Tempted by Dr. Off-Limits

by Charlotte Hawkes

  Last night had been perfect, like a dream he’d never expected to experience. He’d never felt so connected, so at ease with anyone before. But it was just an illusion. A woman he’d met in a bar. For her, he was a means of putting something between her and her failed engagement. For him, a last indulgence before yet another tour of duty. Not that he begrudged it, he loved his career. It was who he was.

  Or at least it was the good part of who he was.

  Fitz stared at the phone number in his hands. What was he thinking? This hadn’t been a first date. Yes, he dated occasionally, but only women who knew the score from the start. Women who agreed from the start. And he ended it as soon as they began to start talking seriously. And for good reason. He was incapable of loving selflessly. He was damaged, and he hurt people. He’d tried to love when he’d found Janine, but even with her he hadn’t been able to make that part of his soul work again. Hurting someone as lovely as Elle would be inevitable if he was selfish enough to pursue her. Worse, it was dangerous, because he couldn’t shake the feeling that she would challenge every rule he had for himself.

  He would never have set aside his meticulously planned schedule of going in early this morning for any other woman. Not for a croissant and a coffee, and not to spend that last hour in their company talking about long-buried emotions.

  Ripping the paper from the pad, he screwed it into a tight ball and launched it into the bin, and still he had to force himself to leave Elle’s room without a backward glance.

  * * *

  The soft sound of the door closing finally woke Elle. She sat up, the bed sheet clutched tightly to her constricting chest as she stared around the empty suite with fresh eyes. One night with Fitz and now the hotel room, which had felt like a pleasant refuge for the last few nights, suddenly felt cold and lonely.

  She felt cold and lonely.

  Dropping the sheet and sliding out of the bed, Elle shook the notion roughly from her head. Last night had been a one-night stand. But as wonderful, as incredible as it had been, it had just been that. One night. No strings. No regrets.

  Padding around the suite, Elle forced herself to concentrate on the mundane. To clean her teeth, to get her shower, to dry her hair. But everything felt different. She felt different. She sat at the dressing-table mirror and stared at her reflection, almost disappointed that she didn’t look different too. How could it be that she looked exactly the same as she had last night when inside her it felt as though she had undergone such a seismic shift?

  Part of her expected Fitz to walk back in any moment. After the way they’d connected, how was it possible for him to walk away without a second thought? Almost on autopilot, she ran the brush through her hair and chased it with the hairdryer, trying not to remember with such startling clarity the way Fitz had run his fingers through her hair, telling her how beautiful it was, how beautiful she was, bit by bit restoring every bit of confidence that Stevie’s actions had knocked out of her. Maybe even more.

  Elle wasn’t quite sure when or how her brain registered the pen and notepaper, no longer at the back of the table where they’d been her entire stay. Her eyes scanned the room for anything she’d missed but she saw nothing and then, almost instinctively, she glanced over to look into the waste basket. It was empty but for one screwed-up ball of white paper. Her heart slammed inside her chest as she stared, immobile. Slowly, very slowly, she reached out with one trembling hand and retrieved the paper.

  Now what?

  She willed herself to open it but instead sat, her back ramrod straight, her fingers quivering, gazing at the little white ball, unable to act. It might not say anything. It might say something that would spoil the night before. A tiny voice warned her that she might be better dropping it back in the basket and leaving well alone.

  The voice was probably right, but she found she simply couldn’t. With painstaking precision she smoothed the page and scanned the phone number, her fingers tracing the letters of his name almost of their own volition.

  Then, abruptly, her brain roared into life and she screwed the paper back up.

  It was a relief to know that he had felt that same connection she had, and he’d been as seduced by it as she had. But then he’d recognised it for what it was. A snapshot. A perfect moment in a perfect night.

  Last night she’d been crazy and impulsive, like a role an actor played for a movie. But that wasn’t who she was in real life. She wasn’t carefree or daring, she was steadfast and focused, a major, a combat doctor in the British army. However perfect last night had seemed, it had been built on foundations that were little more than illusions, and she couldn’t help the stab of guilt at her part in that.

