Conduct Unbecoming

"I run every other day," Kay said.

"I don't mean fitness." Diane glanced sideways. "You seem different. Lighter somehow."

"I'm good." Kay kept her eyes on the track ahead. "Work is good."

"Can't talk about it?"

"No."

Diane nodded and let it go. JAG officers especially knew better than to ask questions about classified operations.

They ran the curve past the back fence of the base, the German countryside flat and brown beyond it.

"How are things at home?" Diane asked.

"Fine."

"Kay."

"Fine, Di." She adjusted her stride. "He's still seeing her. He was with her last weekend."

Diane looked at her. "In Berlin?"

"Yes."

Diane swore quietly. Then, "Do you know who she is?"

For a moment, she thought of lying, and decided not to. "Yes."

Diane glanced at her, realized she wasn't going to say more, grunted and carried on. They ran without speaking for another few yards.

"I looked for you this weekend," Diane revealed. "Where were you?"

She didn't flinch. "I drove out to Trier. Never been there before."

Diane glanced at her, frowning. "By yourself?"

"With Leftenant. He's really good company." The lie came easily. He had spent the weekend in the house with a timed feeder, his water fountain newly filled and two fresh litter boxes.

Diane laughed.

Kay remembered using the Pawsition app for its actual purpose while cuddled up under a blanket, curled up against him in the warm cabin as his hand stroked her hip. She had been naked... just because.

Diane was looking at her again. "You sure you're good?"

"Yeah," Kay answered, truthfully. She was. How she'd gotten there was not something she could share. Friend or not, Major Diane Russo was JAG.

"Andy's application is still under review," she said. "That's what matters right now."

She had told him more about Andy's West Point application, more than she had intended to. He had listened and said nothing prescriptive, which she appreciated more than any reassurance would have been.

Two weeks before, James Osmond had quietly taken her aside and informed her that her performance in Romania had made her promotion to Major a matter of inevitability.

Of course, if what had begun in Bucharest was found out before then, the panel she would be facing would be deliberating on her dismissal. And she had no illusions about what the decision would be.

A smarter woman would simply stop it all. End things. She knew he would respect her wishes and let it go. He was at risk too.

But she knew she wouldn't.

"So he doesn't know," Diane said, talking about her husband, bringing her back to the present. "That you know."

"No," Kay kept her pace even. "He doesn't."

She had told Diane about the fallen cat tracker and the app showing him in Bernkastel-Kues. About leaving the tracker in the car. Diane had approved.

Graham came and went, his routine basically unchanged - except now she knew. At least two times every week, sometimes more, he stopped somewhere before coming home or went somewhere afterwards. The few times she'd asked, he'd offered a plausible reason and a location. Most of the time, the blue dot said something different.

He still kissed her regularly and still reached for her at night. And she still always turned toward him, answered his kisses, spread herself for him and held him as he moved inside her. She felt the pleasure of it still, but it was more like a spectator than a participant.

Two male officers came running in the opposite direction, and they exchanged polite nods and kept running.

"So you're going for leaving clean." Diane finally said, sweat sheening her skin.

"Yes," Kay said, breathing more labored as she upped her pace too.

It was the right answer. It was even somewhat true. Except for the Army E-6 she had spent the last weekend with that made it anything but clean.

Diane said nothing. Just turned to look at her before nodding and speeding up even more.

They finished the loop and walked it out in the cold morning air. Diane talked about a case she was working and Kay listened and asked the right questions.

"You really do seem lighter," Diane Russo said as they walked back to the track's showers. "Happy."

Kay kept her face neutral. "I have a plan now, Ma'am. I'm operating it."

Diane smiled. "Attagirl."

She touched herself in the shower, behind the curtain, thinking of Nathan Miller and his insistence on her remaining nude for more than twenty four hours. He'd used his fingers, then his lips and tongue on her. Continuously.

She'd left a lot of wet spots.

She was breathing hard, biting her lip as she took herself over the edge.

Then she finished and changed into her OCPs, and walked out together with Diane Russo. She saluted her before they parted and she reported to cyberwarfare center.

She had seen the email from Squadron Leader Felicity Watson of the RAF immediately.

'Kay!!! Bitch!!! Charles asked! I said yes (Duh!) You are coming or I will NEVER EVER forgive you!! Hotel and bridesmaids dress (pretty, I promise!) to be provided!!! Just bring yourself and leave the uniform at home. Say yes! PLEASE!'

