Again, both brothers rinsed her. They rinsed all traces of their loving from her body, rubbed towels over her far longer than necessary. Finally Paige tipped her mouth up to them—first Sam then Flint. She kissed them goodnight and, grabbing her robe, left, shutting the door noiselessly behind her.
Back in her room, Paige dressed. Wearing her fatigues, she sat down on the edge of the narrow bed, looking out the darkened window.
Down the hall, the baby stirred. It made quiet, finicky sounds and Paige got up. She knocked quietly on the parents’ door and, when they opened it, she came in with a happy smile and her med kit. She checked the baby’s vitals again, cleaned the umbilical cord, showed them how to do it, congratulated them again, thanked them for their hospitality and left.
Alone, she gripped the post at the top of the stairs.
You killed someone.
The voice was in her head again, low and flat. Flat like the feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’d only wanted to escape in few hours of pleasure but now she felt even worse. How could she miss Rick so much when he’d never been hers? Could never be hers?
She squared her shoulders. The gesture wouldn’t stop the guilt but at least she’d look like she was in control of her emotions. Downstairs, she tapped Private Samuel Rutherford’s foot. His head shot up off the sofa he’d crammed his six-two frame into.
“Time to go, Rutter,” Paige whispered with false brightness then woke Benny Weston up. Within minutes, she and her four guards were ready to climb into the transport vehicle for the drive back to base. She paused when she felt a strong, warm arm come around her shoulder.
“We know it hurts, Winnie,” Benny said quietly. He squeezed her shoulder gently, just like the lieutenant did, then let her go. “Killing somebody. Too bad it never gets any easier.”
She looked up at the faces around her, just able to make out the shyness in their eyes in the pre-dawn light. The compassion. These men were recon. Trained and deadly and ruthless through and through. Every one of them knew what it was to take a life. They would have said pretty things to comfort her if it would help. But she, and they, understood that comfort was impossible. She blinked hard then again squared her shoulders. Going to pieces or letting herself get wrapped up in torment was not an option. Not if they were going to guide this community into reclamation.
Paige nodded jerkily then hoisted herself up into the back of the transport vehicle. “Thanks,” she said perfunctorily then nodded again for her benefit and theirs. “Let’s go see what Morty’s made for breakfast.”
Three nights later, in her tent in base camp, Paige woke with a start. There was no noise. Nothing stirred.
Killer.
The flat voice was in her head again. Instinct told her the voice was the reason she’d woken up.
And you went out and got yourself laid afterward. Real nice.
She shoved her feet into her boots and stepped outside. It had rained. Shivering, she wrapped her hands around her bare arms. Dressed in a t-shirt and sweats, she made her way to the head—little more than a curtained-off, rough, raised platform over a hole in the ground. She reached it and kept going. Flexing her sore fingers and rubbing them lightly, Paige stopped quite suddenly. She dropped her head into her hands and started to cry.
Unnoticed, Rick paused behind her and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d followed her tonight, just as he’d followed her ever since that day he’d touched her. Rick knew when Paige was moving around camp. He just knew. Easily half the weight of any of the men in the platoon, she moved silently and gracefully as a cat. And every night, like now, whenever she got up for something...to grab some water or go to the head...he knew. He’d put on his boots and follow her, though even he had to admit it was creepy. He just couldn’t help himself. It didn’t feel right, knowing she was moving around alone in the darkness. So he’d just hang around the back of the camp, waiting for her return, listening for her light footfall.
He hadn’t heard her laugh since she’d killed that gas runner to save Ed’s life, and it tore him up inside.
Now he was standing in the dark. Rain water slid off the leaves above him and soaked through his t-shirt. Rick listened to the woman he loved cry. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t go to her. If he went to her he’d hold her and love her and never stop touching her. Paige was first and foremost their medic. A member of Eaglebird Recon Unit. A corporal under his command. If he gave in and held her like he wanted to, it would undermine her position in the unit.
