Trisha Telep (ed)

by The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance (epub)

  “Who are you?” she asked him.

  “Michael Avery, but everyone calls me Mick. I’m in the army, with the Australian Defence Force, Special Operations Command. I was washed away in a flash flood in Liquica and was injured.” He gently pushed back his sleeve to show her the bandage. Six months on and it wasn’t even close to healing. “That’s how I ended up at the nunnery.”

  The baby fidgeted and kicked. A bus sailed past, on its way to Taronga Zoo and then Mosman Wharf. Suddenly she really needed to sit down.

  “I thought you were a hallucination.”

  He smiled, and something inside her, that’d been frozen solid since she found out she was pregnant, started to melt.

  “When is your baby due?” he asked.

  “March. And she’s a girl.”

  “A girl?” He grinned, with such warm delight that she couldn’t help but smile. “A daughter—”

  Her smile disappeared into the shocked void that opened in her chest.

  He knew. He’d guessed.

  “—I mean, for you. A daughter for you and your husband,” he clarified.

  A myna bird chattered obnoxiously in a nearby garden.

  “I don’t know who you are,” she said, jerking on Kissy’s lead as the dog strained towards some morsel in the gutter. Kissy gave Amelia a reproachful look.

  “And I don’t know who you are,” he said. “But I mean you no harm. I only needed to find out if you were OK.”

  He fished out a worn leather wallet. “Here, this is my card. Check me out, call my Commander, whatever you want.”

  She took it and read it.

  “I’m in Sydney for a few weeks. Call me. My mobile number is on the card. But if you don’t want it, then it’s fine. I won’t seek you out again.”

  She watched him walk away. An insane part of her wanted to hurry after him, stop him. Talk to him about the shock of the pregnancy, her ambivalence about how she became pregnant. About how that unforgettable dream from that night at the nunnery may not be a dream after all. How he could be the father of her child. Everything.

  That night she slept little. Going over and over their conversation in her mind. Trying to figure out if he’d guessed. Berating herself for liking him, and remembering his smile and the broadness of his shoulders and the gentle wariness in his blue, blue eyes.

  Early, as the sky began to lighten she phoned him.

  He answered on the first ring.

  “It’s Amelia,” she said.

  “I hoped it was you.”

  Then there was a short, tense silence.

  “I think we need to talk,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Do you want to come over? Today. Now. For breakfast?”

  “I do. You have no idea how much,” he said. She winced. Waiting for the “but”. “But I’m at Royal North Shore Hospital. They’re operating on my arm in a few hours. Removing the infected skin.”

  It had not been what she’d expected to hear. “That sounds really awful. Good luck,” she stuttered.

  “Thanks.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Your number came up on my phone, shall I call you when it’s all over?”

  “I’d like that.”

  There was silence again. She didn’t want to hang up, but there was nothing left to say.

  “Bye then,” she said.

  “Bye, beautiful.”

  She sat, in her quiet house, with the phone in her hand for a long time as the baby swirled and danced beneath her skin.

  “Your daddy has found us,” she said, patting her stomach. “And I am desperate to see him again.”

  She called the hospital four times during the day. First Michael Avery was in surgery, then in recovery, then he was doing fine and, at last, he was ready for visitors. She jumped in her car and made impatient progress through the traffic that always seemed slower during the long, hot, energy-sucking December days before Christmas.

  She found her way to his room without trouble. Clutching a huge bouquet of blue and yellow flowers, she hesitated at the door. He lay in the bed, white as the sheets beneath him, his arm bandaged from shoulder to fingertips. He saw her immediately and a smile, singularly happy, crossed his face. The other six people in the room turned in one movement to see who had garnered such a response. To say that they looked surprised was quite an understatement.

  “This is Amelia,” he said, voice strong and confident, belying his ashen complexion. “Amelia, the ones with red hair are my brothers, the one with dark hair is a friend and this is my mum, Colleen.”

