Except that he was the one who had reached for her back in her office.
The thought left a warm glow as it wound slowly through her.
‘Can you handle working together this closely?’ he added, as though he thought she needed clarification.
‘Of course I can handle it,’ she bristled, despite the fact that she’d only just been asking herself the same question. But, then, he’d always known just how to push her buttons. ‘The question is, Kane, can you?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
MATTIE SKIMMED THE notes of her fourth patient so far, before heading into the consultation room. Theoretically, as CO she had plenty of things to do other than routine examinations, but she’d always liked to keep her hand in, carrying out the occasional check-up to see what was going on at ground level in her hospital.
Besides, although the hospital was so often in a flurry of activity, there were sometimes a few days of down-time, especially just before or after a big exercise. And right now, doing an occasional consultation kept her mind from wandering to Kane.
She felt better this morning, although she didn’t know why since she’d spent most of the night tossing and turning, pretending that she wasn’t thinking about Kane, or imagining him on his own cot bed a few army tents over. By zero four hundred hours she’d given up trying to sleep and had dressed and slipped into her office to catch up on some admin, ploughing through a decent amount of work. Nonetheless, a corner of her mind had been distracted, thoughts of Kane weaving around her head.
By now he would be with Kath, her second in command, observing the medical scenarios she had set up for her own teams to keep them sharp and focused. It was part of his job as liaison, and it provided them with a chance for him to see what her unit practised, which could then be dovetailed into the scenarios they would work up for the infantry medics.
Mattie had almost been tempted to head down there and see him—see what he made of it, she corrected hastily. If wouldn’t have been that unusual for the CO to attend, especially with the place enjoying this brief lull. But, in the end, she’d chosen instead to come to the walk-in clinic and spend a half-hour or so seeing what kind of cases were walking in at the moment.
Like this private who was apparently suffering from back pain. Satisfied with the notes, she went into the consultation room, smiling at the young lad sitting side-on on the examination bed. He looked as though being in the field hospital was the last place he wanted to be, but was in too much discomfort to avoid making the visit any longer.
‘Hello, Private, what brings you in today?’
‘Yeah... Hey, ma’am... I guess... I guess I’ve got a bit of a sore back.’ He pulled a face.
‘Upper or lower?’
‘Um...around here...’ He reached round carefully to indicate.
‘Is the pain new?’ Mattie asked.
The lad shook his head.
‘It’s been hurting me for a while now, maybe eight months on and off, but it’s getting pretty bad now, and the pain has started shooting down my leg.’
‘Right.’ Mattie nodded. ‘Done anything particularly strenuous recently?’
Again the young private shook his head.
‘I’m always in the gym, working out, you know? Some weights, and lots of PT. Nothing unusual.’
‘Jumping out of planes?’
‘Yeah. Sure.’
‘Okay, let’s give you a physical. Check your reflexes, muscle strength and stuff. Which leg is experiencing the shooting pain?’
‘Left.’ He tapped his thigh.
‘Okay, let’s start with your right leg. Lift it up, bending your knee so that’s against your chest, and try to resist as I push down. Good. Okay, try the left leg. Good.’
For the next few minutes Mattie went through a series of tests, chatting to him as she went and eliciting more information. Ultimately, everything seemed to confirm her original suspicion that he had a herniated disc.
‘Okay.’ Her test complete, she sat back on the chair opposite to chat to him. ‘So, I suspect you have a bit of bulging in one of the discs between your verte
brae. It can press on the nerve and cause some of the pain you’ve described for me.’
‘That goes away by itself, right?’ the lad asked hopefully.