Morty set steaming mugs of tea in front of them and packs of juice. “They’re going out to replace the second guard shift,” he told her.
Paige said good-morning and they nodded politely around mouthfuls of food, ate quickly and disappeared into the brush.
A little while later, she spotted two other soldiers returning to camp. Their camouflage clothing was heavy with dew and they hurried over to the shower to clean up before breakfast was served.
As she helped Morty, Paige had a perfect view of the path between the shower and tents...and was treated to a spectacular display of honed, muscular maleness in various stages of dress. And undress. When the second naked backside strolled past the cook tent without a thought to her opinions on modesty, she looked around and spotted the sergeant sitting at the table beside Lieutenant Pembroke, going over a map. She caught his eye, held up her hands then gestured to a naked, retreating backside.
Sergeant Miles blinked but followed her gaze. He blinked again then grinned crookedly, gave her a quick, assuring nod then returned to his work.
Hoping that he would indeed take care of the peep show before the end of the day, Paige finished plating sweet rolls and set them on the end of the worktable to be served.
After breakfast—the sweet rolls she’d helped prepare, sausage, boiled eggs, cheese, toast and orange sections—Paige helped herself to a cup of tea. Before she could even taste it, a large, warm hand settled on her shoulder.
“I need to see you qualify with a rifle, Corporal,” Sergeant Miles said evenly. He stepped back to allow her to stand.
Paige’s brow furrowed but she set her cup down and followed him. “I re-tested only two months ago, Sarge,” she said as he paused outside of his tent. He handed her a pistol belt, picked up an assault rifle, a gun case and led her into the brush.
“I know. I read your personnel file,” the sergeant replied easily, slowing his pace to match hers. “But let’s just say I’ll trust you after I get to know you. Until then, I check.”
Paige laughed and it was a sound of pure amusement. Richard shot down the urge to wrap his arm around her and draw her tall, lean body tight to his side and laugh along with her.
They stopped in a clearing well away from the guard posts. He tacked a paper target onto a log he propped up and spread a waterproof tarp on the ground about fifty meters back from it. “Rifle first, Corporal,” he instructed calmly and stepped behind her.
As she lay down on her belly on the tarp, Paige went through the drill in her head. Check the weapon. Clear the weapon to fire on semi-automatic. Chamber a round. “Live in the hole,” she called out firmly. Paige balanced her weight between her elbows and knees, looked down the sight and squeezed the trigger. Breathing through it, she squeezed off two more shots, un-chambered the next live round and put the safety back on. She set the weapon away from her hands. “Rounds discharged,” she said and sat up on her knees, waiting.
Richard had been paying more attention to the pert curve of her ass than her marksmanship and he roused himself deliberately. He felt his eyes narrow as he looked down at the target. “Damn,” he breathed quietly then tipped his head. “Repeat the exercise, Corporal.”
Paige shot him a dry look but she stretched out her arms and used them to lever herself back down on her belly. As she reached for the weapon, she asked, “Why do you want to see me qualify, Sarge?”
She heard him inhale softly as she re-checked the rifle.
“We’re going into a hostile zone. I need to know how well you can handle these weapons,” Richard answered with deliberate bluntness. “We keep our medic as far back as we can but there are times we need all hands on deck. I need to know if you’re capable of stepping up for that, Corporal.”
Paige’s hand shook—for just an instant—then steadied. Her life in the Army was about healing. Not harming. Zach had been able to step up and be a fully functioning member of this recon unit. She wasn’t sure she could fire a weapon at anything living. But it was too late for such worries. They were stuck with her. And she was stuck with them so, putting a lid on her self-doubts, Paige squeezed off another three rounds. This time, after she secured the weapon and sat back on her knees, Sergeant Miles walked to the target, plucked it off the log and brought it back to her.
It showed what it always showed—three perfect groupings, two sets of them in the centre of the mark’s chest.
The sergeant whistled, low and long. “How come you weren’t picked up by a sniper unit?” he asked.