  A small stout woman stepped forwards, with the same crystal blue eyes as Mick but hair that had faded to a rich white. “Such beautiful flowers. You’ve put us all to shame. We didn’t think to bring any. He’s never been one for flowers really.”

  “I thought it’d cheer up his room.”

  “That’s very considerate,” said Colleen, with more than a hint of speculation. Her eyes dropped to Amelia’s round belly. “And a baby?” She stepped forwards and placed a hand on Amelia’s tummy. Amelia stared into the woman’s eyes and could only think that the child was her grandchild, that it had her genes.

  “I have to go,” she said, stepping back and shoving the flowers at one of Mick’s brothers.

  “Mum, stop it,” snapped Mick from the bed.

  But Amelia fled. Hurrying through the hospital corridors and out into the baking car park. Mick wasn’t just some dreamy fantasy, he was real, with a family and parents.

  Mick rang twice, but both times she ignored the phone. Terrified by the reality that this stranger, with his own life that she knew nothing about, was the father of her child.

  That night she dreamed of the nunnery. Her dreams were vivid and stunning.

  She woke early, drained, restless and wanting to see Mick, yet uncomfortable and unsettled at the thought. Angry at her own confusion, and uncomfortable in her own skin, she sat in her quiet sitting room, staring sightlessly into the garden as a board report lay ignored on the coffee table beside her.

  Eventually, still cursing at her own indecision, she prised herself out of the armchair and forced herself into the car. She’d never been one to hide from confrontation. Mostly, she relished it. Mostly.

  He was awake in his hospital room, gazing out the window at the view across Sydney. Her flowers sat in a glass vase beside his bed.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  He turned and looked at her for a long moment. “Glad that you are here.”

  “Last night, I dreamed again of making love to a red-haired man in the nunnery.”

  He nodded. A ghost of a smile on his lips.

  “I’m not . . . I’m not . . . Not in a relationship. Since I went to Timor. There’s been nobody. I’m not married. When they said I was pregnant I had no idea how it happened—” she looked away from him, the view blurring, awash in tears “—then I started remembering the dream, but it didn’t help. Made things even worse. I don’t go around . . . I don’t just seduce—”

  “It was the opium, in the tea.”

  “Do you remember . . . us?”

  He nodded. “I couldn’t forget it. It’s why I came to find you. I needed to know you were OK.”

  “Didn’t expect this, I bet,” she said, running a hand over the bump. “Scary, huh?”

  “Come here.” He beckoned with his good hand. “Can I touch you?”

  She understood immediately what he wanted and grabbed his hand, pressing it to the spot where the baby had last kicked. They waited, both watching their joined hands. “There, did you feel?”

  “Yes, oh yes.”

  She squeezed his hand.

  She stayed at the hospital until lunchtime when his family arrived. And then hurried away, floating. He was just so, just so . . . wonderful and amazing. And OK so they didn’t know each other, but they’d work things out. Though she knew full well that there’d be challenges ahead, Amelia was walking on air.

  That evening she endured her weekly d
inner with her parents.

  Early the next day, just after the nurses had finished their rounds and Mick had stoically borne the torture of having his bandage changed, his commanding officer appeared at the hospital room door, flanked by two military policemen.

  Mick had been thinking about Amelia. In fact, he thought of little else. She was perfect and wonderful and having his child. He was going to be a father. It was all too good to be true.

  But at the sight of Major General James Rochester his mind went blank with shock.

  What the hell was going on?

  “How’ve you been?” asked James Rochester, by way of opening comment.

  Mick didn’t reply, knowing it was not expected.

  “Avery. There is no easy way to say this. There has been a charge of gross misconduct laid against you.”

  “I drank the opium tea at the nunnery without realizing what it was. I’ve already made a full report,” said Mick tightly.

  The Major General shook his head. “No, this is concerning the daughter of Pierre Dubonnier. He claims you assaulted her in the Maubara nunnery.”

  Shock sucked away anything Mick had been about to stay.

  Amelia had done this.

