Gwen Campbell - [Love from the Ashes 02]

by Recon [Shadowfire] (epub)

  “Yes. Both my sons are workaholics. Probably because that was the example Stephen and I set. I’m sure that wasn’t a good thing but we weren’t interested in just surviving, we wanted to thrive.

  “Even when the schools were up and running, it was hard to keep the boys in class. Davey takes after his uncle. He’s a natural entrepreneur. Richard’s more of a humanitarian.”

  “Hence his joining the Army?”

  “Hence his joining the Army,” David confirmed and leaned back as their waiter set their lunches in front of them. “Thanks, Dewey,” he said and laid his napkin on his lap. Picking up a french fry, he examined it thoughtfully. “I understand why my son has you cooking for the four of us. It might appear sexist but I assure you it isn’t.”

  Chewing slowly, she watched his face and waited.

  “In my day, men and women married then went about establishing themselves independently. Nowadays, that’s suicidal. Families cleave together. What my son is letting you know is if you take up with him, we’ll draw you into our family.” Exhaling, he set the fry down. “I’m assuming because your parents let a healthy young woman go out on her own, you’ve got other sisters at home.”

  “One. Susan. Eight years older than me. She works as the chef in my family’s restaurant,” Paige added proudly.

  “Ah.” He picked up his glass. “Here’s to hoping my son makes you fall head over heels in love with him. At least enough that you’ll be willing to take on the care and feeding of three additional reprobates.”

  Grinning, she touched the rim of her glass to his.

  Eleven days had passed since Rick and Paige had arrived in Pennsylvania. Shaking the rain from her hair, she stepped into Stephen’s import office. Two male clerks looked up hopefully. She knew it the minute they recognized her from her previous visit. Their expressions were still welcoming, but that spark of optimism at seeing a healthy young woman faded. One of them pointed to a door.

  “Rick’s back there,” he said, smiled wistfully and returned to his spreadsheet.

  In a meeting room with a big, oval table, she found Rick examining tanned hides.

  “Hey,” he called out, looped an arm around her waist, kissed her then turned over the hide he’d been examining. “I need to make more shoes for our next mission. Which color do you like? Brown, brown or brown?”

  “Brown works for me.”

  Sitting on the edge of the table, he drew her to him so she was standing between his legs. “Will you marry me, Paige?”

  Her hands on his arms, she blinked.

  “It’s unexpected and maybe I should have thrown a few hints out before springing this on you, but we’re due back in three days. If we’re married, the Army won’t split us up. Repopulation is a priority and they’re not inclined to separate couples. They’ll even let us work together if Ed okay’s it. You’re a great medic so I can’t see him objecting.”

  “That’s not very romantic.” There was a growl in her voice she didn’t bother disguising.

  “Yeah.” Rick shook his head then laid his forehead on hers. “But it’s reality. I love you, Paige Wynn. I started loving you the first day I met you.”

  His breath tickled her nose and he smoothed his palm over her hair.

  “At least you’ll be able to stay with my family while you go through medical training. Just let the powers that be know you want to train at Fort Indiantown. You start in four months,” he added, answering her unspoken question. “I’ve read your personnel file, remember? You’re slated to be trained as a surgeon.”

  “That’s a three-year course,” she said. “We’ll be apart for months at a time.”

  “Yeah. I know that too.” His voice was quiet but determined. “I’m a bad bet all around, Corporal. I work in unreclamated areas which means I can bring home any number of airborne diseases. Bad guys shoot at me on a regular basis. When our children are born, there’s no guarantee I’ll be there with you.” With his forehead still against hers, he slowly rolled his head side to side.

  “Sounds like you’re trying to get me to say no.”

  “Maybe I am. It would kill me, but I love you enough to want you to be content and safe, even if that means being with another man. Somebody who isn’t me.”

  Leaning back, she cupped his face. “Too late, Sergeant. I want you. Unfortunately,” she added with a dramatic sigh, “I want you enough to accept the life I’ll have with you.”

