by Olivia Gates
His slow nod conceded her well-meant rationale but his tense face said it was still invalid. “Sure, we can take care of medical conditions. But our advantage is surgery. This will probably be the only time those people will ever see a surgeon. It has to take precedence. As I said, regrettable, but a must!” His arms folded on his expansive chest, his eyes eloquent with all sorts of frustration. “Now, can we get on with our day?”
She nodded and he turned away. She stopped him. “Javier. Just one more thing.” He glared down at the hand on his bare arm, then at her. “That!” she said. “The glaring, the antagonism. You must promise me that will stop.”
“Can you promise that your familiarity…” his eyes swept down from hers, over her every inch, flaring on her breasts, then moving down to make his point, settling on her hand where her fingers lay splayed in frank enjoyment over his hard, smooth flesh “…will stop?”
OK. It was time to come clean, to know where they’d go from here, once and for all. “Do you want it to stop?”
His eyes said everything. His lips contradicted them. “Would I be asking for a promise if I didn’t?”
“Why?”
Why?
Javier could have sworn that sunlight had left the day only to get trapped in her hair, in her body, animating her then radiating from her eyes in will-sapping beams.
And she’d asked why.
Don’t stand there and gape. Counter her question.
“Why do you think?”
Something flitted through her eyes, another flash of that vulnerability, that diffidence.
Por Dios, what vulnerability and diffidence? The woman was standing there, propositioning him!
“I can’t think why you want it—want me to stop. What’s so bad about letting you see how I feel?”
A stunned laugh ripped out of him. “You don’t know?” He shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course you know. And you’re playing with fire. Dios, Savannah, what do you want from me? Just why are you really here?”
“I told you why, Javier, and I told you the truth. But I am happy to be with you again. I can’t hide it. I haven’t been able to forget you. Do you find that strange? Or shocking? Or is it just embarrassing? Because you’ve forgotten me?”
I haven’t. Not for a second. Damn you!
“But even if you did forget me all these years, you’ve remembered me now, remembered how I once made you feel, haven’t you?”
“You’re just—just so—so…” The words disappeared, on his tongue at least. In his heart they crowded, drowned each other out.
“Plainspoken?” Her hand went to her hair, tucking a glossy lock behind her ear in a self-conscious movement. Self-conscious? Savannah? As she stood there cornering him, forcing a confrontation when he wasn’t ready for one? Would he ever be ready? “Or are you looking for a harsher description? Outrageous maybe? Audacious? I’m not really, Javier. I just want to be open to do and say what I feel.”
“Yeah, that’s a great idea! Going around telling men how you feel.”
Her eyes became suddenly somber, stopping the words in his throat. “I’m not telling ‘men’, I’m telling you!”
Yeah, she was, wasn’t she? Well, he didn’t need to know how she felt. That she reciprocated his craving and had no problem at all acting on it was the last thing he needed to know. He had a rough enough time dealing with how he felt without her revelations, dammit.
“Am I supposed to feel privileged?”
And, damn it, he did feel privileged. He was delirious with her focus and desire—she the sum total of male fantasies. But this was what she had to remain, a fantasy…
Her eyes rested on his as if she was reading his mind. Then she shrugged. “It’s up to you how you feel. I just want to be honest for a change. I’ve spent my life saying what I was supposed to say, not what I wanted to say, and I’m just tired of all the shackles and games and pretense.”
“Give me a break, Savannah! When have you ever been shackled by proprieties and rules?”
“Ever since I was born.”
“I don’t remember anything like that!” And he remembered. Oh, how he did.
“You don’t remember it, because it wasn’t like that with you. But then again—to a great degree it was. You keep saying we didn’t talk, and you’re right. My shackles were well in place. I couldn’t bring myself to say what was on my mind—hell, I didn’t know what was on my mind, with all the inhibitions and preconditioning and givens, so I kept silent.”
Inhibitions? That had been inhibited? And what would talking have been for? She’d told him of her needs in abandoned moans and cries. Hearing them in words would have been too much. It was too much now. “Well, Savannah, it’s better if you keep silent now, too. I told you, sex and work don’t mix. And if you’re really here to work, you’ll leave this alone, leave me alone!”
“Do you want me to?”
“Maldición, Savannah, I just finished telling you—”
“That you’re concerned for the mission’s stability, efficiency and success. As I am.” She stuffed her hands in her pants pockets, studied her feet. “You haven’t told me what you want, just what you think should happen. They’re not the same thing, are they? And who said anything about sex? I just want to be able to smile at you when I feel like it, touch you because it feels good being near you. I don’t want to suppress it. It hurts when I do. It’s been hurting for a long time now, Javier.”
She had to be inflicting some sort of lasting damage on him.
What she was proposing was overwhelming. Just to be spontaneous with her, to reach out and caress her cheek when he felt the urge, to smile full into her eyes and soak up her answering delight. Now he’d tasted what it was like to share ease and laughter with her, he’d just added to his addiction.
But what about when they caught fire? As they would? As they always did? It didn’t take much. They just had to breathe close enough to one another, to think of each other a second longer…
He had one way out of this. Run. But first he had to make sure she wouldn’t pursue this, or him, any more.
