by Sue MacKay
Gently setting Maddy aside, he worked hard to ignore the disappointment that dulled her eyes and drooped her shoulders, mimicking what was pouring through him. He re-ran the band through his head, playing those songs that Madison had blown out of the water. That voice. It had stroked him, rasped his skin, evoked all sorts of fantasies. What if he did follow through and hauled her back against him? Oh, and kissed her? And...
‘Let’s walk.’ Then he surprised himself. He caught up her free hand and slipped his fingers between hers.
A jolt reminiscent of an electric current he’d once copped when he’d tried to change a power switch for his mother pinged where their palms touched. Let go of her now. Just like when he’d been zapped for real, he couldn’t. Beggar for punishment that he was, he wound his fingers tighter around Maddy’s. And she reciprocated. Which meant what?
Stretching his steps into strides, he took them out to the perimeter and beyond the mess and bar, away from prying eyes. Unable to drop her hand, he enjoyed the sheer delight of holding hands with a woman. This woman. Warmth worked its way up his arm and down into his chest, softening his breathing, turning his fears and guilt into a puddle of wonder. And worry. This was not how things were meant to be for him now. Madison. Stick to Madison and this whole wanting her thing might evaporate in a cloud of reality. If only.
So what now?
Letting go of her hand wasn’t an option.
* * *
Maddy couldn’t believe it. Holding hands with Sam was so—so out there. It wasn’t even high-powered, hot, sexy stuff. It was gentle and caring and nice—she hated that word but it was true. All right, try wonderful. Unbelievable, more like. Perfect. Yes.
She squeezed his hand to make sure she wasn’t making this up. His fingers tightened briefly around hers. Definitely for real.
Had to be the heat and the foreign location and that music and... Madison sighed, long and slow. Had to be something in the drinking water because holding hands was nothing like what she’d expect with this man. He gave the impression of being more the let’s-get-in-the-sack-fast kind of guy. Exactly what she felt around him when she admitted her feelings. Don’t go there. Enjoy the moment. Because it would only be a moment, a few minutes at most, then Sam would realise what he was doing and drop her hand like a hot potato. And one of them needed to be sensible.
If she talked, would that burst the bubble? But her blood was fizzing, her whole body buzzing from earlier and now topped up with a dose of Sam. Holding hands was nowhere near enough. His mouth on hers would go a lot further towards improving the situation.
Madison gasped. Again kissing was on her mind. What would he do if she turned to him and placed her lips on his? Would he kiss her back? Soft and gentle? Hard and demanding, giving as much as he took, she’d bet.
‘You okay?’ her biggest distraction asked.
‘Fine.’ If wanting to kiss him was fine. If needing to get closer was fine.
‘Damn.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘You and me. That’s what.’ Was that longing making his voice lower and huskier than usual?
She was probably imagining it because of the need clawing through her. ‘How are we wrong?’
‘As in for each other, Maddy.’ There. The way he dragged out her name, turned it into a caress, turned her insides into that molten mess of need she was learning to live with on an hourly basis.
‘Maybe it’s our time.’ Gulp. She’d given herself away with that desire-laden comment. A beggar on her knees couldn’t be more obvious.
Sam extricated his hand.
She’d gone too far. But he was here, for real, and every stop sign had disappeared.
‘I’ll tell you something for nothing, Madison. When you were singing that first song the emotion that poured out of you, I’ve never heard anything like it. You had me in the palm of your hand. You could’ve done anything to me at that moment.’
She’d sing it again—now. Definitely begging. ‘If only I’d known.’ She tried for a laugh, came out with a squeak.
Sam managed better with a chuckle that didn’t sound strangled. ‘I’m glad you didn’t. I could’ve ended up looking foolish in front of the guys.’
‘And that matters?’
He turned to her and with one finger lifted her chin so there was no avoiding his eyes. ‘You’ve got to live and work with them.’ There was no grin for her now. Just complete seriousness. ‘We can’t forget we’re on different tracks. I don’t do relationships, long term or otherwise, while I think that’s what you’re looking for.’
