The Horse Soldier: Beginnings Series Book 10 (46 page)

“Um . . . yeah..” Robbie blinked several times as if his eyes were hurting. He looked at how
quickly Johnny downed his drink. “Easy.”

Johnny thought
it odd for Robbie to tell him that. “O.K. easy. Any news on Marv?”

“Nothing yet.” Robbie spoke the line he had told everyone. How horrible it was that Marv had died
. How much worse it was the way Marv had lost his life. Figuring he’d wait until Dean and Ellen told him more, confirming or denying what killed him.

“I stopped by the morgue
,” Johnny told him, “before I came here.”

“Really? And?”

“They wouldn’t let me in.”

“Not at all?” Robbie asked.

“Nope. I hung outside the door . . . Uncle Robbie, they seemed like they were having a good time in there.”

“They love their work.”

“Hanging tonight? Wanna shoot some pool?”

“Um . . . .” Robbie’s hand slid down his face. “No, just grabbing a drink and heading home.”

“O.K.”

Robbie motioned his head behind Johnny. “Looks like you have company anyhow.”

Johnny looked over his shoulder. “God, she won’t leave me alone.”

“You’re supposed to be getting close to her anyhow
. John. You told us you would.”

“Yeah I know. It just makes me feel really creepy thinking about being with her.”

“Why?” Robbie questioned.

“Um . . . um. Don’t know.” Johnny finished his drink. “Just thinking about it being her I guess.” He poured another. “Maybe I’ll go torture her.”

“Yeah, you do that. I’m just gonna sit here.” Robbie watched his nephew draw up an egotistical look and waltz over to his table with a semi -ignore Bev attitude. Pouring himself a drink, Robbie slid on the stool. He looked once over his shoulder to Johnny and Bev. How trivial Johnny must think he and Joe for having him find out what’s going on with Bev over the Dean and Ellen situation. How trivial it sounded to Robbie, but he had to keep reminding himself that the ‘Dean and Ellen’ reason was only the front story. The real reason being to hopefully eliminate or point a finger at her when it came to George.

“That’s it.” Johnny slammed down his drink. “Bev, if you are going to continue to stare at me, I’m leaving. You’re undressing me with your eyes. I feel so violated.”

“You owe me.”

“Owe you what?”

Bev raised her eyebrows a few times. “For the other day.”

“Oh really.” Johnny stood up and readied to leave. “Well see, that’s the problem with you.”

“Wait. What’s the problem with me . . .” Bev scooted from her chair, hurrying her way to a leaving Johnny. “Johnny.” She caught up to him. “Johnny.”

“I’m leaving.” He walked by Robbie
, laying his hand on Robbie’s back. “See ya, Uncle Robbie.”

“John.” Robbie swam in his drink.

Johnny smiling and not letting Bev see, left the social hall.

“Johnny.”
She ran to catch him. “Wait.”

“What?” Johnny stopped walking.

“What did you mean, that’s the problem with me?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t. Did you just tell me in there that I owe you?”

“Yes.” Bev stood before him.

“Well
, that’s not the way things are run with me.
I
say what goes on. Who owes who. Get it?”

“But I . . .”

“No buts.” Johnny stayed firm. “I call the shots. I say what gets done. I tell you what you do, not you tell me. If you’re up to anything, I’d better damn well know ahead of time what it is and why you’re doing it.”

“But Johnny.”

“And as far as sex goes, if I want to sleep with you, I will. No deals, and trust me babe, when I want it, I’ll find you and you’ll deliver, no problem.”

Bev folded her arms. “Really? Well I don’t think I like your attitude.”

“Oh well.” Johnny tossed his hands up.

“And you are so wrong
,” she spoke snidely.

“I’m wrong? Who are you to tell me I’m wrong?”

“
I
will tell you you’re wrong. The only way this will work is if you own me? Let me tell you something Johnny, no one owns me.”

Johnny just watched her, nodding arrogantly.

“I say who I sleep with and when, not you or anyone!” She poked him in the chest. “I don’t even know why I chased after you in the first place. You’re cold, mean, and a complete waste of my time. I wouldn’t sleep with you now if you got on your hands and knees and begged me.”