The venue - Reading, just outside London - the schedule of events, ceremony date and time were listed below in extra large font festooned with emojis.

Final line: 'PS - Kiss Leftenant (silly spelling) for me!'

________________

Haskell addressed them all. "The CO wants every element represented. Unit courtesy. Significant others very welcome. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." Haskell had looked at them all, eyes narrowed to make it clear that attendance - no matter the official word - wasn't optional. "Dismissed, gentlemen."

A minute later, he walked over to where Nathan stood with Kowalski. "The former Colonel Bannatyne of the Air Force will be at the dinner. He'll want to see you two."

"Former, sir?" Kowalski asked.

"He just got a star."

"Good for him, sir." Nathan said.

"You can tell him that yourself, Sergeant Miller," Haskell noted. "Should be a good night. You bringing the wife?"

"She's usually busy on Thursday nights, sir."

She wasn't. She actually brought up the Dining Out at the table that night, before he did - their first dinner together in a while. He'd looked at her and his expression must have said something because she'd hurried to explain that the other wives had booked up all the salons in the KMC.

"Let's go," she'd said, momentarily looking up from smiling at her phone. "Sounds like it would be fun."

There was no good reason to question the change in schedule - no after hours showing, no account reconciliations. But he'd noted it - added it to the accumulating pile of things.

A week later he stepped into the ballroom at the officers' club in his mess dress, his wife on his arm in a backless green dress with a neckline that made a statement.

The club was kitted out as it always was for such events - round tables, white linen, the colors posted at the front, a band playing ballroom music that somehow sounded regimental.

Mess uniforms were everywhere; Army black and blue, the Air Force's silver braiding, the Navy's black tailcoats and the Marines' line of brass buttons.

He stayed with the other enlisted men and Brenda stayed with him, hand on his arm. She interacted pleasantly and accepted compliments on her dress, but her eyes were elsewhere. On the officers' side.

Especially when an Army Lieutenant Colonel had walked in, arm in arm with a woman in the long skirt and braided jacket of an Air Force officer.

Dinner was the usual sequence - toasts, formal mess customs, senior officers making speeches that ran longer than they needed to. Nathan sat with the other senior NCOs, not too far from the Warrants. Brenda sat beside him and picked at her plate, spoke back when spoken to and kept glancing toward the head table.

After dinner the room loosened. Drinks, the band shifting into something easier, people moving between tables.

Moore himself came to their table. "Gentlemen. Come meet some of our counterparts. Courtesy."

Nathan went. Brenda came with him, her hand light on his arm, smiling. He noticed the attention she drew. She looked good.

Moore made the introductions efficiently to a cluster of mostly O-5s and O-6s, wearing different uniforms and offering polite handshakes and small talk that filled space without requiring memory.

Then Haskell arrived with two more. "Lieutenant Colonel Palmer, with the 405th," Haskell said, "and Captain Kayleigh Palmer, Air Force Cyberwarfare."

Nathan kept his face level.

"Staff Sergeant Miller," Haskell said. "Maintenance lead, aviation element. Did some impressive work on a deployment a few months back. Good man."

Graham Palmer was exactly what Nathan had expected from a man with that name and that bearing - tall, composed, the kind of square-jawed handsome that photographed well, a firm handshake.

His eyebrows rose slightly. "Deployment where?"

"Can't say," Haskell said, easy and unbothered. "Above my pay grade to say out loud at a party."

Graham laughed, good-humoredly. "Fair enough." He nodded at Nathan. "Wherever it was, I've heard good things, Sergeant."

'From...?' Nate wondered. "Thank you, sir," Nate said.

Someone had come up to Haskell, and he politely nodded at them and stepped away.

"May I introduce my wife," Graham continued. "Captain - soon to be Major - Kayleigh Palmer of the Air Force."

He stiffened to attention then held the wife's hand for exactly the right amount of time. "Pleasure to meet you, Ma'am. And congratulations."

"Thank you. But we've met before, Sergeant," Kay said, pouting slightly, her tone amused. "Am I really so forgettable?"

It took him a moment. "I... I apologize, Ma'am. I remember. We met at... at Heathrow."

She grinned, doing something with her eyes. "Yes, Sergeant. Heathrow."

