‘WHAT ARE WE doing here?’ Fliss glanced around the Army camp as her uncle’s vehicle drove slowly through the gates.
‘You’ll soon find out.’
Fliss snapped her head back in surprise, unaccustomed to her uncle’s tone. He sounded almost…mischievous? It had been this way for the last hour, when he’d arrived at her home and asked her to come for a ride with him. She’d been intrigued—she was used to his commanding air, his empathetic side, and his quietly contained fury, but she couldn’t remember her uncle ever having such an uncharacteristic air of mystery about him.
Slowly the four-by-four pulled over into the old FIBUA she remembered telling Ash about back in Camp Razorwire and her heartbeat began to pick up a steady rhythm.
Had he remembered?
She spun around in her seat, wondering how her uncle factored into it.
‘Wait—why did you really bring me here?’
‘Someone asked me to. And I liked what he had to say, so here you are. The rest, Felicity my dear, is up to you.’
An eagerness spiked low in her abdomen. The mock-up town, peppered as it was with bullet holes and crumbled sections of pretend housing, held so many fond memories for Fliss. The place had long since been abandoned by the military in favour of a bigger, newly built urban training area and now, bathed in a warm sunset, the place almost looked beautiful with grass growing through the dusty ground and small trees sprouting up through concrete floors. Like nature reclaiming an abandoned civilisation, the cycle of life.
Her uncle’s vehicle departed, slowly so as not to leave dust in its wake, and Fliss became aware of a figure walking towards her.
Ash.
Her heart felt as though it was hammering against her ribs, fervently trying to escape its cage.
‘Quite a man, your uncle,’ Ash said evenly as he approached. ‘Even when he isn’t busy being a general.’
‘I can’t believe you went to speak to him,’ she said softly. ‘And I can’t believe you remembered what I told you about this place.’
‘I hoped you’d like it. I’m not good at this romance thing.’
‘This is perfect,’ she assured him. ‘This is where I trained when I was doing my medical degree. All those long hours, learning to treat casualties under fire. Learning how to be an army combat doctor. Learning the skills which had finally given me the confidence that, even if my private life—my family life—was a complete mess, then I was still skilled and infinitely competent when I came here.’
He held his arm out to her and she obliged, linking with his as she let him lead her around the old mock-town.
‘This is where you put most of your past behind you and looked forward to a bright future?’ Ash guessed.
His ability to read her made her feel even more comfortable and relaxed.
‘Do you know I saved my first life here?’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘It started as a routine house-clearing training exercise. But then turned potentially fatal when one of the younger recruits become too over-eager and leapt out of the second-storey window. I ended up performing an emergency tracheotomy amongst other things.’
How long ago that felt now. But it was the moment she’d first felt like a real doctor.
‘This place holds some really special memories for me,’ she whispered, marvelling at how good it felt to share them with Ash and know that he understood where she was coming from.
She stopped so suddenly she jerked his arm.
‘I really need to say this. Thank you, for what you said to my mother, and for what you said to me about her. I needed to hear that, even if I didn’t exactly process it well at the time. But, most of all, thank you for what you said about me. About me deserving more and being worth more. I think I’d forgotten that.’
‘You had where your mother was concerned.’ He reached out to cup her jaw and her body fired into life. She barely resisted the impulse to tilt her head into his palm.
‘I talked to her, you know,’ Fliss told him. ‘That night, I asked her all the questions which had been swirling around my head since I was a kid. I think it helped me to understand her better.’
‘You need to cut her out completely, not try to understand her.’
His obvious protectiveness was touching and Fliss rose up on her tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his lips.
‘I just mean that I guess, as odd as it probably sounds, in her own twisted way she thought she was doing something good for me by taking me from my grandparents’ home with her. She hated the stifling life with its never-ending rules and boundaries. I think maybe she thought she was doing me a favour by not leaving me there.’
‘That’s one way to look at it.’ Ash didn’t look convinced but, instead of shutting herself off to him, Fliss found herself wanting to help him to understand.
‘She was still a kid herself. And an immature one at that. She was wrong to make me responsible for her happiness when her own dreams died, but she wasn’t the only one at fault. My grandparents weren’t exactly perfect themselves.
‘I grew up feeling culpable and worthless, and all the other cruel jibes she threw at me on a daily basis. And it went on for so long that even when my uncle tracked us down and took me home I realised that most of what she had told me was right. My grandparents took me in because they felt it was their duty. They were obliged to care for their daughter’s fatherless child.’
Ash frowned at her.
‘I thought you loved your life once your uncle took you home? I thought he saved you.’
