The Army Doc's Christmas Angel

by Annie O'Neil

  “I have one cake, two forks and a bottle of red.”

  Wow. He was a real Romeo, wasn’t he?

  Her brows drew together as if he’d just told her he was from the planet Zorg. Her short, quick breaths told him she was running on adrenaline. Maybe he should’ve offered the standard cup of tea and a biscuit. The rest could wait.

  “Come on in.”

  A few minutes later, coat off, but with a woolen blanket wrapped round her shoulders, Naomi sat across from him at the small wooden table with a fork in her hand, a cup of steaming tea in front of her—she’d refused the wine—and a cake between them.

  “Um... This all right?” Finn gave his dark tangles a scrub. “I don’t really do hosting. No one really ever calls round.”

  “I’ve never been offered an entire chocolate cake before.”

  “Guess this is a day of firsts.”

  They looked at one another, their gazes catching and clasping tight. Of course it was a day of firsts.

  First kisses being the most memorable of all.

  But she wasn’t here to talk about kissing, so he sat back and waited.

  The air between them was alive with pent-up energy and yet...somehow it felt right, Naomi being here in his man cave.

  “I saw Adao just now.”

  “The picture? How did that go?”

  “He loved it. Alana was there with the therapy dog, Doodle. He told Doodle all about his family. His life...” Her gaze shifted down to her hands where she was rubbing her thumb along the spine of the fork as if trying to remold it into an entirely new shape.

  Something clicked. He saw where this was going. She wanted him to be her Doodle.

  “I’ll take the first bite, shall I? Save you the embarrassment.”

  “Embarrassment?”

  “Of wanting to wolf down the entire cake in one go.” He took a huge forkful and made a show of really enjoying it. Which, even if he had made it himself, didn’t require much acting. Who didn’t like warm chocolate cake?

  Following his lead as he plunged his fork into the large cake, Naomi took a daintier portion, her eyebrows lifting as she tasted the cake. “Oh, wow! Mmm... This is delicious.”

  “I’ve been competitive baking with a television show,” he confessed. “So far I think I’m winning.”

  Naomi put her fork down, her expression sobering. “I need to explain why Adao means so much to me.”

  “You don’t need to explain anything you don’t want to.”

  “I want to.” Her gaze locked with his and everything he saw within those dark brown eyes of hers seared straight into his chest cavity. She was a kindred spirit. A fellow lost soul who, if he was strong enough for her, just may have found her mooring.

  He pulled his own mug of tea toward him, took a drink, sat back and listened.

  “Many years ago...fourteen and a bit...”

  He nodded. It was about the same length of time since he’d lost his leg.

  She stopped, drummed the table with her fingers then backtracked. “When I was seventeen, my country was disrupted by civil war. Up until then I had lived a happy childhood. Just like anyone else. Maybe just like you.”

  Finn nodded as confirmation. He’d had a great childhood. Military through and through. Moving every few years. New countries. New parts of the UK. Always “on mission” to make himself the best possible candidate for army recruitment when the time came...

  “It all changed so quickly. One day my boyfriend and I were going to school like normal teenagers—”

  “Your boyfriend?” Finn prompted. There was no point in editing her story on his account.

  She gave him a weak smile. “It was a teenage romance.”

  “Hey.” Finn raised his hands. “I’m not going green-eyed monster on you. Everyone has a past. I have mine. You have yours.” He laid his hands on top of hers and gave them a light squeeze. “The only thing I am here to do is listen.”

  And learn. And something told him right then and there he’d stay and be there for her as long as it took. Everyone had a past. And everyone had a future. It took moving on from one to get to the other, and that was precisely what he was hoping to do.

  CHAPTER TEN

  NAOMI SEARCHED FINN’S intense expression for any fault lines.

  Not a single one.

  Just a solid, warm-hearted, generous man sitting across from her with nothing other than her own well-being in mind.

  It was painful. But she began to speak.

  “For the most part, the rebels hadn’t been around our small town. It was about the size of Cambridge, actually. It had a river. And a hospital.” She suddenly became lost in memories of just how much she had taken for granted before the war had begun. A quiet, bustling market town where her father had run a hardware store and her mother had been a teacher. She’d always had food. Clothes. They’d had a happy, perfectly normal life.

  “Had you always wanted to be a physiotherapist?” Finn asked, dipping his fork into the cake and indicating she should feel free to help herself.

  She smiled but shook her head. She couldn’t eat cake and tell this particular story. “I knew I always wanted to help people, but I wasn’t sure how. I used to volunteer at the hospital as... I’m not sure what you call them here. In Zemara we had a lot of American missionaries, so we were called candy-stripers. We worked in pinstripe pinafores to identify us as volunteers. It was good fun. I loved it whenever I could help a patient smile or laugh.”

  “I bet you were great at it.”

  Her smile faded. “I had only done it for about a year, but it was long enough to discover physiotherapy. I really enjoyed seeing the rehabilitation side of working with patients.”

  “Sometimes that’s the hardest part.”

  “Exactly!” She felt the original spark of passion for the job still burning bright within her. “That’s what drew me to it. The challenge of instilling a sense of pride in the patient. Changing the parameters. Looking at things from a new perspective.”

