Encounter with a Commanding Officer

by Charlotte Hawkes

  ‘They told me you saved their lives, throwing yourself on a grenade.’

  He stared at the sun, now so low behind the horizon that it was becoming quite dark up on the roof.

  ‘I happened to be closest.’ Ash shrugged. ‘Any one of them would have done the same.’

  ‘They said you’d say that.’

  ‘Because they know it’s true.’ Ash brushed it off easily.

  Fliss flashed him a sudden, genuine smile, and it was as though the sun had sprung back up into the sky again. It dazzled him, flowed into him, and filled him with light which chased down to even the darkest corners.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘What about the other scars?’

  The flooding light inside him pulled up sharply and began to recede. They both knew which scars she meant. He’d never told anyone about them before—except for the army doctor, of course—and he didn’t particularly want to now. He’d faced the enemy and been hopelessly outnumbered on countless occasions in his career. He’d been cornered in the most brutal firefights and he’d had to escape and evade in the most hostile of environments.

  But he’d take any one of those situations over facing down this resilient woman any day.

  Except that Fliss was asking him to trust her, and he had an inexplicable urge to keep being honest with her. He liked the way it made her look at him, the way she responded to him. She was challenging him to open up—the one thing he couldn’t afford to do. It would make him vulnerable, and he never wanted to be that again.

  He pulled his lips into a tight line, determined to quell the storm inside him so that when he stood up to bid her farewell he wouldn’t betray himself. He wouldn’t reveal the quagmire of emotions raging within.

  But before he could speak, Fliss did.

  ‘Tell me about the cigarette burns, Ash.’

  His world stopped.

  And then started spinning. Wildly. Frighteningly. Out of control.

  ‘If you already know what they are, then what’s to tell?’ he bit out.

  But still he didn’t stand up. He didn’t leave.

  She sucked in a breath. ‘Who did that to you?’

  He glowered into the night.

  ‘Please Ash, talk to me.’

  He shouldn’t. But the compulsion to answer her, the need to answer her, was too strong.

  ‘Foster mother.’

  She didn’t gasp; she didn’t need to. Her shock and distaste radiated from her.

  ‘How long were you in foster care?’ she asked at last.

  In the distance the flash of a headlight rounded a hillside, a local vehicle crawling along the dirt road. It provided him with a welcome distraction but no real relief.

  ‘I was shuttled between care homes, foster homes and my old man from the age of about seven.’

  He heard the steel edge in his voice, felt the way she flinched on his behalf, as though it had cut her personally. He didn’t know what to think. To feel. So he did what he did best and he shut down the side of himself which held the awful memories and just focused on the basic facts themselves.

  It was the only way to avoid losing control.

  ‘What about the stab wound?’

  ‘That one was a wallboard saw.’

  ‘A what? Your foster mother again?’

  ‘No. Foster father. Different family. Earlier time.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Ash shrugged before realising she probably couldn’t see him. And still he kept his voice as neutral as possible.

  ‘He was a gambler. And a heavy boozer. Probably lost at the former and so didn’t have enough money for the latter. I was late in from my paper round—I used to do two but he didn’t know about the second—and he was waiting for my weekly pay so he could go to the pub.’

  ‘How many foster families?’

  Ash could hear the horror in her voice. He steeled himself but still he was finding it harder and harder to stay detached. He could hear the incredulity in her voice and something twisted inside him. Why had he told her? The last thing he wanted was for her to look down on him. As people had looked down on him when he was a kid.

  ‘Too many to remember, but they weren’t all like that.’

  ‘Still...’

  He cut her off, not wanting to hear it since he couldn’t change it.

  ‘We can’t all come from army blood and boarding schools.’

  He actually felt her flinch beside him.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she bit out.

  ‘But your parents never hurt you.’

  It was a statement rather than a question, and he could almost hear the unspoken accusation in his tone.

  Why was he getting angry with her?

  It wasn’t her fault his life didn’t match hers. Ash shook his head. For over a decade he’d had a chip on his shoulder the size of a surface-to-air missile launcher, but he thought he’d managed to get rid of it over the years, as he’d progressed through the ranks and begun to accept himself for who he was. Somewhere along the line he’d realised his own worth.

  Yet this one woman made him re-evaluate himself, and where his life was heading.

  ‘I don’t know who my father is and whilst my mother never physically hurt me the way you were hurt, she wasn’t...kind.’

  The words were uttered so quietly, he almost missed them at first. But the bleakness cut into him.

  ‘But your uncle, the General?’ People rarely caught Ash out.

  He didn’t like the feeling. When your life depended on judging people and situations quickly and accurately, it was a skill you learned to hone early on.

  ‘My uncle tracked us down when I was eight and told my mother it was no place for a kid.’ The admission was grudging; she clearly felt her past was her own business. ‘He gave her an ultimatum. Either she came home to my grandparents with me, or my uncle would take me away.’

  ‘So you and your mother ended up living with your grandparents.’

  ‘No. She told him to take me. The next time I saw her was when I was eleven and she needed money. Anyway, this isn’t about me. This is about you. Or is this what you do? Turn a conversation around any time it gets too close for comfort?’

