by Tawny Weber
"What's the matter with him?"
It was Zach asking, the pretty-boy lawyer. Sam's son. Sam's real son.
Well, real to Sam. He didn't care about the genetics of parenthood. He and Rachel had raised Zach, Emma and Grace, and that was all that mattered to them. They were Sam and Rachel's kids. No question.
Will was...
He was something else, even if people pretended otherwise.
"He claims nothing's the matter," Sam said, obviously not buying it as he took the beer Zach had brought him.
"Okay, it's just that somebody could have given me a heads-up," Will said.
"About what?" Sam asked.
"A certain woman looking for me," Will said.
Zach laughed. "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything."
"Every time you show up in town, women come looking for you. There's nothing unusual about that," Zach said. "You make one of them mad?"
"No. Nothing like that. I'm saying, someone could have told me Amanda Warren was looking for me."
"She found you?" Sam asked, looking concerned finally.
Will nodded.
"Oh," Zach said, all razzing gone. They all knew what she'd been through. "How is she?"
Will shrugged. "As good as could be expected, I guess."
"Does her father know she came to see you?" Sam asked.
"Not before she did it, but I suspect I'll hear from him when he finds out."
"You will," Sam agreed.
The ambassador was very protective of his daughter, which, granted, he should be. Any man would be, under the circumstances. Will got that. He agreed with everything the man said about Will staying away from her. But still, he was the man who'd saved her life. And she'd hunted him down. What was he supposed to do? Duck and run? No way.
"I don't even know how she found out I was in town," Will said finally. He studied the two men standing beside him.
"Not from me," Sam said.
"Wasn't me," Zach proclaimed.
"What wasn't you?" Emma asked as she joined the three of them. "It's crazy in there. We invited too many six-year-olds."
"It wasn't one of us who told Amanda Warren that Will was in town," Zach explained.
And there it was.
Emma.
Her gaze shifted hard and fast to Will. Most people wouldn't have caught it, but Will read faces for a living. He knew instantly.
"You told her?"
"I... Will, I'm sorry. I didn't... It was a misunderstanding," Emma said.
"Why would you tell her that?"
"I didn't. Not really. Or I didn't mean to. And I'm sorry, but I can't talk about this with you."
Which made him even madder. "What the hell, Em?"
She didn't say anything, although she looked like she wanted to, like she was both surprised and worried.
"It's okay. We've been here before. I can translate for the two of you," Zach said. "We all have jobs that involve confidentiality issues, and this is a small town. We all know a lot of the same people, so this is something we've dealt with before. Will, this is Em's I-can't-talk-to-you-because-she's-a-patient-of-mine face."
"Shut up, Zach," Emma said.
"And," Zach said, turning to his sister, "the thing is, she can't ask, but she can't stop you from telling her whatever you want. So, go ahead, talk, because she looks like she really wants to know what Amanda Warren said to you and what you said to her."
"This does not make it right, and you know it," Emma protested.
"She showed up at the shelter the other day," Will said. "And I would have appreciated a heads-up that she knew I was in town and was looking for me."
"Okay, now we're getting somewhere." Zach turned from his sister back to Will. "I think that's Emma's worried look, and if she could ask, she'd say something like, 'What was it like? Her seeing you? Talking to you? Did it upset her?'"
"Well, yeah," Will admitted.
"What did you say to her?" Emma demanded.
"Not much, once I figured out she doesn't remember much of what happened to her. Which I would think was a good thing, considering. But she obviously finds it difficult, not knowing."
Emma almost blurted out something else, Will saw, but then she rolled her lips over her teeth and clamped her mouth together, looking annoyed as hell at him.
"Okay, I don't know what that look is," Zach said, "except that she's pissed at both of us. Hey, I didn't do anything."
"Yes, you did," Emma said. "And I'm not talking about this anymore. I've already said more than I should have."
"Wait a minute, dammit," Will said. "I'm just trying to do the right thing here. She wants me to tell her everything I remember that happened to her in Buhkai. What the hell do I do about that?"
"I can't tell you that—"
Shit. "Come on, Em."
"I can't."
"I just don't want to hurt her," he said. "She's been hurt enough."
"Will, I know. I do not have an answer to your question right now, and even if I did, I couldn't tell you about it. But to save us all some time, I will say again, slowly, so that maybe you get it this time. I-do-not-know-right-now."
"Okay," Zach said, "Amanda's a new patient. Em hasn't been seeing her long enough to know whether you should be talking to her, but she might know after she's had more time with her."
"How the hell am I supposed to know when Emma decides if I should talk to Amanda? Are you going to be there to translate then?"
"No, he will not be," Emma said. "Go away. I mean it."
"Fine. Sorry," he said to Will. "I tried."
And then it was just Will and Emma. They'd drifted away from Sam at some point, although they'd likely been talking loudly enough that Sam heard the whole thing.
Will looked at Emma. "I just want to do the right thing here."
"I know."
"And I'm willing to do anything I can to help her, but I don't know what that is."
"Will, I don't know, either. Not yet."
