‘He was driving.’ Fitz tried to swallow the words. Elle was a stranger and this was no one’s business except his. ‘Drunk. I was the only one left.’
Instead, they kept pouring out, as if they’d been waiting for this moment—for this woman—for half his lifetime.
‘Is that why you wanted to protect me from the drunken bloke who was hassling me at the bar, and his mate?’ she asked softly. ‘So, how old were you?’
‘Sorry?’ he stalled.
This was the longest he’d allowed himself to think about it in a long, long time. And he didn’t want to. Not here. Not now. Not ever.
‘How old were you when your family died?’ she repeated steadily.
‘You ask a lot of questions for a damsel in distress.’
‘I wasn’t in distress. I had my thumb-lock, remember?’ Another smile that twisted in his gut. ‘But that’s not to say I didn’t appreciate the solid back-up.’
‘Well, then, that makes me feel better.’ He managed a wry smile.
He should have known better than to distract her. Her gaze never wavered and he was compelled to address her unanswered question.
‘Seventeen. But it was the night of my eighteenth.’
He should have had happy memories of the time but all he had was one of his mother and his sister lying in that hospital mortuary. To this day he didn’t know which of the mass of bruises over his mother’s face had been caused by the crash itself and which had been the result of his drunkard father’s cruel fists. Fitz struggled to breathe, let alone regulate his voice, which sounded a million miles away when he spoke.
‘Listen, this isn’t something I like to talk about.’
A beat passed before Elle answered, but not before reaching out to run a hand over his cheek as if she actually cared. And the oddest thing was, he felt like she did.
‘Maybe you should talk.’
‘I don’t need to talk,’ he bit out.
She gave an apologetic shrug, but it didn’t stop her from continuing.
‘I’m sorry. I know it’s probably none of my business but I’m a doctor. I can see the signs when someone has repressed things for a long time. Especially soldiers who think they’re too tough to need to talk and repress all kinds of bad incidents.’
‘What
makes you think I’m a soldier?’ he asked sharply.
‘Those spare gym trousers you gave to the boy in there after his seizure had made him lose bladder control? I couldn’t help noticing they were military issue. And there’s just something about the way you handle yourself. I’m guessing Infantry?’
The way she smiled, polite but with none of the openness or interest of earlier, made him sure that discovering he was military had put her off. Ironically, his experience with women was that it was usually the other way around.
‘Not Infantry but, yes, I’m army. A colonel,’ he confirmed, technically not a full colonel, a lieutenant colonel, but he doubted that would make a difference to her.
Neither would the fact that until a couple of months ago he’d been a major in a different Royal Engineers regiment. Now he was at the start of his two-year posting as commanding officer of his very own regiment.
Yet right now all he could think was that something about the army meant that Elle was about to walk away from him, and a part of him desperately wanted her to stay. He wondered if she had a brother, a father who had served and been hurt. Or worse.
‘You don’t like it that I’m in the army, do you?’
‘No, no. It isn’t that. It’s...complicated.’
‘Too complicated to finish that drink with me?’
She sucked in a deep breath, as though trying to make her mind up about something. It was unsettling how much he wanted to spend more time with her. A drink, an hour, maybe the rest of the evening, whatever she was prepared to offer. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d ever wanted to spend time with any woman like this. But at least now her determination to leave had faded and she was looking decidedly undecided.
‘After the last hour, I’m guessing both of us would benefit from a bit of fun now,’ he pressed. ‘A bit of a laugh? A drink? Maybe a dance?’