  Ash opened his mouth then closed it again, fighting back the overwhelming need to know more about Fliss. To understand her better. She was nothing like the picture he’d built in his head, and he was suddenly desperate to uncover the real woman behind the Major.

  But she was right. Normally, turning the conversation onto the other person was exactly how he dealt with this kind of scenario. Instead, he fought the impulse. This conversation had started with her asking about him. If he wasn’t willing to open up to her then how could he expect her to trust him?

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he heard himself asking.

  She hesitated for a moment. ‘I asked how many foster families you lived with.’

  Ash sucked in a silent breath. ‘Quite a few. I was seven when I first went into care and stayed there for about nine years, on and off.’

  ‘Why? What about your family?’

  He thought he’d hardened himself to all these memories a long time ago. Now, he was beginning to realise he’d buried them only just below the surface and a couple of questions from Fliss threatened everything.

  ‘Until I was six, home life was good. Great. My parents were good, kind. They worked hard, were proud of our home and every bit of family time we had was spent doing something together, from playing football in the park to teaching me how to build a homemade telescope.’

  ‘My uncle did that once.’ He could hear the soft smile in her tone.

  ‘When I was six, my mum was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer and that year she died. My dad couldn’t handle it. He didn’t deal with her deat
h; he didn’t even talk about her after that day. He was too proud to ask for help. He lost his job, couldn’t pay the bills, forgot to buy food or clothing, or even soap. He did, however, discover alcohol. By the time I was seven, we had lost our home and social services took me away. I got my first taste of foster care after that.’

  ‘I thought there were many good foster families out there. I used to dream of being taken in...before my uncle finally rescued me.’

  ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong.’ Ash hunched his shoulders. ‘I had several placements which were okay. And there are lots of kind families. Some are even exceptional. But there simply aren’t enough foster carers and the better they are, the more valuable they are in dealing with troubled kids. I wasn’t considered in that category at first.’

  ‘At first?’

  ‘Every so often my dad would get his act together and I’d go back to him. But I don’t know whether it was because I was too sharp a reminder of my mother or what, but at some point or other he’d slide back down and the cycle would start over. By the time I was thirteen I’d had a couple of bad homes and I’d fallen in with the wrong crowd in school—not that we were ever in school. At fourteen I was completely off the rails. That was when I got busted by the cops for boosting a car.’

  Fliss was actually facing him now, her body turned to his, intent on what he had to say. Her compassion was palpable. Somewhere, deep inside his being, something in Ash twisted and broke away.

  ‘That was when I got sent to my last foster family. They were in their sixties and they were...different.’

  ‘Different?’

  He could hear the suspicion in her voice. Almost as though she cared. His chest pulled tight.

  ‘Rosie and Wilfred saved my life,’ Ash clarified simply. ‘Figuratively and literally. They pushed me, challenged me, refused to give up on me. Both of them, but especially Rosie. She made me take a long look at where my life was heading and whether I really wanted to be going in that direction. And then she helped me find a way to turn things around. I owe her—I owe them both—everything.’

  Even in the darkness he could sense the questions which jostled on her lips. It felt unexpectedly good to have someone pushing him to talk.

  ‘But that was over two decades ago. Ten years ago Rosie started suffering from Alzheimer’s and ten months ago she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A week ago they sent her home to...be with family.’

  ‘Oh, Ash, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It is what it is.’ He shrugged, grimly holding back the emotions which threatened to rush him. Especially at the empathy in her tone. ‘I was never meant to be out here; I was to take up the post of CO once the battalion returned from Razorwire. But then Colonel Waterson’s accident left them without a colonel and I came out for the men, for their last ten days.’

  ‘They couldn’t let you be home with her?’ Fliss asked, aghast. ‘Surely, if they’d known? The Army have contingencies for circumstances like these.’

  ‘It makes no difference,’ Ash cut in. ‘I’m no use there anyway. Because of the Alzheimer’s she doesn’t know who I am. And I’m better out here. It’s the right choice all round.’

  ‘I really am sorry.’

  Her concern, so obviously genuine, slammed into Ash, hard. He had never told anyone any of that, preferring to compartmentalise his emotions so that he could do the job he needed to do when he was on the front line. But here, in Razorwire, everything seemed to have a slightly softer focus to it, from the camp to the people. And especially Major Felicity Delaunay.

  She seemed to have a habit of getting under his skin and chipping away at the armour he’d spent so many years hammering into place.

  She threatened the separation of his two worlds, all endless legs and lithe body as she danced in and out of his thoughts on a daily basis, especially when he was stuck behind that desk trying to get to grips with his new job.

  He had never, in fifteen years, lost control as he had that day in the supply room. She made his body thrum with desire simply by standing a couple of feet away. And if he didn’t want to lose control again, then Ash knew there was only one thing he had to do.

