From the Beginning (4 page)

To attract
Simon
here.

For a moment, Jack’s guilty expression flashed into her mind, his warning that he had contacted someone. She’d ignored him at the time, but now, as her stomach constricted, she wished she’d let him have his say. At least then she would have been prepared.

Even as the idea formed in her mind, she told herself that she was being paranoid. There was no way Simon would fly this far to see her after the way they’d parted. She’d completely ignored his existence—and his pleas—in the days after they’d buried their daughter.

The argument was a good one and she’d almost convinced herself that she was mistaken, that her mind was playing tricks on her. She’d even managed to suppress the instinctive, involuntary response that took over her body as it had every single time she’d seen him in the past ten years.

Then the man turned and everything within her stilled. It
was
him. She was sure of it, especially when his bright green eyes met hers as he scanned the crowd, looking for something. Looking for
someone.
At first, he looked right past her, but then he froze. His gaze returned to her. Clung.

Amanda wanted to look away, but she was caught. Ensnared. A rabbit in a trap. And she’d do anything to escape. Because he was the one person she didn’t want to see her like this, the one person in the whole damn world guaranteed to make the soul-crushing pain she felt even worse.

SHE LOOKED LIKE HELL. Jack hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d emailed three days before. Even from this distance, Simon could see that she was much too thin. Tall and naturally slender, Amanda always lost weight when she was on location, refusing to take time to eat when so many people needed her help. Refusing to take any more of the essential supplies than she absolutely needed to stay alive.

“I can eat when I’m home,” she used to tell him. “I’ll curl up on the couch with a loaded pizza and a gallon of ice cream and eat it all.”

“But you never go home,” he would answer. “It’s been two years.”

She’d smile at him, her smoky eyes twinkling silver in the moonlight. “Soon,” she’d promise. “I just need to do a few more things here.”

It hadn’t taken him long to realize that
soon
almost never came. There was always one more country, one more disaster, one more person who needed her. In that, she was very much like him—except, Amanda had spent the past decade of her life getting her hands dirty, while he’d done exactly the opposite.

But he couldn’t do that anymore, couldn’t hide behind his camera lens and maintain his objectivity. Not with her. Not when she so obviously needed him. For a man who’d built a career around making sure no one got too close—even his lovers or, God forgive him, his daughter—it was a frightening state of affairs.

But what else could he have done? He hadn’t been able to walk away, not after reading those few heart-stopping lines.

Close to a breakdown,
Jack had written.
Strung out. Making herself sick.

He had been in an open-air market in the middle of the Andes when he’d gotten the message. Jack wasn’t prone to exaggeration, so Simon had literally forgotten everything but Amanda, had dropped his story and his deadline without a qualm, to get here before it was too late.

In the end, it had taken him three hellish days of travel by everything from donkey cart to airplane to reach this small, secluded village. But looking at Amanda now, almost as frail and sick as the patients who waited in a long line outside the clinic’s canvas doors, he couldn’t help thinking that he was already way too late.

Weaving his way through the curious onlookers, he walked toward her—his gaze still glued to hers. But the closer he got, the more concerned he became. Her beautiful eyes—usually so filled with life—were bruised and sunken. Her cheekbones were razor sharp, her skin pale and waxy despite the strong African sun. And whatever small amount of color she’d had in her face had drained the moment she realized he was here for her.

She looked like hell. Anger began to churn inside him. How had she gotten herself into such a state? And why had Jack waited so long to tell him about it?

He stopped a couple of feet in front of her, reached a hand out to stroke her cheek and maybe push one of her short corkscrew curls out of her face. But she flinched away before he could touch her, freezing him in midmotion.

So, she hadn’t forgiven him. But then, why should she, Simon asked himself viciously, when he hadn’t even begun to forgive himself? Most days, he brushed his teeth in the shower because he couldn’t stand the sight of his own reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Doubts assailed him for the first time since he’d gotten Jack’s missive, and he let his hand drop to his side. Maybe he shouldn’t have come, no matter what the surgeon had said. Maybe he was destined to make things worse for her.

But as he stood there, his eyes locked on her red-rimmed ones, the truth was a no-holds-barred punch to the gut. She had been crying. Amanda, who had never shed a tear in the twelve years he’d known her, had cried hard enough—and recently enough—to make her eyes bleary and bloodshot.

“Oh, sweetheart, look at you.” The words tangled up on his tongue and he could barely get them out. “What have you done to yourself?”

She stiffened even more. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just passing through…” He recited the old cliché in the hopes that she would call him on it—which she did.

“Yeah, right. You hate Africa.”

“No. I hate the suffering here, when I’m so ill-equipped to do anything about it. That’s a totally different thing.”