“Baby.” Johnny placed his face close to hers. “You want me so bad, it wouldn’t take anything to get you to sleep with me anytime and anywhere.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

“Right.” Bev huffed.

“Watch.” Johnny grabbed her face
and pulled Bev with a slight force up and into him. Wide and sexual, he placed his mouth over hers, pressing it hard and deeply to hers. E moved his mouth and kissed in a sweeping motions over and over, holding on to her face as he stepped her backwards.

A
gainst everything she told him. Bev responded.

Further and further into the dark alley between the social hall and the next building
, Johnny led her. Moving her and moving her until he backed her up against the social hall wall. His mouth released from her as he grabbed onto the collar of her shirt and he leaned his body in a bent manner directly against hers. “What were you saying?”

Bev’s mouth reached for Johnny’s lips, but he kept pulling back from her.

“How bad do you want it, Bev?” Johnny’s waist moved into her and his hand glided with a firmness up her leg. “How bad?”

“Bad.” She breathed heavily
, trying to kiss him.

Almost biting, Johnny laid his lips to under her ear, running them down hard to the nape of her neck. “How bad do you want me?”

“I want you, Johnny.”

“And what will you do for me?”
he asked deeply, moistening her neck with his mouth, breathing hard into her ear.

“Anything.”

On her words, Johnny’s hands slid down both of her legs then back up, lifting the skirt she wore. He began to kiss her again, one hand secured under her skirt and the other undoing his own jeans. Bev’s hands went to his hair and to his neck. The moment she held his head and locked him in that kiss, was the moment Johnny braced his hands behind her thighs, lifted Bev up, drew her legs around his waist and slammed her with a sexual drive into the aluminum side of the social hall,.

It was Tuesday so the social hall was nearly empty and quiet. Not even the juke box played for the men who just were there to relax. Perhaps that was why Robbie heard it, lifting his views from his drink
and up to the noise. Actually Robbie heard it at the same time as the other seven men in the hall. All of them looked around at the steady dull metal banging that they heard.

Like a metronome, only picking up speed with each few seconds that passed. Bang-bang-bang-bang.

“What the hell?” Robbie stood up from his stool. Everyone had stopped what they were doing. “What is that?”

Cole set down his pool stick. “Sounds like it’s coming from outside. Maybe it’s Denny and Josh playing around.”

Robbie looked at his watch. “Probably. This is their hanging out hour.” He returned to his stool, picked up his drink, and shook his head at the increasing rate of the banging. “They think they’re funny. Ignore them.”

With Robbie’s reassurance that nothing was wrong, everyone went back to what they were doing. And to even show the annoying teenage boys, someone
turned on the jukebox.

“Sacrilegious
,” Ellen stated as she set down both metal boxes on the cryo -lab counter.

“No way.” Dean shook his head
, setting down two boxes as well.

“I’m telling you
, Dean. That is what Joe’s word would be. Sacrilegious.”

“It’s science
, El.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think he’d take to kindly to us keeping parts of Marv.”

“Ongoing investigation. In the old world, it sometimes took months to get autopsy results,” Dean justified. “However, Joe won’t say anything. He’s stepping back for a while remember? Henry’s leader.”

“I can handle Henry.” Ellen
said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Hmm.”

“And as far as Joe is concerned, bet me he still takes charge of us because we know the truth.”

“You may have a point. Let’s get
these boxes unloaded into the spare freezer until the man of the hour shows up.”

“I know someone is talking about me.” Danny Hoi walked through the open cryo
-lab door.

Dean motioned his hand to Danny. “Man of the hour.”

Ellen smiled. “Hi Danny. You are so punctual and quick showing up so soon after our request.”

Danny stood taller. “Want to make the best impression my first day as Head of Mechanics.”

“And you are,” Ellen said.

“So, what did you guys need?” Danny asked.

“Help.” Dean stated. “Care to follow us? We have to put these boxes away.”

“Sure.” Danny shrugged and trailed them. “What’s in the boxes
?”

Dean looked back at him. “Body parts.”

Danny laughed. “You guys are funny.” He saw how serious they were as they walked into the freezer room. “You guys are joking, right? Right?”

