The Wife He Never Forgot

The injury to the second soldier’s hand was such that for a moment Tiggy couldn’t move.

As he too was wheeled into Resus, her training kicked in. She grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting away the soldier’s uniform, only vaguely aware of the staff crowded around the other patient, shouting orders.

Sue wheeled the portable X-ray over to Tiggy’s patient. There was another flurry of activity as the soldier with the abdominal wound was taken into Theatre.

Nick crossed over to them, peeling off his gloves. Tiggy handed him a fresh pair. The soldier’s vitals were getting worse. His blood pressure was dropping and his pulse becoming increasingly rapid and weak.

‘We need to get his arm off. It’s the only way to stop the bleeding,’ the orthopaedic surgeon said, examining the wound.

‘Let’s try and stop the bleeding first, shall we?’ Nick said quietly. ‘The hand might not be salvageable, but we might be able to save his lower arm.’

‘You have five minutes,’ the orthopod said. ‘After that, he’s going to Theatre.’

They did everything they could to stop the bleeding, pumping the soldier with blood, but when Nick, along with the other surgeon, looked at the X-ray of the soldier’s injury, he sighed, his eyes bleak. ‘The damage is too bad,’ he said. ‘You’re right, Simon. Amputation is the only way to go.’

Before she could help herself, a small cry escaped from Tiggy’s lips. ‘Are you sure? Isn’t there anything we can do?’

Nick and Sue were already preparing the casualty for Theatre. ‘If there was, we would do it,’ Nick said tightly.

Tiggy swallowed hard. The boy was so young. But she knew Nick was right. The X-ray was there for them all to see, and Nick had already taken a chance by not sending the lad to Theatre straight away.

Nick looked at Tiggy and if she had any doubts as to how much he’d hoped to save the soldier’s arm they vanished when she saw the anguish in his eyes. ‘I promised these boys we would get them home and that’s what we’re going to do. I’ll assist, Simon.’

Moments later, the resus room was empty.

* * *

Much later, when Dave, the soldier whose arm had been amputated, was settled on the ward, Tiggy escaped outside. She tried to control the tremors that kept running through her body.

‘You okay?’ Nick’s voice came from behind her.

‘No. Yes. I will be.’ She took another deep breath. ‘He’s so young to lose an arm.’

‘He’ll learn to live without it.’

She whirled around. ‘How can you say that? You don’t have the remotest idea what it will be like for him.’

Nick’s expression didn’t change. ‘No, you’re right. I don’t. If I lost my arm or the use of any of my limbs, I don’t know what I’d do. But at least he’s alive. At least he won’t be going home in a body bag. Not like his colleague.’

They had been unable to save the other casualty. They all felt his loss as if he’d been their brother, their husband. When Nick had told them, his expression hadn’t changed, and Tiggy wondered if she’d imagined his anguish earlier.

‘How can you be so...’ she sought for the right word ‘...unaffected?’

‘Because they need me to be professional. They need us all to be professional.’ Nick’s voice was flat.

Tiggy slumped against the wall and wiped a hand across her perspiring brow. He was right, of course he was. If he could have saved the soldier’s arm, he would have. Wishing otherwise wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Dave.

She thought about her brothers. God help them all if either didn’t make it. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how her own mother would react. She loved her children with a tiger-like ferocity. Without warning, tears sprang to her eyes and she blinked furiously. She just couldn’t help herself. It was too awful.

‘Hey, Tiggy. Don’t do that. Dave will be okay.’ It was the first time outside work she’d seen him look serious. ‘We make it our job to get these boys back home alive, and mostly we do.’ His eyes darkened. ‘God, don’t you think I hate not being able to send that boy home in one piece?’

‘It’s not just him—or the man who died. It’s all of them. They’re so young. And my brothers—they’re out there, too.’

‘There will be another team doing the same for them if they ever need help.’

Tiggy dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. ‘I can’t bear to think of them hurt.’

Nick reached out a hand and touched her shoulder. ‘Most soldiers make it home, Tiggy,’ he said. ‘You have to hold on to that.’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

He took her by the arm and steered her across the dusty strip of land in front of the hospital. ‘Let’s walk.’

‘I’m not sure I can after this morning,’ she said. Nevertheless, she allowed him to lead her across to the far side of the camp. A gentle breeze stirred the dust of the camp, cooling the intense night air. Above them a thousand stars studded the crystal clear sky. How could a place so beautiful hold so much heartache? When they reached a flat rock, Nick indicated with a nod of his head that they should sit. For a while they remained silent. Eventually Nick turned to her and grinned.

‘So, Tiggy, the last I recall we were up to when you were thirteen. Why don’t you tell me the rest?’

