Tempted by Dr. Off-Limits

by Charlotte Hawkes

  He prided himself on his focus, his drive, his steadiness. And Elle threatened all that. She made him feel unbalanced. He allowed her to unsettle him and he didn’t know who he was more furious with.

  He was only grateful that army protocol gave him some semblance of structure that he might otherwise have felt was lacking.

  ‘Major.’

  ‘Colonel.’ She thrust out her hand to take his with no acknowledgement in her expression.

  Yet there was no doubting the spark that arced between them as their hands made contact, the hitch in her breath as it grew shallow, the way his chest pounded. Things that only the two of them would notice, but which proved the attraction from that night hadn’t dimmed in any way.

  If anything, it seemed to have increased.

  He had to act. Before she did something stupid like pretend they’d never met. They might not be about to flaunt the exact circumstances of their encounter—that wasn’t anyone else’s business but their own—but neither did it mean it was anything they should need to hide.

  Ignoring the voice in his head challenging why he really didn’t like the idea of going along with it—the inexplicable sense of possession—Fitz smothered his irrational fury and dipped his head.

  ‘We’ve already met. Once. Isn’t that right, Major?’

  She managed a murmur of agreement but he had already turned back to his counterpart. As though that would somehow ground him, as though the more professional he could keep it, the less he could pretend he was affected by her. Until he’d managed to control his frustration.

  ‘Major Howes informs me there’s already been a development. An aquifer that wasn’t previously identified?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Colonel Duggan agreed. ‘Directly beneath the intended location for the medical gas supply system.’

  ‘But it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.’ Fitz frowned. ‘We can bridge over it or close it in.’

  The medical colonel held a hand up with a smile.

  ‘Let me stop you there, Fitz. Major Caplin here has experience in hospital construction so it’s better if she runs you through her concerns. My expertise is as a vascular surgeon and I’m mainly based at the field hospital back in Razorwire, so Major Caplin essentially has administrative and operational command of this hospital. Of course, she keeps me updated in her daily sit-rep so I’m always happy to discuss it with you, but it might be easier to speak to the major in the first instance.’

  Just what he didn’t need.

  ‘Not a problem, Phil.’

  ‘Then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a teaching operation scheduled in about half an hour. I’ll send someone to let you know when I’m out and we can go through anything.’

  ‘Appreciate it,’ Fitz confirmed, as the man checked with Elle if she needed anything else.

  He couldn’t blame the man, it was exactly what he would have done. In fact, hadn’t he left his second-in-command liaising with brigade back at Razorwire in his absence? Furthermore, Carl was right, Colonel Duggan looked like he would be good to work with. The man was secure enough to acknowledge when it was advantageous to hand off to his more experienced major, but still remain directly responsible.

  If only that major wasn’t Major Caplin, wasn’t Elle. Not that he didn’t respect her or admire her—far from it. But he couldn’t imagine working with someone whose laugh still jingled in his head and whose body he could taste on his tongue if he closed his eyes.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Colonel,’ Colonel Duggan signed off cheerily, and Fitz forced himself back to reality with a pleasant smile.

  ‘Likewise.’

  With the medical CO gone, that left him and Carl. And Elle. With Carl gazing at her with respect and a hint of lust, which only an old friend like Fitz himself would have recognised.

  Something shot through him. Something which—if he hadn’t known better—he might have mistaken for a touch of jealousy and...possession?

  But he did know better.

  He knew because he’d sworn, after Janine, that he’d never allow himself to blur the lines between personal and professional again. And now that Elle was out here, with him, in this environment, he had to stop remembering that night.

  He liked things to be distinct, clear, compartmentalised. It avoided messiness.

  He didn’t date army colleagues. Oh, there was no rule against him and Elle getting together that night, but it was a line he didn’t like to cross in his own mind. Just as he didn’t do long-term relationships.

  He wasn’t built for them. He was too selfish. Too thoughtless. Too damaged.

  The kind of man who’d been too busy celebrating his eighteenth with his mates to take the time out to listen to his voicemail. For the sake of thirty seconds, he’d have heard his mother’s desperate, frightened message. Their deaths were on his hands.

  The one time he’d thought he could be a better person, he’d thought he could be there for Janine the way he never had been for his family, he’d failed again. The loss of their unborn baby, another death on his conscience.

  He couldn’t run from it. It was in his DNA.

  A good soldier. A good leader.

  A destructive family man.

  One-night stands and temporary relationships with women who never knew the military side of him meant he never had to deal with complications when they ended. He’d been meticulous about keeping the two sides of his life distinct from each other.

  And now here he was. Acutely aware of the woman standing stiffly beside him. A woman who had made him feel the most relaxed and comfortable that he’d been in a long, long time. That night with her he’d actually felt a carefree happiness.

  But wanting something more with Elle now, as a fellow officer, would allow his personal life to bleed into his professional one, a no-go in his mind. Or at least it should have been a no-go. Yet even now, as his initial shock dulled, he couldn’t shake the possibility. As if Elle had the ability to break down whatever barriers he tried to erect between them.

