He was talking about someone important. A fellow soldier, maybe? Someone he had loved who had died? Why was he telling her something so personal?
‘I heard a crash,’ Luke added. ‘That’s why I came inside.’
Anna swallowed. Luke’s lips were moving. Slowly but surely they were curling into a smile. A real smile. One that changed his whole face, deepening those furrows to his nose but adding a sparkle to his eyes that made him seem so much more … alive.
It faded all too quickly and instinct told Anna that she had been given a glimpse of something normally well hidden. The real Luke? A letting down of some guard that not many people got to see, anyway. A real smile and he had chosen to bestow it on her.
Something deep inside her was captured. Something huge and warm and wonderful. Anna knew she would remember this moment for ever.
‘It’s a great name,’ she said softly. ‘Crash?’
The big pup wriggled in her arms and looked up at her. He tried to prick up his ears but they were too heavy and stuck out sideways. Liquid brown eyes were full of trust and a long tail gave a thump of approval.
‘Crash it is,’ Anna announced. She smiled up at Luke. ‘Hey, thanks.’
‘No problem.’ But the smile had well and truly vanished from Luke’s face and he stood up.
He was leaving. Something oddly like panic made Anna’s heart skip a beat.
‘Would … um … would you like a coffee or something?’
‘No. You’re busy and I’m on my way to Penhally. I’ll leave the journal.’ He dropped it onto a chest of drawers by the door. ‘There’s a good review of restrictive pericarditis in there. I thought you’d be interested.’
The reminder of work was timely. She had to work with Luke. Work and home couldn’t mix. Professional and personal couldn’t mix. What had she been thinking, blathering on about her rescue puppy? She scrambled to her feet.
‘Thank you.’ There wasn’t a thing Anna could do about what she was wearing or what her home looked like, but she could summon as much as she could of Dr Bartlett. Lifting her chin, she could feel the shell of professionalism beginning to enclose her. Protect her.
‘That was thoughtful of you. I did do as much research as possible when Colin was admitted but it might well be something I didn’t come across.’ She looked pointedly at the door. ‘I’ll see you out, shall I?’
‘No need.’ Luke turned to leave but then paused. ‘Actually, there was something else.’
‘What?’
The hesitation was almost imperceptible. ‘You don’t seem to have reported that incident from Colin Herbert’s surgery. Or not that I’ve heard about.’
‘No. I decided not to.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you said it wouldn’t happen again.’ And I believe you, Anna added silently, looking away so that he wouldn’t see any crack in her newly formed shell. I trust you.
Luke didn’t say anything. After a long moment he broke the eye contact and gave a single nod. ‘Thank you,’ he said, the words somewhat curt. And with that he was gone.
Anna stood very still. She listened to the sound of her front door closing. And then the sound of a car engine starting up and a vehicle moving away.
Even then she didn’t move. Standing like this, she could feel that shell cracking and falling away, exposing something tender. She could almost feel Luke’s presence still in the room. She could still see that amazing smile.
And, heaven help her, but she wanted to hang onto it for just a little longer.
The sound pierced his eardrums, his body rocking from the force of the impact. Through the painful buzzing that came in the wake of the explosion he could hear the cursing of his companions. The screaming.
‘Get out!’
‘Get down!’
The ping of bullets ricocheting off the metal of their armoured vehicle came faster. An unearthly shriek from someone who had been struck ripped through the sounds of chaos.
Of panic.
He could feel the heat now. Not just the normal strength-sapping attack of the desert sun but the kind of heat that could sear flesh. A lick of flames that could bring death with far more suffering than a bullet.
The dust was thick. Getting thicker. The chop-chop-chop of a nearby helicopter was stirring the ground. Bringing assistance, but it was going to be too late. It was getting hard to breathe. He could smell the dust. Taste it. Dust mixed with blood to become a suffocating soup.
His companions needed help. The driver was slumped over the wheel, others bleeding. The young paramedic was crying. Facing death and terrified.
He could feel that terror reach out and invade his own mind. He was frozen. Becoming aware of the pain in his own leg. Terrible, unimaginable pain. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move …
They were his brothers, these men. All of them. And he was going to watch them die.
He was about to die himself. He could see the enemy emerging from the clouds of dust, their bodies shrouded with the clothing of the desert, their faces disguised by heavy, dark beards. He could see the cruel muzzles of the weapons they were pointing at him but he couldn’t move.
Couldn’t even breathe …
The sound of his own scream was as choked as the air around him.
Arghhh!
The desperate, strangled sound that finally escaped his throat was, mercifully, enough to wake him. Even as his eyes snapped open, Luke was throwing back the covers on his bed, swinging his legs over the edge so that it was a continuous, flowing movement that had him sitting, hunched on the side of his bed, his head in his hands as he struggled to drag in a breath.
The feeling of suffocation—of imminent death—was still there.
He couldn’t afford to stay still. He knew what he had to do.
The warm, fleecy trackpants were draped over the end of his bed. His shoes were right there to shove his feet into. Running shoes.
It wasn’t real, he reminded himself as he pulled the laces tight. It hadn’t even happened that way. He had never seen the enemy. He had been able to move. To drag his companions to shelter behind the vehicle as the helicopter hovered overhead. He had staunched the flow of blood and kept airways patent. None of them had died.
But the nightmare was always the same.
He was watching his own brother die. Feeling the fear. Unable to help.
Matthew. Mattie. The clumsy kid with the happy grin who’d had to tag along with his older brothers and do everything they did. Crash.
Oh … God! What on earth had possessed him to suggest that Anna Bartlett use that precious nickname for that skinny, ridiculous-looking dog?
What was she doing with a dog in the first place? How could she keep a pet that needed so much time and love with the kind of hours he already knew she put into her career? She did love it. He had seen that in the way she held it and soothed it. The way her face had brightened with joy at finding a name she really liked.
He had now pulled on the coat hanging by the door. Within seconds he was lurching down the rough track that led to the beach. It didn’t matter that it was the middle of the night. His night vision was better than most people’s and he was getting very familiar with this route.
Maybe it didn’t matter that he’d given his brother’s name away to a dog. It wasn’t as though he was planning to visit that unlikely little cottage again and they were hardly likely to be chatting about it at work