"Grace—"
He reached for her, and she panicked. She couldn't let him touch her. She knocked his hand away, and when he reached for her again, she slapped him across the face.
They both froze, the sound echoing around the room. All the angry words seemed to do the same, and the images of what they'd done here. The way she'd been in his arms. So hungry, so needy. So damned happy. For all of half a day. One night, actually.
"Why did you let me do those things with you?" She couldn't put a name on it, had no idea what it was now, the things they'd done deep in the night. Except a lie. All of it had been a lie. "When I came back here last night, why didn't you just tell me? Why didn't you send me away?"
"I'm sorry. It was wrong of me not to."
It was like kicking somebody in the stomach and saying "Oops." Like tearing someone's heart out and stomping it on the ground, and thinking there were any words at all that could ever make up for that.
"I can't believe you did this to me," she said.
She couldn't believe she would ever hurt this badly again. She'd thought her whole life was going to begin. Finally. With him.
All those foolish dreams about having someone to love, about having a place to belong. She was going to conquer all her fears, for him, remembered thinking it would be like jumping off a cliff. And it was. She knew because she'd jumped already, and she saw now there was no one to catch her. Just rough, hard ground rising up to meet her, and any minute, she was going to break into a million pieces. Hopefully not in front of him. In fact she didn't think she could stand to be here. Not one more minute, one more second.
"I have to get out of here," she said, and turned to go.
He caught her at the door, and she glared at him, only to find him holding out her shoes to her. She shoved them onto her feet, and then he handed her her airline ticket and her passport.
"You're going to need these."
She took them, wishing she could throw them back in his face. But she did need them. She needed to get as far away from him as possible.
Thankfully, he didn't try to stop her then. He opened the door for her instead and said, "There's a car waiting at the curb. The driver will take you anywhere you want to go."
Which infuriated her.
"You knew all along what you were going to do? You were going to climb out of that bed this morning and tell me everything, weren't you?"
"I thought maybe there was a way, but … seeing you on the TV screen from that day, I knew I had to tell you."
"You knew I'd find out," she said.
"I knew I owed you the truth," he insisted.
Which sounded suspiciously like it had something to do with honor – his own – and at the moment, she didn't think he had any.
She thought about slapping him again. It had brought her some measure of satisfaction the first time. She wanted to shatter that damned self-control of his, wanted to see him crumble, as she was crumbling before him. She wanted him to admit that he'd done it all wrong. Everything. Every word. Every touch. Every sweet, seductive promise in the dark. But there was simply no point, and she just wanted to be gone.
She walked out the door without another word, climbed into the car that was indeed waiting at the curb and asked the driver to take her to the airport. An hour later, she was in a window seat in the first-class cabin, wrapped up in a blanket, a tiny pillow between her head and the side of the plane, headed for London.
She didn't look at anyone, didn't speak to anyone. She just turned her face into her pillow and let her tears fall, wishing she never even knew his name.
* * *
Chapter 15
« ^
Two months later
Grace had blood all over her, a fourteen-year-old boy's blood.
Her stoic staff stood all around her, waiting for her to do what she had to do. To give up.
Damn.
She did it. It was her call, and she made it. He'd already been down too long to ever hope he'd come back to them, and it was only through her stubbornness that they'd fought this long. The boy was dead.
A few minutes later, Grace stripped off her blood-stained gloves and stepped outside the classroom – they'd been using an abandoned schoolhouse as a clinic this time – and went to find the boy's parents.
She hadn't even stayed in London for a day after running back there from the States. The hurricane that had so complicated her escape from Milero's island had gone on to do even greater damage to the already-devastated San Reino, and she went back there. Peter Baxter hadn't been happy about it but couldn't deny the overwhelming need, and in the end, she went.
They were in what was left of a little village about fifteen miles from the coast, doing what they could, and as usual, it was never enough.
But the boy… The boy had gotten to her. He'd been in twenty-four hours ago. He'd fallen from a roof of some kind, trying to salvage something of it so his family might have some shelter, but when she'd seen him earlier he'd been talking to her, in that bashful way of still-awkward adolescent boys. He'd been charming, and she'd believed he hadn't done himself any permanent damage.
But he had.
Now he was dead.
The boy's mother started crying right away and begging Grace to tell her it wasn't true, and the boy's father simply exploded.
"How could you do this to him? How could you let him die?"
Grace said nothing. Intellectually, she knew all about being a target of people's anger, and this boy's father just needed to get it out.
"There must have been something you could have done!" he screamed. "He was here this morning. You said he was fine!"
"I'm sorry," she said, thinking a CAT scan would have spotted the slow pooling of blood into his belly. With more space, she could have kept him here, giving her time to continue monitoring his condition. A well-equipped operating room, and she might well have saved him. But more often than not, they had so little, too few staff members, and they simply moved from one impending medical disaster to the next. They lost too many patients.
"You let him die!" the man roared. "My only son – you let him die!"
