From the Beginning

He’s determined to make amends

Okay, life has been tough recently. Dr. Amanda Jacobs is finally ready to admit that—and do something about it. Stateside again, she’s focused on reestablishing her medical career. Sure, it’s not the stop-your-heart stress of working in war-torn countries. But right now she needs a little less stress.

And that means she doesn’t need the distraction of Simon Hart. The way Amanda sees it, their on-again-off-again relationship can stay off. Even though he’s more charming than ever, is there too much between them to get over? Still, a part of her wonders if this is their chance to be together…forever.

What was Simon doing here?

Amanda’s stomach tightened. There was no way Simon would fly this far to see her after the way they’d last parted. She’d almost convinced herself that she was mistaken—that it wasn’t him standing over there. She’d even managed to quiet the instinctive, involuntary response that took over her body every time she’d seen him in the past ten years.

Then the man turned. It was him. His bright green eyes met hers as he scanned the crowd.

Amanda wanted to look away, but she was caught. He was the one person in the whole world guaranteed to make the soul-crushing pain she felt even worse.

He stopped a couple feet in front of her, reached a hand out to stroke her cheek. “Oh, sweetheart, look at you.”

She stiffened. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to take you home.”

“I’d rather take on an entire shiver of sharks than spend one second in your company.”

“Well, then, I guess we’re both in for a bumpy ride—because this time you aren’t getting rid of me.”

Dear Reader,

Every once in a while, an author gets the chance to write the book of her heart. For me, From the Beginning is that book. It’s an idea that I’ve had for over four years, one that I had hoped would be my second Everlasting Love novel, and one I’m thrilled to finally be bringing to you as a Harlequin Superromance.

Early in my writing career, Amanda Jacobs took up residence in my head, and no matter what I did, she wouldn’t leave. She was smart and sarcastic, strong and selfless, and she kept talking to me. So when my fabulous editor gave me the go-ahead to write this book, I was thrilled. Not much compares to telling the story of a character you’ve lived with for so long, and one you admire as much as I do Amanda.

Now, being me, I had to take Amanda on an emotional roller coaster. I tested her limits and wrenched every ounce of emotion from her. In doing so, I think I made her a better character and firmly believe I made myself a better writer. I hope you agree.

I love, particularly, that this book is coming out at the end of winter, just when things here in Texas, where I live, are starting to come back to life. Starting to bloom, as that rebirth is so important to both Amanda and Simon in this novel.

Thanks so much for giving From the Beginning a try. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I love hearing from my readers, either at my email, [e-mail], or at my blog, www.tracywolff.blogspot.com. If you get the chance, please stop by and say hello!

Happy reading!

Tracy Wolff

From the Beginning

Tracy Wolff

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tracy Wolff collects books, English degrees and lipsticks, and has been known to forget where—and sometimes who—she is when immersed in a great novel. At six she wrote her first short story—something with a rainbow and a prince—and at seven she ventured into the wonderful world of girls’ lit with her first Judy Blume novel. By ten she’d read everything in the young adult and classics sections of her local bookstore, so in desperation her mom started her on romance novels. And from the first page of the first book, Tracy knew she’d found her life-long love. Tracy lives in Texas with her husband and three sons, where she pens romance novels and teaches writing at her local community college.

To Beverly Sotolov and Wanda Ottewell,

for giving me a chance to tell this story and

for making me a writer worthy of telling it

Acknowledgments:

As always, to my amazing agent,

Emily Sylvan Kim, who is as fabulous a person as she is an agent. Thanks for always being there.

To Wanda Ottewell, who is never afraid to tell me when I’ve gone too far—or not far enough. Having you as an editor has made me a better writer.

And to my three boys, who put up with a

not-so-great summer as I was writing this book.

Thanks for understanding and for being such amazing people. I love you very much.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Somalia, 2011

HE WAS GOING TO DIE and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Five presses, one breath.

Even knowing that it was over, she continued the chest compressions on his frail and bloated body.

Five presses, one breath.

All around her the nurses shook their heads, their expressions sad but accepting.

Five presses, one breath.

His mother looked on with hopeless eyes.

Five presses, one breath.

Outside, the howling wind stopped as if the very desert itself was holding its breath as it sensed him slipping away.

Five presses, one breath.

But she couldn’t let him go. His eyes had implored her when he first came into the clinic so many hours ago. She couldn’t just let him die of the ache in his belly. Not when everything inside her raged at the unfairness of allowing a six-year-old child to slip away, when all of her training taught her to fight harder and longer. After all, malnutrition could be countered, as could starvation and most of the diseases found here.

But it was too late for Mabulu. Too late for high- protein drinks from the States, too late for peanut-butter sandwiches or fresh bananas. Too late for the vitamins and shots that could so easily have saved him a few weeks before.

