In the Company of Women

by Kate Christie

  Beneath her, Brady’s eyes sparked. “Clearly.” She slid her hands down to the back of CJ’s thighs, and CJ forgot to think as desire surged through her and she willingly lost herself again in Brady’s kiss.

  * * *

  Later, they ordered room service—chicken with mushrooms in red wine, sautéed spinach, white rice and roasted yams. When the food arrived, CJ went to the door dressed in her suit jacket and skirt while Brady hid out in the bedroom. Once the curious waiter had gone, CJ stripped again and they pulled on luxurious robes that bore the hotel’s insignia. Seated cross-legged on the bed, they fed themselves and each other, washing down the meal with champagne.

  “Why do I always feel a thousand times drunker on champagne?” CJ wondered aloud, spearing a forkful of chicken and spinach and offering it to Brady.

  As Brady held the fork steady, her thumb stroked CJ’s palm suggestively. “Because of the carbonation,” she said and took the bite.

  The whole thumb-stroking bit had made CJ’s mind go temporarily blank. “Sorry, what?”

  Smiling smugly, Brady offered her a spoonful of rice and yams. “The carbon dioxide in champagne accelerates the rate at which your body processes the alcohol. Champagne gets into your bloodstream faster than other drinks, so you feel its effects more quickly.”

  CJ lifted her eyebrows. “Sexy and intelligent. No wonder I love—um, being with you so much.”

  Whoa. Maybe she should slow down on the bubbly. Confessing her true love was not part of the plan.

  Brady’s head tilted. “I could say the same about you.”

  Snorting, CJ swallowed a bite of chicken. “Good with engines, yes. But no one has ever called me sexy, to my knowledge.”

  “You’re adorable, and you don’t even realize it.” Brady leaned in to kiss the corner of her mouth. “I knew the first time I saw you that you would be like this.”

  “Like what?” CJ asked, her eyes on Brady’s lips, so tantalizingly close again.

  “Intense. Fiery. Passionate.”

  It was like she was describing someone else, and yet at the same time, CJ knew what she meant. Being with Brady like this, here, tonight, had unlocked a part of herself she hadn’t even known she was holding in check. She loved Brady, but even more, she loved how she felt when she was with her—strong and smart and attractive. Sexy even.

  “It’s because of you.”

  “Good,” Brady said, and offered her another bite of the delicious food.

  A little while later, Brady cleared the empty plates and dishes while CJ ran a bath in the oversized clawfoot tub. Then they shed their robes and climbed into the hot water, facing each other from opposite ends.

  “What do you think the others are doing right now?” Brady asked, a smile playing about her lips as she slid her hand along CJ’s calves.

  “The same thing we are. Except Reggie and Sam, of course.”

  “I don’t know,” Brady said. “I distinctly heard Reggie mention when in Rome…”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Would you like to place a small wager?”

  CJ angled her head to the side. “What are the terms?”

  “If they hook up, then you have to spend Christmas with me.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “That’s up to you. I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Brady said, her voice lowering as her hand crept higher.

  CJ felt the same heat rising inside her, swift and exquisite. Again? Then Brady’s hand settled on its objective and she forgot to wonder as she tilted her head back against the tub’s cool enamel edge, steam and desire dimming her vision.

  The water had cooled by the time they stumbled to bed and collapsed beneath the sheets, arms and legs intertwined. CJ fell asleep quickly, and when she woke in the night to find Brady snuggled up against her, she smiled and drifted contentedly back to sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sunlight streamed in the suite’s wide windows the next morning, waking CJ. Rolling over onto her side, she gazed at the sleeping woman beside her. Last night had really happened, hadn’t it? Brady’s eyes were closed, her eyelashes pale smudges against the darker marks beneath her eyes, testimony to their late night. Her blonde curls were tousled from their bathtub sortie, and reaching up, CJ felt her own normally tame hair standing up every which way. She must look a sight, but she didn’t care. She felt better than she could ever remember feeling on any other morning, contentment coiling inside her like a physical manifestation. Or maybe that was exhaustion.

