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With only twominutes to spare, Graham parked in view of Bryson’s congregated team outside 3rdGroup’s command post. The team looked in their direction, and Bryson held up his left arm and tapped his watch.
Graham escorted Erin over. “Don’t lose her in the woods or make her do anything dangerous,” he said.
“She’s the one who wants to jump or helocast out of a Black Hawk,” Bryson retorted. “If you set that up, we won’t make her wear a sixty-pound rucksack.”
“Thank you,” Graham said. Erin batted her lashes at him. “I’ll think on it. No promises.” He waggled a finger at Erin. It wasn’t all that dangerous, but he didn’t want anything to happen to her.
“If you want to come show off for me again, I like watching you.” She leaned in for a kiss.
He obliged her. Might as well with Mateo and the rest of Bryson’s team watching. “I’ll be back to pick you up by 1600 hours. Maybe earlier.” Probably earlier.
Graham headed to his office. He was still studying the updates on happenings in Central Africa when General McKittrick entered his office unannounced and closed the door behind him.
“Your lady friend spent the day with Bryson’s team yesterday?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How did that go?”
“Really well. She got good information for her writing research.”
“That’s good, but I was referring to whether the team knows that you two are romantically involved.”
Graham nodded. “They figured it out by lunchtime.”
“Good, good. And has Bryson said how things are going with Mateo?”
“No further incidents, and he’s integrating well.”
“That’s good too. Maybe she can observe another team later this week.”
“She’s with Bryson’s team again today doing land navigation exercises. And they want me to set up jumps from a Black Hawk.”
“Seriously?” The general’s eyebrows rose.
“She’s done a jump with a civilian outfit before. I’d rather she jump from a bird than do a high-altitude jump.”
“You’ve got a live wire there. But we don’t want anything happening to her to derail your plans.”
Now seemed a good time to feel the general out. “Speaking of those plans, Bryson’s team deploys in six months. It isn’t doable for us to date, get engaged, and plan a wedding before then.”
“Why would you need to plan a wedding? Just go to the justice of the peace or have a simple ceremony at the chapel. That can be set up in a week.”
“That’s not exactly romantic.” Graham wasn’t going to wave the white flag yet.
“You’ve been married before. Say you want to be together without the stress of planning a wedding. Take her on a romantic honeymoon to Aruba or Italy. Anywhere she wants. You’ve got a little time to decide.”
“Boatman and Thomsen were married and still fooled around with team wives. Me getting remarried isn’t going to automatically negate any concerns the teams may have abouttheirspouses’ fidelity.”
“True. We are all human and fallible, so there’s never a way to entirely alleviate the potential for bad behavior. Your relationship with your wife and the fact your daughter and son-in-law were here made you the obvious choice at the time. Under your command, morale has improved. But rebuilding trust takes time, and, unfortunately, Bethann’s untimely death changed your situation. I feel for you. I truly do. But I have to consider what’s best for the unit.”
And cover his own backside.
“Getting married again gives you less opportunity and less incentive to mess around with someone else’s wife than if you were single. I don’t know any other way to assure the men and keep the unit operational ready.”
Graham was getting nowhere. He needed another approach. “It goes beyond who’s in command. We need to fortify the foundation of our family units. We train our men for battle, but we need to equip them and their spouses with skills to successfully reintegrate after deployments.”
“I agree that would be beneficial and, as head of the Family Readiness Group, your new wife could be instrumental in setting up programs and date events, especially with her ties to the USO.”