  “That’s how it works all right.” Finn put his fork down and took a gulp of tea. “There were about a thousand times I wished I could’ve unscrewed my head from this old lunky body of mine and screwed a different one on it.”

  She gave him a sidelong look. From where she was sitting he was looking pretty close to perfect.

  “One with a positive attitude,” he explained.

  Ah. Well. “Everyone has their down days.” She took a sip of her tea and lifted her gaze to meet Finn’s. He really was an extraordinary man. A flush crept to her cheeks but she ploughed ahead and said what she was thinking. “For what it’s worth? I’m glad you kept the one you had.”

  They looked at one another in the soft light and if Naomi hadn’t come here for another reason entirely she would’ve been hard pressed not to lean across the table and start kissing him all over again.

  Though she’d seen his fiery side, she knew now his temper was usually directed at himself. He was fiercely loyal. That was much apparent. And brave. Her thoughts skipped to Charlie and the look of true respect and admiration he’d given Finn when telling Naomi how Finn had saved his life.

  She hadn’t saved anyone’s life.

  And therein lay the crux of the matter.

  He was a hero. She was a coward. No wonder she was drawn to him.

  She played with her fork for a minute. Took a sip of her tea. She wasn’t here to talk about physio. Or her childhood. She was here to explain to Finn why she’d become so emotional about Adao. Too much emotion fueling too many memories.

  “The rebels came when we were least expecting it.”

  Finn nodded, showing no sign of being surprised they’d changed from talking about his head to her home town being invaded by armed rebels.

  “I was down at the river, seeing if there had been a catch that day.
Food had been...scarce in the previous weeks. We weren’t starving but the country had slowly been falling under their reign of terror.”

  A shiver juddered down her spine at the memory of the helicopters flying overhead, the wild-eyed recruits practically hanging out of the open doors and firing their machine guns indiscriminately. Men, women, children. They hadn’t cared. Most of the rebels’ so-called cavalry had been poor men bribed with alcohol and drugs. Men who, in another world, could have been convinced to turn their energies to doing good had they been offered food and shelter instead. She tugged the edges of the soft cashmere blanket Finn had draped round her shoulders closer together.

  “C’mere.” Finn rose and gestured to the comfortable-looking sofa. Worn, golden leather. When she sank into a corner and pulled a cushion onto her lap she felt protected, safe. Finn threw a couple of logs into a small wood burner she hadn’t noticed earlier. An image of Finn chopping the precisely cut woodpile by hand flickered through her mind before his silence reminded her she needed to get through this story.

  “I heard the helicopters first. My instinct was to run home. I’d asked my boyfriend to meet me there so that we could all eat together that night, but when I heard the shooting and screaming... I...” She pressed her hands to her ears, still hearing the cries of disbelief and fear coming from the normally tranquil country town. “I hid.” The words came out as a sob. “I hid underneath some palm leaves I found drying at the edge of the forest because I could see from there. They were loading everyone they could into trucks. Men in some. Women and children in others. They were screaming at everyone to hurry. Telling lies. Saying that they were taking them to refugee camps where they would be safe, but everybody knew where they were really going.”

  “The mountains?” Finn asked softly.

  She nodded, swiping at the tears cascading down her cheeks. From the grim look on his face he knew exactly what a trip to the mountains would have meant for her family and the rest of those other poor, innocent people. The excavation of the mass graves that had been found there only warranted one or two lines of mention in the newspapers these days, but Naomi lived with the knowledge that those she had loved most dearly were very likely amongst the bodies slowly being recovered.

  Finn handed her a handkerchief from his pocket. “It’s clean.”

  Their fingers brushed as she accepted the cotton square and the hit of connection felt like a lifeline. A chance to believe in the possibility that one day the weight of guilt might not be as heavy as it was at this very moment.

  She swiped at her tears and when she’d steadied her breath she finished her story as quickly as she could. “I hid under the palms for three days.”

  His eyes widened. “What about food? Water?”

  She shook her head. “I was too terrified to move. It rained at night anyway...a warm rain...so I drank what I could from the palm fronds. Even if there had been food I am sure I would have not been able to eat it.” Her hands balled into two tight fists in front of the cushion she’d been hugging. “My stomach was tied in knots that day. Permanent knots of guilt and sorrow and shame that I did nothing to help my family.”

  “Do you still feel that way?”

  Pain lanced through her heart. “Of course I do. They’re still gone. I know the chances of them ever reappearing are minimal. No. They’re not even that.” She scrubbed her hands through her hair and looked Finn directly in the eye. “They will never come back. And I will have to live with that guilt for the rest of my life.”

  “Guilt for what? You wouldn’t have been able to save them. If anything, you would’ve been killed trying or...”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. If she’d run and joined her mother on the truck, she would have died with her. But what was the point in living if everyone you loved died knowing you did nothing?

  “Have you spoken to anyone else about this? There are professionals who deal precisely with this kind of trauma.”

  He should know.

  “When I first moved here there was counselling.” She rattled off a few truisms from those early days. “There wasn’t anything I could do. I would’ve been killed, too. Look at all of the good I’ve done now.”

