The way that she should be.
Instead, a complicated knot of emotions was moving inside her. Surging back and forth, even as her heart was numb.
‘What about you? You’re Company Sergeant Major. What’s next for you? I heard that you’ve been inundated with offers to join the private sector.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ he scoffed.
‘Kane, the instant you walked into my field hospital looking like...that...’ she waved her hand to encompass him ‘...all the single female soldiers took notice. The rumour mill went into overdrive.’
‘I’m flattered.’
‘Oh, come on, you know as well as I do that half the girls fancied you when we were back in Heathdale. Even your family name didn’t put them off.’
‘Only half?’ he teased, but it was a careful teasing, like he was really just changing the subject.
They both knew it.
‘The point is, you could change career if you wanted. Leave the army and go into the private sector. There’s a lot more money in that.’
‘Of all people, I’d expect you to know this isn’t about money, Mattie,’ he chastised her gently, and heat raced to her cheeks.
He was right, she did know that. It had always been about being part of something special. More than just a family. Something that was bigger than her. Something that mattered.
She bobbed her head but didn’t answer.
‘We don’t have a future, Mattie.’
He left the statement hanging, giving her a chance to refute it the way she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. But she couldn’t. He was right, they didn’t have a future.
She could feel emotion welling up inside her, threatening to effervesce and spill out everywhere. But, as Kane had said himself, what good would it do to give in to it? To let it out?
With a superhuman effort she pulled herself together, fighting through the threatening tears—and she never cried—to focus on the paperwork on the table in front of her.
‘Okay,’ she began, swallowing back a lump of...something in her throat. ‘So, the purpose of the medical simulations we run on these occasions won’t be to train my medical team. We’ve run all the scenarios multiple times and the teams all know exactly what they’re doing. The aim is to stress the new tactical brigade. To test them, and to find any weaknesses.’
She wouldn’t have objected if Kane had taken the conversation back to the personal. But he didn’t. As she’d known he wouldn’t.
‘Yes.’ He offered her a half-smile. His only acknowledgement that they were trying to move past everything. ‘You can benefit, of course. But initially the scenarios will test the individual soldier out there on the front line. It will test the company. But most of all for Operation Strikethrough, these initial scenarios have been designed to test and stress the new strike battalion’s medical chain and handovers.’
‘So we’ll start with relatively standard scenarios and cas-evacs.’
‘Some cas-evacs on the bonnets of four-by-fours to an FOB,’ Kane agreed, indicting the Forward Operating Base and making notes accordingly, as she tried not to let her gaze linger on that hand that had touched her, held her, the way that no one else had ever quite managed before or since.
‘And if that runs smoothly and the chain holds out, we’ll also look to delay medical support for...shall we say forty minutes initially,’ confirmed Mattie, as though she didn’t feel broken. Exposed. As if she would never quite be right again.
‘Keeping the patient alive and stable enough for transport. Consider nutrition, hydration, et cetera whilst the recovery vehicle finds a way in.’
‘Right, so, like I said, we may need to find a new grid reference if things keep advancing the way they have been. It’s going to be our job to fly out and assess the site together, as well as assess the guys during the scenario itself.’
‘I know.’ She tried to tell herself that it was no big deal. She was a professional with over a decade of experience. She’d never let herself get into a compromising situation before. But, then, Kane had never been involved before.
At least they would be able to work through the assessment and feedback separately, feeding the findings up through the chain of command and letting them iron any issues out at Brigade level.
‘Can you handle this, Mattie?’ he asked, and she tried not to notice that he hadn’t called her Matz in the entire time he’d been at the field hospital.
She suspected that, if it had not felt completely insane, he probably would have addressed her as ma’am as a way to keep that line of separation all the clearer.
He’d have to address her more formally if anyone else were to overhear their conversation. It worried her that she didn’t know if she’d prefer that or not. He seemed to be finding this—resisting each other—far easier than she was.