Thea stopped running, her legs suddenly sapped of strength. She shook her head, but her doubts weren’t so easily dislodged. Nor was her darkest and yet most precious secret.
Caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t realise she had run for miles in a long circuit, eventually coming to the park where Daniel had used to train. Suddenly she found herself in front of the long, steep hill on which, as a kid, she had sometimes watched him complete hill rep after hill rep before they talked about life, school, and whether anyone was bullying her. Inexorably drawn there, Thea wished she had her brother to talk to now. But then if Daniel had still been alive she wouldn’t have been in this predicament with Ben in the first place.
Unexpectedly she felt her eyes prick with tears and took a step backwards, struggling for breath. Five years and she had pretty much come to terms with losing her brother. These days it rarely caught her off guard like that.
She suspected that her earlier thoughts of Ben had a lot to do with her scattered emotions. No matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to get away from him.
Thea jerked her head up as sudden movement over the dip caught her eye. As if to prove her point, Ben came gradually into view, evidently pushing through every pain barrier. He saw her and, even from that distance the clenching of his jaw betrayed the little muscle ticcing in irritation.
‘Daniel used to train here.’ She wrapped her arms defensively across her chest as he approached.
‘Hill reps—yes. I know.’
‘You trained here together?’ Realisation dawned. ‘Daniel brought me here sometimes, to talk and to jog around the lake with him.’
‘I never thought... Of course. You miss him,’ Ben stated flatly. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude on your memories. I’ll leave you to your peace. See you back at the house, Thea.’
Abruptly Thea wondered if, like her, Ben’s memories were what had drawn him here today. To her, Ben’s accident sounded similar to what had happened to Daniel. Certainly the ambush and getting pinned down by the enemy. She wondered if Ben was feeling as disconcerted about their being back at cottage together as she was. She wasn’t sure why that made her feel a little better, but it did. It offered her a new sense of courage.
‘No—wait.’ Quickly she put a hand out to touch Ben’s arm, to stay him, but she wasn’t prepared for the jolt that fizzed through her.
Snatching her fingers swiftly away, she forced herself to meet his eyes. That wasn’t supposed to happen. It certainly wasn’t what she wanted to happen.
Still, it was proving impossible for them to live together. As much as they had tried to ignore the problem, accusations hung silently around them every time they walked into the same room. She’d been right earlier. Pretending the issues between them didn’t matter wasn’t working. At some point they would have to talk. And now, here, seemed as good a time as any.
‘Don’t leave. We both came here for a reason.’
‘This isn’t the time.’ Ben turned, ready to move away.
I think this is the time,’ Thea argued. ‘Don’t you have questions? Because I have.’
So many.
‘I know what your questions are, Thea.’ He turned slowly back, meeting her gaze head-on. ‘But I can’t give you the answers you want to hear.’
‘You don’t know what I want to hear.’
‘I think I do.’
It was like some surreal stand-off, neither of them wanting to blink first.
Across the lake a little girl threw oats onto the water. Ducks fought for them and other birds tweeted as they flew gracefully in from overhead. The little girl laughed and turned to her mother for more. She was four, maybe five. Briefly Thea wondered if that might have been her and their child, if things had been different. It all seemed so familial and idyllic—a stark contrast to the turmoil going on in her head and the thunderous pounding in her chest. It made her stand her ground all the more.
As if sensing the subtle change, Ben conceded. ‘All right—what do you want to know, Thea?
It wasn’t exactly encouraging a proper dialogue between them, but it was better than him shooting her down as he had in the past.
She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Why did you marry me, Ben?’
The words seemed to hang in the stillness of the park. Ben stopped shifting but didn’t immediately turn to face her. By the look on his face and the steel-shuttered set of his eyes it seemed his acquiescence of a moment ago had merely been his attempt to humour her.
‘You asked me what I wanted to know,’ she prompted urgently. ‘This is it.’
‘We’ve been through this. It was the only way to take care of you properly in a way the Army would accept.’
‘Yes, but then you slept with me. And ever since I’ve wondered if there was something more to your offer.’
‘I’m sorrier than you can ever imagine for that night.’ Ben gritted his teeth, disgust etched onto his features.
‘Are you?’ Thea asked desperately. ‘Only I think maybe you wanted me as much as I wanted you.’
His Adam’s apple bobbed but he said nothing for several long moments. ‘Of course I wanted you,’ he ground out at length.
‘Is that why you married me? Because even though you told me we weren’t a good match you still...obviously you didn’t love me, but lusted after me?’ She flushed red, embarrassed by the words.
‘I married you because Dan asked me to look after you and it was the only way to get Army approval,’ Ben repeated flatly. ‘He asked me to take care of you. He was my best friend. I agreed.
‘As simple as that?’ she snapped in frustration. ‘Really?’
But Ben didn’t bite back. ‘As simple as that.’
