Christmas with Her Bodyguard

by Charlotte Hawkes

  A woman he could easily fall for.

  The thought was like a lasso around his chest. Tight. Constricting. That could never happen. Because even if Rae wasn’t the woman he’d believed her to be, he was still the man he knew himself to be.

  Lost. Anchorless. Valueless.

  He had nothing to offer a woman like Rae. He was damaged, and not just physically. He’d lost his body and he’d lost his career, but more than that he’d lost his reputation. His only worth now was in the work he could do in places like this. Here he felt so much more. Here he felt whole.

  He didn’t belong back in regular civilian life—coming out here had proved that much to him. There was no place for him back there. There was no place for him in Rae’s world.

  It should have made him want to back away from her all the more. Instead, it made him want to grab hold of the woman he had, enjoy her for the here and now. She’d be gone, moving on from his life, soon enough. The thought terrified him.

  Gripping her wrists, he pushed her away from him.

  ‘Confession over,’ he bit out as coldly, as icily, as he could. ‘We’re expected back in camp and you’re due on shift in a couple of hours. You don’t want to let them down, and start living up to your old reputation, do you?’

  And as she flinched he told himself the shattering in his chest was triumph.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘YOU’RE GOING TO need to sterilise her if you perform a Caesarean section on her,’ Janine, the senior consultant, murmured. ‘If it’s her third C-section, her uterus will be severely weakened.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t see another option for her,’ Rae concluded dully, glancing across the room at the patient in question. As if things couldn’t get any worse, the girl was on oxygen, still not even stable, and although they’d succeeded in bringing her blood pressure down significantly, it was still elevated. ‘Not if we’re to save her baby.’

  There were times when Rae could feel her limitations pressing in on her, constricting and cruel, but the truth of it, Rae realised with something close to contentment, was that there was absolutely nowhere else she would rather be. She might not have known it three and a half weeks ago when she’d first driven into the camp, but this was where she was meant to be in her life. In places like this, helping women who might otherwise have had nothing.

  Perhaps not for ever, but certainly for the foreseeable future. As much as she’d loved her job in her New York practice, it simply didn’t compare to how proud, how fulfilled, and, yes, how permanently exhausted she felt out here.

  It almost made up for the way things had taken a sour turn with Myles. She’d thought that Myles opening up to her would be a turning point, bringing them closer together, maybe even allowing them to take their physical relationship to another level. One where they could possibly consider actually calling it something of a relationship.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong. Unfamiliar bitterness trickled down her spine.

  It was as though talking to her the way he had that night, opening himself up to her and showing her his vulnerabilities, had actually made him push her away all the harder. They’d barely spoken since that day, even before he’d volunteered to return to the forward camp for forty-eight-hour shifts, on two more occasions since.

  Folding her arms over her chest and straightening her spine, Rae told herself that she didn’t care. Hadn’t she told herself years ago that the only person she could rely on to make her happy was herself? Not her family, not her friends, not a man.

  And certainly no other man would do for her now that she’d been with Myles. He’d ruined her for life; she knew it for a fact. No one else would ever, could ever, come close.

  But she had medicine, her career, and that was going to be enough.

  More than enough, she chanted brightly, turning her attention back to her immediate patient.

  The twenty-seven-year-old woman had come in with such severe pre-eclampsia that her skin had split in some areas and was at high risk of infection. They had battled to reduce her blood pressure, and stabilise her baby’s condition and, for a while, it had seemed to work. But now the baby’s health was beginning to deteriorate again. They had to get it out.

  A third C-section meant a third scar, leaving the girl’s uterus too vulnerable to risk further pregnancies, which meant sterilisation was going to be the safest course of action. It wasn’t going across well with the young woman, or her family, who were beginning to turn on the interpreter.

  ‘I’d better get in there and support him.’ Rae started across the room. ‘This was my other patient I’ve been keeping an eye on. She came in pregnant with twins and fully dilated. She’s with the midwives but she’s been pushing for quite some time now, and I think we might need to help things along by delivering the first baby with a vacuum.’

  ‘I’m on it.’ Janine nodded. ‘You just go and deal with your pre-eclampsia patient.’

  ‘Thanks,’ called Rae, already hurrying across the room to where the husband was standing apart from the family, his face etched more with concern than with anger.

  Instinctively, Rae summoned the interpreter over, a young man by the name of Lulwar. Her voice was low until she could be sure her suspicions were correct.

  ‘Can you ask the husband what he’s thinking?’

  The two men spoke briefly, quietly, the family too emotional to notice.

  ‘He wants to know, if this happens, then his wife will be safe?’

  ‘Yes. She won’t be able to have any more children, but there’s a good chance that any further pregnancies could end up life-threatening for his wife.’

