by Anne Fraser
They had more in common than Luke could possibly know.
‘How’s the leg?’ Nick asked.
‘It’s good. I limp a little when I’m tired, but apart from that...’ Luke closed the case notes and studied Nick thoughtfully. ‘I’m sure you’re aware that you have some left-sided weakness. I see you had an injury to your spine a few years ago and that there was some shrapnel that the surgeons decided it was safer not to remove. I think we should do an MR scan.’
Nick shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ The weakness was barely noticeable and certainly wasn’t hindering his ability to do his job. But once people started poking around, who knew what would happen?
Luke folded his arms and returned his stare steadily. ‘Lieutenant Colonel Casey, I want to thank you for saving my life and my leg. I always regretted that I never got a chance back then. But the best way I can thank you is by looking after you the best way I can.’
Nick raised himself on his elbows. ‘If you really want to thank me, Doctor, get me the hell out of here.’
CHAPTER FOUR
THAT NIGHT TIGGY barely slept. It had been a shock seeing Nick in the hospital looking so helpless. He’d always been so alive—so vital. How could he have risked his life to save someone he didn’t know? But that was Nick all over. He had always done whatever he needed to do to save the lives of his men—and damn the consequences. And wasn’t that part of the reason she had fallen in love with him in the first place?
The day she’d realised she was falling in love with Nick was forever imprinted in her memory.
* * *
Back then there had still been a truce of sorts between the locals and the army and they hadn’t been very busy. At least, not since the two badly injured soldiers had been brought in. In the weeks that had followed most of the patients they’d treated had been locals presenting themselves at the clinic with the same sort of injuries Tiggy had experienced in her A and E department: burns; broken bones; car accidents; as well as the usual bugs and infections. Every now and again there would be a shout and injured soldiers would be brought in requiring the staff’s full attention, but in between there had been plenty of time off to socialise.
To her surprise, Nick had kept seeking her out, although she had gone out of her way to avoid him. Then one day the team had been called out to a medevac case.
Nick was already putting on his flak jacket when Tiggy, early for her shift, arrived in the department.
‘Where’s Sue?’ he asked.
‘Still in the shower. Why?’
‘Damn. The night staff are busy in Theatre or in the wards and I need a nurse to come on a retrieval. There’s been some trouble in one of the villages. There might be multiple casualties.’
‘I’ll come.’
Nick shook his head. ‘You’re not regular army.’
‘But I am a nurse.’
When Nick hesitated, Tiggy continued, ‘The night shift are due to go off duty when they finish, and the day shift aren’t on yet. However, I’m here, qualified and ready to go.’
‘Going out to retrieve patients isn’t part of your remit. I don’t have time to argue, Tiggy.’
‘In that case, don’t.’
She picked up the nurse’s bag and her flak jacket.
Nick frowned and glanced around as if he could conjure up a nurse out of thin air. Anyone but her. But not even he could do the impossible.
‘Okay. But don’t even think of getting off the ’copter. Understood?’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ She grinned and saluted him.
But as reality sank in—she’d be going in a helicopter, for God’s sake, and flying into a hot zone—her excitement was replaced with nauseating adrenaline. Luckily, before terror gripped her completely, she found herself in the back of the Chinook alongside Nick. He picked up a pair of noise defenders and, pushing her curls under her Kevlar helmet, placed them on her ears.
‘We’ll speak through the mike from now on. Only talk when you have something to say.’
Tiggy had been in a Chinook during training so she knew that the helicopter was fitted out like a mini casualty unit with everything they needed to keep a soldier alive until they got him back to base.
However, in training there hadn’t been soldiers armed with machine guns hanging out the doors. She shuddered.
When they took off, the helicopter’s nose pointed sharply downwards and for one horrified moment Tiggy thought it was going to plummet to the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut.
‘You okay?’ Nick’s disembodied voice came through her earpiece.
She opened her eyes slowly and managed a nod.
He studied her. ‘You’re terrified of flying, yet you volunteered to come?’