  But what was done was done. Last night had been about getting closure on a relationship that had actually died years ago, not about the start of something new. She wasn’t ready for that, and she didn’t want it. However much Fitz might have confused that for her right now.

  Fitz had been right to throw his number away, they would only be chasing after something that didn’t really exist. Bracing herself, Elle hurled the paper back into the basket before she could change her mind again.

  Last night had been perfect. Trying to squeeze anything more out of it would only sully the wonderful memories she now had. Just Elle was gone. It was time to get back to Major Gabriella Caplin, army trauma doctor.

  Chapter Six

  ‘THIS IS ARI,’ the nurse, a corporal who’d been there a month or so longer than Elle, informed her as soon as she came on shift for the morning. ‘He’s eight and he has a broken leg with an open wound. This is his first visit to us but the team at the main hospital have been trying to treat him for over a month.’

  Elle smiled at the boy, receiving a sweet smile in return as he clung onto his mother’s hand. Her own fears were masked by a tight smile, too. The nearest hospital was across the border, several hours and a treacherous drive away. It was no wonder that even though this hospital had been intended to be just a training ground for local doctors, with only a few cases while the army got the rebuild under way, the locals were ignoring that and bringing their sick and injured here anyway.

  Another reason why getting this hospital back up and running quickly was so essential.

  ‘They’ve been trying to heal the infected wound before they can attempt to set the bone,’ the nurse added.

  Elle nodded. Infection really was the enemy out here. Even if they set the bone, it wouldn’t heal unless the infection was gone.

  ‘He needs a smaller surgical plates-and-pins kit that I don’t have among my army kit,’ Elle assessed quickly. ‘Neither do Razorwire. But our logistics teams are bringing supplies all the time now we’re out here, so I’ll put in a requisition for more instruments appropriate for dealing with children. In the meantime, we do need to get the infection under control.’

  ‘He can’t tolerate washing the wound without anaesthesia,’ the nurse warned. ‘And we don’t have any here.’

  ‘No, well, without the custom-sized plates and pins to hold the bones together they’ll be moving and the pain will be incredible for him. We’ll leave the leg in plaster for now and wash the wound as much as Ari can withstand, and always under anaesthetic. As soon as the smaller surgical plates arrive we’ll be able to hold the bones together and we’ll have more options.’

  ‘Understood,’ the nurse confirmed.

  ‘Who’s in the next bay?’

  ‘Young boy named Zav. He’s only five. He suffers from a severe form of thalassaemia so he needs blood transfusions every five weeks. His family are from a village a little east of here, wealthy by local standards, but they say they can’t keep making the journey across the border and want to bring him to this hospital for his transfusions.’

  ‘Right.’ Elle nodded grimly. Thalassaemia wasn’t uncommon out here, not just as an inherited blood disorder, but also because there was no national plan
to tackle the disease. It meant that few health facilities could offer treatment for the more severe cases, and parents weren’t educated on its causes, which were mutations in the DNA of cells. They only understood the symptoms of chronic fatigue, anaemia and, ultimately, if she recalled rightly, a life expectancy of around fifteen years in this region. Twenty years across the country.

  ‘I take it infection, bone deformities and slowed growth rates, especially in children, are common.’

  ‘Right,’ the nurse agreed. ‘We see a lot of abnormal bone structure in the face and skull, broken bones, iron overloads and heart problems such as arrhythmias and congestive heart failure.’

  Elle nodded. There was little she could say. Treatments were basically frequent blood transfusions or stem-cell transplants, usually from a non-affected sibling. Otherwise, affected or carrier parents would be looking at IVF with embryos pre-tested for genetic defects. Hardly a possibility in a country like this one.

  ‘And in the far bed?’ Elle forced herself to move on.

  ‘A two-month-old. Bronchiolitis.’