  “You look gorgeous, Paige.” Her sister, Susan, brushed Paige’s hair back. “You should wear white all the time.”

  “Hardly. Benny’s done nothing for the last two days but bitch about how hard it is to find a shade of white that looks good on a redhead.” She smoothed her hand over the simple waistband of her floor-length wedding gown. Rick’s father had offered to design a gown for her but she explained Benny would be crushed if he wasn’t allowed to supply her with one. David had approved of her consideration of her platoon mate’s feelings and had instead given her a necklace and earrings that had belonged to Rick’s mother, to wear on her wedding day. She touched the jade pendant lying at her throat, making sure it was straight then spun the gold band on her ring finger.

  Their father’s restaurant was rocking with a live band and the air was full of the lingering scents of the delicious supper Susan had prepared for Paige and Rick’s wedding reception. Rick, laughing and drinking a glass of beer, was standing with the LT, Zach, and other members of Eaglebird Recon Unit. Glancing over at her groom, Paige was again dumbstruck by how handsome he looked in his dress uniform, and by the way his eyes lit up whenever he looked at her.

  Benny was standing with Stephen and Davey Miles, talking animatedly and looking like he wanted them to adopt him. No doubt, their face man had found his civilian role models. Paige had always suspected Benny wanted to be an importer when he grew up.

  The LT’s wife was chatting with David Senior, who was holding the LT’s year-old daughter, and making the most adorable faces at her.

  Morty walked past on his way to the late-supper buffet table. As he walked, he checked out the couples dancing on the floor but when he grinned at Paige, his gaze slid over to Susan and stayed there.

  Taking her sister’s hand, Paige led her forward. “Corporal Morty Maynard, have you met my sister, Susan? Susan’s the chef I was telling you about.” She turned to Morty and winked. “Morty’s our platoon cook and his biscuits are to die for.”

  Blinking, Morty accepted the hand Susan held out to him. His huge fingers dwarfed hers but he touched her with a gentleness that warmed Paige’s heart. In his dress uniform, he looked more massive than usual. Towering over Susan by almost a foot, he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Will you show me how to make that glaze you served over the parsnips?”

  One corner of her mouth quirking up, Susan nodded and, still holding his hand, led him toward the kitchen. She glanced back at Paige, bobbed her eyebrows then looked up at her huge companion with growing interest.

  Smiling to herself, Paige made her way through the other wedding guests to reach Rick. She was stopped often and congratulated, and she spoke to each person briefly. She hadn’t made it halfway across the room before Rick stepped up to her. Wordlessly, he took her arm and led her to the dance floor, where they joined her parents and perhaps two dozen other couples in a slow two-step.

  Ed Pembroke and his wife were dancing, holding their three-year old between them. “Now’s as good a time to tell you as any, Rick,” he said and shifted his daughter’s weight to his free arm. “I got confirmation just yesterday. You’ve been accepted into officer-training school. Fort Indiantown. You know where that is, don’t you?” he added with a crooked grin.

  Rick just stared at him, open mouthed.

  Paige could practically hear Rick’s thoughts. Ed had submitted Rick’s name for officer training. He’d been willing to give up his working relationship with his best friend, not to mention a nearly irreplaceable sergeant, just so she and Rick could have some sort of life together. />
  She touched Ed’s arm, tipped her head up, and kissed his cheek. Selena, Ed’s wife, beamed at her and Rick, then teased Ed as she wiped the lipstick off her husband’s cheek.

  “We’ll talk when you two report back for duty in,” Ed checked his watch, “eight hours. Happy honeymoon,” he added dryly then smiled at his wife as she pulled him into another dance with her and their daughter.

  Shaking his head, Rick wrapped his arm around Paige’s shoulders. “I didn’t see that coming,” he said then tugged her toward the rear of the restaurant. “Whadaya say we get out of here, Missus Miles, and spend the next few hours horizontal?”

