Christmas with Her Bodyguard

‘Do you?’

She shrugged again.

‘One in five foetuses don’t survive here. That number is so much lower back home, and those that don’t survive are often lost well before labour. I might see one death a month. But out here I see them every day. Multiple times. Worse, most of those babies die because of complications during labour.’

‘There’s no care out here,’ he concurred quietly. ‘Most of these women don’t even know there’s a problem until it’s too late. And even if they did, what can they do about it? There are so few hospitals, and anyway, what money do they have?’

‘Exactly.’

He could see her swallow, desperately trying to hold herself together.

‘I couldn’t understand how they could be so accepting, so stoic, at first. But these women go into pregnancy knowing the chances of something going wrong are high so they are prepared to lose their baby. Perhaps too prepared.’

‘Probably,’ he concurred, ‘but there’s nothing you can do to change that. That’s the way life out here is. You just have to find a way to deal with it. To cope.’

‘Like you have.’ She cast him a sidelong glance before looking away guiltily. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.’

‘Yes, you did. In your own way.’

But he was astounded to find that it didn’t rankle as it had in the past. It didn’t grate on him. He wanted to talk to her. To let her into his head. To help her to know him, to understand him.

As if he believed she could actually help him.

He’d lost his career, his reputation, the life he’d known. The only thing he had left to give her was his honour. Then it was up to her. She could take him, or she could leave him. His chest constricted painfully.

He’d battled terrible enemies, been in firefights that should only ever have had one outcome, lost too many friends to count. He told himself he’d withstood worse than any woman walking out on him, then ignored the little voice that goaded him that Raevenne wasn’t just any woman.

‘And you’re right, I haven’t found a way to deal with it so I’ve just been bottling it up inside. But it was always bound to spill over at some point.’

He was aware she’d stilled. She was frozen in her seat wanting neither to look away nor to engage, for fear of breaking the moment. For a few moments, he turned his head from the road and met her clear, direct gaze whilst something rolled through him, low and unstoppable, like a drumbeat, or thunder.

* * *

‘I’m grateful to you for offering to be the one to listen, but I need you to know that I’m not making any promises. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to tell you everything, or that it will make any difference.’

‘I don’t need anything from you. I just want you to know that you have that option,’ she whispered.

He nodded, unmoving for another moment, finally turning his attention back to the road.

‘Part of the reason for not wanting to talk about the night...that we found the village burning...was that I

was trying to protect someone.’

He didn’t realise he’d stopped talking until Rae spoke up hesitantly.

‘Lance Corporal Michael McCoy?’

‘No.’ He shook his head but then stopped again. When she reached her hand out to touch him, her fingers resting gently on his forearm, it was oddly encouraging.

‘I was trying to protect his daughter.’

‘His daughter?’

‘Kelly. She was five years old and she was his whole world.’

Rae sucked in a breath, sympathetic but still not understanding. He didn’t blame her.

‘A few days before that mission Mikey had received a letter from home. A well-intentioned family member telling him that they’d discovered his wife had been having an affair.’