From the Beginning

“If you’re going to spend all evening skulking in the shadows, don’t be surprised if someone mistakes you for a rebel and shoots you.” Her words were cool and collected, a marked difference from their earlier meeting.

“I didn’t want to disturb you—I figured you might shoot me yourself if I did.”

“I’m not the bloodthirsty type.” She still hadn’t bothered to look at him. “I would have thought you’d know that by now.”

“Yeah, well, people change.”

“More like circumstances change them.”

There was an underlying bitterness to her tone that had him moving forward and sinking down beside her on the rock. She didn’t protest as he expected her to. Instead, she scooted over to make more room for him. He wanted to think of it as progress, but Jack’s words haunted him—especially when he got his first glimpse of her blank face. It was as if the Amanda he’d known had simply disappeared, leaving only this shell of a woman behind.

She didn’t say anything else, and for the longest time, neither did he. He was too caught up in how strange it felt to be near her again, yet how eerily familiar, as well. She smelled the same as she always had—like lavender and peaches and cool spring evenings— despite the heat and dust of the surrounding desert. Strange how nothing could change that, not even years in this drought- and famine-stricken land.

Yet she felt different sitting next to him—skinnier, frailer, more delicate than he had ever seen her. As different from the warrior he once knew as Somalia was from the cozy home she’d made for herself and their daughter in Boston after Gabrielle had gotten sick.

The silence stretched between them, fraught with everything they didn’t want to say. No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to say it—it was that he didn’t know how.

How did you apologize for all the mistakes you’d made, when some of them stretched back over a decade?

How did you tell the mother of your child that you still cared about her even though she’d cut you out of her life?

How did you reach past the cool reserve to tell her that you wanted another chance? That, this time, you weren’t going to disappear?

In the end, he didn’t have to say anything, because she broke first. “I’m not leaving with you, Simon.”

“Jack says he’s put you on sick leave. That you have to go.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a big world out there. There’s no reason our paths should have to cross again.”

“They’ve been intersecting for over twelve years now, Amanda. Do you really think it’s possible to keep that from happening again?”

She shrugged. “I don’t see why not. The world’s on fire—as usual. I’m sure there are a million places you could be right now, taking pictures. Reporting the news. America—with its stable government and abundant resources—isn’t exactly your speed.”

“Is that where you’re planning on going?” he demanded. “To America? Back home to Boston?”

She didn’t answer, but then he hadn’t really expected her to. At a complete loss as to what to say—or how to reach her—he dug into his backpack and came up with the last Twix bar. “You want half?” he asked as he broke open the wrapper. It was her favorite candy.

She glanced to see what he was offering her and stiffened, the blood draining from her face and her body turning to granite. When she spoke, it was in a rush and he had to struggle to understand. “I don’t want that!”

He pushed himself up, staring at her in bewilderment. “What’s wrong? I thought you liked these.” But even as the question formed in the air between them, the answer came to him and he wondered how he could have been so stupid. Again.

Twix had been Gabrielle’s favorite candy bar, too. She and Amanda had shared one at least once or twice a week—even when Amanda had been on assignment. She’d always carried a bunch of them with her, to help Gabrielle settle as they moved from one clinic—and country—to the next.

Shit, how could he have forgotten that?

He dropped the candy into his backpack. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“Like that’s a surprise,” she said as she got to her feet. Her voice was level, but her hands were squeezed into fists so tight that her knuckles were white. “Go away, Simon. Go back to wherever you came from. I don’t need or want you to take care of me.”

“Yeah, well, have you looked in a mirror lately? Because you may not want to be taken care of, but you definitely need to be. And, no offense, but it looks like I’m the only candidate for the job.”

She whirled on him. “Why are you here? Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you see that I don’t want anything to do with you?”

He could see it—and it was killing him. “Look, I’m not suggesting we jump into bed together—”

“Glad to hear it, because that part of our lives is long over.”