  Again, not uncommon in this region, affecting hundreds of babies every season. Still, she would be glad when the rebuild was under way and she could start kitting out dedicated wards with incubators, paediatric kits and equipment for women in labour. Training the local health professionals to be part-doctors, part-nurses, part-surgeons, however, promised to be no mean feat.

  As she flew around the wards—or what passed for wards in the damaged hospital—Elle considered the best place to start in terms of the rebuild. She knew that Major Carl Howes, the officer in command of the troop working at the hospital itself, was focussed on getting the main infrastructure up first. Without water and power, everything else would be doubly hard, but the discovery of an unexpected aquifer running below the area had thrown their programme into turmoil, and Carl had told her he’d called in his commanding officer to go through the finer details.

  She could only hope Carl’s colonel was as much of an expert as Carl claimed the man was.

  She glanced quickly at her watch. There was a joint regiment briefing in a couple of hours and her own commanding officer had flown in as well. She really didn’t want to keep him waiting so her ward rounds were going to be postponed. Grabbing a hat for the shade, Elle ducked outside, seeing the older man straight away and beaming at her mentor.

  ‘Colonel Duggan, thanks for flying in. I take it you’ve heard about the aquifer?’

  * * *

  Fitz surveyed the vast expanse of nothing beneath the helicopter as it flew the hour or so trip across the barren land, his eyes constantly scanning, more out of habit than anything since they were in a non-combat environment out here.

  Part of him was actually relishing the challenge of the unexpected aquifer. Anything to occupy his mind, to distract it from the emerald-eyed, flame-haired beauty who had haunted his dreams—waking and sleeping—for almost a week now. He couldn’t shake her from his memory, but every time he tried to work out what made her so special, so unique from any other woman he’d dated, he just seemed to tie himself up in knots.

  It was uncharacteristic and he loathed it. Yet he wouldn’t have changed it even if he could have.

  He’d watched a group of squaddies playing with a deck of cards the previous night and had realised that right now his life, his career had been like a perfectly ordered deck of cards until Elle had given them a playful shuffle. It had taken him all of the last week to re-order them and fit them neatly back into their box.

  Still, he had no intention of letting them get messed up again. Not while he was out here on tour, in any case.

  Maybe afterwards, once he returned home, if visions of that flame-haired, emerald-eyed temptress still haunted his dreams, he might consider stepping out of his comfort zone and contacting the hotel to see if he couldn’t inveigle something—anything—out of them regarding Elle’s name.

  Anything to sate the gnawing ache she’d left inside him.

  Finally the heli landed, and Fitz stepped out to greet Major Howes, one of the five majors under his direct command.

  ‘Colonel.’

  ‘Major.’

  ‘How was your ride, sir?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. Good to see you again, Major. We missed each other at Razorwire.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I didn’t think I’d have to wait long for you to come out and see the hospital site first-hand. I’m glad, too, as I could use someone with your particular specialism right now. I was going to radio HQ to send me someone yesterday but then I heard you were on your way. I’ll show you around when you’re ready.’

  ‘I’m happy for you to show me around now,’ Fitz said as they moved out of the way while soldiers began unloading the several tonnes of materials and equipment from the heli.

  Dutifully, Carl instructed a young lance corporal to take Fitz’s pack to his office.

  ‘How was the drive out here?’ Fitz asked as the two officers slipped easily into conversation.

  The convoy had left Razorwire earlier in the week before Fitz had even arrived. He would have preferred to have travelled with them, it was always good to get an idea of the ground, but he had been needed elsewhere.

  ‘Six hours. Not bad.’ Carl shrugged. ‘The route was long but that’s because we still have to go the long way round that valley, and you know what passes for roads around here.’

  ‘You’re lucky if they’re paved,’ Fitz acknowledged. ‘So what’s the issue you wanted me here to look at? You mentioned an aquifer.’

  ‘Your speciality. It runs directly beneath where we’re planning on putting the plant room for the generators. I had a couple of solutions, which I was going through with the medical liaison officer, but I’d like it if you could run over them, too.’

