Luca's Bad Girl - By Amy Andrews Page 0,28

gurney. ‘He’s the second soldier. With the … leg.’

Finn gave a grim nod as he looked at the blood-soaked combat shirt that had been cut away from the bleeding chest wound. Isaac had cried out for him, too. He could still hear the panic in his brother’s voice. Finn! Finn!

‘Matthew. Are you okay, Matthew?’

Finn moved in close to the soldier’s head while all around him nurses jumped into action. Tears had cut grimy streaks through his grisly war paint of dirt and blood.

‘Oxygen saturations eighty-nine, tachy at one fifty-nine,’ a nurse relayed.

Finn’s heart thundered in his chest as he fought back a tide of memories he’d thought he’d long ago buried deep. ‘What’s your name, Sergeant?’

Finn’s enquiry was quiet but held a note of authority not forgotten from his own time in the army. It seemed to settle the soldier’s agitation. He looked at Finn, his eyes filled with pain and emotional anguish.

‘Phillips, sir, Sergeant Damien Phillips.’ Damien grabbed Finn’s gown, yanking him close, jarring his already throbbing upper arm and neck. ‘Don’t let me die. I don’t want to die.’

Finn suddenly felt the weight of the promise he’d made to his brother all those years ago. It burned as fiercely on his conscience at this moment as it had that day sprawled in the dirt of a land far away. A promise he’d known, crippled by his own injuries and with help too many precious minutes away, he couldn’t keep.

A promise that had haunted him.

But he could make good on a promise to Damien. In this top-notch facility and with his top-notch skills.

And he’d be damned if he’d lose another soldier on his watch.

‘I won’t, Damien. I won’t.’

Evie looked at him sharply as a nurse passed her a chest tube. The soldier and Finn were practically nose to nose but, still, the husky promise surprised her. And not just because of the raw emotion she could hear in it.

Had Finn gone mad? Why on earth would he make such a promise? Damien’s injuries were extensive—no one could promise that. Not even someone with Finn’s legendary skill!

‘Blood pressure ninety systolic.’

Finn glanced at her and she sucked in a breath at the brief flash of anguish, like the sweep of a lighthouse beacon, she saw there. His piercing gaze clouded temporarily with something she couldn’t put her finger on—pain, compassion, loss?—then cleared as he stood abruptly.

‘Let’s get him prepped for Theatre,’ Finn ordered.

Two hours later, in the thick of the operating theatre after Finn had demanded she scrub in, Evie’s shoulders ached and her neck was stiff as they battled to plug the holes in Damien’s heart. They’d replaced his entire circulation with donated blood products twice over. And he was still bleeding.

No one was surprised when a life-threatening arrhythmia caused a sudden dangerous dip in his blood pressure.

But Finn didn’t give up.

He had the young soldier’s heart in his two bloodied hands and was squeezing it as if he could make the heart start beating again through sheer force of will.

He’d promised.

Too much death. Too many young men like Damien.

Like Isaac.

Damn it! He’d promised.

But as the downtime extended, even he could see the futility of it. Finn found it hard to breathe as he gently removed his hands from around the soldier’s heart and stepped back. He peeled off his gloves and glanced at the clock.

‘Time of death fifteen thirty-one.’

No one spoke as they watched Finn walk out of the theatre. But a little bit of Evie went with him.

An hour later after attending to all the legalities, Evie felt drained, totally strung out from the after-effects of adrenaline and their exhaustive yet futile efforts to save Sergeant Damien Phillips’s life.

Except it wasn’t over because she had to find Finn, who wasn’t answering his page. He had to sign some paperwork.

And she was worried about him …

Her fingers trembled as she pushed the change-room doors open. She needed to get out of these scrubs. They reminded her too much of the tragedy she’d just witnessed.

Of Finn’s hands squeezing Damien’s dying heart.

Her heart leapt in her chest as Finn came into view. He was sitting on the floor, staring at the wall, the lockers supporting his back. His knees were bent up and his hands were hanging between them, his surgical cap dangling from his fingers.

She swallowed. ‘I’ve been paging you.’

Finn heard her voice as if from far away. He didn’t want her there. He didn’t want her to look at him with those calm hazel eyes of hers, eyes that