blood from his lips. He must have thrown his arms up when the bomb exploded. It would have been a reflex reaction but it meant that he’d exposed the area under his arm, a gap in his flak jacket, and shrapnel had ripped through his chest wall. He’d sustained serious chest wounds and I knew I was unlikely to be able to save him but I had to try. There were others I could have tried to help but I didn’t. Mark was my priority, my responsibility.
‘I was kneeling in the middle of the road, trying to plug the wound in his chest with my hands. It was hopeless. There was a first-aid kit in the truck, a good one, a combat one, but I needed a hospital. There was nothing I could do in that environment. It wasn’t safe. We had to get out of there. We had no idea what would happen next.
‘The other captain helped me to lift Mark into the truck and then we had to load the body of our driver as well, we couldn’t leave him. Everything had happened so quickly there was no time really to think, only to react. We had to get away but I still think about all those injured Afghans we left behind, even though I know my duty of care was to my own team. That was my priority.
‘All the way back to the base I fought to keep Mark alive. The first-aid kit was substantial. I had bags of saline and bandages but what I needed was units of blood and an operating theatre. I knew he was unlikely to make it but I had to try. He was dead before we reached the base.’
‘It sounds like you did everything you could. Even if there had been a whole team working on him, it sounds like the outcome would have been the same.’
‘I know that, but it was the first time I couldn’t save someone I knew well, and that’s a hard thing to let go of. I think that’s why I keep replaying the day in my dreams, hoping that it ends differently, but it never does. It always ends the same way. With people dying. I feel guilty that I couldn’t save him, I feel guilty sometimes that I survived when so many others didn’t. I’ve never met Mark’s wife and daughters but they turn up in my dream as my guilty subconscious.’
‘Have you spoken to someone about this?’
‘Officially?’
Damien nodded.
‘I have. I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD and the military medical corps insist on therapy for all personnel even while on leave.’
‘You’re on leave? I thought you’d left?’
‘I can’t apply for a discharge from the army, it has to be recommended.’
‘Do you think you should be working? Shouldn’t you be taking some time to recover?’
‘I need to stay busy. Work gives me something else to focus on. Without that I have nothing and I can’t sit around with just my thoughts for company. I’ve been assessed as being fit to work but not fit for active duty. I can’t work in a combat support unit but a hospital that’s not in a war zone is fine. And I feel safe at work.’
‘You don’t feel safe generally?’
‘I get nervous in unfamiliar, noisy or crowded environments so I try to avoid them if possible, but sometimes I can’t, which is why Jonty was assigned to me, to help prevent panic attacks.’
‘Should I have brought Summer to stay at your house? Has being in a strange place triggered your nightmare?’ Damien felt terrible, as if this was somehow his fault.
‘Maybe,’ she said, making him feel even worse. ‘But I think it was more likely to be an after-effect of the shock of the break-in.’
The break-in had threatened her safety, Damien realised, and that thought eased his conscience slightly, although not completely. He needed to fix this.
‘What can I do? How can I help?’
‘Would you stay with me? Just until I fall asleep? I’m scared I’ll have another dream.’ Her voice was quiet and it sounded almost as if she expected him to refuse.
How could he refuse? He didn’t want to. ‘Sure.’
He half lay in the bed, with his shoulders propped against the headboard and Abi’s head resting on his chest. Summer’s bed was narrow and Abi had to lie on her side to fit. She curled herself against him and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders to keep her in the bed. He doubted whether either of them were going to go back to sleep and he wasn’t planning on leaving her here alone if she did succumb.
He reached across and switched off the bedside light. He could feel Abi’s eyelashes fluttering against his bare skin and each tiny puff of air as she exhaled. He usually slept naked but because he’d had to share his bed with Summer he’d put a pair of boxer shorts on so at least he was semi-decent. Although he didn’t think thin boxer shorts were going to be enough of a shield against the touch of Abi’s fingers and the smell of her hair.
Her fingers rested lightly on his chest and her head was tucked under his chin. He definitely wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep now.
The hall light was still on, taking the edge off the darkness, and he lay in the shadows and stared at the ceiling and thought about the enigma that was Abi.
She intrigued him. She’d been in his life for less than a week but something told him she was going to leave a lasting effect. There was something fascinating about her. She was fragile and damaged but he sensed an underlying strength of character that suggested she would not be easily defeated. Where had that strength come from?
Her breathing slowed and she drifted off and he could feel his resistance weaken as she slept in his arms. He had vowed not to get involved with a woman again, he didn’t have the time or the energy, but Abi was making him revise his thinking.
She was an anomaly, a mixture of courage and strength, fragility and insecurity, and she stirred a mixture of emotions in him. He wanted to know more about her. He’d never met anyone quite like her and he wanted to make the time to find out what made her tick.
In recent times his world had revolved around his daughter and his work. He didn’t socialise and even when he had it had been with Brooke and her actor friends. He had never really understood them, never been sure what was real and what was fake, but Abi felt real. He was drawn to her. She was interesting and gorgeous, smart and strong, and yet he sensed some self-doubt in her. Had she always had that or was it the lasting effect of her CO’s death?
He had noticed her hesitation when they had walked into the party last night. He hadn’t expected that. Brooke had always been self-confident, she would have walked into a party and stopped and waited until everyone had looked at her. She would have arrived late so that she could ensure there were people there to notice her arrival. She’d had the behaviour of a celebrity even before she’d become one.
Abi was so confident in a work situation that he’d expected the same generally, and her reluctance, her lack of confidence, had surprised him. Had something else happened to her? The story she’d told about the bomb didn’t explain it. She’d acted quickly, selflessly and bravely, she hadn’t acted like a person lacking in self-confidence. He was certain there was more to her story and he was keen to find out what it was.
He wanted to know the answers, all the answers.
He turned his head and watched her sleep until fatigue overcame him too.
* * *
When he woke in the morning he’d been dreaming of sunshine, of peaches ripening in the summer sun.
Abi was still curled against him. Her breasts were squashed against his chest and her hand rested on his stomach. He was still shirtless. He should have gone back to his bed once she’d fallen asleep but he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone. If he was completely honest he was enjoying the feeling of a woman, this woman, in his arms and he hadn’t wanted to let her go. One of Abi’s thighs was tucked between his, slight and warm. His hand had moved south from her shoulders and was resting on her hip. He could feel his erection, swollen, throbbing, pleading for release. Her hair smelled like peaches and her skin was the colour of vanilla ice cream. She was soft and sweet and delicious. It had been a while since he’d