She was still cross-matching the first patient when one of their colleagues rushed in.
‘Another emergency on its way. A two-year-old girl with high fever, suffering convulsions and diarrhoea. Haemoglobin three point one. Preliminary assessment in the clinic is that it’s malaria.’
‘Another IV line,’ Justin confirmed. ‘Intramuscular injections, and malaria tablets, and, Bridget...?’
‘More cross-matching.’ Bridget nodded. ‘Got it. Is her mother in with her?’
‘Yes. I’ll take her to the lab for screening,’ the nurse assured them, hurrying back to the door. Then turned. ‘Also, the new army unit has arrived. They’ve already started investigating the pump in the south quarter so we might even have additional fresh water by nightfall.’
It was the kind of thing Hayden would have done, Bridget couldn’t help thinking. He would have launched himself into emergency tasks like that. If they succeeded, the limit of five litres per person per day could be raised to ten litres. Still less than the ideal minimum of fifteen litres out here, but quite an improvement for a few hours’ work.
But it hadn’t happened yet.
Thrusting the thoughts away, she focused on the two cross-matches over the next couple of hours, as well as third one that came in, only feeling she could breathe again when the life-saving blood was being transfused into all three of their tiny patients.
At last, exhausted yet with an enormous sense of satisfaction, Bridget called her shift done and left the medical part of the compound and headed for the mess tent to grab a bit of rather late lunch.
* * *
‘I didn’t think you’d ever come out.’
Whatever tiredness or hunger had been threatening to overtake her, it dissipated in that instant. Slowly she turned, half expecting him to be a mirage. That he’d disappear when she tried to look directly at him.
‘Hayd. What are you doing here?’
‘New orders,’ he told her easily, but she didn’t miss that expression in his gaze.
The one that caught at her, tugging on the loose thread until it threatened to unravel. She commanded herself not to react.
‘New orders?’
‘To check the boreholes. Strip down and rebuild any of the submersible electric pumps that need it. Get them working again.’
‘I knew there was an army unit coming.’ She was impressed with herself at how steady her voice sounded. She had no idea how she’d managed it. ‘I just didn’t think for a moment that it would be you. Is that a coincidence?’
Hayden’s eyes slammed into hers so hard she felt as though he had physically winded her.
‘No, Birdie, it isn’t a coincidence.’ His voice rolled through her like thunder. Like a prelude to the monsoon season that wasn’t yet due. ‘I put in a request to my CO to come out here, to be part of this follow-up mission, because I wanted to see you. I missed you.’
She wanted to believe him. So much that her heart felt like it was cracking. But something lurked in the periphery of her mind. A dark shadow that warned her not to be as gullible and foolish as her mother had always been.
Hadn’t he already told her he couldn’t offer her any kind of relationship? So what had changed?
‘You missed the sex.’ She hated the sound of every single word, yet they had to be said. ‘Nothing more.’
‘No, I missed you,’ he corrected, reaching out to take one loose lock of black hair in his fingers and twirl it.
The tiny gesture felt so intimate that it almost stole her breath away. If she didn’t steel her heart against him she was afraid he was going to shatter it all over again. But it still didn’t explain what had changed in his head.
‘You don’t,’ she refuted thickly. ‘And I don’t want to go down this road with you again.’
And then, before she could crumble, as she feared she surely would, Bridget found the strength to remove his hand and begin to walk away.
Whilst she still could.
‘I was wrong,’ he said quietly. Simply.
And she knew she shouldn’t engage with him, but she couldn’t help it. She stopped, but she didn’t turn around.