Gwen Campbell - [Love from the Ashes 02]

by Recon [Shadowfire] (epub)

  The men around her groaned with open disappointment. Paige didn’t know what had possessed her to let them think she was a lesbian. But, under the circumstances, maybe it had been a good instinct.

  Corporal Benny Weston leaned toward her, so close she could feel his breath on her forehead. He looked at her earnestly. “If he says yes, can I watch?”

  Laughing, Paige laid her hand on his face and shoved lightly. He fell back into his seat with obliging ease as the others started laughing.

  Sergeant Richard Miles stretched out his long legs and leaned back in his seat, enjoying the smooth road while it lasted. He watched the members of his platoon introduce themselves to their new medic. Corporal Wynn hadn’t struck him as a lesbian—but then so many women in the corps were. Well, that was one less complication this mission. Quelling his profound disappointment, he dipped his cap over his eyes and tried to get some sleep before the road got bad.

  They stopped just before dark and made camp. Paige had never been so happy to get out of a vehicle. Her backside was aching from the endless miles of bad road and the back of her neck was sunburned. She slapped some salve on it then helped Morty, their cook, set up the portable kitchen for dinner when her new sergeant told her to.

  Corporal Mortimer Maynard was the hulking blonde who’d sat beside her most of the day and Paige was surprised by his specialist designation. An assassin who killed with his bare hands, maybe, but not this behemoth who was cutting out biscuit dough with a delicate touch and arranging trays in a portable cook stove with a precision that was almost prissy.

  Around her, their camp quickly took shape. They were nowhere special, just off the side of what used to be a county road in the middle of nowhere. Sergeant Miles only had to issue one order—to her—while the rest of the men went about their duties with a familiarity that was as quick as it was casual. Sleeping tents and duffel bags were off-loaded along with a long table that looked like it had seen some hard use and twelve chairs. They dug a pit for a bonfire and set up a portable shower.

  “Corporal—sorry it took me so long to introduce myself.” A tall, rangy officer with long, shaggy black hair and startlingly pale gray eyes walked into the cook tent. He held out his hand and looked at her warmly. “Lieutenant Ed Pembroke. Thanks for signing up on such short notice. We’re in your debt.”

  His hand was rough, his handshake firm. His smile was engaging and genuine but there was a depth in his gaze—maybe even a coldness he wore like a hidden skin. Like the sergeant, this was a man no one could ever take lightly.

  Or an enemy turn their back on.

  “Lieutenant.” Paige smiled in greeting. “My pleasure, sir.”

  “Morty showing you the ropes?” he asked conversationally, glancing over at their cook.

  “Yes. And he promised to show me a picture of his sister if I don’t break anything,” Paige added with a wink and a nod to the corporal.

  Lieutenant Pembroke laughed. It was an unguarded full-bodied laugh and Paige found herself grinning at the sound of it. “Yeah...I heard something about that.” Then he grew serious. “Okay, Corporal, whenever we set up camp, your first priority is tending to anyone who needs medical attention. When and if you’re available, you’ll help Morty. That’s what Zach did while he was with us but if Morty here takes to pissing you off, we can discuss altering your secondary duties.”

  “Me?” Corporal Maynard piped up. His voice was unbelievably innocent, especially considering it was coming from a six-two gorilla wielding a ten-inch chef’s knife. “Ah, LT, you know what a big ol’ pussycat I am.” He flashed a grin at Paige. “I’m just misunderstood.” He started cutting up cucumbers and tomatoes.

  “Actually, Lieutenant,” Paige said, turning back to their CO, “I’ll need to examine each of the men. Nothing major. Just a quick ten minutes or so with each of them. It’ll bring me up to speed on their medical backgrounds.”

  “Consider it done, Corporal,” Lieutenant Pembroke nodded. He grabbed a piece of cucumber and popped it into his mouth. “After chow?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Paige acknowledged and went back to pulling lamb chops from a cooler and laying them out for the grill.

  As she and her new platoon sat around the table and dug into Morty’s excellently prepared supper of tomato and cucumber salad, carrot soup, pan-roasted potato, roast lamb with rosemary, and fresh biscuits, Paige got a sense of the camaraderie in the group.