‘Not going to let it get the better of me,’ she replied through gritted teeth.
He grinned and touched his helmet in a mock salute. He covered the mike with his hand and bent towards her. ‘You’re something else, you know that? You have some guts.’
‘I’m bloody terrified,’ she yelled back.
‘Hey, don’t you know that doing something when you’re scared is the true test of bravery?’
He was right. She might be scared out of her wits but she was there. The realisation calmed her and somehow the flight wasn’t so terrifying after that. Ten minutes later they were touching down.
‘Stay here,’ Nick said again, before leaping out of the helicopter and following the soldiers in a crouched position as they ran towards what once must have been a house and was now a pile of rubble.
After what seemed like hours but could only have been minutes, the soldiers returned with the casualty.
As the stretcher was lifted on board, Nick jumped in and the helicopter rose steeply and headed off back in the direction from which they’d come.
But the injured man wasn’t a soldier. It was a young Afghan, who was bleeding from a head wound.
She hooked him up to the monitor and glanced at Nick.
‘Head injury, Glasgow coma scale of seven,’ she said quietly. ‘Not good.’
‘Where to, Major?’ The pilot’s voice came through the headphones. ‘I’m assuming the local hospital?’
‘No. Head for base,’ Nick replied.
‘Is that an order, sir?’ the pilot said. ‘You are aware that’s contrary to standing instructions?’ Tiggy knew it was standard practice to take civilian casualties to the local hospital, but they were badly equipped and understaffed. This boy needed the expertise and resources he’d only get back at the camp.
‘I know what the damn standing orders are,’ Nick said tersely, ‘but this man will die unless he’s treated by us. While I’m on board, where we go is my decision.’
Tiggy sucked in a breath. Nick could be in deep trouble for disobeying orders.
He looked up and caught her eye. Unbelievably, he winked. ‘Never have been one for doing what I’m told.’ He grinned. ‘Now, Nurse, let’s do what we have to do to keep this man alive.’
And it was then, at that precise moment, that Tiggy knew. She was falling in love with Major Nick Casey.
CHAPTER FIVE
THANKFULLY, PAEDIATRIC A and E was quiet, with no more than a few colds and sniffles and the odd sprained or broken limb. For once, Tiggy worked on autopilot and somehow managed to get through her shift. She was just about to leave when one of the nurses held out the phone.
‘Call for you. It’s a Dr Blackman from the Royal London.’
Tiggy’s heart froze. Had Nick relapsed? It was always possible after a head injury.
Her hands were shaking so badly she could hardly hold the phone.
‘Mrs Casey,’ Luke said, ‘don’t worry, the LC is not in any immediate danger, but I think it would be a good idea if we talked. He’d probably have my head if he knew I was contacting you again but, in my opinion, Nick is going to need all the help he can get.’
Tiggy closed her eyes. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Dr Blackman to go to hell and take Nick with him. But of course she cou
ldn’t.
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
Thirty minutes later she was sitting opposite Luke, trying to focus on what he was saying. Something about an operation...
‘But Nick’s okay?’
‘Yes and no. He’s up in the surgical ward. When we did the MR scan we discovered an old injury.’
‘What kind of injury?’
‘Two years ago, the LC was in a convoy when an IED exploded under the truck in front of him. He and his men managed to get out of their truck and the LC was going towards the injured men when the insurgents, who’d been waiting in a ditch by the side of the road, opened fire.’
Tiggy’s mouth was so dry it felt as if her tongue was stuck to its roof. Was Nick determined to kill himself one way or another? ‘What happened to him?’
‘He took some shrapnel. He was wearing his Kevlar vest, otherwise he’d be dead for sure.’
‘Oh, God!’ Her heart catapulted at the thought of Nick being injured and her not even knowing.
‘He was in Intensive Care for two weeks. But luckily, like most men in the army, he’s as strong as an ox. Regular soldiers are so fit that if they survive the initial assault to their bodies they heal remarkably quickly. The LC seemed to make a full recovery.’
