A Reluctant Companion

by Kit Tunstall

  Madison rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I’d still like to apologize to him.”

  Tiernan shrugged. “You can as soon as he’s back at the capitol building.”

  “Okay. Is Vinny still around, or has he been banished for being my favorite?”

  Sternly, he said, “I thought I was your favorite.”

  Madison let a slow, sexy smile slide over her lips. “Maybe I’ll show you just how much tonight, my love.” In a blink, she made her expression businesslike. “However, I need to get to work right now, and so do you. It’s amazing you can accomplish anything in this federation with the way you slack off.” She swatted him on the butt discreetly, not wanting to embarrass the commander in front of his troops.

  With a growl low in his throat, he said, “You’re going to pay for that. Now, go find Vinny and stop bothering me, woman.”

  With a laugh of pure happiness, she waved at him and headed off in the direction of the guardhouse as Tiernan turned the other direction, back to the side entrance of the capitol building, near his office. She was still feeling buoyant from their flirtatious teasing as she stopped at the window and waved to Vinny, who was thankfully the first face she saw.

  He stepped outside a moment later. “Good morning, Miss Cole.”

  “Hey, Vinny. You feel up to going with me to the clinic?”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  As they fell in step together, she mused aloud, “I wonder what we’ve missed.”

  “Not much. Everything’s the same,” said Vinny.

  “Oh?” She tilted her head in his direction. “Have you been stopping by the clinic to help out, Vinny?”

  He shrugged, his cheeks ruddy. “I took Lucy out for a meal a couple of nights ago.”

  “Aha.” She crowed with delight. “I knew it. How was it?”

  “Good.” His ears were now red too. “I like her, Miss Cole.”

  “I’m glad. I’d say Lucy likes you too.” She didn’t bother to share with her guard that the receptionist had expressed qualms about their twelve-year age difference, along with concerns that her thirteen-year-old son might not be thrilled to have a new man in her life that was only eight years older than he was. It would work out. She was crazily optimistic about love at the moment.

  As they neared the end of the driveway to step onto the street, a loud whoosh behind them had them both freezing. A millisecond later, a blast of heat hit them, along with a percussive wave that knocked them both to the ground. Madison’s ears rang, and she grasped her head intuitively, curling into a ball as debris rained down over them.

  It might have been hours, but was probably only a few minutes later, that she regained the ability to focus her eyes and looked up to find a small group of soldiers bending over her and Vinny. One of the men extended a hand, and she took it, slowly getting to her feet. She still couldn’t quite make out the words he was saying, but could guess his general intent by the shape of his mouth forming the syllables.

  “Are you all right, Miss Cole?”

  She nodded, and then groaned as pain shot through her head from the motion. Cradling her neck, she asked, “What happened?” It was impossible to regulate her volume, and she thought maybe she had shouted, but it didn’t seem to bother the older man who had helped her to her feet.

  “An explosion near the front of the capitol building.”

  Her heart stuttered. “Tiernan?”

  The other man shrugged, and she didn’t wait to hear more. Madison tore away from him, pumping her legs as hard as she could as she ran to the front of the building. It was only when she stumbled to a halt that she realized the soldiers had raced after her. In shock, she stared at the front of the building. The grand marble steps were gone, as was a portion of the front door and the two pillars closest to the blast. The roof sagged slightly, but that barely held her attention.

  Instead, she focused on the three bodies that she could make out in the rubble and haze of smoke. Soldiers bent over them, obscuring identities, and she tried to force her way through, struggling against the restraining hands holding her. “Let go. I need to know if he’s okay.”

  “Madison.”

  Either a modicum of hearing had returned, or Tiernan had roared her name. Either way, she heard it and turned to him, collapsing against her lover as relief made her limp. “Oh, thank god. I thought you were dead.”

  He rubbed her back, holding her close. His mouth was near her ear, but she still didn’t know how loudly he had to speak for her to hear him. “I would have been if I hadn’t gone in the side entrance.”

  A sob shook her, and she clutched him tighter. If he hadn’t come with her to see her family off, or if he had gone a different route, he might be one of the three bodies strewn across the lawn in front of the building.

  Tiernan moved carefully, not letting go of her as he negotiated their way through the debris to learn the identities of the victims. Madison didn’t recognize the first one as the soldiers moved aside, shaking their head, but she cried out with dismay to see the woman from the kitchens who had brewed her contraceptive tea weeks ago. To witness her so lifeless, burned from the blast of the explosion, made her stomach churn.

  She lost the battle with nausea as they approached the third body, and she had a horrible sinking feeling of recognition even before they got closer. It couldn’t be…but she did have a suit just that shade of canary-yellow… “Oh, no.” Madison bent over at the waist, away from Tiernan, and vomited. “Not Cleo.” There would be no trip to Texas in her future, no new life as Tex’s companion—a prospect Cleo had greeted with ever-growing excitement as the time neared for her departure.

