Was it really only five years earlier that he had handed the keys of this house over to Thea? Both of them had been in a daze of grief and shock, but he recalled muttering something about decorating it any way she liked, since he spent so much time away on back-to-back tours.
Even through the fug, he remembered he had seen the place through her eyes. Her small flat had been full of colour, and life and memories. The Army cottage had been bland mimosa walls, brown carpets and standard issue grilled-lightshades. Much like his Officer’s accommodation in barracks had been before marrying Evie. Not to mention his abject lack of any personal effects.
That was something Ben had picked up as a kid. His father had loathed ornaments—dust-harbourers, he’d called them. Not even a photo of Ben’s beloved mother had been allowed, because of the dust which would collect on the glass. And Ben had become accustomed to bareness, nowhere ever felt like a home—it was always just a place to lay his head.
Thea had changed the cottage. Army accommodation or not, this was like a completely different place. The walls were a warm colour and she had replaced the carpets with engineered floorboards, which made the place look clean and fresh, and somehow bigger.
‘New curtains...nice...’ He gestured, feeling he ought to say something.
The curtains were held back from the windows with pretty metal ties and light flooded into the downstairs room, bouncing off the two couches in the centre, one a vibrant purple and one a rich red. In his head he knew it ought to clash, but it didn’t—it all came together beautifully. She’d injected colour and a real sense of fun into the place.
His sense of unease grew.
It felt like a proper home. Not girly or overly feminine, but somewhere he could instantly feel comfortable. And that made him feel disquieted. Yet what would he have preferred? That everything would be as it was the day he’d walked out? With boxes still in the hallway?
Whatever he’d expected, this wasn’t it. He didn’t like the way it welcomed him...suited him.
But Thea definitely wasn’t the same girl he’d left. She had grown up a lot in five years, and her home, like her, was sophisticated and yet still with that irrepressible sense of fun and a zest for life. He was glad. His one regret had been that his actions might have crushed that vibrancy out of her. It was good to see that in some ways she was still the same Thea who had once so captivated him.
And that was what was most worrying.
‘Um...do you want to sit down?’ Thea asked abruptly. ‘You’re making the place look...’
‘Look what?’ he prompted uneasily. This was going to be even harder than he’d feared if she was so used to living alone that she thought he’d disturb everything in the place just by setting foot in it. ‘Unsightly?’
‘Not unsightly...’
Thea chewed the inside of her lip nervously. It was a trait he suddenly remembered from long ago.
‘Ben, we’re not going to get very far if you think I feel you’re getting in the way. It’s just...you’re kind of filling up the door frame.’ She wrinkled her nose, her cheeks flushing slightly. ‘It makes the cottage look a little...small all of a sudden.’
‘Right,’ Ben acknowledged. What was that supposed to mean?
‘It’s a compliment,’ she offered uncertainly.
‘Oh, right. Thanks, then.’ He tried to smile, but it felt taut on his cheeks. It hadn’t sounded very complimentary. It had sounded definitively put out. ‘Well, I’m pretty beat...it’s been a long day. Mind if I hit whichever room is mine and freshen up?’
‘Sure. I’ve set up the dining room.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The dining room.’ She gesticulated, as though he might have forgotten where it was.
‘Is there something wrong with the actual bedrooms?’ He hadn’t meant for his voice to sound so menacing, but he caught the nervous flicker of her eyes.
She licked her lips. ‘I thought it you might prefer to avoid the stairs. You’re healing well, and I know you’re walking normally on level ground again, but the physios did say that stairs could still be a problem for a few months. I’ve ordered a temporary stairlift, so you can get to the bathroom, plus there’s a downstairs toilet and—’
‘Stop right there.’ He held his hand up. If Thea thought him incapable of getting upstairs by himself, then she was mistaken. ‘I’m not staying down here. I’ll get myself upstairs and I’ll sleep in a proper bedroom, shower in a proper bathroom. And you can cancel any damned stairlift. Now, which room can I use?’
‘You’re being ridiculous. You still need to recover.’
‘Which room, Thea?’
She harrumphed in displeasure, and despite his frustration he thought it was so old-Thea-like that it almost made him smile.
‘Fine. You can take your old room. I left it for you in case you ever decided to return.’
Ben frowned at the unexpectedly pointed comment. He felt as though he was missing something. When would Thea ever have wanted him to return? He narrowed his eyes at her, but she was already turning around, busying herself with rearranging the cushions of the couch. No, he had to be imagining it.
He inclined his head—redundantly, since she still had her back to him—and ducked out of the pretty living room. Climbing the stairs was still harder than he would like, especially with the added weight of his bag. He’d tried a short, slow jog around the hospital grounds the other night. Even though it had hurt like hell, it was still easier than climbing stairs, which tugged at the incision site on his back.
He reached the top landing gratefully. Would his room would be unchanged? As he’d left it? Did he want it to be? Or would he prefer it if Thea had worked her magic in there too, whisking away the memories of that last night together? Memories which had danced into his dreams over the years until he’d finally stuffed them away, locking them out for good.