* * *

Later that week Tiggy was sitting outside her tent, drinking coffee with Sue. Across the camp men, most stripped to their combat trousers, were playing football or working out. Thankfully there had been no more life-threatening injuries to deal with. Dave had been transferred to the military hospital in Birmingham.

As a bare-chested soldier jogged past them, Sue grinned.

‘You see? It’s not all bad out here. Where else would you get the chance to ogle so many fit guys?’

‘I can almost see the testosterone,’ Tiggy admitted. Her eyes drifted over to Nick, who was pulling himself up on a bar suspended between two walls. He too was stripped to his combat trousers and the muscles in his naked back bunched every time he raised himself. Some soldiers sat in a circle, counting off every time he pulled himself up.

Sue followed the line of her gaze. ‘As I said, forget him. He might be a hero but he’s a woman’s worst nightmare. As soon as he gets the girl he’s been chasing, he loses interest. There’s hardly a female on the camp—or off it for that matter—who hasn’t had her heart broken by him.’

‘You don’t have to worry on that score. Nick might be a fine doctor, but his type has never appealed to me.’

Sue groaned. ‘Don’t say that! If he sees you’re not interested, that will only make him worse.’

‘I doubt I’m any more his type than he is mine, so you can rest easy.’

Sue eyed her speculatively. ‘I would say you’re just his type.’ She drained her coffee mug.

Something Sue had said was niggling at the back of Tiggy’s mind. ‘Hey, before you go, what do you mean about Nick being a hero?’

Sue hesitated before sitting back down. ‘Well, I guess I should tell you, although I’m surprised you haven’t heard the story already.’ Sue looked across at Nick. ‘It was last year. Nick was out on an op with the men. They were making sure that a deserted village wasn’t being used as a base for insurgents. It was a joint op with the Americans.

‘Anyway, they got to the place—they call it a sangar—where they were going to base themselves for the couple of weeks they expected the mission to last when fighting broke out. To cut a long story short, Nick left the safety of the sangar and, despite being fired on, ran to the aid of an injured man who had been dragged into one of the houses.’

‘Good God!’ Tiggy glanced across at Nick with new respect. So he wasn’t just a playboy? Of course she already knew he was a great doctor but this latest revelation was making her assess him all over again.

Sue half smiled. ‘That wasn’t the end of it, though. While he was treating the American, one of his fellow soldiers came looking for him and took shrapnel to his upper thigh—straight into his femoral artery.’

Tiggy knew what that meant. The soldier wouldn’t have stood a chance so far away from a proper medical facility.

‘Poor sod.’

Sue rolled her empty mug between her hands. ‘That’s just it. He made it. And all because of Nick. Incredibly, Nick managed, while under fire and with the enemy practically at the door, to clamp off the artery. Thankfully he’d called in the medevac ’copter and God knows how but they managed to land close enough to get Nick and the injured man on board. Nick kept him alive until they made it back to camp. You can imagine how slim the soldier’s chances of survival were—never mind keeping his leg—but Nick refused to give up. Somehow, he and the rest of the team were able to save the soldier’s life and also salvage his leg.

‘Since that day he’s become a bit of a hero around here—and, believe me, there are no shortage of heroes in a place like this—as well as a talisman. The men believe that as long as Nick is with them, or as long as he’s here on camp, they’ll be all right. Sometimes I think they’ve invested him with supernatural powers.’

Perhaps that went some way to explaining Nick’s arrogance, the air of total confidence surrounding him like an aura. She only hoped to hell there would be someone like him around if ever her brothers needed help.

‘I had no idea,’ Tiggy said softly.

‘It’s not something he goes around telling people.’ Sue glanced at her watch. ‘Time to get to bed.’ When she looked back at Tiggy, her eyes were bleak. ‘He might be a hero to the men but I think it’s also a burden. Nick isn’t a miracle-worker. He’s human. I sometimes wonder if he hasn’t started to believe his own legend.’

‘And what’s that?’ Tiggy asked, rising too.

‘Believing he’s indestructible. And that as long as he’s here, he can save everyone who has a chance.’

Tiggy’s eyes strayed back to Nick. He had finished showing off and had picked up a towel and was wiping the sweat from his chest. Some six-pack, Tiggy thought distractedly. At that moment he looked up, and catching her staring at him, winked.

Tiggy blushed.

‘Oh, dear,’ Sue said. She picked up her mug again. ‘Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. See you at six.’

CHAPTER THREE

Nine years later

TIGGY RAN DOWN the hospital corridor with her heart in her mouth. A woman pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair flattened herself against the wall to make room for her to pass while a doctor, talking into her mobile phone, looked at her with sympathy.

