Tina Beckett - The Soldier She Could Never Forget

“Stop.” Chelsea’s voice broke through, though she was still staring down, a green bean halfway to her mouth. “Don’t make her talk about it.”

Whether the young woman wanted to spare her mother’s feelings or her own, Clint wasn’t sure. “What would you like to discuss instead, then?”

There was a long pause. Then she said, “What you hope to accomplish by keeping me here.”

“It’s not about us, Chelsea. It’s about you.”

“Where’s Dr. Cordoba?” Her head finally came up, and her gaze settled on him.

“He went to work somewhere else.”

“Because of me.” The words came out as a whisper.

Clint shook his head. “No, of course not. He made the decision for personal reasons. It had nothing to do with you.”

Jessi’s chest rose and fell as she took a quick breath. “We all just want to help, honey.”

“Everything I touch turns to ashes.”

“No.” Jessi glanced at him, then scooted closer to her daughter, reaching out to stroke her hair. “You’ve been through a lot in the past several months, but you’re not alone.”

“I am, Mom. You have no idea. You all think I’m suffering from PTSD, because of my time in that camp, don’t you? Dr. Cordoba did. But I’m not.”

Clint glanced at Jessi, a frown on his face. “You tried to take your life, Chelsea. Something made you think life wasn’t worth living.”

The girl’s shoulders slumped.

“Does this have to do with your pregnancy?”

Two sets of female eyes settled on him in shock.

Hell. Jessi hadn’t known?

It was right there in Chelsea’s medical chart that her physical exam had revealed she’d given birth or had had a miscarriage at some point. He’d just assumed …

His patient went absolutely rigid. “I want her to leave. Now.”

“But, Chelsea …” Jessi’s voice contained a note of pleading.

“Now.” The girl’s voice rose in volume. “Now, now. Now! ”

Jessi careened back off her chair and stumbled from the room as her daughter’s wails turned to full-fledged screams of pain. She was tearing at her hair, her food flung across the room. Clint pressed the call button for the nurse and between the two of them they were able to administer a sedative, putting an end to Chelsea’s hysterical shrieks. Her muscles finally went limp and her eyes closed. He stood staring down at her bed for a few moments, a feeling of unease settling over him as it had each time he’d met with Chelsea. There was something here. Something more than what was revealed in her records.

And it involved that pregnancy. She’d been calm until the moment the subject had come up.

It was time to do a little more digging. But for now he had to go out there and face Jessi. And somehow come up with something to say that wouldn’t make things worse than they already were.

“I didn’t know.”

Clint came toward her as she leaned against the wall twenty feet away from Chelsea’s door. Her stomach had roiled within her as the nurse had rushed into the room and the screams had died down to moans, before finally fading away to nothing. All she wanted to do was throw up, just like she had during a previous visit, but she somehow held it together this time.

“I’m sorry, Jess.” Clint scrubbed a hand through his hair, not touching her. “I’d assumed she told you.”

“She hasn’t told me anything. Could it have been while she was a prisoner?”

“I’m not sure. This is the most emotion I’ve seen from her in the past week. We hit a nerve, though. So that’s a good thing.”

“I can’t imagine what she went through.” She leaned her head against the wall and stared at the ceiling.

Chelsea’s convoy had been ambushed during a night patrol by enemy forces disguised as police officers. The group had been held for four months. Chelsea had said they’d all been separated and interrogated, but she’d had no idea one of the prisoners had died until she and the rest of those rescued had been flown home.

Jessi sighed and turned back to look at him. “The army debriefed her, but I was never told what she said, and I—I was afraid to press her too much. She seemed to be doing fine. Maybe that in itself was a warning sign.”

“There was no way you could have known what she was going to do.” Clint pushed a strand of hair off her cheek.

She wasn’t sure she could stand seeing her daughter in this much pain week after week. And a pregnancy …

Had her daughter been raped during her captivity? The army had said there was no evidence of that, but then again Chelsea wasn’t exactly a fount of information. “I think I’m doing more harm than good by going in there with you.”

“Let’s see how it goes for the next week, okay? Chelsea was admitted under a suicide watch. That gives you permission to make decisions regarding her health care. She could still open up.”

“She doesn’t even want me here, Clint. You heard her.” Jessi’s head still reverberated with her daughter’s cries for her to get out.

“That was the shock talking. She didn’t expect me to ask that particular question. At least she’s getting it out, rather than bottling it all up inside.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her face. “How long’s it been since you’ve done something that hasn’t revolved around your job or Chelsea?”

She thought for a second. “I can’t remember.”

“The last thing she needs is for you to break down as well, which is where you’re headed if you don’t take some down time.”

