ANOTHER CHEER WENT up as they finally freed yet another kid from the rubble. Dirty and exhausted but most certainly alive. He lifted the tiny body as the child clung madly to him, his eyes locked on an exhausted Elle as she hurried over to them.
‘Bring her this way, we’ve set up more treatment areas over here...’ She indicated. ‘And then you need to take a break. When is the last time you ate?’
‘When’s the last time you did?’ Fitz challenged, following her as she lifted the rope to the cordoned-off area that allowed her to triage and treat without the pressure of understandably desperate relatives crowding in to see proof for themselves of their missing loved one.
As they slipped inside the tents the little girl was whisked away by Elle’s team, what looked to be her mother crying with relief by a waiting bed.
It had been almost twenty hours since they’d started securing the area and finding people to pull free. Even now, they were still finding occasional survivors, the shouts for silence going up any time they thought they heard sounds of a survivor, and marvelling at the resilience of the human spirit. But the death toll, low in the first few hours, was now beginning to race up, the bodies more damaged the deeper they excavated, and Fitz knew he would have to put the local volunteers on three-hour maximums before making them take a compulsory break, and to talk to someone about what they’d seen. His own men could work longer shifts, but it was still back-breaking work that was becoming increasingly demoralising the more time passed and the fewer survivors they found.
‘I’ve just had a break, actually,’ Elle said gently, answering his original question.
‘Voluntarily?’ he couldn’t quite picture that. ‘You mean someone made you take a break.’
Her sheepish expression said it all.
‘The point is that you need to stop and eat, regroup,’ she admonished anyway.
No one was around to overhear but, still, they both knew it was their way of silently showing each other they cared. In spite of their surroundings, he couldn’t help an unexpected wisp of happiness from curling up inside him.
‘I will when relief arrives,’ he consented eventually.
She glanced up quickly.
‘It should have arrived about half an hour ago. Major Howes brought his other two troops and Major Richards brought his squadron.’
‘But they haven’t reached us?’
‘No.’
Fitz frowned.
‘Which means it’s likely there’s been another slide on the other side of the valley, on the way in. I have to go and find out.’
‘No,’ Elle commanded, stepping inside. ‘I’ll give this little girl a check-up and then I want to inspect those stitches of yours, to see if they’re still holding up. I’m surprised you haven’t burst them out there.’
‘Is that a medical order, Major?’ Fitz cocked his eyebrow.
‘It is.’ She smiled, ducking into the next tent to retrieve a few medical supplies.
He settled on the edge of the bed, ready to expose the dressing on his shoulder.
‘Fitz?’
He stiffened, turned.
It couldn’t be.
‘Janine?’
He steeled himself for the inevitable guilt but it didn’t come.
Instead, in that instant, he finally understood what had happened with Janine. It had barely been a couple of years since the car crash and he’d been so desperate to fix the yearning chasm in his soul after his family’s deaths that he’d seen the way this sweet, young girl had loved him and he’d tried to convince himself that if he could love her back then he wouldn’t be damaged any more. He wouldn’t be alone any more. But Janine, as gentle as she was, could never have helped him rebuild his shattered past enough to move on. Janine would always have needed someone whole, untainted by tragedy, someone she could lean on to escape her controlling father. She could never have seen or understood the twisted mess inside him, much less helped him to untangle it. He would always have provided for their baby but in many ways it was a good thing there had never been a child stuck in the middle of them. He would always have been the wrong man for Janine, just as she could never have been the right woman for him. She wasn’t Elle.
‘Thank God you’re here.’ She exhaled heavily.
Abruptly, Fitz registered Janine’s blanched, preoccupied expression and he forgot all his insignificant personal demons.
‘I didn’t know your logistics unit was out here.’
‘We were bringing the generators through the valley to a new hospital being built when a small slide hit multiple vehicles in the middle of our convoy,’ she stated.
‘Everyone okay?’
‘Mostly, a couple of four-by-fours rolled and there are some bumps and bruises but we got lucky. Fortunately none of the gennies were hit.’
‘There should be a couple of my squadrons out there now.’ He frowned as Janine nodded.
