The Army Doc's Secret Wife

by Charlotte Hawkes

  Thea felt a shiver creep over her back. One precious life. She knew the value of that. She was a trauma doctor. But just for a moment she’d been ready to become a mother. What wouldn’t she give to have a happy four-year-old running around now?

  Her heart flip-flopped. She had no choice. Somehow she was going to have to try and forge a friendship with Ben. Until she did they wouldn’t possibly be able to work in the tense atmosphere which surrounded them when they were together.

  ‘You’re right. I’ll speak to Ben tomorrow.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT WAS JUST after midday when Ben heard Thea moving in her room. She’d got in from her shift at six a.m. and had crashed out for the last few hours. He waited impatiently for her to shower and head downstairs. If they were going to make this arrangement work then it was time to re-establish some basic ground rules—especially since that unexpected moment between them in the kitchen yesterday morning.

  However much he wanted to deny it, there was still some spark between them, and they needed to address that. They couldn’t afford for it to happen again.

  Thea had moved on with her life without him there to complicate things and was now a successful trauma doctor. And in a few months he would be returning to his Army life, able to bury his feelings for Thea once again.

  ‘I want to apologise for all the drama since I came home,’ he announced, once she’d come down and they’d dispensed with the small-talk. ‘I can imagine it hasn’t been easy having me here, bursting back into your life and disrupting your routines. So I’d like us to try and start over.’

  ‘Start over? How?’

  He could hear the caution in her tone and forced himself to smile brightly. ‘Try to forge some kind of a friendship. Like you suggested.’

  She licked her lips and a fresh wave of lust coursed through him. Get a grip, he chastised himself, but the image of those long, slender legs of hers, and that perfect backside, popped into his head.

  This was exactly why he needed to confront things. Put a stop to this unwelcome lust now.

  ‘I’ve made you some breakfast, by the way. Plus I bought you two fresh cartons of cranberry juice. Can I get you a glass?’

  She looked around the room, her eyes scanning everything, her nose sniffing appreciatively and her stomach offering a low grumble despite her reservations.

  ‘Well, it’s not cereal,’ she quipped, clearly attempting to meet him halfway.

  He couldn’t help being surprised—and pleased. He hadn’t thought it would be so easy to convince her.

  ‘Pancakes,’ he confirmed, gesturing to the array of syrups, jams and fruit he’d bought. ‘Listen, Thea, I need you to know how sorry I am. This is all new to me. I know how to be a good field surgeon, I know how to be a good commander, and I know how to be a good soldier. But I don’t know how to do this...’

  ‘Normality?’ Thea suggested when he floundered.

  ‘Domesticity,’ Ben confirmed. ‘I’m out of my comfort zone. I’m sorry if this seems corny to you, but this is me trying to make amends.’

  ‘So you made pancakes?’ She raised her eyebrows, sliding in at the breakfast bar and watching him slide a fluffy disc from the pan onto a plate. ‘I didn’t even know you could cook.’

  ‘I like to eat—the two go together. Besides, pancakes aren’t really cooking.’ He shrugged, grateful for her acceptance. ‘But they’re my Achilles’ heel—especially with maple syrup, a handful of berries and dollop of cream. They’re why I have to train so much—just so that I can keep eating.’

  He tapped his chest, as if to prove his point, and saw Thea let her gaze drop over his body. She snatched her eyes away, two spots of colour flushing her creamy, smooth cheeks.

  She was still attracted to him despite what she’d said last night, he realised abruptly.

  His reaction was instantaneous and he shifted uncomfortably. This was what he had to avoid. He’d allowed his desire for her to drive his actions once before, and he’d ended up having to walk away from her, having to—what had she said?—abandon her. And nothing had changed. He still couldn’t give Thea what she needed, provide emotional support the way she wanted. He was still broken—perhaps now more than ever. He could never be the man Thea deserved.

  He was stalling. If he didn’t speak now would he allow himself to back out?

  ‘I owe you an apology,’ he said quickly. ‘The things you said at the park the other day...’

  ‘Oh, Ben, please don’t...’ She backed up immediately, waving her hand around as if she was trying to swat a fly. ‘Could we just pretend all that never happened—?’

  ‘No.’ He interrupted her embarrassed stuttering firmly. ‘You were honest and open yesterday, but I wasn’t. I’m sorry.’

  She narrowed her gaze uncertainly at him, her voice tentative. ‘What weren’t you honest about?’

  ‘You asked me what I meant by liking you too much, and if the Buddy Code was just an excuse. I didn’t give you a straight answer.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ she said nervously.

  ‘I think maybe it was an excuse.’

  Simple. Direct.

  He would have needed a serrated knife to cut the tension. He hated this kind of conversation, talking about his feelings, but if they were going to get past their baggage he needed to make himself do this. Just this once.

  ‘I should have told you that the night I first met you—that one spontaneous date—you made me feel the most alive and yet the most relaxed I’ve ever felt outside of a field hospital.’

  ‘Coming from you, that’s quite a compliment,’ Thea murmured, pouring herself some juice.