A twig snapped off to his left and he stood perfectly still. He wasn’t even breathing when he saw Corporal Benny Weston’s profile not three feet away. Rick reached out and grabbed the barrel of Benny’s assault rifle, tipping it upward.
“Easy, troop,” Rick whispered. He exhaled when Benny relaxed after jerking and reaching for his knife.
Benny turned his face away from the sound of Paige’s distant crying. “I heard—”
“Yeah. I know,” Rick interrupted quietly.
“But she’s...” Benny ran his hand over his forehead, smearing his camouflage make-up.
“Yeah. She is,” Rick interrupted gently then nodded in the direction Benny had come in. “It’s all right. You go back to patrolling your stretch of perimeter.”
“But...it’s different for Paige,” Benny whispered, suppressing his S-sounds so the distinct sound wouldn’t travel. “We choose recon. We had training before we got assigned to a unit. They train your head, you know? Help you deal with...what we do.”
Rick squeezed Benny’s shoulder then stood up to his full, towering height. “She is dealing with it, Benny. In her own way,” Rick insisted quietly then his voice softened. “I’ve got her back. Just let her cry.”
Without another word, Benny glanced toward the sound of Paige’s muffled sobs. Then he turned and resumed patrolling the camp.
Later, when Paige was quiet and after she’d walked past his position without seeing him and returned to her tent, Rick went back to camp, climbed into his bed and shut his eyes against the darkness.
That morning, when she awoke to the smell of Morty’s hash browns and bacon, Paige dragged her aching body out of bed. Ever since their take-down of the gas station, she’d been relieved of kitchen duty. She put in too many hours at the makeshift clinic and the LT had made that her only responsibility. Still, she liked getting up early, even if it felt like she hadn’t slept at all. She liked a few minutes to shower before the guys woke, and to get that plastic smile in place. She wore it every day now. When she opened up her tent flap, with her towel over her shoulder and her wash-kit in her hand, the first thing she saw was Rick, sitting on their table and watching her tent. He cocked his finger at her and she walked up to him.
Every step of the way, she thought about how handsome he was at daybreak. The first light shone off his tousled, light brown hair. His expression was unnaturally soft as he watched her approach. He handed her a photograph. Rick was in it and she tried not to smile at him grinning crookedly in a snapshot taken at some picnic. Lieutenant Pembroke was in it too, with his arm around a woman. She was tall, with short, blonde hair. The LT was holding a little girl in his other arm, maybe two years old, with black hair and gray eyes just like his. The woman was holding a baby, dressed head-to-toe in pink with blonde hair just like her mother’s.
“Those babies still have a daddy, and Selena isn’t a widow because of what you did.” When Paige opened her mouth, he touched her lower lip, then smoothed his thumb over it before dropping his hand away from her. “I know what’s in your head, Corporal. What about that other guy? Did he have a family? Out here, Paige, it’s real black and white. Bad guys victimize the good guys. Bad guys kill good guys for profit. Sometimes just for the fun of it,” he added sadly and shook his head before looking back at her. “Out here, we’re the only chance the good guys have of getting back on their feet. We take care of our own because the bad guys will kill us dead the first chance they get. I want you to think about that before you shed another
tear over some guy who made his decision long ago to victimize others just so he could have a softer life.”
Rick stood slowly. He was careful not to brush the front of Paige’s body with his, although he wanted nothing more than to hold her and feel her warmth against him. Not for the first time, he wanted to whisper stupid things about making everything all right. “Now, give me back my picture, Corporal,” he said firmly and held out his hand. He couldn’t stop one corner of his mouth from turning up. “It’s the only one I’ve ever looked halfway good in.”
Paige grinned. When she laughed softly it was the purest, sweetest sound he’d ever heard. She handed the picture back to him then flipped her long hair over her shoulder saucily. “Oh I find that hard to believe, Sergeant,” she teased as she walked away. “You’re too cute to take an ugly picture.”