Dean opened the freezer case. “Um
, yeah, sure Danny.” He set his box inside and took the ones Ellen handed to him. “El, we’ll unpack these later.”

“O.K.”

Danny couldn’t take his eyes off the boxes Dean put away. “So uh . . . what kind of mechanical favor do you need?”

Dean closed the freezer lid. “Here
, I’ll show you.” He pointed to the door in the smaller of the two back rooms. “This closet.”

Danny looked
so serious as he raised one eyebrow and deepened his voice. “Is it giving you problems, Dean? I know how closets can be.”

Dean snickered as he opened the closet door. “See, it’s big.”

Danny peeked. “Yes it is.”

Shaking his head with a smile, Dean raised his eyes to Danny. “No, I want to know how cold you can make this closet for me.”

“Excuse me.” Danny looked into the empty closet. “How cold? Did you say how cold?”

“Yep.”

“Whoa.” Danny checked it out. “You mean like air-conditioning cold or freezer cold?”

“Freezer cold, refrigeration
,” Dean explained.

Danny started to laugh then stopped. “You’re serious. Why would you two need walk
-in refrigeration in this . . . never mind.” He whistled. “It could take some work. We’d have to seal it, add a new door, a lot of things including a separate compressor and coolant unit.”

“So you can’t do it?” Dean asked.

“No, no.” Danny held up his finger. “The word ‘never’ crossed my lips. Tell me exactly what you see for this closet.”

Shop talk was something Ellen didn’t want to be privileged to. She’d rather deal with the five remaining rabbits. “Dean, Danny, I’m just going to leave you two to this. I’ll be in the other room.” Getting a nod from Dean, Ellen walked from that room into the main cryo
-lab. She stopped when she entered and spoke in such awe. “Oh wow.”

Henry was there
and she couldn’t even recall the last time she saw him looking so handsome. He wasn’t in his usual blue work pants and white shirt uniform he typically wore during the work day. He wore a black tee shirt tucked into his baggy, but tailored, jeans. A wider black belt was around his waist, and to top it off, Henry was having a good hair day.

“Henry.” Ellen stepped further into the lab. “Look how good you look.”

Henry grinned with a tilted head. “Thanks, El. Joe said as Leader I should always look nice. I’m not one to wear those button down shirts, you know.”

“I like this much better.”
She stepped closer to Henry. “Where did you get the pants?”

“Danny got them
,” Henry stated. “Small favor slip. I asked him if he saw anything in Miles City that could be leader clothes to grab them and he did.”

“You can just tell Danny had the fashion sense in the old world.”

“Oh you know it. He has that hair thing happening.”

Ellen reached up and touched Henry’s hair. “And so do you today.”

Henry enjoyed the compliments. “But . . . do I look official.”

“Very much so.”

“Good, because I’m here on business. Where’s Dean?”

“In the closet with Danny. Don’t ask.”

With a grin Henry looked to the back. “Oh yeah? All right, we’ll do this without him. Autopsy. How’s it going?”

“Great. I mean . . . sad. I mean, going.”

“Anything conclusive?”

“Nope.” Ellen shook her head. “Not yet. Soon though.”

“I thought for sure you had results. You gave us the body back to bury.”

“We don’t need the body. We took what we need.”

“You what?” Henry asked shocked.

“I mean we took the test . . . . ran the test
s we needed to run. Sometimes they take a long time to be final.”

“O.K. You’ll let me know when everything is done?”

“As soon as I know, you’ll know.”

“Good.” Henry said.

“Are we done with business?”

“Yes.”

Ellen heard Danny and Dean’s voice come into the lab. She looked over her shoulder. “Hey Dean, look who came to see me. Henry. Doesn’t he look handsome today.”

Dean gave a look as if to tell Ellen, ‘you actually want me to answer that?’. “So Henry, what brings you down here?”

“Ellen.” Henry answered.

“Figures.” Dean said. “Thought maybe you were here on official business considering it’s your first day and all.”

Henry smiled a little. “No way. I came to see El. Hey El, I’ve been working since five. You wanna take a break with me?”

“Oh sure Henry. I’d love to take a break with you. Can we walk around the community?”

“Yeah.”

“Bye Dean.” Ellen moved to Henry. “Be back.

