‘Look on the bright side,’ Kasey said, chuckling. ‘Once you’ve dealt with one of these little suckers, your average British beetle is child’s play!’
She looked round when Lorraine and Mary suddenly appeared. There were four beds in the room and they’d obviously decided to join them. ‘Welcome to the bridal suite,’ she declared in her most unctuous tone. ‘We hope your stay here will be everything you expect it to be.’
‘Sadly, that will probably turn out to be the case,’ Lorraine said pithily, looking round. ‘What a dump. It’s a good job my Tim didn’t book us into somewhere like this for our honeymoon or it would have been the shortest marriage on record!’
‘You mean you don’t like it?’ Kasey looked affronted as she swept the cover off one of the narrow single beds. ‘No expense has been spared to provide us with the ultimate in comfort. I mean, just inhale that aroma. Eau de mildew if I’m not mistaken.’
‘You were warned about the conditions before you came, Dr Harris, so I hope you aren’t going to bombard us with an on-going litany of complaints.’
Kasey swung round when she heard Adam’s voice coming from the doorway. She hadn’t spoken to him to since he’d walked out of the office the previous night. He’d been sitting near the front of the plane when she’d boarded it so she’d deliberately chosen a seat at the rear to avoid him. However, his attitude towards her obviously hadn’t softened during the journey, she realised when she saw the chill in his eyes.
‘I wasn’t complaining, Dr Chandler. I was merely making an observation. I assume it isn’t against the rules to voice an opinion?’
‘Not so long as it doesn’t create unrest within the team.’ He stared back at her, unwilling to give an inch let alone concede that he might possibly be over-reacting. ‘Team harmony is essential and I shall come down extremely hard on anyone who undermines it.’
He didn’t add anything else before he went on his way but he’d said more than enough by that point. June grimaced.
‘Someone seems to have left his sense of humour at home. Try not to let it get to you, Kasey. His bark really is worse than his bite.’
‘I’m not sure if I want to test out that theory,’ she replied lightly, not wanting the others to know how much it had hurt to be spoken to in that fashion. The fact that it had been so unjust to reprimand her was what really rankled but there was little she could do about it. If she caused a fuss then Adam would accuse her of disrupting the team and use it as an excuse to send her back to England.
Well, if that was what he was hoping for, he was going to be disappointed, she decided, stiffening her spine. She could put up with anything he cared to dish out!
They unpacked their bags then June checked her watch. ‘It’s only four o’clock so how about a tour of the building before dinner to get our bearings?’
‘Good idea,’ Kasey agreed immediately although the other two shook their heads.
‘I’m bushed,’ Mary exclaimed, sinking down onto one of the beds. ‘I need a bit of shut-eye if I’m to be the life and soul of the party this evening.’
‘What party?’ Kasey asked in surprise.
‘Oh, it’s a bit of a tradition with Adam. He always has a get-together on our first night,’ Lorraine explained. ‘He sees it as a way for us all to bond. Anyhow, I think I’ll follow Mary’s example and test out the bed springs while you two intrepid souls go exploring. Have fun.’
‘We’ll do our best,’ Kasey replied, following June out of the room.
They made their way along the corridor, peering into the rooms they passed. They’d been told that the hostel had been used by students from the local college before the rebel uprising and the facilities were very basic. All the bedrooms were fitted out exactly like their room with four single beds and a chest of drawers. There was no carpet on any of the floors but the worn brown linoleum had been swept clean. There was also a small bathroom at the end of the corridor with a lavatory next to it and she heaved a sigh of relief.
‘At least we have indoor plumbing. I had visions of having to creep out of the building in the middle of the night to go to the loo.’
‘All mod cons by the look of it,’ June declared, flushing the toilet.
They made their way up the stairs to the floor above which was exactly the same: bedrooms with a bathroom and a lavatory at the end of the corridor. Although everywhere smelled a little musty, it was obvious that attempts had been made to clean the place in readiness for their arrival.
‘It’s better than I expected,’ Kasey admitted as they went down to the ground floor where a large square entrance hall led to a sitting room on one side and a dining room on the other with the kitchen and storerooms beyond that.
‘It is. I had no idea what to expect when Adam told me where we would be staying.’ June shrugged when she looked at her in surprise. ‘Although I’ve been on a lot of missions, I’ve never been to an area like this before where they’ve only recently stopped fighting so I wasn’t sure how bad the facilities would be.’
‘I see. That makes me feel a bit better. I thought I was the only one who didn’t have any experience and you were all old hands at this game,’ she confessed wryly.
‘Not at all. OK, so most of us have worked overseas and you haven’t but working in a war zone will be a whole new experience for all of us except Adam, of course. He’s already done a stint here.’
‘Really?’ Kasey stopped and stared at her. ‘Adam’s worked here before?’
‘Yes. Didn’t you know? He spent a year in Mwuranda with a French aid team but they pulled out when the fighting started. Adam decided to stay on and he only came back to England because he was injured, quite badly, too, I believe, although he never talks about it.’ June sighed. ‘I always thought there was more to it than just a desire to help which kept him here. It was almost as though he didn’t care about his own safety.’
