“You threw hay?” Brady asked. “I didn’t know women did that.”
CJ kept her eyes on the trail where raised roots and loose rock kept trying to trip her. “My parents managed the farm like a cooperative. We all learned every aspect of the daily running of the property. We each had a specialty too, something we were better at or liked to do more than anyone else. For Joe, it was cultivating. Alec can plow and plant straighter than the rest of us. My mom’s good at gardening, my little sister is an excellent cook and my dad and little brother are great carpenters.”
“And you?”
“Engines.” She ducked under bent branches that waved gently in the breeze. “Unfortunately, while helpful in securing my current MOS, being good with engines is hardly transferable to the real world.”
“What is the real world, anyway?” Brady countered. “I grew up thinking life was one way, and then I went back east to Smith. Talk about a foreign culture. I’m not always sure which is real now.”
“I think I know the feeling.”
“Because of the Army?”
“Something like that.”
As they continued on, CJ started to actively worry. Sylvia had said mountain sickness was nothing to sneeze at, and while she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the previous night’s realization making her want to empty her stomach at the edge of the trail, Cloudcroft’s elevation seemed the more likely culprit. Maybe they should turn back. In fact, maybe they should head home early. She wasn’t sure she could take a whole day alone with Brady without giving herself away. Besides, as soon as they were back at Bliss she was going to corner Toby. She had questions that needed answering.
Typical, she thought as the trail descended from a stand of pine and fir trees into a wide alpine meadow. She discovered something new about herself and what was her first instinct? To conduct research. You can take the historian out of the library…
Brady seized her arm, effectively squashing any thought of interrogations or libraries, and whispered, “Look.”
A hundred feet away, an elk lifted its antlered head to stare back at them. At least CJ assumed it was an elk, given it was the size of a small moose but possessed deer-like antlers. The massive beast turned in an almost leisurely manner and walked away, two female elk following in his wake. Brady released her arm to snap photos, the camera’s shutter clicking away as the elk vanished into the forest at the far end of the meadow. Then she turned back and grabbed CJ’s hand.
“That was amazing,” she said, eyes shining.
“Yeah.” CJ smiled back lopsidedly, nausea interfering with her guilty enjoyment of Brady’s nearness.
Brady looked at her more closely. “Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look so good.”
“Thanks a lot,” she quipped, but then she ruined the moment by belching, the taste of coffee and fried egg bitter on her tongue.
Brady’s grip tightened. “You feel sick, don’t you? Could it be mountain sickness?”
“Um, it’s possible.”
“You shit!” Brady fumbled with the map. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything sooner. What were you thinking?”
“I’m sorry,” CJ offered, taken aback by her vehemence. She’d never heard Brady swear before. “I didn’t realize.”
“Of course you didn’t. You’re from Michigan.” She chewed a fingertip, staring at the map. “It’s too late to turn around. We’re already halfway around the loop, and there’s a more significant climb if we go back the way we came.”
“It’ll be okay. We’ll go back to the car and head down to the valley, like Sylvia said.”
Brady stared at her, brow furrowed. “This is serious, CJ. A friend of my father’s died of a pulmonary embolism in Argentina, and he was only a little higher than we are here.”
Higher, as in more drunk? As if from a distance, CJ heard herself giggle.
Brady’s gaze narrowed. “Honestly? Do you always laugh at inappropriate moments?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe it’s the altitude.”
“Uh huh. Let’s go.”
They started off down the trail again, taking it slower than before. Brady kept asking her could she breathe, was she dizzy, did she think she might vomit? If CJ hadn’t been mortified by her body’s weakness, she might have enjoyed having Brady fuss over her like a worried hen. As it was, she merely felt like a dolt. Again. Feelings of inadequacy seemed to come with the territory when Brady was around.