Paige’s guilt didn’t go away, but she found it easier to deal with as the days went by. She worked hard, like the rest of the unit, and she started sleeping better at night. The lieutenant and Rick worked with the town council as they prioritized their needs, allocated assets and organized work details. The public square near Paige’s temporary clinic was cleaned up. Rusted vehicles were hauled off, streets were regularly cleaned of horse manure. The Army base south of Jacksonville trucked in solar panels, wind-turbine kits, connectors and wire. Lots and lots of wire. Two older locals who, years ago, had worked as linesmen for the local power company, worked with Private Wolf Abrams to get the first electricity the town had seen in twenty-two years flowing. It wasn’t much but it was enough that most houses in town had electricity for two hours every day—longer if the wind was blowing strong and spinning the locally hand-built, wooden blades on the turbines.
Sam and Flint Keane talked to the lieutenant and Rick about the best strategies for organizing their own checkpoints leading in and out of town. Together, they decided on using the locations local crooks had used for years, to make sure new bad guys didn’t come in. The day after they did that, the lieutenant and Rick arranged a meeting with the town council and told them they were being approved for reclamation.
“This reclamation will be different from what we’re used to.” Lieutenant Pembroke started briefing the members of Eaglebird Recon Unit the next morning. “Normally I’d give you a few days off. We’d stick around and you could, um, celebrate with the locals.”
Paige didn’t look at the others but she sensed a lot of the guys nervously glancing her way. She wasn’t stupid. Now that the town was cleared for reclamation, the men of the unit were free to hook up with local women wanting to party with their rescuers and express their gratitude in physical ways. The guys thought of her as asexual, or a dyke kid sister—uncomfortable around her whenever the subject of sex came up. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Because HQ wants this reclamation to happen fast, they’re fast-tracking the approval. A reclamation division will be here within three weeks.”
Murmurs of surprise met the lieutenant’s words.
Rick picked up the briefing. “We’ll be staying here, although we’ll move our base closer to town. “There’s not enough time for us to get to our next assignment, complete it and be back here before the division arrives.” He stood up straight. “That means we’ve got an opportunity to work with these people. Help them get a head start on their own reclamation. Help them work out their plans. A little something different for us but nothing we can’t handle. Questions?”
When the opportunity to ask questions devolved into chest thumping, Paige slipped away and went to her tent. She returned with an earthenware bowl full of condoms and set it on Morty’s serving table before sitting back down beside Benny.
Corporal Benny Weston had obviously noticed. “Um, planning a big night, Winnie?” he whispered dryly.
Funny, he didn’t crack jokes about the bowl she kept in the waiting room at the clinic in town. It sat near the bowl she kept full of lollipops for the children.
“Just giving you all an opportunity to be prepared,” she whispered back just as dryly and returned her attention to the lieutenant and Rick.
“Yeah, but, Winnie,” Benny sidled up to her and gave her his most winsome smile, “I know it’s not your, um, preference...but a man likes to feel where he’s going.”
“Yeah and I don’t want to tell some kid I can’t make her better because I’ve used up my last ampoules of antibiotic curing your syphilis,” she barked at him. Benny was funny and a friend and he cared about her, but he could also be a major pain in the ass. And he’d contracted sexually transmitted diseases more times than all the other members of the unit combined.
Benny’s head came up suddenly and he blinked. Unfortunately, so did all the other members of the unit. There’d been a lull in the conversations and she could still hear the word syphilis, ringing in shining tones around them, in her strident voice.
His face a mask, Benny got up and stomped over to the bowl, grabbed a handful of condoms and marched back to her. He held one between his teeth and shoved the rest in his pocket. “Yeah?” he grumbled around the package in his mouth, then held it up and shook it at her. “Well this chewing gum better taste better than that crap Zach used to hand out.” He shoved the condom in his breast pocket and dropped back into the seat behind her.
