As if to prove her point, Ricky suddenly shifted away from her and reached for the phone. Allie glanced at the clock. It was the middle of the night. A ringing phone at two in the morning was never about something good. She tensed, watching his face for clues about what was being said on the other end of the line.
“I’ll be there,” he said at last, casting an apologetic look her way.
“What is it?” she asked, when he had hung up.
“An earthquake in El Salvador. It happened about an hour ago. The epicenter was only a few miles from San Salvador. It’s a bad one, Allie. We have to go.”
She swallowed hard against the longing to tell him to stay. This was his job. He had no choice. She knew that, but of all nights, the disaster couldn’t have come on a worse one. She felt bereft as he moved out of her arms and began quickly and methodically getting ready to go, his mind already clicking through some long-established mental checklist.
She huddled in the bed, sheets drawn up to her chin as she watched him transform himself from lover to professional rescue worker in the blink of an eye. The brisk movements and grim expression banished any signs of the tenderness she had experienced in his arms just moments before.
He was showered and ready in minutes. He paused by the bed.
“I’m sorry. If there was any choice, I would stay here with you.”
“I understand,” she assured him. And it was true. She did. But that didn’t seem to stop the knot of fear that was tightening in her belly or the dull thud of her heart or the images of him broken and bloody that formed in her head.
“Will you be okay?” he asked. “I mean with this.” He gestured toward the tangle of sheets, still warm from their frenzied lovemaking.
“We’ll talk about it when you get back,” she said. “I know you need to go. Take care of yourself.”
“Always,” he said as he touched his lips to hers in a fleeting, distracted kiss.
His head was already somewhere else. She could tell, and it hurt somewhere deep inside to know that he had left her behind even before walking out of the room.
He stopped at the door. “I’ll get word to you when I can.”
“How?” she asked, thoroughly frustrated by the realization that he couldn’t just pick up the phone and call her on a whim as he might any other woman.
“It’s okay,” he soothed, clearly picking up on her anxiety. “A lot’s going to depend on phone lines there being up, but I’ll think of something. I’ll get word to the clinic and have someone give you a message, or I’ll have Maria or my mother come by.”
She nodded, relieved that she wouldn’t have to endure the days or even weeks without knowing what was happening or whether he was safe. “Thank you.”
As he opened the door, she saw Shadow standing, ready and alert, as if he sensed that he, too, was on duty. And then they were gone.
Her spirits sank the minute the two of them disappeared from sight. She crept out of bed, tugged on Ricky’s shirt just to be surrounded by the scent of him, then went into the living room to stare out the window as his car pulled away. She watched until the taillights vanished in the darkness.
More than she ever had before, she regretted her inability to hear. She desperately wanted to be able to call someone like Nikki, who would share her anxiety, who could commiserate with this sense of fear and abandonment. The latter, of course, was worse because of the timing of that fateful call. It had ripped Ricky out of her arms, taken him from their bed just as they were discovering the overwhelming tide of sweet passion that could carry them away. She had waited so long for that moment, convinced herself it might never happen. To have the joy of it cut short was a painful reminder that a life with Ricky would always be uncertain, that it could be cut short in the blink of an eye.
Because she couldn’t sleep anyway, she showered, dressed and settled in front of the TV in the living room, tuned in CNN and watched the reports just beginning to come out of the ravaged city of San Salvador. The reports contained raw footage just sent in via satellite, the pictures graphic and uncensored. Allie had no idea what information accompanied the images, because the anchor was off camera. She just knew that her heart climbed into her throat when she tried to imagine Ricky arriving in the midst of that devastation.
She was almost relieved when it was time to leave for work. She desperately needed the break, but the first thing Gina asked when she saw her was whether Ricky had had to fly to El Salvador.
Allie nodded. “He got a call about two in the morning.”
Gina studied her with a penetrating look. “How do you feel about that?”
“Scared,” she admitted.
“Maybe it will get easier once you’ve been through a few disasters.”
Allie considered that, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Is there anything I can do for you to make it easier?”
“I can’t think of anything, but he might call here to let me know how things are going.”
“I’ll get you the second he does,” Gina promised. “Maybe you should get the same phone equipment at home, so he can call you there. You had it at your place, didn’t you?”
Similar to e-mail, the equipment transmitted the caller’s written words on a screen for the benefit of the deaf. It also had a blinking light to indicate when a call was coming in. It was a remarkable advancement.
“I had it before the storm, but I was going to wait till I got settled before replacing it.”
“I think it’s too important,” Gina chided, signing emphatically. “You need to be able to communicate, not just with him but with other people, as well. Let me see if I can’t make arrangements for it to get set up.”
“Thank you,” she said, grateful for the nudging. She realized she had been resisting installing the equipment at Ricky’s because she didn’t want it to seem as if she was settling in on a permanent basis. Now, though, she was sure he would understand how vital it was. He would probably even be grateful that she wouldn’t be cut off from the outside world when he wasn’t there.
