samantha’s arm lightly. “Almost three years. We were fourteen...yeah, I know. We were too young. But the Great War had ended only four years earlier. There wasn’t a lot of parental supervision going on back then. The relationship progressed.
“We’d been friends forever. Her family lived up here full time and I spent my summers here.” He shrugged. “A few kisses. A little groping. She was the first girl I ever made love with,” he added quietly. Looking at Samantha, he tried to gauge her reaction.
She offered him a hesitant smile. “I kind of figured.”
Sighing again, David started up the engines and watched Samantha untie the stern and bow lines before he put the boat in reverse and eased it away from the dock. He didn’t say anything else until they were back at the island and the boat was tucked up in its cradle for the night. They sat on the edge of the dock and watched the sun drop lower toward the horizon.
“When I turned sixteen, I joined the Army. I told her I wanted to marry her and that when I was promoted to corporal, I would. She seemed fine with that. Then less than six months later, I’m back here with a full squadron. With all the bells and whistles and fire-power that come with it.” There was a harsh edge in his voice now. “And she saw, really saw for the first time, what life would be like married to the Army. The guerilla combat the first few weeks you arrive in a new community. All the work and the hours. Building a place up just to leave and start somewhere else in six months.”
He brushed imaginary dirt off his pant leg and looked over at Samantha. “She’s lived here all her life. She never could get used to the idea of moving. So instead of marrying me, she married Jason—a thirty-two year old former investment banker who’s now managing the city’s finances. A man who’d had a family, a stable life, and wanted one again.”
“Has there been anyone else since?” Samantha asked quietly. She leaned into him and slid her arm around his waist.
“Not really,” David answered then lay his chin on the top of her head. “My first couple of years, I had nothing to offer a woman and nobody was interested. Then, after I got accepted at officer’s school, women in the different communities my unit worked in were interested. But I realized pretty quick they were interested in regular meals and a patched roof over their heads more than me. I can’t fault them for that,” he added sadly. “And I suppose the moving around seemed glamorous to some.”
“Do you still love her?”
“Cheryl? Yes,” David answered with brutal honesty. “But now it’s more like how we felt about each other when we were kids. She never wanted the life she would have had with me. And I never wanted to give it up for her. She’s happy. And so am I,” he added, kissed the top of Samantha’s head and breathed in the scent of her hair.
“She still loves you too,” Samantha said with quiet certainty.
“Why do you say that?” David grinned.
“Because she wouldn’t bust your chops like she does if she didn’t.”
David exhaled sharply. “I guess you’re right. We fight like brother and sister, and don’t hate each other like ex-lovers. But...you know what I want?” He changed the subject and was now wearing a decidedly lecherous grin.
“Hmm?”
“I want...” Smiling crookedly, David kissed Samantha one more time then stood and helped her to her feet. “To get in the shower with you and rinse the stink of today off us.” He loped his arm around her waist and headed up to the cottage. “I want to get you out of those stupid, paper shoes you’re wearing. And I want to make love to you in our bed.”
Samantha laughed softly. “We actually haven’t done it there, have we?”
“Nope. And I want to still be making love to you when the sun comes up.” Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to the base of her ear.
* * *
Early the next morning, as the gloom outside their bedroom windows began to brighten, David lay on his back and sighed at the exquisiteness of the sensation as he lifted Samantha’s small, supple body off his replete cock. She lay down beside him, her damp shoulder touching his while their breathing slowed.
“Wow,” she murmured. Her voice was low and ego-strokingly satisfied.
“Wow indeed,” David parroted. He turned to her and stroked the moist, soft skin on her abdomen. “I thought about doing that to you during my staff meeting last week.”
“Er, hard keeping your mind on your work, Captain?” Samantha drawled teasingly, glancing at his now flaccid cock.
“Definitely,” David grinned then kissed her. His mouth brushed her swollen lips, loving the sweet taste of her.. Still grinning, he thought about how it felt when he made love to her, how warm and eager she was, and how hard he got just being around her.
“Well I’d like to do something about that,” Samantha said then rolled onto her side. Propping her head up in her hand, she looked at him. “When our leave is over, can we live together?”
“I didn’t think we wouldn’t,” David replied.
“In your quarters or are you going to move back into the enlisted barracks?”
The squadron’s CO had his own mobile home. It was set far enough away from the other buildings to allow for some privacy while remaining within the secured base perimeter. David laughed softly. “Mine,” he answered decisively. “I’ve come too far to go back to sharing a communal bathroom with anybody except you,” he added, kissing her nose then leaning back so he could try and read what was going on in her head.
“Good,” Samantha replied, got out of bed and padded over to the closet. She returned carrying a hand-held computer. “Time for me to flex these RI muscles of mine,” she said and climbed back into bed.
His brow furrowed, David watched as, bare-breasted and propping a pillow behind her back, Samantha leaned against the headboard and flicked on the light on her night table. She turned on the computer. It was standard-issue medic’s equipment and looked like a pre-GW text-capable cell phone, used mostly for patient records and internal communications. But it could also tie into the Army’s main computers for information download, memos and such. Peeking over her shoulder, David saw she’d activated the memo feature. She worked in silence for a few minutes. David left for awhile and, when he came back, he was carrying mugs of tea.
“Okay. Tell me what you think,” Samantha said finally, handed him the computer and, with her other hand, picked up her mug and blew across the hot tea before taking a sip.
He read her memo. It was addressed to an MD with the rank of Colonel in the Medical Corps in charge of, amongst other things, the RI program.
I have settled on a partner to meet my obligations to the Reproductive Imperative Program: Captain David M. O’Reilly, Squadron Commander of the Army’s Third Reclamation Division. I trust there will be no issue with the difference in our ranks and the fact that the Captain is my commander. Please send confirmation on those specific points. After dis
cussion with Captain O’Reilly, we have decided that I and, eventually, our children will take up residence in his quarters on base. Please confirm that approval for this move is added to the Captain’s personnel file.
David grinned wryly and handed the computer back to her. “You’ve got more balls than me, Cooper. Whenever I communicate with somebody with the rank of colonel, I have to ask. You get to tell.”
Samantha shrugged lightly and enjoyed the way his eyes fixed on her breasts when they moved. “He’s a nice guy. I’ve spoken to him already, although this will be the first time your name has come up. I wanted some time with you away from base before I committed you.”
“Very diplomatic, Corporal,” David nodded approvingly then sat up beside her and started drinking his tea. “Although you did leave out some important points.”
“Like?” Samantha asked anxiously.
“Oh, like mentioning you’re butt naked and sitting in bed with me. That we’ve just finished making out like rabbits all night long and that the last time you came you screamed like—” He chuckled behind the hand she lay over his mouth.
* * *
Beginning their second full day of leave, they settled into a comfortable pattern. There was a path that followed the perimeter of the island and they ran it every day. David did about ten kilometers. Samantha did six. In addition to utility and storage rooms, there was also a modest workout room on the first floor of the cottage, mostly free weights and a resistance machine. David spent at least an hour there each day and, after watching his workout routines, Samantha quickly understood how he’d managed to get so big. They swam and lay out in the sun, reading or just talking. He taught her how to fish and how to drive the boat and, twice, as promised, took her to the marina for fries. Sometimes, in the evening, they’d watch an old movie or just light a fire on the beach.
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