"And what did you have in mind?" Linda asked, taking Brutus's hand and climbing to her feet. "Because if you were thinking sheet ripping, headboard banging wild monkey sex, I hate to tell you buddy, I'm in no mood for that."
"No, I was thinking some soft kisses, a little snuggling, and if we do end up having sex, it'll be slow and gentle," Brutus assured her. "How's that sound?"
"Perfect." Linda whooped when Brutus swept her into his powerful arms. "Whoa there, stud!"
"Saving your energy for the snuggling," Brutus assured her, kissing her lips quickly. "I think we can start with…”
Linda's cell phone rang, and she winced. Brutus immediately set her down, his eyebrows knitting. "What is it?"
Linda went over to her phone and looked, sighing.
"Fuck my life." She picked up the call, holding the phone to her ear. "Yeah? Yeah… okay. Yeah, my gear's still in my room. Yeah, cool. Thanks, Orkin. Cool. Be there ASAP."
"Bad news?" Brutus asked as Linda hung up and sat down to pull her boots back on. "Linda?"
"That was First Sergeant Orkin." She tucked a trouser leg into her boot. "I'm going to have to take a raincheck on the snuggling, my love. Charlie Company just got recalled. Duty calls."
23
LINDA
"How're you feeling?" Lieutenant Parker asked Linda as the company assembled in the motorpool.
It was three hours since recall, and she'd been ordered to rest while the rest of the company handled preliminary preparations.
The attempted rest had left her physically refreshed but mentally foggy, caught between sleep and wakefulness. The ninety minutes in her room had passed in a blur, simultaneously an eternity and mere minutes.
"I'll be fine, sir." She leaned against the bumper of the Humvee behind her. "If this is a full roll out, I'll grab sleep on the plane."
Parker nodded and moved on, leaving Linda alone. She felt weird, and not just because of the lack of sleep. Her stomach roiled, and her body felt sweaty in a way that wasn't typical for the early summer heat. Her skin felt clammy, and if it wasn't a recall, she'd get herself checked at a medical clinic. She felt slightly off balance, and as she waited for Major Kirk to brief the company, a gnawing worry chewed at her mind.
She couldn't get that conversation with Brutus off her mind. The end of it, their discussion of children. She'd started it for some instinctual reason, and she was reminded of her sister. Her sister, with so many children, but who knew even before her first missed period she was pregnant.
Each. Time.
Sure, she was taking the pill, but she and Brutus hadn't been 'safe-safe.' And pills could fail, especially if stress or changes in her routine played hell with her hormones. She'd ignored the first rule of the weekend safety brief that she'd been telling soldiers for years.
Always use a condom.
She never had, not from the beginning with Brutus, and now she wondered, when was her last period?
Thinking back, she did the math in her head… and knew what she had to do before the mission kicked off. But she set that aside as Major Kirk entered the motor pool, his face grim.
"Gather around Charlie Company," he said, and Linda inwardly winced.
It was Major Kirk who'd named Charlie Company 'Cranked,' and he was the one person who almost always referred to the company that way.
He only called them Charlie Company when things had the potential to get bad.
"Pentagon's recalled us on this Saturday for... a big one," Major Kirk began. "An Army helicopter's gone down in Southeast Asia."
Linda felt her shoulders tense. Southeast Asia meant mud, jungle, and multiple warring factions who all hated Americans equally.
"Another clusterfuck," she thought, remembering the rumors about escalating tensions in the region. The kind of conflict that never truly ended, just simmered until it boiled over again.
Major Kirk's face hardened. "The situation's complicated. We've got a multiparty conflict that's been escalating recently. What one side calls insurgents, the UN calls refugees, and human rights organizations are calling ethnic cleansing victims."
A murmur rippled through the assembled soldiers. Linda exchanged glances with Sergeant Orkin, both of them recognizing the political minefield they were about to enter.
