‘There’s a three-vehicle engineers’ convoy alongside my medical one, Colonel,’ she said, as she indicated towards where the vehicles were parked, less than a couple of hundred metres away, one of which was a four-by-four towing a boring rig.
‘Indeed there is,’ he agreed brightly.
Was it wrong that it gave him such a perverse pleasure to beat her at her own game?
She narrowed her eyes a fraction.
‘May I ask to what purpose, sir?’
‘You may. Although given that there’s no one immediately around I think we can dispense with the formality at this time, don’t you?’ he countered lightly. ‘Anyway, I realised that accompanying the mobile medical unit into the local communities could be advantageous to my men. As part of our mission in this area, the Royal Engineers are to be responsible for digging new wells and building schools throughout various communities in the region. After all the conflict over the last few decades, the people here are naturally suspicious of non-locals but they do accept the medical units.’
‘So you want to accompany us to trade off our good reputation?’ she asked slowly.
He grinned, knowing she couldn’t fault his logic.
‘And gain their trust more easily in order to perform a couple of test drills at each site you visit, yes. Furthermore, padding out your convoy will make you less of a target and mean only one lot of force protection will be required.’
Not that anyone was particularly expecting trouble in a non-combat area but a security detail was more about appearances.
‘I see. So...?’ she started, then paused, concluding feebly with another, ‘I see.’
She still thought it was about his fears over the safety of her convoy after his mother’s car crash. She wasn’t entirely off the mark, though it wasn’t the car crash that haunted him when he thought of Elle. The idea of her being out there, risking some of the most severe dust storms the region had experienced in a decade, brought fear and old demons to assail him. He knew all too well the impact of one of these dust storms on a military convoy. And he was fairly certain that Elle was only heading up that convoy as an excuse to get away from site, from him, for a couple of days. After the way he’d treated her, he could understand it.
If anything happened to Elle the way it had to Janine...all because of him...
‘I just... I don’t know if we have time,’ Elle hazarded. ‘Setting up your rig and doing your test drills will take time. We were intending to make this a brief dash. Get out there, vaccinate, head back.’
‘Indeed? Only yesterday you gave the impression you might be out there for a couple of days.’
She flushed.
‘You know these things are never straightforward.’
‘And you appear to have a vehicle loaded up with hens sent by one of the charities.’ He quashed a smile. ‘Presumably this is part of the nutrition and economic sustainability initiative? Give each family a couple of hens so that they have free eggs and, as they gain experience, the surplus can be sold at market to give them money to buy other supplies. All of which will take time.’
The corners of her mouth tightened with guilt.
‘Yes...well...’
He didn’t blame her for pushing him away. He wanted to apologise. To explain. But he couldn’t even explain it to himself. Had he really finally stopped pushing her away in some kind of attempt at reverse psychology on himself? It sounded ludicrous even in his own mind.
Not giving her any chance to stammer any further, Fitz adopted a deliberately breezy tone.
‘So plenty of time to test drill for suitable watercourses in each location.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And you know as well as I do that this country’s health status is one of the worst. Lack of education about defecating near the same rivers from which drinking water is collected is a significant issue, and admittedly the wells are only a small part of it, as is the long-term plan to start building new sewer and wastewater treatment plants.’
‘Yes, I know—’
‘But the wells will still help, not least in reducing diarrhoea and therefore malnourishment, helminth, typhus, kidney diseases, shall I go on?’
A look of defeat skittered over her face.
‘I suppose if you put it like that...’ She shrugged.
‘It’s exactly like that.’
He pushed back his sense of triumph, knowing that he was only trying to deceive himself. Accompanying the medical unit into the local communities was an inspired idea, but it was the knowledge that he would therefore have to accompany her that gave him the greater sense of satisfaction.
The entire situation was alien to Fitz and while he knew he would never compromise a mission, or his role, for Elle, the fact remained that he was more than happy at the prospect of being able to combine the two so easily.
Then again, the thought appeared from nowhere, how many times had he seen a vehicle flip over in front of or behind him?
The thought came before he had the chance to check himself.
‘Now, whose vehicle would you prefer to travel in?’
She looked aghast.
‘Say again?’
‘I recommend my four-by-four—it’s less of a bumpy ride than your ambulance—but it’s your choice.’
She sucked in a breath, actually squaring her shoulders as she glared at him.
‘I’m not travelling with the engineers.’
They both knew she meant she wasn’t travelling with him. He smothered a grin. This was a heck of a lot better than the tension of the last week. It felt like a step back to the easy banter they’d enjoyed that first night in the bar, and he was going to enjoy it fully for the next few minutes.
‘Is there a medical priority?’ he enquired with wry politeness.
She narrowed her eyes at him, quite aware that he was teasing her.
‘You know there isn’t. But—’
‘Good.’ Fitz nodded, ignoring her objection. ‘Because we still need to talk about the design variations for the hospital and several hours of driving through nothingness, with nothing else to do, is the ideal opportunity.’
Chapter Eleven
TWO AND A half hours of pure torture.
