From the Beginning (24 page)

Simon had wanted her then and he wanted her still. And while she didn’t want to forgive him for what he’d done, it was getting harder and harder to hold it against him. Not when she saw how severely he was punishing himself.

Confused, frightened, but also happier than she’d been in a very long time, Amanda slid silently to the floor. And wondered how on earth she was going to stop herself from falling for him. Again.

AFTER A NEAR-SLEEPLESS NIGHT, Amanda stood in her dining room, drinking convenience-store coffee and watching as her contractor systematically destroyed her kitchen, ripping it down to wall studs and subfloors.

There had been something cathartic in seeing the bare bones of the place, in knowing that very soon it would be whole and beautiful and, most important,
functional
again. In knowing that there was a timeline to completion.

If only her own life could be put back together as cleanly and quickly.

That wasn’t going to happen, though. Not as long as she was in charge, bumbling her way along the road back toward sanity. It was a new path for her, one she didn’t know well, and she figured she’d end up making a few mistakes along the way.

Brick by brick, she reminded herself as she took another sip of coffee. One thing at a time, and today that involved picking out paint for the master bedroom and bathroom, as well as buying a bunch of supplies to help her do the work.

After saying goodbye to the workmen, Amanda headed toward the closest home-repair store. She had a feeling she would know every inch of it before she was done with her house. It didn’t take as long as she thought it would to pick out colors for her suite of rooms—cool, soothing blues that would complement each other and, she hoped, would have a calming effect on her.

She also stocked up on brushes, rollers, scrapers, paint trays, stir sticks and any and everything else she could think of. She also got a soft white paint for the ornate trim that lined the ceiling and floor of most of the rooms—the contractor had told her it was in decent shape, something she was grateful for as she’d fallen in love with it at first sight. She also bought a ladder, which she paid extra to have delivered since she didn’t want to ruin the paint on her brand-new SUV by strapping it to the roof.

She left the store, loaded down with supplies and feeling more optimistic than she had in a long time. It felt good to have a project. As she put the supplies in the car, imagining the satisfaction of standing in her bedroom when the painting was completed, her mind drifted to Gabby and how much fun her daughter would have had directing the action as Amanda painted. Gabby had always been a bossy little thing and playing contractor on a job like this would have thrilled her to no end.

Amanda braced herself for the debilitating pain that thoughts of Gabby still brought. But they didn’t come this time. Instead, a sweet warmth filled her, one that had her remembering again how good it had felt to be Gabby’s mother.

Filled with purpose, and more than a little excited, Amanda slammed the tailgate shut and climbed behind the wheel of the SUV. Remodeling a house was such a contrast to practicing medicine in poverty-stricken nations. Still, she was chomping at the bit to try.

Thinking about Somalia made her think of Jack. He’d emailed her numerous times in the past couple of weeks and she hadn’t bothered to respond. Maybe it was time to change that.

Pulling out her smartphone, she started to dial the number of his satellite phone, but in the end, couldn’t do it. She wasn’t ready to talk to him. Not yet. It was hard enough getting through the day when the only people she needed to talk to were the contractor and Simon. Adding someone else to the list—especially a friend like Jack, who had a tendency to get right to the heart of things—might upset the delicate tightrope she’d been walking.

Still, she couldn’t totally ignore him. Instead, she dashed off a quick email telling him what she’d been up to and promising to call soon. Then she put the phone away and pulled out of the parking lot, determined to focus on the first project she had waiting for her at home.

Caught up in her thoughts, she made a wrong turn and ended up in a part of Atlanta she had never seen before. A quick glance around told her it wasn’t an area she necessarily wanted to be in, even in the middle of the day. She locked her doors as she stopped at a red light, planning to make a quick U-turn the first chance she got. She froze when she saw a sad, decrepit-looking clinic at the corner on her left.

Unable to look away, she stared at it through the entire light, and when she finally ended up making that U-turn, instead of heading back to her house, she pulled into a small parking lot behind the clinic.

She sat in her car for a minute, debating whether or not she really wanted to do this. Whether or not she was ready for it. But then she remembered the night before, the pride and the exhilaration that had come when she’d stopped that man from bleeding out. And she knew, ready or not, she was going to take the next step forward on her journey.

She was at the door of the clinic before she realized she wasn’t exactly dressed for a job interview in her jeans and white T-shirt. But she knew she was going in, anyway. If she walked away now, she wasn’t sure she’d get the nerve to come back anytime soon.

Her first glimpse of the clinic might have shocked her if she hadn’t spent more than a decade working under conditions in hard-hit developing nations. The walls were dingy and stained in numerous places with God only knew what. The chairs that lined the walls, crammed to capacity with tired, sick patients, were the folding kind, the paint peeling off many of them. And the small clinic staff that was trying to take care of everyone was obviously overwhelmed.