  “Do something,” Tiernan commanded to the nearest soldier. “Get a doctor.”

  The man shook his head. “She’s gone, sir.”

  Madison wailed, uncaring about dignity or decorum. She didn’t fight as Tiernan drew her away. Instead, she touched his cheek as tears trickled from his eyes, holding him close. Cleo had been a good friend to her, but she had meant incomparably more to Tiernan. She had been his friend, lover, and close confidant for seven years. Though they no longer shared a sexual relationship, they had remained close. It hadn’t bothered her, because she’d known there was only friendly affection, not love, between them. Still, she knew he had to be hurting to have lost one of the few people to whom he was close.

  “What happened?” She clutched his jacket in her hands. “How did this happen?”

  He hesitated, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know, but I suspect it was a bomb.”

  She blinked with shock, having expected him to say some sort of natural disaster, or perhaps a malfunction with the electrical system, which always seemed to skate a line of fragility for a city this big. Anything but that. “Someone did this deliberately?”

  Tiernan looked haggard. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out—and they’ll pay.”

  She shivered at the cold rage in his gaze, but didn’t draw away as he held her close. No, she couldn’t fault his reaction and had a feeling rage would come later, after the shock wore off and acceptance set in.

  *****

  She had been right. As it sank in that someone had tried to murder Tiernan and hadn’t cared about other innocent lives lost in the process, her anger stirred. Standing beside the hole in the raw earth two days later, as men lowered Cleo’s closed casket into the ground, the rage nearly blinded her. It wasn’t the same cold fury that Tiernan had kept in check. In her case, it was hot and primal, touched with more than a hint of fear to know it could have been Tiernan in that box instead of Cleo. How she hated having that thought, to have a small surge of relief that it was anyone but the man she loved, and that spark of guilt made her even angrier. She dug her fingers into her palms and struggled not to scream at no one in particular as the first shovels of dirt hit the ornate wooden box.

  Turning away from the sight of her friend’s interment, Madison stalked away from the cemetery, conscious of Tiernan a step behind her, along with an entou
rage of soldiers that would have felt suffocating a few days ago, but was now comforting. She didn’t stop until she was at the commander’s car, where she leaned against the trunk, burying her face in her hands. The wrath still burned, but grief was the dominant emotion that sent tears spilling down her cheeks. “Did you find out who did this?” she asked Tiernan in a wet voice.

  “No.” He pursed his lips. “Rebels, obviously, but we don’t know their identities yet, though Aidan and some of the troops found their workshop. It reeked of bananas, but no one had reported anything unusual.”

  She frowned. “What do bananas have to do with it?”

  Tiernan grimaced. “Homemade dynamite produces a smell very similar to bananas during manufacturing. If anyone in the vicinity had known that, we might have been able to prevent this.”

  “Who would have suspected bananas?” she asked, though her mind wasn’t really on the topic. She shook her head. “I don’t understand how someone could do this. It’s so random, so violent. Whoever set up the dynamite didn’t give a damn who it killed.”

  Tiernan put his arms around her. “They’re animals. I don’t care how much they hate me. I have no mercy and no pity for the people who did this, and when I find them, they’re going to die.”

  She nodded, fully in agreement with his proclamation. The world they lived in was harsh, and sometimes, being harsher was the only way to deal with it. Besides, she couldn’t imagine circumstances where she could ever feel sorry or concern for the rebels who had murdered Cleo and two other people while trying to kill the man holding her. “I hope you find them soon,” she whispered.

  “We will,” he said in a voice laced with steely determination.

  *****

  Despite Tiernan’s conviction that they would swiftly identify the rebels behind the bombing, the days slipped by without further leads. Aidan admitted his frustration at their monthly dinner with the officers and spouses, and it was a shared sentiment around the table.

  Madison had found it difficult to sustain the same level of rage as the days and weeks passed, though anger still engulfed her whenever she remembered the event. Memories could come when she was engrossed with something else. Little things might trigger a memory of Cleo, like the night she had used the shears in the bathroom to trim her hair and remembered holding her friend at the other end of them in her bid to try to escape Tiernan months ago. Or when she gagged down her contraceptive tea each day, she was most likely to think of Cleo. Perhaps that was why the brew had grown more noxious as the weeks passed, until she could barely stand to smell or swallow it now. The memories of her friend must be inexorably intertwined with the tea, which triggered her senses to bring forth bitter memories.

  The taste was still in the back of her throat and clinging cloyingly to her tongue later that morning as she rode beside Vinny in the commander’s car. Since the attack, he had insisted she take the car to and from the clinic, and she now had two guards. Tiernan had wanted her to stop volunteering entirely, but she couldn’t stand to be stuck inside the capitol building day after day, listening to the sounds of construction that so reminded her of the recent tragedy. She’d been going crazy and had finally got him to capitulate with the new stipulations.