“My IQ is too high, Sarge,” Paige replied with a quick grin. “So they put me in the medical corps.” She wriggled her fingers in the air. “Good hands. Good for giving painless shots.”
He laughed quietly and removed the assault weapon from the tarp. “Okay, doc...let’s see how you do with a sidearm.” He replaced the target then paced off fifteen meters. “Bring it on,” he said, cocking a finger at her. He stood behind her, off to one side as she drew the Glock 9mm he’d given her. This time, he didn’t let himself look at her ass or any other part of her long, sweetly curved body. Again he felt his eyebrows go up when she placed three perfect rounds into the target’s chest.
“You didn’t learn that in basic, Corporal,” Richard groused as she holstered her weapon. “Who taught you to shoot?”
“My Momma,” Paige answered succinctly.
“Not your Daddy?”
“No, Sarge. Poppa was always too busy working. I grew up after our town was reclamated but my parents remembered the years before. Momma taught us our prayers, to mind our manners and how to handle a gun.”
“Hmm. Well, I can’t say as I disapprove of her priorities, Corporal. You any good with a sniper rifle?” he asked, glancing at the unopened steel case on the ground by his feet.
“Good to a thousand meters with a scope,” Paige answered confidently.
Richard grinned. “Okay. Now I’ll trust you. We’re done and you definitely qualify.”
Folding up the tarp, she didn’t pay much attention to him as he retrieved the paper target. But the sergeant’s voice brought her head around.
“Hey there, buddy,” he said. His voice was gentle and endearing. A dog—a shaggy, brown mongrel with a coat that looked like it had never seen a brush—had emerged from the trees and was walking up to him with its head held low. Its mouth was open in a friendly way with a big, pink tongue lolling out to one side.
Without a second thought, Paige unholstered her pistol and squeezed off three shots. The dog jerked backward three times in quick succession then collapsed, dead before it hit the ground.
Sergeant Miles spun around. His tanned face was bright with anger. “What the hell?” he blurted out.
“Don’t touch him,” Paige breathed wearily and re-holstered her weapon. “He’s rabid.”
The sergeant spun back and stared down at the dead animal.
“He jerked his head down when he got into the sunlight,” Paige explained once she was standing beside her sergeant. She glanced up at the shafts of sunlight penetrating the leafy canopy above them. “That and the fact he’d approached you despite the noise of weapon fire,” she added, only now able to verbalize why her instincts had told her to shoot and to shoot fast. She looked closer at the dog and saw heavy lines of drool on its lower jaw. “Guess that answers that,” she said quietly, more to herself than Sergeant Miles.
“Answers what?” he asked, turning to her.
“Whether I can shoot another living creature.” She looked up at him and her mouth thinned. “I didn’t think I could.”
Without thought, Richard laid his hand on the back of her head. He dipped his forehead to hers and rested it there for a moment before releasing her. “Well I definitely trust you now, doc,” he said quietly then stepped away from her.
“Bury or burn?” Paige asked quietly. “The body,” she added, pointing. “We can’t leave it here. It’ll infect any animal that feeds off it.”
“Bury,” Sergeant Miles answered, then, walking with Paige
beside him, returned to camp to get some shovels.
Chapter Two
The other members of the unit wandered by to take a look at the dog, at the evidence of their new medic’s marksmanship, and to take a turn digging a hole deep enough for the body before they packed up camp and moved on.
They traveled for two more days. Not once did Paige see a naked backside, frontside or even a towel-draped one. On the morning of the third day, Paige looked up from her breakfast to find Corporal Benny Weston standing beside her, holding out a neatly wrapped, brown paper package. “We’ll be going through some inhabited zones this morning. You’ll need civilian clothes and I took the liberty of buying some for you before we left base.” He handed her the package and smiled down at her in that cherub-like way of his. Even though he—and every other member of the unit—hadn’t shaved since they’d left, he looked more like a fallen angel than ever.