Amanda waited a moment, tried to decide how she felt about being here. Maybe it was too soon. But as an obviously sick baby began to wail in high-pitched distress, all she felt was a sense of homecoming. As if she was finally back where she belonged.

This wasn’t Africa, wasn’t For the Children, but she’d already figured out that she couldn’t go back there. She looked at the waiting patients. Many of them seemed to have put off coming to the doctor until they had no choice, and Amanda suddenly realized that she
wanted
to do this.

Straightening her shoulders, feeling a professional determination that had been lacking in her for quite a while, she walked straight up to the desk and the woman she guessed to be in charge.

“The line starts over there,” the woman said.

“I don’t want—”

“Doesn’t matter. If you want to talk to the doc, you need to stand over there.”

“But I’m not here to see a doctor. I’d like—”

“You can’t get a script without seeing the doctor.”

“A script?”

“For pain medication or whatever it is you want. Lord deliver us from addicts looking for a fix.”

“You think I’m a junkie?” Amanda asked incredulously. She thought she’d gained weight these past few weeks and lost that gaunt look.

“Darlin’, I don’t actually care what you are. If you want anything around here, you need to stand in that line over there and wait your turn.” She tossed the last over her shoulder as she walked away, a stack of charts in her hands.

Amanda stood there for a moment, staring after the woman as she contemplated what she should do next. Finally, with a shrug, she got in line. If she wanted a job, she probably needed to talk to the doctor that ran this place, anyway.

It took her almost forty-five minutes to even make her way to the triage nurse, which bothered her a great deal. What if she was having a heart attack or a stroke? Or even a very high fever? Forty-five minutes to get an initial assessment was ridiculous. Urgent cases died in much less time.

When it was finally her turn, she said to the nurse, “I’m not here to be examined. I’m a doctor and I’d really like a chance to talk to someone about working here.”

The nurse’s mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding? I spent forty-five minutes in line to see you so I could get a job application.”

The nurse smirked, as if she knew the punch line to an inside joke. “We don’t take applications here.”

“Oh.” She glanced around. “You can’t tell me it’s because you have a full staff.”

“No, it’s because no reputable doctor actually wants to work here. Not for what the doc can pay.”

“I do.”

“Which immediately makes you suspicious in my mind, but what the hell. I’ll take you back to meet Dr. C.”

“I would appreciate that.”

“Okay, then. Follow me.”

There was a slight grumble from the people in line behind her as the nurse took her directly to the back. As she was led through the maze of exam rooms, Amanda noticed that despite the huge number of people being taken care of, the clinic was scrupulously clean. Old and worn, but definitely clean. She approved.

“You can wait in here. I’ll send him back as soon as he finishes with his patient.”

“Is Dr. C the only doctor who works here?” she asked.

“There are usually a couple of residents, but they pull night shift. And some local doctors volunteer a few hours here and there.”

“But Dr. C. is the only full-time doctor?”

“It’s his baby” came the cryptic reply. And with no further explanation, she was gone.

Amanda settled herself in one of the two chairs on the patient side of the desk and glanced around the cluttered office. It was small, with barely enough room for the battered furniture. Two bookshelves were crammed into the corner, every inch of them stuffed with medical texts and journals.

Dr. C’s degree hung on the wall behind his desk. His full name was Lucas Carrington and he had graduated from Harvard Medical School a couple of years after she did.

Interesting.

After a few minutes, she grew bored with waiting and crossed to the shelves. She picked up one of the journals, dated the previous month. Not that it surprised her. The more she saw of this place, the more she was coming to realize that the elusive Dr. C didn’t miss a trick. Flipping through the
Journal of Modern Medicine,
Amanda killed another twenty minutes before the office door flew open and Lucas Carrington—tall, dark and exceptionally handsome—came whirling in, chart in hand. “Latonya tells me you’re looking for a job. I only have a minute—we’re swamped today—but if you leave me your name and number I can get back to you at a more convenient—”

He broke off as he glanced at her. “You don’t look desperate.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not.”

“Hmm. It looks like I need to make time.” He sank onto the corner of his desk, extending his hand. “I’m Lucas Carrington.”

“Amanda Jacobs.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“What kind of doctor are you, Amanda?”

“I’m an internist.”

“And where’d you go to school?”

Her eyes flickered to the degree on the wall. “Harvard Med. A couple of years before you.”

“Really? And you want to forsake all the glory that comes with being a Harvard grad to work here?” His voice was blatantly skeptical.

“I forsook it a long time ago. I’ve spent the past eleven years working in developing nations with For the Children.”