‘Seemed? I’m afraid I don’t understand.’
‘There was a piece of shrapnel close to his spinal cord. To remove it could have caused paralysis. Where it was, it wasn’t doing any harm, so the operating surgeons decided on balance to leave it.’
She shook her head. ‘But why am I here? I think Nick has made it perfectly clear he doesn’t want me involved in his care so I’m afraid you’re going to have to spell it out.’
‘The piece of shrapnel the surgeons left has moved. When he was in A and E we put him through the usual battery of neurological exams. Although he tried to hide it, we picked up some weakness in his left side. After we applied a little verbal pressure...’ Luke frowned and Tiggy guessed it had to have been more than a little pressure ‘...the LC admitted that he started having headaches and some left-sided weakness a couple of months ago. I persuaded him to go for a scan. He was pretty reluctant, but eventually he agreed after I threatened to call the GMC if he didn’t.’
Tiggy almost smiled. Nothing had changed. Nick had always been a law unto himself. ‘So you’re wondering whether to operate?’
‘That’s what I’m recommending, but he won’t listen to me.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I thought you might be able to persuade him. I know I’m going out on a limb here, but I owe the LC big time. He saved my life, you know.’
Tiggy leaned forward. ‘Tell me.’
‘Ten years ago, I was a soldier in the US army. We were doing a joint manoeuvre with the British. Out of the blue everything went to hell. One of my buddies was hit. We were pinned down behind some walls and Brad was in one of the deserted houses. We knew he’d been hit, but nobody could get to him. We never leave a man down, so I thought I would fetch him.’
The smile he gave was fleeting and Tiggy knew there was a lot more he wasn’t saying. ‘LC Casey—he was Major Casey back then—was the platoon doctor with the Brits. I didn’t know it, but he was already there with Brad.’
All at once, it came to Tiggy.
‘You were the American with the bleeding femoral artery.’
‘You know about that?’
‘Not from Nick. He never spoke about it but he couldn’t stop the story passing into camp folklore. I still don’t see how I can help. Nick never listened to me in the past so I doubt he’s going to start now. Besides, you saw how he was yesterday. He couldn’t have made it clearer that he doesn’t want me involved.’
Luke placed his elbows on his knees and leaned closer. ‘I also heard the way he was calling for you when he was barely conscious. In my experience, nobody calls out for someone like that if they mean nothing.’
Nick calling for her didn’t make sense. Apart from sending her the divorce papers to sign, Nick hadn’t tried to contact her in six years. He’d walked away from her, and their marriage, as if she’d meant nothing.
‘You have to try,’ Luke continued. ‘If we don’t remove that shrapnel he could become completely paralysed. Worst-case scenario, he could die.’
Tiggy jumped to her feet and started pacing. Didn’t Luke know what he was asking was a waste of time? She was the last person Nick would listen to.
‘Does he know you’ve contacted me again?’
‘No.’ Luke’s lips twitched. ‘In fact, he told me if I did, he would make sure I never worked again. Or words to that effect.’
‘Then I don’t know what I can do. I wish I could help. But apart from yesterday I haven’t seen my husband for six years.’
‘Please, Mrs Casey. Give it a try at least.’
Tiggy sighed. Her insides felt like a washing machine. Of course she had to give it a try. Whatever had happened between Nick and herself, she couldn’t sit back and do nothing.
She got to her feet. ‘What are we waiting for?’
* * *
She picked him out straight away. He was playing cards with a group of men in the centre of the ward and his height meant that even sitting down he towered above the other men. She wondered if the game they were playing was poker. If it was, no doubt Nick would be fleecing his fellow patients.
As if he felt her presence, he looked up.
They’d removed the bandage from his head and now that he was up and no longer attached to monitors, she could get a proper look at him.
His hair was longer than when she’d last seen him and he had more lines than she remembered. Two deep grooves bracketed his mouth.
