The Army Doc's Secret Wife

by Charlotte Hawkes

  Suddenly Ben pulled back from her, leaving her feeling momentarily bereft, before she realised he had lifted his jumper and tee over his head in one movement and now stood, unmoving and wordless, in front of her. Slowly she took in the long, thin scars which circled his arm, from where it had been reattached, the thick, circular splodge of a scar under his armpit, from where the surgeons had entered his chest cavity, and the criss-cross of scars over various parts of his torso from where metal debris and bullets had grazed his skin. Silvery and light in some places and angry red welts in others.

  Her raw sadness was dulled slightly, somewhat eased by the enormity of the step Ben had taken in letting her see them. She took them all in, her eyes raking from one to another to another and back. Finally she took a step forward, reaching a tentative hand out to touch them, half expecting him to pull away, surprised when her fingers ran softly over his skin and still he didn’t reject her. But his body was taut, his apprehension spilling out in his body language, and Thea longed to set him at ease.

  Dipping her head down, she only hesitated for a fraction of a second before letting her lips make contact with the damaged skin. She dropped little kisses at first, becoming bolder when he remained motionless, his hands clenched by his sides as if he was fighting an internal battle. She trailed kisses down the criss-crosses, lower and lower, until they dipped out of sight beneath the waistband of his jeans.

  She leaned back to look at him in silent question. Was he ready to trust her completely?

  His hands moved to unbutton the jeans, stilling as she covered them with her own, her eyes never leaving his as she stripped him of the rest of his clothing. Finally he was standing naked and proud in front of her, the trust she had wanted at last in evidence. As well as something more.

  Sensing her ultimate capitulation, Ben pulled Thea to him and swept her into his arms as he lowered them both quickly to the rug. Despite herself, Thea knew that tonight was about losing themselves in each other. Masking the grief they were both feeling. In some ways she could see Ben’s actions as progress. But what was driving them might be a step forward, or it might be another scurry backwards.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BEN CONCENTRATED ON the slope, acutely aware of Thea skiing so close next to him, acutely aware of everything she was dong. After last night things should have been good between them. Better than good. He had finally trusted her enough to let her see his scars—the unmistakable evidence that he’d survived a war which had indiscriminately taken the lives of others. Taken the life of Dan.

  But showing Thea those scars was only part of it. He bore other scars. Scars which couldn’t be seen. Emotional scars from the bomb blast, from Dan’s death, and until he let Thea see those—as incredible as the sex had been between them—there was no shaking the truth that things had happened out of sequence. As a result of raw emotions. And they both knew that.

  Thea’s revelation about their baby had sent him reeling. Last night it had been an incredible shock. But in the cold light of day the shock was receding and he felt as though a hollow emptiness was tearing a hole inside him. How could you miss something, feel such pain and loss, for a baby you had never even known about? And yet he felt as though he was grieving that, too.

  Somehow Thea’s secret had given him the excuse of avoiding telling her about Dan—yet again. But he knew that until that final obstacle was removed, once and for all, there could be no future for them.

  He hurtled around a bend, lost in his thoughts, until a movement in the next valley caught his eye.

  ‘Are you trying to kill us?’

  Thea almost skidded into a snowbank as she edged her skis hard into the ice to avoid a collision. Breathing hard from her exertions, she made her way up to him, her voice loaded with shock.

  ‘Look over there,’ he instructed, ignoring her fury. Then, as she failed to react to his order, he moved to stand behind her, lining up her eyes with his arm. ‘Across the valley.’

  It didn’t take her long to realise what he was trying to show her.

  ‘An avalanche.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘And a skier? What’s he even doing there?’

  ‘From the bright yellow jacket, I’d hazard a guess he’s Mountain Patrol, checking the slopes. He’ll probably be okay.’