He ignored her, and the pinprick of hurt her words caused. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been expecting them, after all. “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you suddenly feel responsible for me?” she demanded, her silver eyes steady on his. “You never have before.”

He started to deny it, to tell her that he’d always wanted to take care of her, but it would be a lie and they would both know it. One of the things that had originally attracted him to Amanda was how self-sufficient she was. How she could take care of herself and whatever came along. How she had never needed a man—never needed him—to lean on.

Diabolically, that same self-sufficiency was what had caused their relationship to end—just when he’d wanted most for it to continue. But then, he’d always had a gift for impossible relationships.

They stood there for long seconds, staring at each other as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to say. In the end, he did what he usually did—told the truth, even if it was guaranteed to get him into trouble. “Because for the first time since I met you, you need me.”

SIMON’S WORDS, DELIVERED IN the crisp British accent that had once sent shivers down her spine, worked their way through Amanda and she had to fight not to show her incredulity. There was so much wrong with what he’d said that she wasn’t sure which part to take exception to first—his assumption that she’d never needed him, or his idea that she suddenly did?

Could he really believe what he was saying? she wondered incredulously. Could he really think that in all the time they’d been together she’d never needed him before? That she’d done everything alone because she’d liked it that way?

She’d managed by herself because she’d never been able to count on him to do anything for her. For that, he would have had to be around for more than a few days at a time. He would have had to show an interest in something besides sex and that damn camera of his.

Part of her wanted to say something, to throw his words back in his face. But doing that would mean admitting that he’d had the power to hurt her, and she couldn’t see letting herself in for that. Not now, when simply standing here looking at him was taking more strength than she had. Besides, what they’d had—whatever it was— had been over long before Gabby had gotten sick. Her funeral had been the final death knell for a relationship that never should have happened.

“Simon—” She cleared her throat. Tried again. “I don’t need you to feel guilty about me. I’ll go home and get some rest. I’ll be fine in a few weeks.”

But even as she said the words, she knew he wouldn’t believe them. After eighteen years as a journalist, Simon’s bullshit meter was finely tuned.

Sure enough, one of his eyebrows shot up the way it always did when he was about to call her on a fib. “Really? You think rattling around in that house by yourself is what you need right now?”

“I don’t have the house anymore. It sold a few months after…” She cleared her throat again. “After.”

His eyes darkened until they were the color of the storm-tossed Atlantic. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

Sometimes so did she. The house held so many memories of Gabby, good and bad. That was why she had sold it to begin with—she hadn’t been able to contemplate the idea of ever crossing the threshold, knowing that it was where her child had died.

But now, a year and a half later, she would give anything to walk through the halls and remember what it had felt like when her daughter had been alive. Even the pain that came with the memories would be better than this yawning emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole.

“Yeah, well, it seemed stupid to hold on to it, when I would only be in town every once in a blue moon.”

“Stupid?” he demanded. “That was your home. Our home.”

Anger sparked. “Just because I let you stay there when you passed through town didn’t make it your home, Simon. To be that, you need some kind of emotional investment in the place.”

“I had an emotional investment, Amanda. Not in the house, but in you. In Gabby.”

His words hit like blows and she trembled under the onslaught. But she caught herself, fought back. “The only thing you’ve ever been emotionally invested in is the story. You, of all people, should know that trying to rewrite history doesn’t work—not if there’s someone still around who remembers how things actually happened.”

He clenched his teeth so tightly that she worried he would crack a molar—or five. She waited for him to swallow the bait, to explode and walk away, as was his modus operandi. But sometime in the past year and a half, he must have learned self-control, because he didn’t defend himself. Didn’t say anything at all.

Instead, he looked out across the sand, his eyes focusing on some distant point, while his jaw worked furiously. Long seconds passed in hostile silence until, in a voice that sounded a lot more reasonable than he looked, he said, “Since you sold the house, where are you planning to stay?”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? I want to pull in a few favors, have your place firebombed.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said, remembering one of the reports Simon had done about Chechnya when she’d been there—a report that had ended with her clinic being attacked by the government. She’d barely gotten Gabby out in time, which was one of the main reasons she’d decided to end the romantic part of their relationship once and for all.