Graham's eyes moved between them, already disinterested. "Small world," he noted, his eyes moving back to Brenda. "And this is...?"

"My wife," Nathan said. "Brenda Miller."

Something crossed Graham's face for a fraction of a second - a tiny smirk, noticed only because Nathan was looking for it - and then he was smiling, taking Brenda's offered hand, bringing it up in a small old-fashioned gesture that made her laugh.

"Lieutenant Colonel Graham Palmer," he said.

"Mrs. Brenda Miller," she said, and Nathan watched her lips part and her cheeks color.

Kayleigh was a half step behind Graham, her lips pressing together slightly, her eyes finding Nathan's before flickering away.

The band shifted into something with more structure right then.

"Oh! I like this," Brenda said, voice high and girlish, as if on cue.

"So do I," Graham said, smiling still. "Would you do me the honor of a dance, Mrs. Miller?"

"I'd love to," Brenda said. Immediately.

He glanced at Kay. "If you don't mind, of course, honey?"

Kay shook her head.

Graham raised an eyebrow at Nathan. "Do you mind, Staff Sergeant?"

"No, sir." Nathan said. His wife had already let go of his arm and stepped toward her O-5 lover.

They moved to the floor and Nathan watched them go and felt nothing because of his awareness of the woman beside him.

"Heathrow?" she said, beside him, in that amused tone.

He kept his eyes forward. "You're going to pay for that, Major."

"It's not official yet."

"Congratulations, Ma'am," he said, firmly.

She made a noise. A happy one. Then, "How exactly, are you going to make me pay, Sergeant?"

"Still thinking it up, Ma'am."

She sniffed, then said quietly. "I expect creativity, Sergeant."

His voice went gruff, full of promise. "Count on it, Ma'am."

They stood silently, together, watching their spouses on the dance floor, the distance between them entirely appropriate and militarily correct.

"Anything on WOCS?" she asked.

"Should hear something in the next few weeks."

On the floor Graham and Brenda were staying well within the bounds of propriety. Hands where hands belonged. Proper distance maintained. Nothing a casual observer in the room would have flagged.

But they were talking. Continuously, his head bent toward hers, her face turned up, eyes bright, the animation of two people who had a great deal to say to each other.

"They dance well together," Kayleigh said, mildly.

"They've had practice," Nathan said, before he could stop himself.

"At... dancing? Is that what we're calling it?"

He huffed out a laugh and she laughed too, not looking at him.

He watched Graham's hand move on the bared small of Brenda's back - correct, formal, the kind of contact the dance required - but she followed him so naturally that it was somehow more intimate, possessive.

"I wish I could dance with you," Kayleigh said, very quietly, still not looking at him.

It was not a realistic wish. A male officer dancing with an enlisted female would draw questions. A female officer and an enlisted male would be a scandal from the outset.

But he said, "That can be arranged, Ma'am. In whatever form."

"I'll hold you to that, Sergeant."

Then, almost imperceptibly, her hand found his at his side - two fingers, brief, gone before anyone could have registered it - and then she was a correct distance away again, watching the dancers with polite interest like everyone else in the room.

The song ended and Graham escorted Brenda back across the floor with his hand light at her elbow, both of them smiling. Brenda's color was high in a way that had nothing to do with exertion.

She looked smug. Satisfied.

Nathan recognized the expression now. It was what she came home with from 'showings' that ran late and smiles at her phone and not at him.

"Thank you for the dance, Mrs. Miller," Graham said, delivering her back to her husband.

"My pleasure," Brenda said, smiling at him, her hand lingering on his arm for a beat too long. Her nipples were visibly erect.

Nathan pretended not to notice.

"Sergeant Miller," Graham said, turning to him with the easy magnanimity of a man who'd had a very enjoyable experience. Who knew he'd been measured against another and found superior.

Which was the point, Nathan suspected. Why Brenda had been so eager to attend. The secret thrill of having her husband and her lover side-by-side for comparison.

He suspected another thrill - having Graham Palmer see and compare his wife against her. The real reason for this particular dress.

"Your wife's a wonderful dancer," Graham Palmer finished.

"Yes, sir."

A silence.

"Well," Graham said, making a show of checking his watch. "Always good to meet the people doing the real work."

Then he took Kayleigh's elbow. "Shall we, honey?"

Kayleigh smiled at him. "Of course."

Nathan stiffened to attention. "Sir. Ma'am."