  Moving closer, she kissed Brady’s shoulder. Brady sighed a little in her sleep, her lovely lips curving upward. She clearly knew how to sleep in. CJ, on the other hand, was conditioned from farm and Army life to rise early. Pulling on a discarded robe, she slipped quietly from the bed. In the bathroom, she used the toilet, brushed her teeth and smoothed back her unruly hair as best she could. Then she returned to the bedroom and stood quietly, watching Brady sleep. God, she was a lucky, lucky woman. She leaned in and kissed Brady’s forehead, remembering the morning in Cloudcroft when she’d wished for a train to spirit her away from Brady and her own newly realized, decidedly queer feelings. How much had changed in a month—it was almost shocking, in the best possible way.

  In the living room, she called room service and ordered fresh fruit, waffles, juice and coffee. Then she sat on the loveseat, replaying the previous night in her mind as the sun rose over El Paso. With Sean, being intimate had almost always been his idea. She’d thought that was the way things worked, but after last night, she understood that her perception of herself as a supposed good girl was skewed, based on a thoroughly false set of pretenses. After last night, she knew she was no more a good girl than Brady was. Even now the memory of Brady’s body beneath hers, their lips and fingers tracing fiery trails against each other’s skin, made her heartbeat accelerate. She touched her tongue to suddenly dry lips. Hiding her feelings for Brady the person was one thing. But trying to hide her newly awakened passion for Brady’s body? Honestly, she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to accomplish such a feat.

  The food arrived and the bellboy had barely left when CJ heard water running in the bathroom. Soon Brady emerged, robe-clad and sleepy, an almost tentative smile on her lips.

  “I thought maybe you’d left,” she said.

  Apparently their weekend in Cloudcroft was on her mind too.

  “Not a chance.” Rising, she took Brady in her arms, thrilled by the fact that she could. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “That was sweet.” Brady hugged her tightly. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.” CJ rested her cheek against Brady’s still-messy hair. “How did you sleep?”

  “Amazingly. You?”

  “The same.”

  Brady shifted, focusing on the dining table. “Ooh, coffee. And pineapple! I knew I brought you along for a reason.”

  “And here I thought it was for my conversational skills,” CJ quipped.

  Brady looked up at her through her lashes. “After last night, I’m pretty sure you know which skills of yours I particularly prize.”

  CJ felt her cheeks flame. Maybe her good-girl notion of self wasn’t so far off, after all.

  Over breakfast, they shared the complimentary newspaper the waiter had brought. Brady hadn’t been reading the front page for long when she blanched.

  “What is it?” CJ asked quickly, her mind going first to Nate. Then she caught herself. Brady and Nate were over, finished, kaput. He was no longer first in her mind. Or he shouldn’t be.

  “We bombed Berlin again. This article claims a third of Berlin is in ruins, with thirteen thousand dead and half a million homeless.”

  “That many?” She should be used to the numbers by now, but destruction on such a scale eluded comprehension.

  At least the news that had upset Brady had nothing to do with their brothers. Or with Nate, for that matter. While CJ envied the ease with which he had assumed an accepted position in Brady’s life and famil
y, she didn’t wish him harm. She pictured the children who must number among the German dead and homeless, of the widows and widowers, the families left childless or parentless. It didn’t seem fair that she should be so happy this morning when hundreds of thousands of people on the far side of either ocean were mourning their dead, searching for food for their hungry children or otherwise trying to resist the machinery of a war that had swallowed them up in a maelstrom of destruction never previously conceived, let alone achieved.

  Brady caught her hand. “It’s a nasty war, isn’t it?”

  CJ held her gaze across the glass-topped table. “It is.”

  “That’s why I feel so lucky to have found you.” Brady squeezed her hand, paused, smiled again. “I love you, you know.”

