to the top of her pyjama bottoms, was covered in red angry welts and her right arm was heavily bandaged.
‘This is Hadiya,’ Sue said with a smile at the little girl. ‘She knocked over the family’s paraffin heater a few days ago and sustained severe burns to her face, neck, chest and arm. We managed to save the arm, but she’s going to require extensive reconstructive surgery if she’s to regain full use of it.’
Nick said something in Pashto and the little girl giggled. All at once some of the fear left her eyes and she looked up at Nick with adoration.
‘The surgeons had to remove a great deal of tissue from her hand and arm,’ Sue continued, ‘but she needs grafts.’
‘The problem is,’ Nick said slowly, ‘we can’t do it for her. Now she’s stabilised she has to go to a local hospital and it’s highly unlikely she’ll get the surgery she needs there.’
‘Why can’t we do it here?’ Tiggy asked.
‘Because this is a military hospital and the reality is, if we make an exception for one civilian, how do we say no to others? Our resources would soon be overwhelmed. As difficult as it is, we have to transfer non-combative cases once they have stabilised.’
‘But that’s not right!’
Nick raised an eyebrow. ‘What would you have us do?’
‘I don’t know! Something.’
He eyed her thoughtfully. ‘I haven’t given up on her if that’s what you’re thinking. In the meantime, however, we have other patients to see.’
CHAPTER TWO
HOW ANYONE COULD expect her to run around the perimeter of the camp in this heat while carrying a rucksack that weighed more than her own body weight, Tiggy couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t as if she was ever going to go out on patrol. That was left to the regular army doctors and the medics.
Although it was only just after six, the sun was already beating down and making her skin sizzle. She gasped for breath. If they didn’t let her stop soon she was going to have a heart attack.
‘Okay. Drop to the ground and give me twenty press-ups,’ the sadistic sergeant shouted. Twenty! She doubted she could manage more than five. If that.
She didn’t so much drop to her knees as collapse in a heap.
She had just finished her fourth press-up and was lying face down with her forehead resting on her hands when someone grabbed the back of her trousers and lifted her six inches off the ground.
‘I believe you have a few more to go,’ a familiar voice said. She didn’t have to turn her head to know it was Nick, and that he was laughing.
She tried to wriggle out of his grasp but it was no use. The grip he had on the waistband of her trousers was such that she couldn’t even turn far enough to see his face. ‘Let me go,’ she hissed.
‘The sergeant isn’t going to let up until you finish.’
As she was bobbed up and down she turned her head to the side. Sure enough, everyone else had finished and were all, including the traitorous Sue, sitting back on their haunches, taking long swigs from their water bottles and watching the scene with evident glee.
‘Sixteen, seventeen,’ Nick called out, and to Tiggy’s added chagrin he was joined by several voices.
‘Eighteen!’
Was this nightmare ever going to end? She took her mind off what was happening by imagining what she would do to Nick when she got the chance. Diuretics in his coffee? No, this needed something worse.
‘Nineteen! Twenty!’ He let her go so unexpectedly she sprawled face down in the dust. She staggered to her feet and furiously patted the dust from her front.
Nick held out his water bottle. ‘You might need a drink.’
‘If you ever—and I mean ever—do that to me again,’ she snarled, ‘I’ll...’
He folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. ‘Do what?’
She drew herself up to her full height and pushed away the water bottle. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. ‘Try it again, and you’ll see.’ God! Was that the best she could manage?
Then, unbearably conscious of everyone’s eyes on her, she stalked away with as much dignity as she could muster.
* * *
Later, after she rinsed as much of the sand from her hair as she could in the dribble that passed for a shower, she went to report for duty, pausing only to pick up a banana from the mess.
She was still livid with Nick. Okay, so she might have poured out her life story—or at least the first half of it—to him while they had been on the plane, but that was no reason for him to treat her like an annoying kid sister. Hell, she was twenty-six.
And she didn’t want Nick to treat her like a kid sister.
The thought brought her up short. Damn, she was no better than the rest of Nick’s admirers. But she had one card up her sleeve. At least she knew he couldn’t be taken seriously. Her brother Charlie had been just like Nick. He too had thought he was God’s gift to women, having had a seemingly endless series of short-term girlfriends until he’d met and married Alice. Her other brother, Alan, was still working his way through the female population of the UK.
To her dismay, Nick was standing outside the main tent when she arrived, almost as if he’d been waiting for her. He had a cup of coffee in his hand.
‘Recovered?’ he asked.
‘Very amusing. You’ve had your fun, now why don’t you go...’ she waved her hands vaguely in the direction of the camp ‘...and do some weightlifting or something?’
Dark eyes studied her and a small smile played on his lips. ‘Don’t be mad,’ he said softly.
‘I don’t get mad. I get even.’
She groaned inwardly. Couldn’t she have thought of a retort that was a little less clichéd? She was becoming more inarticulate by the minute. At least it was better than blushing.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I know you’re a major and I’m only a lieutenant, but I won’t be made a fool of.’
That was better! Now she was showing some backbone.
He lost the smile, although there was still a suspicious glint in his eyes. ‘You’re right.’ He raised his hand to his head in a mock salute. ‘I apologise. Unreservedly.’
Flustered by his unexpected apology, she looked at her watch. Seven-thirty. ‘Don’t you have work to do?’
He tossed the dregs of his coffee onto the ground. ‘Actually, I don’t. I’ve finished rounds and it’s all quiet.’ He eyed her speculatively. ‘Don’t suppose you play poker?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do. However, unlike you, I have work to do.’ She swept
