Moment of Weakness

by KG MacGregor

  Clay Teele, his skinny tie knotted loosely to his chest, stormed from his office to stand with his hands on his hips. “Where’s Snyder? It’s almost nine o’clock.”

  Marleigh wondered the same thing but she and Bridget always covered for each other whenever Clay got in one of his irascible moods. His answer to corporate pressure for profits was to micromanage the time clocks of everyone on staff. “I think she’s out getting quotes for the school board story. Freeman’s been ducking her calls.”

  “I thought that was your story.”

  “I asked her to help,” she lied. “Something I can do?”

  He waved her off and turned to Fran, the paper’s secretary, switchboard operator and customer service manager. Sweetening his tone—he knew better than to turn his wrath on Fran—he announced he was leaving for Rotary Club and would be back before lunch.

  Another half hour passed before Bridget finally arrived looking unusually disheveled with her wavy blond hair cascading around her face. “Sorry I’m late. Did Clay say anything?”

  “He noticed. I covered for you, said you were getting a quote from Freeman. Maybe you should call over there and get him to say something on the record about last week’s school board meeting.”

  Bridget primly situated herself at her desk and removed her oversized sunglasses to reveal a butterfly bandage above her swollen and bruised brow.

  “Oh, my God! What the hell happened to you?”

  “A little accident in the kitchen. I bent over to pick up a cherry tomato before I stepped on it, and of course forgot that I’d left the cabinet open. I raised up and banged my head on the corner.”

  Even hearing about it caused Marleigh to shudder. “Did you have to get stitches?”

  “Nah, it wasn’t that bad. I put a little ice on it and a Band-Aid.”

  The dismissive clip of her voice—plus the fact that she’d deliberately avoided looking up—made Marleigh uneasy. She knew Rocky Goodson to be a controlling jerk sometimes, but not an abuser.

  “Is there coffee?”

  Marleigh followed her into the break room, determined to have her say even if Bridget ultimately chose to ignore her. “Look, I know it’s none of my business but this is the second time you’ve come to work with a mark on your face. On your face, Bridget.”

  “Because I’m a klutz.” As she reached into the cupboard for a mug, Marleigh grabbed her upper arm. “Ow!”

  “Oh, does that hurt? Maybe it’s because there’s a freaking handprint on your arm. What did he do to you?”

  Bridget’s eyes filled with tears as she turned her arm over to examine the bruise. “Fine, if you must know we had a fight. But it was just as much my fault as his.”

  “Don’t you dare say that, Bridget. Fighting’s one thing—hitting’s totally out of bounds. And so is yanking you so hard it leaves a bruise.”

  “He didn’t mean to. It was all a mistake.” She held up her left hand, which sported a small diamond solitaire in a silver setting. “See? This is why I was late. He was so sorry that he took me to Rothwell’s first thing this morning to pick this out.”

  “Bridget, that’s insane.” If Rocky was this bad as her boyfriend, how much worse would he be as her husband? “You don’t go marrying somebody after he knocks you around. There’s no telling what he’ll do next.”

  With a spiteful sneer, Bridget shot back, “You should talk. I’m not the one worshipping somebody whose claim to fame is killing people. It’s morbid if you ask me.”

  Marleigh recoiled with disbelief, furious with herself for confiding in her about Zann. “You’re comparing what she did to Rocky beating you up? For fuck’s sake, Bridget! She was a combat soldier. The people she killed were trying to kill her. They’d just shot another American soldier right in front of her eyes. I can’t believe you’d name a coward like Rocky Goodson in the same breath.”

  “Fuck…I’m so sorry. God, I can’t believe something so shitty came out of my mouth…it’s like I’ve been eating out of a goddamn toilet.” Bridget slumped into a chair and buried her face in her hands. “If you don’t forgive me right this fucking minute, I’m walking out of here into traffic.”

  It wasn’t that simple. The vicious words had cut her to the quick.

  “Please, Marleigh…I’ll give you my lunch. There’s a Chocolate Bomb from Mike’s.”