  ‘Right...’ Thea nodded, watching the skilled skier racing down the piste, trying to outrun the avalanche. There was a gap in the treeline to the side of the piste, which he was clearly aiming for, and Thea watched as the patroller reached the gap and practically did a one-eighty turn on his pole to drop back on himself, off the piste and onto the narrow, tree-free path twenty feet below, just as the avalanche thundered by above.

  She exhaled a whoosh of relief, but even as she did so the skier either caught a hidden rock or slid on the ice. He had fallen, and was now hurtling down the slope on his stomach, his skis flying into the air with frightening sprays of snow.

  ‘He’s not going to be able to stop himself!’ cried Thea as the skier headed straight towards a wooded embankment.

  Sixty feet into the slide, the skier slammed straight into a tree—head-first.

  Time stopped for Ben, and it was as if his surroundings spun around him. Snow, desert, skis, tanks, bodies. He ripped his snowboard off and threw it into the webbing on his back. Through the fug in his head he vaguely heard Thea scream at him, but her words were indistinguishable. Something about a death wish. At some point she might have grabbed his arm, but he threw her off without a glance and then he was jumping down the steep embankment, letting himself fall and fall into the valley, hoping he’d land on soft snow and not hard rocks.

  Wading through thigh-deep snow, he felt his back screaming at him, already on fire, but he ignored the pain and pushed on towards the immobile body. His mind kept switching the figure of the skier on the snowy slopes for Dan, bleeding out on the rocky mountainside. There was no way he could leave him there.

  He had no idea how long the interminable trek across the valley took. The relief when he finally reach the skier and saw the man had his eyes open was indescribable. The guy was alive. Even better, the man’s eyes widened slightly upon seeing him. A trickle of relief crept down Ben’s spine. At least it meant the man still had some cognitive function.

  ‘Don’t try to nod or shake your head. Try not to move at all for the moment. If you can’t talk, just blink.’

  ‘I can talk,’ the man rasped, clearly having trouble breathing.

  ‘Okay, that’s good. I was on the run down the mountain to the village and I saw everything. I’m Ben, by the way. Can you remember what happened to you?’

  ‘Ben...okay. I’m Tomas. I was patrolling the unmarked slopes, looking for any extreme skiers. I triggered a snow slide and I was trying to outrun it. I thought I dropped down safely...but maybe I fell? I don’t recall much after that.’

  ‘Good—that’s good.’ Ben nodded encouragingly. ‘Can you move your arms and legs?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Tomas was clearly having trouble concentrating. ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘A trauma surgeon.’ Ben nodded again.

  ‘Both of you?’

  Ben froze as Tomas’s gaze lifted to just over his right shoulder. He turned slowly but he already knew what he was going to find. Thea, white-faced but resolute, stood behind him. His stomach slid away in fear. She’d only come because of him. If she got hurt it would be his fault.

  He moved away so Tomas wouldn’t hear him.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he hissed. ‘You could have killed yourself.’

  ‘No more than you could have,’ she countered angrily. ‘You shouldn’t have come over here. You know the snow is probably unstable. There was a heavy snowfall last night, and it must have landed on a layer of compact ice. The whole lot is probably ready to slide at any moment. You could be just the provocation it needs.’

 
Fear clawed at him. ‘Dammit, Thea, if anything happens to you I’ll never forgive myself.’

  ‘Then you’d better hope nothing does happen to me.’ Thea jutted her chin out determinedly, but inside she was shaking. ‘I couldn’t just leave you to it, Ben. Odds are it’ll need two of us to stabilise him. Then I’ll ski down to the town.’

  ‘You need to get out of here,’ he argued in desperation. ‘You know how time-critical this is.’

  ‘It’s only time-critical if there’s a stable patient,’ countered Thea. ‘It wouldn’t matter how fast I got down there if you can’t stabilise him. He wouldn’t live long enough for rescue to arrive.’

  She had a point. Ben shook his head, hardly daring to say another word.