She touched his arm. "Sir?"
He shoved her away. "Don't you dare touch me."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry? You let my son die! How does it feel to know you let my son die?"
Fifteen minutes later, Grace was standing outside, staring off into the hills and still shaking, when Jane appeared by her side.
"It wasn't your fault," she said.
Grace merely nodded. The boy was dead, and his father hated her. She hated herself at the moment.
"A whole series of events led to that boy's death," Jane said. "Chief among them the fact that he lives here, in a place where health care is haphazard at best. Where we struggle to meet even the most basic of needs. And then there's the damned hurricane, the mud slides, the lousy construction of most of these people's homes. You were just a little piece of the puzzle, Grace. You happened to be there at the end, and you couldn't save him with the deck stacked against him that way."
"I know. But he's still dead, and I still feel guilty."
Jane frowned at her, gave her a quick squeeze and said, "You're not God, my dear. Just a doctor. Just a woman."
Which, oddly enough, made her think of Sean.
He'd said that to her so many times. That he was just a man. And she'd never believed him. She'd been so convinced he was a truly magical creature come down to earth to save her.
Grace closed her eyes and fought back a rush of tears.
"Is there anything I can do?" Jane asked.
Grace shook her head, and Jane left her alone in the cool December night. It wasn't the first time she'd been the target of someone's anger over the loss of a loved one, and it wouldn't be the last. It normally didn't get to her like this, but everything got to her lately.
She hardly recognized the woman she'd become since she came back here. She'd lost all her objectivity, all the careful
distance she'd always maintained between her and her emotions.
She still managed to do her job, most of the time until she was tired enough to sleep, sometimes even tired enough not to dream. When she did dream, it was always about him. At times, she thought she could still feel his arms around her, and she had a bad habit of staring into the darkness thinking he might be out there somewhere.
Most of the time, she tried not to think of him at all. She was holding it together. That was all she really had to do. Keep moving. Keep working. Don't think about it. Try not to be afraid.
That was one of the hardest parts, she'd found. So many times now, she was desperately afraid.
Right now, even.
Lately she'd heard rumblings about Milero that left her even more unsettled, and she didn't like to be alone anymore. Especially outside in the dark.
She should be in bed, but here she was, shivering a bit and looking up into the sky, wondering where she could possibly go from here and what she might do. Wondering what, if anything, might make her life just a bit less difficult to bear.
She had no idea, and even her work, the one thing she'd always had, didn't seem to be enough. She just hurt. All over. All the time. And she was so scared.
Grace had turned to go back inside when she felt something – that odd tingling at the base of her spine that told her someone was watching her. She heard the slightest sound, a faint tap against the ground, and whirled around, her heart in her throat.
Maybe she wanted to live after all, she thought, foolishly and too late. Maybe it truly was important that she live to see another day.
And then she saw him.
In the shadows, in the darkest part of the yard, stood a man. A tall, broad man dressed all in black, his face indistinguishable at this distance and in this poor light.
Grace shivered. Not from fear, but anticipation, hope.
All of a sudden, she just couldn't breathe. She could hardly hear over the pounding of her own heart.
It was him.
She had no idea what she was going to say to him or what might have changed between them that could ever matter. But it was him. He'd come back to her, and if the feeling rising up inside of her was any indication, she was glad. As much as he'd hurt her, somehow she still wanted to see him, still needed him.
She stood there waiting as the man took another step toward her, and it was only then that she saw…
He was leaning on a cane, one of his legs obviously not functioning quite the way it should. He stepped into a shallow pool of light, and she knew.
It wasn't Sean.
It was his brother-in-law, Dan Reese.
"Hello, Grace," he said. "I'm afraid it's time to go."
"What?"
"He said you're familiar with the routine."
And then she realized what he meant. "Sean sent you?"
Dan nodded. "Milero's men are going to try to take the capital, if not tomorrow, the day after. He would like very much to have you back in his hands—"
"Milero's been making noises about taking over this country for weeks, and he hasn't done it."
"We have someone inside his compound, Grace. We've had someone there for months. How do you think we knew enough about it to get you out?"
In truth, she hadn't thought of that.
"I've seen the data," he said. "The threat's real. It's time for you to go. If it had been up to me, you'd have been gone at least a week ago."
"It's not up to you," she said. "Or anyone else."
Looking every bit as intimidating as he had when she first met him, none of the man playing with his little boy in him now, he said, "I made a promise to a friend that I would get you out of here. You're going."
She ignored the sheer audacity of any man thinking he could tell her what to do. Normally, it automatically got her back up, but she let it go this time. She was still too stunned thinking that Sean, despite everything that had happened, was still trying to take care of her.
"I can't believe he's still keeping track of me, that…" That he still cared in any way at all.
"Then you don't know him at all," Dan said simply.
