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‘Nothing.’ He smiled. ‘Everything.’
For a moment Elle simply stared, as though trying to be sure that he meant what she thought. And then she responded with a smile of her own, the bright, easy, open Elle-style beam shining as brightly, as warmly as if she could reflect the very sun from the sky.
His Elle. He could spend the rest of his life bathed in the glow of her happiness and be a contented man. And he would willingly spend the rest of his life making sure she felt every bit as treasured, as admired, as loved as she deserved.
Chapter Fourteen
ANOTHER CHEER WENT up as they finally freed yet another kid from the rubble. Dirty and exhausted but most certainly alive. He lifted the tiny body as the child clung madly to him, his eyes locked on an exhausted Elle as she hurried over to them.
‘Bring her this way, we’ve set up more treatment areas over here...’ She indicated. ‘And then you need to take a break. When is the last time you ate?’
‘When’s the last time you did?’ Fitz challenged, following her as she lifted the rope to the cordoned-off area that allowed her to triage and treat without the pressure of understandably desperate relatives crowding in to see proof for themselves of their missing loved one.
As they slipped inside the tents the little girl was whisked away by Elle’s team, what looked to be her mother crying with relief by a waiting bed.
It had been almost twenty hours since they’d started securing the area and finding people to pull free. Even now, they were still finding occasional survivors, the shouts for silence going up any time they thought they heard sounds of a survivor, and marvelling at the resilience of the human spirit. But the death toll, low in the first few hours, was now beginning to race up, the bodies more damaged the deeper they excavated, and Fitz knew he would have to put the local volunteers on three-hour maximums before making them take a compulsory break, and to talk to someone about what they’d seen. His own men could work longer shifts, but it was still back-breaking work that was becoming increasingly demoralising the more time passed and the fewer survivors they found.
‘I’ve just had a break, actually,’ Elle said gently, answering his original question.
‘Voluntarily?’ he couldn’t quite picture that. ‘You mean someone made you take a break.’
Her sheepish expression said it all.
/> ‘The point is that you need to stop and eat, regroup,’ she admonished anyway.
No one was around to overhear but, still, they both knew it was their way of silently showing each other they cared. In spite of their surroundings, he couldn’t help an unexpected wisp of happiness from curling up inside him.
‘I will when relief arrives,’ he consented eventually.
She glanced up quickly.
‘It should have arrived about half an hour ago. Major Howes brought his other two troops and Major Richards brought his squadron.’
‘But they haven’t reached us?’
‘No.’
Fitz frowned.
‘Which means it’s likely there’s been another slide on the other side of the valley, on the way in. I have to go and find out.’
‘No,’ Elle commanded, stepping inside. ‘I’ll give this little girl a check-up and then I want to inspect those stitches of yours, to see if they’re still holding up. I’m surprised you haven’t burst them out there.’
‘Is that a medical order, Major?’ Fitz cocked his eyebrow.
‘It is.’ She smiled, ducking into the next tent to retrieve a few medical supplies.
He settled on the edge of the bed, ready to expose the dressing on his shoulder.
‘Fitz?’
He stiffened, turned.
It couldn’t be.
‘Janine?’
He steeled himself for the inevitable guilt but it didn’t come.