Elle squirmed in her seat as the four-by-four finally drew to a halt just outside the buildings of their first local community. It was all she could do not to fling open the door and throw herself out just to get away from Fitz. How was it that in spite of the callous way in which he’d rejected her this last week, she still wanted him? She’d never known it was possible to feel a yearning so intense that it actually physically hurt.
And then she’d fallen under his spell all over again. She’d fallen for the idea of something more with him, even if she had precisely zero idea what that would be. Although she was fairly sure it hadn’t been being cooped up in the back of a four-by-four with him, jolted around so much that their bodies had been in contact the entire journey, yet unable to talk freely because of the driver.
Really, she should pat herself on the back. For two hours, thirty-one minutes and some seconds she had endured Fitz’s solid thigh pressed against her, generating heat that had little to do with the soaring daytime temperatures as it had bounced off each other’s bodies, and withstood the sparks of awareness and the tiniest hairs prickling in response. She had spent two hours, thirty-one minutes and some seconds muffling the maddening military tattoo roll over her heart as his deep voice had rumbled into her ear and through her body to ignite a wanton fire in the depth of her core.
And she had forced herself to concentrate on designs and principles and timings for two hours, thirty-one minutes and some seconds, when all her brain had wanted to do was mull over the intoxicating possibilities that his earlier assertions had raised.
She affected him. He’d said so. He had rejected and humiliated her,
proved to her that he could turn it on and off like the twist of a tap, yet her torment was all no longer of her own making.
It had turned out he wasn’t so immune to her after all. Even if she still wasn’t sure where that left them. When they got back home, did he want to date? Would they be colleagues with benefits? And what did she want? Elle wasn’t even sure she knew. Realistically, she and Fitz knew so little about each other, perhaps his olive branch to be friends was just about getting to know each other while they were out here.
It was probably a good idea. But one thing she did know was that, despite the crushing effect Fitz had on her, she had miraculously found a way to push aside her emotions and discuss steadily, and proficiently, all Fitz’s proposed variations to the hospital services layout, even putting forward several improvements of her own. Surprisingly, perhaps even astoundingly, it seemed when it came to working together on their military assignment, she and Fitz made a remarkably strong, united team. A professional team.
She couldn’t help liking the idea of that. But just because they had proved once again that they could still work in harmony on a mission level, it didn’t give them the green light to make their relationship a sexual one again. Even if her throbbing body was trying to convince her otherwise.
Her internal battle had undoubtedly taken its toll—a battle with her own body, and with her very senses, leaving her mentally and physically spent. As the engines were all finally killed and the occupants began to spill from the various vehicles, Elle opened the door and unfurled her shaky legs, furiously berating her wandering thoughts even as she put some distance between herself and Fitz.
She propelled herself towards the ambulance where the supplies for the community sat ready to go. This was what she was here for—helping people, saving lives, health education. In other words, her job as an army doctor. It was what she understood. It was what she was good at.
Reaching for her grab-bag, she slung it over her shoulder and followed their interpreter, and Zi, the sixty-three-year-old widow who had spent nearly a decade volunteering with charities across the border to help educate small villages and communities, and would be working with the army in this region until the charities came in to take over. They were already being eagerly welcomed inside what passed for the community hall, and Elle hurried to catch up. It wasn’t always this easy but today of all days she was grateful for the lack of local resistance. Fitz hadn’t followed her, his own good grasp of the local language allowing him to quickly begin chatting to some of the local men. He, too, appeared to be meeting very little distrust. If every stop they made was this smooth, they’d be heading back to the hospital in half the time.
Elle’s sense of reprieve grew as she looked through the window to see him begin moving around the village to find potential bore sites, and she tasked herself with carrying out the immunisations she was there for. And yet their earlier conversation, his evident thawing towards her, had jump-started previously well-controlled feelings within her, as though the antagonism of the last week was forgotten and they had both been thrown back to the awkward, stumbling yet thrilling feeling of the morning-after-the-night-before.
Not that she’d ever experienced it before for herself, but the way her body was reacting now, like a million teeny-tiny jumping spiders were playing on trampolines in her tummy, it was exactly how she would have imagined it would feel. She felt his presence everywhere, as if the village itself was too small to hold him.
If she’d thought Fitz had got into her head after that first night together, after that incredible sex, after the way he’d made her feel, then it was nothing compared to the way Fitz was cracking open her heart with even the mere hint that he was opening himself up to her on an emotional level.
Looping her stethoscope around her neck, Elle forced herself to quash the tumbling thoughts and beamed at her team.
‘Ready, guys? Let’s help to save some kids’ lives. Look out for anything else we can help with now—diarrhoea, open wounds, you know the drill. Zi will be chatting to the women in the waiting area about latrines, hand washing, basic hygiene—the women are still going to the toilet in the open air so they’ll be the first to get a latrine, but the community’s waste is still getting into the river where they draw their drinking water. So let’s take any opportunity to back up what Zi will be telling them.
