Protect Her (Aussie Military Romance Book 2) Read online

  “What’s this?”

  “Apparently the nurses fight over watching you do the shower transfer. Now, it’s my turn.”

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  “How about you let me be the judge.”

  Fuck, he hated her watching, had refused to let her know how hard this transfer had been to figure out. Only when the physio told him that his head had to be pointed in the opposite direction of his ass did he start to get it. Balancing on the edge of the chair took strength and trust, and more than once when he was learning, he ended up with a bruised backside and banged head.

  None of that mattered now, as long as he could make it look simpler than it was. Get into position, move his legs, then prepare for “dismount”.

  His arms rippled as he took the strength to raise his body and swung over to meet his legs on the shower chair. The chair brakes held and he tried to hide his sigh of relief.

  “Oh, babe,” Xanthe adjusted the shower rose before straddling him. Pouring and then rubbing the shower gel over their bodies. “That was incredibly sexy to watch. I can’t believe you were holding out on me all this time.”

  “I didn’t want you to see my monkey.” Not the truth and he knew she knew it.

  “The monkey is mine, now. As is this, and this, and this,” as she kissed all around his chest and neck. He reached for the shampoo and rubbed it through her hair while she did the same for his. Carefully, he brushed the suds away from her eyes, running his fingers through the wet, long locks.

  “You are incredible,” he kissed her nose.

  “Don’t you forget it.”

  How could he, she was his life.

  He didn’t know if she felt his sobs as he held her close and let the water wash over them. She was his life but he had nothing left to offer. No career, no future.

  Only the love of a broken man.

  Xanthe

  She wrapped the kimino around her, cuddling into her man as he read through the papers that came with his posting.

  “So what does it mean?”

  “The Army is giving me every opportunity to recover, but let’s face it, I’m not going to be able to go back over there and be a real soldier.”

  Previously when he talked about the future, there was a slight whine, but this time his voice was firmer, more matter of fact.

  “What does a soldier do? Come on, tell me.”

  “They train and fight.”

  “What was the call for your unit? Reapers Come, Reapers See …”

  “Reapers Conquer and never leave a Reaper behind,” he finished. Still, his voice was cautiously determined.

  “Well, I think you proved that you conquer. You left the field alive, and you fought to stay alive. You fought to wake up and I watched you fight every day to get out of that hospital bed.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she had to act fast before she lost him back into the darkness.

  “Do you really think that you’re the only soldier that is undefeated but a little knocked up? All the guys talked up your training, how you motivated them to push harder in the gym. You didn’t need your legs for that – just the power of being you.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That until you get through whatever this rehab place can offer, you won’t know what sort of soldier you can be. It will be different, but so is our sex life and that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  He had pushed the papers away and cradled her until they both fell asleep for the first time in the privacy of a bedroom.

  “Damn,” she hissed as the strawberries fell out of the second croissant.

  Mack was still sleeping and she was trying to quietly recreate the lover’s breakfast from the café. Slicing the strawberries was easy, even tossing them through Cointreau before packing them into the sliced croissant – that was where she went wrong! With the large slice, of course the fruit fell out when she tried to dip it into the French toast mixture.

  Opening the last packet of croissants, she hollowed out the inside from a small hole just big enough to push through strawberries. This time, they were easier to flip through beaten egg before frying. The mascarpone cheese had softened enough to lightly whip with a fork and the chocolate sauce only needed a minute in the microwave.

  Mack awoke to the sound of the coffee grinding as she turned the croissants for the final time.

  “I’ve always wanted breakfast in bed with a beautiful woman.”

  “Then don’t go anywhere, and I’ll bring breakfast to you,” good, he was starting to get back his sense of humor.

  “Aren’t you a little overdressed?”

  “This old thing?” she twirled to give him the full impact of the black mesh tube dress with the front panel giving a full view of her side boobs and tied at the back. Black frilly, lacy pants completely covered her ass. Her highest black patent heels, small white apron and white cuffs completed the outfit.

  “I thought it matched the breakfast,” she squealed as he grabbed her ass instead of meekly taking the offered plate. “Easy, tiger. You need to get your strength up.” She fed him an alcohol drenched strawberry.

  “Food before fucking?”

  Xanthe tasted the sweetness on his lips as he once again proved her panties didn’t want to stay up. Dropping them to the floor, she pulled the tube dress a little lower and returned to the bed with her own plate.

  “As long as there is fucking, heaps of fucking,” she loved the way she could talk dirty with him and all it did was raise the temperature of the room. “But one of these days, you’re gonna have to take a girl on a real date.”

  “Come here,” she barely had time to put the food to the side before he had her right where she wanted to be. Again.