‘Wrong. I won’t be marrying again, or getting into a permanent relationship of any kind.’
‘You will get over your broken marriage, Maddy. You must.’
If only it were that simple. She stumbled sideways, putting a gap between them, away from those eyes boring into her in case he saw the truth. That she wanted him despite everything. She could not let him near, would not undress in front of him, or let his hands explore her body. He’d unwittingly given her the wake-up call she needed. While she’d been leaning in for more of Sam, desperate to get close in a sexual way, yearning for his touch, to touch him, she’d completely forgotten the truth. She was not going to let him see her body. Not going to see that look of horror when it filled his eyes, twisted his mouth. It would break her completely.
She couldn’t trust herself to accept someone might want her as she was. Didn’t believe it possible. Not when her husband, who’d declared his undying love for her only two days before the fire, hadn’t been able to accept the new her.
Sam watched the argument going on in Madison’s head. It leapt through her eyes, marked her face, flattened those kiss-worthy lips. She wanted him as much as he did her. But fear had her fighting her desire all the way. Something he understood completely.
But... One kiss. What harm could that do? It wouldn’t mean there was more to come, but it would satisfy an ache.
Or create a bigger one.
There was that.
One kiss would definitely crank up the heat into an inferno.
But he had to taste her. Had to know those lips, had to satisfy a quest he’d begun unknowingly only days ago. At the same time it was as though all the barriers he’d erected were tightening, warning him not to do it. But the clawing need for affection and sharing was stronger.
‘I think I’ll head inside.’ Madison stood before him, looking sad and lost.
He did what he shouldn’t. He ignored those damned warnings. ‘Don’t go yet.’ Reaching out, he took Maddy’s shaky fists into his hands and wrapped her arms around his waist. She fitted like she was an extension of him. And that scent—he drew a long breath and savoured that summer fruit memory, rearranged his memories from a four-year-old’s to a man’s. Nothing set his senses tripping the tango like the smell of Maddy.
Dropping his head, he found her mouth, covered those enticing lips with his, and knew her softness. Her sharp indrawn breath made him pause until she relaxed into him. Then he went back to kissing her. One hand reached up to push through the silk that was her hair. The other cupped her chin as he continued to taste her, and an all-consuming need burst alight inside him, making everything he’d known before redundant.
When her body melted into his those glorious breasts pushed against the hard muscle of his chest, her hips pressed his, while the apex of her body touched his hardness.
Sam groaned. This was hell on earth. This was wonderful.
Maddy tensed. Her hands left his waist, flattened on his chest. Slowly she lifted her mouth away from his, tipped her head back to lock those eyes on him. ‘Sam?’
‘Yes, Maddy, it’s me.’ He recaptured her mouth before she could deny him another kiss. One had not been enough. Two wasn’t going to be either.
She sank back into him, causing him to relax, except where it m
attered. His tongue stroked her lips, her mouth. It wasn’t enough. He tasted the skin on her jawline, and below her ear.
Under his hands he felt the change in her posture, the slow tightening of her arms before she began to pull away.
His first reaction was to haul her closer, tighten his hold, kiss her deeper. But Madison was withdrawing, and he had to allow that.
And being Madison, if he took too long to let her go, stole another kiss first, she’d probably want to kill him.
And I want to live. Really want that more than anything. Sam jolted backwards, his arms dropping to his sides while he rocked on his feet as though slammed by a runaway truck. I’m starting to feel alive for the first time in years. I want to love, and laugh, and make a home, and settle down, instead of wandering wherever the army sends me.
This was what happened when those protective ties around his soul began unwinding.
This was what happened when Madison Hunter had stepped into his life.
This was dangerous.
There was too much flotsam to deal with before he could even begin to undertake a relationship. He had to walk away from Madison, let her get on with her life without him, because he wasn’t able to become a part of it. She’d been badly hurt. He could not add to her anguish. He had to hold onto that raw emotion she’d poured into her singing so as he didn’t add to it.