  CJ stared at her. There she went, surprising her once again. “I love you too,” she said, smiling back.

  “You’d better.” Brady leaned forward to kiss her.

  She loves me! CJ closed her eyes against the morning sunlight. Lucky, indeed.

  As the kiss began to deepen, a familiar pounding sounded at the door.

  Brady drew back, her brow lowered. “Your friends are in serious trouble.” Before CJ could respond, Brady stalked to the door and threw it open. “This had better be good.”

  Reggie recoiled a step. “Uh, sorry to interrupt,” she said, looking away from Brady’s barely cinched robe. “The others wanted me to, you know, um, find out what you two are, well, up to?”

  CJ bit her lip, trying not to laugh at the sight of the normally verbose Reggie struggling to find words. Clearly, she had drawn the short stick on this one.

  “What’s wrong with the telephone?” Brady demanded, tugging the flaps of her robe together.

  “I see now that the telephone would have been a much better idea,” Reggie agreed, glancing over her shoulder back down the hall. “Anyway, we’re going for a walk around town if you want to join us.”

  “We have plans,” CJ called from the table, waving briefly at her squad mate.

  “Great. Fantastic. If you change your mind, we’re having lunch at Paso del Norte. See ya.”

  And with that, she retreated down the hall as if she were under enemy fire. CJ couldn’t blame her. Brady had been angry with her a couple of times, and it had scared the bejesus out of her too.

  “Now, where were we?” Brady said, smoothing her hair back and offering CJ a patrician smile.

  As she neared the table, CJ caught Brady’s hand and tugged her onto her lap. “I believe we were here,” she said, and began to kiss her again.

  * * *

  They stayed in that morning and made full use of the suite, reading the newspaper cover to cover, completing the crossword puzzle while lounging on the loveseat and, later, enjoying another long hot soapy bath that necessitated a sojourn to the bedroom and additional, separate baths afterward. But the hotel’s official checkout time was noon, and eventually they decided that their weekend of decadence should probably come to a graceful end, one that didn’t involve the staff forcibly removing them from the suite.

  A little past noon, they reluctantly buttoned each other back into their “A” uniforms and bade farewell to the suite.

  “We’ll be back, won’t we?” Brady asked, pulling the door shut behind them.

  “Of course we will,” CJ said as they walked arm in arm to the elevator.

  In fact, she wasn’t certain they would be back. They had both put in for overseas duty before they met. What if the Army in its bureaucratic ineptitude sent one of them to the Pacific and the other to the ETO? What if Brady got promoted to write for Yank magazine? What if CJ’s squadron got transferred to another post on the home front? They could both be sent anywhere the Army wished, anytime it chose. They were no longer free citizens of the United States. For now, they belonged to Uncle Sam, a short-sighted sort of relation who was far more concerned about himself than about their health or happiness.

  Fifteen minutes later they walked into the stunning lobby of the Paso del Norte Hotel, crowned by a massive stained-glass dome custom-designed by Tiffany’s when the hotel was built thirty years earlier. Across the way, Toby and Reggie waved at them. Smiling back, CJ approached the long table where their friends sat. She and Brady were an official couple finally, and here were practically the only people in the world who would be truly happy for them.

  “I guess we don’t have to ask how your night went,” Toby said, smiling up at them.

  Brady and CJ exchanged a glance as they sat down. For once, CJ didn’t bother to hide her feelings. “Let’s just say the suite more than lived up to expectation.”

  “I’ll say,” Brady said, gazing back almost as adoringly.

  “This calls for a toast,” Toby declared.

  “Hear, hear,” Reggie added, grinning.

  A waiter was summoned, and soon everyone at the table was lifting crystal glasses of champagne.

  “To our friends CJ and Brady,” Kate said, gazing at them. “May you be good to each other always.”

  “To CJ and Brady,” the chorus rang out.

  CJ focused on Jack, who was smiling almost as broadly as the rest of the group. He nodded at her, and she nodded back. Then she glanced at Brady, smiled into her eyes and drank her champagne. Life was good, right here, right now. That was all anyone could ask.

