Chapter 241

Idaho Springs, Wednesday Morning, December 4

Matt and Courtney had finished their breakfast, but were still sitting at the kitchen table having a second cup of coffee and chatting when the phone rang.

"Why weren't you at breakfast with us?" Diana asked when Courtney answered.

"Uh, I had to fix Matt's breakfast for him before he went to work."

"I thought he was going to get off today."

Courtney turned to look at Matt as she replied. "He's taking off at noon. We'll be on our way shortly after he gets home."

"Unh uh. He doesn't need to see you any more today. Actually, we should have gotten you to come up last night. The heart grows fonder, and all that. You need to come to be with the other brides-to-be. He's a big boy; he can fend for himself. Gather up your dress and everything else you'll need, and get your pretty butt on the road. There's lots to do, and lots for us girls to talk about before the wedding tonight."

Courtney's smile got bigger. "I already have our things in the SUV. But if I come now and Matt comes when he gets off work, we will have two vehicles at the Retreat to drive back tonight, and I won't get to be with my husband as we come back. I would much rather ride back with him."

"Absolutely, and you two don't need to be driving to Idaho Springs after the wedding, anyway. You are going to stay in one of the bridal suites tonight. No way are the two of you going home right after the ceremony. If you come now, I'll make arrangements for someone to pick up your husband when he gets off work. That way you won't have two vehicles to contend with. How's that?"

"Let me talk to Matt and I'll call you right back."

"Okay. Bye."

Courtney pressed the button to end the call, then turned to her husband. "Diana wants us to stay the night with them. She has a bridal suite waiting for us."

"I guess we can do that. I took tomorrow off as well, so we won't have to worry about rushing back for me to go to work. This will use up a day and a half of that vacation time I have to take before the end of the year."

"She wants me to come on now, and she says she'll have someone pick you up so we won't have two cars at the Retreat. I don't want to ride back alone after we've redone our vows, Baby," she said, almost pleading.

Matt held out a hand. "Come here." As she sat on his lap, "I guess I should have taken the whole day off today, but I wanted to have an after-incident review with the agents that were involved in the kidnapping. I know that every kidnapping case we handle won't go as smoothly as this one did, but I want to let everyone voice their thoughts while the whole thing is fresh on our minds. But I hate to put someone to the trouble of coming down here just to pick me up."

Her robe had parted a little and the flash of a nipple caught his eye. As he slipped a hand inside the garment, she grabbed his arm. "Not now, Sweetheart," she said as her face broke into a smile. "You can do that as much as you want after you make an honest woman of me."

"Hmmm. Withholding sexual favors from your husband. I could always spank your butt for that."

"But you won't, at least not right now, because you're going to have to leave for work in ten minutes, and you won't have time to finish what the spanking would start," she said with a laugh.

"Well, there is that."

"So, what do I tell Diana?"

"Call her back. If she seems like she really wants to do that, I'm all for it. I want my 'new bride' sitting beside me when we come home, and spending the night at the Retreat will give us more time to make love after we redo our vows. But I still don't think the vow thing is necessary." At the frown starting on Courtney's face, he quickly went on, "But I realize that women have a different view of redoing wedding vows, and ... Jeff was definite that we would notice a difference. I can't imagine us being any closer than we are now, but I'll be there with bells on when you walk down that aisle."

"Thanks, Baby. Diana says about the same thing, with maybe a little more emphasis on the change. Anyway, she says we will be surprised."

When Courtney returned Diana's call, the Queen told her that Dave had said he had to go by the office in Denver this morning and could pick Matt up at his home at one o'clock.

When Courtney relayed the message, Matt responded, "Perfect. I'll be here waiting."

The Retreat

Knowing how his women felt about weddings, Jeff had been wise enough to cancel training for Arlene, Kayla and Art for the morning, telling the Sergeant that Arlene and Kayla would be back Friday, but Art would be off longer. Arlene and Kayla had kissed him soundly for that. Art had grinned at the Prime and told him thanks.

Breakfast finished, the women began clearing the table. When Kayla walked past Jeff, he grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap. "So, did you like your training on the Ship?" he asked after the kiss.

"I guess it was okay, but it's..."

"It's what?"

"Doggonit, Jeff, it's too realistic."

"Hmmm. I can't imagine training that's too realistic. The whole objective is to train you for the real thing. I know Ship would never risk your life, and well, you were just lying there on the couch. Kinda hard to get hurt doing that," he teased.

"Yeah, well, I might argue the 'hurt' thing. The first scenario was bad enough with them dropping me off in the middle of nowhere, then my having to find the ship. But the second one – the one I just finished – was way too real. That maser, despite my shields, hurt like crazy. And I had a bruise after the training scenario was over. If it bruised me, how can it not be real?"

Not answering her, he said, instead, "But the bruise went away quickly."