  Zach had been their newest member and he’d been with them a year. There was plenty of laughter, teasing and jokes. Sitting around the table with cups of tea after supper, talking by gas lamp, the warm fire crackling behind them, Paige understand why Zach had loved recon. He would fit right in.

  She only hoped she wouldn’t let him down.

  “So who you wanna start with, Wynn?”

  Paige looked up when Sergeant Miles, seated at the far end of the table, spoke loud enough for his voice to carry over the others.

  She resisted the urge to blink self-consciously as all eleven pairs of eyes turned to her. Paige straightened her back instead. “Might as well start with the easiest,” she said brightly and patted Morty’s massive shoulder. “The doctor is in, Corporal Maynard, and you’re number one on my hit list for the evening.” When the others looked at her oddly, she stood. “A ten-minute check-up for each of you,” she informed them authoritatively. Medicine was Paige’s comfort zone and she settled into it easily. “To bring me up to speed on your medical histories and Zach’s notes.”

  Several of them groaned and rolled their eyes. She patted Morty one last time and he stood grudgingly. “Can’t you start with somebody else? I just ate,” he bitched.

  “I promise I’ll be gentle,” Paige cooed, “when I snap on the latex gloves.”

  Morty pulled up short and gave her a worried glance, but he followed her anyway.

  Chuckling, Sergeant Miles stood and led them to a tent set up in the middle of the others. “Just make sure your hands are warm, doc,” he teased as he lifted the flap. “Morty here’s the delicate sort.”

  Paige stepped in after him and found the tent already set up. There was a cot with a neatly wrapped sleeping bag and pillow, and a small, collapsible, wood table beside the bed with a gas lantern on it that the sergeant lit. Her duffle was neatly placed beside that. Against the far wall was a portable exam table, a stool and her medical kit. More gas lamps were strung up near the center of the tent. Sergeant Miles lit the lamps then headed for the flap. “The fellas set it up like Zach liked. If you want it done differently, let them know.” With a quick nod, he was gone, closing the flap behind him.

  “All right, Morty,” Paige said brightly as she picked up her med kit, got out her small, portable medic’s computer then opened up a fresh box of sterile gloves. “Take your shirt off. Please.”

  “Just my shirt, doc?” Morty shot back, teasing. “If you shut your eyes and concentrated real hard, maybe you could pretend I’m a girl.”

  Paige laughed as he peeled off his fatigue shirt and the t-shirt beneath, revealing a massive, sculpted torso, arms that looked big enough to crush a tree and abdominal muscles that stood out like beer cans lined up under his skin. Every impressive inch of him was covered in taut, golden flesh that glowed beneath the gaslight. “Yes, Morty, just your shirt.” Paige slipped her stethoscope around her neck and cupped the end of it in her palm, warming it. “You’ve got me confused with that other chick...you know, the one who stood up at the back of the recruiter’s bus her first day and waved her hand in the air when they asked if anybody wanted to join the medical corps, shouting ‘I want to look at penises all day long. Penises morning, noon, and night. Sign me up quick’.”

  Morty shook the tent poles with his loud, deep laughter. Paige even caught the sound of the Sergeant’s laughter, fading as he walked away. It was low, compelling and unguardedly delighted.

  “Now shut up, Corporal, and take a deep breath,” Paige said with quiet insistence as she held the stethoscope to his back and b
egan listening.

  Almost two hours later, her last patient walked into her tent. “Sergeant,” Paige greeted him then looked back down at her computer. She keyed in the Lieutenant’s vitals, closed up his record and opened Sergeant Miles’. “How many antibiotic tablets do you have left?” she asked.

  His brow came up but he pulled a prescription bottle out of his fatigues. “Three,” he answered after glancing at the contents.

  “Good,” Paige replied then stretched her back lightly. “Take off your shirt and take a seat.” Too many hours on bad roads and her mild sunburn were catching up to her. When she’d got up that morning, she hadn’t known she’d be spending half the day in the sun in an open transport truck. Tomorrow, she’d put on sun block. Paige rubbed the corners of her eyes quickly then looked back at the sergeant.