Sometimes it felt as if everything she did in this godforsaken country was too little, too late.

Five presses, one breath.

It was time to stop. Her intellect knew it, but her heart was already so cracked that she feared one more loss might shatter it forever. So she continued pressing down on his small chest, long past the time her medical experience told her to stop.

Sweat ran down her face, and her arms trembled from the strain.

Five presses, one breath.

Tears blurred her eyes—an appalling lack of professionalism she could do nothing about.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths she could do nothing about.

She railed at the unfairness of it, at the complete and utter hopelessness of this battle she had been fighting for eleven years now. What good was a medical degree if she couldn’t save anyone?

Five presses, one breath.

“Time of death—11:42 a.m.” The deep voice boomed across the impromptu operating room, and Amanda Jacobs glanced up, startled, into the face of Jack Alexander—head doctor of this particular clinic and a close personal friend since they’d done their first year of medical school together fifteen years before.

“He’s my patient,” she said, continuing CPR. “I say when he’s dead.”

“How long has he been down?”

She bit her lip, knowing that the answer would damn Mabulu—and herself. “Twenty-seven minutes.”

Jack’s eyes cut to hers, narrowed in disbelief. “Stop the CPR—now,” he roared when she ignored him.

Her hands trembled and her shoulders slumped as she slowly let her arms drop away from her patient. He had been a beautiful little boy, even with his belly bloated and his bones all but sticking through his skin. His eyes had been bright, inquisitive, and his ongoing stoicism made her own sudden emotional instability even more humiliating.

Sobs choked her and she could barely stop the scalding tears from falling.

“Call it,” Jack ordered.

Her gaze met his. “You already—”

“Call it.” His voice was implacable, his look compassionate as he stared her down. “As you said, he was your patient.”

She glanced at the clock, then cleared away the lump in her throat. “Time of death—11:44.” Her breath hitched and she felt—actually felt—her heart break wide open. She’d been right. Mabulu’s death had been one too many, Somalia one country too many in a list so long she’d learned years ago to stop counting.

“I want to speak with you in my office,” Jack said, his voice uncompromising.

“My patient—” Their eyes locked in a battle of wills she didn’t have the strength to win—at least not today.

“Nola will take care of him.” He nodded toward the head nurse, then turned, without waiting to see if Amanda would follow, confident of his power and leadership even here, in this hospital composed of a series of olive-green tents and overstressed generators in the middle of the desert.

Amanda followed slowly, trying to steady herself for the confrontation she knew was coming. Her behavior was growing more and more erratic, her inability to let Mabulu go just the latest in a series of bad judgment calls. She was exhausted, overemotional, burned out. She knew the symptoms well, had witnessed them in others time and again in the past decade.

She’d simply never expected it to happen to her. Then again, she could say that about so many of the things in her life lately.

“What exactly was that?” Jack asked, closing the curtain on his makeshift office.

Her spine stiffened at his strident tone. “That was me trying to save my patient’s life.”

“That was you completely out of control, Amanda, and we both know it.”

“That’s not true,” she protested, but her voice wasn’t as solid as she would have liked.

“Yes, it is. I’ve worked with you off and on for fifteen years and I’ve never seen anything like that from you.”

“It was a rough one.” She tried—and failed—to shrug off the incident. “I’ll be okay.”

He studied her, and she knew his blue eyes were taking in the strain around her mouth and the cloudiness of her usually clear gray eyes. Telltale signs she’d noticed herself. “I’m not so sure about that.”

She stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sighing, he gestured to one of the two chairs in the room. “Sit down, Mandy.”

“Are you firing me, Jack?” If so, she would prefer to stand.

“Of course not,” he snorted. “You know more about practicing medicine in these conditions than most of my staff put together. But I do want to examine you.” He put his stethoscope in his ears and motioned her to sit.

“Absolutely not!”

“I’m not arguing with you about this. Before you go back on duty, I’m going to make damn sure you’re all right.”

She started to protest more vehemently, to tell him her health was none of his business. But she had enough self-preservation to realize that doing so would only reinforce his beliefs about her fitness for the job.

Plus, for the first time in her life, she just couldn’t summon up the effort to fight.

“I told you I’m fine,” she said as she sank into the chair reluctantly, but she could hear the shakiness in her voice.

“Which is obviously a falsehood.” He put the stethoscope to her chest. “Take a deep breath.”

“Jack—”

“Do it.”

Amanda sucked in air as loudly as possible, before letting it out slowly. “I’m just tired. We all are.”

“But we’re not all in tears when one of our patients dies.”

“Sometimes it gets to me. You know what it’s like.”