  Sensing she was gaining ground, Thea pushed her point home. ‘We’re the eyes and ears for the local trauma unit. The more information we can gather and pass on, the more pinpointed their subsequent care can be.’

  His glower raked over her. He looked exhausted and scared.

  ‘You’ve got some nerve...’ His voice shook but he said nothing more.

  He turned back to the skier.

  ‘Tomas, our priority right now is to get you comfortable while we assess your injuries.’

  Tomas fought to draw a deep breath. ‘I was sliding, and then I remember a hot, searing pain travelling from my head to my toes.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ben confirmed. ‘You hit a tree—good job you were wearing a helmet. So, have you got your patrol two-way radio?’

  ‘Should be in my pocket... If you call in, they can send another patroller with a toboggan. Then they can take me to a landing zone a bit further down, where a chopper can land to medevac me.’

  Ben checked Tomas’s pockets, then looked at Thea. The radio had been lost in the slide.

  ‘Tomas did have a toboggan though,’ Thea murmured quietly.

  ‘Understood.’ Ben nodded. ‘Okay, Tomas, I’m just going to pinch your thigh—you tell me if you can feel it.’

  ‘No...’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘But I think I can move my hands.’

  Ben watched carefully as only two fingers on one of Tomas’s hands twitched. Thea cast him a sinking look, they needed to stabilise Tomas fast and go for help.

  Thea kept her voice deliberately neutral, clearly not wanting to lie to the man but needing to offer some reassurance. ‘There is some visible movement—try not to worry. I’m just going to prep you for when they arrive with the full transport.’

  She had barely finished speaking when Tomas went into cardiac arrest.

  Uttering low curses, they started chest compressions, relieved when Tomas came back relatively quickly.

  ‘Wait, there’s his rucksack,’ Thea spied suddenly. She waded through the snow and retrieved a small pouch, opening it... ‘Space blanket, water camel, emergency medical kit—that’s something.’

  Before Ben could answer Tomas went into cardiac arrest again, and with barely a glance between them they resumed their places to work together. It took longer this time, and the look Thea cast him confirmed Ben’s apprehension.

  They made Tomas comfortable before carefully retreating a small distance.

  ‘He won’t cope with continually going into cardiac arrest,’ Ben murmured. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s the paralysis which is causing the problem. I think it’s causing his diaphragm to stop rising and falling and that’s what’s knocking his heart out.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ Thea nodded. ‘But there’s nothing here to help him breathe in the interim, is there?’

  Ben paused. ‘Maybe...’

  She followed his eyes to the water camel.

  ‘It’s not ideally sterile, but the long tube could be put into cold snow to harden it slightly.’

  Thea grunted, not keen. ‘Might be hard to intubate without a sedative but he will need to be stable enough for me to go for help.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing else for it,’ Ben confirmed. ‘If Tomas goes into cardiac arrest a third time we’ll use the opportunity to intubate before starting compressions.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘If we can’t get Mountain Rescue to Tomas, we’ll just have to get Tomas to them,’ Ben ground out.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Find his rescue toboggan. He had it right up until the last moment. It can’t be far away.’

  It was a long shot, but they both searched the landscape in silence.

  ‘Over there,’ Thea cried out.

  Ben swung around, following the direction of her outstretched arm. The toboggan wasn’t too far away, but the slope wasn’t a used one and the snow didn’t look bedded in.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he commanded as Thea edged her skis towards the slope, preparing to ski up the mountain. ‘I’ll go. You stay here with Tomas.’

  Thea shook her head. ‘I have skis. I can side-slip up there. If I feel the snow start to give, I can ski out of there before the slide starts. You only have a snowboard—you can’t do it the same way.’

  ‘Makes no difference.’ He shook his head.

  She snorted, half-angry, half-frustrated. ‘Of course it makes a difference. What makes your life any less valuable than mine? No—don’t answer that. Like you said, this whole thing is time-critical. I need to go, and you need to get back to Tomas in case he arrests again.’

