Stand-In Wife: Special Forces #2

by Karina Bliss

  Merry gave a watery laugh. “Gee, part-time nurse and full-time suburban mom or international theatrical success…it’s a tough choice. C’mon, Viv, you can’t possibly desire mine.”

  “Can’t I?” She was conscious of feeling wistful. “Hard as it was, I enjoyed being you.” She picked up her twin’s hand. “I liked being the sensible one, the dependable one. I liked hearing about Tilly’s day at school and soothing your toddler when he was cranky and not eating alone every night over a sketch pad or sewing machine. And I’m completely envious of how much your husband loves you.”

  Merry swallowed.

  “And, God, I love your kids.” Viv dabbed at her eyes again.

  “Not too much, I need them back.” Merry returned her grip. “Whatever happens, you’re in their life, Viv. I promise…. They’re perfect, aren’t they?”

  Somewhere down the corridor, Harry let out a piercing shriek. “Someone tried to take the chocolates from him,” Viv guessed. “I should go get them.”

  Merry’s fingers tightened on hers. “In a minute… I’m completely jealous of your verve and your style, I love your optimism and your gutsy approach to life and I’m tired of being the one who cautions everyone to be careful. I want to have more fun in my life, Viv. I’ve had a lot of opportunity to think, lying in this damn hospital. I want to find a passion that’s only mine and I want to be as generous in spirit as you are.”

  “You have to tell Charlie, Mere.”

  Her twin bit her lip. “I know.”

  “He only took the kiss so hard because you’ve been encouraging him to judge you by the ridiculously high standards you set yourself. But he’s weathered the initial shock and bounced back. Yes, the truth will be a severe jolt, but he’ll get over it like he did the kiss. And if you keep doing something outrageous with me on a regular basis, we’ll soon have the man so desensitized you’ll soon be able to dance naked on a bar and he won’t bat an eyelash.”

  “See,” said Merry half laughing, half crying, “that’s the kind of attitude I need more of.”

  Viv was struck by a revelation. “God, we’re fools, Mere. There’s no reason we can’t take the best of each other’s worlds. We’ve got the same genes after all.”

  “You said it didn’t work like that. Remember one twin gay and one straight.”

  “I was using gay in its historical sense of being happy.”

  “Liar.” Merry smiled but she was plainly terrified. “What am I going to say to Charlie?”

  “That’s easy, tell him you need him. It’s all he cares about.”

  “I do need him.”

  Then you’ve got it covered, haven’t you?”

  Merry squared her shoulders. “I’ll tell him as soon as I can do it face-to-face,” she said. “What else did you like about my life?”

  “That your day holds a whole lot more variety and excitement than mine,” Viv said. “I don’t want to end up on my deathbed surrounded by designing awards. They have to be on one side of the deathbed, sure, but I’d like family on the other. Maybe even my own family.” She looked at her twin. “You have no idea how scary it is to admit that.”

  “Yes, I do. Because it’s the only area in your life where you’re a yellow-bellied coward. Come to think of it,” she added, “so is Ross. That must make the courtship interesting.”

  Viv frowned. “We’re cooling it off.”

  “I thought I could see the whites of your eyes.”

  “Anyway, all Ross cares about is getting fit enough for redeployment.”

  “It used to be all he cared about,” Merry agreed. “Before you came we saw him maybe once a month, if we were lucky. Since our separation, Charlie’s been spending weekends at Ross’s with the kids. But I think Ross only tolerated it because Charlie needed a refuge. How much time has he spent with you this week?”

  “To protect Charlie’s interests, help organize the funeral—”

  “And the sex contributes to that how? No, there’s a lot more to it.”

  Viv shook her head. “You’re wrong, Mere. Last night, when I told him I was developing feelings for him he retreated so quickly he left tire marks. He’s horrified by the idea.”

  “So? You’re horrified, too. Why should Ross be any different?”

  She had a point. “Anyway, I don’t want to fall in love with him.”