  Pain, worse than anything that had ever come from his arm, screamed through him.

  James Rochester lost some of his official air and sat abruptly. “I’ve known you for many years, Avery, and your conduct has always been exemplary. We know that you arrived at that nunnery with your arm practically skinned and I personally will vouch for your good character. However, Dubonnier is threatening to take the story to the press. That would cause huge diplomatic problems between East Timor and Australia. The Foreign Minister and the PM have been apprised of the situation. Therefore, these military police will keep you company until you are discharged, and you will then be transported to the infirmary of the military remand centre, where you can get on with your rehab.”

  “So, I’m arrested then?”

  James Rochester glanced at the military policemen and scowled. “No, not precisely.”

  Mike nodded. He got it. Loud and clear. His career was over. One wrong step now and he’d have twenty or so years in the military detention centre to think about it.

  With a nod, the Major General departed quickly and the military police settled themselves outside in the corridor.

  Mick tried to think logically and calmly. Damn that sneaky little bitch. Obviously Daddy hadn’t liked the thought of his granddaughter being fathered by some unwashed soldier, so they’d decided to drop him into a political storm.

  He picked up his phone to call Amelia, tell her what he thought, but then hesitated. He’d only say something he’d regret. He thought of his daughter, the happy family that he’d been dreaming of just half an hour earlier, and felt sick.

  Amelia Dubonnier an army wife?

  Pierre Dubonnier’s grandchild an army brat?

  He might be able to survive on his wits in some of the most challenging terrain in the world, but clearly when it came to the world of the wealthy and the ruthless he was nothing but a lamb to the slaughter.

  There was a commotion at the door, and he heard Amelia’s voice, high-pitched and confused.

  He squeezed his eyes tight shut and pressed back into the pillows propping him up. It was like a rusty can opener was prising open his chest. He flexed his bad arm and a wave of razor-blade pain washed over him, a welcome relief.

  “Go away. Haven’t you done enough?” snarled one of the military police.

  There was a wretched silence outside the door. All Mick could hear was his heart, thundering. Then slow footsteps, fading down the corridor. He clenched his hand into a fist, until the pain made him see stars and fresh blood soaked through the bandage.

  “Screw this.” He had to talk to her. He couldn’t just lie there and let his daughter be whisked out of his life.

  He jumped out of bed. His arm throbbed and the room spun, but he ignored both. “Amelia,” he shouted down the corridor.

  A nurse looked up, startled, and one of the military police reached out to stop him. He ducked away from the man’s grasp and took off down the corridor. The lift would be too slow, so he crashed through the fire escape door, hurried down the stairs, then burst out into the emergency room. An elderly lady shrank back.

  Aware that the military police would be only seconds behind him, he hurried out into the glare of the car park.

  “Amelia,” he bellowed. He saw her in the distance. She was climbing with difficulty into a sporty-looking Mercedes.

  One of the military police came up behind him. “C’mon,” he said. “This is just making it all worse.”

  A black van with dark-tinted windows shot past them, its tyres squealing on the baked tarmac. It made a beeline for Amelia.

  “What the hell?” murmured the military policeman.

  Seemingly oblivious, Amelia hurtled backwards out of the parking spot and screeched out of the car park, wheels spinning, into the busy traffic on the Pacific Highway. The black van had stopped to avoid hitting her car, but now it too accelerated, following her into the traffic.

  The pavement was burning Mick’s bare feet, and the heat haze that shimmered over everything seemed to become more intense.

  “Steady.” The military policeman grabbed for him as he swayed, but the man jarred his bad arm. Mick wondered if he was going to throw up from the pain, and the world blinked out.

  Amelia seethed all the way back to Mosman. The words of the military policeman revolved around her brain. Haven’t you done enough? His sneering derision crawled under her skin, making her feel small and stupid.

  She was second in command of her father’s oil company, people went out of their way to be nice to her, and she went out of her way to be nice to them. Feeling small and stupid did not happen very often.

