The Army Doc's Baby Secret

‘Tow line is set up.’ Jonathon dropped below for a moment. ‘I’m going to stay here for a little longer to make sure it doesn’t part. All we can do now is wait.’

‘We can’t dodge the waves—we could still capsize,’ the yachtsman said quietly.

‘It’s a possibility,’ Tia acknowledged after a moment. ‘But we’ve got one of the best coxswains out there. He’ll do everything he can to keep us safe.’

‘Yeah, he’s going to be missed when he goes on that mission of his next week.’

‘What mission?’ Tia snapped her head up perhaps a little too quickly, but Jonathon had his back to her and didn’t notice.

‘You’d have thought he’d had enough of it in the military, wouldn’t you? But I guess that’s his life, he can’t stay away. We always pray he’ll come back safely.’

* * *

Tia faced him, anger swirling around her like some kind of ballroom dancer with a cape. If it hadn’t been the last thing he needed right at this moment, he might have taken a moment longer to admire the sheer force of his wife.

‘You can’t go back there, Zeke.’ However firm, and calm, and rational she was clearly trying to sound, her evident desperation was undermining her. ‘Look what happened the last time you were in a place that dangerous.’

He felt guilt and elation all at once. As much as he had no desire to hurt her, it was buoying to see how much she cared. He just needed to allay her fears.

‘I have to go out there, Tia. These are my men, a close-protection squad who I have personally trained, and they’ve just lost their team commander to something as unforeseeable as a motorbike crash. It has shaken them, and for two of these young men this is their first ev

er job without the full force of the military behind them.’

‘And they think you being out there can protect them?’

It was the disdain in her tone that got to him. A dismissal that his father had perfected. A disregard he had sworn he would never again allow anyone to make him feel.

It was as though his very blood were effervescing. His whole body a mass of coiled nerves. His skin almost too tight to contain it.

He couldn’t explain the part of him that wanted to roar at her. To tell her, yes, he could protect them all. Because he knew that was illogical. He couldn’t guarantee that.

But he’d feel a damn sight better about sending them out there if he was with them.

‘You can’t protect everyone, you know,’ she hurled at him, as if reading his mind. ‘You can’t stop something from going wrong, if that’s what’s going to happen. You should know that better than anyone. Or are you saying that if your commanders had been there that night, you would never have lost your leg?’

‘Of course not.’ The admission felt as though it were being ripped from his mouth. His little Tia made her point a little too well. Worse, she might as well be reading his very soul. ‘I’m not going out there to protect them. I’m going out there to appraise them.’

‘You keep telling yourself that, Zeke.’

‘So, you think I should be happy to send them out there to protect the life of a principal who has virtually no military training, yet cower back because it’s safer?’

‘A principal?’

He grasped it as though it were a lifeline.

‘The principal,’ he repeated. ‘The individual who is paying us to protect them out in an environment which is utterly hostile to them.’

‘I know what a damn principal is, Zeke.’ Tia raised her voice a notch, clearly unable to stop herself. ‘But those men you’ve trained are all former military. The environment isn’t hostile to them.’

‘I still know it better,’ he barked.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘You don’t. You and I both know that conflict zones are rapidly changing environments. What worked six months ago, a year ago, two years, won’t work any more. Tactics change, old exploits stop working, weaknesses get strengthened. It’s why the military always choose a selection of troops fresh out of theatre to train the next deployment to go in. Because their intel and experience is the most up to date and relevant.’

‘Which is precisely why I go out there several times a year.’

‘But not into direct conflict, Zeke. You go into passive conflict zones. You and I both know there’s a difference.’

‘Is that what you came down here for, Tia? To chastise me? To remind me that I’m disabled now and try to set limits on me as a result? I thought we got past this. Didn’t Look to the Horizon teach you anything about my attitude to my capabilities?’