  “Why would you say such a thing?” She realized from her conciliatory tone that she was on her way to forgiveness. “I don’t like Zann because she’s a badass. I like her because she’s a hero. How many people do you know who’d have the courage to do what she did?”

  “None. And you’re right, Rocky’s an asshole. But I told him this was it, that he’d better not ever lay another hand on me. He was really upset about it, said it made him so sick that he’ll never do it again. So I’m giving him this one more chance.”

  Marleigh didn’t trust him at all, but attacking him only served to make Bridget defend him that much more. “As long as you know that he only gets one more chance from me too. I’ll call the cops on his ass if you ever come in here looking like this again.”

  Back at her desk, she toyed with ideas of how somebody like Zann would handle news that a friend of hers was being roughed up by her boyfriend. Easy—Rocky would be eating through a straw. Perhaps it was a little morbid that she relished the thought.

  * * *

  “…and we’re talking state-of-the-art gear, the best on the market. Cerberus pays for everything and you take it with you when you leave. Can’t beat that.” Gary Laughton, with his buzz cut and black polo shirt, spoke via Skype from a gray-walled office in Fairfax, Virginia. For the last half hour, he’d described the scope of work at Cerberus. Recipients of almost half a billion dollars in corporate security contracts, they were a top destination for former soldiers looking for high wages and guaranteed deployment.

  Beneath her desk and out of sight, Zann squeezed a foam ball in her left hand. The simple repetitive exercise was meant to stimulate the synapses so her hand would learn again to grip spontaneously without a deliberate message from her brain.

  She’d pored over all the info Gary had sent earlier in a digital file, paying special attention to the specs for Field Coordinator, an overseas job that entailed planning and supervision of security teams, mostly from the comfort of the corporate hotel. Cerberus sought former officers for those positions, especially those experienced in combat command.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Captain Redeker—”

  They were interrupted by her cell phone, which she quickly muted. “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem. We’ve got twenty-nine different job sites right now. I could put you on a plane to any one of them tomorrow morning. That’s how bad we need somebody with your skills and experience.”

  His enthusiasm was infectious, and he seemed to know all the buttons to push to evoke her nostalgia for life in the Marines. He probably did this all day long, selling ex-soldiers on a different kind of military experience, one with the familiar camaraderie of a well-trained team plus all the perks of civilian life—luxury hotel rooms, first-class gear and six-figure pay. Why would anyone say no?

  “I assume you looked at my PEB?” she asked. Before saying yes to anything, she had to know they were fully aware of the report from the Marine Corps Physical Evaluation Board. It would crush her to take on the second job of her dreams and have it snatched away again. “I’m still going through therapy but there’s no guarantee I’ll regain full function of my left hand.”

  “No worries, Zann. Field Co’s an administrative job.” He tapped his temple. “Cerberus wants what’s up here.”

  “It all sounds great, Gary…but I don’t think I’m quite ready yet to catch that morning flight. Can you give me a few days to think about it?” She’d have to talk it over with her folks and try to get them on board—for their sake. If they were convinced of her safety they’d be more supportive.

  “If this were a high-pressure sales pitch, I’d be telling
you not to wait too long. But we want the best teams we can get, and that means everybody has to be a hundred percent sure it’s where they want to be. So take all the time you need. Next week, next month…hell, next year. We’ll still be here.”

  She thanked him for the interview and signed off. It was a weight off her shoulders to finally feel there was a path for her future. To Marleigh’s point, there was honor in working to keep people safe, no matter who got rich.

  Marleigh…it was time for their dinner date. They’d decided to go out, since Marleigh got handed a late news assignment and didn’t have time to cook.

  “I’m going out with Marleigh,” she called from the back door, biting her tongue to keep from adding that they shouldn’t wait up.

  Her mother appeared in the doorway. “Did you get that message from Malcolm Shively?”

  “No, what?” She examined her cell phone and saw a new voice mail. Why would the town manager be calling? “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “Just that he was going to try to reach you on your cell phone.”