  ‘It might not sound like it, but it is,’ Ben told her. ‘That was the only place I’d ever felt comfortable. As though I belonged and was happy. Until I met you. You had me telling you things I’d never told anyone before...about my childhood...my mother...’

  ‘You miss her,’ Thea said simply.

  Ben felt his jaw lock. He never said the words—even in his head. It was difficult even hearing someone else say them. Still, he forced himself to nod.

  ‘Yes. But we never talk about her—my father and I. We don’t do this...touchy-feely stuff.’

  He pulled a face. This incredible woman had lost both her loving parents at such a young age, and yet she still believed in love. How could he explain to her that the relationship between his parents had been so different? Even before her death his father’s too-serious nature had stifled his mother’s vibrant spirit. After she had died the last fragile threads of the relationship between Ben and his father had been irreparably ruptured.

  What if Ben damaged relationships the same way? After all, it was all he’d ever known.

  He wrenched his head from his black thoughts and back to Thea.

  ‘When you and I had that one date together you completely blindsided me.’

  ‘How?’

  He’d had a feeling she was going to ask that.

  ‘If I’m honest with you, you scared the hell out of me,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘I’d only met you a few hours earlier and you’d already had this unimaginable effect on me.’

  He still didn’t understand how one person could have such an impact on another in so short a time.

  ‘But surely that’s what made it all the more exciting?’ Thea frowned. ‘It was intense—and unexpected, and a little scary—do you think I wasn’t feeling just as overwhelmed as you? But I just ran with it. I wanted to see where it would take us.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘I don’t do overwhelmed. I set a goal in life, put my head down, and work to achieve it.’

  ‘So what about the passion, the spontaneity, the fun?’

  ‘They’re overrated,’ he answered simply. ‘That’s why when I was walking you home I was telling myself I needed to b
ack away from you. Instead I found I was wanting to meet you the next night, willing the time away before I could see you again. And then Dan opened that door and bellowed his head off.’

  ‘That was just Daniel being Daniel—he’d have come around quickly enough,’ Thea objected.

  ‘I know. But it was the excuse I needed. That’s why I had to walk away, there and then. And Dan knew me well enough to suspect why, so he let me do it. It was for your sake more than mine. Like I said, I wasn’t a good match for you.’

  He met her eyes, holding them steady, ignoring the look of disbelief which chased across her delicate features. Features which he could trace in his dreams—had reconstructed in his dreams even when he’d been redeployed. Even when he’d reminded himself that his life wasn’t on Civvy Street—wasn’t a safe life like Thea’s. His life was working in war zones. And being the partner of someone who did that that was not a pleasant life.

  He knew that from bitter experience.

  Watching one person love with all their heart while the other stay closed off and unreachable was the most soul-destroying thing he knew. He could never have done that to Thea. He could never have made her happy. He would never have deserved her.

  He hadn’t banked on Dan dying less than two weeks later. Lying in Ben’s arms as the life drained out of him, choking out his last words to make Ben promise to take care of Thea. His best friend had gone, and for a short while he’d struggled to keep his emotions in check. The grief had almost overwhelmed him. It had taken every ounce of willpower to rein himself in, to stuff those feelings down and carry on with his life. What good would talking about it do?

  ‘How do you know we weren’t a good match?’ Thea asked at last. ‘Maybe I could have helped you. Aside from one date, you didn’t really know me.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Ben told her. ‘True, we’d never met before, but I already knew what kind of a person you were. How strong you were. Dan used to talk about you all the time. He was so proud of you.’

  Ben stared out of the window, as if remembering.

  ‘I knew what you’d been through with your parents’ death, and yet how caring, how open, how loyal you were. In no small part due to how close and supportive you and your brother were to each other. How much you share. Shared.’

  Thea struggled to control an unexpected wave of sorrow. ‘You mean unlike the way you never talk about your feelings?’ she said sadly, worried about breaking this fragile moment.

  ‘It’s not what I do,’ admitted Ben, seemingly lost in his own head.

  ‘Why not?’ She spoke gently, but he either couldn’t hear her or didn’t want to hear her.

  Still, he was right, she realised. Physically, he might push himself way beyond anything his body should be doing at this stage—but emotionally? Emotionally was a whole different ball game. Ben barely even acknowledged his limitations to himself, let alone discussed the accident with her.

  Had he always been this way? Was it something to do with the childhood Ben had had? From what little she knew of it, in his childhood he had been instilled with almost impossibly high expectations and a heavy sense of responsibility.

  ‘You’d been through so much, and yet you’d managed to grow into a rounded, caring person.’

  Ben continued to face out of the window, but she doubted he actually saw anything there.

  ‘You supported your brother’s career even though he told me you hated it, worrying every time he went to war about if he would come home. So I knew you deserved someone who could make you happy, and that certainly wasn’t me. You didn’t need the uncertainty, the instability, of a boyfriend who was a soldier too.’

  ‘Wasn’t that my choice?’ Thea asked incredulously. ‘And when we decided to get married anyway, wasn’t that a good excuse for us to re-evaluate? See if it could be more than just a marriage of convenience?’