  She watched the husband’s face as the interpreter passed on the information. Relief pouring through her when he bobbed his head in acknowledgement before a look of determination settled over his features as he stepped forward, silenced the arguing family, and took his wife’s hand.

  Rae grabbed a local nurse quickly.

  ‘Can you go and secure me the next OR please? Emergency C-section and sterilisation.’

  And after that the patients, and the obstructed deliveries, kept coming. And by the time her shift was over, it was all she could do to drag herself to her room and flop down into her bed, asleep somewhere before her body even landed on the mattress.

  Tomorrow would be Christmas Day which meant that her month-long mission was nearly over. It also meant that it was the first Christmas she hadn’t spent with her family throughout her entire life.

  She was almost sad to realise that with the exception of Rafe she didn’t miss them, or their inevitable dramas, one little bit.

  * * *

  ‘Happy Christmas, Raevenne.’ His low voice only just carried the couple of feet between them.

  Rae swung around, startled, peering into the shadow of the building where he’d been watching her for some time.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t see you there. Right. Yes. Happy Christmas.’

  She didn’t look particularly overjoyed to see him. If anything she looked wary, not that he could really blame her. He’d been avoiding her ever since the drive back to camp when he’d laid himself out there. Logically he knew that it wasn’t her fault he’d felt vulnerable, and weak, but that hadn’t stopped him from taking it out on her, by avoiding any real contact, ever since.

  Mainly because he knew the instant he saw her every regret and reservation he had about talking to her would melt away, replaced instead by the ache to draw her to him, kiss her thoroughly and pretend that none of the bad stuff, none of the baggage, even existed.

  ‘I heard you performed some really impressive procedures over the last few days.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Not least a heterotopic pregnancy.’

  He could practically read the internal battle she was waging in every flicker of her expression and he had to fight not to smile. It was typical heart-o
n-sleeve Rae fashion. Or was it just that he knew her better than either of them would probably care to admit?

  ‘Let me guess,’ he drawled. ‘The private part of you wants to tell me where to shove it, whilst the professional part of you is so geared up by the medical stuff that you’re desperate to talk about it.’

  She scowled at him. Or she tried to, anyway.

  ‘You can’t just flip-flop like this, Myles,’ she muttered.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You open up to me, let me into your most private moments one minute, but the next you’re acting as though I barely even exist.’

  ‘I accept that.’

  ‘And now you’re pretending nothing even happened.’

  ‘You’re right, and I’m sorry.’

  He didn’t know what he’d expected her to do, but it wasn’t to narrow her eyes at him.

  ‘Of course you are. Until the next time.’

  Something scraped inside him. He hated the way she was looking at him. As if he wasn’t to be trusted. As if he wasn’t even someone she liked.

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you this until we had everything squared away and everything accounted for, but we think we’ve caught the company responsible for the death threats, Rafe’s brakes, and your break-in. They’re a rival company who lost out on a bid to your brother about a year ago.’

  She didn’t even blink.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Rafe emailed a few days ago.’

  She was giving nothing away.

  ‘I see.’ Myles dipped his head, fighting back some alien emotion pushing within him.

  ‘Rafe also said you’d been working flat out on the investigation even from out here.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I did what I could.’

  ‘Why?’ He hated that her voice was so brittle. ‘For me? Because you owed Rafe? To appease your own conscience?’

  And then he looked at her, and it finally hit him. He understood what it was that had made her fight so hard to distance herself from Life in the Rawl, why she’d been so averse to having another bodyguard, why she’d felt compelled to volunteer for a mission like this.

  ‘They really did a number on you, didn’t they?’

  Rae stopped. Her attempt at nonchalance betrayed by the way her breath had caught in her throat.

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Your sisters.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘Justin. The press.’

  ‘I can handle them.’

  She jutted her chin out a fraction, her voice apparently as airy as ever. She looked magnificent and proud, and...something else besides. Something quite different. He’d been watching her closely long enough now to begin to be able to read her, from the way the pretty flush deepened slightly and crept down her neck, to the way she was shifting, almost imperceptibly, from one foot to the other.

  And so he knew magnificent and proud were only a part of it. There was another side to her, and it was fragile, vulnerable.

  It was amazing that he hadn’t spotted it before. That no one else had spotted it before. Or perhaps people just didn’t want to. They preferred the more heinous version of Raevenne Rawlstone, so that was what they believed.

  The question was, why had she let them?

  ‘I know you can handle them, but the point is that you don’t want to keep having to, do you? It won’t matter to them how many good deeds you do, they’re going to want to write the lies, because juicy scandal sells papers, not charity work.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She flashed a smile, which he now recognised to be too practised, too tight to be real. That realisation gave him a kick. ‘I don’t care what they write, anyway.’

  ‘Up until a month ago, I used to believe that.’ He didn’t deliberately soften his voice, it seemed to just...happen.

  ‘And now you believe differently?’ The question was almost off-hand, as though his answer didn’t matter to her either way.