But he was damned if he’d ever forget that kiss.
CHAPTER NINE
‘WE’RE WANTED AT the hospital in town,’ Sam told Madison the moment she stepped inside the unit.
So much for last night’s kiss. The way he was looking at her, it might well have been a figment of her imagination. Only problem there was that her brain wasn’t that imaginative. Hadn’t known that a kiss could transport her to places out of this world, or turn her inside out with desire. If that’s what Sam’s kisses did to her, she hated to think what his lovemaking might do. A very good reason not to go there, since this morning she was struggling to cope with acting like nothing had happened. As for sleep after she’d crawled between the sheets around midnight—forget it. Sam had ruled. In her head; had even tickled her heart.
Yet here he was, looking relaxed and cool, like nothing had occurred between them.
Her blood began to boil. Sam did that to her. Don’t let him. Be as blasé as he appears to be. Maddy appraised him harder, finally saw the telltale twitch of that amazing mouth. Not so cool after all. Yeah. Got you. She wanted to punch the air, but refrained by folding her arms across her breasts. ‘Why are we headed to the hospital and not out on patrol, as we’re supposed to be?’
He tossed some packets of swabs at a bag. His casualness didn’t fool her this time. The packets missed their destination. ‘There’s been an accident...’ he flicked fingers in the air ‘...involving a school bus.’
‘Can’t the local doctors cope?’
‘We’re under orders, Madison. This is what we do, follow orders.’ He snatched the swabs up from where they’d landed on the floor and shoved them inside the bag. ‘We’ll travel in convoy with armoured vehicles as there’re reports of trouble at a village along the way.’
Her heart thumped against her chest. Reality check. This is what I was sent here for, not for sensational kisses. She was about to go out into danger. Or the possibility of it, which amounted to the same thing, according to her heart, which was now beating a sharp and rapid tattoo. ‘What do you want me to do? Do we take supplies with us?’
‘The truck’s being loaded as we speak. You’re in charge of making sure nothing important is left behind.’
In other words, she was superfluous to requirements but he was stuck with her. Digging deep, she found a smile and refused to utter anything antagonistic. Two could play at being nice. Except she meant it. ‘On to it.’ She reached for the check sheets that hung on a clip by the phone and drew calming breaths to quieten her heart before it threw itself into a fit. That patrol she’d gone on had only been a taster for bigger and scarier things to come.
‘There are injured children, Maddy.’ Sam was beside her.
Children. The innocent victims. She looked up at him, her eyes seeking his, looking for reassurance that she’d cope, that she’d do her job without breaking down. That he’d be there for her, with her, helping, encouraging. Why she needed him for that she had no idea, but if that’s what it took to cope then that’s how it was.
A light grip on her shoulder surprised her and told her Sam had read her concerns. ‘It’s hard, but we’ll manage. Go check the supplies, Maddy.’ This time his voice was like a caress, gentle and warm and comforting. A man of many facets.
‘Will do.’ She headed outside to the truck and Cassy, who was ordering soldiers to be careful as they loaded boxes of equipment. ‘How are we going?’
‘You’ll need your weapon,’ Sam told her.
‘I knew that.’ But in her hurry to see they had everything they required for their patients, she’d forgotten she was a soldier before she was a doctor. She would be a liability to the others if she wasn’t armed and ready as they made their way into town.
Squashed into the cab of the truck between Sam and the driver, she stared around as they rolled out through the gate and along the dusty road, heading in the opposite direction from where she’d been before. Heat shimmered on the horizon, dust spewed from the vehicle in front to engulf their truck. ‘So inhospitable.’
‘Nothing like the green of home, is it?’ Sam agreed.
‘It hadn’t occurred to me how lucky we are in NZ until I saw this.’
‘Homesick?’
‘Not at all.’ She wasn’t about to cry for home the moment things got rough.
