Epilogue

Sam and Randy met Cherokee when they came home for Christmas. They had missed Thanksgiving by virtue of the fact that each had a part time job. Sam had to work during the Thanksgiving holiday period, so Randy stayed there with her.

Cherokee was used to the musical chairs nature of the sexual relationships in the house by then, but adding two more to the game still shocked her a bit. In later years she would marvel at the fact that she was able to accept the fact that Samantha wanted that kind of relationship with her biological father, but the circumstances of her life at that time seemed to insulate her from the shock an outsider would have felt. She half expected Randy to approach his mother, sexually, but that never happened, and there was never any indication that either of them contemplated that.

When Cynthia was six months old, Mallory brought up joining the National Guard again. Mallory said she was never going to college, and she needed to gain some skills that could be translated into a job, later. After hours of argument, during which Cherokee joined in, Lucy finally had to accept that her little girl had grown up and had the right to forge her own future. When she capitulated, she said only one more thing.

"If you go off and get yourself killed I'll never speak to you again!"

Nobody laughed.

Mallory didn't waste any time. She went back to the recruiting office and, after two hours of discussion, enlisted for the standard six year commitment. She chose Military Police as her occupational specialty. Later, she couldn't explain why she chose that job. It was on the list she was looking at, and that's what she decided she wanted to try doing.

She had one month to spend with the entire family after Sam and Randy came home for the summer. Then, right after the July 4th holiday, she reported for training that lasted sixteen weeks. She would later say it was the hardest thing she'd ever done, not because of the difficulty of the training ... but because she was separated from her children for so long.

Randy and Sam returned to college while she was gone, and time for them settled back into the routine of their third year of college.

The difference Mallory's "adventure" made in her was obvious immediately when she got back home in November. It was visible in her carriage, the way she walked, stood, and moved around. Her body had been toned. Where, before, her figure had been lush, now she was slim and curvy. She'd always had a lot of self-confidence, but now that confidence had become more tangible. She knew she could run, carry heavy loads, and fight, things a lot of girls her age never even thought about.

She'd also gotten the top marksmanship award on the rifle range.

"I shot perfect the very first time we qualified with the M4," she announced, proudly. "And all thanks to Bob for teaching me how to shoot so well. But nobody groped me while I was doing it." She grinned. Then she shrugged. "Shooting the pistol was harder, but I figured it out. I never shot expert, but I got Marksman. I need to buy a hand gun so I can practice here, in the back yard."

The only thing she was sad about was that she missed William's first toddling steps as Cherokee, Lucy, and Bob had encouraged him to walk.

Mallory's success in basic training and AIT had fired her imagination. Now she contemplated some kind of career in civilian law enforcement. To that end she did some research. Her visit to the local police station left her unimpressed, but when she investigated the state police, she got excited. They were actively recruiting females. There would be an extensive application procedure, and if she passed all the initial examinations, it would mean another absence from home to attend the academy, but based on what she'd learned, she felt capable of meeting the requirements.

Oddly, Lucy felt much better about this career path than the military one, and it was obvious in the discussions they had about it.

Living together at college was different than living together at home. Randy and Samantha studied, prepared meals, went to work, and spent long hours naked in each other's arms. They had only each other to please. Randy didn't think much about it, but Sam wondered if this was what the average married couple lived like.

They were really still quite sheltered, but neither of them had enough life experience to realize that.

Even when they went home for Christmas that year, they were sheltered by immersion into the family unit where love, acceptance, and comfort of a kind the outside world would disapprove of was the norm.

There was only one change, and that was simply a result of the fact that Sam had matured.

This time, when she lay under her thrusting father, she whispered that he could get her pregnant after she graduated.