‘When did this all happen?’ she asked slowly, feeling a cold chill envelop her.
‘I’m not sure…four, five years ago. Something like that.’
Which would be shortly after she’d told him how she’d tricked him, she realised sickly. Had that been the reason why Adam had shown such disregard for his own safety..because he’d been so upset by what she’d done that he’d no longer cared what had happened to him? She didn’t want to believe it but the timing pointed towards it being true. Frankly, she didn’t know how it made her feel to know that he’d put his life in danger because of her actions, but it did make her see how difficult it would be to resolve their differences.
She frowned. Was that what she really wanted, though? Initially, all she’d hoped to do was draw a line under the past but, strangely, it no longer seemed enough. She’d never been someone who enjoyed being at odds with other people; it simply wasn’t in her nature. Maybe that was why she’d found it so difficult to put the whole unhappy episode behind her. It had played constantly on her mind so maybe it was time to try and end the hostilities between them, although it wouldn’t be easy, of course.
Her heart suddenly sank because the thought that she might never be able to make her peace with him was very hard to bear, for some reason.
Dinner that night turned out to be quite a convivial affair. The catering team did them proud, serving up a meal which would have put many high-class restaurants to shame. Kasey found it a little daunting at first to be thrown in at the deep end and expected to mingle. Everyone else had worked together at some point and she couldn’t help feeling like the outsider. Although she knew that she could tag along with June and the other nurses, she didn’t want to get in the way when they were obviously eager to catch up with what their friends had been doing.
In the end it was Daniel who saved the day. He took it upon himself to introduce her to everyone present and soon put her at her ease as he filled her in on people’s backgrounds. He also insisted she sit with him at dinner and regaled her with stories of other missions he’d been on so that by the end of the evening Kasey felt more
like one of the team. The only disquieting note throughout the whole evening, in fact, was that Adam ignored her. He spoke to everyone else present but made no attempt to speak to her. It was as though she didn’t exist and she had to admit that it hurt to be treated in such an off-hand fashion.
The party finally broke up around midnight. Everyone was worn out after the journey and started to drift away. Daniel begged her to stay and have a final cup of coffee with him but she refused first of all because she was tired and secondly because she didn’t want him getting the wrong idea. She liked Daniel but there was no way that she was going to risk inciting Adam’s wrath by getting romantically involved with him or anyone else.
She bade Daniel a studiedly casual goodnight and made her way across the hall. Most people had gone straight up to bed so there was nobody about. She headed towards the stairs then paused as she passed the front door. Even though she was bone-tired as well, she desperately needed a breath of fresh air before turning in for the night.
She let herself out of the hostel and walked down the path, carefully picking her way through the rubble. Like most of the buildings they’d passed on the drive from the airfield, the hostel had suffered extensive damage during the recent fighting. Kasey stopped when she reached a clump of straggly bushes and looked back at the building, trying to imagine what it must have been like for the students who’d lived there during those troubled times. It must have been awful for them, living in constant danger—
The sharp report of a rifle cracked through the still night air and she jumped. She spun round to see where the shot had come from then gasped in alarm when a figure suddenly mate-rialised out of the shadows and hurled her to the ground.
‘Let me go,’ she screamed, punching the man’s broad back with her clenched fists. ‘Let…me…go, damn you!’
‘For God’s sake, woman!’ Adam’s face suddenly loomed into view and she gulped when she realised that he was her attacker.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she snapped, glaring up at him.
‘Saving your damned life.’ He put his hand over her mouth when she went to speak. ‘Just shut up, Kasey. There’s someone out there shooting at us so this is neither the time nor the place to discuss your injured feelings.’
Kasey fell silent, not that she could have said very much with his hand clamped over her mouth. She could feel the hard pressure of his fingers on her lips and a tingle of awareness that was totally inappropriate for the seriousness of the situation scudded through her. All of a sudden she became alarmingly aware of the intimacy of their position. Adam was lying right on top of her, his broad chest squashing her breasts, his hips and thighs crushing her against the rocky ground. Every muscle in his body was rigid with tension as he drew back his head and looked around the clearing, and a small moan rushed up her throat because she could feel every single one of them.
Intimately.
Trapezius, pectoralis major, deltoid, obliquuos externus…She made herself recite the names of all those muscles from memory, hoping it would help if she focused on some basic anatomy rather than the effect they were having on her. It worked to a point until another volley of shots suddenly cracked through the air. Yelping in fear, she buried her face in his chest and wrapped her arms around him. He felt so big and solid that she clung fast, using him as her rock in an unstable world.
‘It’s OK.’ His hand strayed from her mouth and her heart leapt again when she felt his fingers gently stroking her hair. ‘They’re not firing at us. Whoever they’re aiming at is in those trees over to our left.’
His voice rumbled up from his chest and she shuddered when she felt its vibrations rippling into her. Adam obviously misunderstood her reaction because his tone deepened, taking on the soothing cadence people use with the very scared.
‘They probably don’t even know we’re here, Kasey, so all we need to do is sit tight until it’s over. OK?’
‘OK,’ she muttered in mortification, because if she’d hoped to impress him with her sang-froid under fire she’d obviously failed.