If it hadn’t been for that last hill, the one they’d struggled up at the start of the hike, they probably would have made it back to the car unscathed. But as they started down, a wave of dizziness washed over CJ. This time when yet another root tried to trip her, she lost the contest. She felt herself falling, heard Brady’s shout, tried in vain to catch herself as she bounced off more exposed rocks and roots. The fall seemed to last an inordinately long time. She had time to wonder if Brady would curse at her again, to notice that her hat was no longer on her head. Finally she managed to brace herself against one of the conveniently placed log steps. Although crashing into it with the full force of gravity behind her was less than optimal.
Almost immediately, Brady was leaning over her saying her name worriedly. Great. She must have looked like an idiot, pitching headlong down the hill.
“I’m okay,” she said, sitting up and dusting herself off. Then she felt it—a sharper pain in her head and something warm sliding down the right side of her face. She reached up and pulled away fingers covered in blood.
“Your forehead,” Brady said, eyes wide. “You must have hit it.”
CJ didn’t remember banging her head, but then again she hadn’t been completely aware of what was happening to her body. The fall itself hadn’t been all that frightening. It was the fact that she might have plunged all the way down the steep slope that made her want to throw up. Or maybe that was the mountain sickness again.
Brady held her shoulders. “Do you have a concussion? Did you break anything? Are you bleeding anywhere else?”
CJ checked herself over, flexing muscles and testing joints. “I don’t think so.” Even the cut on her head didn’t hurt too badly. Later, she knew, once the adrenaline from the fall wore off, she would be in pain. But for now, everything seemed to be in working order.
“Thank God.” Brady pulled her into a tight hug.
Despite their awkward position on the ground, their bodies fit perfectly together. Of course they do, CJ thought, briefly giving herself over to the press of Brady’s softness against her. If she’d known all it would take to get Brady to hug her was to fall off a mountain…
Then she caught herself and pulled away. “I’m okay,” she repeated, eyes fixed on the ground. “But we should probably get back to the car.”
Brady leaned away from her. “You’re right. Do you think you can walk down? Your head looks pretty bad.”
CJ touched the cut. “I don’t think it’s very deep. But hey, at least you get a chance to use your first aid training from basic.”
“Not funny.” She stood up, holding out one hand, CJ’s missing hat in the other. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
But as soon as she was standing, Brady linked their arms.
“Let go.” CJ tried to disengage. She was starting to feel like a letch, knowing that Brady’s gestures were a product of mere friendliness. “I don’t want to take you with me if I decide to go all paratrooper again.”
Brady tightened her grip. “If you think I’m letting you fall, you’re insane.”
“But—”
“This is not open for discussion. Now march, soldier.”
While they were both privates, Brady did technically have more stripes on her sleeve. Anyway, CJ felt too ill to argue. She picked her way down the steepest section of the trail, diligently trying to avoid treacherous roots hidden beneath dead leaves.
At last they reached the turnout. Her ribs ached, along with one wrist and the other ankle. She had probably earned herself a prof
anity-laced dressing-down from Griggs. The master sergeant did not appreciate it when his personnel took it upon themselves to get injured off-duty, thereby making him redo his duty roster.
“Friggin’ unacceptable, Jamieson,” she could already hear him thundering at her at roll call. Assuming she made it to roll call.
Brady pulled a first aid kit from the car’s trunk.
“I didn’t know you brought that,” CJ said.
“I was a Girl Scout too, remember?”
CJ started to laugh but stopped as the motion vexed several of her aches.
“Sit on the passenger seat,” Brady ordered grimly, pushing back her hat. “Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we can figure out whether or not you need a hospital.”
CJ did as Brady directed, trying not to gasp as the iodine stung her scalp. Brady was efficient but gentle, her brow lowered over her pale blue eyes in what seemed to be a semi-permanent expression.
“Think I’ll get a Purple Heart?” CJ tried, but Brady’s features didn’t alter.
She was so close, the arc of her collar bone beneath the open PT dress directly in CJ’s line of sight. It would be so easy to lean forward and press her lips against the smooth flesh at the hollow of Brady’s throat. So easy, and so disastrous. Clenching her fists, she remembered Brady lying on her side in bed the night before and the nearly uncontrollable urge she’d experienced to touch her then too.