  “Face it Viv, the only reason you’re panicking is because Mum’s convinced you marriage is a prison. Not that I’ve been the greatest advertisement for the institution lately. But Ross is perfect for you. He’s career-driven himself so he won’t be threatened by your success, or fazed by a long distance relationship. Everyone deployed in the SAS accepts regular separations as normal.”

  The kids appeared, marched in by Florence and looking delighted with themselves. “Supervise, huh?” she said to Viv. “I found them working their way through a box of chocolates with my nurses.”

  “It’s no good,” said Tilly matter-of-factly. “This lady’s just mean.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Florence left them to it.

  Merry looked at Viv as Tilly and Harry clambered on the bed. “And best of all he knows exactly what he’s letting himself in for with the Jansen family.”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Viv stopped the baby playing horsey on her sister’s cast by resettling him on her lap. “The guy’s not interested in getting serious.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Merry smoothed her daughter’s hair. “If we waited for men to be ready, the human race would be extinct by the time they made up their minds. All you have to decide is whether you’re interested.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Anyone who couldn’t pass the basic RFL—required fitness level—test was considered nonoperational. And part of that test was running two and a half kilometers under ten minutes.

  Ross had done the calculations in his head a thousand times. He did them again now in the shower before the time trial, running the water as hot as he could stand to warm the scarred muscle.

  Two and a half kilometers broke down to covering two hundred and fifty meters per minute. Or two hundred and sixty-four yards—he knew the sums in metric and imperial. Hell, he knew them in Swahili. Once he would have finished with minutes to spare; now he’d need every precious second.

  He massaged out the knots in his thigh on autopilot, as used to the ritual as he was to shaving or cleaning his teeth.

  The test would have to be done again officially, with the option of a do-over two weeks later if he failed. But Ross knew what his physical therapist and specialist didn’t. He’d reached the limit of what his body could achieve.

  This was as good as his mangled limb was going to get in terms of performance and he’d only got this far through sacrificing pretty much everything else—social life, family life, coaching Tilly’s soccer team. His body couldn’t sustain this level of intensity. Or the resulting pain.

  The irony of course was that once he was on patrol he’d be sitting in a Dumvee ninety percent of the time. But it was his speed under fire, the explosive ten percent that mattered.

  Turning off the shower, he dressed quickly in running shorts and a T-shirt. His leg hurt, but then it always did. Yesterday’s so-called rest day looking after the kids had proved a major workout. He’d been caught up in the sisters’ drama, and then unceremoniously dumped.

  Viv’s common sense in pulling back before they got too deep should have come as a relief. It hadn’t and that bothered the hell out of him. He hadn’t slept well. Not that he was sleeping well anyway since his argument with Dan. He needed to do this trial today. He needed to know.

  Filling a water bottle, he headed out to the truck. Ross had deliberately waited for low tide so that he could drive along the beach—permissible at Muriwai—to a favorite secluded haunt.

  The weather had settled overnight but the surf had grown through a subantarctic storm some thousand miles south and spray misted the shoreline, salting the air.

  Waves rolled in like j
uggernauts, peaking to a perfect arcing wall of green water. Each hung on the cusp of falling before toppling in thundering white water, strewing clumps of brown seaweed the length of the beach.

  He parked the SUV at the edge of the dunes and walked first, easing the tension out of his muscles and concentrating his will. Two and a half kilometers along the beach lay his finish line—weather-silvered driftwood.

  When Ross first bought his plot at Muriwai he’d talked his friends into helping him clear it—no easy task, it bristled with gorse and wild blackberries. They’d attacked the scrub with machetes and axes on a scorching summer day, not a whisper of breeze to bring relief and the cicadas creating a deafening cacophony around them.

  After dark the five of them—Lee, Nate, Steve, Ross and Dan—made camp on this section of beach, using the driftwood to shield a fire, drinking beer, stargazing and planning their blazing trail to glory.

  Ross only needed to close his eyes to conjure their faces, burnished by firelight—Steve, the Jansen’s cousin. Assured, laconic, already married to Claire, their anchor and leader. Lee, the youngest, a cocky extrovert, impulsive in matters of the heart. Both dead now.