"How could I bruise if it was just a simulator?"

"Maybe you need to ask Ship that?"

"But, Baby, I killed people – not that they didn't need killing. Three guys – well, three beings. I don't know whether they were male or female, or even human, for that matter, but they each had two arms and two legs, so I assume they were human. Darn it, Jeff, it felt real. If I hadn't been so scared, I would probably have puked when his suit's power plant blew. My suit got splashed with flash-frozen gore that used to be a live man, or being, or whatever."

"And do you know how to use the suit in combat? Not just theory from class, but do you know how?" Jeff asked very seriously.

Kayla hesitated for a second, then, "I guess that I didn't even think about the suit, just staying alive, which meant that my attackers had to go – one way or another. So, I got pissed off and started fighting back."

"Which is exactly what you should have done. And since you survived with three to one odds, I strongly suspect that you can use the suit proficiently."

"Well, I went through weeks of training before the final test, but Jeff, you don't know how much that maser hurt when one of those guys managed to hit me with a glancing shot. I could barely breathe after that. I swear, Baby, it felt like I had a broken rib piercing my lung. I just knew I was going to die out there in that asteroid belt, but I made up my mind that I was going to take them with me if it was the last thing I ever did. How does Ship make it so real? When I woke up on that couch, I first thought I had lost my mind."

Arlene passed by with two platters of leftover food and remarked, "I still say that having half the planet firing energy beams up my ass hurt just as badly. The pain makes you act really carefully, though."

"Which is one of the major reasons Ship does the pain thing, I suppose," Jeff offered.

Kayla looked her husband in the eye. "So, should I have tossed a grenade through the hatch of that ship the three obviously came from?"

"Well, how did you know that there weren't captive women and children in it, or maybe the ship had been hijacked and had an innocent crew still on board? And how do you know a grenade would have been effective tossed into an airlock? That would naturally be one of the strongest points on the ship. Better to do what you were in the process of doing when the Ship cancelled the scenario."

"Go back to my ship for help after I killed my immediate attackers?"

The Prime smiled at his wife. "Seems logical to me."

"You've done the suit-training, haven't you?" Kayla asked, then went quickly on before he could answer, "So, how did you do?"

"I got by," he answered, noncommittally.

"In other words," Diana said as she picked up a stack of dirty dishes from the table, "he aced it." Just before she walked through the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, she paused to say, "Oh, I haven't talked to the Ship about it, but I know he did. I doubt if he's ever taken a test that he didn't ace."

"He sure aced making love to us last night," Laura said as she winked at them and left for the kitchen.

"Yeah, he did, didn't he?" Kayla agreed while trying to hold back a grin. Then glaring at her husband, "That Sergeant threw me out the airlock on the first exercise. I'll bet he didn't do that to you."

"Actually, he didn't throw me out, he put his boot on my ass and kicked me out. And ... I suspect, it felt just as real to me as it did to you."

"Well, whatever. I didn't give him a chance on the last scenario, though. I just dived through the forcefield myself. I don't know which was worse. Being abandoned by the ship on the other training mission, or getting attacked in that asteroid field."

"What about the recoil from the rifle? That maser isn't all laser; it has a particle beam component that produces a fair amount of recoil. But the maser was part of the first suit-training scenario. Did the recoil bother you on the range – simulated range, that is?"

"Uh, one of the other rookies bitched about the recoil, and the Sergeant made her run laps, so I kept my mouth shut. My shoulder was sore after what seemed like days of firing the maser, but I guess I didn't notice the recoil when those men attacked me."

Jeff grinned at her. "Combat will do that for you. Your priorities tend to shift when someone shoots at you."

"Well," Kayla said with a smirk as she wiggled on his swelling cock, "it feels like your priorities are changing right beneath my butt, but we all have things to do to get ready for the weddings," she finished as she came to her feet. Leaning over, she kissed her husband hungrily for a second, then hurried through the door.

When Courtney arrived, Arlene, Laura, Ann and Nicki hurried out to help bring her things in. Courtney had her coat on, but Jeff's wives hadn't bothered. A grin touched Jeff's face as he saw the result of the cold on his wives' nipples.

The women had barely gotten inside when Fred's women arrived. Soon, the brides-to-be were secreted away from the men, and Jeff was elected to become a packhorse. Fred made the mistake of arriving a few minutes later, and was 'encouraged' to join Jeff in his duties.

"Seems like we've done this before," Fred remarked to Jeff, and picked up a stack of folding chairs before heading for the living room.

"I've given Diana strict instructions that I have all the wives I need."

Fred let out a chuckle as he put his stack down in the living room, then began to unfold and place the chairs. "And you think that will accomplish what?"

Jeff put his stack down, too, letting out a sigh. "I guess I'm fucking hen-pecked."