Had a corridor ever seemed so long? Would she make it in time? What if his condition had deteriorated while she’d been on her way? What if he died before she had a chance to see him? A sob caught in her throat.

She skidded to a halt in front of the triage desk. Damn, damn, damn, there was a queue. She spun around, wondering whether she should risk slipping into Resus uninvited, but just then a doctor spotted her and came over.

‘Mrs Casey?’ he asked. ‘I’m Dr Luke Blackman. It was me who called you.’ She had already guessed that as soon as he’d started to speak. She recognised his voice straight away.

Today had started like any other day. She’d been off duty when the phone had rung. At first the American accent on the other end of the line had thrown her. Then, when the male voice had identified himself as a doctor from the Royal London, her first panicked thought had been that something had happened to Alan, who was still flying Apaches in Afghanistan. But it was Nick he was calling about. Nick had been brought into the hospital with a head wound and was asking for her.

Without waiting to hear any more, she’d dropped the phone and bolted for her car.

She searched Dr Blackman’s face, trying to read his expression for clues, but his calm exterior gave nothing away. ‘Why don’t we go into the relatives’ room? It will give us some privacy.’

She felt sick. People were usually invited into the relatives’ room so they could be given bad news.

‘Just tell me.’ Her lips were so numb she could barely articulate the words. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Dead?’ Dr Blackman’s mouth relaxed into a smile. ‘No the lieutenant colonel is very much alive. He was drifting in and out of consciousness for a while but he’s going to be just fine.’

Relief buckled her knees. Still, she had to see Nick for herself.

‘Take me to him,’ she said.

‘I think we should talk first.’

Tiggy straightened to her full five feet five. Whatever Dr Blackman had to tell her could wait. ‘Please, Doctor, I need to see him. Now.’

The doctor clearly realised she was in no mood to be thwarted. ‘Very well. If you’ll follow me?’

Nick was lying on his bed, as still and as white as a corpse. His head was bandaged and there was a dark bruise on his left cheekbone only partly hidden by the stubble of his unshaven face.

But it was still Nick. Her husband. The man she hadn’t seen for six years.

* * *

Nick’s head was filled with images. Bombs were exploding, helicopter blades whirled incessantly, scattering dust everywhere. There was blood, so much blood, and soldiers and civilians running in panic. Then someone was sticking something into his arm.

Slowly the nightmare scenes began to fade and a strange sense of calm filled him as Tiggy’s face appeared before him; her blue eyes were wide, her red hair a sharp contrast to the paleness of her skin. The vision shifted and he was holding her, kissing her——she was in his bed, in his arms, laughing up at him, giggling at something he’d said.

He liked it when he dreamt of her.

‘I’m here, Nick,’ he heard her saying in that quiet, determined way she had. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’ Her voice was like cool rain on a hot night. Even in his nightmares the memory of her voice, her touch, always soothed him. It was when he was awake that the memory of her tormented him.

‘Can you hear me, Nick?’ a different voice said. An American, by the sound of him.

‘Come on, Nick. You need to open your eyes.’ It was Tiggy speaking again. Much better. He far preferred her voice to the American’s. But he was damned if he was going to wake up. The dream was so much better.

‘Nick, for God’s sake, say something!’

If he hadn’t known he was dreaming, he would have sworn it was Tiggy. But that was impossible. Tiggy was lost to him. Well and truly lost, as he was damn well going to tell that nagging voice.

He shifted slightly, trying to force his limbs to move. God, his body was aching. It was as if he’d been driven over by a Humvee. But he hadn’t been run over by a military vehicle or anything else. He hadn’t been in Afghanistan. He’d been in London. Other fragmented memories flooded back. The last thing he remembered was that he had been walking down a street. Which one he couldn’t for the life of him recall. A man had been on the ground. Someone had been kicking him. He’d moved in to stop the fight. He’d taken a blow to his stomach, but not before he’d landed one of his own. After that? Nothing. Except an exploding pain in his head.

Using every ounce of willpower he could muster, he reluctantly opened his eyes.

He had to be still dreaming. Tiggy was bending over him, her beautiful eyes awash with tears. It couldn’t be her. Not after all this time, and not after what he’d put her through. He closed his eyes again. Now, if only he could get back to the dream where she was lying in his arms, laughing up at him. He didn’t like Tiggy being sad.

But damn. He was awake now. He opened one eye. The image of Tiggy was still there. He closed his eyes and opened them again. No, it was no hallucination. No dream. It was her.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he growled.

* * *

Tiggy reeled as if she’d been slapped. But what had she expected? That Nick would be pleased to see her? Considering the way they’d parted, it was as likely as a snowstorm in the desert. Yet when he’d first opened his eyes she could have sworn it had been hunger—and pleasure—she’d read in their brown depths. She had been wrong.

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