The Army Doc's Baby Secret

‘Did you blame me for amputating your leg and thereby keeping you alive, when your buddies had died, Zeke?’

He eyed her again, and then, to her surprise, he smiled. A half-apologetic smile, but a smile nonetheless.

‘Maybe. I don’t know. When I look back on it, nothing I thought back then was rational, so it’s possible. I knew I’d pushed you away but a part of me was still angry that you went. I know now that you called the hospital for updates and that you never expected me to discharge myself and go off grid. Just as I understand why you kept the pregnancy from me initially, and I believe you that you intended to tell me as soon as you thought I could handle it. But that’s the part that really gets to me. That you thought I couldn’t take it. That you thought I was somehow less.’

It tore into her chest, squeezing her heart painfully.

‘I never, ever considered that you were less of anything.’ Her voice cracked but she forced herself to continue. ‘You were...are... Zeke Jackson. How could you ever be less than that?’

‘You wanted to get away from me, Tia. I saw it in your eyes. You keep trying to deny it but I know it was there, just as we keep trying to move on, but it always comes back to that.’

And then she deflated, right there in front of him.

‘You’re right. I’m sorry, and I hate myself for it, but you’re right.’

The noise that escaped his throat was almost animalistic. Like a roar and a pain, all in one.

‘But I can tell you that it wasn’t about the accident, or the leg, or anything like that,’ she pushed on. Desperately. Forcefully. ‘Not for a second.’

‘Then what, Tia?’

‘It was about the fear of losing you. The way I had lost my mother. It had always been there, in the back of my mind, but I’d never once imagined that you would be brought to my camp, on my operating table, with no other choice but to perform surgery on you. It’s the worst situation to ever be in, Zeke.’

‘I can’t imagine,’ he murmured, and somehow that soothed her.

‘I felt so responsible and so lost. You were lying there, bleeding out, and I froze for a moment. I had no damned idea what to do. And in that moment—as ludicrous as it might sound to you, I wanted to shout and scream and rage at you, for putting yourself at risk and putting me in that position.’

For a moment he didn’t speak, so many emotions chasing over his rugged features that she could barely keep up, even though she tried. As if he was weighing up her words. Assessing her sincerity.

The silence felt almost suffocating. Tia wanted to shift, to move, to break free. Yet simultaneously she didn’t even want to breathe if it risked breaking this spell they seemed to be under.

And then, after what felt like an eternit

y, he finally answered her.

‘You felt powerless,’ he said slowly. ‘I understand how debilitating that is.’

She didn’t want to have to answer him, but she made herself.

‘The prospect of losing you was horrific, and then, on top of that, it opened up everything I’d stuffed down and refused to deal with when my mum had died. I thought I could run away, escape it, let it bury itself again.’

‘You thought if you could get away from me in that hospital, then you could isolate yourself from everyone and never get hurt again.’ His voice was gravelly. Hoarse.

‘How stupid, how selfish, was that?’ She choked back an angry sob, only for Zeke to cup her cheek.

His thumb grazed her jawline, rough, almost assailing. Silencing her.

‘It was understandable. Brave, even. Because you didn’t pretend we could be something that we weren’t. Not back then. You were right not to have told me straight away about the baby. I would never have given myself a chance to heal. I would have felt pressured to provide for you and I would have made both our lives miserable when I couldn’t do it.’

‘Zeke—’

‘I only regret leaving before you had a chance to tell me.’ He cut her off as if she hadn’t even spoken. ‘I thought I was sparing you the burden of me. But I think it was just a way to run away whilst pretending to myself that I wasn’t.’

‘The survivor’s guilt?’ she guessed.

He drew in a breath.

‘Yes.’