  “You do know all of those things are true.” Finn’s eyes were diamond bright with emotion. With compassion. It wasn’t pity. And for that she was grateful.

  “I do. On an intellectual level.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “It’s knowing it here that I find just about impossible.”

  Finn reached across and took Naomi’s hands in his own. He looked into her eyes so intensely she was certain he was seeing straight through to the very center of her soul.

  “Naomi Collins,” he began, his voice gruff with emotion. “There is so much that is wrong with the world. You have seen more of it than anyone should have to. Take it from someone who’s seen more than his fair share too. But let me tell you this. The light and the joy that you bring to your patients and to the people who work with you—hell, to anyone who’s lucky enough to see that beautiful smile of yours...”

  He paused, giving one of her cheeks a soft caress with the back of his hand while rubbing the back of her other hand with the pad of his thumb. Her stomach was doing all sorts of flips and it was just as well Finn opened his mouth to keep on talking, because she was positively tongue-tied with disbelief.

  “The light and joy you bring to me—and, let me tell you, I’m a pretty grumpy character, so that takes some doing—is more than enough to lighten the burden of any guilt that you bear.”

  The tangle of emotions that, for so long, had been a tight knot in Naomi’s chest felt the first hit of relief. A slackening in the constant tension that she should be doing more, or better. Telling her story to someone who understood and who didn’t judge or blame her for the decisions she’d made all those years ago released something in her she hadn’t realized was locked up tight. For the first time in fourteen years she felt it just might be within her power to receive affection.

  “Finn?”

  He cupped her cheek in one of his broad hands, the edge of his thumb gently stroking along her jawline. “Yes, love?”

  “Thank you.” And she meant it. With every pore in her body she meant it.

  * * *

  Finn didn’t know if it was he or Naomi who had leant into the kiss, but semantics didn’t matter at this point. Neither did the fact that finally being able to hold her in his arms was lighting up every part of him like the center of London. One minute they’d been holding hands and the next they’d been kissing and he’d pulled her up and onto his lap. She was straddling him, one hand cupping his face, one hand raking through his hair as if she’d been made to be there. Made to be with him. Gone were all the shy inhibitions he’d thought he’d seen in her earlier.

  The same fierce attraction that had pulled them together at the gym was alight. Touch, taste, scent were all threatening to overwhelm him as their kisses moved from tentative and soft to a much deeper exploration of their shared attraction. He wanted this. He wanted her. But it had to be right.

  What mattered was Naomi and ensuring she wasn’t letting the powerhouse of emotions she’d just shared with him lead her into doing anything she would regret.

  Using all the willpower he possessed, Finn pulled back from the deep kiss then tipped his forehead to hers, vividly aware of Naomi’s soft, sweet breath on his mouth as he spoke. “Are you sure this is what you want? That I’m who you want?”

  She put her finger on his lips. “Yes.”

  He captured her hand in his and gave the tips of her fingers a kiss. He wanted this—he wanted her—but not if it was misplaced emotion fueling her desire. “And you’ll feel free to stop or tell me if there’s any point you don’t want to con—”

  She dipped her head to kiss him lightly on the lips. “I will.” She spoke again, her lips still brushing against his. “T
here won’t be.”

  She pulled back so he could see her eyes. They shone with certainty. And desire.

  Finn’s internal temperature ratcheted up a hundred notches as he ran his hands down her sides, enjoying the shift and wriggle of her body’s response as he pulled her in close. Two people reveling in the simple pleasure of holding one another. It had been so long since he’d done this and had been emotionally present. She ran her cheek along his stubble then nestled into the nook of his neck for a few slow kisses along his throat.

  He heard himself groan with pleasure. And they weren’t anywhere near naked yet. As far as he was concerned, they could keep going as slowly and luxuriously as the long winter’s night would allow.

  “Do you have a bedroom hidden somewhere around here?”

  Her smile was one part timid, another part temptress.

  “Yes, I do.” He rose and took her hand in his, laying a kiss atop her head as he showed her the way to the bedroom in the stern.

  This wasn’t pure lust at work. He cared. He genuinely cared for this woman and all the beauty and pain she held in that enormous heart of hers.

  The night might be a one-off. It could be the start of something more. Either way he would finally know what it was like to be with her after months of wondering. He’d deal with the fallout in the morning.

  As she opened the bedroom door and turned to him, eyes filled with questions, he knew that from this moment on, starting with the softest of kisses, the most tender of caresses, he would do everything in his power to make sure she never felt heartache or fear again.

  * * *

  When Finn entered the bedroom, the two of them stood for a moment, frozen between fear and desire. Need trounced tenderness. Hunger savaged restraint. The air crackled with electricity, as if the space between them was a taunt—a dare to see who would be brave enough to make the first move.

  Finn’s touch was powerful enough to fill the void Naomi had ached to fill ever since her family had been stolen away from her. As he turned the distance between them to nothing, his scent—a heady wash of pine and man and baking—unleashed a craving in her for more. His caresses, more tender than she had ever known, told her she was no longer alone.