‘He did—he was fantastic,’ Fliss cried, panicking that she might be portraying her incredible uncle—her rock—in anything other than glowing terms when she thought of all he had done for her. ‘He has always been fantastic.’
‘But your grandparents weren’t?’
She drew in a deep breath, unsure how to explain this to a man who had been physically hurt and wounded as a child.
‘They were never unkind to me,’ she said slowly. ‘They gave me a home, schooling, clothing, everything a child needs physically. But they never showed me any love. My uncle was away a lot with the Army so it was usually just me with them. I worked hard; my grades were outstanding because I thought it was about their fear of me making the same mistakes as my mother. I thought if I worked hard I could show them that I wasn’t like that, that I would earn their love.’
‘But it didn’t work,’ he guessed.
She supposed he knew enough about that. If the love wasn’t there naturally from the start, then she was hardly going to earn it.
‘No,’ she confirmed. ‘It didn’t. I suppose it turned out for all of us to be my way of repaying them for taking me in. My success was confirmation they were meeting my needs. But it didn’t change who I was or what I was. Behind the perfunctory well dones they never stopped looking at me as the family’s shameful little secret.’
Raking his hand over his forehead, Ash closed the gap between them but he still wasn’t touching her. She inhaled deeply, the familiar scent both soothing her troubled mind and stimulating her body.
Oh, so stimulating.
‘I don’t want to talk about it any more,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve told you now. And it’s done and it’s my past. All of it.’
She licked her lips, hoping she hadn’t misread the signals.
‘So how about we focus on the future? One with both of us in it?’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘You told me you loved me. There is still an us, isn’t there?’
He’d told her he loved her, but that was before. She had no idea if he still felt the same way.
‘Is it really what you want?’ He stepped forward, his fingers lacing through hers. He tipped his forehead against hers until she thought the pressure in her chest would compact her.
‘Are you all in, Fliss?’
‘I’m all in,’ she murmured. ‘You changed everything for me. You make me feel stronger than I’ve ever felt. More sure of who I am and what I want. And you give me a sense of belonging.’
Lifting her hands to his mouth, Ash dropped kisses on her knuckles.
‘Want to see something incredible?’
She barely hesitated before accepting his hand, allowing him to lead her in companionable silence through the FIBUA towards where, now she was looking, a faint glow appeared to be coming from one of the rooftops. She shivered with anticipation, and it was nothing to do with the cooling evening air. Still, she was glad of the trainers and warm jumper her uncle had told her to wear.
‘You know, I don’t know whether to be impressed or concerned at the thought of you and my uncle conspiring against me.’
‘Whichever you prefer.’
She could hear the smile in his voice.
Together, they made their way past the deserted buildings until the source of the glow became more apparent. She detected the woody scent of a burn, tasting it faintly on the air even before the flickering firelight spilled from the roof of the building in front of her. The crackle of it carried in the still air, making it feel romantic, Fliss thought as they crossed the road and headed up the stone steps which led to the roof.
Her breath lodged in her throat like a tiny bird fluttering its wings, unable to get out of its cage. The old concrete roof was covered with a large rug, a picnic basket and two fold-out chairs on top. A fire pit threw out heat from the front whilst military glow sticks lined the three sides of the perimeter like an Army version of fairy lights. For an instant it evoked memories of being on the viewing point with Ash when they’d watched the carnival floats and something twisted inside Fliss. Hot, red, sensual.
But it was only when she turned around that the full extent of Ash’s military make-over became apparent. The fourth perimeter wall which formed the back of the building was two metres high and—right now—it was covered in a mural. The most stunning graffiti art Fliss had ever seen and there was no doubt that it was a faithful representation of the view from the rooftop of the MERT compound back at Camp Razorwire.
‘It’s stunning,’ she breathed, spinning slowly to look at Ash. ‘But how…?’
‘You remember Corporal Hollings? Andy Hollings?’ Ash prompted.
How could she forget the soldier she and Ash had first worked together to save? The reason Ash had come up onto that rooftop back at camp, to tell her the lad had been deemed stable enough to fly back to hospital in the UK.
‘Of course I remember.’
‘Well, his brother does this for a living; commercial businesses and local councils commission him to paint the gable walls of buildings, under bridge arches—you name it.’
‘How do you know that?’ She shook her head incredulously.
‘He had an unusual tattoo so I asked him about it during that period where he was slipping in and out and you were trying to keep him awake.’
Fliss nodded slowly. ‘I remember, but I never heard what he said.’