  He didn’t dwell on Dan’s face because he was too close to hating him right now and Ross didn’t want to cross that line. And it hurt too much to picture Nate. The affection was there but the respect was gone.

  Someone had to be the last man standing, but Dan didn’t understand that, and it grieved Ross. It upset him that Dan and Nate had moved on from the SAS. It seemed a betrayal of Lee’s and Steve’s memory. Remaining staunch was a matter of honor. Of respect. Of duty. Of will.

  Who am I if I’m not a soldier?

  Muscles loosened, he took a slug from his water bottle, chucked it into the SUV and locked the vehicle, putting the keys in his pocket. His starting point was a tussock of toi toi—white feathery pampas grass. Lining up beside it, Ross set the alarm on his Heuer for ten minutes. He’d decided he wouldn’t look at it, simply run as fast as he could toward the driftwood and try to beat the alarm.

  His heart was already racing. Fine, he could use the adrenaline. He took a few deep breaths, readied himself then punched the start button on his watch and kicked into a run. His injured leg didn’t have the same stride as his good one so he’d evolved a rolling gait, light on the left, heavy on the right. It wasn’t pretty but it worked.

  The pace started to bite and he sucked in more air, imagined the oxygen like good oil flowing through every limb and muscle. His leg started to protest; he ignored it.

  He glanced behind to check the position of his SUV, annoyed that he hadn’t marked halfway. Ahead he could pick out the driftwood, the silver stump gleaming through the sea mist.

  Fixing his gaze on it, he dug deep. His heels crunched into the hard-packed sand.

  The X factor that made an SAS trooper a one-percenter wasn’t strength, skill or toughness. In selection all of that was deliberately stripped away. So that when your muscles were screaming to the point you could hardly put one foot in front of the other and you were so sleep-deprived you’d lost any sense of when this torture would end, the only thing that would get you over the line—and into the elite corps—was how bad you wanted it.

  He didn’t just want this. He needed it.

  The fire in his leg radiated up and down the left side of his body, pulsing so white-hot that spots appeared before his eyes. The driftwood was maybe half a kilometer away. Gritting his teeth he started pumping his arms like pistons.

  Unable to help himself he glanced at his watch…three minutes left He could do this. Five hundred meters, four hundred. His breath hissed, his lungs burned. But he was going to make it. He was—

  His knee gave way so fast he didn’t have time to throw out a hand. Instinctively he rolled, but his left temple and cheek hit first and he landed jarringly on his side. Dazed, he touched his face. Blood. His leg was a continuous scream of agony.

  His leg. Hauling himself to a sitting position Ross stretched it out gingerly, then hunched forward and rode out the nausea. His eye watered trying to get rid of the sand.

  The alarm on his watch emitted a shrill beeping. He tore it off and threw it against the weather-hardened driftwood. But the damn thing was impactproof, waterproof…idiotproof.

  Everything burned, his eye, his leg, his heart, the graze on his cheek. He hobbled down to the ice-cold surf and ducked his head under to rinse the grit out of his eye and wash away the blood.

  When his limbs were numb with cold he stumbled out and lay on the shoreline and let the hiss of water roll over him. He could drown. For a split second Ross considered it. Rough swells, strong rips, swimming alone. His family would never guess it wasn’t an accident.

  But Dan would.

  Teeth chattering with cold, he shoved to his feet, one hand instinctively going to support his injury.

  And if Dan knew, then Viv would know.

  The SUV was two and a half kilometers south. A couple of hundred meters into it, he found a piece of driftwood and used it as a cane.

  * * *

  Viv stood on the sidelines, Harry at her feet sucking his way through the halftime orange segments, watching her soccer team getting thrashed on the school field in front of her.

  The Under Nines soccer league played on a quarter of a soccer pitch, in mixed teams. Viv’s team, the Selwyn Primary School Small-Stars had only been on the field for ten of the eighteen-minute first-half and were already two-nil down.

  Beside their coach were her substitutes, Emma, Cameron and Tilly, who was anxiously scanning the car park behind them. “Where’s Uncle Ross?” she demanded for the twelfth time. “We need him.”