  “Amen to that, Sergeant,” she said and, holding his lapels, turned so her butt bumped the kitchen door open. Walking backward, she led him toward the exit on the other side of the pantry. “Time to get you naked, troop, and...” Her voice dried up. Susan and Morty were sitting on the wooden chopping table they used for vegetables. Naked. Looking unaccountably tiny, with her red hair still arranged in a soft upsweep, Susan sat on Morty’s lap, facing him, with her legs wrapped around his hips, her breasts pressed into his chest.

  Morty had one of the restaurant’s napkins tied around his head like a blindfold and Susan was feeding him a slice of yellow pepper. Slices of green and red pepper were laid out on a plate beside them. Paige recognized the lesson. To help educate their palates, they’d learned to recognize the subtle differences between peppers by taste alone.

  Except they’d done it with their clothes on.

  “Ew,” she blurted out and held up her hand to shield her eyes. “I’m going blind, dammit.”

  “Then don’t look,” Susan huffed, kissed Morty’s chin and offered him another slice of pepper.

  Grabbing Rick’s arm and averting her gaze, Paige hurried for the exit. “Remember to sterilize that surface when you’re finished.”

  Epilogue

  Paige sat propped up in bed in the base hospital at Fort Indiantown. Holding a small mirror, she made a sound of disgust as she looked at her reflection, and applied more of the concealer her brother-in-law had obtained for her.

  Childbirth wasn’t for sissies. Her skin was blotchy and puffy, she looked exhausted, and was so tired it was all she could do to hold her head up.

  “Hey, doc,” one of the ward nurses said as he entered the room. He checked her pulse, made a note on her chart then cleared away her lunch tray. “Sucks to be the patient, doesn’t it?” he added sympathetically. “Good news is you’re being discharged tomorrow. Want me to take the baby back to the nursery?”

  “Hell no.” David Miles Senior, standing by the windows, cradled his newborn granddaughter. He bobbed his chin in the direction of a large, padded chair. “Baby Amanda and I will be fine over there while her mother grabs a nap.”

  “All right,” the nurse said tersely. “Just make sure you get some sleep, Captain,” he told Paige as he left.

  “Yes. Corporal,” she told his retreating back. She felt her face light up when Rick stepped into the room. “They’re beautiful,” she said as she accepted the flowers he held out to her. “And you smell much better.”

  Rick grinned self-consciously and ran his fingers through his damp collar-length hair. For the past few months, he’d been out of the field. He was currently stationed at Fort Indiantown, training new recon operatives.

  Lieutenant Miles had finally let himself get talked into going home for a shower and change of clothes following his daughter’s birth about twelve hours earlier. When Rick insisted, David grudgingly handed over the baby.

  “Your turn to go home and get cleaned up, Dad. Paige’s family is at the house. Her sister will whip you up something for lunch. You can come back with them later for another visit.”

  Carefully, Rick sat in the chair his father had vacated, and stared in wonder at his daughter’s startlingly blue eyes. Her flailing hand found his and she latched onto his finger with remarkable strength.

  Wincing with discomfort, Paige lay down and arranged a pillow beneath her head. “Is Morty with them?”

  “He’ll be here tomorrow. He’s apparently holding down the fort at the restaurant.”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing him again,” Paige said tiredly and smiled in thanks when Rick stood and drew the room-darkening curtains shut.

  The day after his enlistment was up, Morty had left the Army and moved in with Susan. He worked beside her every day in the family restaurant and, according to Paige’s father, was a quicker study than either of his girls.

  Good thing because Susan was already eight weeks pregnant when she married Morty. Their second-born was almost a year old now.

  “Get some sleep, baby,” Rick whispered—to his daughter and his wife.

  Paige summoned a wan smile and closed her eyes.

  “And thank you. For giving me a beautiful daughter. For being my wife. For sticking with me those first years when I was in the field ten months out of twelve. For having the most biteable ass I’ve ever seen,” he added with a chuckle in his voice.

  “For not showing you up on the target range,” she mumbled.

  “Yeah. That too, baby. That too.”