“That wasn’t my fault,” he answered with an amused resignation that hadn’t been there a few moments before.

“It never is.” She grinned at him for a second, before remembering that he was the enemy. No, she corrected herself firmly. Simon wasn’t the enemy. She refused to give him that much importance in her life.

He scooted closer, cupped her face in his palms. She forced herself not to flinch this time, when all she really wanted to do was flee. “I didn’t have any nefarious intentions in asking, Amanda. I just wanted to know where we were going to settle.”

His thumb stroked gently across her cheek, and despite everything—despite her anger at him, despite her resentment and her despair—she found herself melting into his touch. Simon felt safe, even though she knew he was anything but. And she was so tired that it didn’t matter.

Tired of fighting.

Tired of talking.

Tired of living.

But then he moved, shifting a little closer until his body brushed hers. It was all she needed to shove him away, once and for all.

“Jack might have contacted you a few days ago, but I just got my walking papers today. I haven’t exactly had time to decide where I want to end up.”

“Come with me,” he urged. “We can decide together.”

She shook her head, backed away some more—not even caring that it looked as if she was in full retreat. “I’m not getting on that plane with you.”

“Well, then, you and I have a problem.”

“Not from where I’m standing.” She gave him her most obnoxious smirk. “Get on your little puddle jumper and go back to whatever it was you were doing before Jack interrupted you.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen. I came a long way to find you, Amanda, and I’m not leaving here without you. Not this time. One way or another, you’re getting on that plane with me. Tonight.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“HEY, JACK. WAIT UP.” Simon ran to catch up with the doctor as he crossed from the clinic to his small tent.

“Where’s Amanda?” Jack asked, looking behind Simon. “I thought you were getting ready to leave.”

“I am, but she’s dug in her heels. She refuses to come with me, says she’s going to hitch a ride into the city with the transport driver.”

Jack sighed, shook his head. “That sounds like Mandy.”

“We can’t let her do that.”

“I’m not sure how we can stop her.”

Simon cast around for the best way to say what was on his mind. He knew what he wanted to do was extreme and was certain that Jack would object to it, but he was also convinced it was the only way to get Amanda on the very beginning steps to recovery.

“She’ll disappear, Jack. If she gets into the city, gets to the major airport, she could go anywhere, do anything, and I’ll have a hell of a time finding her.”

Jack nodded. “That’s why I contacted you to begin with. But at the same time, if she really won’t have anything to do with you, I’m not sure how I can help. Do you want me to talk to her?”

“I want you to drug her.”

The words hung between them for long seconds as Jack’s eyes widened. He took a step back and then another, shaking his head. “I can’t do that. She’s a grown woman—she’s allowed to make decisions for herself.”

“I know that. Believe me, I know that.” Amanda was the most independent woman he had ever met. “But at the same time, she’s not thinking rationally right now. She may say she’s given up, that she’s going to go home and rest, but you know as well as I do that she’s not built like that. She’s hurting and she’s going to keep running from the pain until she kills herself. I can’t stand by and watch her do that.”

“But to drug her? Simon, she’ll never forgive you for taking the choice away from her. She’ll never forgive either of us.”

Simon swallowed back the unfamiliar thickness in his throat, forcing himself to talk through the fear Jack’s words—which only echoed his own thoughts—engendered.

“Do you have a better suggestion? Please, if you do, tell me. I’ve been racking my brain for hours trying to figure out how to do this another way. But she’s so angry, so hurt—”

“It’ll only be worse if you do this.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. But I need her to live. I need to get her someplace where she can recover, where she can remember that there are good things in life. You know how dire the situation is—you wouldn’t have emailed me if you didn’t. If we can’t get her somewhere safe, we both know that the next time we meet, it will be at her funeral. I can’t—” He turned away, terrified. He’d already lost his daughter. How could he ever survive losing Amanda, too?