“Well, welcome to life, Savannah. Life hurts. A novel concept for you, I’m sure. But you have to learn it some time—that, and that you can’t just keep reaching out and grabbing anything you fancy. Especially when what you fancy is people. There’s more at stake than your pleasure and comfort.”
He turned. But not before he’d seen his words hitting her, putting out her light. He didn’t need to see that. He couldn’t see it. He had work to do and he needed his stamina, his reserves. She’d almost eaten through them by now.
End this.
His parting shot was the cheapest he could think of. “Grow up, Savannah.”
An hour later, Savannah stood watching Javier returning from settling security matters with the faction controlling the invasione. She’d been grateful he’d disappeared as they’d set up camp. She’d needed the time to stock up stamina for looking him in the eye again. That last confrontation had taken all she’d had. As gambles usually did, leaving you bankrupt and lost and sorry.
The strange thing, though, was that she wasn’t sorry, not at all. She’d needed to do that, had needed to tell him something of herself, had needed a moment of total truth. And she had won something: insight into him and how truly different he was.
Any other man would have jumped at her offer, would have at least weakened. And she’d really thought he would, too. She’d known he was different from other men, had already had proof of his dauntlessness, his limitless passion and determination. Back then, though, when it had come to succumbing to temptation, he’d been like the rest. But his reaction to her today was more proof that their affair had been an aberration on his part, as it had been on hers. In his case, it was one he had no intention of repeating…
“That was quick. Well done.” Javier’s voice ended her exhausted reverie. She saw his gaze panning over their camp. It was made up of fourteen tents nestled against the backdrop of the
forest in a clearing about ten miles from Cundinamarca and overlooking it. She’d erected her own tent and had helped with four more, his among them. “And you shouldn’t have put up my tent. I owe you one.”
“See, people?” Alonso addressed them all from his squatting position at the entrance of his tent. “It worked. He’s so indebted now, he’ll take down the whole camp in gratitude.”
“All but your tent, Alonso.” Javier grimaced down at him, then turned to the rest again. “All right, here’s the schedule for the rest of the day. I, Miguel, Luis, Esteban and Alonso will go out to alert the local council that we’re here, and work out a timetable of examinations for the first four days. Those will be done in the invasione’s clinic. I will work out surgery lists with Savannah. Cases will be distributed by level of experience in each needed procedure. We’ll also draw up a timetable for using the diagnostic facilities and the ORs, so we can have a steady flow of tests and surgical procedures going. Procedures will proceed the following eight mornings and evenings, with late evenings for post-operative follow-up. The last two days will be for round-up and final check-ups.
Javier turned impassive eyes to her. “Savannah and the other ladies—seek out the invasione’s head women, set up ob-gyn and pediatric exams. Your job is much tougher, as there are far more women and children there than men. OK, everyone, security issues. Don’t stray alone, ever. Keep your cell phones with you and charged at all times. You as much as see an armed man in the distance, you walk the other way, calling me immediately and telling me exactly where you are. Travel in teams of four, the ladies always with one of our guards, even when together. Sunset in two hours. Be back beside the Jeeps by then. OK, go.”
He then turned and strode with the others to his Jeep.
Savannah fell into step with the “ladies”, having now met their fourth, Nikki Stadt, a Dutch woman of around her age, another GAO recruit and one of the three international members of the team. She was another blue-eyed blonde, glowing with health and natural beauty. But not a siren who’d bring down ruination on the mission apparently, not in Javier’s eyes.
It was too funny really, this image of her as a siren. A siren who couldn’t hold a man in her life, who had the one man she’d ever wanted running in the opposite direction.
Savannah leaned against the Jeep and beckoned. He came running. A smile spread through her, chasing away the sick sensations of exhaustion. Those eager brown eyes, that ravenwing hair. She just had to ruffle it, run her fingers through the ebony silk. How beautiful he was. How filthy and undernourished and heart-wrenching.
“What’s your name?”
“Juan. And you, señora?”
“Savannah.”
“You look like an angel, Señora Savannah!”
Her smile widened. At least someone thought she wasn’t the devil incarnate, come to wreak havoc and spread debauchery. Still, the boy had only said she looked like an angel.
The moment she’d set foot in the invasione, a herd of children had formed in her wake, curious, fascinated, tireless. Or at least until they’d gotten bored of following her as she’d rushed around, co-ordinating the efforts of her team, rounding up necessary data, documenting it, talking to relevant people, setting in motion the steps that would set their examination days to a time-effective pace, and doing all that in the allotted time before sunset. As two hours flew by so did most of her followers. Only Juan had stuck with her to the end.
“How old are you, Juan?”
“Ten years and a half, Señora Savannah. And you?”
“Ah, querido. The señoras don’t like that question.”
“Why?”
Why, indeed? “Silly reasons, I guess. I’m thirty.”
“You’re old!”
Savannah burst out laughing. “Gracias!”
“But you don’t look old!”
Oh, well, at least that was something.