He reached for her wrist to check her pulse. “Sometimes it does,” he agreed. “But this isn’t you, Mandy. Tired or not.”

“Well, who is it, then?” She laughed bitterly. “Please, tell me. If this isn’t my life, whose hellish existence is it? Believe me, I’d love to give it back to her.”

Jack didn’t respond and she regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“I think you did.” He checked her reflexes and she took a childish delight at the involuntary kick that landed in the middle of his shin. “You need a break.”

“Not now.”

“Yes, now. You’ve been going hell-for-leather for eighteen months straight—more if you count everything that happened before you came back here. Is it any wonder that you’re burned out? You need to get away from here for a while and remember that there’s more to life than suffering.”

“I can’t.” She stood and walked over to the crude window near his desk. “We’re understaffed as it is.”

“We’ll manage. We always do.”

“I’m overtired. A couple of nights’ sleep and I’ll be fine.”

His smile was sad. “Not this time. You need to step back for a while, go home, live a normal life for at least a year.”

“A year?” She whirled to face him. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m very serious. You’re the best doctor I’ve got, one of the best I’ve ever worked with, but even you can’t keep going at this pace indefinitely. You’re strung out, stressed-out and you’re going to make yourself sick.”

He paused, stared at her for a long minute as if debating with himself. Finally he quietly commented, “You can’t hide from what happened to Gabrielle, Amanda. And you can’t bring her back.”

The words hit her like an out-of-control freight train, had her fists clenching and her blood pounding even as they flattened her completely. “You think I don’t know that?” she demanded, unable to look at him. “You think I don’t wake up every morning, wishing that my daughter was alive?”

“I think you do.” His tone was compassionate, his voice matter-of-fact. “Which is part of the problem. It’s been a year and a half, and you haven’t even begun to deal with what happened.”

“I deal with it every day.”

“No, you hide from it every day. Here, and in Uganda. In Mozambique. You’ve been running from the truth since the funeral, and all it’s gotten you is one step away from a nervous breakdown.”

“Is that your professional opinion, Doctor?” She sounded like a sulky four-year-old, but couldn’t help herself. If he kept pushing, the emptiness yawning inside of her would completely overwhelm her.

“It is.” He sighed, then reached out to cover her hand with his. “I know what I’m asking of you, Amanda.”

Her laugh was bitter. “You couldn’t possibly know, Jack. If you did, you wouldn’t have the nerve to ask.”

He squeezed her hand, letting the silence build until her eyes—once again—met his. “You can’t save her. No matter how many children you help, no matter how much you punish yourself, you still can’t bring her back.”

“It’s my job to save these children.” She yanked her hand away, then ran it carelessly through her short, dark hair. Her fingers snagged in one of the many curls, but she barely felt the pain. These days, she rarely allowed herself to feel anything at all. “They became my responsibility the day I signed up to come here.”

“I know.” His voice was soothing.

“This has nothing to do with Gabrielle,” she insisted. But her voice broke and Amanda rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes as the tears began to flow. “It’s about there never being enough. Enough food, enough medicine, enough doctors. Enough time. Nowhere on this whole damned continent is there enough of anything.”

She gave a watery, sarcastic laugh, then corrected herself. “Except the bad stuff. There’s plenty of that. Corruption. Famine, drought, poverty.”

Glancing out the screened-in window, she watched a trio of vultures circle above the camp, impatient to get their claws into Mabulu’s frail, bloated body. She wouldn’t let that happen.

“And death. There’s always enough death.” Her voice cracked, and the sobs she’d been trying to hold in for months finally broke free.

“Oh, Mandy.” Jack sighed, then pulled her into his oversize embrace. “That’s it, honey. Have a good cry.”

She tried to stop the meltdown—she really did—but she was too exhausted, and her emotions overcame her iron will. A small part of her stood back, untouched, watching in horror as her professional demeanor crumbled like clay left too long in the vicious African sun.

This wasn’t what they’d taught her in medical school. This wasn’t who she was. The Amanda Jacobs she knew was cool, professional, in control at all times. That Amanda Jacobs had graduated top of her class at twenty-four, had worked eleven years in the world’s battle zones with barely a grimace. She’d sat by her daughter’s bedside, dry-eyed and composed, doing everything she could to comfort Gabrielle as she suffered a slow and painful death from cancer.

That Amanda hadn’t shed so much as one tear at the funeral.

Where was that woman now? she wondered hysterically. She wanted her back. Living like this, her emotions an open, aching wound, was too hard.

Jack continued to rub her back soothingly as she sought to pull herself together. It took a few minutes, but when she’d finally managed it, he drew back and asked quietly, “Do you feel any better?”