“I know where you’re coming from, but I still don’t think it’s a good idea. I mean, it’s a huge betrayal.” Jack sighed heavily. “Look, let me talk to her one more time. Try to change her mind.”

“It won’t work.”

“Maybe not, but before I ruin a fifteen-year friendship, I’m damn well going to try.”

Simon’s whole being sagged with relief. “So you’ll do it.”

“I’m going to talk—”

“I know, I know. But if you can’t convince her, if she insists on doing this completely on her own so she can disappear the second we turn our backs, you’ll help me?”

“Yeah.” Jack nodded, but he didn’t look happy. “If that’s really what’s going on, then I’ll find a way to help you.”

“Thank you.”

He snorted. “Don’t thank me yet. If I drug her, I’ll be hundreds of miles away when she wakes up. But you’ll be right there. Good luck with that.”

AMANDA LOOKED AROUND the tent she had called home for the better part of a year. It seemed even more barren than usual.

Her belongings, except for the outfit she planned to wear the next day, were all packed in one large suitcase and the worn green backpack that had traveled around the world with her. It was old and on its last legs, but she knew she wouldn’t part with it, even after she got to a place where replacing it was simply a matter of driving a few blocks to the nearest shopping mall.

She could still see Gabby smiling and tugging the backpack off the rack all those years ago. At the time, it was bigger than she was, but she’d insisted on getting it down herself. Just as she’d insisted that this was the one her mother had to buy. It was the same color as Dada’s eyes, after all.

Blocking out thoughts of Simon—and his ridiculous ultimatum—Amanda stowed the last of her toiletries and wondered where she’d be when she finally unpacked them again. Jack wanted her to go home, back to America, but there was no way she was going to do that. She couldn’t face everything she’d lost there. Maybe she couldn’t work with For the Children, but the world was full of countries—here in Africa and elsewhere—that needed a skilled doctor willing to work for almost nothing. Surely it wouldn’t be that hard to find another position.

She zipped the backpack closed, then pulled the only picture of Gabby she had allowed herself to bring to Africa out of the front pocket. The others were all in storage in Boston. Locked away like so many of her emotions.

The photo was ragged and well-worn, the edges crumbling a little from her daily handling. Her baby looked so beautiful, so vibrant and happy and alive.

So very alive.

She was dressed in a pair of jean shorts with embroidered peppermint candies around the waist and hem and a bright pink T-shirt covered in pictures of lollipops and gumdrops. Her black hair was swept up into two ponytails and she was wearing her favorite pair of jeweled tennis shoes—she had talked Amanda into letting her decorate them with the BeDazzler herself. There wasn’t a square inch on the shoes that wasn’t covered in sequins or jewels or beads.

They were terrifically gaudy and eye-catching, and Gabby had loved them. She’d worn them every single day for months, until she’d gotten so sick that she didn’t need shoes and all she could do was lie in bed all day. Even then, they’d sat on the nightstand, waiting for her to get better. Waiting for her to need them again.

She never had.

The familiar pain welled up inside of Amanda, but she fought it, just like she always did.

Fought against the fist squeezing her heart and the hollowness invading her stomach with every strangled breath she took.

Fought against the razor blades slicing along every nerve ending in her body.

It was a little bit harder this time than the last. That’s the way it always was. Just a fleeting thought of her beautiful, precocious daughter almost brought her to her knees.

Outside the tent, someone cleared his throat, which was as close to a knock as you could get here. She ignored it, ignored him. There was no one she wanted to talk to right now, anyway. Especially of the male gender.

But whoever it was wasn’t put off by her silence. Instead, he called her name softly before flipping the tent flap aside without waiting for an invitation. That alone told her it was Jack.

“What do you want?” She didn’t even try to sound gracious, but then, why should she? He had completely sold her out.

“To say goodbye.”