Grace closed her eyes and had to look away. Because she had thought she knew him very well, and he'd promised her he'd always be here for her. At one time she would never have thought to question it. But they'd parted in such an ugly way. She'd said awful, hurtful things to him – like that boy's father had said to her – and Sean had hurt her more than she thought she could bear at times. So she couldn't help but be both surprised and touched to find that he was keeping his promise. In her experience, promises weren't worth the breath it took to speak them.
"He'd have come himself," Dan said. "But he's under the distinct impression that you hate him. He was afraid you might not listen to him. So he asked me to come instead."
"Where do you want us to go?" she asked. The lives of her team were in her hands. She wouldn't risk them because of any emotion she might have regarding the man responsible for this warning.
"All the way to the border. I'll see you safely across."
"He doesn't do that," she told Dan. "He just tells us to go, and we do. He doesn't stay to see that we get there."
"Of course he does. He just never let you see him following you. But I didn't see the point in keeping up that little pretense any longer."
"Oh." She felt so foolish then. Of course Sean wouldn't leave anything like that to chance.
It was nearly dawn by the time they went. She found herself in the cab of a run-down truck with Dan at the wheel. She'd feared he'd use this time to plead his friend's case, but he hadn't. She was relieved, and yet incredibly curious. She lasted an hour before she asked, "How is he?"
"He hates himself," Dan said simply.
Grace felt another of those annoying little twinges in the region of her heart and thought about Sean, hating himself. In her anger and her shock, she wasn't quite clear on exactly everything she'd said to him that day. She thought it was something along the lines of, I hate what you've done to me. I think I hate you, too.
What was any different about him hating himself? Why would that bother her in any way?
She found it did, wondered how bad it was, wondered what it had done to him and what he might do. Nothing, of course. He was too strong a man. He would endure. No matter what. Which might just be worse. Grace knew what it was like to simply endure. Still…
"I don't know what I can do about that," she said.
"Don't you?" Dan reached inside the folds of his black leather jacket and pulled out a sheaf of papers, folded in thirds, and tossed them to her. "I don't know what he told you about that day the bomb went off, but I doubt he made any effort at defending himself or his actions. He certainly didn't when it came to testifying about it at the hearings that followed."
"Hearings?"
Dan nodded. "That's a transcript of the UN Security Council's final report."
She glanced at it in the dim light, saw the red stamp that read Top Secret and Classified across the front.
"Do me a favor. Burn it when you're done," Dan said. "Sean's not a man to make excuses for himself. He's careful and precise and very, very smart. I don't think he's ever made another mistake in his life. Which may be why he didn't recognize this for what it was. A mistake. One little part of what went wrong that day and allowed a crazed man with a bomb strapped to his back to get to your father."
Grace looked down at the paper, thinking she didn't want to know, didn't want to read it. Dan as much as dared her.
"If you want to hate someone for that, Grace, hate them all. Every organization involved. Every soldier there. Not just him. Or maybe you could take that anger and direct it at the man who deserves it. The one who walked in there with the bomb. That's who killed your family, and you know it."
* * *
It took time to deal with what equipment they had, to decide what was worth transporting back to London and what they'd leave behind. To make travel arrangements for the s
taff and get ready to go.
Two days later, Grace was in a hotel in Panama, her travel plans made, when she found herself packing what little she had with her and came across the report Dan Reese had pushed into her unwilling hands.
She hadn't read it, hadn't wanted to.
But her mind kept coming back to the boy who'd died and the father who hated her. Sometimes she replayed the scene in her head, and yet halfway through, it wasn't her and the boy's father anymore. It was her and Sean, and she was the one screaming. At him, Sean, who it seemed hated himself, too.
There were few absolutes in Grace's profession. A patient had this, the doctor did this, and likely everything would be fine. But every patient was different. Some situations weren't so easily read. Procedures weren't so obvious. She could do this or that. One thing might work. One might kill her patient.
There were judgment calls; she made them every day. Sometimes everything worked out. Sometimes it didn't. Had she made wrong calls that left patients to die? She could certainly think of things she wished she'd done differently and patients who'd died. Had she been negligent? Careless? She didn't think so. Had she simply made the wrong decisions at times? Yes, she had. Did she feel guilty? Yes.
Grace stared down at the report in her hand. All of a sudden, as much as she didn't want to know what was inside, she thought she had to look. She had to wonder just how similar her situation and Sean's might have been. She knew about instinct, about split-second decisions. She relied on both. He must, as well. He thought he'd done the wrong thing, that he could have stopped that bomb from killing her family, just as she thought she could have saved that boy.
She ignored the question of the way he'd lied to her, the way he'd let her fall in love with him without telling her the truth. It was a totally separate issue. She was thinking about fairness now. About that boy's father and how lousy he made her feel. And about what she'd said to Sean that day.
Dan said he wasn't the kind of man who made mistakes. Which meant he must be suffering now. Sean told her he'd been living with this for twenty years, and that nothing ever made it better. She knew all about that, too.
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