Christmas with Her Bodyguard

His dark expression should have frightened her. It didn’t.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I don’t want to talk to you about it.’

It took everything she had to stamp down her instinct to object.

She drew in a discreet breath. Then another.

‘I understand,’ she acknowledged quietly, when her voice was calmer. ‘And you don’t have to talk. I just wanted you to know that I’m here. If you ever want me.’

‘I don’t,’ he ground out.

But, surprisingly, the rejection didn’t hurt her the way she might have expected. With a rush of something she couldn’t yet name, or maybe she just didn’t want to, Rae realised she trusted him. Perhaps it was because Rafe trusted him, but she didn’t think it was that simple. There was something inherently dependable about Myles. Something she believed in just as much as her brother did, or, at least, she wanted to.

If only it weren’t for that cruel, taunting voice in the back of her head reminding her what had happened the last time she’d trusted a man who wasn’t her brother. How her most intimate moments had become public property all because Justin hadn’t wanted to give up his grasp on fame.

Maybe if Myles could just give her something, anything to show that he needed her. There was more—she knew that...but this felt like a start, a real step forward. She could work on this.

Not that she knew what it was she thought she was working on.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘WHAT’S THAT FOR?’ Myles frowned at the kit bag Rae had just thrown into the back of his four-by-four.

‘What does it look like? I’m coming with you.’

Light, breezy, airy. She clearly had no idea how dangerous it was closer to the border. He considered telling her, but then knowing Rae she would only use the information against him later.

‘Most of the work up there is sorting out displaced people, triaging medical cases, and administering basic injections that they’ve never had before, like polio. I can’t imagine this camp can spare your expertise.’

‘Now that’s where you’re wrong.’ She grinned. ‘There are several of us here at the moment, but apparently the forward camp only have two OBGYNs and one of them has just gone down with a vomiting bug. They asked me if I wanted to go up there for forty-eight hours and take up the slack.’

He felt restless. Frustrated.

‘Forget it. They can get someone else.’

‘They have me, Myles.’

‘Not a chance,’ he bit back. ‘This camp is so far back it’s relatively safe, but the forward camp isn’t.’

‘Is that a note of concern I hear? I’m touched.’

She was teasing him again. What was more, he liked it.

‘Don’t be,’ he growled, his voice far more loaded than he would have liked. ‘It’s just my job.’

She arched an eyebrow and he wondered how, after last night, he could possibly expect her to believe such a blatant lie. He grunted and stalked around the vehicle and carried out his first parade.

He should regret last night—his weakness in talking to her, in telling her all the things he’d never told anyone before. And yet he couldn’t regret it. He’d felt something like relief—he could barely tell, it was such an unfamiliar sensation these days—seeping out of him with every word he’d uttered. As if she were rescuing him from quicksand he’d thought he would be trapped in for ever. Or at least until it pulled him under.

But wasn’t that part of the problem? He was supposed to be the strong one here. He always had been, all through his military and medical career. He should have been the one helping her. Saving her.

What kind of a man was he that he couldn’t look after himself? What did he have to offer a woman like Raevenne?

He glowered at the dusty, barren landscape beyond the compound and offered a bitter laugh. It couldn’t have been a more apt vista.

‘I want to be with you today.’ He startled as she touched his arm gently. He hadn’t even noticed her approaching him. ‘I thought you might appreciate it, especially when you’re talking the other surgeon through the second operation.’

His jaw was so tightly locked he was shocked it didn’t crack or crumble under the pressure.