‘They were behind us, they’re clearing and securing the area now. They’ve got better equipment for it and we had to keep going as we have a time constraint for getting the generators to the hospital. There’s an MRI coming on our next run.’
It wasn’t just the MRI. Fitz thought of the last ancient back-up generator they’d repaired too many times already. It was imperative they get the new generators to the site because if the back-up failed before the new generators were in place, the hospital would have no power at all.
‘If Major Howes is dealing with the landslide then you’re going to need me to head to the hospital with you,’ he decided quickly.
‘Major Howes assured me he’d be right behind us.’
* * *
‘No.’ Fitz quickly ran through the route in his head. ‘There’s a bridge between here and the hospital, we already recced it but that was before the earthquake. I want to make sure it hasn’t been weakened and won’t collapse under the weight of those gennies.’
Her relief was obvious.
‘Thank you.’
He was off the bed and across the tent before Elle’s voice, tight and high, halted him.
‘Colonel, your arm.’
He turned to see her standing at the back of the tent, supplies in hand, her expression stricken. She’d obviously heard most of the conversation.
Fitz hesitated for a fraction of a second. He wanted to tell her, to explain to her that, as much as he would be doing this anyway to complete a crucial mission, there was also a personal element to it now. Because in helping Janine he felt as though he would finally get closure on his regret from their past. And if he did, then he would finally have a clear conscience. He could at last be free to look to a new, more promising future with Elle. He wanted to tell her all of that, but there was no time. Instead, he invested every bit of meaning he could into his words, hoping she’d understand the message.
‘You need to be checked out. Major Caplin will do it. I’ll get a team together.’
He also needed to get Carl to bring at least one of the troops to the valley to join the rescue effort here.
‘I really do need to check that wound, Colonel,’ Elle asserted firmly, but he waved her away.
The sooner he completed this mission, the sooner he could consider a future with her.
‘Major Caplin, my arm’s fine. I have to leave now. Please check over Major Billings here. Pack up your kit and your team and head out as soon as you’re ready. Don’t wait for me.’
The expression on her face twisted his gut. He’d hurt her. Again. And he couldn’t do a thing about it. He would have to be content with seeing her back at the hospital. Then they could finally have a conversation that he now realised was long overdue. Unless she ran, like he suspected she might. And if she did, then he would have no choice but to respect her decision. He would have to let her go.
* * *
Don’t wait for me.
Elle stared at the heavy-duty canvas tent flap long after Fitz had disappeared and it had dropped heavily back into place. There was no doubt in her mind that Fitz had been trying to tell her something. A message within the words.
She forced herself to turn to the major, dredging up her practised medical smile. She couldn’t shake the feeling the woman was watching her shrewdly. Yet another of Fitz’s admirers, no doubt.
‘Can you sit on the bed, please, Major Billings?’
‘Janine,’ the woman introduced herself immediately.
Janine.
It hit Elle like a blast wave. Suddenly it all made sense.
Janine.
Fitz was still in love with her.
He’d chosen her over Elle’s own medical advice. And, Elle couldn’t help feeling, he’d chosen Janine over her personally. She was second again. Dispensable. Just like she’d been to Stevie. Only the difference here was that Fitz had never broken any commitment to her because he’d never offered her any promises. From the outset he’d told her that they didn’t have a future, that he didn’t do relationships.
The error had been on her part in allowing herself to believe that he didn’t do relationships because he hadn’t yet met the right person, the woman who could help him to get past the trauma and guilt of his past. And the error had been in thinking that she could be that woman and ignoring what had been right under her nose. That Janine had always been in the forefront of Fitz’s head.
Don’t wait for me.
As painful and unbearable as it might be, she had to listen to him. Fitz didn’t want her. He’d made that clear again and again, she’d just chosen to read something more into it. She’d chosen to believe it was because he couldn’t find a way to open up to her, and she’d chosen to believe that if she loved him enough she could find a way to help him.
She’d been wrong. She would pack up here and finish up the last few days in Razorwire before returning home. The hospital didn’t need her, the next squadron was out here already and the relief teams had taken over.
She wouldn’t come back as long as Fitz was still out here. She couldn’t bear to work alongside him, loving him but unable to do a thing about it.