  “Captain Redeker, it’s Malcolm Shively. I wanted to say thanks again for being our grand marshal last week. Chief Maubry said you stopped in a few days ago to see about a job at the CPD but he didn’t have anything. He was impressed by you though and passed your application up the chain to see if we could find something. I can always find something for a bona fide war hero. So give my office a call in the morning and let’s get this ball rolling.”

  She shook her head at the irony. It figured she’d go from having no prospects at all to having two. Except Shively’s offer probably wasn’t even an actual job, but a make-work position of no import meant to check off a quota for veterans or people with disabilities.

  Cerberus was the real deal. They respected not only what she’d done, but what she still could do.

  * * *

  “Cerberus…isn’t that the dog that guards the gates of hell?” Marleigh asked. It seemed an apt metaphor considering most of their jobs were in war zones. American efforts were constantly under threat from factions looking to destabilize governments and impede progress.

  “Their logo is a three-headed beast with a spiked collar.”

  “Ooo, scary.” She didn’t bother to disguise her sarcasm. It was a terrible idea for Zann to take a job so dangerous. “Couldn’t you just run away and join the circus like normal people?”

  Their waitress interrupted to set a gargantuan pizza between them.

  Marleigh topped off their beer mugs from an icy pitcher. “I know what you’re thinking—if I really wanted to impress you, I should have taken you for steak and lobster. That’s next time. This is the finest pizza you will ever eat.”

  “Mmm.” With cheese dripping down her chin, Zann nodded her agreement. She’d folded a slice over so she could manage it with one hand. “How come you’re so down on Cerberus? As much as you admire the military, I thought you’d like it. What gives?”

  She had to be kidding. Marleigh’s real motives couldn’t be more obvious if she spread herself across the table. “Please tell me you’re not that clueless, Captain Zann.”

  A brief flash of confusion was followed by wide eyes and a grin. “D’oh! You’re flirting with me again.”

  “No I’m not. Unless that’s what it takes. If I flirt, will you stay?”

  “I might stay for this pizza.”

  Marleigh enjoyed Zann’s playfulness but it bugged her how much it reminded her of Troop Lisper. More specifically, it reminded her of herself with Troop. Once again she was hedging, using humor to hide her attraction and keep her emotional distance. And she didn’t like it.

  “Zann, can I be serious here for a sec? You’re a soldier, I’m a reporter. I love what I do but it’s not enough by itself. I need other things in my life…namely people. Special people. What I’m asking is this—is it enough for you to just be a soldier?”

  An eternity ticked by as she waited, long enough to think she might not like the answer.

  “I’ve never been just a soldier. When you’re an officer in the Marine Corps, that defines everything about you—the way you look, the way you act…even the way you think. It was my whole life, the one I’d dreamed of since I was a kid. So if you want to know the truth—yeah, that could have been enough. So every morning when I wake up it’s like a punch to the gut when I remember that I don’t get to be that person anymore.”

  “That’s not what you said in the interview.”

  “You weren’t there to hear my sob story, Marleigh. You came to write about a noble war hero who had it all together, someone who was proud to serve no matter what the sacrifice. Nobody wanted to hear me whine.”

  Marleigh remembered thinking at the time that Zann was putting up a brave front, that she couldn’t possibly be as accepting of her fate as she’d let on. “So what does Cerberus get you? It doesn’t make you a Marine again, not by a long shot. I looked them up, Zann. The Iraqis claim they shot and killed three innocent civilians from a helicopter. And four of them gang-raped a sixteen-year-old in Libya.”

  Zann took a deep draw on her beer and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that. But maybe this is their chance for better leadership.”

  “Sure, but you aren’t going to go in there and singlehandedly change a culture like that. There’s probably a good reason a lot of those guys aren’t in the US military anymore and it’s not because they were wounded trying to save somebody.”

  It was obvious her words were having an impact, though she suspected it had less to do with Zann’s own opinion of Cerberus than what others would think. Honor was important to her. She wouldn’t do something to degrade her sense of self.