  “He must have been held up. I’m sure he’ll be here soon, hon.” Privately Viv was starting to worry that Ross had been in a car accident. He hadn’t phoned to say he was delayed, which was unlike him, and his cell kept clicking to call answer. On the other hand, he’d let her down before.

  The ball bounced out of play and, stemming her growing disquiet, she waved to get the referee’s attention. “Substitute, please, Ref. Emma?” She turned to her forward. “Go swap with Neil and tell your teammates to calm down and stay in their positions.”

  At the junior level, players tended to forget their practice drills and all chase after the ball like a pack of overexcited puppies. Viv winced as the opposition’s star player kicked his third goal into the net and punched the air in victory. Blondie, Viv called him, for his flying yellow hair and Hollywood showmanship. Or should that be showman-up-manship.

  “Awww, that sucks.” Tilly stamped her foot and the studs on her soccer boot stabbed indents in the turf.

  Neil, the kid who’d been subbed, came off the field panting. “He’s such a bighead!”

  “Sportsmanship,” Viv reminded everybody, and clapped politely.

  “Uncle Ross is here!” Tilly ran to meet him. “Uncle Ross…we’re losing. You’ve gotta fix it.”

  “What’s the score?” he asked as he stopped next to Viv. No explanation, no apology. Now that she knew he was safe, Viv embraced the luxury of annoyance.

  “Why didn’t you phone?”

  “Something came up, Meredith.”

  “The score’s three-nil.” Cameron, whose red hair seemed permanently charged with static, pointed to Blondie. “That guy’s nine, he shouldn’t even be playing but Mrs. Coltrane said he could, ’cause they had no one else.”

  “I might have been conned,” Viv admitted, putting her irritation aside. “Blondie’s ball-handling skills leave everyone else’s for dead. Our only advantage is that he’s not a team player. When he gets the ball, he ignores his teammates and makes his own run for glory.”

  “Who hasn’t gone on yet?”

  “Cameron and Tilly in the second half.” Only seven players were needed but the Small-Stars rotated three substitutes. “What happened?” she added, concerned as he turned his head to follow the play. “You have a graze on your cheekbone.”

  “It’s nothing.” R
oss continued to follow the action. “We need all our best strikers on the field. Cam, that’s you next to Emma. Neil, I’m putting you on midfield in the second half, swap with Sasha.”

  “And me,” said Tilly. “I’m a striker.”

  “Offside, Ref,” Ross yelled as Blondie slammed another one into the net.

  The thickset official hesitated, then blew his whistle and disallowed the goal. “I suspected as much on the first goal,” Viv exclaimed. “But I wasn’t confident enough to call it.”

  “Awww, Dad!” Blondie complained. Now Viv knew why the man had a problem seeing infringements from his star player. Each team’s coach refereed a half, which was supposed to ensure fairness.

  Viv might know the basic rules but she didn’t have the nuances needed for officiating. Another reason she was glad to see Ross. She frowned as he bent to ruffle Harry’s meager hair in hello. He left his bad leg straight. “Are you up to running around the field? Ross, are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine.” He limped down the sidelines away from her and yelled an instruction to Cory. The kid managed a raggedy pass to Emma who hovered in the goal-mouth and couldn’t miss it—though she did her best to. Four-one. The Small-Stars and their supporters broke into wild cheers.

  “I knew he’d fix it,” Tilly said fervently.

  Staring after Ross with a worried frown, Viv didn’t reply. He could hardly bend his knee. The whistle blew for halftime and the kids piled off the field, thirsty and disconsolate. Between making sure everyone had a water bottle and bringing out a packet of gummy snakes to replace the orange segments, she lost the opportunity to question Ross.

  He gave a pep talk, calming the kids down, then talking them up until they were smiling. He was so good at this—motivating. She’d already heard how great training had been yesterday from the kids, and they’d all been disappointed when he hadn’t appeared for the pregame warmup. Viv had done her best but she wasn’t a teacher. It was clear Ross was. And he’d known exactly what to say to stop her from running home to New York.