  Set her free

  Mack

  Who would have thought that he’d end up working in the rehab facility as part of his own rehab! Once he was diagnosed with PTSD, a new chapter of support opened up, including his options for staying in the Army and work through his physical limitations.

  The counsellor had the crazy idea that it was important to Mack’s “sense of self” to feel needed. One session showing a newbie the ropes around the gym turned into helping out before each of his own sessions.

  Nothing structured or planned, but it gave him something to look forward to. He even started documenting how to vary each approach based on the physical limitations of each soldier. Most of them were younger and in a worse head space than he was, full of self pity and anger. He recognized the signs and even though he didn’t know how to help himself, it seemed easier to get inside their head to listen.

  Now he was going through the process of getting the Army to recognize all his prior learning and start converting it into formal fitness training certification. The staff seemed to accept his dual role as stubborn patient who was not patient, and uncompromising fitness trainer who suffered no excuses. In fact, being a patient and volunteer only made his bullshit excuses fall on deaf ears and would probably result in an extra set or two of reps added to his session.

  A couple of months away from his unit and base and the world seemed a different place, full of opportunity and hope. He was still pushing his own boundaries, had mastered the wheelchair and living independently. There were days he thought that he could even stand, in a brace and insisted on punishing sessions to keep as much of his leg muscles as possible.

  Healing was a full-time job which would have been easier if Xanthe was working with him, but harder if she hadn’t been in his life.

  Anyone could yell encouragement, demand his best and motivate him to push through another set. No one could make him laugh, like Xanthe. If he could pick the three things he loved the most, it was her eyes, her legs and her ability to make him laugh at himself and life. She was the only one who could stop him before he hit the darkness, not that they ever talked about it. They didn’t have to, she knew.

  He wanted her as his OT, but there was no convincing anyone that she could be anything other than his partner.
Some partner, half the time she was at work and even though he spent most nights at her place, he was still reliant on her for transport and there was no official living together status box ticked on any of their forms.

  Mack needed her desperately and hated in equal measure his dependency. If only he was still the man he used to be, he’d know in his heart whether the love he had was for Xanthe the woman who could light up his world by walking into a room, or whether he loved the fact that she was there.

  Xanthe

  There was never going to be a good time to tell him, but there was also no avoiding it.

  The last time they tried to call her up north to back-fill behind her replacement, she declined and got Mack’s counsellor to support her request. Not only did she have a full caseload in Brisbane, but Mack’s diagnosis of PTSD was still new and he needed her support. His parents had taken his injury as reason to extend their posting to France and his sister had her own family in Germany. She was all he had, other than the Reapers and half the time no one knew where they were.

  After giving him a heads up that she was almost finished for the day, she returned to her office at the far end of the complex.

  The results of her latest protocol had been so impressive that the powers that be wanted her to go back to Townsville and implement the early intervention aspects. She didn’t care about handing over her work to others, but this time they were quite insistent that she was needed for one month to document all the processes and fill in while her replacement was recovering from a motorbike accident.

  “Ready?” she looked at the text. In truth, she could spend another two hours on paperwork, finalizing all the reports to hand over to the staff who would be sharing her cases for the month. Possibly a day or two in the office avoiding her boyfriend.

  “10,” she replied, knowing he’d be waiting outside in the ten minutes it would take her to close down, get her car and pick him up out the front. It had taken every string the Army could pull, but she got a second hand SUV converted to carry a wheelchair within a couple of weeks of arriving in Brisbane. What it meant was that without her, Mack’s independence away from the facility would vanish.

  “It will be good for him, he’s got to learn how to drive again sometime,” Dr Hunter batted back the last card she had to play. “Don’t underestimate how much his reliance on you fuels his depression.”

  “He’s not ready.”

  “Xanthe Davies, you would be the first to call out a patient’s family for enabling dependence. Don’t fall into the trap.”

  “I’m not,” she was and she knew it.

  Mack had never lost his charm and without the chair, women were still drawn to him. She watched the lip licking and hair twirling as they tried to get his attention. It took all her own composure not to go around the back of his chair to push it as a sign of her dominance over him, and them.

  It was petty, pathetic and everything Dr Hunter was warning her about.

  “Okay, even if I am, a little, isn’t it drastic to come back up there for a month. I mean, what if he really does need me.”

  “What if he doesn’t. Don’t you want to know the difference between want and need?”

  “When do I start?”

  “Monday. Have you still got your old car?”

  “No, I got rid of it to buy this one.”

  “Your choice whether you drive or fly. We can put you up on base for the month, there’s some share accommodation. I know once you get up here the girls will look after you and make sure you can get into town.”

  “I haven’t told him, not even that there was a possibility of me coming up.”

  “Xanthe!” he admonished. “Oh, well, it’s your life and if you think springing this on him is the way to go, I can’t argue. Don’t expect him to take it well, but remind him that he can either fight you over it or accept and enjoy the last weekend before you leave.”