  “Checking up on me, doc?” Sergeant Miles shook his head and grinned wryly. “Zach trusted me to keep taking the pills until they were gone.”

  “Zach knew you,” Paige replied succinctly. “I’ll trust you after I get to know you. Until then, I check.” She adjusted the angle on two lamps and leaned into him, gently probing the tanned skin around the wound on his left side. “That hurt?” she asked quietly. She tipped her head up to him.

  Richard turned his face away from hers. She was so close he could smell her...the shampoo she used, the warmth of her skin. Dyke or not, she was still gorgeous and her assessing, green eyes made his stomach do flips before he stomped on his amorous reactions. “No,” he answered quietly, cursing himself when his voice came out deeper than usual. When she looked down to examine his scar some more, he let himself look at her...the brilliant, fiery red of her piled-up hair, glowing beneath the gaslight, the lean muscles in her neck, the pinkness of her skin where she’d taken too much sun that day. All the while the scent of her filled his nostrils and seduced him until he wanted to take her hair down and clothe himself in it.

  Satisfied that the bullet wound was healing as it should be, Paige continued on with the rest of her examination. She took his vitals, asked if he had any complaints and wondered when she’d gotten so tired that she was now noticing how nice and firm the sergeant’s mouth looked. How much she liked the roughness of his fingers against hers as she checked an old tendon wound. It had been cut through by a knife a year ago and the repair was holding up nicely. She was taken by his steel blue eyes as she held her ocular scanner up to them and examined their depths. When she was finished, she pulled on a fresh pair of sterile gloves and drew a sample of his blood then pressed a cotton ball, soaked in antiseptic, to the needle site.

  “You’re good, doc,” the sergeant complimented her easily. “Zach’s needles always hurt like a bitch.”

  Grinning absently, Paige had him hold the cotton in place while she tore open a bandage. She labeled his blood sample and set it in the portable centrifuge with the others. She’s print out the results in the morning. Paige took off her gloves and tossed them and the syringe into a medical-waste container.

  The sergeant lifted the cotton away, peering down at the prick mark on his skin. “No. Keep it there, Sarge,” Paige ordered gently. She laid her finger over his, holding it just a bit too long. Her other fingers moved over his warm, very male skin then stayed there. He looked up at her, at her mouth and focused on it with an intensity that flowed between her legs like warm toffee. He made her insides feel gooey and sugary-sweet. Paige smiled as she taped the bandage over the cotton.

  “What?” Sergeant Miles asked quietly. His deep voice was intimate and titillating in the confined space.

  “Just thinking about marshmallows,” Paige answered vaguely.

  His brow came up. “We, um, don’t stock them as part of our regular provisions. But if you like...”

  “Thanks but I’m good,” Paige grinned. She ran the back of her arm across her forehead then took another look at his bullet wound. “You sure that doesn’t hurt?” she asked when he flinched at the first touch of her fingers.

  “No,” he answered quickly but his voice sounded strained and she looked up at him intently before continuing her examination.

  Richard had to fight to keep his respiration rate down. The woman was pure narcotic—the smell of her, the feel of her gentle, strong fingers on him, warm and undeniably feminine. His cock twitched inside his fatigues and he hoped she wouldn’t spot his rising...interest in her. When she looked back up at him with those gorgeous eyes, looked at him for a single, unguarded second like he was prime rib and she was starving, Richard cleared his throat and leaned away from her before he did something that would embarrass them both—like asking if he could bite her ass before he went down on her.

  Paige straightened and sat down on her stool. “It’s healing well. But the scar will be bigger than I’d like,” she said, focusing on what she was doing instead of the feel of the sergeant’s skin. How warm and solid and bulging with muscles, and how close his half-naked body was to hers. She slid her stool a good fifteen centimeters back from him. “I’d say you’ve been moving around too much. In a couple of days we’ll start you on a regimen of ointment.”

  “Nah, I’m good, doc,” Richard told her with forced brightness, jumped off the exam table and grabbed his t-shirt. He whipped it on over his head in record time. In recon, it was never a good idea to let a soldier under your command turn you on.