“Oh, right.” She turned her back on him. “Goodbye.”

“I didn’t have a choice, Amanda. You’re—”

“It’s fine. I get it.”

“Do you?” He reached out, put what she figured he thought was a comforting hand on her shoulder. But all it did was make her want to scream. She shrugged him off, pressing her lips together. If she started to scream now, she’d never stop.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not your problem anymore. I’ll catch a ride into the city with the next transport. There’s one scheduled to come tomorrow, isn’t there?”

“I thought you were going back with Simon.”

Her laugh was harsh and hurt her throat. “I don’t know what gave you that idea.”

For long seconds, he didn’t answer. Then he finally said, “You are going back, though. To America. Right?”

“Where else would I go?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You made it pretty clear that you’re not my boss anymore. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Don’t do something stupid, Amanda. This is a dangerous place for anyone, let alone a woman without protection.”

“Look, I’m not your problem any longer. And I’m sure as hell not Simon’s problem—I don’t even know why you called him.”

“He’s your—”

“He’s my nothing. Not anymore. In case you haven’t noticed, the only connection we had is long gone. Besides, this whole discussion is moot. You wanted me gone. Fine. I’m leaving. What I do after that is none of your damn business.”

She finally faced him, fixed him with the most intimidating doctor look she had. It didn’t really work—his scowl was a hell of a lot better than hers and always had been—but he did have the grace to look ashamed. Good. They’d been friends forever, and a friend wasn’t supposed to throw her to the wolves when she was at her most vulnerable.

Even worse, he’d thrown her to one particular wolf.

“You need someone to take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, because you’ve done such a bang-up job of it so far. And I’ve let you get away with it because I was afraid of hurting you more. That’s on me. But why take the transport truck when you have Simon, and an airplane, ready to take you to the States with no hassle? The situation here is escalating. If you have an option other than the transport truck, it makes sense that you take it. Besides, you and Simon need some time to work things out.”

“There’s nothing to work out, Jack. I keep telling you that. Whatever Simon and I once had is long over. And now that Gabby’s gone, there’s nothing between us at all. I don’t have a clue why he came, but I do know that I will not be leaving with him.”

“Yeah, because wandering around Africa, purposeless, is such a good idea.”

“It’s better than wandering around Boston alone.”

“So go somewhere else. Go to California or Hawaii. Jamaica. Lie on the beach somewhere. Eat, sleep. Recuperate.”

“Sure. Why not? My daughter’s dead. Why the hell shouldn’t I take a tropical vacation? If I’m really lucky, maybe they’ll let me keep the little umbrellas from my drinks.”

“You’d rather punish yourself forever?” he demanded. “Work yourself to death? What’s that going to do? You still won’t bring her back.”

“No, but if I’m dead, at least I won’t feel the pain anymore.”

Jack blanched and she knew, right away, that she’d said the worst thing she possibly could have. She hadn’t really meant it, at least not the way Jack was taking it. She wasn’t suicidal, had always been too much of a fighter to consider that, even now, when everything was so messed up. But the oblivion provided by working twenty-hour days, week after week, month after month, was welcome. If she was tired enough, maybe she’d finally be able to stop thinking. To stop remembering.

“Don’t hate me, Mandy,” he said gently, moving closer to her.

Some sixth sense kicked in, warned her of danger. But it was too little too late. She felt a prick on her upper arm. Watched in shock as Jack emptied a syringe into her biceps.

“What are you…” Her mouth and tongue wouldn’t cooperate enough to form words. The world around her went fuzzy, and she reached a hand out, trying to keep her balance. Jack tried to steady her, but she stumbled. Would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her. And then everything went black.

SIMON WAITED THE ALLOTTED fifteen minutes, then entered the tent in time to see Jack cradling Amanda in his arms. Even though he knew the two of them were only friends and Jack was following through on the plan—at Simon’s request—something ugly welled up inside him at the sight of Amanda held so intimately by another man.