His bright, blue eyes twinkled happily and Paige should have known something was up even before she opened the package and pulled out the skirt and blouse inside.
“What are we pretending to be?” she said drolly. “A traveling whore house and I’m the whore?”
The skirt was made of faded denim, pieced together from remnants, obscenely short and frayed at the bottom. The top was sleeveless and made from unbleached linen so sheer it was practically see-through. Long ties wrapped around and held it closed—and would leave much of the wearer’s breasts and abdomen showing.
“Try it on,” Morty suggested happily.
She shot him a look.
“I’d tell you to bite me, Weston, but you probably would,” Paige griped at their face-man and dropped the clothes back into the package, but not before pulling out a pair of painfully high stilettos. Red. Naturally.
Benny Weston shrugged lightly. “Probably,” he agreed then flashed her his sweetest, most endearing smile.
When she emerged from her tent a little while later, Paige was wearing the civilian clothes Benny had bought her, according to her own standards of modesty. True, there was nothing she could do about the short skirt but she’d put on a white, sleeveless tank top under the blouse. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Not many women in unreclamated areas had the resources for frivolous clothing. She’d dispensed with the high heels in favor of far more practical running shoes. They were white and plain—the kind of footwear she wore on laundry day. Benny looked at her legs approvingly when she came out but she ignored him.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to wear anything under that top, you know,” he complained. He grinned and shut his mouth when she glared at him.
With her dog tags hidden in her shoes, Paige picked up her duffel and carried it to the transport truck...and stopped dead in her tracks. Gone were the unit’s insignias. The trucks, which were mottled shades of gray instead of standard olive-drab, were broken down and looked more like farming vehicles than transports. She glanced in the back of one. The floor was higher than usual and Paige knew why when one of the privates took her duffel, lifted a section of fake floor and stowed her bag beneath. Turning around when she heard a throaty rumble, she saw a beat-up four-by-four being driven down a ramp off the back of their supply truck. It might look like a patched-up wreck but Paige felt that, if she looked under the hood, she’d find a pristine and over-powered engine. Another glance showed her that her medical-supply cases were being hidden inside shabby, wooden crates.
She walked up to the back of the transport, about to climb on and take her usual seat when she realized she couldn’t climb over the tailgate without flashing the whole platoon...and that some of them were watching her out of the corner of their eyes with a great deal of interest.
“You’re with me, doc.” Sergeant Miles appeared beside her. He was dressed in faded jeans that hugged his muscular thighs nicely, plain but well-crafted leather boots and a t-shirt that had seen better days. It managed to show off his sculpted biceps to great advantage. He looked at the gawkers deliberately, his gaze drilling holes into them until they turned away, then led her over to the four-by-four and opened the passenger door. Without asking, he laid his hands on her waist and lifted her onto the seat. He shut the door after she turned and slid her legs inside.
Lieutenant Pembroke walked over to the vehicle and stood beside the sergeant. He was wearing worn jeans too but they didn’t look anywhere near as sexy as the sergeant’s. “Corporal, you’ll stay with Sergeant Miles. This is your first mission and he’ll walk you through it. Your vehicle will bring up the rear but the convoy will be deliberately spread out so don’t look for help right away if anything goes bad. Now, we’re just out to reconnoiter the town of Edenton in the formerly great state of North Carolina. It’s a strategic location because it’s near the intersection of two roads that lead to the only bridges crossing Albemere Sound. The base south of Jacksonville needs one or both of those bridges open so they can reach settlements up in Virginia. The town has petitioned the Army for reclamation and we’re here to see if that’s viable or whether we’ll just blockade off the roads and bridges and blow through town whenever we need to travel that way. You with us on this, Corporal?”
“Yes, sir,” Paige answered, surprised when her voice held steady.
“Good luck, soldier,” the lieutenant said and took his place in the passenger seat of the transport truck.