  End

  About the Author

  Gwen Campbell got her start in the magazine industry, writing everything from news stories to children’s fiction to obituaries. When the company she worked for succumbed to economic turndown, she looked at her bank book and gave herself one year to pursue writing full time. The deal was if she made money, she didn’t have to look for a real job. It’s worked out pretty good so far and she still doesn’t have a real job. A life-long believer in romance, she now writes romantic fiction. Gwen is married and she and her husband contribute the success of their relationship to making a point of saying “I love you,” at least once a day, sometimes saying, “Yes, dear,” just because, and making sure the toilet paper always comes over the top of the roll. She says her best sticky-plot resolutions come to her while dog walking.

  Book Excerpts

  Following are some excerpts of other hot erotic titles from Shadowfire Press.

  If you enjoyed this futuristic novel Recon by Gwen Campbell you might also like Gwen Campbell’s As My Warrior Commands, a scifi themed Frontiers of Love title.

  When a kingdom crashes down around her, will his love be enough to save her?

  Sibyls are old crones. Everybody knows that. So what’s a warrior supposed to think when a beautiful young woman turns up in the middle of a siege, says she’s a sibyl, predicts the downfall of a kingdom and tells him he’s going there with her to prevent it? He does what any hot-blooded warrior would do. He follows the woman. She’s intelligent, brave, can see the future, has an ass he can’t stop staring at and she knows how to make him laugh. What he doesn’t know is that the sibyls have predicted the downfall of the Kingdom of Jareb-Phar if a young sibyl enters their throne room. What they don’t know is if her arrival will be coincidental or cause the kingdom’s fall. The only thing the warrior does know for sure is that beneath his beautiful, young sibyl’s discipline is a woman as lusty and wanton as he is.

  Here is a short excerpt from Frontiers of Love 2: As My Warrior Commands.

  Captain David O’Reilly smiled inwardly. Cooper had always been one of his favorites, and the one recruit who had never ceased to unnerve him. Now thirty-one, David had been in the Army since he’d been sixteen. He’d grown up during the Great War and it had had a bitter hand in shaping his life. But David was strong, even as a kid, and intelligent. He’d lost his family to dysentery but had found a new one with the Army. Before he acknowledged her presence, David allowed himself a quick, covert perusal of the Corporal. She was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. He’d thought so even when he’d first seen her climb off that recruiter’s bus two years ago, only just seventeen and nervous as hell.

  Her beauty was artless and she seemed completely unaware of it. Her lightly tanned skin glowed with health. Her hair, a reddish brown that shone lik
e fire in the sunlight, fell in heavy waves down her back. The few times he’d seen it unbound, of course. Even though it had been some time, he remembered it clearly. Remembered how he’d ached to run his fingers through the heavy, silky mass. Ached to touch the back of her neck and the warmth of her scalp. She was small but had a body that haunted his dreams. Full, lush breasts, a tiny waist and the sweetest curve of a behind it had ever been his privilege to set eyes on.

  As if that wasn’t enough, she was sweet too. With a great sense of humor, a never-say-die attitude and friendly with everybody. If her intelligence made her a good medic, her personality made her a terrific one.

  But what unnerved him most was that Samantha Cooper was the only person to serve under him he’d ever been sexually attracted to. Hell, there was a time he would have sworn he was addicted to her. Making excuses to supervise training exercises she was participating in. Surprise checks down at the infirmary. Anything to hear the sound of her laughter or catch a glimpse of her profile during the day. To the point where he seriously considered having her transferred to another squadron. His promotion to squadron commander had solved the problem for him. He no longer had excuses for such personal indulgences and he was grateful he’d been able to quit obsessing over her. He hadn’t exactly moved on, he realized as he caught himself grinning foolishly at her, but his obsession was under control. Mostly.

  She saluted smartly and waited. To his discredit, he made her hold the salute for just a second longer than necessary. He just couldn’t make himself stop looking at the way her raised arm made her breast swell against her precisely ironed shirt. He cursed himself and made himself look away. “At ease, Corporal,” he greeted her warmly and leaned back from his desk. “Please, have a seat.”