He passed Thea’s bedroom door and paused, standing motionless in the hallway for a moment. If only things had been different. If only he had been different.
But he wasn’t different.
Shaking off the feeling, Ben moved to his own door and opened it. He was pleasantly surprised. Apart from the fact that Thea had taken away the old carpet, and sanded and varnished the beautiful floorboards underneath, as well as giving the place a dust and polish and a lick of paint, the place looked familiar. Fresh bedding lay folded on the clean mattress, and the empty drawer units smelled citrusy clean. When he opened the storage closet in the corner of the room he almost jumped as one of his old kit bags tumbled out. He’d go through that later.
Busying himself putting his few items away and grabbing a shower was unexpectedly satisfying, and it occurred to Ben that part of the problem was that he wasn’t used to having nothing to do. Normally, if he wasn’t deployed, he’d be on some adventure trip, learning new skills or honing old ones, or maybe planning training exercises and evaluating his men.
He felt bored—as if he was stagnating. He missed the exhilaration of successful trauma surgery, and his active mind was finding other areas to divert itself into. Dangerous areas. Like remembering their one night together. He couldn’t afford to do that. However he tried to spin it, he’d betrayed her trust, and he wasn’t the right man for Thea.
The dynamic between them had been irreversibly altered, and since a romantic relationship wasn’t an option after he’d left her that night he’d bunked at a mate’s house until he’d been shipped out. He’d been doing back-to-back tours ever since. Punishing duties in dangerous regions. Either he would pay off his dues or be killed.
His face twisted bitterly. Neither had happened.
Sometimes, in the beginning, Ben had wondered how things would have turned out if Daniel hadn’t been his buddy. Hadn’t been Thea’s brother. Hadn’t died. If he and Thea had been able to be together, would the whirlwind of that nig
ht have been sustainable? Would they have had the chance to explore a proper relationship slowly? In their own time? Maybe even got married for real?
He shook his head, as if to rid it of such pointless musings. Thea needed someone she could count on, someone she could trust, and he was neither. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to tell her exactly what had happened the night Daniel had died. All she knew was that he, Ben, been lauded like some kind of hero. Awarded a DSO—something which he certainly didn’t deserve.
But he hadn’t been able to bear to see either recrimination or pity in those dazzling sea-green eyes of hers. So instead he’d taken the coward’s way out. Staying silent on the facts surrounding Daniel’s death, and trying to make amends by fulfilling the promise he’d made to Dan. To provide her with a home, security and her education.
A gentle rapping on his door pulled him out of his reverie. Hauling the heavy wood open, he was surprised to see Thea in her coat and dressed to go out.
‘Sorry, I didn’t know if you were sleeping. I just wanted to let you know that I’m heading out, I’ve got a twenty-hour shift starting soon. I’m going in a bit early, and I won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon.’
Twenty hours of focussed work to occupy the mind. That sounded really good right about now, Ben thought enviously. And he could understand her eagerness to leave the house early. This wasn’t the easiest of arrangements.
‘Sounds good.’ He nodded. ‘What is there to do around these parts these days? I might need something to do tomorrow.’
‘Not a lot, to be honest’ Thea pulled a face. ‘Since you’ve gone all superhero maybe you could try the park. Or there’s a little coffee house in the village up the road.’
Ben didn’t answer. He’d deserved that. Instead he tried to smile and make it into a joke.
‘So, what you really mean is, I have another day of nothingness to numb the brain.’
‘Sorry.’ She shrugged, moving quickly across the hallway to the stairs.
Feeling even more deflated, he exhaled heavily and closed the door again.
Tap-tap-tap.
‘I thought you’d gone?’ This time his smile was less forced as he opened the door. She was doing that lip-chewing thing again.
‘Do you want to come with me?’
‘To your work?’
By the look on her face, she was just as surprised he was by her offer. Still, she rallied well.
‘Why not? I mean, I can see how you might be going a little mad with nothing to do. I think I would be too, in your position. And from a professional point of view I think you’d find it really interesting. The base is quite big and there are quite a few teams on site. Plus we’ve got a couple of ex-Army trauma specialists with us at the moment. You won’t be able to come out on any calls, of course, but you can see how things go down at the base.’
‘And today just happens to be Take an Estranged Husband to Work Day?’ Ben grinned. The offer was tempting, but he couldn’t see them letting him in.
‘It might not be usual, but not everyone is the “Mighty Abs”.’ Thea deflected his scepticism with aplomb. ‘A decorated major and renowned Army field trauma surgeon? Oh, I think they’ll make an exception.’
Ben suppressed a shudder. ‘Thanks for that.’
Still, if it meant getting out of this place and having something decent to distract him he wasn’t about to grumble too loudly.
He grabbed his bomber jacket and followed her into the hallway. ‘Lead the way.’
* * *
Thea made for the live feed screen on the wall the minute she stepped through the doors. Returning calls of greeting absentmindedly, she scrutinised the screen. It streamed real-time information on all incoming 999 calls for potential call-ups. Already she knew it had the potential to be a pretty busy day, but for now she had enough time to show Ben around.
