‘Don’t do that,’ Louisa said, walking over to him. ‘Victor said your bandage needed changing.’ She was holding a couple of packets of medical lint, a roll of surgical tape and a pair of scissors.
He put the shirt down and held out his hand for them.
‘You’re a talented man but I doubt even you could change that dressing on your back by yourself.’ She walked around the other side of his bed. ‘You were right, what you said earlier. I’m not a whole lot of use here really. But I have learned how to change a dressing. I spend a few hours most days helping out in the clinic. It also allows me some interaction with the people. Sit down, would you, please.’
Louisa’s voice was gentle and sincere. Stratton found it disarming. He sat down and she knelt on the bed behind him, gently placing a hand on his arm to steady herself. Her touch was soft and he had no control over the sudden rush it gave him. The contact weakened him but in the most pleasurable way. Her proximity, the brush of her shirt against him, her breath, they were all sensual to him. He tried to block the feelings, fighting them, but it was like refusing water while dying of thirst. She placed her hands on his shoulders and he quivered.
‘I’m sorry. My hands can be cold even in this part of the world.’
‘It’s okay,’ Stratton said, clearing his throat. ‘Go ahead.’
Louisa picked gently at the corner of the bandage and started to pull it away from his skin. The wound began to throb but he welcomed the pain as an aid to neutralising the other feelings.
Her hands began to tremble and she paused. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t do blood very well.’
‘You’re not hurting me,’ he lied.
As she peeled the rest of the dressing away a trickle of blood rolled down Stratton’s back. She deftly stopped its progress with a piece of lint and cleaned the rest from his back. ‘Our medic stitched it very well,’ she said. ‘You’ll have a scar to match the others. I thought you would have more.’
‘And you were being so nice.’
‘I can’t seem to help it with you, can I?’
He could sense she was smiling.
‘I don’t mean it any more, though,’ Louisa continued, her voice soft and sincere. ‘You risked your life to save people you didn’t even know, people I thought you couldn’t care less about. I knew Miguel. His wife just had a child. A little boy. I helped deliver him . . . I went to see her last night. He’s the first person I’ve ever known who’s died. I mean, someone who I’ve talked to and laughed with. I keep seeing his face. I haven’t been here long enough to have experienced that before. I thought I would be tougher. Will I get tougher, do you think?’
‘No. You’ll build walls around yourself. You’ll make yourself harder to get to, but you won’t get any tougher.’
Louisa felt unable to respond in case she began to cry, which she did not want to do. But she lost control and a tear escaped to roll down her cheek and drop onto his back. ‘I’m crying on you.’
‘Don’t wipe it off,’ Stratton said in a low voice. He immediately regretted how the comment had laid him open.
She looked at the back of his head through tear-filled eyes. ‘I don’t know you at all.’
‘Yes, you do. Take away all those things you thought about me and have a look at what’s left.’
Louisa smiled at the thought. ‘I don’t know what I’m looking for,’ she replied. Without being conscious of the effect she was having she gently pushed her fingers into his hair to remove a piece of ash.
Stratton closed his eyes as he felt her fingers on his scalp.
She suddenly realised what she was doing and took her hand away in order to finish tending the wound, placing a fresh piece of lint over it and taping it securely.
‘There,’ she said. She picked up his shirt and held it up behind him. ‘Your shirt.’
He snapped out of his reverie and pushed his arms into the sleeves. She moved closer to wrap the garment around his chest for him to button it up, keeping her arms there for a second too long. He touched her hand as if by accident while he buttoned his shirt.
Then, as if realising that she had gone too far, Louisa pulled back and climbed off the