Was he kidding? Her head throbbed, her eyes burned and her mouth felt as if something had crawled inside it and died. How could she possibly be feeling better when she’d never felt worse? But she nodded as she reached across his desk for a tissue. There was only so much humiliation a woman could stand in one day.

He watched silently as she wiped her face and blew her nose, struggling for the composure that was still a little out of reach. Finally he said, “You know I’m right. If one of your patients came in like this, you’d tell her the same things I’m telling you.”

“I can’t, Jack.”

“You mean, you won’t. But this time, you don’t have a choice. I run this place and I say you go.”

She studied him with narrowed eyes for a minute, then shrugged even as unease crawled up her spine. “There are other clinics.”

“And you won’t get a job at any of them. Not with this organization or any other.”

“You can’t do that!”

“You’d be surprised what I can do.” He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “You’re on the edge, Amanda. No reputable clinic will take on a doctor who is so obviously going to blow. And I won’t give you a recommendation—not right now.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I care about you.” He ignored her snort of derision. “Because you’ve been here too long.”

She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him accusingly. “You’ve been here as long as I have.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But I know when to draw the line—for myself and others. You don’t. You never have. It’s what makes you such an incredible doctor, but it’s also what brought you to this point. You’re used up, Mandy.”

The hell of it was that he was right. She knew it, had recognized the signs for a while now but had ignored them. Because to admit to them meant she’d have to go home. She’d have to face what she’d been running from since Gabrielle’s pediatrician had delivered her death sentence.

She didn’t know if she was strong enough to do it.

“Do I have a choice, Dr. Alexander?” Her voice was stilted, her hands ice-cold.

“Mandy.” He sighed. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

She eyed him steadily. “Oh, I think it does.”

He stared at her for long moments, before shaking his head sadly. “Then no, you don’t have a choice. The supply truck comes in four days. You can ride back to town with Josh and catch a flight from there.”

CHAPTER TWO

“FOUR DAYS?” HER WORLD imploded, even as she told herself that there had to be a mistake. No way could Jack find someone to replace her on such short notice. “You expect me to be ready to leave Africa in four days?”

“Yes.” His tone was implacable.

“That’s not enough time.”

“To pack one suitcase of clothes?”

“To deal with my patients. To find another—”

“The patients aren’t your problem anymore—and neither is my staffing shortage. In fact, I’m taking you off rotation, effective immediately.”

“Jack! You can’t.”

He crossed the room, scribbled something on the schedule that was always hanging by the door. “It’s already done.”

“Who will take care of my patients? You can’t do everything—”

“That’s no longer your problem.”

It was as if he’d slapped her, her entire body recoiling with pain and betrayal. “We’ve been friends too long for you to treat me like this. How can you do it?”

“Because we are friends.” He crossed the room and took her hand in his own, ignoring her sudden stiffness. “Because I want to work with you for another fifteen years, at least.” He reached up and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her left ear. “This isn’t forever, kid. Only until you get yourself rested and back in fighting form. I can’t hold the fort indefinitely, you know.”

But that was exactly what she was afraid of—that he would have to hold the fort alone, forever. It was why she’d worked her way past exhaustion, beyond burnout. Because she feared if she ever left this place, she would never come back. Not just here, to Somalia, but Haiti or Cambodia. Bosnia or Sierra Leone. Chechnya, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine. So many places. So much pain.

“Well, that’s it, then.” Anger and fear came through in her voice, despite her struggle to regain her professionalism. Amanda didn’t mind if Jack saw her anger, but she would be humiliated if he knew how afraid she was to return to the easy, civilized life most people took for granted.

“For now. Go back to your room and lie down. Get some rest and I’ll check on you later.” He paused, shot her a guilty look. “Three days ago, I emailed—”

She didn’t wait for him to finish. Didn’t want to hear him admit that he’d ratted her out to the administrators of the program. Instead, she turned and left, walking briskly through the clinic, despite the calls of nurses and patients. They weren’t her responsibility anymore.

The thought cut like a knife.

So, what happened now? she wondered, dazed. What on earth was she supposed to do?

It was crazy, really, how completely unprepared she was for life away from here. How could an intelligent woman of thirty-five be so frightened of living a normal life? And how was she supposed to get past the gut-clenching, palm-dampening fear?

She headed outside, toward the tents pitched to the left of the clinic. She’d lived in them for almost a year, never leaving this stretch of desert since she’d arrived, fresh from Mozambique, ten months before.

She’d run here, one more stop in the headlong flight that kept her from thinking about—

Amanda shut the thought down before it could form. She wasn’t ready to go there yet. She wasn’t strong enough to examine her feelings about Gabby. She’d buried them for one year, six months and twenty-three days. She could bury them for a few more days or weeks or months—whatever it took for her to feel strong enough to deal with them.