Crushes were abominable. Why hadn’t anyone warned her?
“I’m sorry,” she said as Brady replaced the cap on the small iodine bottle.
At last, Brady’s gaze softened. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“No, I do. It wasn’t fair of me to put you in this position.” In more ways than one.
“I’m not worried about what’s fair, CJ. I’m worried about you.” She touched CJ’s cheek, smoothing the skin she had rubbed clean.
Looking up at Brady, CJ had a renewed sense of dizziness. This time, though, it had little to do with elevation.
“I’m worried about me too,” she joked, pulling away. If she hadn’t, she would have arched into Brady’s touch like an affection-starved barn cat. And that would be harder to explain away than a little dizziness.
While Brady busied herself putting the first aid kit away, CJ checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Not as bad as she’d expected—no stitches necessary, if she was lucky—but not good either. In the mirror, she saw Brady close the trunk and then lean against the car for a moment, both hands over her face. Then she abruptly straightened and walked around to the driver’s side.
“Are you sure you don’t need a hospital?” she asked as she slid into the car. “There’s probably one in Alamogordo.”
“If we go to a hospital, we might get back late, and I for one would rather not be stuck with double latrine duty for the next month.”
“Fine.” Brady turned the key in the ignition. “But I’m taking you to Beaumont as soon as we get back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
CJ leaned her head back and closed her eyes. A visit to the post hospital actually didn’t sound so bad. She’d been thrown from more than one horse in her life; she knew that the pain was likely to worsen exponentially in the hours and days after a big fall.
Brady checked her mirrors and pulled onto the main road. Quickly she accelerated, taking the first curve faster than CJ liked. She reached out to touch Brady’s arm, feeling the muscles tense beneath her fingers.
“Relax,” she said. “It won’t help if we end up at the bottom of a canyon.”
Brady eased her foot off the accelerator. But she drove onward with her eyes fixed forward and her arms rigid, hands tight on the wheel at ten and two.
CJ rested her head on her balled-up sweater and tried to sleep, but halfway down the mountain road, Brady decided she might have a concussion. Convinced that the autumn air would keep her awake, she insisted they roll down their windows. CJ didn’t argue. She figured she owed Brady that much.
The drive down to Alamogordo seemed to take half the time of the previous evening’s drive up. Once they were down from the mountains and headed back to El Paso along Highway 54, a straight, flat shot between the two cities, Brady found a station playing big band music and turned up the volume, singing along off-key.
After ten minutes of this torture, CJ reached out and snapped off the radio. “Enough,” she declared. “Your singing is giving me a worse headache than the fall did.”
Brady glanced at her. “Do you still have a headache? What about your stomach?”
“My head hurts, but I don’t have a headache. And my stomach feels fine. In fact, I’m hungry.”
“What about your breathing?”
“Normal. See? I told you everything would be all right.”
Beside her, Brady took a long, shuddering breath. And then, to CJ’s consternation, she started to cry, tears sliding silently down her face.
“Wait.” CJ scooted closer on the bench seat. “Hey, none of that. Everything’s fine, I promise.” Tentatively, she slipped her arm around Brady, telling herself it was okay this once.
Immediately Brady slowed the car and pulled over on the empty shoulder. As soon as they stopped, she turned and hid her face in CJ’s neck. CJ held her close, aware of the muscles in Brady’s back, the press of her breasts, the slight scent of wood smoke in her hair. They’d had that bathtub all to themselves and somehow they hadn’t made use of it. Instantly the image of Brady naked, steam rising around her, assailed her, and she shut her eyes, trying to will it away.
“Shh,” she said, rubbing Brady’s back. “Shh, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Suddenly Brady pulled back and pummeled her shoulder. “You jerk. You scared me!”
“I know,” CJ said, trying not to wince at this new pain. “I’m sorry, really.”