They stayed where they were for another ten minutes, although it felt a lot longer than that to her. It wasn’t just the fact that Adam was squashing her with his weight that bothered her so much, but that she was enjoying the experience. She should have loathed this kind of intimate contact with him but although her mind knew that, her body didn’t. Every time he shifted his weight, she had to make a conscious effort not to respond so that it was a relief when he finally decided the danger had passed.
‘Stay there while I check out the lie of the land,’ he instructed tersely, easing himself away from her. He cautiously stood up, keeping well back into the shadows as he looked around for the gunman.
‘He seems to have gone,’ he said at last, glancing down at her. ‘Let’s get back inside but keep your head down and stay close to the bushes just in case.’
Kasey scrambled to her feet and brushed the grit off her backside, wincing when her fingers encountered a dozen different sore spots caused by being squashed on the stony ground. Adam took another quick look around then pointed towards the path, silently indicating that she should go ahead of him.
They’d almost reached the front doors of the hostel when a man suddenly appeared from around the side of the building. Kasey didn’t have time to react as Adam grabbed hold of her and thrust her behind him, using himself as a shield in case the man had a gun, but even as they watched, the stranger dropped to his knees then slumped face down onto the ground.
‘Looks like he’s the guy who was being shot at,’ Adam shouted as he ran forward. Kasey raced after him, dropping to her knees and staring in horror at the gaping wound in the back of the young man’s right shoulder.
‘He’s been hit, and more than once, by the look of it.’ Adam pointed to the twin exit wounds caused when the bullets had torn through the flesh. ‘I’m not sure how many bullets were fired so there might be others still inside him. I’ll have to check. There’s bound to be extensive soft tissue damage, though, and possibly some damage to the shoulder joint so it’s going to take some time to sort it all out.’
‘You’re going to operate?’ she exclaimed.
‘Of course.’ He frowned. ‘Although I’m not sure where would be the best place to use. One of the bedrooms would be easiest but the lighting is too poor for this kind of intricate surgery.’
‘You mean that you’re going to operate here?’
‘Yes. It’s far too risky to take him to the hospital. Matthias warned me that we mustn’t drive around at night so we’ll have to make do with whatever facilities we have here and simply hope for the best.’
‘I see,’ she murmured, trying to get her head round what was going on. Obviously Adam was less concerned about the injured man being a terrorist than he was about saving his life, so she made herself focus on the problem of finding a suitable place to use as a makeshift operating theatre. It would need to be somewhere with decent lighting, as he’d pointed out, and it would also help if they had access to water for washing.
‘How about the dining room?’ she suggested. ‘The lighting isn’t too bad in there and we have direct access to the kitchen. We can use one of the tables as a temporary operating table, too.’
‘Good choice. Can you get everything set up while I bring him inside? I just need to stop this bleeding before I move him.’
‘Here.’ She quickly unbuttoned her blouse and handed it to him, thankful that she’d decided to wear a T-shirt underneath and was still decently covered up.
Adam chuckled as he took it from her and bound it tightly over the wound in the man’s shoulder. ‘It should have been a petticoat, by rights, of course.’
‘Like in all those old western movies? Every time someone got shot, the heroine would start ripping up her petticoat for bandages. Unfortunately, it’s not quite what the modern woman wears,’ she told him pithily, and he laughed out loud.
‘Sadly not. Jeans and a T-shirt seem to fit the bill no
wadays for most occasions.’ He smiled up at her, his green eyes sparkling with laughter, and her breath caught because the change it brought to his expression was enough to make her heart race. ‘Still, some women manage to look good no matter what they wear.’
Kasey wasn’t sure if the compliment had been aimed specifically at her or if it had been a general observation, and didn’t allow herself to speculate. There really wasn’t time to think about it right then, despite how tempting it was. She made her way back inside the hostel where she was greeted with relief by the rest of the team, who’d heard the commotion and had gathered in the hall.
She quickly explained what had happened, carefully omitting any mention of how Adam had tried to protect her after that first gunshot. However, she saw the speculation on several people’s faces when they realised that she and Adam had both been outside when the shooting had started and knew they were putting their own interpretation on the facts.
Kasey didn’t attempt to correct them—she knew it would probably make matters worse if she tried to explain that they hadn’t arranged to meet in the grounds of the hostel—but it was unsettling to know that she and Adam were being linked together like this. It was an added pressure she could have done without but, fortunately, there was too much to do to worry about it. As soon as she’d sorted out some volunteers to help, she headed for the kitchen to get everything ready.
‘We’ll use one of the tables,’ she instructed, pointing to the largest of the refectory tables. ‘If you can move it directly under the central light fitting, that would be best.’
Daniel and Alan Jones, their radiographer, immediately set to and moved the heavy table into position while she and June went to find some theatre drapes and dressings. Their equipment had been piled into one of the empty storerooms off the kitchen and it didn’t take them long to sort out what they needed. Kasey also collected a set of sterile surgical instruments, although she didn’t break open the pack but just placed it on a nearby table. Adam could open it once he was ready to operate.
The Forever Assignment Page 3