“El, our work?” Dean asked.

“Of course it is Dean.” Ellen giggled and left the cryo lab with Henry.

“And she exits.” Dean’s hand raised and dropped.

Danny, who was being quiet--a rarity--snuck up behind Dean and whispered. “When I was in
high school I used to date this girl. She dumped for this geek the moment he became class president.”

“Danny.”

“Nope.” Danny stepped back. “I’m seeing some similarities here Dean. If you need to talk.”

“Sorry, but I fail to see the similarities. This is hardly
high school and she’s hardly my girlfriend Danny, she’s my wife.”

“True.” Danny grinned. “But this is Beginnings. The place that makes Payton Place look like an episode of Leave it to Beaver.”

Dean just grumbled a response and walked back to the smaller back room.

Danny snickered and followed Dean fully intending on irritating him more.

^^^^

“I woke up
. I showered,” Joe explained as he walked with Hal towards distribution. “I had my coffee and cigarette and I even read that damn newspaper, which I have to admit, I’m liking. I looked at my watch and remembered, hey, you’re in distribution today. That opens two hours later.”

Hal smiled. “Forgot huh? So what did you do? Go back to bed?”

“Nope. I opened my front door when someone started to knock and I let Henry in my house. Christ, he was there asking me if he was dressed all right, was he having a good enough hair day, would people like him, and how should he act.”

“Don’t you worry about him?”

“Nah,” Joe shook his head. “Henry will be fine. Trust me.”

“I have to
, Dad, because until you emerge from retirement . . . ” Hal let out a worried breath. “He’s our leader as well.”

Joe had a sneakiness to his chuckle as he laid a hand on Hal’s back and led him into distribution. There was an extra bright spot that made retirement
worthwhile on this day. Joe didn’t have leader responsibilities to deal with and because of that, he got to spend that time with his son before Hal headed back down to Bowman.

^^^^

Robbie held the unscheduled security meeting at the training area. Solace
and sadness was the air of demeanor with everyone as they sat around Robbie while he talked.

“Some sort of wild animal
,” Robbie explained, “is what Dean told me this morning. As of yet, they are still trying to pin point it and . . . . if there is more than one of them. If that’s the case, we are gonna have to begin a hunt. We can’t take a chance of whatever that got Marv, getting in here. Now . . .” Robbie flipped a page of his notes. “Marv died in the line of duty. Marv also died while gathering points for . . . for the Neville competition. The Neville Committee approached me this morning and wanted me to present you with these suggestions. Either we give Marv an honorary Neville win or we make him Neville and the competition continues, handling it like the former Miss America pageant where the winner takes it from Marv. Feedback?” Robbie saw Dan’s hand raised. “Yes, Dan?”

“So he would be the first official Neville?”

“Yes,” Robbie answered.

“Hmm.” Dan swayed his head. “O.K., not like I’m being a dick or anything but . . .
but, Marv was a nice guy in all, but he was no Neville. I don’t think it would be fair to you or me or anyone else who is up there in Neville points to make him a winner just because he died.”

“True
,” Robbie stated. “However, wouldn’t it be the kind and brotherhood thing to do?”

Dan fluttered his lips. “Kind is one thing. Brotherhood is another. Robbie, this is competition. Come on. Do you want to go down in History as someone that was the
second
Neville competition winner? Or someone that lost to Marv?”

Robbie knew the answer. He knew what he wanted to say. “O.K.,
let’s put it to a vote. Fair is fair and it is Marv’s memory we’re talking about. O.K., all in favor of letting Marv be Neville or the reigning Neville, give me a yeah.” Robbie listened to the grumbles and clearing of throats. He watched his men lower their heads, shift their eyes, and pretend they were ashamed. “All right. All against, give me a big ‘ooh-rah’.” Robbie cringed and his ear rang when the intrusion of voices shouted out at him what they wanted. Even though they were all fond of Marv, they were more fond of being Neville. “O.K.” Robbie tossed up his hands. “Neville competition continues and, we’ll . . . we’ll uh mention Marv’s name at the ceremony. Gentlemen, you can return to work. Anyone wanting special detail to deal with this animal see me.”

^^^^