  ‘We weren’t meant to be, Thea. I’m not good at all this...talking.’

  ‘You’re not doing badly,’ she noted. ‘It’s more than I’ve ever heard you admit before.’

  ‘But you’ve had to push and push. We both know that would have grown old quickly—we’d have eventually grown to resent each other for it. And you would have been stifled in a cold marriage and never blossomed into the confident, successful doctor you are today.’

  He’d only appreciated the truth of his words as they came out, and he was surprised when Thea nodded her head sadly.

  ‘Funny, but I thought the same thing last night. I would never have realised how strong I really am.’

  ‘So now we need to look to the future.’ He changed the topic with forced brightness.

  ‘Okay...’ Thea acknowledged hesitantly. ‘How do you propose we do that?’

  ‘We try being friends—like you offered back at the hospital. We still have to live together whilst I’m recovering, so we need to find some solution—however temporary.’

  She nodded slowly in agreement.

  ‘Obviously there’s still an attraction there,’ he stated. After that spark the other morning there seemed little point denying it. Better to confront it head-on. ‘But it’s just a physical thing. We can ignore it if we really want to.’

  And if he exhausted his body with physical exercise and took plenty of cold showers. But he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t afford to let Thea get under his skin again or give in to temptation only to hurt her all over again when he backed away emotionally. And he would.

  She looked as though she was going to object again, but then she closed her mouth and offered a tense smile.

  ‘Sure we can ignore it. It’s not as though it’s even real, is it? Probably it’s just a residual effect of a long-overdue conversation which, now we’ve had it, will go away by itself anyway. We’ve both moved on in five years, right?’

  ‘Right,’ he agreed, wondering why he felt as though a tiny black hole of emptiness had just opened up in his chest at the way she could dismiss it—them—so easily.

  ‘Okay, so...friends,’ she confirmed, licking her lips before chewing nervously on the inside of her cheek. ‘And now, in the spirit of friendship, can I ask are you still going to push your recovery so hard? Push your body past its limits?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t want to talk about it, but he forced himself to face her.

  ‘You still think you’ll return to active duty when you recover?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I thought so. I said so to Sir James on the Board, when they told me to ask you to consider coming to work with the Air Ambulance.’

  Not what he’d been expecting her to say.

  He glanced at her sharply. Her feigned casual air wasn’t fooling him.

  ‘You want me to work with you?’

  ‘The Board have asked me to present the offer to you. It would be on a consultancy basis. As they understand it, even though you’re physically healed enough to return to work, you still won’t be ready for deployment to a war zone again for quite a while. So working with the Air Ambulance would be a great way to keep your skills sharp.’

  And it would keep him in the game if he was never cleared by the Army to return to active duty. He’d be damned if he was going to let his injuries defeat him. But he had to admit it would keep his skills honed. Plus he’d get to work with Thea every day.

  He hastily pushed that thought to the back of his mind. ‘What do you think?’

  She shot him a penetrating look. ‘You want to know what I think?’

  She sounded so shocked it surprised him. It was as though she thought her opinion didn’t matter to him. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

  He frowned at her. ‘Of course. We’d be living together as well as working together. And you have to admit that it hasn’t exactly been the easiest ride so far.’

  ‘Of course,’ she
murmured.

  For a moment he thought he caught an undercurrent of something. Then she went on.

  ‘You’re right. It hasn’t been easy,’ she began. ‘But I can’t imagine that being around the house all day, with little else to do but physio and more physio, is helping your medical brain. Plus there’s no doubt you’ll have trauma skills from being out there which we could really benefit from in Civvy Street.’

  All of that was true, but it wasn’t what Ben was interested in. He knew he was approaching dangerous territory—they were only just trying to forge a friendship—but he pushed the question anyway.

  ‘What about the living and working together bit?’ he prompted.

  Again that tongue darted out to moisten dry lips, and Ben had to refocus before his brain started going down the wrong path once more.

  She coughed, clearing her throat. ‘I think it hasn’t been easy, but we’ve been more open and honest with each other in the last two days than I think we’ve managed in five years. We’re mature, successful professionals, and working together on a professional level should be fine. Plus my contract might not be renewed if I seem opposed to the proposal.’

  ‘They threatened you?’ So that was why she had been prepared to ask him. He felt disappointed, as well as angry. ‘I’ll have a word with them.’

  She paused and swallowed hard.

  ‘Best not to. Anyway they’re right—you would be an asset. I think we ought to be able to put our personal feelings aside for medical gain.’ She shrugged. ‘There’s only one other sticking point.’

  ‘Which is...?’ He didn’t understand quite why it galled him that she should be so unemotional about it all.

  ‘They all think we’re...reunited, I suppose you could say.’

  ‘We’d have to play a happily married couple,’ Ben realised. ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘That bit...’ She pulled a face. ‘I’m not sure we could pull it off.’

  He resisted the uncharacteristic impulse to suggest that they might have fun trying.

  ‘You can tell them I’ll think about it,’ he told her at last. ‘When are they thinking I would start?’