Paige couldn’t help it. She just doubled over and started to laugh. Her and the rest of the unit. The meeting broke up after that.
The next three weeks went by quickly. Morale, in camp and in town, was sky high. People started trickling in from nearby communities. Word spread at the weekly market and people began moving to Edenton, or visited to check it out before deciding. Bad guys started slinking further back into the wilderness. Three local dairy farmers approached Paige about starting a cooperative, asking about pasteurizing their products. Private Samuel Rutherford worked with groups of locals, helping them improve their marksmanship. Benny taught daily physical education classes at the new school. The kids loved him. The LT taught a handful of locals how to mix concrete, pouring a pad for their new school, and for the new clinic so Paige wouldn’t have to work on a dirt floor.
Rick spent most of his days at the old county roadwork yard. Before he’d made sergeant, his specialty had been auto mechanics and he helped re-fit a bulldozer, a front-end loader and a dump truck so a new town garbage site could be dug and the old one bulldozed over.
Members of the unit were free to check themselves in and out for the night and Paige, Rick and the lieutenant were the only members of Eaglebird Recon regularly in camp after dark. On a couple of occasions, those three were the only ones to overnight in camp at all. Paige didn’t mind. It was selfish but she liked the fact Rick wasn’t screwing around with any of the local women. Besides, Rick and the lieutenant were old friends and, when it was just the three of them, they were fun to be around. They’d worked together going on six years and they folded her into their camaraderie.
In the morning, while the lieutenant used Paige’s secure-channel medic’s computer to chat with his family, Paige and Rick went running or hit the weights. They worked out with whoever was around of course, but often they were by themselves. She was getting used to seeing him without his shirt on, grunting and sweating, and still liked it as much as the first time she’d seen him. Only now she was getting better at hiding her lecherous response to that ripped body.
When they were alone, Rick was just...Rick. He was funny. The intensity in his eyes disappeared. The hunkering, killing machine was hidden away and a thoughtful, intelligent man who seemed to like listening to her more than just about anything appeared in its place.
Every member of Eaglebird Recon was required to report for lunch though. They were picked up in town daily, just before eleven-hundred hours. It gave the platoon time together. No guests were allowed. The lieutenant and Rick were briefed on the unit’s work projects. New assignments were handed out and the men got to simply hang out together.
Paige looked up when Morty plunked his massive frame down on
the chair beside her at the beginning of their second week.
“Paige, listen, I’m going to sign myself out tonight.” He grinned. “I’ve got a date with a half-tanker in town.”
She rolled her eyes. The men had started using a prettiness scale for the women they were seeing based on how much pre-reclamation gas they figured she’d be worth.
“I checked the sign-out sheet and it’s just you, the LT and the sarge here tonight.” He leveled his wide, bright blue gaze at her and held his palms together in supplication. “Please don’t let the LT in my kitchen,” he begged. “Last time, it took me three days to scrape burnt onion off my grill.”
“Consider it done, Morty,” Paige said and patted his massive forearm.
“There’s some tinned stuff, heat’n serve, good to go. Just pop it on the stove and you won’t have to worry about cooking a real meal,” Morty added pointedly. He was still sensitive about her being trained by a chef and not an Army cook like he had been. “Thanks, Winnie. You’re the best,” Morty said as he grabbed the first transport back into town.
After he left, Paige wandered over to the kitchen.
Rick came in a few minutes later. “Hey, Paige,” he said brightly. “I’ve just checked the sign-out sheet. Just you, me and the LT tonight.” He looked around and lowered his voice. “Can you make some more of that pizza?”
She smiled. “My pleasure, Sarge,” she said. With practiced ease she threw together a quick dough and left it to rise in Morty’s pastry tin before jumping into the back seat of the unit’s four-by-four for the drive into town.
Later that afternoon, the lieutenant and Rick swung by the clinic to pick up Paige. The ride back to camp was short and uneventful. While the men showered, Paige headed for Morty’s kitchen to start dinner.
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