  And in a line of work populated almost exclusively by males, oddly enough, it had never happened to him. He grabbed his fatigue shirt and lifted the tent flap. “We done?” he asked perfunctorily, grabbed the clear specimen jar she handed to him with his name neatly inked on the label and nodded when their new medic said, “Yes. And drop the cup off outside after you’ve peed in it.”

  Richard deliberately dragged his eyes away from Corporal Paige Wynn as she stretched her back again just before she reached for her small computer pad. The movement pressed those sweet, high tits of hers against her tan colored t-shirt and made him want to ask about biting them too.

  The next morning, Paige woke early. She had to look over the results of last night’s blood samples and wanted to grab a shower before the rest of the camp woke. On her way back from the latrine—which she dug herself after a short walk into the woods with a collapsible spade in her hand—she grabbed a change of clothes, her wash kit and headed for the shower. Morty was already using it. As cook, it was a given he’d get up before everybody else. He was humming to himself, tunelessly and happily until he saw her over the curtained enclosure. Then he blushed.

  “Um...shit...Paige...” he mumbled and glanced around. “I forgot about you. I don’t have any, um...”

  “Clothes?” Paige supplied archly. She shook her head. “Guess I’ll get to see your penis after all.”

  His eyes widened and he looked defenseless. Well, as defenseless as a two-hundred-twenty pound gorilla could look. She stepped away and turned her back. “Hurry up, then. Before I change my mind and start thinking about snapping on the latex gloves.” She laughed quietly when he sent a jet of water over the enclosure, dousing her lightly. While she waited she sat on the table, finger-combing her long hair, enjoying the feel of it unbound and not pulling at her temples.

  In his small, private tent, Richard opened his eyes slowly. He heard a woman laughing, quiet and musical. It was a nice sound to wake up to and he stretched out on his back, taking a moment for himself before the day began, thinking about green eyes.

  Enjoying the hard-on he’d woken up with, he reached under the covers to stroke it once before ordering his cock to settle down so he could get his head around the upcoming day.

  Outside his tent, the shower cut off and Paige waited patiently, still with her back to Morty. He walked past her quickly, a towel wrapped around his lean hips. “All yours, Paige,” he called out over his shoulder.

  As he emerged in the early morning light, one of the first things Richard saw was Paige sitting on their table. Her hair was unbound—blazing under the rising sun, long and heavy, hanging halfway down her back.
It was straight as a poker and swung smoothly as she turned and ran her fingers through it. His hard-on returned with a vengeance and he had to hold his towel over his groin to hide it.

  Fortunately the towel was in position when she caught sight of him and turned to face him. He didn’t know which he was more pissed at—her for looking so damned sexy at that hour or his cock.

  Sergeant Richard Miles—just as annoyingly handsome in the morning as he’d been last night—was glaring at her. Paige nodded, jumped off the table and headed for the shower. She checked that the portable, propane water heater was turned on before stepping inside the enclosure and pulling her t-shirt off over her head. Maybe even more handsome, Paige thought to herself as she stripped off her sweat pants and lifted her face to the water, sluicing it back over her head, with his long, light brown hair tousled and falling over his shoulders.

  Recon operatives always wore their hair long and usually had facial hair...both of them untidy and unkempt. They had to blend and nothing said Army like a flat-top haircut, high and tight in the back, and squeaky-clean cheeks. She showered quickly then dried herself before pulling on clean fatigues. The sergeant was waiting to use the shower, standing at a discreet distance and, as they passed, she nodded perfunctorily. He gave her a look that was almost a scowl and passed by quickly.

  “Hmmph. Not a morning person,” Paige whispered to herself and hurried back to her tent to record the unit’s blood tests before heading over to help Morty.

  As breakfast was being prepared, two privates came into the tent and Morty dished out plates of food for them. They were dressed in spring-weight camouflage jackets and had camouflage paint on their faces. They carried assault rifles over their shoulders.

  Private Samuel Rutherford and Private Wolf Abrams perched on stools on the far side of Morty’s worktable. Paige remembered them from yesterday. Samuel had brown hair and eyes. Wolf had darker hair and a long, distinctive nose. Beneath their make-up, there was little else to distinguish them.