The LTC returned the courtesy with a sharp nod for him and a slower one for Brenda. The soon-to-be Major looked at Nathan for exactly the correct duration, gave him a similarly professional nod, and let her husband lead her away.

He relaxed and watched them go.

Beside him, Brenda snagged a drink from a passing orderly's tray and said, "He seems nice."

"Yeah," Nathan answered, seeing her eyes following. "He does."

Her lip curled slightly. "Did you know both his father and grandfather were Generals?"

"Yes, I did."

________________

Graham had told her he was going to Baumholder for the day. He'd be back late. Brenda had told Nathan that she had a full day of house showings, then a colleague's birthday party in Landstuhl. She'd be back late.

"Don't wait up," Graham had said.

When his car took a different turn, she had loaded Leftenant's feeder and poured fresh water into his fountain. Then she had left for the address Nathan had texted to her.

She got into his car there, wearing a blonde wig and plain dark framed glasses, and he had leaned in to kiss her before driving off.

She was wearing a button fronted sweater dress and when they reached the KMC outskirts she had parted it from the bottom to her belly so he could see that she was not wearing panties.

"Spread your legs, Major," he'd said.

It was official now. LTC Osmond had pinned the oak leaves on her while Kenley, Dominguez and others had whooped in quite unmilitary fashion while their CO had looked on indulgently.

Her husband had hugged and kissed her, told her he was proud of her and taken her to dinner. He had been at his most attentive and charming, and she had wished she didn't know what she did. That it was real. That she didn't know who he was likely talking to in such a soft tone when he excused himself for a three minute call.

This was another celebration of her promotion. Nathan Miller had insisted on it.

So she obeyed his command for her to spread herself, and relaxed as he touched her for the entire drive to Trier and the Airbnb he had reserved for the day.

They'd had lunch, outside under the sun, in a park on a blanket with food he had packed. Afterward she had followed him into the beautiful little apartment, her hand in his, heated, wet.

He kept the promise he made at the Dining Out three weeks before - about them dancing - some time around sunset. He'd made a song list - softer and slower - and he'd worn his pants and a t-shirt and held her in the middle of the huge persian rug as the music sounded out from the apartment's bluetooth speakers. She'd worn nothing, rested her head on his shoulder with closed eyes and an utter willingness to let him do what he wanted with her.

"Slow, Sergeant," she ordered, later, looking up at him and licking up at his lips as he entered her body again. "Slow. Please."

"Yes, Major," he said.

They had time. They knew their spouses' timings and they had hours yet.

So he went slow. He took his time. He was gentle and soft, then rough and hard. He never stopped kissing her. She'd cried out and called out his name, and he'd called out her name as she brought him over the edge with her mouth and swallowed when he released.

She had wanted to stay and spend the night. She hadn't wanted to leave that little apartment.

But the military had trained her too well.

________________

The joint operations center at Patch Barracks ran on a different rhythm than anything at Ramstein. Higher ceilings, more screens, a hum of climate control loud enough to notice. Kayleigh had been pulled in three days before - TDY, forty-eight hours' notice, tasked to lead a six-person cyber support cell for an operation she hadn't been told the full scope of until she signed in.

Brigadier General Bannatyne had personally asked for her.

A terrorist cell operating out of a compound in the Sahel had hit a US embassy annex two weeks prior - a coordinated strike, vehicle-borne, simultaneous with a disturbingly sophisticated attempt to breach the embassy's internal network. The network intrusion had failed. The physical attack had not - two local staff dead, and a Marine guard wounded, enough damage that the decision had been made at a level well above Kayleigh's to respond.

Her team's job was specific. They were tracking the compound's communications architecture, mapping its connections to the wider network, feeding targeting data to the operational planners. She ran the cell from a workstation at the center of the bay, her people arranged around her, each owning a piece of the picture she had to hold whole in her head.

She did not know who made up the ground element. She knew there would be one, because there was always a ground element when the target required confirmation, and she knew it would be Army - that Apaches and Black Hawks were being deployed - because that was who AFRICOM tasked for this kind of work.

She did not know what unit it was until she saw the manifest.

It scrolled past on a secondary logistics screen during a routine personnel cross-check - names and unit designations, nothing classified beyond the obvious. She saw 'MILLER, N.' under aviation maintenance support and felt something in her chest go very still and very cold.