‘You know who I am,’ Janine said slowly, her eyes watching Elle intently.
She could play it down the line, strictly professional, of course. But they were both grown women, both majors, both equals.
‘I know a little,’ Elle hedged.
To her surprise, Janine’s shoulders sagged and the woman looked defeated.
‘So he really is in love with you.’
It was more a comment to herself than to Elle, but still Elle couldn’t help snorting with nervous shock.
‘You couldn’t be more wrong.’
Sharp eyes pierced Elle as Janine jerked her head up.
‘You didn’t know?’
Elle focussed on her job, unsure what else to say.
‘I sensed something between you the moment he saw you come in.’ Janine spoke softly, almost wistfully. ‘I would have given anything for him to look at me, just once, the way he looked at you at that moment.’
Elle told herself not to listen, not to believe, not to let that little flicker of hope surge so strongly inside her. She told herself it would only hurt all the more when she had to prove Janine was wrong.
And still the hope grew, leaning towards Janine’s words the way a tree leaned to the sun. Making her admit things she would never have admitted to anyone, least of all Janine.
‘It isn’t love. At least, not on Fitz’s part.’ The words spilled out before she could stop herself.
But instead of Janine using the confession as ammunition, as Elle might have feared, the woman simply offered a sweet, if watery smile.
‘Did he tell you about the baby?’
Elle didn’t know how to answer.
‘He did.’ Janine nodded, as if she’d suspected as much. ‘Then you’re wrong. He loves you very much. I don’t think he’s ever told anyone about me. About us, such as there ever was an us.’
‘He didn’t go into detail,’ Elle found herself half-apologising, as though she was intruding on someone else’s business.
‘That sounds like Fitz.’ Janine offered another soft, sad smile. ‘But the fact that he opened up to you at all should tell you all you need to know about how much he values you. How about his family? Did he tell you about them?’
She should end the conversation. It felt disloyal talking about Fitz behind his back. But a part of her couldn’t stop. He’d told her she was the only person he’d ever wanted to talk to about his family. At the time it had made her feel special, valued, as though he wanted her to understand him in a way he never had with anyone else.
It had turned out that was just a lie.
‘I know his mother and sister died in the car crash,’ Elle said after a moment.
Janine frowned.
‘It was his whole family. His poor father, too. It must have been devastating for Fitz, losing his whole family in one single instant, but he never spoke about it.’
Elle hesitated. Didn’t Janine know his father had been drinking? Had reappeared out of nowhere? Had abused his mother?
‘But he spoke about it with you,’ she pointed out cautiously, deliberately focussing on the check-up and avoiding Janine’s direct gaze.
‘Only because I made him. My father...he was a colonel back then, and when he found out that I’d been pregnant he told me to forget about Fitz, about the car crash. Told me that he was damaged.’
Damaged.
Exactly the words Fitz had used to describe himself that first night.
‘Did you ever say that to him?’ she demanded, unable to help herself. ‘Did you ever tell him he was damaged?’
The woman dropped her head, misery and guilt etched in every crevice and curve.
‘I never should have, I know that. But I was hurt and I was grieving. I’d just lost my baby, and Fitz didn’t seem bothered. I know now he was probably still numb from finding out in the first place—I’d only told him I was pregnant a few hours earlier...’
‘A few hours?’ Elle exclaimed.
‘He didn’t tell you that?’
‘He told me you were three months pregnant when you went out on that convoy. That he didn’t stop you. That he should have told someone and made sure you were sent home to safety. He holds himself responsible.’
‘Fitz does?’ Janine twisted around to face Elle. ‘How could any of it be his fault? I only told him that morning, before the convoy went out. I knew he was in shock but he immediately told me we’d get married and he would take care of us, just as I’d known he would. My convoy was due back that night and then I was heading home for R&R. I was going to tell my parents then.’
‘He never said.’ Elle shook her head.
Part of her was still reeling, yet another part of her was absorbing the revelations, sifting them in with the story Fitz had told her, working through how it had impacted on him. Compounding the guilt and helplessness and vulnerability he must already have felt at losing his mother and sister only a few years earlier.
No wonder he had trust issues.