The boy stared at her with interest, no doubt trying to figure out if she’d lied about her advanced age. Women of thirty among his people, who lived in conditions of great hardship, looked nothing like her smooth, pampered self. They aged before their time, way beyond their prime.
She stared back at him and saw him through the possibilities of different fates. He would have stood tall, robust and groomed had he been born in ease and safety, nurtured and protected. Or he could have been soft and distorted and malcontented, having been overindulged, overprotected, smothered. As she’d been.
The unfairness of it all twisted rage and futility in her gut. She’d only glimpsed the hot and horrible feelings before when she’d been exposed to sights of human subjugation in the media. Now she was among it for real, the emotions had become brutal. And that was just a foretaste. The full bitter dose would be administered over the coming weeks. Even then it would never be “real” to her, not when she’d for ever be just a spectator.
How many people like Juan had been chased with their families away from the little they possessed and into desperation and constant danger?
There were two million in this country alone, internally displaced people forced from their homes and livelihoods by the armed conflict that had raged for over forty years and had intensified since peace talks between the government and the revolutionary armed forces had broken down a few years back. The continuing civil war targeted society’s most vulnerable—subsistence farmers, women, children and ethnic minorities, driving them from their lands when one faction or another coveted them, and making them the targets of assassinations, kidnappings and escalating urban violence. Living in destitution, they suffered even more from communicable diseases and chronic malnutrition. Anyone with serious conditions requiring surgical treatment just endured until the end came. And that was why they were here…
“If you’re that old you must be married, señora, with children my age!”
Her eyes focused on Juan. Sharp kid. Or maybe he was just echoing the expected fate of women in his society who married at the earliest possible age, then had one kid after another until nature put a stop to reproduction one way or another.
But he was also right about her. Or could have been. If her first engagement at eighteen had panned out, she could have been the mother of a boy or a girl his age.
A shudder went through her. Oh, boy, she was one twisted female if the idea of having a kid was that repulsive.
But, no, it was having Andrew’s kid that she found so unimaginable. Or Jordan’s. Or Mark’s. She’d never thought about having children, but if she were to contemplate it, there was no question really. She’d only ever consider one man’s children—the man who’d told her he was unavailable to her no matter what, the man who was walking towards her now with a scowl turning his face awe-inspiring.
She addressed him first, hoping he wouldn’t use in front of Juan the tone he’d last left her with. “Ready to go back?”
His eyes fell on Juan and the switch in his expression was dazzling, a kind, interested glance turning his eyes to the molten chocolate she’d adored. “Yes. I see you’re finished, too. Introduce me to your new friend?”
“Javier, meet Juan. He thinks I’m old!”
Javier’s surprised laugh cracked out of him. “So you think twenty-something is old, huh, Juan? Guess anyone above fifteen is old to kids your age!”
“She’s thirty!” Juan’s confidential tone and all-knowing look were hilarious. The subsequent debate of “Is not!” “Is too!” exacerbated her laughter.
Javier turned to her. “You can’t be thirty.”
“How can I not be when I’ve finished a five-year residency and a year’s surgical practice?”
“You jumped grades.”
“Just two. I entered pre-med school at sixteen.”
“I always thought you were much younger…”
“Any younger and my credentials would have to have been faked. And it just goes to show you really know nothing about me.”
Suddenly it was no laughing matter any more. Everything that had happ
ened since she’d set foot in Colombia, every word he’d said, every realization that had been forced on her took its toll, a landslide of despondency almost burying her. To compound her oppression, their surroundings reminded her again of their mission’s gravity, probably its pointlessness, too, in the face of such insurmountable odds.
Her smile broke, her breath vanished and the bright sunset turned off.
“What’s wrong?”
Javier’s exclamation, his anxious step and outstretched arms made her realize that she’d swayed, would have fallen if not for his immovable support.
What’s wrong? With her or with the world?
With her, apart from health and wealth—a lot. With the world, as she saw it now—everything. Which made everything she’d ever thought wrong with her and her world seem imagined, hardships invented to counterbalance the excess of luxuries and privileges by someone who’d never know the meaning of the word.
Oh, people argued that psychological and emotional suffering was as real as any other kind of suffering. She’d bet a short stay in Cundinamarca would put that into perspective.
Grow up, Javier had said. It was about time. Starting with erasing all self-pity and self-indulgence and getting on with doing what she’d come here to do.
She pushed out of his hold. “Nothing’s wrong. This place is just stuffy, nothing like Bogotá, and I guess I got thirsty and forgot to drink.”
He yanked his water flask over his head, came forward again, offering it with one hand, reaching for her with the other. “Here.”
She shook her head, stepped back. “I’ve got my own. I’m on it.”
Javier let her go, watched her taking off her backpack, producing her flask and gulping two mouthfuls of water. Then she turned to Juan, pale, still trembling, making a lousy job of looking normal and sounding unaffected. Her pleasure at talking and joking with the boy didn’t seem forced, though. It felt genuine, infectious. He stood there, leaning on his Jeep, listening, enthralled. Her grasp of Spanish was impressive. The words rolled off her tongue easily, accented, cute and so damn arousing. Anything she did, every breath she took.