Captain O'Reilly's Woman - Ashes of Love 1

by Gwen Campbell

  “And what did your mother say about this arrangement?” Samantha asked non-judgmentally.

  “Oh she’s dead. She died when my little brother was born.” The girl shrugged lightly. “That’s why Dad was so keen on us having a clinic. Said if Mama had somebody—somebody like you with her she wouldna died.”

  Samantha gave the girl a full check-up. Her overall health wasn’t good and she had rickets. She needed an appointment with their dentist and was suffering from other lingering effects of a lifetime of inadequate nutrition. Even though Samantha didn’t want them to, the girl’s pregnancy and syphilis tests came back positive.

  Two days later, Kathleen was back. This time with her father. It was Kathleen’s choice, Samantha had explained, whether or not to tell him. Samantha had told her that the pregnancy could be terminated if she chose. At her age, giving birth was risky. She would have sent Kathleen home with literature to digest, but the girl couldn’t read. To his credit, even though he’d pimped his own daughter out, Kathleen’s father chose his daughter’s health over his self-deluded pride at having played a part in saving their community. Samantha scheduled a D&C for the next day.

  Doctor Stern called her aside when he read the OR board the next day.

  “You sure you want to perform this procedure, Corporal?” he asked, his bushy, gray brows drawing together. “With you being pregnant, you might feel...conflicted performing procedures like this. We’re forced to push so much learning on our medics that we forget that, sometimes, there’s a need to pull back too.”

  “I don’t want to perform it. But I’m going to, sir,” Samantha answered shakily. “She’s a brave kid but she flinches whenever one of the male nurses touches her.” She straightened her back.

  Doctor Stern sighed but agreed.

  That afternoon, when David returned to their quarters, he found Samantha curled up on their bed. Her eyes were bleary but she wasn’t crying. He sat down beside her and stroked the slight mound of her belly. “You all right, Sam?” he whispered, pulling off his cap. He was the only one that she let see the strain her pregnancy put on her. Her frequent lateness in the morning was an inside joke in the medical division. They teased her about being a newlywed. But he knew how hard it was for her to move in the morning without throwing up. How tired she was. How she hated being so emotional. How much strain her work and study hours gave her.

  How much she hated the fact that her ankles swelled up by the end of the day.

  If he had his way, he’d yank her from active duty. She wouldn’t let him. She also wouldn’t let him use his authority to coddle her when no other female soldier had that privilege.

  Samantha rolled toward him and lay her hands on his arms. She caressed his muscles through his shirt. She liked that. So did he.

  She smiled up at him. “Yes,” she answered firmly. Quietly. “I am all right.”

  And she was. Although David was completely bowled over when her first ultrasound showed that she was carrying not one but two babies. By the first week in March, their work in Montpelier was complete. The schools had been rebuilt and thirteen-year old Kathleen, along with all the other children in town, was learning to read. The clinic was staffed with locally trained medics as well as four nurses and two doctors that the Army recruited from outside. To Samantha’s undying gratitude, a dairy cooperative was up and running under local leadership. There were other start-up businesses, including a metal-fabrication shop and a dressmaker whose business quickly grew to feature women’s clothing made with locally woven lace and a popular line of lingerie that was available throughout reclaimed New North America by mail order.

  A month before the division was due to ship out, Doctor Major Fred Stern asked to meet with David and Samantha.

  “I’m removing you from active duty next month, Corporal,” he said, addressing Samantha directly. David sighed with barely contained relief but Samantha started to fume. Doctor Stern held up his hand when she turned red and opened her mouth to yell at him. “And don’t argue with me,” he added tiredly. “I had two emergency surgeries last night and I’m in no mood.” He rubbed his temple then looked at her pointedly. “We’re taking this bucket of bolts back on the road in four weeks,” he said, glancing around David’s office. The formerly austere and impersonal space now held pictures of Samantha and Captain O’Reilly, of Samantha and her family, Samantha alone. “By then you’ll be in your thirty-fourth week. I refuse to allow you and those twins to be bounced over lord knows how many kilometers of bad road. And no way will I let them be born in an un-reclaimed area that we’ve just barely started to clean up. You’re no good to me that close to delivery and you’ll draw too many medical resources,” he added bluntly when Samantha opened her mouth again.