  “I’m not going to get any time off to come back and see him, am I?”

  “Not at all, Xanthe, these boys need all of us. Mack’s got a team looking after him. These boys need you.”

  Mack

  He was getting better at transferring to the car and getting the chair sorted on his own. Perhaps he could restart the process of getting his own car, but that would mean checking out what models could be reconfigured to hand controls.

  Instead of the fastest, sportiest chick-magnet, he’d be looking at a sensible car with a permanent disability sticker.

  No, he couldn’t do it, not yet.

  “Hey babe,” he started but Xanthe’s hello kiss was not her normal greeting. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “You’ve never taken me out for dinner,” so distracted, only sharp braking stopped her from turning into another car.

  “Are you really gonna kill us because I’ve never taken you out?”

  “Sorry, it’s just you promised to take me out on our first date, and we never have. We met, hung out, almost slept together, now we might as well be living together and we’ve never had a first date.”

  Where the hell had this come from?

  “Is this about dating,” the pit in his gut told him it was more serious.

  It was only a fifteen-minute drive to her townhouse, but it felt like forever in silence. Xanthe lost in whatever screwed up thoughts made her bring up the long forgotten promise of a first date.

  Mack, trying to think about all the things that could be her real problem. Stuck in a life with a cripple? Her career now linked to whatever rehab facility would take him? No social life and no kids? Hell, he could write the list himself and it had nothing to do with a first date.

  “Salmon and chips?” she asked, opening the door for him. He hated the simple logic of her having the car keys and getting to the door before he even organized the chair to give him back his legs, so to speak. There was no opportunity for him to do the normal things like take in the groceries, or get to the clothes drier before she had done them all. Less than ten minutes, and yet another thing to make him feel less like a man and more like a child.

  “How about you sit down, pour us both a glass of wine and dinner is on me,” he turned on the oven and checked the fridge. “I can even make a mean salad instead of the chips if you want.”

  “Fine,” the tapping of her fingernails on the wine glass told him differently.

  Half an hour later and he wheeled in two plates on the TV dinner tray that had been a lifesaver. Balanced over his legs, he could carry most things easily between rooms. Remove the tray, and he could ferry Xanthe where ever she wanted to go.

  “So, where do you want to go on this first date?” He might as well jump into the deep end.

  “I was being silly. I’ve had something on my mind all day, I don’t know how to tell you so I pulled a bitch act and started focusing on all the things we haven’t done that most couples do.”

  “Like walking hand in hand.”

  “Been there, done that on the beach, remember?”

  “Make up sex?”

  “I think we’ve done that once or twice,” she laughed. “Although it might get harder long distance.”

  Silently, she topped up their drinks, looking for a reaction.

  Instead, his military training kicked in, slowing his breathing and patiently waiting for more information.

  “The new protocol I told you about, well they want me to go back on base and implement it as an early intervention program with a batch of guys that have just come back from Kandahar. Dr Hunter thinks that it can help speed their recovery and in any case, Steiner who replaced me decided to get knocked off his motorbike and will be off work for a month.”

  “When do you leave?” there was no point in fighting. The Army needed her, other soldiers needed her. What was his wanting Xanthe compared with others’ needs.

  “I start Monday. There’s a transport that can pick me up from work and still get me there before midday. We’ll still have Sunday night, and I’ll leave my car at work.”

  “For
how long,” he could suck it up for a day or two.

  He knew when she cleared the empty plates from the table, it was going to be longer.

  “A month.”

  “Fuck,” she picked up his glass before it was going to end up on the floor. “How long have you known?”

  “I found out today.”

  “Really, you sent off the protocol today and they called you right back with the posting arrangements?”

  “You know that I was here on a handshake arrangement. If they want me back on base, I have to go. I was able to get out of it before but this time, they are insisting.”

  “What do you mean, before!” he yelled.

  The more she swallowed and bit her lip, the harder he knew the decision had been. “This is the third time they’ve wanted me back.”

  “Why didn’t you go before.”

  He tried not to see her shaking, he wanted the truth and damn it, she owed it to him. “I asked you why did you stay here the other two times.”

  “You needed me here.”

  If only she had said she wanted to be with him, that she loved him too much to leave, but no it was about him needing her.

  No, she had only stayed out of pity for her cripple boyfriend, the thoughts swirled and his anger and darkness threatened to spiral out of control, again.

  “Take me back home,” he’d never caught a wheelchair taxi before and hoped she wouldn’t force him to start now.

  “No,” she grabbed his phone out of reach.

  “That’s not fair, actually it’s a real bitch thing to do. I need my phone.”

  “No, you need to listen. I didn’t go last time because you had just started counselling and I wanted to be there with you, support you.”