The Army Doc's Secret Wife. Charlotte Hawkes

the losses in her life, none had left her feeling as abandoned, as bereft, as when Ben had walked out on her. Except perhaps the loss of their baby. Ben’s baby. Thea pushed away a surge of nausea but couldn’t tear her mind away from the devastating memory.

      When Ben, barely twenty-five years old, had offered her marriage Thea, just twenty-one herself, and looking for someone to cling to after Daniel’s death, had jumped at it. With hindsight, Ben’s subsequent walking out on her had been inevitable.

      Daniel had once claimed that Ben had always appeared older than his years. Something to do with a regimented upbringing and a strict Army Colonel father, which had left Ben with an overdeveloped sense of responsibility for everything and everyone around him.

      And Ben had honoured the responsibility side of their marriage. His Captain’s income had given her security, money to fund her continued education and a home of her own—not that he’d ever returned to it after their wedding night. If he hadn’t done all that, where would she have ended up? Certainly not as one of the youngest doctors with the Air Ambulance, that was for sure.

      She would have to keep reminding herself that that was why she was here. Not because she still cared about Ben, but because she owed him a great debt. However much he had hurt her.

      Nothing could ever completely erase the pain of losing the people who had loved her the most, but the one consolation she’d always held on to was the fact that both her parents and her brother had been ripped from her against their will—they hadn’t abandoned her.

      But Ben was different. He had chosen to leave her. Worse still, he had walked out on her the morning after their wedding. The morning after their wedding night—when she had thought they had made the ultimate connection.

      She’d been wrong.

      ‘Dr Abrams?’ Thea hadn’t noticed the nurse return, and she swung around to meet her gentle gaze.

      ‘I’ll be over at the nurses’ station—just let me know when you’d like to go in to see your husband.’

      ‘Great,’ Thea croaked.

      What the hell was she supposed to say to him?

      Her mind whirled. This was a walk of shame and an oh-so-awkward morning-after conversation all rolled into one. And to make matters worse it was five years too late.

      She squeezed her eyes shut, as if blocking the memories which suddenly threatened to engulf her. She had to stop being silly. No doubt the last time they’d been together—the awkward sex—was the least of Ben’s problems right now. Besides, nothing good could come of wallowing. She knew that from bitter experience. It might have taken her almost all of these five years to come to terms with what had happened, but she had finally managed to.

      At least she’d thought she had. The moment she’d received that call—shocked that she was still noted as Ben’s next of kin—and seen him lying immobile in that bed, her emotions had been whipped into a confused mess.

      Ben was hurt. She couldn’t ever forgive him for abandoning her emotionally when she’d needed him, but she had to concede that he hadn’t abandoned his responsibility to her. Now he needed her help, and she couldn’t ignore the sense of commitment that struck in her—half buried as it might be. She owed him loyalty for that, at least.

      She stuffed the anger back down, feeling calmer as the genuine concern she felt for him slowly started to regain control over her errant emotions. Perhaps seeing Ben through this, helping him to recover, would be the closure she finally needed? She had no choice. It was proving impossible to put Major Ben Abrams into her past any other way.

      Thea felt a tiny sliver of resolve harden in her chest—her strong, professional inner core finally peeking its head out again—and she clutched at it before it darted back into the shadows. Tilting up her head, she urged her leaden legs to move in the direction of the nurses’ station just as the nurse glanced up.

      ‘Dr Abrams? Are you ready to go in now?’

      Thea jutted out her chin and fell back on all her training. It offered her a much needed confidence boost.

      ‘So...’ Thea injected as much authority into her tone as possible. ‘What’s the prognosis?’

      It barely took a moment for the nurse to register the difference in her. She shot Thea a look more akin to one colleague looking at another, rather than at a patient’s next of kin.

      ‘Fortunately the ambush occurred not far from the camp, and they were able to get a team out quickly to secure the area and recover the casualties. Ben was med-evacced to the nearest main hospital, which was when his arm was reattached. The seven-hour operation went smoothly, but there will be follow-ups, of course.’

      ‘And what about regaining normal function?’ Thea asked. That sliver of resolve was starting to grow, lending Thea a new sense of determination.

      ‘Under ideal circumstances, with consistent physio and positive rehabilitation, Major Abrams can expect to regain up to eighty-five per cent of normal function.’

      Eighty-five per cent of normal function? Ben was a surgeon.

      Thea suppressed a shudder. How would he cope with never being able to operate again? What was more, these weren’t ideal circumstances.

      She could see the concern in the nurse’s eyes.

      ‘I’m guessing that with Ben’s additional spinal injury that replantation prognosis is optimistic? What level of spinal injury is it?’

      ‘Honestly...? We simply don’t know at this stage.’ The nurse shook her head. ‘We know the bomb blast was significant, and that Major Abrams went into spinal shock. So there is spinal cord damage. But the swelling means we have no idea just how extensive the damage is.’

      Thea nodded grimly, struggling to keep those icy fingers from curling their way around her heart again.

      ‘I appreciate you’re Air Ambulance,’ the nurse was saying, ‘but how much do you know about spinal injuries post-emergency rescue?’

      ‘These days it’s mainly assessing, securing and stabilising the patient to ensure no further damage during transport,’ Thea acknowledged. ‘As you say, I don’t usually get involved with the post-emergency rescue care. But before I joined the Air Ambulance I did do some work on the Keimen case.’

      It was one of the things which had helped to propel her up the career ladder at such a young age. That and her driving need to block out the pain caused by Ben’s ultimate rejection.

      ‘The boy whose spinal cord was completely severed and who took his first steps some two years later?’

      Thea dipped her head. The work had been cutting edge, and she wasn’t surprised that it had caught the nurse’s attention.

      ‘I understand they transplanted cells from the part of the brain involved in sending smell signals from the nose to the brain to stimulate the repair of his spinal cord?’

      ‘That’s right.’ Thea managed a smile despite herself. It had been inspiring to work on that case.

      ‘I see.’ The nurse nodded. ‘Then you’ll completely understand the difficulty at the moment with Major Abrams. As I said, there’s still too much swelling to get a clear MRI, and unfortunately we do know that the impact of the second IED and the Land Rover crushing him was significant.’

      ‘So it’s a waiting game,’ Thea stated as calmly as she could.

      As unlikely as it sounded, she could only hope that the swelling was protecting his back and that any injury was as low down as possible. Usually, the lower it was, the better. The sacral nerves, perhaps, at worst the lumbar. But the higher the damage—the thoracic nerves or, God forbid, somewhere within the cervical vertebrae—the more chance Ben might be paralysed for life.

      Thea squeezed her eyes shut at the thought. Ben was such a physical guy—not just as a soldier but in his personal life, too. She couldn’t imagine