She knew he was right. She’d felt like she’d been standing on the edge of a precipice for weeks now, with no way to back away from it.

Before she could say anything, he went on. “You said you’re off tomorrow. Why don’t you go out and do something fun? Something you enjoy?”

“I need to spend the day here with Chelsea.”

“No. You don’t. She’ll understand. It might not be a bad idea to give her a day to think through what just happened.”

She hesitated. “I don’t even know what I’d do.” Chelsea might need a day to think, but the last thing Jessi wanted to do was sit at home and let her brain wander down dark paths.

“Tell you what. I don’t have anything pressing tomorrow. Why don’t we do something together? It’s fair season. There’s probably something going on in one of the nearby counties.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t. Chelsea—”

“Will be fine.”

Conflicting emotions swept through her. The possibility of spending the day with Clint dangled before her in a way that was far too attractive. “I’m not sure …”

“Is it because I’m her doctor?”

“Yes.” He’d given her the perfect excuse, and she grabbed at it with both hands.

“That can be remedied.”

Panic sizzled through her. He’d hinted once before that he might drop her daughter’s case.

“No. I want you.”

He paused, then shook his head and dragged his fingertips across her cheek. “Then you have to take care of yourself.”

She nodded, unable to look away from his eyes as they locked on her face. Several emotions flicked through them, none of them decipherable.

“I’ll try.”

“How about I check the local schedules and see if I can find something for us to do? Something that doesn’t involve a hospital.”

Guilt rose in her throat, but at a warning glance from him she forced it back down. “Okay.”

He nodded and let his hand fall back to his side. “Are you going to be okay tonight?”

Was he asking her that as a psychiatrist or as a man?

It didn’t matter. The last thing she wanted was to jeopardize her working relationship with the one man who might be able to get through to her daughter. She needed to keep this impersonal. Professional. Even though his touch brought back a whole lot of emotions she hadn’t felt in twenty-two years.

But she had to keep them firmly locked away. Somehow.

“I’ll be fine. Just call if there’s any change, okay?” She was proud of the amount of conviction she’d inserted into her voice.

“I will. I’m off at ten, but the hospital knows how to reach me if there’s a problem.” He took a card from his desk and wrote something on the back of it, then handed it to her. “I’ll give you a yell in the morning, but until then, here’s my cell phone number. Call me if you need me.”

If you need me.

Terrifying words, because she already did. More than she should. But she wouldn’t call. No matter how much that little voice inside her said to do just that.

CLINT STEPPED ONTO the first row of metal bleachers and held his hand out for her. Grasping his fingers, and letting him maneuver through the crowd of seated spectators, they went to the very top, where a metal brace across the end provided a place for their backs to rest.

She watched the next horse in line prance into the arena, ears pricked forward in anticipation. Three fifty-five-gallon drums had been laid out to form a familiar triangle.

Barrel racing.

The speed event looked deceptively easy, but if a horse knocked over a barrel as it went around it, the rider received a five-second penalty, enough to cost a winning ribbon.

“I used to do this, you know. Run barrels.”

“I know you did.”

Her head swiveled to look at the man sitting next to her, completely missing the horse’s take-off.

“You did?”

He smiled. “I came to the fair on occasion. Watched a few of the 4-H events.”

The thought of Clint sitting on one of these very bleachers, watching her compete, was unnerving. How would she have missed him with the way he’d dressed back then? He hadn’t exactly looked the part of an emerging cowboy.

Exactly. She would have noticed him.

Which meant he’d never actually seen her race. She settled back into place.

“I didn’t realize you were interested in 4-H.”

His gaze went back to the arena. “I wasn’t.”

Something about the way he’d said that …

“Do you still have your trophy?” He was still looking straight ahead, thankfully, but her gasp sounded like a gunshot to her ears, despite the noise going on around her.

The metal brace behind her groaned as more people leaned against it. Jessi eased some of her weight off it.

“How did you know I …?” She’d only won one trophy in all her years of entering the event.

“I happened to be in the vicinity that day.”

How did one happen to be in the vicinity of the fair? It spanned a large area. And the horse arena wasn’t exactly next to the carnival rides or food.

“You saw me run?”

“I saw a lot of people compete.”

Okay, that explained it. “So you came out to all the horse events?”

“Not all of them. I had a few friends who did different things.”

Like run barrels? She didn’t think so. Neither did she remember him hanging out with any of her 4-H friends. And the only year she’d won the event had been as a high school senior.

The next horse—a splashy brown and white paint—came in, and she fixed her attention on it, although her mind was going at a million miles an hour. The rider directed the horse in a tight circle near the starting area and then let him go. The animal’s neck stretched forward as he raced toward the first barrel, tail streaming out behind him.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.