Paige felt the four-by-four’s weight settle as Sergeant Miles got in beside her.
“The windows and roof are armored,” he said, pointing. “Your med kit is in the back beneath a false floor.” He opened the glove box and pulled out a pretty little sun hat, hand-woven from straw. “Wear this instead of that clip in your hair. Most civilians in unreclamated areas don’t have jewelry. They’d have sold it or bartered it long ago.” He watched Paige unfasten her hair, slide the clip into the vehicle’s glove box then check her reflection in the mirror as she put the hat on. He resisted the urge to brush her hair back over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t wear jewelry unless you’ve got a rich sugar daddy. Some heavy criminal or something. We don’t want to play that angle. It increases my chances of getting shot if someone thinks we’re in town to take over their action.”
“Yes, sugar...um, Sarge,” Paige taunted deliberately. She grinned when her sergeant chuckled.
“If anybody asks, you’re my woman. It’s the most plausible cover.”
“Understood,” Paige replied and sat back as he pressed the ignition button. The engine roared to life with a throaty vehemence Paige felt between her legs. They pulled onto the road behind the other vehicles but drove slowly. Soon, the others were too far ahead to see. Richard held back for another ten minutes before bringing the speed up to sixty kilometers an hour. It was about all the decrepit road was good for anyway. A radio, hidden beneath the dash, crackled to life.
“First check-point passed. Twenty kilometers past start point. Over.”
Richard glanced down at the odometer then back up at the road. “Will you be okay with this?” he asked quietly, looking over at Paige.
She smoothed her short skirt self-consciously, aware of his eyes on her legs. “I think so. Just tell me what to do.”
Sergeant Miles inhaled slowly then scratched his three-day growth of beard. “We’re going in today because it’s market day. Local farmers and craftsmen set up stalls and barter their goods. You’ve probably seen ones close to it working in reclamation—in communities when you first arrive.”
Paige nodded. “Yes.”
“Well this will be a little different. See, by the time a full reclamation division arrives, a recon unit like us has already cleared the town of undesirables. We’ve identified any criminals—permanent or transitory—and arrested them. But we’ll get to that later. For today, we’re just two people passing through on their way south to look for family.”
“Whose family?”
“Whose do you want it to be?”
Paige grinned. “My aunt Edith,” she came up with off the top of her head. “I heard she hitched up wit
h a younger man after her husband died last winter. She’s never approved of you. She thinks you’re a bad influence on her niece. But you’re taking me to find her anyway. ‘Cause that’s the kind of sweet man you are,” Paige added, smiling crookedly.
He laughed. “That’s good,” he complimented her easily. Then held up a finger. “Oh, and don’t step away from me. We’ll probably be dealing with farmers doing nothing more than trying to keep soul and body together but you never know. We get separated and people have a way of asking strangers questions then comparing their answers afterward.”
“Noted, Sergeant...um...I shouldn’t call you sergeant. What should I call you?”
He thought about it for a moment then answered truthfully, “Rick. I like Rick.”
“Okay. Rick,” Paige said, getting into the habit of using his first name. “What do we barter?”
“Let me show you.” He leaned toward her to reach into the back seat, caught her scent and enjoyed it a little too much. He straightened and handed her a plain satchel.
“These are lovely,” Paige said, holding up a pair of hand-worked women’s shoes. The satchel was full of them. “Where did you get them?”
“I made them,” Rick answered absently and adjusted his grip on the wheel. “I always need a cover story and items to barter. I’ve got an uncle—he used to be a tailor but got into shoemaking after the Great War. Better market. I asked him to teach me and he did.”
Paige rooted around for a pair her size and swapped her running shoes for them. When she slipped her dog tags inside, Rick stopped her by laying his hand on her forearm. “Don’t carry your tags. Even in your shoes. It’s too risky.”
“But regulations—”
“Out here, nobody’s going to discipline you for breaking that regulation, Paige. We’ll stop before we get to town and you can stow them in your med kit.”
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