  She wasn’t buying into his gruffness but held her tongue when David slid his hand over hers.

  “Go home, Samantha,” Doctor Stern added, his voice gentling. “Use the four and a half months you’ll have before you start medical school to take care of yourself, study and enjoy those babies of yours. And use that RI clout of yours to get him a leave of absence.” Doctor Stern turned to David. “You’re going to be leaving anyway. We all know you’re heading to Kentucky mid-July. You won’t get a chance to see this next reclamation through to the end. Let your replacement come in early and see it through start to finish.” He smiled grimly. “Consider it an order from your chief medical officer.”

  * * *

  Four weeks later, at the beginning of March, Cheryl Rogerson, her husband and a select handful of David’s oldest friends sat in heated cars, looking out the windows. They heard the big Army helicopter long before they saw it.

  “Hmm,” Stephen, the local butcher, said. “Guess he’s an even bigger big-shot than we thought.”

  But the truth of it was that the special transport was for Samantha, not David and, after the helicopter crew unloaded their two passengers, their luggage then took off again, David and Samantha’s friends rushed toward them. They welcomed them back, commented on how Samantha was glowing and led them to the waiting cars.

  “The ice is still in so you can’t stay out on the island yet,” Pete, David’s fishing buddy explained. “But we’ve set you up in the old Maxwell place.” David and Samantha had a good idea how much trouble the town would go to when they learned their local hero and his bride were coming home for her abbreviated maternity leave so they weren’t surprised.

  It had snowed a few days earlier and the sun was out. Samantha always remembered her first glimpse of her new home set in a frame of glittering, fresh snow. The old Maxwell place was a sprawling, two-storey colonial, freshly scraped of old paint and awaiting warmer weather before a fresh coat was applied. The paved driveway and walkways were cleared, a fresh pine swag hung on the front door. The house was no more than two kilometers outside of town and set back from the road on a big, wooded lot. Inside, Samantha smelled a wood-burning fire, coffee and sweet rolls. Jacob Rawlins and his wife stepped out to greet them and, the old burns on her arms hidden by the sleeves of a warm, hand-knit sweater, she embraced Samantha fondly then led her around the house.

  It was sparsely furnished, but on purpose. The people in town wanted David and his wife to have the opportunity to decorate it themselves. The wood floors had recently been stripped and resurfaced. All the upstairs carpet had been replaced. The walls and ceilings were freshly painted a uniform cream color. And, Jacob Rawlins informed them proudly, there were new shingles on the roof and new insulation in the attic.

  He was especially proud to show them the handcrafted bed in the massive master suite. “The best carpenters in town all had a hand in building this. Myself included,” he added with a grin.

  * * *

  David and Samantha settled easily into town life. She spent most of her days studying with her feet up. David caught up with his friends and was fast-tracked onto the town council without an opportunity to protest his appointment. When he asked Samantha what she’d like first for their new home, her answer
was simply, “a dog.”

  David’s dark brows drew together. “A dog,” he repeated skeptically. “You want a puppy and two babies...at the same time.”

  “Not a puppy. A dog,” Samantha repeated succinctly and scratched her distended abdomen.

  “A dog...okay then,” David agreed with a shrug.

  The next day, he drove her to the farm that served as the town’s animal shelter. Feral dogs, whenever they wandered too close to town, were shot. But a few that wandered in had obviously been pets, often dropped off by desperate owners living in un-reclaimed areas. It didn’t take Samantha long to settle on what had to be just about the largest dog David had ever seen. He was black and looked like the result of an illicit love affair between a black retriever and a black bear, with a massive head and a long, lanky frame. So skinny he looked like death warmed over and had a blotchy coat that had likely never seen a brush, let alone a bath.