‘Also, the community have put forward five or six grandmothers, elders who they respect and listen to, so we’ll join Zi in a couple of hours to start taking them through health care, mainly focussing on clean water and sanitation procedures, and pregnancy and labour advice. Anything to help prepare the ground for when the charities start running their full programmes in the coming weeks and months.’
To a chorus of enthusiastic agreement, Elle watched her teams filter out to their cubicles, maximising the number of patients they could see as well as administering the polio and measles immunisations. It was proving to be an interesting mission out here, and each day she was more and more convinced that returning on a second back-to-back tour would be a rewarding, if challenging experience.
The rest of Elle’s morning passed in something of a blur. At least she and Jools—the staff sergeant and nurse assisting her with the vaccines—went way back. Jools had been one of Elle’s closest allies when Elle had just been a lieutenant and the woman had a razor-sharp wit and an innate skill at drawing the local women into the levity, even if they couldn’t understand the precise wording. A morning of laughter was just what she needed and, given the nature of the medical units and their work, rank and title were often shunned in favour of a first-name basis, meaning things were less formal and more easygoing.
So when the first lull came a couple of hours later, Elle couldn’t help but balk at the thought of Jools suggesting they take their usual leg-stretching walk to get out of the stifling room for a while.
‘Maybe it’s time we get a small group together and head out to encourage the villagers to attend clinic,’ Elle remarked as they set up a new batch of needles while the last set of patients left the room. ‘I know Zi is good, and we’ve been lucky so far this morning, but there are bound to be more families who haven’t come down yet.’
‘No need.’ Jools grinned. ‘Have you seen the waiting area?’
Stepping around the cubicle, Elle carefully peered through before spinning back to her colleague in shock.
‘It’s full out there. I don’t understand.’
What was more, many of the women were grouped attentively around Zi, who was educating them and entertaining the children in one easy performance. It was the lack of noise that had prompted Elle to think there weren’t many families out there, but the question still remained as to why, since Zi had been indoors all morning, so many of them had come across voluntarily.
It was never usually this easy. They often had to carefully persuade suspicious members of the male population to allow their wives and children to get immunised. It was easier if the charities had been teaching the respected grandmothers about the benefits so they could encourage their sons to do the same, but Elle knew her team was the first in the area for a decade.
‘They all just attended of their own volition?’
‘Colonel Fitzwilliam,’ the nurse said dreamily, as though his name in itself was explanation enough.
‘Colonel Fitzwilliam?’ echoed Elle.
The whimsical gaze only intensified. Elle gritted her teeth. She’d barely managed to stop herself from watching every time he passed, her eyes seeming to lift up at just the right moment to see his robust form striding across the frame of the tiny window with, even more surprisingly, a growing cluster of village men scurrying eagerly after him. Or to see him setting aside his own work to carry out some manual labour or other with the community, winning hearts and minds by actually joining in with something the village had been working on and needed.
And in those moments Elle had seen exactl
y how Fitz had acquired, and maintained, that impressive physique of his. Not in a gym but in the real world. Not with artificial machines but doing real manual labour. She’d remembered with embarrassing clarity just how he’d felt, driving inside her, claiming her, imprinting himself on her for ever.
Even at this distance, even though appearing no bigger than a matchstick, Fitz dominated entirely.
‘I’m not sure what he has to do with the heaving waiting area.’ She hadn’t intended to sound so prim.
‘Well, that’s because not everyone is as immune to charm as you, Major I-Only-Have-Eyes-for-My-Childhood-Sweetheart!’ Jools laughed. ‘And Major Fitzwilliam has charm in spades. Haven’t you seen how he’s been working out there with the local men? And on more than just the wells. Last time I went for a new batch of vaccines from the mobile unit I heard that the six-tonner he brought with him was loaded with supplies for building hen-houses. Did you know that?’
‘We have some basic kits to get them started!’ Elle exclaimed. ‘The charities gave them to us and they’ll do the rest when they come out. He knew that, he even mentioned it to me this morning.’
‘Yes, but the Colonel brought better timber and some tools. He’s been showing them how to build them to best suit the birds, and which ground is better for siting them. He’s been gaining their trust and apparently casually chatting to them about the health benefits of the clinic.’
‘So that heaving waiting area is his doing?’
‘Amazing, isn’t he?’ Jools sighed. ‘I’d love to have your job as liaison officer, having to work with him practically every day and on a one-on-one basis. Getting to travel that awful journey out here cooped up with him. No offence but it’s wasted on you.’
Elle resisted the urge to roll her eyes. How could she criticise Jools’s swooning when she herself wasn’t much different?
‘Wait, look, he’s about to send over some more. A couple of local men just approached him and pointed over here. You’ll see.’
Her legs almost carried her back to the window of their own volition as Elle spotted Fitz conferring with his newfound supporters, nodding in agreement as they gesticulated towards her location. Even the interpreter didn’t seem to need to do much translating. Moments later, the men crossed the ground and went into various homes or out of sight.
Tempted by Dr. Off-Limits Page 13
