“Not anymore.”
Lucas’s sentences were brusque and to-the-point. Outside, he’d spoken in actual sentences, but since they’d been inside, a couple of words strung together was all she’d got from him. In the circles she usually travelled in, he would appear rude, but she recognised similarities between Lucas and her father. Sometimes brevity helped them cope with the horrors they saw on a day-to-day basis.
Frankie pressed her lips together as the awful sound of saw on bone echoed around the restyled canteen. Only a day earlier, hospital staff would’ve sat in this room eating their lunch with no knowledge or comprehension of the devastation to follow. She herself had been blissfully unaware that Joey’s ‘couple of drinks with the boys’ was a euphemism for sex with star-struck fans.
Now, everything had changed. The pain of the finding Joey in bed with someone else was so much easier to deal with than the man in front of her the one with no family to wake up to and half his left leg missing.
Her eyes filled with tears and she sniffed, swiping an arm under her nose.
“You okay?” Lucas barked, though his eyes were soft. Sympathetic.
“Fine, yes, it’s just all so…”
“Sad. Yes.”
Lucas sewed the muscles, swiftly and surely shaping them to form a neat stump that cushioned what was left of the bone. It wasn’t sad, it was devastating.
The day before, she had cried for herself without really caring about what she had lost and now she wanted to cry every tear she had left for a man she’d never met, but who had lost infinitely more than she could ever imagine.
Operation over, Frankie tore off her gloves and threw them into the rubbish. Pulling the protective apron from her body, she balled it up over and over again, squeezing her fingers over the soft, yielding plastic.
“You did well.” Lucas took the garment from her and threw it into the rubbish.
She lifted her chin. “You didn’t think I would.”
“No, I thought you’d pass out when I made the first incision.”
She laughed, the short, humourless noise overloud in the hushed room. “I told you I was tougher than I looked.”
He looked her over, as though assessing her. “Tougher than I thought you’d be.”
And somehow, during their brief exchange, she wanted to continue to prove him wrong. To show him who Frankie Hamilton really was. Because underneath the layers of emptiness she’d started to peel away, she was sure there was a person there whom she still liked.
#
That was the first of several similar operations they carried out that day. Lucas’s strained eyes stung. He blinked rapidly, trying to bring some much needed moisture into them. He’d been awake for too long and it was way past time for him to sleep.
“Is that the last one for now?” Frankie asked, her footsteps behind him silent—but as she came near, a soft floral scent swirled around him.
“For now,” he said. He needed to get away from her quickly, before he gave in to the overwhelming need to bury his face in her long, dark hair and drink in the fragrance that reminded him of soft, summer evenings.
“I’ll retrieve my luggage. If you could just show me where to store it and where we sleep, I’ll leave you until morning.”
It was morning. Lucas didn’t have the heart to tell her they were due to be up again in approximately four and a half hours.
They walked together, back outside to the front of the hospital where the darkness had stopped the helicopter flights. He could only hope that outside her scent wouldn’t be so noticeable.
She brushed past him in her hurry to reach her luggage. “They’ve gone!”
Lucas struggled to see anything in the dark, but he certainly couldn’t see any lumps or shadows that could be her things. “I’m sure someone has put them somewhere safe.”
He wasn’t sure of any such thing, but the slightly high pitch to her voice had him worried she was close to losing it. The last thing he needed was hysteria. He needed sleep. Now.
She hurried around to the side of the hospital, head moving swiftly from side to side as she searched. She muttered a curse he should’ve used earlier that day when they met. “Someone has stolen my things.”
The cool resignation was at direct odds with the dirty word she’d muttered.
“It’s possible someone moved them to our camp.”
“Camp?” she squeaked.
Yeah, she was definitely losing it. “Yes, camp. Where did you think we’d be sleeping?”
“A hotel, maybe a spare ward?”
“A hotel…” Lucas repeated. “You’re not at a holiday camp.”
“I know that. I just thought we’d be staying somewhere … uh … indoors.”
“You’re scared of sleeping outside?” Of course she was.