  Stay well away from Major Felicity Delaunay.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FLISS SHIFTED ON the cot-bed—which was currently doubling up as a rickety sunbed—in the quiet nook she and Elle had discovered shortly after arriving at Razorwire. Tucked away between the accommodation shipping containers and the wall of a compound, it was one of the few wonderfully secluded areas on Camp. At least, one that wasn’t on a rooftop.

  Usually she revelled in the searing kiss of the sun on her skin, coursing through her body to heat her very bones. Today it just made her feel restless. It wasn’t the sun’s kiss she wanted on her. Despite the heat, goosebumps spread over her torso, her breathing catching at the memory.

  Why couldn’t she get Ash out of her head?

  It didn’t seem to matter how many times she reminded herself that Ash wasn’t the uncomplicated, steadfast guy she needed, nothing seemed to settle her body’s ache to feel his touch again.

  More importantly, it didn’t matter how many times she reminded herself that she wasn’t what Ash wanted, that he had rejected her, it didn’t diminish her attraction to him. And that knowledge caused a perpetual maelstrom to rage in her mind. Because, of all people, she knew how utterly painful it was to be rejected over and over again. Even now she kept hoping each sporadic visit from her mother would be different. And each time it wasn’t she suffered a fresh rejection, and the black void in Fliss’s heart grew that little bit deeper.

  So why was she still even entertaining thoughts about Ash after he’d pushed her away so categorically in the supply room barely a week ago?

  She shifted on the sunbed, finding it impossible to get comfortable. She already knew the answer to her own question; she just didn’t want to acknowledge it. Doing so would only raise twice as many issues again. But she couldn’t shut her mind off.

  The truth was that she didn’t feel rejected. If anything, it had felt more about his baggage than hers. He’d been the one trying to protect himself when she’d asked about the burn scars. Hadn’t he come up on that roof to seek her out? Hadn’t he told her about the scars? Hadn’t he opened up to her?

  The fact that he hadn’t tried anything on was a good thing. It meant he truly had trusted her without it being a ploy to get her into bed.

  Right?

  She couldn’t even talk to Elle, who had headed back home for a two-week R&R, and without her friend Fliss felt lost. She tried to recreate the conversation in her head, but she wasn’t sure she would even have told her best friend about the encounter with Ash.

  It was like a little secret that only she knew, and she hugged it to herself as though sharing it would make it pop and disappear like an ethereal bubble in the air. It felt special and fragile, but if she wanted it to have the chance of any more substance then she was going to have to do something about it. In two days’ time she would be gone and the decision would have been made for her.

  She sat bolt upright on the sunbed, perturbed at the thought. It seemed like such a waste. Such a squandered opportunity. So what was the alternative? Breaking every rule she had by seeking Ash out to give in to a moment of temptation which would hold no promises, and no future? A fortnight ago she would have scorned the very idea, but now even one night together seemed almost worth it. If only she could find some way to ring-fence her heart.

  She reached for the bottle of sunscreen, applying it as though it could do more than protect merely her skin.

  If only it was that easy.

  Lost in her thoughts, Fliss missed the soft footfalls of a jogger approaching until the figure stopped abruptly, casting a long shadow over her torso and legs. She squinted, lifting one ineffectual hand against the bright sun, even though its gla
re was too bright for her to see. But she didn’t need her eyes to tell her who it was. Her body seemed to know, every delicately fine hair on her body prickling in awareness.

  Flustered, she stood up so quickly that she almost toppled. But, unlike in the supply room, this time strong arms steadied her in an instant. She reached out instinctively to brace herself, her hands connecting with one very hot, solid, familiar bare chest.

  ‘Ooomph!’

  ‘Easy, you’ll cause yourself injury,’ Ash murmured as Fliss’s entire body seemed to tingle beneath his unabashed, and unmistakably male, appraisal.

  And all her courage seemed to float into the air above their heads like a bunch of bobbing balloons and disappear before she could snatch it back.

  She snapped her arms across her chest, all too conscious of the revealing, fire-engine-red bikini Elle had loaned her when they’d first discovered the quiet sunbathing spot. The barely-there two-piece, though perfect for her friend’s lean, athletic B-cup body shape, felt entirely too scant on her own more curvaceous D-cup figure. She tugged at the material but that only seemed to make the problem worse.

  ‘What are you doing here, Colonel?’ she blurted out. ‘First the rooftop, now here? Are you following me?’

  It was a daft accusation, a defence mechanism to try to hide her embarrassment, and she wanted to swallow it back the moment it left her lips. But, far from goading him, he actually looked amused.

  ‘No one’s around, Felicity; have you forgotten my first name?’

  Despite herself, a delicious shiver rippled through her. She tugged again at the material.

  ‘And you might want to stop doing that.’

  His voice rasped across her belly, carnal lust heating between her legs and making her nipples harden until they were almost painful. When she looked at him, it was clear he hadn’t missed her body’s reaction to him and his shale-coloured eyes were almost black with desire.

  ‘Why?’ She swallowed.

  ‘Because you’re clearly fighting a losing battle and if you continue then those flimsy straps of yours are going to give way entirely. Those two pathetic triangles of cloth are no match for such...generous contents. It’s a matter of physics.’