‘Thea, listen...’
She held up her hand to stop him.
‘Please, Ben, don’t say anything. You’ve answered my questions. It’s not your fault if I don’t like what I heard.’
Quickly she turned and jogged away, before the tears which were pooling in her eyes could begin to fall.
CHAPTER SIX
BEN SAT BOLT-UPRIGHT. The blood was gushing in his ears, his heart was hammering out of his chest, his body was drenched in sweat. Nightmares. Again.
He forced his head to focus on the clock. Two-thirty a.m.
Pushing himself out of bed, he tried to escape his unwanted thoughts. But not even standing under the hot, powerful jets of the shower, almost too exhausted to raise his arms, could wash away the doubts which had long since lurked in his subconscious but were now beginning to break the surface.
The events of yesterday had played through his head all night—events from the moment Thea had left him at the park.
He felt mentally and physically exhausted, and he knew it wasn’t just from pushing his body too hard yesterday. Although he had. He’d pushed himself too hard from the moment he’d got out from under the hospital’s watchful eye—he knew that. Thea had been right about him pushing past his limits. The pain was almost constant now, rather than easing off bit by bit, day by day, as it should be.
But he almost welcomed it.
It meant that he was still alive when so many others were dead—his men, his friends, Dan.
He must never slack off—never let the injuries defeat him. He felt ashamed that only a few months ago, when he’d first woken in that hospital, paralysed and groggy, he’d closed his eyes and prayed that when he went back to sleep he wouldn’t wake up again.
He was so very grateful he had woken again. And now he owed it to the memory of every soldier who had died out there never to let himself fall that far again. He needed to get his body back to full health, pass his Army Medical Board and get back to whichever war zone they wanted to send him to, save as many lives as he could.
He also needed to get out of this house, before he did something he regretted. Like giving in to temptation with Thea the way he had on their wedding night.
And right now that was proving harder than ever.
Her revelations yesterday had been a bombshell. He still couldn’t quite get his head around it. He’d spent five years believing that he’d betrayed Thea, taken advantage of her in her grief, and he had hated himself for it. He’d left the following morning because he had genuinely believed Thea had wanted him to. His shame had been the only thing which had stopped him from making contact in all these years. He had believed she must abhor him even more than he loathed himself. Instead Thea was now telling him that he hadn’t taken advantage of her vulnerability at all—that she had actively wanted him on their wedding night. As much as he had wanted her.
And that raised a whole other problem.
Thea’s frankness yesterday had caught him off guard. She had his emotions starting to spiral out of control, and for someone who had always been taught to put his feelings in a box and shut them neatly away it was all a completely alien experience.
Slamming the shower off, hearing the clunk-clunk of water hammering through the pipes, he hoped it wasn’t reverberating around the silent house and waking Thea. Still, the noise aptly mirrored his sour mood. He half-heartedly patted his body down with a towel and then shuffled across to his bedroom to flop, exhausted, back into bed.
He didn’t expect to sleep, but the psychological impact of Thea’s revelation was taking its toll on his still healing body. As soon as his head had hit the pillow sleep engulfed him, and he slept for four hours straight.
By the time he awoke the blinding pain of yesterday had receded to a dull ache and he felt somewhat revived, a little less tense. He listened carefully. They were going to have to build some bridges, but right now he could do without bumping into Thea. Reassured that the house was silent, Ben climbed out of bed and crept quietly out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen.
‘For crying out loud!’
As Ben stepped through the door he ducked just in time to miss a high-flying empty juice carton which a clearly exasperated Thea had just over-armed towards the swing bin. It hit the sweet spot and tumbled in.
Time to start bridge-building after all.
‘Nice shot.’
It might have been weak but it was a start, although her grunt of response wasn’t encouraging. Neither was the fact that she’d flushed bright red and was refusing to meet his eye, sitting straighter, more rigid on her stool. No doubt she was feeling raw and embarrassed after their last conversation. And that was his fault too.
He cast around for something else to say and noticed the glass sitting forlornly on the countertop, next to where Thea was. There was barely a trickle in the bottom, but the same carton had been over half full when he’d taken it from the fridge last night. Hence the flying missile, he realised.
‘Sorry about the juice,’ he apologised. ‘I meant to go out early this morning and pick another one up, but...’
She shot a sharp look his way and he realised she thought he was having a dig at her. His gut twisted. He’d had no idea he’d hurt her so badly; it certainly hadn’t been his intention, and making amends was going to prove harder than anticipated if she was still smarting from their confrontation yesterday.