  She wondered what her father had done. To say he’d been upset by the news that Mick was the father of her baby was something of an understatement. He’d hit the roof. He had been furious because Amelia had finally destroyed his dreams of marrying her off. She’d never really bought into his talk about dynasties and marrying the right kind of man. She’d decided a long time ago she’d marry for love and no other reason. Consequences be damned.

  She scowled into the rear-view mirror. Why the hell did that black van have to sit so close on her bumper?

  Still, it seemed she’d underestimated her father. Pierre Dubonnier had moved swiftly against Mick, quicker than she’d expected, even before she’d had a chance to warn him and let him know she would fix any fallout from Daddy’s latest little temper tantrum.

  She pressed a palm to her forehead as she pulled into the gateway of the Mosman house. The black van screeched away up the street, but she barely noticed it. Mick would trust that she’d never do something like this to him.

  A small doubting voice whispered that he didn’t know her at all.

  “Is Dad home, do you know?” she asked Joss, who was in the midst of bathing an almighty pissed-off and bedraggled Kissy.

  “He and your mother took the jet up to Cairns for the weekend.”

  “That bloody coward,” snapped Amelia.

  Joss snorted in humourless laughter. “That is exactly what your mother said. I reckon they’ll be back tomorrow. She’s making his life hell.”

  “Tell me what you heard.”

  “Your father phoned the Chief of Army late yesterday night and told him that a certain Michael Avery had assaulted his little girl.”

  Amelia sank down on top of a white laundry hamper. “Assault?”

  “It gets worse. He also rang the Prime Minister, and told him the story. Then threatened he’d go to the Indonesian Prime Minister and tell him that Australian troops taking part in Operation Astute were spying on Indonesia from Timor, if steps weren’t taken against Michael Avery. Which, of course, could trigger one of the biggest political battles since Timorese Independence – if not all-out war.”

  The baby kicked, hard, an
d Amelia felt a low uncomfortable pressure deep in her back. “I know the Prime Minister’s wife well. I’ll call her.” She shook her head slowly. “He’s really done it this time, hasn’t he?”

  Mick woke up on a stretcher in the Emergency Department. A nurse, dark and pretty, bending over him.

  “Pain relief,” she said. “We need to check your wound.” She waved a hypodermic needle at him. He focused on the drip of milky liquid hovering on the sharp tip. Then she stuck it in his arm, hard. He flinched despite himself and narrowed his eyes at her. She had an air of contempt that gleamed through her professional mantle, and she behaved as if touching him was possibly the most repugnant thing she’d ever had to do.

  He closed his eyes and sighed. So news of the assault charge had got out. Well, in a hospital, armed guards were hardly going to go unnoticed. He wanted to reassure the nurse that it wasn’t true. But aware that it’d fall on deaf ears, that she’d already made up her mind about him, he said nothing.

  Rapist. She thought he was capable of abusing women.

  His shattered heart cracked just a little more.

  An orderly wheeled him back to his room in a wheelchair, the military police following casually a few metres behind. When Mick arrived in his room his mobile phone was ringing, but he let it go through to answer phone, only checking it when the orderly had gone and the police were settled outside his room. Then he slipped into the bathroom and returned the call. It was from the commander of the patrol he’d been part of in Timor.

  “I heard about the charges,” said Brad Smith without pausing for niceties. “The men and I will back you up totally. We saw the state you were in when we picked you up. You weren’t capable of any assault. I’ve just a lodged a report to that effect.”

  “Thanks,” he said, “I appreciate it.”

  “Look, there’s something else you might have an interest in,” said Brad Smith.

  “Oh yes?”

  “I’ve had reliable intelligence from Timor that there’s to be a kidnap attempt on Amelia Dubonnier. Given that she’s the one that laid the assault charges, I thought you might like to know. It’s something to do with Pierre Dubonnier – opinion of him has taken a real downturn lately. Someone is stirring up trouble over the oil under the Timor Sea.”