‘He told me it was based on his brother’s first piece of work. When I thought about doing this for you—for us—I thought it would be a nice touch. I had a photo from that rooftop so…’
He shrugged, tailing off, but Fliss was still waiting for her heart to start beating.
‘So there is an us?’ The grin spread through her body like warm honey.
Smiling, Ash led her to the chairs, helping her sit down in one whilst he sat in the other; they leaned into each other, his fingers still laced with hers. She didn’t even bother trying to drag her eyes from his until he answered.
‘There is, without a doubt, an us.’
The heat of the fire was much more apparent here but Fliss suspected it wasn’t what was causing the warmth to seep through her body, through her very bones, right now.
‘You’re strong, Fliss. And you’re driven. You have so many incredible qualities, from your empathy and loyalty to your passion and dedication. And I have to tell you, you’re damn sexy too. You affect me in a way I can’t control.’
‘I’m glad,’ she murmured.
‘And I love that about you.’
The words slid through her. So subtly she wasn’t sure if she was hearing things.
‘You still love me?’
She swallowed. Hard. It seemed almost too perfect. Too unreal.
‘I love everything about you, Fliss. You turn my heart inside out.’
‘I do?’ she breathed, marvelling at the man facing her. The same one she’d challenged in that office, in the supply room, in the hotel room. And yet a completely different, more open person.
But only open to her, which somehow made it all the more incredible.
‘I love the doctor you are, Fliss, I love the Major you are, and the person you are. Most of all I love the woman you are. The way you make me want to be a better soldier, better leader, better person. I love the way you make me feel, the way you get under my skin like no one else, the way you challenge me and don’t let up. And, for the record, I love the sexy way you bite your lip like that.’
‘You love me,’ Fliss repeated, the confusion of emotions that had been jostling in her brain finally settling down enough for her to understand his declaration.
It was more than she had dreamed of. A passionate, heartfelt, amazing declaration of love she had never thought anyone would ever say to her. It made her feel part of something special. It made her feel they were something special. Not practical, logical, or sensible. But unrestrained, emotional, intense.
‘I love you too.’ She stumbled over the words in her haste to say them. To hear what they sounded like when accompanied with all these sensations tumbling around her heart.
They sounded magical. Unparalleled. Perfect.
The feeling started in her curling toes and permeated up through her legs, her body, her chest, fixing an outrageous grin on her mouth as it continued right up to the top of her head. She felt as though together they could face anything.
Together.
She started as Ash slid off his chair in front of her, simultaneously retrieving a neat green leather box from beneath her fold-out chair.
‘Marry me, Major.’ He grinned. ‘It isn’t practical or logical but I don’t want to do the practical thing and wait until we’ve dated for a while, because it won’t change anything. No other woman could match you. No other woman could affect me the way you do. There will never be another one for me. So I don’t want us to wait.’
Fliss could scarcely breathe. It was as though he’d read every last emotion written in her heart and he was rewriting her future even as he did so, throwing out her old rulebook and giving her more freedom. A future with Ash sparkled in a way she’d never dreamed possible.
‘I don’t want to wait either,’ she breathed as he slid the ring onto her finger, then cupped her jaw and drew her into the sweetest yet most intense kiss.
It seemed to last an eternity, drawing her down into its aching longing and beauty. She wrapped her arms around Ash’s neck and held herself as close to his body as she could, as if to convince herself that it truly was real and not one of those bubbles about to pop any moment.
By the time they eventually came up for air, Fliss felt more at peace with herself than she ever had.
A sliver of mischief slipped into her head. Sliding off the chair, she pushed Ash’s shoulders until he was on his back on the rug, then she moved astride him.
‘What, exactly, are you doing?’ Ash demanded, the cocked eyebrow suggesting he knew exactly what was on her mind.
Leaning forward, she dropped a kiss to his lips as she shushed him.
‘Last time we were outdoors like this, back at the carnival, you taught me something I’d never done before. But when I tried to do something for you, you wouldn’t relinquish the reins.’ Reaching down, she began to unbuckle his belt, thrilling in the sensation of him finally allowing her to take control.
‘I think it’s time I repaid that favour.’
His body, already hard against hers, now reacted even further under her touch, making Fliss feel more powerful than ever before.
‘Fine,’ he managed through gritted teeth. ‘But, just so you know, I intend us to spend a lifetime learning new things about each other. And for us to repay each other so many favours that we lose track of whose turn it is, and we won’t even care.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Fliss managed, as Ash shifted deliberately beneath her.
And then she resumed her own task, feeling him give himself up to her the way she always did for him. The way she would for him later that night. The way she knew they both would for the rest of their lives.
Because sometimes it was good to lose control.
* * * * *