  But Samantha was completely smitten by him and, after just a minute standing beside the dog, David knew why. He was just the nicest, most easy-going animal David had ever met. It followed Samantha without protest and she settled him into the back seat of their newly acquired, refurbished four-by-four. The dog poked his head between the front seats and leaned against her shoulder as they drove.

  * * *

  She went into labor a week early and, despite the prep classes they’d attended, David had a hard time controlling the unexpected and unwelcome wooziness he felt in the delivery room. With Doctor Nichol’s encouragement ringing in one ear and Samantha’s determined grunts in the other, he managed to hold it together. One of the nurses gently sat him down on a stool near Samantha’s head after his twin daughters, Lynn and Mary Rose were born. They had dark-brown hair and arrestingly pale, blue eyes the color of the sky. The first girl was named after his mother, the second after his sisters. “Very efficiently done, Corporal,” he teased Samantha afterward. “Two down and only two to go.”

  She shot him a look that could freeze water in summer. “Yeah well next time you go through ten hours of labor,” she grumbled then shifted in the oversized, padded rocker in the girls’ nursery. “Jeez these stitches are bugging me.” She stopped grumbling when he lifted Lynn from her hand-turned cradle. The baby stopped crying as soon as Samantha began nursing her and he sat down on the window seat across from them, watching with a contentment that was as startling as it was profound.

  Out in the hallway, the dog lifted his head briefly, slapped the floor a few times with his heavy, feathered tail then dropped his head back down onto the carpet and went back to sleep.

  Samantha’s mother arrived soon after and stayed for a week. With the constant flow of visitors, she spent more time cleaning the house than cuddling her granddaughters. But she didn’t complain.

  By the beginning of June, David, Samantha and the girls moved into the cottage. The town had re-graded their road and added fresh gravel—quite an extravagance considering theirs was the only home on it.

  One of the first things Samantha did was buy potted geraniums at the Saturday-morning market and get out the old hanging baskets for the garages. She touched up the paint on the sign at the top of the drive.

  They had a good six weeks. Samantha started running again and, the dog at her heels and a double-pram ahead of her, soon got back up to five kilometers a day. The babies looked adorable, tied up in their little lifejackets whenever their parents took the boat into town. Or when David took them with him to go fishing off the dock.

  But by mid-July, both houses were again closed down and they, the girls and the dog climbed into a military helicopter and flew to Kentucky.

  Sergeant Samantha O’Reilly and Major David O’Reilly took up their new duties...she as a first-year medical student, he as the new CO of Reclamation Programs for the north-east. It was a huge promotion for David and one which, he was assured, he’d earned and hadn’t gotten just because of his wife’s RI status. It also meant that, for the next four years, they stayed in one place, going home for Christmas and six weeks every summer.

  Sergeant Tom Stevenson was transferred in that summer and created order out of chaos by setting up a nursery, which eventually became a playroom in an office adjoining David’s. The sergeant vetted potential nannies with the same fierce attention he applied to everything and somehow managing to cuddle one baby when required, scratch the dog behind its ear and keep up with David’s paperwork. When the girls were old enough, he picked them up from the base’s daycare centre where they spent a full morning, Monday through Friday.

  And, as promised, he kept the office safe and fully baby-proofed at all times.

  As soon as Samantha graduated, she was automatically given the rank of Major. She’d teased David about that, them being the same rank. But the head of reclamation programs stumped them both when he retired and appointed David as his successor. So even before she made Major, David was a full-bird Colonel. She worked in the on-base hospital. Times being what they were, she’d trained as a surgeon but spent two afternoons a week at the hospital in town, in obstetrics.