  Privately, she thought it was a waste of resources to take the car, though she didn’t mind having a second guard. Figg had been amiable about accepting her apology and had seemed relieved to get this posting. She knew a lot of the other troops were scouring the city on a daily basis, trying to roust out rebels and impose a state of order on the chaos caused by the aftermath of the bomb. People didn’t feel secure or safe as they once had, and she could sense a difference in the air each time she ventured out of the capitol building.

  Even the clinic was different. There weren’t as many patients, and the ones who came in were meek in the presence of Vinny and Figg, as though they expected the soldiers to shoot without provocation. Rumors had reached her ears of overzealous shootings, so she couldn’t blame the extra caution everyone exhibited, even if it frustrated her.

  As they drew up to the clinic, Figg got out first, scanning the area as always, holding his rifle at the ready as Vinny exited next. When he nodded to her, she got out, smothering her impatience with the procedure. She still couldn’t fathom that anyone would consider her a target. She was Tiernan’s companion, but nothing more. He’d never mentioned love words or asked her to become something more permanent. He was obviously content with what they had, and she was doing her best to find a similar equanimity and not want more than he could give her. Considering his commitment issues, he had made considerable progress already in maintaining a monogamous relationship with her for almost four months. Rushing Tiernan would be exactly the wrong thing to do.

  As she entered the clinic, bile rose in her throat, and she veered to the bathroom abruptly, much to Figg and Vinny’s surprise. Madison heaved and lost the contents of her meager breakfast, along with the disgusting contraceptive tea that tasted even fouler coming up. When the shakiness had passed, she stood up to splash her face with water and rinse her mouth. She summoned a weak smile as she left the bathroom to find Vinny, Figg, and Lucy waiting for her.

  “Are you okay?” asked Lucy.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I am now.” She did feel a little better, except for a round of dizziness that swept through her. “I think I drank some bad tea.” As Madison took a step forward, she realized the walls were tilting, and the floor was approaching at an alarming rate.

  Blinking open her eyes, she looked up to see the ceiling of one of the two exam rooms. She was lying on one of the metal exam tables covered by a thin mattress and absorbent sheet. The room was no longer spinning, and she started to sit up carefully.

  “Easy there,” said Susan, appearing on her left side to hold her arm. Moving at a snail’s pace, she finally let Madison sit up. “How’s that?”

  “Fine.” And it was. “No nausea, no dizziness.” Grimacing, she said, “I bet I made a fool of myself.” A groan escaped her. “Figg and Vinny didn’t panic, did they? I hope they didn’t do anything stupid, like go fetch Tiernan.”

  Susan smiled. “No, they’re both in the waiting room, anxious to hear an update.” She listened to Madison’s heart with her stethoscope, asking casually, “What do you think happened?”

  Madison shrugged. “I think it’s my contraceptive tea. It’s always been nasty, but it’s downright disgusting the past couple of weeks.” She grimaced, the phantom taste in her mouth. “I wonder if the commander’s herbalist is using a rotten root or something.”

  “Hmm, maybe. Maybe she changed the formulation a bit, and it isn’t agreeing with you.” Susan moved the stethoscope to her back to listen as she breathed deeply. “Have you missed any cups, since it’s so bad?”

  Madison shook her head, and then paused. “No, not really, except for the few days I was at home visiting my family. I didn’t think to take any with me for the trip.”

  “Hmm.” Susan put away the stethoscope. “Have you noticed anything else unusual?”

  Madison shrugged. “No, not really. Just the tea making me sick.”

  “When was your last cycle, Madison?”

  Madison tipped her head, thinking back. “Uh, I don’t think I’ve had one since the first week after I became the commander’s companion. Cleo…” She drew in a deep breath, stifling a dart of pain at saying her friend’s name. “Cleo said that was normal. I might go months without one.” She groaned. “Do you think I’m about to get one? Is that why I’ve been feeling yucky? I can tell you, I haven’t missed it at all.”

  “No.” Susan seemed to be biting back a grin. “In fact, I can pretty confidently say you won’t be having a cycle again for a long while.”

  “Oh. Is that a side effect of the tea?”

  The doctor did chuckle then. “Indirectly, it’s a side effect of missing a few days of your tea, Madison. I think you’re pregnant.”

  The dizziness returned with a vengeance, and Madison found herself pa
ssing out for the second time that day. When she came to a few moments later, an automatic denial sprang to her lips. “I can’t be.”

  Susan was still hovering nearby. “You have to take the tea consistently to prevent ovulation, Madison. Miss a couple of days, and you lose its protection. It’s pretty likely you’re carrying a baby.”

  She shook her head. “Tiernan won’t want that. I don’t want that.”

  Susan’s expression became neutral, and her voice was bland. “There are ways to terminate, if that’s what you want.”

  Madison gasped, cradling her stomach instinctively. “No, that’s not what I meant. I want his baby, but not the way he wants to raise it.” She shuddered, recalling Tiernan’s childhood and the way he’d spoken so casually of repeating that horror on his own heir. “He won’t want me to be the mother. I’ll meddle too much.”