Page 15 of The Long Walk Back

At Smithy’s funeral, I had my first pity party, and I was in no hurry to go there again. Smithy’s body was lying in a box, and people were milling around me, telling me how sorry they were for me, offering help, comfort. Why did I need that? Smithy was lost, and that was on me. My men made it home, sure, but what about the others? What about the fresh-faced souls heading out there now? There would be other kids on rooftops. Other soldiers not coming home. Would my absence be missed, or worse, would it have saved Smithy and others like him? I used to be sure of my position, steadfast in my abilities, but now I had nothing. Worst of all, I would never have a chance to do my bit again, to try to make up for the loss of my man by bringing others home in one piece.

The clock on the wall showed it was 9.10a.m. Ten minutes late now. Ten minutes of rubbing my own arse cheek in this crap chair, waiting for someone to come and talk to me about how I should be coping. I was alive, so she’d already half won by leaving me that note. Brilliant. I took another sly look around the large room. On one back wall, laid out in racks, were legs of different sizes, colours, proportions. Fake legs to fit every stump. I looked away, subconsciously rubbing at the cut off sweat pant where my leg used to be. I didn’t sleep well last night, kept awake by pain that made me want to scream, and this wasn’t helping. I was just wheeling myself to the door to leave when it opened, and there she was.

She walked briskly into the room, thick black glasses perched on the end of her nose, her tousled blonde hair pinned up with pencils. The combination made her look like a sexy librarian. Or a sexy mad scientist, with the clipboard and white lab coat covering her body. I had a sudden curious thought. What’s under the coat, Doc? I felt a twitch and looked away quickly. Twice this woman has done that to me. Last thing I needed was her rubbing up against me, making me grow a third leg. I cringed inwardly at my own daft joke. She stopped walking when she locked her eyes onto mine. Her expression was blank, and I matched it with one of my own, making sure to keep focused on her eyes, willing my erection to go. You are maddening, I wanted to tell her. I bit my lip to keep it in. We stared at each other, not moving, and I took the time to study her face, to suss out any clues about what had happened to the woman who saved my life against my wishes, for the last few months. She looked exhausted, the hollows under her blue eyes evident, even more so in the harsh strip lighting of the room. Her coat was pristine, clean and ironed, her black pumps looking like new, but the woman behind the mask was a wreck. She looked like a stiff breeze might blow her away.

‘Damn, Missy,’ I drawled. ‘What happened to you?’

I was taking a chance on the nickname, chances were that she wouldn’t recognise me, and probably had countless patients’ faces in her head. As I waited for her response, I realised I didn’t really know why I had the hope that she did. She blinked a few times and her shoulders seemed to drop a few inches. She smiled slightly, and walked over to me, bringing a chair with her.

‘I told you, Captain, I don’t care much for that nickname.’

I chuckled despite myself, partly from relief that she knew me, and partly due to her sarcastic retort. She looked different, but she still had a bit of fight left in her, underneath it all. I held my hands up, mocking surrender.

‘So,’ she said, flicking through the pages clipped to her board, keeping her eyes on the paper. ‘I see you transferred from hospital, and you are here for rehabilitation and prosthetics. So far, apparently you have resisted all but the most basic care.’

I snorted, but she continued, the only sign she heard me being her slightly raised eyebrows. Oh, she was good at this. I felt the need to banter with her, see how much she would take before biting back, but something stopped me from letting rip just yet. I believed in what I fought for, and had I not been injured, I would still be out there with my buddies. I was angry, and this woman pushed all my buttons. I wanted to see the fire in her eyes flash, that grin of hers to show itself. Whenever I opened my mouth to say something cutting, I remembered her hand on mine when I woke up, broken and in pain. I remembered her face, full of gentle smiles and concern. I remembered her tears, and her words on that last day, and I wanted to figure out what happened, and just who Kate Harper was. She was here with Dr Tanner; I’d seen his name on the transfer forms. Looking across at her, I could tell she was pretending to study the clipboard, obviously waiting for me to speak. Her hands were curled tight around it, and I noticed that her fingers were ringless. I ran my fingers through my hair, which was far too long for my liking. I had to figure this woman out. She was messing with my head. I should hate her, but that faded a little the day in the chopper. It was hard to fuel it with her right here, in front of me.

‘I’ll do you a deal, Missy. You answer my questions, and I’ll try to get on with whatever you’re trying to do with me here.’ Her head jerked towards me, her eyes connecting with mine. She pushed up her glasses and lowered the clipboard.

‘Even the leg?’ she ventured.

I puffed air out through my cheeks, rubbing at the stubble on my chin. ‘I’ll see. The rest – yes. The leg? We can renegotiate.’ I flashed her a cheeky grin. ‘Depends on what goodies you give me.’