But it was his eyes that made her catch her breath. They were empty, almost entirely devoid of emotion. Whatever Luke said, whatever she’d imagined, Nick felt nothing for her, not any more.
A lump of ice took up residence in her chest.
Nick said a few words to his fellow card-players, stood up and started towards them. Although he was trying to hide it, he couldn’t quite disguise his limp.
‘What the hell are you doing back here?’ he growled, glaring at her.
So her intuition had been right. Yesterday hadn’t been an aberration. He didn’t want to see her.
It took every ounce of her willpower not to back away from his fury. God only knew how, but she managed to keep her voice even. ‘Hello to you too, Nick.’
He turned cold eyes on Luke. ‘Did you contact her? Because I remember explicitly telling you that I refused to give my permission. I could have you up in front of the GMC for this.’
‘I see a blow to the head hasn’t changed you,’ Tiggy said mildly, although her heart was beating like a drum against her ribs.
‘I want you to leave,’ Nick said flatly. Had this man ever looked at her as if she were the most precious thing in the world? ‘In case you’ve forgotten, we’re no longer married.’
‘Actually, Nick, in case you’ve forgotten, we are still married. And I’m still your next of kin.’
His mouth settled into the hard, stubborn line she had come to know so well. ‘It doesn’t matter what it says on a piece of paper I’m able to make my own decisions.’
‘Why don’t we all sit down?’ Luke said, apparently oblivious to the tension that fizzed between them.
Looking capable of picking Tiggy up and carrying her outside himself, Nick reluctantly led the way across to his bed. When Tiggy went to help him, he shrugged her away.
‘I’m afraid, Lieutenant Colonel,’ Luke said, ‘we’re not convinced that you can make rational decisions. If you were, you’d see that an operation is essential.’
Nick turned the full force of his fury on Luke. ‘I’d like a word with my wife,’ he ground out, emphasising the last two words with heavy sarcasm.
Luke glanced from Nick to Tiggy as if he too wasn’t sure of what Nick would do if left to his own devices. Then he shook his head. ‘Sure. I have patients I want to look in on. I’ll be back in a while.’<
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Nick waited until Luke was out of hearing. ‘As I said, Tiggy, I don’t want you here. My health is not your concern.’
Tiggy folded her arms. ‘That’s tough. I’m not going anywhere. God, Nick, why didn’t you tell me you’d been badly injured? You were in Intensive Care and you didn’t even let me know!’
But was she really surprised? Two years after they’d married Nick had stopped talking to her about the important stuff.
‘What difference would it have made? Our marriage was—is—over.’
‘I’m not likely to forget that,’ she retorted. ‘Look, Nick, I’m here now. Can’t we at least be civil to each other?’
He glared at her but she refused to look away. Suddenly the grim line of his mouth softened and when he smiled she caught a glimpse of the Nick she had first known and her insides melted. ‘Sorry. Of course.’ He dragged a hand across the stubble on his cheek. ‘Forgive me.’
As he turned away to take something from his locker, she studied him more carefully. He may have changed, but he still made her catch her breath. She still remembered the feel of him, remembered every inch of his body, the hard muscles of his abdomen, his long legs and powerful thighs, the feel of his fingertips on her skin, the planes of his face under hers. She bit back a groan and closed her eyes.
Six years, and he still made her pulse race. Six years since she’d seen him and one glance was enough for her to know she’d never got him out of her head. She should get the hell away from him—simply walk out the door. Not just walk—run as fast as her legs could carry her.
‘Okay, now we’ve caught up, thanks for the visit.’ Nick shifted in his seat. Clearly his leg was causing him some discomfort.
‘It’s started,’ she said softly, ‘hasn’t it? The paralysis Luke was talking about. Oh, Nick...’ He’d been a triathlete in the past and had always been so fit. She knew how much he’d hate not being in peak physical condition.
His eyes were cool. ‘It’s a little stiff, that’s all. Comes from getting in a fight, I guess.’
‘And as for fighting in the street, what were you thinking? They could have had knives. God, you could have been killed.’