The Army Doc's Christmas Angel. Annie O'Neil

his hands in apology at Theo’s swiftly narrowed eyes.

      More proof, as if he needed it, that Finn was no star at chitchat. He called a spade a spade, and other than that his conversational skills were operating on low to subterranean.

      Theo’s expression shifted to something indecipherable. “It’s at times like this I understand how the parents feel when they walk in the doors of our hospital. Makes it that much more important we treat each other with respect. Without that, how can we respect our patients? Ourselves?” He lifted up his hands as if seeking an answer from the universe then let them fall with a slap against his long legs.

      They looked at one another a moment in silence. This time with that very same respect he’d just spoken of.

      Theo was a class-A physician and this hospital—the hospital he’d built—was one of the finest in the world, and still not one of them could put a finger on what was behind Ivy’s degenerating condition. Lethargy had become leg pain. Leg pain had escalated to difficulty walking. They were even considering admitting her full time, instead of dipping in and out, things were so bad.

      How the hell Theo went about running the hospital day in, day out when his little girl was sick...it would’ve done his head in.

      Precisely why being on his own suited Finn to a T. No one to worry about except his patients. No emotions holding him back...as long as he kept his thoughts on the future and his damn leg on the up and up.

      He gave his head a sharp shake, silently willing Theo to move on. A wince of pain narrowed the furrows fanning out from his eyes as he shifted his weight fully onto his right leg.

      The infinitesimal flick of Theo’s eyes down then back up to Finn’s face meant the boss man knew precisely what was going on. But he knew better than to ask. Over a decade of wearing the prosthetic leg and he still hadn’t developed a good relationship with the thing. The number of times he’d wanted to rip it from his knee and hurl the blasted contraption off the roof...

      And then where would he be? In a wheelchair like Ivy?

      Nah. That wasn’t for him.

      Helping children just like her—and Adao, who’d learned too much about war far too soon—were precisely why he kept it on. Standing beside the operating table was his passion. And if that meant sucking up the building pressure and tolerating the sharp needles of pain on occasion? Then so be it.

      “Well...” He tried to find something positive to say and came up with nothing so fell back on what he knew best. Silence.

      After a few minutes of staring out into the inky darkness he asked Theo, “You heard anything about the boy’s arrival time?”

      Finn was chief surgeon on the case, but Theo had a way of knowing just that little bit more than his staff. Sign of a good leader if ever there was one.

      “Adao?”

      Finn nodded, unsurprised that out of a hospital full of children Theo knew exactly who he was referring to. Although they didn’t have too many children flying in from Africa just a handful of weeks before Christmas.

      Then again, war never took much time to consider the holidays.

      “Did they get out of the local airport in Kambela all right?” Theo asked.

      “Yeah.” Finn had received an email from one of the charity workers who’d stayed behind at the war-torn country’s small clinic. “Touch and go as to whether the ceasefire would hold, but they got off without a hitch. They say his condition’s been stabilized, but the risk of infection—” He stopped himself. Infection meant more of the arm would have to come off. Maybe the shoulder. Flickers of rage crackled through him like electricity.

      This was a kid. A little kid. As if growing up in a country ravaged by war wasn’t bad enough.

      There had been a fragile negotiated peace in the West African country for a few months now, but thousands of landmines remained. The poor kid had been caught in a blast when another little boy had stepped on one. That boy had died instantly. The second—Adao—suffice it to say his life would never be the same.

      They’d been out playing. Celebrating another renewal of the ceasefire. The horror of it all didn’t bear thinking about.

      Not until he saw the injuries, assessed damage limitation, talked Adao through how he would always feel that missing arm of his, but—

      Don’t go there, man. You made it. The kid’ll make it.

      Hopefully he wouldn’t actively push his family away the way Finn had. If he had any leanings toward giving advice, he’d put that top of the list.

      Keep those you love close to you.

      Pushing them away only made the aching hole of grief that much harder to fill.

      He knew that now.

      Theo pulled his phone out of his pocket and thumbed through the messages. “He was meant to have been choppered in from London a couple of hours ago, right? The charity texted a while back saying something about paperwork and customs, but you’d think a boy with catastrophic injuries would outweigh a bit of petty bureaucracy.”

      Finn brought his fist down on a nearby table. That sort of hold-up was unacceptable. Especially with a child’s welfare at stake.

      “Hey!” Theo nodded at the table, brow creased. “You’d better apologize.”

      “What?” Disbelief flashed across Finn’s features then a smile. “You want me to say sorry to the table? Sorry, table. I don’t know what got into me.” He held his hands out wide. Happy now? the gesture read.

      Theo closed the handful of meters between them with a few long-legged strides, crossed his arms over his chest and looked Finn square in the eyes. “Are you all right to handle this?”

      His hospital. His terms.

      Fair enough.

      “’Course.” Finn said. “But if you think I’m not up to it? Take me off. Bear in mind you’ll have to drag me out of here and nurse the black eyes of whoever you think can operate on Adao better than me.”

      No point in saying he’d have to deliver the punches from a wheelchair if his knee carried on mimicking a welding iron.

      He ground his back teeth together and waited. Theo knew as well as he did that the last thing he’d do was punch someone. But it was Theo’s hospital. Theo’s call.

      Theo feigned giving Finn a quick one-two set of boxing punches, making contact with his midsection as he did.

      Finn didn’t budge. He had a slight edge on Theo in height, weight and age. The Grand Poo-bah of Limb Specialists, they’d once joked.

      “Look at that.” Finn’s tone was as dry as the Sahara. “I’m turning the other cheek.”

      Theo widened the space between them and whistled. “Have you been working out again?”

      Finn smiled. Always had. Always would.

      Pushing himself to the physical limit was one of the things that kept the demons at bay.

      Theo gave Finn’s shoulder a solid clap. “You’re the one I want on this. The only one.” He didn’t need to spell out to Finn how his time in the military had prepared him more than most for the injuries Adao had sustained. “Just want to make sure you’re on top form when the little guy arrives.”

      “What? Nah.” Finn waved away his concerns, gritting his teeth against the grinding of his knee against his prosthesis. “I just save this curmudgeon act for you. Someone’s gotta be the grumpy old man around here.”

      “I thought that was Dr. Riley.”

      They both laughed. Dr. Riley had yet to be seen without an ear-to-ear grin on his face. The man had sunbeams and rainbows shooting out of his ears. The children adored him. Most people called him Dr Smiley.