“Is it?” If possible, she looked even more disgusted, and he felt the familiar shame start to creep up his spine.

“Absolutely. Besides, I’m not here for a story.”

She didn’t move, didn’t betray her emotions by so much as an eyelash flicker, yet her entire being somehow, impossibly, grew even more wary. “So, once again,
why
are you here?”

“I think you already know the answer to that, Amanda, or you wouldn’t be looking so upset.” He watched her steadily. “I’m here to take you home.”

The look she gave him was a mixture of disbelief and dare—with enough repugnance thrown in to let him know she ranked him in the same category as pond scum. “Are you, now?”

“I am. Amanda, you can’t—”

“Oh, no.” Her voice sliced like a whip. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or cannot do. You’ve never wanted that right and you don’t suddenly get to change the rules just because you don’t like the final score. Besides, I would rather swim back to the States under my own power than go
anywhere
with you.”

He grinned. “It’s a big ocean, baby—and filled with sharks.”

“That’s rather telling, then, isn’t it? That I’d rather take on an entire shiver of sharks than spend one second longer than I have to 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.”

“Since when have I ever had to get rid of you?” Her smile was as sharp as her cheekbones. “I’ll just wait five minutes until a better opportunity comes along. You’ll be in the air before I even get my suitcase packed.”

CHAPTER THREE

WITH THAT PARTING SHOT, Amanda turned away and headed toward the sleeping tents. And though every instinct he had demanded he follow her, Simon chose instead to stay where he was and simply watch her walk away. He’d known her long enough to recognize when she needed some time alone.

But the hollow feeling that had haunted him for the past eighteen months grew stronger with each step she took in the opposite direction.

Was this how she’d felt, he wondered, all those times when he’d been the one to walk away? When he’d chosen a story over her—and over their daughter? If so, he had even more to feel guilty about than he’d imagined.

He watched her until she disappeared inside one of the small tents set aside for the doctors, then watched some more—waiting, he supposed, to see if she was going to come back out and finish their discussion. It wasn’t likely, of course, but hope hung around—for a little while, anyway.

Right when he’d decided that he was going to have to go after her, he felt a large hand clap him on the shoulder. He turned to see the man who had started them down this path so many years before—and who was also responsible for this latest detour—standing in front of him with a definite scowl on his face.

“I had decided you weren’t going to come,” Jack said as he shook his head. “If I’d known you were due in today, I might have gone a little easier on Amanda earlier.”

Simon thought of Amanda’s red-rimmed eyes and felt every muscle in his body tighten. Jack was one of his closest friends, as well, but no one had the right to turn Amanda inside out like that. “What did you say to her?”

Jack eyed his clenched fists with interest, and Simon could feel himself flush. There was nothing quite like laying all your cards on the table for the world to see.

“I told her the same thing I told you. That she was exhausted and had to go home for a while.”

“She’s not going to want to go. That house—” His throat started to close up, so he stopped and took a few deep breaths. “That house is filled with memories of Gabby.”

“Hence the reason I didn’t sideline her sooner. She needs a reason to get up in the morning, and without her work, I don’t think she has one anymore. That’s why I emailed you.”

Simon wanted to think that Jack was exaggerating, but he couldn’t now that he’d seen Amanda himself. “I’m not that reason, never have been. Besides, it’s pretty obvious she can’t stand the sight of me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re going to have to find a way around that.”

Simon snorted. “I’m sorry. Have you met Dr. Amanda Jacobs? She’s not exactly the easiest person to get—”

“Listen to me, Simon. I know what I’m talking about. She can’t be on her own right now. If she goes back to the States by herself and rents some small apartment somewhere because she can’t deal with the memories, I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

Everything inside of him went cold at Jack’s assessment—so cold that he actually shivered, despite the harsh rays of the sun beating down on him. “You think—” Simon’s voice broke for the second time in as many minutes and he had to clear his throat a few times before he could force any words through. “You really think she’s suicidal?”

Jack paused, looked past him to the barren desert that surrounded them. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“It isn’t that difficult. Either you think she’ll try to kill herself or you don’t.”

“It’s not that simple. Do I think Amanda will actively try to kill herself? No. But—” he continued, before Simon could relax “—I don’t think she wants to live, either. I think she’s gotten to the point where she’s too apathetic to do anything about it, one way or the other.”

Simon tried to read between the lines. “So what are you saying? You don’t think she cares enough to kill herself? Is that even possible?”

“I’m not a psychiatrist, Simon. I’m not sure what’s possible or what isn’t in this case. I’m just telling you what I think, what I’ve observed over the past few months. Amanda gave up caring about what happens to herself a long time ago. That’s why I let her stay here this long, even though I’ve known almost since she got here that she was eventually going to break.