  “So what did you all get up to last night?” Brady enquired, shifting the focus.

  Sarah told them that Toby and Kate had invited everyone back to their room after dinner for an evening of tequila and dancing. An El Paso radio station had broadcast a live show from the Palomar Hotel in Los Angeles with featured entertainers the Harry James Band and vocalist Frank Sinatra.

  Brady leaned in and murmured, “Maybe we should have joined them after all.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Yes. I am definitely kidding.”

  After lunch, the group headed out to walk around El Paso again. One of Toby and Reggie’s favorite pastimes was to salute male officers who were walking with their girlfriends. Inevitably the officer would scowl at them as he was forced to remove his arm from around his companion to return the gesture, and the Wacs would walk on, snickering. Usually CJ considered this game juvenile, but today she understood the motivation behind it. Even if they hadn’t been Wacs, there was no sidewalk in America where she and Brady could stroll with their arms around each other, pausing to kiss whenever they felt like it. Inconveniencing those who didn’t even know how good they had it might be juvenile, but it was also immensely satisfying.

  As they walked around El Paso checking out department store Christmas displays, CJ found herself looking at more than only male officers differently. Before the war, most American women didn’t wear pants outside the comfort of their own home. But women now filled all sorts of positions traditionally denied them, which meant more were wearing pants in public. She gazed with new appreciation at female store clerks, taxi drivers, train operators, even construction workers. Before Brady, she hadn’t spent much time thinking about women she didn’t already know. Now she noticed which ones wore their pants suits well, which ones were particularly attractive, which ones returned her appraisal boldly. This is fun, she thought, grinning over at Toby as they passed a woman hotel valet who winked at them.

  Then Brady elbowed her, and she started guiltily.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Brady said into her ear.

  The feel of Brady’s breath on her skin gave her shivers. “I’m no wolf.”

  The hours slipped away as the group split up to pursue competing interests. CJ and Brady bought postcards and Christmas gifts to send home, and then stopped at a bookstore and lost themselves in the stacks. Every once in a while one would find the other to compare notes, but otherwise they wandered the aisles separately.

  Normally CJ preferred nonfiction. Today, however, she found herself browsing the fiction section. She stopped at a placard marked “W,” scanning the shelves more carefully. There it
was: Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. The novel was an avowed favorite of Marjorie Quinlan, a history professor at Michigan who specialized in nineteenth century abolitionist and women’s rights literature. Everyone at Michigan knew that Marjorie lived with Helen Brooks, an instructor in the chemistry department. They didn’t broadcast their relationship, but they didn’t hide it either.

  “Whatcha reading?” Brady asked, looking over her shoulder.

  CJ held up the book.

  “Interesting. I haven’t read much Woolf.”

  “She’s not exactly a Romantic,” CJ pointed out.

  “No, but she does have certain other redeeming qualities.”

  “Did you find anything good?”

  Almost sheepishly, Brady showed her Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

  CJ laughed. “Looks like we had the same idea.”

  “When in doubt, read a book.”

  Her smile slipped a little. “Do you have doubts?”

  “No, it’s just an expression.” Brady rested her chin on CJ’s shoulder momentarily. “Why, do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  Still, she glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed Brady practically embracing her in public. Nearby, at the end of the aisle, a store employee was building a “New Releases” display. She caught CJ’s eye and smiled a little, the telltale look in her eyes. Lucky again.

  A little while later, the same employee rang up their purchases. She looked at their selections, commented on their uniforms—“Fort Bliss, then?”—and, right before they left, reached under the counter for a book.

  “You might be interested in this title,” she said. “This is the British edition, but it’s about to be released in the States under the title The Middle Mist.”

  CJ held the book while Brady read over her shoulder: The Friendly Young Ladies by Mary Renault. They read the inside jacket copy and exchanged a look. Then CJ handed the book back.