‘Too soon, I guess, but it will get you.’ When she rolled her eyes at him, Sam shrugged. ‘Find me a soldier who hasn’t had periods of wanting to be back home with family when the heat’s got to him or something’s gone horribly wrong on patrol. Me included.’ He was still surprising her with the things he came out with.
She told him, ‘My sister emails every day, giving me snippets of what her kids are up to, how Mum and Dad are.’ She wasn’t admitting to missing them last night.
‘That’s good. Hopefully she’ll keep the homesickness at bay for you.’ Doubt darkened his voice.
‘Might make it worse. Who knows? But I’ll not go looking for trouble. Right now I’ve got something more important to concentrate on.’
The hospital was rundown on the outside, but inside it gleamed. Medical personnel ran back and forth, looking harried, while children cried and mothers screamed for help. Police and armed personnel were making a show of being there. Utter chaos. But as Madison looked around she realised it was organised chaos. The staff knew what they were doing, which made it easy to slip into her role and ignore everything else.
‘This way.’ Sam took the lead after receiving directions from a gun-toting policeman. Was it only in New Zealand that cops didn’t carry weapons as a norm? ‘The men will bring our supplies through for us.’
Her first patient was a wee girl with the biggest brown eyes she’d encountered. Eyes filled with pain and resignation. ‘Hello, sweetheart.’ Madison knelt on the floor beside the mat the child lay on with a woman looking frantic with worry, presumably the girl’s mother.
Watching over an injured child, depending on strangers to tend the wounds, had to be any mother’s nightmare. Terrifying and bewildering. Madison’s hand slipped across her stomach. Children. What were her chances of having any? Despite what she was dealing with here, she’d give anything to raise her own.
Through an interpreter she introduced herself and learned the child’s name was Nubia and that she’d been trampled when teachers had rushed off the bus.
Fortunately Nubia’s head had not suffered any injury, but she had five broken ribs and the cartilage holding them had been torn. Wi
th gentle probing Madison discovered the spleen was ruptured. One arm was fractured and there were numerous abrasions on most of the girl’s body.
Her heart breaking for the child, Madison explained to her mother about the surgery she’d need to remove the spleen. When tears rocked the woman Madison slipped her arms around her and held her until the storm passed. Then she went to see when and where she’d be operating.
‘Join the queue,’ she was told by a harassed doctor.
Sam came across. ‘I’ve got a theatre lined up. We’ll share.’
When she rocked back on her heels at the outlandish suggestion he added, ‘It’s how it is, Madison. Cassy and the others will work with us.’ Then he took pity on her. ‘It’s not easy, I know, but you’ll be fine.’
‘Grow a backbone, huh?’
His finger brushed her cheek. ‘You’ve got one, just needs a little straightening at the moment.’
Somehow she chuckled. Not a very strong or mirthful one, but better than a grumpy retort. ‘Love your support.’ And a few other things she wasn’t mentioning any time soon. ‘Let’s go.’
Nubia’s surgery was straightforward and she was soon being watched over by Cassy as she came round.
‘No complications?’ Sam glanced up as Madison joined him at his table.
‘Not a one.’ She watched Sam at work and admired his skill. No wasted movements, or any unnecessary use of the scalpel.
‘This is Ra,’ Sam told her. ‘He was thrown through a window off the bus. Both femurs are fractured, and there’s damage to his lower bowel that I’m about to repair.’
‘Do you need me, or shall I find another patient?’
‘I’d like a second opinion on the colon.’
After scrubbing up again and pulling on fresh gloves, she went to help Sam.
* * *
Many hours and procedures later they sat slumped around a metal table with the other members of their crew, drinking coffee and picking at sandwiches they’d brought with them from camp.
Madison sipped the coffee, not really enjoying the strong brew, which was unlike anything she’d had before. But she needed something to fire up her sluggish cells after working in the hot and cramped conditions. ‘Glad that’s over,’ she muttered to anyone within hearing.