She swallowed down the sarcastic retort on her lips. What was it about Ben that had her feeling like a desperate twenty-one-year-old again? She was a successful, respected trauma doctor, so why, after five years, was it still so important to her to know if something more than just a casual promise to her brother had driven Ben to marry her? Something more emotional. The same something which had sparked between them when they’d slept together, perhaps?
Surely it hadn’t just been her imagination.
Judging by the way he shifted edgily, she was getting under his skin as much as he was getting under hers right now. Somehow it offered her some small comfort.
‘For heaven’s sake Thea.’ He tugged his hand through his hair irascibly. ‘What does this conversation gain for us? How we felt or didn’t feel—it doesn’t change anything.’
‘It does for me,’ Thea half-whispered. ‘It matters to me.’
‘Why? Why does it matter now?’
She faltered, licked her lips nervously. ‘Because in all these years you’ve never really told me what happened between you walking me home and saying how connected we were on that first date and then, almost within hours, telling me you weren’t interested.’ She had never been able to help wondering if she’d done something wrong.
The seconds ticked by between them and she was sure he must be able to hear her heart beating out of her chest.
‘Okay, I liked you,’ Ben shrugged, as if it was no big deal. As if she was no big deal. ‘But then I walked you up that driveway and Dan came to the door, bellowing his head off. The minute I realised you were his sister you were off limits, Thea. We’d just met, had one simple date—what did it matter?’
Thea shook her head. ‘It wasn’t just a simple date, though.’
Not for her—and, according to Ben, not for him either. He had been the first person she’d met who had seen through her bubbly façade to the uncertain, slightly bruised person underneath. Her brother had done an incredible job of making her feel loved, a secure and rounded person—but nothing had ever made up for losing her parents as a kid. Nothing had ever taken away the uncertainty that had brought.
Not completely.
And Ben had seen that. She’d never met anyone with whom she’d clicked so perfectly—either before or since. To someone who had perfected the art of letting people think they were getting close to her, Ben had been the first and only person who had ever slipped past her defences—effortlessly—and really got to her.
Ben shrugged, again reaching for the easiest explanation. ‘You were Dan’s sister—’
‘No,’ she interrupted. She knew what was coming and she didn’t want to hear it. ‘Not that “Buddy Code” bull you and Daniel had about not dating each other’s kid sister. Not this time. You won’t trust each other with your sisters, but you’ll trust each other with your life?’
‘Out there we’ll take a bullet for each other. It’s not a game, Thea. It’s war. Dating is the least of our problems. People die out there.’
His words were like a kick to the stomach. But she had lost too much to be fobbed off so easily.
‘You think I don’t know that soldiers die out there?’ She gasped. ‘You might have lost your best friend, Ben, but I lost my brother.’
He stared at her wordlessly for a moment, with a deathlike pallor. He gave a sharp nod, as though acknowledging her point for the first time.
‘Why don’t you ever talk about him?’ Thea asked suddenly.
He blanched, and it was like a door clicking open in her head. How was it that she’d observed Ben’s avoidance in the past but never really noticed it?
Had she missed something fundamental all this time?
‘Why don’t you ever talk about yourself?’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
He drew his lips into a thin line, refusing to be drawn by her. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him look shaken or uncertain. If she really thought about it she could only picture the determined, closed-off, emotionless Ben of the past. A picture of him pieced together after their date, their few weeks together between Ben telling her about Daniel’s death and the moment she and Ben married, and the many fragments of stories Daniel had told her about Ben.
Whatever had started this conversation, she felt the urge to push him that little bit harder before he had time to pull that impenetrable armour of his back into place. She might never get the chance again.
‘Ben?’
‘I liked you, Thea,’ he suddenly blurted out. ‘I liked you a lot. Maybe too much.’
‘What does “too much” mean?’ she asked instinctively, but Ben was already shaking his head, back-pedalling. Did it mean the Buddy Code was just an excuse—as she’d always wondered?
‘It doesn’t mean anything, ‘Ben growled. ‘Forget I said it. I just mean I thought you were incredible. But when I realised you were Dan’s sister I knew we weren’t a good match.’
‘You didn’t know anything about me.’ She frowned.
He opened his mouth, as though he had something more to say, and then the shuttered look she knew so well came down over his face.
‘You’re right—we didn’t know much about each other,’ he conceded. ‘But then I made a promise to take care of you, and that was what I intended to do.’
The moment was lost, Thea realised in despair. Whatever had made him drop his guard a few moments earlier, it was gone now.
‘So because of that promise you ended up with a wife you’d never wanted? A bad match? No wonder you abandoned me.’ Frustration tinged her words with bitterness.
‘Abandoned you?’
Ben whipped his head around to stare at her, shock clouding his handsome features. Then it was gone, and the mask of indifference was back, leaving Thea wondering if she’d imagined it.
‘When did I abandon you?’
‘The morning after our wedding. The morning after...’ She swallowed, suddenly nervous ‘...after that night.’
‘I didn’t abandon you. You told me to leave.’
‘Sorry? I did what?’ She was incredulous.
‘I did what you asked me to do.’ His voice was low, urgent. His eyes were raking desperately over her.
