Page 16 of The Viking Blues

He’d been so proud of her, had always known she would achieve whatever she set her mind to, and he knew she still could.

No matter how broken she thought she might be.

“Better broken than dead,” Ollie said, getting to his feet and taking the heat pack from Mia. “Now then, I’m going to reheat this pack for you, and you’re going to tell me all about your medical discharge. And if we have time, which we will, you’re also going to fill me in on what the fuck happened in the last eighteen years to make you so goddamn defeatist.”

Eyes wide and mouth hanging open, Mia stared at Ollie as though she couldn’t believe someone had spoken to her like that. At her rank, most people wouldn’t dare. But Ollie wasn’t most people, and Mia wasn’t in the army anymore.

And she needed to get used to both of those facts. Fast.

Mia stared at Oliver’s back as he stalked away from her, leaving her alone on the back deck with her anger and insecurities.

She had half a mind to storm off and leave him hanging, but her leg still twitched with the remnants of her last muscle spasm, and she didn’t want to irritate it and set it off again. Besides, where would she go? She still wasn’t sure she was up to the task of going home yet, and if hiding from Ollie was the goal, then skulking back to her bedroom was pointless since he’d put her in the one right beside his.

Finding her would not be difficult.

When he’d brought her to The Forge the previous night, they’d both been tired and cranky. Mia because she was in pain, and Ollie because he’d carried Mia on his back for the twenty-minute walk home, which included trudging uphill through thick scrubland.

He would have made a fine soldier.

She hadn’t missed the way his thighs had quivered when he’d finally put her down, the muscles dancing under the denim of his jeans, undoubtedly fuelled by dehydration and lactic acid. Not that she’d been staring at his thighs in particular, comparing their current muscularity with the leanness of his youth.

Oliver Bennett’s thighs were none of her business, and neither was what he did with them, or with whom.

Because they were friends.

Even after all this time, he still saw them as best friends. Which meant he didn’t see her as anything else.

Fuck.

Mia sighed softly, then laughed at herself. “What did you expect? Idiot.” Of course Ollie only saw them as friends. When had she ever given him the impression she’d wanted to be anything but?

Well, except for that one time.

And she’d fucked that up good and proper, hadn’t she?

Ollie reappeared and handed her the heat pack. “Here you go,” he said, sitting beside her. “Now tell me, it’s not just arthritis, is it?”

“What do you want me to say, Ollie?” she said, reapplying the heat to her thigh. “For the last eighteen years, I’ve pushed my body beyond its limits and all so I could prove to every Tom, Dick and Harry that I had what it takes to be in charge of the men and women who defend our country. All so I could prove my lack of a penis meant I wasn’t lacking anywhere else.”

She scrubbed her free hand over her forehead and sighed quietly. “After a while it takes its toll. I didn’t even know I had arthritis until I put my back out last year. I slipped a disc and it impinged some nerves.”

“And that’s what’s causing the muscle spasms?”

She nodded. “At my last check-up they told me the arthritis is getting worse in my lower spine, and my right hip is basically fucked. They strongly recommended I retire and find something less strenuous to do. I put in for my discharge the next day.” She turned to look at Oliver, and added, “And it’s not defeatist to accept reality. Circumstances change. I’ve learned to change with them.”

“That’s a very positive attitude,” Ollie said, surprising her a little.

She frowned at the compliment. “Thank you.”

“And doesn’t sound at all like something a broken person would say.”

She glared at him again. “Don’t you have work to do?”

Oliver stretched his long legs out in front of him and knitted his fingers together, resting them on his taut stomach. “Probably.”

Mia waited for him to get up but when he didn’t make a move, she said, “Well, shouldn’t you go do that, then?”

He smoothed one hand over his beard like he was stroking a cat. “Nah. The upside to being self-employed. I can do what I like, when I like. Especially on a Saturday.”

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