  But she’d hesitated a fraction too long.

  ‘You truly love being out here, don’t you?’

  She didn’t meet his gaze immediately, and when she did look at his face, he got the impression she was staring at a point just on his ear, rather than looking at him directly. As if a part of her was guilty for her answer.

  ‘I find it very...rewarding.’

  Surely it didn’t actually hurt him that she felt she couldn’t be honest?

  ‘If they asked you to return for a three-month stint, would you?’

  He couldn’t explain why his heart was hammering so hard. And then her eyes flickered to his, just for an instant, and she pursed her lips. It was as though someone had dealt him a blow that had punched every bit of oxygen from his lungs.

  ‘They’ve already asked you, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you agreed?’

  ‘I told them I would consider it,’ she hedged.

  ‘But you intend to agree.’

  It wasn’t a question and she didn’t answer it as though it had been one. But working out here had been a good move for her, both professionally and personally. She suited this life. She was good at it. She felt fulfilled by it. That much was obvious.

  ‘I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t come back.’ Her voice sounded odd, as though she was challenging him. ‘Do you?’

  And all at once he wanted to grab her and tell her that there was a reason. That he wanted her in his life. That when they got home maybe they could start again, perhaps see if they could have a future together.

  But then he looked into those laurel-green depths and saw everything that she loved was out here. How could he ask her to leave that behind? How could he ask her to leave herself behind? Especially when she’d only just worked out who she really was.

  ‘You’re right, you should come back,’ he said slowly, realising that he meant it. ‘Either here or somewhere else. You can be yourself here, without the media constantly hounding you and fabricating stories about you.’

  ‘I’m not running away.’ She jerked her head sharply.

  ‘I never thought you were. But you have so much to offer, both as a doctor and as a human being. And the press won’t let you do that. They want to pigeonhole you because it suits their agenda to do so. Out here, you can be the person that I think you’ve always been meant to be.’

  ‘Really?’ Her shy smile abraded against his hollow chest, and he pretended he didn’t see the confusing hint of sadness in it.

  Just as he pretended that he didn’t feel Rae everywhere. Restoring feeling to his body after it had been growing cold for so long. Making him feel alive.

  Which left him with a choice. He could continue punishing her for little more than being the one person he had trusted enough to open up to. Or he could set aside all the reasons why being with her was a bad idea, and why it could only end up hurting one or both of them, and he could just enjoy this one perfect day with her. Christmas Day.

  ‘Have you eaten yet?’

  She blinked slowly at him.

  ‘Not yet. I was just heading over there now.’

  ‘May I join you?’

  She slid him a pointed look, her tone dark.

  ‘And if I said no?’

  ‘Are you saying no?’

  He refused to bite and after a long moment she sighed, a little overly dramatically for his tastes.

  ‘I should. But this place is too cramped to avoid each other indefinitely. Besides,’ she added loftily, ‘it is Christmas.’

  A smile toyed at the corners of her mouth and he had to fight the impulse to kiss it away. This was exactly what Rae did to him. She chased all logical thought, all sense of self-preservation, from his head until it was filled with only one thing. Her.

  She made him want to tell her all the deep, black though
ts that crept around his head in the still of the night. She made him want to find a way to cage them so that they no longer plagued him. She made him want to be a better person.

  But what did he really have to offer her?

  He’d been a good soldier, a brilliant surgeon. Now he was neither. Neither of them had anything to rush home for, yet whilst Rae consequently couldn’t wait to get back to another place like this, he couldn’t wait to get out of here. But where even was home for him?

  At least that answered his question, then. He had nothing to offer her.

  And yet here he still was. Unable to stay away from her any longer. Wanting to spend this day in her company. They were on borrowed time, he and Rae, and he should know better. But right here, right now, he didn’t care.

  ‘It is indeed Christmas,’ he agreed. ‘So let’s go and feast.’

  * * *

  It was a Christmas beyond all she could have hoped for. The men dancing, rice cans attached to their legs, their feet practically a blur as women kept time with sticks on the ground. At one point she was even hauled to her feet by some of the women and challenged to match the rhythm; faster and harder and more complex all the time.

  It was exhilarating, and incredible, and special.

  Not least when Myles looked over from where his own group was taking part in the festivities, the glance they shared so intimate. So unabashed.

  Then the refugees sang traditional songs, and when it came time for the volunteers to share their own carols, something akin to pure joy suffused Rae as she turned to find Myles standing there, right next to her.

  And then he smiled, and a memory—a decade and a half old—rushed her.

  She was in love with him.

  All over again. She wanted more with him. She needed more. But if she couldn’t help him to face his demons then there was never going to be a chance for them.

  Sliding her hand into his, Rae waited for a moment until they could slip out unnoticed, the festivities finally winding down, and led him to her room.