Christmas with Her Bodyguard

‘I can’t do this with you, Raevenne. Or, more to the point, I won’t. Everything is always drama with your lot and I’ve seen enough drama to last me several lifetimes.’

‘No, Myles—’

‘Stop the car, please,’ he ordered the driver, before turning to his side and taking one last look at her. ‘I’m sorry, Rae. We’re done.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

RAE PULLED THE baby out, blue, floppy and covered in thick meconium-stained amniotic fluid. If she was going to help it transition to life outside the room she was going to have to work quickly. But, as ever, resources were limited and she had to act fast.

Picking the baby up, she transferred it quickly to the resus table using an Ambu bag to push air into the limp baby’s lungs, but the meconium was filling the mouth and lungs, stopping the chest from rising. She checked the pulse.

Decelerating—just as she’d feared.

‘Cath, can you grab an aspirator and start getting this meconium out? And just ask someone to see if Janine is still free? The mother is haemorrhaging.’

She didn’t wait for an answer, watching instead as her colleague began to clear the baby’s airways.

‘Okay, that might do it.’ Rae nodded after what felt like a lifetime. For the baby, it so easily could be. ‘Let’s try again.’

She didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until she pushed more air into the baby’s lungs and finally, finally, heard the faintest of whispers. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

Still, when she turned to the new mother to see her staring over and, despite her own pain, tears of relief spilling freely out at the miraculous sound, Rae felt her own heart swell with pride.

She really did have the best job in the world, she realised, handing the baby over to the mother whose arms were already outstretched. Even out here, where resources were scarce, and maternal and infant mortality was so high, there was still the pure joy of hearing a baby cry for the first time.

It almost made up for the fact that, in order to have this life, this career, she’d lost Myles.

Less than a week after she’d watched him go, a ringing sound had already built up in her ears. Part of her had been desperate to run after him, a bigger part of her had been too paralysed to move. She had almost welcomed the numbness that had been beginning to settle over her, because at least that acted as something of an anaesthetic against the pain she recalled all too vividly from the last time Myles had rejected her.

The ringing had grown louder and more insistent. With a start, Rae had realised it wasn’t in her head after all, but her mobile, and she’d heard Angela on the line telling her the next replacement medic had dropped out, and inviting her to jump on a return flight.

She’d opened her mouth to decline, to say that she couldn’t possibly return without Myles. But the words hadn’t come out. They’d lodged in her throat. And then she’d caught herself.

Myles had gone. She’d had nothing to lose. And besides, she’d loved operating out there, and feeling she was making a real difference. At least she would have that, even if he wasn’t with her to share it.

The next thing she’d heard was her own voice accepting Angela’s offer.

Could it really only have been five days ago?

It felt like an eternity.

Either way it was time to get over any secret hopes she’d harboured that Myles might step back into her life. Time to accept that he was now well and truly gone. Since he and Rafe had uncovered the source of the death threats there was no reason for Myles to return. She didn’t need him now.

At least, not as her bodyguard.

But in the emotional sense?

If these past few days had taught her anything it had reinforced the fact that she loved him. She always would. He had her heart in a way no other man would ever have. Because no other man came close to matching Major Myles Garrington. And that was okay. Some people went through their whole lives without meeting their soulmate. But she had.

And that month she’d had with Myles was hers for ever. She could hug it to herself and no one would ever be able to take it away from her.

‘You’re done?’ Janine barely lifted her head from attending to the haemorrhaging.

‘You need some help?’

‘No, but the new general surgeon arrived this morning. I was going to walk them through a procedure out here when you called.’

‘Shall I take over here so you can get back to her?’