Over the next week, her life took on a surreal quality. When she wasn’t at work, she was glued to the television news, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ricky. A local station had a news crew on the scene and often featured interviews with the rescue crew from Miami.
Some nights Nikki did come over and they watched together. On other nights Maria or her mother dropped by, sometimes with messages from Ricky.
Allie was grateful to all of them, not only for the company, but for the information they were able to pass along.
“This must be so hard on you,” Maria said. “I know it’s driving Ricky crazy not to be able to talk to you. Usually he’s totally focused, when he’s on one of these assignments, but now when he calls he has a million and one questions about you. I’ve never known him to care enough about a woman that she even crosses his mind while he’s working.”
Maria grinned. “I think that’s wonderful, by the way. It’s about time he found a woman who could put up with him and maybe put a little balance into his life.”
But what if I can’t? Allie wanted to ask, but didn’t. How could she explain to Ricky’s sister that she wasn’t at all sure she could live with what he did for a living. Her own near tragedy was still too fresh in her mind to allow her to be complacent about the dangers he was intentionally facing every single second of every exhausting day. The possibility that she might be a dangerous distraction was far from reassuring.
She was able to voice her fear to Nikki, though. She saw the same tight lines of tension in her friend’s face as she saw reflected in the mirror when she was dressing in the morning.
“It never gets any easier,” Nikki said, tearing her gaze away from the television when the news switched to another story.
“What are you going to do?” Allie asked her. “You were thinking of going back to Tom before this happened, weren’t you?”
Nikki nodded, her expression miserable. “If I though
t for one single second that I could get through the rest of my life and never think about Tom again, I would move on, find some nice, boring accountant and raise a family. Unfortunately, Tom is the man I love, the man I’ve always loved. I could marry somebody else and move to Alaska and I still think I’d panic every time I heard about a natural disaster.”
She shrugged. “Given all that, I might as well marry the man and have whatever time together that God grants us.” Her expression brightened. “One of these days he’s going to be too old to do this for a living. He’ll be around the house, underfoot, and I’ll be the one grumbling about the good old days when he was halfway around the world taking risks.”
Allie tried to imagine such a time, but couldn’t. She would thank her lucky stars to have Rick underfoot. Whatever adjustments that would require were bound to be better than this fear that hadn’t left her since the minute he walked out of the house.
He had been away for two endless weeks, during which she had never gotten remotely used to his absence, nor to accepting the reason for it with any sort of equanimity. It was the most frustrating experience of her life. It was also all the proof she needed that she was with the wrong man. There was no way she could live with this sort of unnerving uncertainty.
But when she drove into the driveway on Saturday morning after a trip to the grocery store, she saw his car parked in front of the garage, and her heart began to race. Then the front door opened, and he stepped outside. She flew out of the car and straight into his arms.
Relief and desire replaced tension and exhaustion. His mouth on hers was eager and demanding, his touch reassuring. In the heat of their reunion, she managed to forget all about her reservations.
It was hours later before she remembered the groceries. Laughing, she retrieved once-frozen food ruined by the heat, bread that had been baked a little too long by the sun and milk that had been spoiled. It seemed like a small price to pay for having Ricky back and for sharing his bed.
“Gina’s getting the phone equipment so I won’t be so cut off the next time you go away,” she told him as she warmed up leftovers from the meal Maria had dropped off the night before.
“I was thinking about that,” Ricky said, his expression thoughtful.
“Any ideas?” she asked.
“We could get a couple of computers and chat online. That would work. Or at least we’d be able to e-mail each other. I just know we have to do something,” he said, his gaze locked with hers, his hands settled on her waist as the food simmered unnoticed on the stove behind her. “This was the most frustrating two weeks I’ve ever had on the job. Not being able to check in with you directly was making me crazy.”
It helped to know that his frustration had been as great as her own.
But that night as Allie snuggled next to him, his arm draped across her stomach, her hand resting against his chest, the sense of relief she felt at having him back safely took a back seat to the awareness that there would always be a next time and then another and another. All of the fear came flooding back, robbing her of the little bit of serenity she’d been able to reclaim.
She was quiet on Sunday. She spent most of the day inventing chores that took her away from the house, so she could be alone to think. It was ironic really. Being alone had grated on her nerves for the past two weeks, but now she sought out the solitude.
That night Ricky called her on it.
“What’s up, Allie? You’ve been avoiding me all day.”
“I’ve needed to think.”
“About?”
She returned his gaze, feeling miserable and torn, but knowing what she had to do. “Us,” she admitted finally. “This won’t work, Ricky. It can’t.”
He stared at her in openmouthed astonishment. “What exactly are you saying—that you want to end this?”
“Yes,” she told him. “I think it would be best if I move out.”
