Page 21 of Point of Contact

Trevor swallowed hard, tears burning at the backs of his eyes. “She went out every weekend, but I didn’t know about this new guy, or any of this.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Marilyn said softly. “How could you? She never wanted this, wasn’t prepared for the reality of pregnancy and motherhood.”

“I was so stupid at that party, Auntie. Trying to be cool, snorting cocaine, drinking—”

“A costly mistake,” she allowed, rubbing his shoulder. “But it happened, and it can’t un-happen.” Marilyn reached out and took Riley from him, and Trevor smoothed down the front of his wrinkled shirt. “Go to work, Trevor, and we’ll all sit down tonight and figure out where we go from here. You’re not alone,” she repeated.

Trevor resisted the urge to bury his face in her neck and sob like a little boy, instead squaring his shoulders before leaning down to kiss his son’s cheek. “Guess it’s just us from now on, baby boy,” he whispered. “It’s just us.”

Chapter Six

March 2008—Two months before

“Dibs on the .50, bitches!”

The crack of gunfire echoed off the nearby mountains. Jesse slammed his helmet on and exited his hooch, running to get in position.

“Outpost is under fire,” bellowed Enriquez from across the compound. Riley bellowed back, “Yeah, figured that out all on my own, thanks, asshole!”

Enriquez flipped him off, then turned back to his radio handset. Watkins ran, whooping, to the big .50-cal gun mounted on a rickety plywood platform and surrounded by sandbags. He hunkered down, primed the weapon and soon the hillside opposite them was getting absolutely rocked.

“What a goddamn fuckin’ rush,” Watkins shouted, his feet braced and spent shells raining down around him from the belt-fed gun. In the next instant he yelped as a red-hot piece of metal bounced off the ground and into his flip-flop. “Jesus! Ouch!” He hopped around, flailing and cursing until the shell came loose and rolled away.

“Guess you should wear your fuckin’ boots next firefight, dumbshit,” Jesse observed, kneeling down behind the sandbag wall and letting loose with desultory bursts from his M4.

Watkins just grinned at him, and Jesse rolled his eyes, looking down at his own bare chest and legs. He was wearing a pair of filthy gym shorts, no shirt, his Kevlar vest pulled on haphazardly and barely even fastened. No generals around meant fuck the uniform protocol, and who was gonna give a shit up here anyway...the fucking tarantulas?

It wasn’t long until the Apaches buzzed in and annihilated the ridge, the 30 mike-mike gun groaning as it blew the enemy away. Jesse shook his head. Different day, same shit.

“Oh, yeah!” Watkins screamed, hammering out a last barrage before collapsing down next to the .50. He lifted up the hem of his T-shirt and wiped his sweaty face. “Goddamn, that was fun. Been too long since we got in a fight. I was about to go stir-crazy, dude.”

Jesse grunted. “Hope you got your fuckin’ jollies, Watty, ’cause if I have to hear you jacking off in your bunk one more time, I’m gonna kill you myself.”

Watkins waggled his eyebrows at him and Jesse opened his mouth to say something else when a feminine laugh caught his attention. Watkins’s face held naked longing as he glanced toward the sound and back over at Jesse. “God, she’s gorgeous.” He got up and wandered toward the woman in question, acrid smoke trailing behind him.

She really was. Kimi Jokawski was a petite, curvy redhead who’d flown into the outpost by helicopter one day and jumped out, loaded down with camera gear. The Taliban gave her a hearty Afghanistan welcome, mortars crashing down outside the wire.

“This is Ms. Jokawski,” Lieutenant Farrell had told the platoon. “She’s a photojournalist who’s going to be embedded with us for a while. Let’s treat her with all due Army respect, gentlemen. I don’t want to hear anyone has done anything less.” He glared at each of them one by one. “And we’ll start with someone volunteering to give up their bunk to her. I’ll let y’all fight out who it’s going to be.” With that, he strode off, leaving the platoon standing there with their mouths open.

Nobody said a word, everyone staring at their feet, avoiding her gaze, until she spoke in a surprisingly husky voice that belied her small stature. “None of this Ms. Jokawski bullshit,” she said firmly. “You can call me Kimi, KJ or ‘hey, bitch’ for all I care.”

Stunned, Jesse peeped at her, noticing the other men doing the same. “I have four older brothers,” she continued, “and ain’t nothing you motherfuckers do is gonna offend me, so let’s put that bullshit aside as well. Giving up your bunk? Not gonna happen. If someone lets me borrow a sleeping bag, I can sleep on the ground. But get it through your heads, guys, right now. I’m tough, and I’m here to stay.”

At the end of that little speech, every man there, including Jesse, fell a little bit in love with Kimi Jokawski. True to her word, she was tough. She didn’t have to sleep on the ground because Riley and Enriquez built her a cot out of scrap plywood and lined it with some foam scrounged from ammo crates before covering it with blankets.

“Functional,” she pronounced after flopping down on it. “Can’t ask for anything else.” High fives all around, and problem solved.

On the first patrol after her arrival, Kimi packed a small rucksack with protein bars, batteries, lenses and extra socks. Someone found her a Kevlar vest and helmet, and she laced up her boots and marched out right in the middle of the pack. Some of the guys tried to smoke her by taking her straight up the steepest incline, but she didn’t break stride or falter. At the top she put her hands on her hips and stared at them, fully aware of what they’d tried to do.

“I’m from Washington State, boys,” she announced in a flat tone. “Born and raised. Grew up hiking the fourteeners. I’m a backpacker and a rock climber. You ain’t gonna smoke me.”

And after that, she was one of them.

Jesse leaned against the sandbags, the heat of the .50-cal barrel at his shoulder. Brass littered the ground around him, and he sprawled there, watching as Riley and Watkins unashamedly flirted with Kimi. Right away she’d proven she understood young men who’d been away from women for months, allowing some light suggestive banter around her, even participating at times, but putting clear and firm boundaries in place that showed she was also professional to her core.

Riley had it bad, Jesse mused, watching as he leaned against the wall next to Kimi, close, almost touching her, one arm braced over her head and his other hand on his hip. In the seven months since their arrival in the Valley, Riley had grown taller and broader, any trace of baby fat having long since melted away.

Kimi gave a throaty chuckle at something Riley said, and Jesse saw him swallow hard, then casually slide his hand into his uniform trousers pocket to adjust himself. Jesse had to laugh at his obvious infatuation. Kimi was a consummate professional, and even if she wasn’t, Riley had no real chance. Besides a ten-plus-year age difference between them, Kimi talked often about a fiancé she’d left behind in Turkey and how she couldn’t wait to see him in a few weeks when she left the Valley for some R & R.