No wonder he found it hard to let her in.
If she really loved him as much as she thought she did, then she had to find a way to prove she wasn’t going to let him down or leave him, while giving him the time and space he needed to accept her.
‘He thinks he let you down, betrayed your trust,’ Elle said at length.
It was a risk, telling Janine something that Fitz had told her in confidence, but Elle decided it was a risk she was prepared to take. Despite everything, there was a part of her that couldn’t help liking Janine and feeling sorry for her. She was no doubt a decent enough major, her army father would have drilled that into her, but as a woman Janine seemed a little naïve, a bit young for her age. And yet if anyone could tell her the truth about Fitz, Elle couldn’t help feeling it was going to be this woman.
‘He never let me down.’ Janine hung her head again. ‘I let him down. I...manipulated him. I’m not proud of it. But I was twenty-two and I was naïve and foolish, and I was desperate to get away from my controlling father. I fell for Fitz the first week of our officer training course, he was different from the other lads. Stronger, more focussed, resolute.
‘The longer I spent in his company, the more I fell in love. I thought if I could give him a family—like the one he’d lost—then I could break through those barriers of his and he would love me back. But he never did. He would have married me, he would have taken care of me, of our baby. But he never loved me like I thought I loved him. Yet if I had loved him, I suppose I never would have wanted to trap him.’
‘Getting pregnant was deliberate?’ Elle managed slowly.
‘No! At least, I don’t think so. Maybe. No. I don’t know, subconsciously perhaps? And I regret it, more than you can imagine.’
‘Why tell me all this?’ Elle asked, her curiosity finally getting the better of her.
Janine shrugged.
‘I’m not sure. Guilt, I suppose. I’ve been carrying it around with me all this time, wondering how Fitz is doing. I followed his career for a while but I knew he had a reputation for never getting involved with anyone. Then I stopped. I realised I wasn’t doing myself any favours refusing to let go of the past. When I saw you in here, I don’t know... I guess I thought it was my chance to make amends.’
‘Ironic,’ Elle mused softly.
‘What is?’
Elle hesitated, wondering whether it was wise to say anything else, then deciding that it was the least she could do after Janine had been so painfully honest with her.
‘I could be wrong, but I have a feeling Fitz wanting to be the one to personally take charge of this mission and accompany your convoy is as much about making amends to you and ensuring your safety as it is about ensuring the generator’s safety. Maybe he feels he owes you, maybe it’s about closure.’
‘He doesn’t owe me anything,’ Janine answered quietly. ‘But I’ll happily take the closure. So what about you? What are you going to do now?’
Elle was spared any response as a young corporal appeared at the tent door, breathing hard from running.
‘Major Billings, Colonel Fitzwilliam told me to inform you that his vehicle is ready when your convoy is cleared to go.’
‘Understood.’ Janine nodded, turning to Elle as she slid off the bed. ‘Am I clear to leave?’
‘You seem fine,’ confirmed Elle.
‘Okay, well...as to the other thing, good luck.’
Elle watched as the woman hurried away. The silence only emphasised the way her heart was beating out a tattoo and the blood was rushing in her ears.
Fitz was just as damaged as he’d tried to tell her, but she hadn’t listened. She hadn’t really understood. Now she knew more, and she understood better. If she crowded Fitz then she was only going to compound the issue. Especially when her own insecurities were still so close to the surface. She hadn’t realised, until she’d seen Fitz and Janine in that first instant and had felt that surge of jealousy that had been so absent when she’d walked in on Stevie, that she’d never allowed herself to heal.
Not just from the obvious pain of being cheated on by her fiancé, but because she’d never allowed herself to mourn the boy who had saved her from the misery of her teenage years as he’d turned into a man she hadn’t recognised. Hadn’t even liked.
Until she allowed herself to repair a decade of a mentally draining relationship, how could she possibly dive into another one with Fitz? They both needed time to heal, to work out who they were, to go into any new relationship without unnecessary baggage from their respective pasts.
But a tiny part of her was terrified to leave things as they were with Fitz. Because if she walked away, he could close the door on her that final inch and she’d never be able to get back in.
She had absolutely no idea what to do.