His expression turned stoic. “Mind if I ask why?”
“It’s because of what you do,” she admitted. “For the past two weeks I have been almost sick with worry. I don’t think I could do that for the rest of my life, just sit here and wait while you risk your life.”
“The rest of your life?” he asked, looking incredulous. “You’ve done it exactly once. You and I, we’re just starting to find our way. We don’t know what’s going to happen between us a week from now. Don’t you think it’s a little soon to start worrying about the rest of our lives?”
She was taken aback by the suggestion that she’d been unfair, that she’d leaped way too far into the future. “I just know how I feel,” she said defensively. “Why drag it out?”
His expression darkened. “This is Nikki’s doing, isn’t it? She spent too much time here while I was gone, filling your head with nonsense about how dangerous my job is.”
“It’s not nonsense,” Allie said. “And don’t blame Nikki. I felt this way before the last trip even happened. The trip just crystallized what I was feeling. You’re the kind of man who obviously needs to live life on the edge. I’m not knocking you for making that choice. What you do is important and you’re incredibly brave. I’m just saying I can’t live with it.”
“And you know that, after I’ve been on one assignment? It doesn’t take much to scare you off, does it?”
She saw the mounting frustration in his expression, caught the flare of anger building in his eyes, but she couldn’t figure out a way to make him understand.
“I lived through a disaster all too recently,” she began.
“You survived, thanks to me,” he pointed out.
“Yes, thanks to you,” she said quietly. “That’s why I admire what you do. I respect you for it. I’m grateful that there are men like you who are willing to take the risks, but nobody knows better than I do just how great that risk is. The minute you walked out that door, I was back under that rubble again, trapped in the dark, terrified that I was going to die there. I know that with time the memories of that will dim, but how can they if I have to relive them over and over every time you go on an assignment?”
His anger visibly faded as her words sank in. He reached for her and pulled her close, his expression shattered. “I’m sorry. When you put it like that, it makes a horrible kind of sense to me. I hate it, but it’s true.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “I have to move out,” she told him. “I don’t see any other choice.”
A sigh shuddered through him. She could feel it as her cheek rested against his chest, but he didn’t argue.
Much later, when he released her, she saw only sorrow and regret in his eyes.
“If you can wait until tomorrow evening, I’ll help you find a place of your own,” he offered.
“You don’t need to do that,” she said, pretty sure she would find it unbearable to have his presence indelibly linked to whatever house or apartment she rented.
“Let me do that much,” he said, his expression set stubbornly.
Allie finally, reluctantly, nodded agreement because it clearly meant a lot to him. She just had to keep reminding herself that when the apartment hunt was over, she would have the rest of her life to get over the pain of walking away. But how long would it be before she knew if day-to-day serenity was a fair trade for losing a lifetime with the man she was beginning to love?
Chapter Fourteen
Jane was beside herself when she heard what Allie intended to do. Apparently Ricky had filled her in, because she turned up at the clinic at lunchtime with a determined glint in her eye and a picnic hamper filled with Allie’s favorite foods.
“Why are you here?” Allie asked warily.
“To talk some sense into you.”
“Why are you siding with Ricky on this without even listening to how I feel?”
“I am on your side, always, which is why I’m here. I doubt, though, that there’s anything you could say that would convince me that you’re not throwing away a real chance at happiness.”
She reached in the hamper
and drew out a container of pasta salad. “Here, eat some of this.”
Under her friend’s watchful gaze, Allie took the salad and a fork and automatically began to eat. There were bits of ham, cheese and bell peppers in the salad, just the way she liked it, just the way her mother had always made it. It was comfort food and Jane knew it.
“It’s very good. Thank you.”
“Now try this,” Jane said, handing over a freshly baked brownie. “I brought more for the rest of the staff.”
“They’ll love you forever. Your brownies are always a big hit around here.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” Jane said, though her expression remained grimly determined.
Allie took her time savoring the rich, moist brownie, which was filled with chocolate chips and walnuts, because she sensed that the minute Jane was satisfied that she was well fed, she was going to launch into a lecture. That was her way. She figured people were always more sensible with a full stomach.
Sure enough, the minute Allie had eaten the last crumb, Jane said, “Now then, let’s get back to this lunacy about you moving out of Ricky’s.”
Allie bristled. “Telling me I’m nuts is not likely to make me receptive to whatever else you have to say.”
“I call ’em as I see ’em,” Jane retorted, hands on hips. The tough-woman effect was somewhat lessened by the pink sneakers and flowered baseball cap. “Live with it.”
A grin tugged at Allie’s lips, despite her determination not to be swayed by anything her former neighbor had to say.
“Look, I know Ricky must have called you. Did he mention why I thought it was important to get my own place?”
“Well, of course he did. He even said he could understand it.”
“Then there’s not a problem, is there?”
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