Ben! She spun around with a start, but he’d already been whisked away. Dammit. Coming to work had provided the mental distraction she’d been craving, but it had also made her forget the one thing she needed to warn Ben about. That nobody actually knew she was married.
She felt physically nauseous as she dashed through the base, pulling up short as she spotted Ben in the break room, already surrounded by her colleagues. Well, she’d been right to suspect that he’d be more than welcome here, judging by the way everyone was falling over themselves to be introduced to him.
In one way it was a good sign—it meant she could give him the basic tour and then let someone else take over. Inviting him to join her certainly hadn’t been an altruistic gesture. Being around Ben was proving even harder than she’d feared. Her little cottage, her haven, was now thick with tension, memories and unanswered questions. All of which she’d thought she had laid to rest a long time ago.
Seemed she’d been wrong.
So she’d brought Ben here. Hoping to prove to him just how much she’d changed in the last five years and perhaps hoping that their mutual love of medicine might offer them some interesting cases which they could discuss back at home—instead of strained one-liners as they skirted awkwardly around each other.
Caught up in anxious thoughts, she suddenly realised that everyone at the base had gone deathly silent. Apprehension gripped her as nine pairs of eyes fixed accusingly on her.
‘Ben is your husband?’
‘You’re married?’
Dammit, she should have warned Ben to keep his mouth shut.
‘Got a family tucked away we don’t know about, too, Thea?’
That last quip had Thea’s heart plummeting to the soles of her rubber rescue boots. They wouldn’t be so quick to smile at her if they knew the truth. Ben wouldn’t be so keen to be around her if he knew the truth.
‘I... We... I...’
Of all the eyes boring into her it was the pair of familiar battleship-grey eyes she was most conscious of. Ben’s. The pair she was keenest to avoid meeting.
Confusingly, she sensed the greatest level of accusation coming from him...and something else she couldn’t quite pinpoint... Could it be...hurt? He had a damned nerve, she tried to tell herself.
‘It’s called a personal life for a reason, guys.’ She tried to joke, but even to her ears it came across as prickly and standoffish.
‘What my wife is trying to say is that it isn’t easy being married to a soldier.’ Ben stepped in, somehow managing to unruffle feathers and smooth things over with apparent ease. ‘I’ve been on a lot of back-to-back tours and that’s always...difficult.’
A series of grunts and nods told Thea they were buying it, and it was all she could do to stop her mouth from dropping open. Aside from the fact that it wasn’t remotely close to the truth, why the heck couldn’t Ben be so apparently open and communicative when it came down to what was really the problem between them?
As her colleagues drifted back to work, affording Ben and Thea a degree of space, Thea marvelled at their acceptance. If had been up to her, she wouldn’t have lived it down for at least the next year.
She supposed she should be grateful to him. But she wasn’t. She couldn’t help noticing the way he’d fitted so seamlessly into her life, as though none of the pain of the last five years meant anything. She was beginning to wish she had never brought him here.
‘So, what’s next on the tour, Boss?’ Ben asked pointedly, as if sensing her resentment and trying to push past it.
She opened her mouth before spotting one figure, leaning on a brick pillar, watching them. Nic, she realised with a start. She’d forgotten all about him. But even as she turned towards him he ducked his head and moved away.
‘Who was that?’ Ben asked quietly, moving to her shoulder.
She hesitated. Perhaps it was her resentment, or maybe guilt, but Thea found herself almost challenging Ben with her tone.
‘That was Nic, another trauma doctor. We once dated.’
The shock in Ben’s eyes was almost gratifying.
‘What did you expect, Ben? That I’d been sitting around for five years, waiting for you?’
It felt good, almost cathartic, to say the words. He’d married her, given her one precious night and then walked out on her. For five years there had been no contact, and even now she was only with him for closure. It was galling that he had dropped back into her life with such apparent ease, as if he’d never been away. This was her way of reminding Ben that her life hadn’t just stood still whilst she’d waited for him to return.
‘No,’ Ben answered softly at length. ‘Our marriage was one of convenience. A marriage on paper—nothing more. You had every right to date. I did too.’
The admission was unceremoniously delivered, yet ridiculously it felt like a body blow. Unwelcome tears pricked the corners of her eyes and Thea blinked them away in confusion. Why should she react this way? She didn’t care.
‘You’ve dated?’ she choked out.
Ben shrugged. ‘A couple of times. Not seriously—the Army always came first.’
Somehow that made her feel better. Part of her had secretly hoped Ben would return, but mostly she had been grieving for the baby she’d lost, and it had taken her years even to think about starting to move on with anyone else. Eventually she’d tentatively started dating again, but it had mostly been abysmal—until Nic. He had been kind, and understanding, and a good communicator.
After Ben—after the baby—Nic should have been everything she wanted, or needed. But even then the wounds had still felt too close to the surface and she hadn’t been able to let Nic in. Like it or not, a relationship with him just hadn’t been what she’d wanted. She was only grateful that Nic had been as private a person as her, and so there were no other colleagues to whom they had to explain themselves.
She searched Ben’s face, looking for clues. Realising there was nothing more to be said, she forced herself to move on.
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