“It’s not your fault. I should have known something was wrong.” Brady closed her eyes and wiped the tears away. Then she leaned her forehead against the same shoulder she’d struck and whispered, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
CJ rested her cheek against Brady’s hair. She remembered the moment in bed the night before when they had lain together, bodies touching from head to toe. She’d wanted to kiss Brady, yes. But even more she’d wanted to hold onto the sensation of having Brady so close. Now here was that feeling again—the sense that she could stay here like this forever, happily. This was the meaning of life, the reason human beings existed: to love and be loved.
Love? Aw, crap. Crap and double crap.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated miserably. She was. Sorry for falling in love with her, sorry for lying to her, sorry for ruining the best friendship of her life. And yet, her feelings for Brady had walked the line between friendship and adoration right from the start. She just hadn’t read the signs correctly.
“So am I,” Brady murmured. And then she pushed CJ away, dried her eyes again and pointed the car toward El Paso.
Chapter Nine
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to Tony’s?” CJ asked as they neared the post.
Before the accident, they had planned to spend the afternoon near Alamogordo exploring an archeological site that was home to thousands of petroglyphs, and then drive back to El Paso in time for supper at Brady’s favorite restaurant, Tony’s Place, fifteen minutes south of Bliss. There they had intended to linger over margaritas and Southwest cuisine until their pass expired.
Instead, they’d eaten day-old sandwiches, apples swiped from the lodge and the last of their mess hall cookies as they followed the highway back to El Paso, stopping once to fill up the car’s tank and their canteens.
Brady glanced away from the highway to consider her. “I think you should probably have that cut looked at. The last thing you need is an infection.”
On one hand, CJ wasn’t ready to relinquish the rare intimacy they’d enjoyed all weekend. But on the other, she couldn’t wait to be away from Brady, whose gravitational pull she was finding almost impossible to
resist.
They pulled into the post’s main gate a few minutes before four. When the MP on duty caught a glimpse of CJ’s bloody gash, he telephoned ahead to the post hospital and gave them directions to the correct building. The directions were necessary—William Beaumont General Hospital had recently expanded to more than a hundred buildings in order to provide specialized medical care to wounded soldiers returning from all theaters of the war.
Brady dropped her off at the designated building and went to park the car. Inside, a civilian employee took CJ’s information and called in an Army nurse, who led CJ to an examining room. There she proceeded to ask a variety of questions, poke her sore spots and shine a light into her eyes. Eventually a harried doctor came in and concurred with the nurse’s diagnosis—nothing broken, no stitches needed and no concussion. The nurse cleaned and secured the head wound with butterfly closures, dressed the worst of the scrapes on her arms and legs and sent her on her way with a packet of aspirin and a note excusing her from duty for the next twenty-four hours. Griggs would have to wait a day to chew her out.
She found Brady seated on a utilitarian sofa in the lobby, frowning down at an old issue of Yank. She’d never seen Brady as agitated as she’d been today. Had the day’s events stirred up old feelings about the family friend who had died from elevation sickness? Or could she possibly…CJ stopped the thought. No use wishing Brady felt the same way. Number one, she didn’t. And number two, even if by some miracle she did, it wasn’t like anything could come of such feelings. The government owned them, and according to Uncle Sam, acting on romantic feelings for a member of your battalion was strictly verboten.
Brady jumped up when she saw CJ. “What’d they say? Is everything okay?”
“Other than a brain injury and some internal bleeding, I should be fine.”
Brady started to smack her shoulder and then folded her arms across her chest instead. “Are you okay or not?”
“Sorry,” CJ said for the tenth time that day, suddenly picturing Brady leaning against the car, hands over her face. Brady was right—she was a shit. “Nothing’s broken, I don’t have a concussion, and no stitches required. I just have to take aspirin for the next few days. Oh, and I get out of duty tomorrow.” She reached for the door, then winced as her back constricted. Yep, there was the pain she’d been expecting.
In the Company of Women Page 11