Kate flushed and put the clipboard back on the floor. The metal clip at the top made a clang on the sterile tiled floor. ‘Then I reserve the right to not answer every single question.’

She had me there. ‘Deal,’ I said, holding out my hand. She went to stand but I stopped her by wheeling over to her. ‘I’m a gent; I’ll come to you.’

Our knees touched, and I put my hand forward, ignoring the sensation of heat that radiated from her into my right side. She touched my hand and shook it firmly. Why did it feel like a reward to touch her hand again?

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I was just being polite, I’m not here to pander to you, so don’t worry about that.’

I smiled at her. ‘Do I look worried?’

Two hours later, and she was putting me through my paces. Upper arm workouts, measuring my body, making me stand out of the chair, working the bars. I kept looking at the prosthetics out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t fancy going near those any time soon. Speaking to some of the guys at the gym, they seemed to have no problem with them, but the thought of the sores, the falls, the lack of dignity when your leg fell out from under you? No thanks. I’d be sticking to the chair for now. I was just glad that my arms could carry my weight still; I hadn’t exactly been on my game of late. The last thing I wanted was to waste away to nothing.

She barked orders at me like a drill sergeant, writing copious notes on her little geek board, while I did my best to prove that I could do whatever she expected me to and more. By the end of the session, I was sweating profusely, and had a pain in my leg – the leg that wasn’t there. It felt like my calf had cramped up, but I knew different. Funny thing, how the mind can play tricks. Bloody hilarious, in fact. I pushed myself to the end of the bars, reaching with one hand for my chair. I could feel Kate watching me from the corner of her eye, but she made no move to help, and I appreciated the fact that she was going to stick to her word. Sitting in the chair, I went to the towel rack, pulling one off and wiping myself down with it. My white tank top was stuck to me and my sweatpants were looking a little worse for wear too. Kate came over, bottle of water in hand. I eyed her but decided it wasn’t babying me to bring me a drink, so I took it with a word of thanks and took a huge swig. She opened a bottle herself, taking a slow drink. I watched her delicate neck stretch up as she put the bottle to her lips. She was at least ten shades paler then when I saw her in Iraq, as though she had never seen a day of sunshine from then till now. Her skin was smooth, blemish free, with tendrils of knotted blonde hair around the nape of her neck and ear lobes. She looked exhausted, as though she had just rolled right out of bed into her clothes.

‘So, this is it then? Five days a week you put me through my paces?’

She nodded, replacing the cap onto her bottle. She surprised me by kneeling at my foot. ‘I… er,’ she started cautiously. ‘I need to check your wound site, if I may.’

I shook my head. ‘Nope, not today, Missy. We’ll leave that for another day, I think.’

She opened her mouth to protest, and I whipped out my hand without even thinking first, placing my index finger across her lips, shushing her. She didn’t recoil as I thought she would, but instead she sucked in a quick breath, and we both looked at each other in shock. I slowly pulled my finger down her face, pulling my hand away from those soft and sassy lips. She licked at them, only stopping when a voice disturbed us from the doorway.

‘Good first session?’ Trevor asked, a strange expression on his face as he looked across at us. Jealousy? It didn’t look that way, and I knew if Kate were mine, I would be more than pissed that a man had his hands anywhere near her. Not that it was like that, hell, I didn’t even know what I was doing in my own mind. Kate sprang up from her position on the floor, dashing across the room, grabbing the clipboard on her way out. Passing Trevor, she lowered her eyes.

‘Er, yes, not bad,’ Kate mumbled, her face now a fetching shade of scarlet. An improvement to her usual alabaster, I couldn’t help thinking. I tried not to smile as I imagined me being the reason for her sudden colouring. She pushed past Trevor awkwardly in the doorway, too awkwardly for two people that were intimate with each other. Maybe I was wrong. I squashed down the sudden surge of relief that I felt, squashed it deep in the dark. Perhaps I would bring that into the light later, when I could deal with it properly. A lot of thoughts lived in the dark corners of my mind these days, so it would have good company. Trevor watched Kate walk down the corridor, her shoes click-clacking on the floor as she strode away. He smiled at me then, coming into the room and taking residence in the chair that Kate had just vacated.

‘So, Captain, you’re finally here.’ He grinned, and I smiled back.

‘Don’t be so modest – you put up a fair bit of a fuss to drag my ass here, didn’t you?’

Trevor nodded contritely, unconcerned about being caught out. ‘I heard you weren’t doing well,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘This place is the answer.’

‘I was doing just fine. So what’s the plan?’

‘The plan?’ Trevor asked, picking a piece of lint off his brown slacks.

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