  He’d never felt so off-kilter. Elle had sneaked under his skin when he hadn’t noticed and all he could think of was how she’d looked in his arms, how she’d tasted when he’d kissed her, and how she’d sounded when he’d made her come apart time and again.

  He was hardly surprised when Elle jumped straight in with a determinedly professional expression. And then her eyes locked with his and there was no doubting that she was as unsettled as he was. Both of them striving to remain soldier-like, both of them unable to help homing in on each other as though it was just the two of them in the whole world.

  ‘I understand from Major Howes that the soil on either side of the aquifer is hard and competent, so it might be possible to bridge it. However, he did mention he wanted to get advice from an aquifer specialist. I didn’t know that was you, sir.’

  Fitz doubted Carl would hear anything but polite respect in her tone. But, then, Carl hadn’t got to know the major quite as intimately as he himself had.

  ‘Major Howes is right. It is possible to bridge some aquifers, but I’d need to study this one before I could confirm it in this case. I don’t know what the pressure is in the aquifer, and even if the soil either side is hard and competent, if it’s made up of over-consolidated silt it could wash away if we have to drive any piles into the ground.’

  ‘He mentioned basal uplift?’

  Why wasn’t he surprised that Elle had absorbed every bit of information Carl must have given her? And, just like when they’d pulled together so harmoniously back at the bar with the young lad and his sister, Fitz found himself slipping easily back into working with her. Setting aside their unsettled history for the moment.

  ‘That can happen if we excavate the water and soil from on top of the aquifer—which is currently keeping it contained—and the pressure within the aquifer itself bursts, swamping this entire site. That
could also happen even if we don’t have a blow-out but simply pierce the aquifer.’

  ‘That sounds like a risk we don’t want.’ She frowned.

  ‘Only if we don’t allow for it. We can drill a series of relief wells, even back-up relief wells, and instal pumps to get some draw-down and relieve the pressure. We can also spread the footings of the buildings to avoid piles piercing the aquifer.’

  ‘And what if we moved the plant room altogether, how feasible is that?’

  ‘It depends how extensive the aquifer is. Major Howes and I have already agreed this is a priority discussion.’

  ‘If at all possible, I’d like to consider moving to the other side of the site, to avoid any risk of contaminating the aquifer altogether,’ Elle stated firmly. ‘In this area the population mainly use groundwater, either from foothill infiltration or from riverbed exfiltration, with little chance of rainwater recharge. And with the population in this region growing exponentially, there is increasing over-exploitation of the scarce water resources.’

  He could see exactly where she was heading.

  ‘So you want to tap into this aquifer for the local communities. Perhaps a series of clean water wells?’

  ‘I’m not a ground surveyor like you are, and I certainly don’t know anything about aquifers to speak of, but I would think this offers a significant clean water supply to the community, especially when cholera and other water-borne diseases are so prevalent out here. Do you agree, Colonel?’

  ‘I do,’ he mused, looking over her shoulder at the basic geological plans Carl had already put together. ‘But if you’re moving across the site, it will mean redesigning your hospital layout. The main hospital itself, as damaged as it has been over the last decade, is still the best medical resource the local population have.’

  The familiar citrusy scent powered into him before he realised it, tightening his chest and stealing his breath away.

  ‘So we need to minimise the impact on them and make as few alterations as possible. Yes, Colonel,’ Elle bit out, stiffening abruptly.

  Their sudden proximity clearly affected her just as much as it did him. Fitz jerked around to Carl, as much to remind himself of his Major’s presence as anything else.

  ‘Any ideas, Major Howes?’

  ‘Working on it, sir.’ Carl stepped forward, apparently unaware of the tension Fitz felt was practically sparking between himself and Elle. ‘The plant room houses the heat, ventilation and air-conditioning units.’

  Fitz made a quick assessment.

  ‘Which means also moving the generators in the next-door unit since they’ll be relying on the HVAC plant room to keep them cool, especially in these temperatures.’

  ‘What about moving the medical gas supply system here?’ Elle tapped another location on the map, and he stepped close again, so close her fingers accidentally brushed his and his gut kicked in response even as she snatched her hand away.

  ‘The HVAC could go here—’ the faint, almost imperceptible quiver in her voice betrayed her ‘—and the generators could go there.’

  ‘What’s on that side of the wall?’

  ‘The ICU.’

  ‘Then no. And, anyway, I’d like the generator-housing unit to have bigger blast walls if we’re having to move them closer to the hospital.’ Fitz scanned the ground. ‘Can we take a walk around? I’ve studied the plans back at Razorwire, and I had a good aerial view coming in, but I want to see it for myself.’

  ‘Colonel.’ Elle and Carl acquiesced simultaneously.

  He was used to it, a first-name basis in private but generally formal in public, yet this time it particularly reminded him of how well he and Elle had worked together before. How effortlessly they’d slipped into working together now. How easy she made it.