  The following summer, on vacation, they got pregnant a second time and David was shocked to learn that Samantha was again expecting twins. “Well, my father’s a twin. And so was my maternal grandmother so I suppose I should have seen this coming,” Samantha said calmly as she watched the ultrasound monitor. The medic shifted the probe over her gel-covered abdomen and she pointed to the monitor. “There’s one heart. And another. Just two I think.”

  “Damn well better be,” David muttered, then his mouth thinned. “Having to go through you giving birth to two is quite enough thank you.”

  She ignored his grumbling and her eyes flashed as she saw something on the monitor. “Is that a...” she whispered intently then glanced up at the medic. “Grab a picture of that.”

  “What?” David asked, his eyes darkening with worry as the medic flipped a switch then, after a few seconds, a small square of paper rolled out the side of the machine. His brow relaxed when Samantha smiled up at him.

  “That, my love, is a penis,” she said, pointing back at the monitor.

  David squinted and looked closer. “Not very big,” he blurted out without thinking. “How can you tell?”

  Both Samantha and the medic laughed. He switched off the machine and wiped off her belly with a cloth before helping her to sit up.

  “Looks good and healthy, doc,” the medic told her brightly. “Both babies. See you at rounds tomorrow,” he added as he stepped out of the room.

  Samantha turned to her husband and gave him a lopsided grin. “It might be small now, but with your genes, he’ll make some woman very happy some day.”

  David’s cheeks reddened but he laughed—that full, loud and lusty laugh that only David was capable of—and helped her put on her shoes. But not before glancing around and giving her polished toes a quick kiss.

  Epilogue

  After thirty years in the military, General David O’Reilly retired. He and his wife, Doctor Colonel Samantha O’Reilly and their four children, three girls and one boy, moved back home. They spent their summers on the island and winters in their house just outside of town. Samantha became the chief of staff at the local hospital and David was appointed as the town’s mayor. He did some consulting work for the Army but mostly he spent his time taking care of the children and operating a part-time fishing-charter business.

  During their last two years in Kentucky, Samantha was thrilled to be able to renew her friendship with JT Winters. They’d kept in touch over the years but hadn’t spent much time together.

  Captain JT Winters had been promoted to divisional head of reconnaissance operations. As a young man, he’d seen up close just how much influence recon units had in people’s lives—for good and bad. He’d signed on almost as soon as Samantha had left for Kentucky and had been in recon ever since.

  And, as Samantha had predicted, he’d grown into a full-blown hottie with massive shoulders, discerning blue eyes and heavy musc
les covering every inch of his athletic, six-foot frame. His hair had darkened with age, into a burnt orange with sun-licked strands of yellow. He wore it long and held back with a neat, metal clip at the back of his neck, even though he didn’t do much field work anymore.

  His wife, a tall, willowy woman who was eight years older than him, liked it long, he said whenever Samantha bugged him about getting it cut.

  When David and Samantha retired from active service, Lieutenant Tom Stevenson became JT’s ADC.

  * * *

  It came as a surprise when, the following summer, Samantha discovered she was again pregnant. Their older daughters, now fourteen, were pleased at the prospect of having real babies to play with. The ten-year olds were neutral but didn’t complain when their television room, on the first floor, was moved up to the second to make way for a new nursery.

  David O’Reilly who, thirty-six years earlier, terrified and alone in the wake of the Great War, had dug graves for his family in the backyard of their home in the city before making his way north to the only other home he knew, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his friend, Doctor Nichol. David held her hand as his beautiful wife gave birth to two more healthy, squirming O’Reilly’s. And, with a clarity that startled him, David flashed back to the wall of their bedroom on the island. He pictured the neat, cherished row of photos, now a little faded, of his parents, sisters and him as a child. Neat rows of new photos surrounded the old ones. Pictures of him and a smiling Samantha in the boat, then her and babies Lynn and Mary Rose. There were later photos of the children as they grew, him with some grey in his hair now, Samantha leaner than she’d been when they’d married but with a fire and confidence in her remarkable, cinnamon-colored eyes that still took his breath away.