‘That’s ridiculous!’ she cried.
He would not wriggle out of this. But, God, it was humiliating. She’d offered herself up to him that night, convinced that there had been more to his marriage proposal, that deep down he still liked her even if he couldn’t admit it. Clearly her mistake, but if Ben had wanted to honour his promise to her brother surely he should have understood that she’d been grief-stricken and had made an enormous error of judgement? Not walked out on her, leaving her all alone.
‘You left when I needed you most. I felt alone...deserted. I’d just buried my brother. I never thought you’d leave me like that.’
‘You needed space.’
‘I needed support!’ she cried.
‘You needed someone you trusted,’ Ben countered. ‘And after we slept together you didn’t trust me. Why should you? I’d taken advantage of you when you were at your most vulnerable.’
‘You didn’t take advantage of me.’ Thea shook her head.
‘Of course I did,’ Ben spat in self-contempt. ‘You even told me that it was one of the most horrific days of your life,’ he told her.
‘You know it was,’ Thea muttered. ‘I’d just buried my brother, and yet I was getting married.’
Little wonder that her head had been a confused jumble of emotions. Even though time had passed, she still didn’t like to dwell too long on the bitter memories.
‘You told me that you’d thought us sleeping together would make it better,’ Ben recalled. ‘But that it had just made it worse.’
‘Because I’d spent those six weeks between our date and the night we slept together hoping, deep down, that you would realise your mistake in ending things. I hoped you still had feelings for me and I thought our sleeping together would help you admit it. Instead you rejected me. Again. I felt more alone than ever.’
She watched the rise and fall of his chest as he absorbed what she was telling him, part of her hoping he’d tell her that it had all been just some big misunderstanding and they could have been with each other all this time if only they’d realised.
But that was nonsense, wasn’t it? Because it hadn’t been a misunderstanding. Ben was never going to talk to her, open up to her. There was some element of survivor’s guilt too, which she couldn’t afford to underestimate. But ultimately Ben would never be able to open up to her, talk to her about his emotions.
No misunderstanding could change that.
And what about her? She’d idolised Ben even before she’d ever met him, having fallen in love with the incredible war stories of him as brave hero which Daniel had told her growing up. In her head Ben had already been extraordinary. So even if he had been able to talk to her and reveal his weaknesses would she have actually listened? Would she ever have allowed him the hopes, the fears, the disappointments of any ordinary man?
Thea couldn’t be sure. Unlike Ben, who hadn’t known her when they’d met that first night and gone on that first date, she had known exactly who Ben was. So in some way perhaps she’d brought this on herself.
Not that she could ever admit that to Ben. If he ever realised that she’d known who he was that first time they’d met and not told him he would think she’d been manipulative, that her actions had been deliberate. But they hadn’t. At worst she’d been naive, even foolish, but she had never intended anyone to get hurt.
When she’d first seen him walk into that club with his friends she’d been drawn to him, but she hadn’t realised why. Not at first. She’d watched him for a while, liking the way he interacted with his group. He’d seemed as if was having fun, but he hadn’t been rowdy, like some of the guys she’d known. She’d watched several girls approach him, and although he’d been friendly enough he hadn’t seemed overly interested in any of them.
When he’d gone to the bar she’d taken her opportunity and slipped through the crowd to join him. The ease with which they’d struck up a conversation had seemed like a sign. Even when she’d found out his name she hadn’t put two and two together, but as the evening had worn on she’d found their instant attraction developing quickly into something more—in one evening she had known she really liked him.
It had only been later that night—when he’d mentioned excusing himself from his Army buddies—that she’d asked him about his job and suddenly realised why he’d seemed so familiar to her, why she’d felt so instantly at ease in his company. She’d seen him before—in a rare photo Dan had from an early tour in Afghanistan.
Dan had told her so many stories about Ben as hero that when she’d seen him walk in—even though she might not have realised it—she’d already known he was a good guy. More than just a good guy. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to spoil the evening or have it come to an abrupt end by telling him she was Daniel’s sister. She’d already liked him too much to risk him walking away before he had taken the time to get to know her.
Yes, she’d been foolish and naive, caught up in the myth of ‘Ben the Hero’, but she hadn’t deliberately set out to deceive anyone.
Putting Ben on a pedestal, idolising him—that had been no basis for a stable marriage. And if he hadn’t walked out on her she might never have realised how truly strong she was, how much she could achieve. She might never have become the successful, respected doctor that she was today.
In some perverse way she should be grateful to him for abandoning her. For not loving her. It was a good thing. But it didn’t feel like that.
She’d moved on a long time ago, so why did it feel as though a childhood dream, a girlish fantasy, had just died? That things were never going to be the same again? She had wanted to see Ben through his recovery in order to gain closure, but she’d never expected to gain it this way.
Well, she almost had closure—she still needed to tell him about the baby. Their baby.
But not today. Another day. When she was feeling stronger.
The Army Doc's Secret Wife Page 8