"Well, she's going to come back and want answers. What am I supposed to say?" He shook his head, lost. "She's so damned young, and they hurt her, Em. One of those men... To think about anybody hurting her like that? Scaring her? And her standing up to them, so she could make sure a bunch of little kids got away?"
"I know."
"She deserves everything we can do to help her deal with this."
"I agree. That's what I'm trying to do."
Which made him think about Amanda's hand in his, back there in the military hospital at the U.S. base in Djibouti, Africa, and on the porch outside the shelter here in town.
I think I felt safe with you. Thank you for that.
Which had made him feel about ten feet tall and proud as could be, but at the same time, mad as hell and powerless, because he hadn't been able to keep her from being terrified and raped in that godforsaken country.
He just had to get out of this town. Back to work. Surely that was the answer.
But Amanda was here. She thought she needed him. She'd said she felt safe with him, and more than anything, he wanted her to feel safe and be able to put this behind her. She was special and deserved every good thing life had to offer her. The world owed her.
"So, if she shows up at the shelter again?" Will asked.
"Do what you think is best. There's nothing any of us can do except try our best to help her," Emma said.
"Yeah, found that out in Buhkai."
"Will, she's here. She's in one piece. She's been through a serious trauma, and I don't mean to minimize that. But you got her out of there. And people get through things like this. They learn to put it behind them and move on."
"Do they?" he asked, and then got one of those damned shrink-looks from Emma.
Maybe he was learning to read her as well as Zach did, because it looked clearly like she was asking, Have you?
Well, had he?
What the hell did it matter, really?
He liked to think he had moved on, as much as anyone could. This t
own always made him a little crazy. Everything from his childhood seemed a little too close here. People knew him here, the way no one else did. They knew things about the way he grew up that he did not talk about and tried hard not to think about. Here, he was still that little boy with the shitty mother and the crazy life. He was the kid Sam and Rachel tried to save, but couldn't.
God, he hated it here.
If not for Sam and Rachel, he'd never come back.
"How long are you going to be in town?" Emma asked.
"I'm not sure. The eye's being stubborn."
"Will, a detached retina is nothing to mess around with—"
"So I've heard. I'm not doing anything. I sit around at the shelter. I pace. I talk to people. I watch out for them. The most strenuous thing I've done is put bars on the windows and new locks on the doors."
"Good."
No, it was not good.
"As soon as the doctor clears me, I'm going back to work," he said, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he imagined being far away from Amanda again, and her needing him or thinking she needed him and him not being here.
That wouldn't be easy.
"Look, if something happens, if you think Amanda needs me or there's anything I can do for her, tell Sam. He's got a number he can always use. If I'm reachable, anywhere in the world, that number will get a message to me, and I'll be here as soon as I can. Promise me, you'll do that?"
"If she says she wants to see you, I will."
"That's not what I asked," he complained.
"I know. It's what I can do."
Fine.
In that case, he'd ask Zach to go talk to Emma and try to translate the privacy-doublespeak again. Or he'd ask Sam. Sam was friends with Amanda's father. Sam would know if things started going badly for her, wouldn't he?
He trusted Sam completely.
Will truly just wanted so badly to do the right thing for her, and it was hard as hell sometimes, not knowing what the right thing was.
It wasn't as easy as Amanda thought it would be, to see Will, to feel like she was closer to everything that happened in Buhkai. Or maybe she wasn't as strong as she'd thought she was.
She had felt so brave, finding him and making her case for him to tell her everything. But it took its toll.
She found herself exhausted, shaking and wanting to hide in the corner of her bedroom again, as though the boogie man was coming to get her and she had to stay alert to fend him off.
It was Friday afternoon when she'd talked to Will, and she white-knuckled it, barely hanging on, until Monday afternoon, at her regular appointment with Emma. She'd been scared and jumpy and on hyper-alert for danger at every turn.
She had medication she could take, short-term, and it did work, usually, but she hated the idea of depending on a pill to calm down. Plus, it made her feel dopey. Her doctors were trying to find the right long-term medication, at the right dose, that they claimed should make the panicky feelings manageable.
Amanda had trouble believing that, but she'd heard from normal people, or at least people she'd always believed to be perfectly normal, that it was true.
So, maybe.
One day.
Not today.
So she was both very happy and a bit apprehensive to walk into Emma's office. Fortunately, just being in the room and in Emma's presence was reassuring.
Emma gave her a warm smile. "Tough day?"
Amanda nodded. "Tough weekend, actually."
"Seeing Will?"
"You knew?" Although it shouldn't be that much of a surprise.
"Family party. He was there and wanted to know how you found out he was in town. I didn't tell him, but I've been told I have a lousy poker face. He seemed to know right away I was the one. I didn't say you were my patient, but my brother guessed that, right in front of Will. So, I've now violated your privacy with Will and maybe my whole family. I'm so sorry."
"No, I am. You told me this would happen, and I didn't listen."
"You have a right to decide who you tell, if anyone, that you're in therapy."
Amanda thought of Emma's whole family maybe knowing. Did that make her feel ashamed? Odd? On display even more than she already was with the media attention her story had received?