  Before Ben could say anything else she was off, carefully edging up the mountain, step by step, until she could traverse across to the toboggan. She knew he wanted to stop her, wanted to send her for help, but he also had to know that she was right. If they wanted to save Tomas and give the man any chance at a halfway decent recovery then they needed to get that toboggan.

  He stood and watched her for several moments, inching very carefully up the treacherous slope, her heart in her mouth. She was relieved when his focus had to be split between the man lying on the snow in front of him and her, as she inched her way further and further into danger. She knew he’d be worried that she was too far away for him to do anything about it if something went wrong. This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted her here. It was also exactly why she hadn’t wanted him here. But he hadn’t listened to her. She didn’t think he’d even registered her.

  Her heart hammering, she reached the toboggan and dug its metal arms out of the snow. Then, pulling it behind her, she skied carefully back down to Ben and Tomas. Ben practically snatched the handles out of her hands.

  ‘How is he?’ She kept her voice low.

  ‘Slipping in and out of consciousness,’ Ben murmured. ‘We need to get him down.’

  ‘Right.’ She checked the rucksack she’d recovered. ‘We can stabilise his neck, then get the scoop around him.’

  Working quickly and carefully, they manoeuvred Tomas into position. He was barely conscious, and they could feel time slipping through their fingers.

  ‘You need to ski into town now,’ he told her when they were finished. ‘Be sure to stay well ahead of us in case the toboggan dislodges anything and it rolls down to you. Thea, remember this isn’t a designated slope—it isn’t safe. Be careful.’

  She frowned. ‘Wait—you’re on foot?’

  Ben shrugged, and she realised that of course it wasn’t as though he could pull the toboggan on his snowboard. Quickly releasing herself from her skis, she circled around him to grab his board from the webbing he’d thrown on to the snow earlier.

  ‘I’ll take the snowboard—you take my skis.’

  ‘You can’t snowboard,’ Ben objected irritably.

  ‘No—I don’t enjoy it as much as skiing. Doesn’t mean I can’t. I’ll get down faster than if I’m trying to ski through the snow anyway. And there’s no way you can walk and pull a toboggan.’

  ‘That’s an impossible maze of trees and rocks to try to navigate,’ he argued.

  ‘An
d I won’t be trying to do it whilst pulling a seriously injured man on a scoop.’

  He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I just want you off this dangerous slope. I want you safe. I don’t want an argument keeping you on this damned mountain any longer.’

  ‘So put on the skis and do what I’m suggesting.’ She stood her ground.

  ‘Fine.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘Thanks.’

  She flipped the board around, clipped her ski boots in, and started off slowly down the wooded, rock-littered slope, trying to quell the rising terror. How was Ben possibly going to navigate it without causing more injury to Tomas? Alone, with only his ghosts to keep him company?

  All along he had refused to entertain the idea of losing the skier. It meant more to him than just the rescue that it was. She’d seen the haunted look that had veiled his eyes the moment he’d seen the skier lying prone on the snow. Another of those PTSD triggers...

  Thea wondered if he would ever be able to open up to her about that darkness he carried with him. She wanted to help him, but she wasn’t sure she could. Not until he wanted to help himself. She had a feeling that unless he did there was no hope of a future for them together.

  Tonight she was going to push him. Tonight would be his final chance to let her in.

  Lost in her thoughts, she was down the mountain safely before she realised it. She raced to the Mountain Rescue centre and alerted the team. Then, explaining she was a trauma doctor, she convinced them to let her on the helicopter to show them where she and Ben had agreed their Emergency Rendezvous point would be.

  Finally, she spotted him, painstakingly picking his way through the trees, near to the lower treeline and close to where the helicopter was now landing. Ben approached them smoothly, quickly, his body betraying nothing of his own pain. But Thea knew his body had been pushed too far today. However there was no disguising his fury at her return as she jumped down from the chopper.