  “Do you honestly think I could make the world a better place staying here and doing some lame bureaucrat job for the Town of Colfax? I bet Shively wasn’t even being serious.”

  “I can tell you for a fact that he’s serious. I’ve been covering local politics for twelve years. The whole reason Hammerick got elected in the first place was because people were fed up over all the cronyism at town hall. Contractors were low-balling bids because they knew their pals would okay cost overruns later. Hammerick brought in Shively to clean it up.” As she’d done before, she rested a hand on top of Zann’s, the injured one that she hoped to bring back to life. “Is it going to make the world a better place for you to stay here in Colfax? I don’t know…but it would make my world a better place.”

  Chapter Seven

  From the moment Marleigh invited her back to her place for “dessert,” Zann knew exactly what was on the menu. But for now a downpour held them captive in the car a mere thirty feet from Marleigh’s apartment on the ground floor of an old two-story house.

  “What the hell, right? Don’t be a wimp.” Marleigh flung the door open and dashed through the rain to the flimsy shelter of an overhang above her back porch.

  After a challenge like that, Zann had little choice but to follow. By the time she made it inside, she was soaked to the skin. “This was so not necessary. I had a perfectly good poncho under the backseat.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” She tousled Zann’s dripping hair. “How about another beer, Captain?”

  “I’m good.” She lowered her eyes to Marleigh’s chest, where her nipples strained against her wet shirt. “Sure you wouldn’t rather have hot chocolate? Looks to me like you need to warm those puppies up a little.”

  “Oh, very funny. I was going to offer you a dry shirt but forget it.” She disappeared around the corner.

  Zann followed, discovering an apartment laid out like a nautilus—kitchen to living room to a pair of small bedrooms with a bathroom in between. In the first bedroom, where Marleigh had gone to change her shirt, she could see folded clothes stacked on a twin bed. “Who sleeps in that room?”

  “Nobody. I don’t even know why I put a bed in there.”

  “No family?”

  “My folks moved to Arizona after Dad retired.
We aren’t all that close. Mother’s a major hypochondriac and Dad just feeds her drama.” Marleigh returned wearing a red plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her short wet hair was combed back, a look Zann found sexy. In her hand was a polo shirt with the Messenger logo on the pocket. “Here, this ought to fit. Clay ordered a bunch of them, but all he got were men’s sizes.”

  “Thanks. You call her Mother? Sounds formal.”

  “Sometimes I tack on ‘Superior’ under my breath. She can be pretty self-righteous.”

  Zann slipped into the room and peeled out of her wet shirt, also leaving the door ajar. Her Marine Corps-issued sports bra was damp but not soaked so she left it on. She returned to find Marleigh lounging in the corner of a sectional sofa patting the space next to her. “I don’t know if I should. Are you going to try to feel me up?”

  “Probably.”

  “Okay then. I wasn’t going to do it if it was just for show.” Returning the impish banter was fun. She fell beside her on the sofa and draped her good arm around Marleigh’s shoulders.

  Marleigh took her other arm and guided it across her waist, holding it beneath her shirt against her skin. “When I was about twelve and started having feelings for girls, I had this damsel in distress fantasy where I’d get rescued by somebody like you. And then you’d fall in love with me. Weird, huh?”

  No more fantastical than Zann’s own musings in which she saw herself as the savior. “What did you need to be rescued from?”

  “A psychiatrist would probably say it was Mother. I always ended up running away with whoever saved me.”

  “How about we not talk about your mother.” Zann closed in for a kiss, and with a mammoth effort from the muscles in her shoulder, let her fingers wander upward, where she discovered Marleigh had shed her bra along with the wet shirt. Her skin was still cold from the dampness, a fact that brought her nipple to attention. “Nice.”

  Except from where she lay, there was little more she could do. Her fingers lacked the precision to attack the buttons, and if she shifted sides her left arm wouldn’t hold her up.