"Honestly, thinking about that—people knowing—is just so far down my list of things to worry about that I don't care. Please, don't feel bad. I trust you. I want to keep seeing you. Unless, you don't want to do this anymore? I mean, I did hear about Will from you and then went to find him."
"I can't tell you what to do, Amanda, only make suggestions. You get to decide what you do. But I am sorry for what happened at the party."
"Was he mad? That I came to see him?" Amanda couldn't resist asking.
"See, here we go. Again I know things because of a personal relationship that I wouldn't otherwise know."
"I know, but... was he mad?"
"This is exactly what my family does when I'm not talking. They ask questions anyway and try to read my face, often jumping to conclusions."
"You're right. I'm sorry. I am doing the same thing. I'm worried he was mad I came to see him."
"You tell me," Emma said. "You're the one who went to see him. Are you happy that you found him? Sad? Upset? How did it feel? Start anywhere you like."
"It felt... good," Amanda admitted. "And it made me nervous and a little scared—the idea of seeing him, mostly. I didn't actually remember anything else, not really. But then, the weekend was tough. Like I was all wound up, the way I was in those first few days after I got home. Is that what you expected it to be like?"
"It doesn't surprise me. Are you glad you saw him?"
"Yes. There was something about him. He seems so... solid and dependable, calm and strong, like he could do anything. If you ever got in trouble, he's the person you'd want to help you out of it."
"Yes, I can see that."
Amanda wanted to know everything about him, although she didn't think she'd get much out of Emma. She might have to go back to sleuthing around downtown Baxter.
It was one thing that actually sounded appealing to her.
"There was a moment, a split second, when I looked at him and thought... well, that he was attractive," she confessed, then laughed. "First time since... it happened, that I looked at a man and thought about him as a man. A normal one. Not one who scared me. So, that's good, right? A moment when I felt like a normal woman, and he was a man with... uhh, with..."
Emma waited, looking like she was trying very hard to master a poker face.
Amanda laughed. "The next time you see him, watch him walk away and tell me that man doesn't have an absolutely perfect derriere, as we said at the Swiss boarding school I attended."
Emma laughed, too. "I've known him too long and thought of him as part of the family. Can't evaluate his appeal as a man. But I'm happy for you, that you had a moment."
"How exactly is he connected to your family? All I know is that, by a very fortunate coincidence, my father knew that Sam knew someone who was in Buhkai. And, wait... you call them Sam and Rachel, but they're your parents, right?"
"Sam and Rachel adopted Grace, Zach and me. We're biological siblings. Zach and Grace were very young when we came to Sam and Rachel, and call them Mom and Dad. I was almost twelve, and thought I was too grown up to need new parents, much less call them Mom and Dad. By the time I finally figured out we were there to stay, and that I could trust them to take care of my little brother and sister, I was so used to calling them Sam and Rachel, I never stopped. But they absolutely are my parents."
"What about your birth parents?"
"An abusive man and a battered wife. She died from one of his beatings not long after we came to Sam and Rachel's, and he went to prison."
"Oh, Emma. I'm so sorry," Amanda said.
Emma smiled. "Zach, Grace and I were incredibly lucky to escape. I remember what it was like to be desperately afraid of a man, of how strong he could be and how much he could hurt a wom
an. I saw what he did to my birth mother. So I think I understand some of what you must feel, some of the fear."
"Did he hit you?"
"Once. And I had a boyfriend in college who did. I got out of there fast, but he came after me. I'd always thought I was too smart to get into a situation like that, always felt like I could handle anything."
"I did, too." It was one of the things about which Amanda felt most guilty. "My father said it was dangerous in Buhkai, even with him arranging for me to live with the family of a diplomat he'd served with in the Middle East. But my father always seemed so brave, and he raised me not to be afraid. I thought that, whatever happened in Buhkai, I could handle it. I wanted to do something important, like my father did. I wanted him to be proud of me."
"I'm sure he is."
"No, I scared him half to death instead." Amanda took a ragged breath. "I realize now, I'd never really been afraid before. Not like that. It's... humbling, and it changes things. It's like the whole world changed, and now there are scary things everywhere I turn."
"I know."
"Sometimes, I look around, and I think, how can I live in a world like this? When it's always so scary? Was it always this way, or did I just not understand the danger? Or did it all change in an instant in Buhkai? Will life ever seem normal again? I want so much to go back, to before this happened, and I can't do that."
"No, you can't. But you can go forward. And it won't always feel this bad or this scary."
"I hope so. I couldn't stand it if it did."
Amanda grabbed a tissue and wiped her eyes, then remembered that fleeting feeling of being safe with Will. No wonder she had wanted to find him, just to be in the same room with him.
"Wait, you haven't told me... How does Will fit into your family?"
Emma looked troubled.
"I know," Amanda said. "I shouldn't ask you things like this. I'm not being fair—"
"And if I don't tell you, I have a feeling you'll start asking people until someone does tell you."
"I'm sorry. Really—"
"No, I'm just trying to figure out which Will would hate the most. You asking those sorts of questions of people around town, or of me, or of him? He's a very private person, Amanda. There are things I've never asked him about his past, things he's never told me, even after all these years."