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‘To contact Colonel Duggan at Razorwire,’ Elle called over her shoulder as she jogged away. ‘They’re going to need doctors on the ground and I’m a damn sight more use out there than I am here right now.’
‘Good.’ Pushing off the wall, Jools raced to catch up. ‘Then can you count me in, too.’
* * *
‘Just leave it be,’ Fitz grumbled as he tried to snag his arm away from the young medic. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You need medical attention, Colonel.’ The lance corporal stared him down, though his Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. ‘Given the nature of your injuries, you need to be easing the strain on your body. The fact that you’ve just single-handedly pulled three people out of the rubble only means the risk of internal injuries is also a factor.’
Fitz glowered. The boy had guts, he’d give him that. He might only be a lance corporal but he knew that in medical matters he had the authority to dictate to a colonel and, boy, was the kid sticking to his guns. He suppressed a smile of admiration.
‘With an attitude like that, remind me to tell your CO that you deserve a field promotion,’ he muttered as he settled back on the makeshift gurney. ‘Just stitch me up and let me get back to my men.’
‘Thank you, sir, but you understand you need to be on a MERT back to Razorwire? You can’t put any more physical stress on your body.’
‘The MERTs have higher priority patients to evacuate than me. I’m walking and talking. I’m fine.’
‘Like I said, Colonel, we don’t know about internal injuries...’
‘Son,’ Fitz growled abruptly, glancing over to where the latest MERT was landing and teams were already ferrying stretchered patients across the ground. They really needed more trained medical staff on the ground, there were so many injured. ‘I’m fine. Now, fix me up as quickly as you can so that I can head back to help my men.’
‘Sir...’ the boy began, then shifted his glance as soon as he caught sight of Fitz’s expression. ‘Yes, sir.’
Whatever else the lance corporal might have been about to say was lost on Fitz as his eyes locked on one of the disembarking soldiers.
She couldn’t be out here.
Before the medic could finish attending to him Fitz had pushed off the gurney and was striding across the ground, barely even paying attention to his step as he moved past the debris littered all around. As though he couldn’t get to her fast enough. As though he was running through the thickest, stickiest treacle.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Good to see you too, Colonel,’ she muttered, as he realised he’d roared at her, his nose only inches from hers.
He forced himself to lower his voice, though it wasn’t as though anyone else could have heard them in the fracas, but he couldn’t feel any remorse. Fear splintered through him like an axe cleaving wood, and with it a sense of protectiveness so fierce it was overwhelming, chasing everything else from his head—the landslide, the mission, the chaos around them.
‘You can’t be here.’
Fitz couldn’t explain it, but he felt desperate, panicked, out of control.
Just like he had when he’d finally listened to his mother’s terrified messages that night.
He told himself he couldn’t see someone else he cared about getting hurt. Because however much he’d tried to dodge it over the last couple of months, he cared about Elle. Deep down, he suspected that was barely scratching the surface of it but he refused to follow that line of thought to its inevitable conclusion. He blinked as he realised she was answering him.
‘I’m a trauma doctor.’ Outwardly she looked the picture of calm, but he could hear the quiver in her voice. ‘And this is an accident site. Where else would I be?’
‘You should be back at the hospital. You have patients.’
A silent voice was urging him to send her back where it was safer. Back where even more of the valley couldn’t come crashing down over her any second. It had always been a treacherous valley but now no one could be sure exactly how much damage the aftershocks of that earthquake had caused. But that wasn’t his call, he wasn’t her CO. And thank God, because if he had been, this was exactly why a relationship between them would have been against the rules.
‘I should be right here. The relief in place are already taking over in the hospital, and I’m one of Colonel Duggan’s first choices to be out here.’
‘It isn’t safe.’ He heard the agony in his words as they were torn from his lips.
Yet the bedlam around them—the confusion that he was here to get a handle on and to calm—was nothing compared to the maelstrom raging deep within his chest right now.
‘And that’s our job,’ she finished softly.
Quiet but steadfast, determined, her jaw set and shoulders squared, ready to stand off against even him if he got in the way of her doing her job. Every inch the professional, driven Elle he’d seen that first night. The Elle he’d so admired, been so drawn to, so attracted to. For several long seconds they stood immobile, and Fitz had the peculiar sensation of everything receding around them.