  At every turn she challenged his fears of complications and messiness. She made him wonder whether he could have more after all. More time with her. More of her.

  The possibility intrigued him.

  And the distraction annoyed him.

  Forcing himself to focus on the plans in front of him as well as the geography of the site, Fitz tried to forget that Elle was suddenly here, and concentrated on mapping it all in his head. It was a sixty-bed hospital, with electricity intermittent. So the back-up generators were vital, as was good access from the road to fuel them. He moved around the site thoughtfully, finally coming back to a possibility in his mind.

  ‘So the proposed ORs were to have been on the other side of this wall?’

  ‘Yes.’ Elle nodded. ‘On each side of the corridor.’

  Fitz consulted the design then glanced over the other end of the site, warming to his work as he always did, and forgetting for a moment that he and Elle had any issues between them.

  ‘So, hypothetically, if we extended that part of the facility to house them on the other side, we’d have to move the recovery areas too?’

  ‘Yes. And building room is tighter on this side so, as you said, we’d have to either create more space between the hospital and the proposed location for the generators, or build thicker blast walls.’

  ‘It could work,’ Fitz mused. ‘I need to look into it in more detail and understand how your internal layout for the hospital works.’

  He’d built plenty of bridges, railheads, electricity plants and more in his time, not to mention demolished or blown up a fair few buildings. But this was the first hospital he’d built.

  ‘I admire your frankness, Colonel.’ Elle beamed unexpectedly when he told her as much, and a thousand explosions went off in Fitz’s chest, like an unused pyrotechnics display at the end of an army year.

  It was impossible not be drawn into those vivid emerald pools.

  And that smile.

  It was ridiculous that he’d been missing that smile so profoundly. He didn’t miss smiles. He didn’t miss people.

  She made him feel things he’d never felt before and he couldn’t afford that. The last time he’d tried to pretend that he was normal, that he wasn’t missing fundamental pieces of a human being, he’d ended up causing immeasurable pain. He could still recall the distraught expression on Janine’s face, the pain, the hurt, the recrimination in her eyes when she’d screamed at him that she’d have been better off never meeting him in the first place.

  He was broken, and his attempts to fix himself had only ever caused more pain to those around him.

  He was only here for a few days. How hard could it be to keep himself at arm’s length from Elle? To refuse to allow himself to give into temptation and seek her out as though that night had been more than it had been?

  ‘Colonel.’ Carl’s voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘The briefing you scheduled is due to start in forty minutes.’

  Had they been that long walking around the place?

  ‘Right.’ He jerked his head, forcing himself to focus. ‘Thank you, Major.’

  ‘If you don’t need me here, I’ll go and start setting up, sir.’

  ‘That’ll be fine,’ Fitz confirmed smoothly, watching Elle twist her hands in discomfort.

  This was the moment to put into practice what he’d been thinking. To keep himself at arm’s length. To walk away. To let Elle walk away.

  He didn’t move.

  Neither did Elle.

  They both knew what was coming. It was inevitable. And unavoidable. They’d fallen into working together with incredible ease but they couldn’t ignore their shared night. And, worryingly, he found he didn’t want to. So much for it being a one-night stand; he needed to hear her talk about it, to know that she found it as unforgettable as he did. Which only made him all the more irritable.

  Fitz waited until Carl had rounded the corner before he began speaking.

  ‘You told me you weren’t military.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ She shook her head miserably. ‘I told you I was a doctor, I
omitted to say I was an army trauma doctor.’

  ‘Yet you knew I was a colonel in the army.’

  What was wrong with him that he was blaming her?

  It was as though the more frustrated he felt at his own inability to walk away from her, the angrier he felt, and he turned it onto her in some misplaced effort to keep his distance. To stop himself from hauling her into his arms and kissing her senseless. Which, at this instant, was the only thing he ached to do.

  Ached.

  He’d never wanted anyone like this. Never. It made no damned sense.

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t think it would matter.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Listen, I understand this isn’t the most ideal development to our...one-night stand.’

  His whole body balked at the sound of the words on her lips. It was exactly what that night had been and yet, ludicrously, it seemed a wholly inadequate description.

  The ache became a crushing need, the likes of which he’d never experienced.

  ‘Not the most ideal development hardly even begins to describe what this is, wouldn’t you agree?’

  In his effort to stay distant his voice sounded harsher, uglier than he’d like, and she jerked her head up in shock. But he was fighting to make sense of the maelstrom in his head. In his chest. He suspected that if he didn’t push her away he might end up kissing her. And he could hardly do that.

  ‘Not ideal, no,’ she agreed slowly, tightly. ‘But you’re acting like it’s a scourge on you or something. It isn’t. We haven’t contravened a single rule. We’re both commissioned officers and you aren’t my boss. There’s no rule against us having slept together.’

  ‘Not here,’ he silenced her, glancing hastily around, his tone even more brusque than the jerk of his head.

  There was no one about but, still, it didn’t hurt to be careful. He strode angrily back to the set of buildings, barely pausing to throw a final command over his shoulder.