  ‘Okay, when did you schedule the briefing for me today?’

  ‘Zero-nine-hundred hours. Ninety minutes away.’

  ‘Understood. Then don’t let me hold you up, let’s go.’ He followed as Carl led the way around the hospital, mentally orientating himself as they progressed. ‘What’s the medical colonel running this hospital like? Colonel Duggan, isn’t it? I heard he had a good reputation as a surgeon, don’t tell me he’s making things difficult on our construction side?’

  ‘No, the Colonel is okay,’ Carl answered as they made their way through and around the part-damaged, part-derelict hospital. ‘He has got a good reputation apparently, and he mainly deals with teaching the local doctors. But one of the majors under his command, a Major Caplin, has experience both as a combat doctor and of building cottage hospitals back in the UK, so her CO has been happy to pass a lot of the liaison work on to her.’

  ‘Makes sense if she has that kind of experience and he doesn’t.’ Fitz nodded, thinking how he’d always found that one of the greatest strengths of the British army. ‘But not if she’s insisting the plant room go above the aquifer without considering the other options.’

  As structured and hierarchical as it might appear to an outsider, in reality it was far more nuanced and elastic. A brigadier should be willing to take advice from a lieutenant, or even a sergeant, if that individual had specific expertise that everyone else lacked. For all intents and purposes, he could be answerable to this Major Caplin if her commanding officer Colonel Duggan had passed over administrative and operational command of the hospital rebuild to her. Usually, it worked well and was balanced. But if she was awkward and demanding the hospital be constructed in a way that wasn’t feasible then he was prepared to pull rank if required.

  ‘No, she isn’t insisting that. She’s tough and she knows what she wants, but she also has a good head on her shoulders and she isn’t difficult to work with. She’s clearly a skilled doctor, too.’

  Fitz eyed his old friend shrewdly.

  ‘She’s also attractive, isn’t she?’ he noted wryly. ‘I’d forgotten you were one for th
e females.’

  ‘Only single commissioned females. Usually back home but certainly never in a combat zone,’ Carl pointed out with a sheepish grin. ‘I’m always discreet and I don’t contravene the rules. I never dip into the non-commissioned officers pool. I value my career, thanks. Besides, there’s no need for us all to be complete monks like you.’

  He’d either forgotten about Janine, or deliberately wasn’t mentioning her. Janine’s father—back then a colonel, now a general—had no doubt made sure of that.

  Lost in his own thoughts, Fitz was completely unprepared when he rounded the corner.

  Just Elle?

  Shock stole over him, taking his breath and leaving him feeling physically winded. She might as well have snatched that perfectly ordered deck of cards he’d imagined earlier out of his hands and hurled them high into the cloudless sky. Now some were fluttering in the breeze while others plummeted, ominously, to land face down in the dust.

  Even putting one foot in front of the other suddenly seemed like a mammoth feat.

  She couldn’t be out here. The woman, the one-night stand he was already struggling to put behind him. Surely it was impossible now?

  And yet he had to put that night behind him. Especially now.

  Oblivious, Carl stepped forward and made the formal introductions.

  ‘Colonel Fitzwilliam, this is the medical CO, Colonel Duggan. And one of the majors under his command, Major Caplin.’

  ‘Fitz,’ he clarified, holding his hand out to his counterpart, focussing on the older man. But the only person he could see, could focus on, was Elle.

  ‘Phil,’ Colonel Duggan responded immediately.

  A solid handshake and warm greeting confirmed Carl’s assessment of the guy as a secure CO. It was all Fitz could do to keep his eyes from sliding to the side.

  But even in his peripheral vision he could see how remarkably stiff Elle was, blood draining from her face to leave two pinched high spots. He got the sense that if she’d been allowed to salute in the field, she would have. Evidently she was as thrown as he was, yet Fitz was helpless against the inexplicable sense of anger welling inside him.