by Dianne Drake
“A wet dog?” Gideon volunteered, still laughing.
“OK, so the dog comes first. I get it. But he’s your dog, let him sleep on top of you.”
“Maybe we should have had a dog. Might have mellowed you a little.”
Might have kept her company, too. “I would have loved a dog, except I didn’t have time to train one, and you were never there…” Drawing in a deep breath, Lorna finally pulled herself out from underneath Max’s enormous head, gave him a quick scratch behind the ears to show him there were no hard feelings intended, grabbed her pack and started crawling for the door.
“No other beds available this shift,” Gideon said.
“Then I’ll sleep outside in the rain.” Unzipping the door, she took one look outside and saw that the ground directly in front of the tent had turned into a rivulet. Damn, she hated rain. More than that, she hated this rain.
“Just zip the door,” Gideon said. “I promise I won’t let Max cuddle in with you again.” He snapped his fingers, and Max instantly stood, took two steps and plopped down next to Gideon. “Now, go to sleep.”
“Who? Me, or your dog?” Lorna gave in and crawled back over to her bedding, pulled up the blanket, turned her back on Gideon and Max, then let out a weary little sigh.
“You always did that,” Gideon said. Then the tent went still.
But in the dark, huddled into a ball on her side of the tent, with the rain beating down on the outside and man and beast snoring lightly at her back, Lorna’s head was filled with too many memories to drop right off to sleep.
Her eyes blinked open. Not again! She couldn’t have been dozing more than ten minutes, finally, and now that dog was trying to lick her face again. Debating her options, Lorna reached up to wipe the dog slobber away, deciding that this time she’d camp out anywhere but here. Even under the bench in the food tent would be better than this. “I’ve had enough,” she said wearily, as she rolled over. Just as she did, a splash of water hit her neck and rolled down the side of it.
Immediately, Lorna glanced up, but it was too dark in the tent to see anything. So she rose up on her knees, stretching out her arm to the top of the tent. Sure enough, her fingers felt the perceptible dampness, and broke up the next drop getting ready to burst loose from the fabric and hit her. Naturally, she was the lucky one with the bed under the leak.
She thought about waking Gideon up, but in all fairness, there was nothing he could do except heckle her or tell her to go away. So why bother? Besides, there was surely enough room in here to sleep in another spot, or at an angle where the water would miss her. So Lorna scooted all the way over to the side of the tent and turned on her side. Unfortunately, the next drop skimmed down the back of her neck. And the next hit the top of her head as she tried to move closer to the door. Then to the center next to Max, who responded with a doggy kiss to her cheek.
“You’re wasting my two hours,” Gideon muttered. “There are a lot of reasons to waste my sleep time but, believe me, what you’re doing isn’t one of them.”
“And your stupid tent is wasting mine.”
“I take it you found the leak.”
“More like the leak found me.” She fumbled with the bedding, pulling it out of the way of the infernal drip, hoping to keep it dry, if not for her then for the next unsuspecting victim forced to sleep in that spot.
“Here,” Gideon said, rolling over and handing her a pot. “We keep these in all the tents. One of the things we plan on doing if your documentary succeeds in raising us some funds is buying a new round of tents. Until then, stick a pot under it.”
As she tried to figure out where best to put it, and various parts of Gideon’s anatomy weren’t out of the question, Gideon reared up, pulled her bedding away from her, then lay right back down. “Just put it under the drip then, if it’s your intention to salvage what’s left of your two hours, come over on my side. There’s room between Max and me. And for God’s sake, don’t provoke him. He needs his sleep, too.”
“Me provoke him?” Never had trying to catch a little sleep been so difficult. But Lorna was so tired she was well past the point of argument, and right now she would have slept with a dozen snoring dogs if that’s what it would have taken. Actually, a dozen snoring dogs would have been preferable to Gideon. But Gideon’s invitation was all she had, and it really wasn’t such a big deal. After all, they’d done it before. And at the end of their marriage that’s all they’d done in their bed. So she’d just pretend this was the end of their marriage again, and crawl in next to him with the absolute certainty that sleep would be the only outcome. Sleep, or another inadvertent shower.
Taking Gideon up on his invitation, Lorna shoved the small aluminum pot under the drip, crawled past Max, who hadn’t budged, and wedged herself in between man and beast. Then she grabbed up her blanket and pillow, stuffed the pillow under her head, wrapped the blanket around her, and shut her eyes.
And listened to the still, perfect rhythm of Gideon’s breathing.
He wasn’t asleep. It was so easy to tell with him because when he slept his breaths were long and deep. These were shallow, almost staccato in their precision. They matched exactly the ping of the drops hitting the pot. Was this closeness making him nervous? Was he afraid she’d want to talk about something deep and personal, like what a failure he’d been in their marriage?
A slight smile touched Lorna’s lips as she turned over on her side and spooned him…better spooning Gideon than Max. In that instant when her body slid into his, she heard a slight groan from him. “You always did that,” she said. “Let out that groan when you were on the verge of something other than sleep.”
“Sweet dreams, Lorna,” he said, his voice rough. “And for what it’s worth, you did a good job in surgery. Thank you for pitching in to help us.”
For what it was worth? It was worth a lot. Contented, Lorna let out a sigh as she closed her eyes.
“You always did that,” he said.
Then neither of them spoke.
“Sleep well?” Frayne asked.
In the food tent, sitting on a wooden bench with a wooden crate serving as her table, Lorna looked at him through barely opened eyes as she grasped her mugful of coffee like it was the very essence of her life. Her hair wasn’t combed, her clothes were wrinkled, her eyes puffy. All this after only two hours of fitful sleep. What she wouldn’t have given for a nice hot bath right about then. Or a good cup of coffee instead of this muddy brew they called coffee. After all, this was Brazil. Weren’t the coffee beans here among the best in the world? She took another sip of the pitch-black, molasses-thick liquid and smacked her lips after the bitter taste. Apparently, it didn’t matter how good the beans were when the coffee was made like this. “Let’s just say that I had some intermittent sleep, and leave it at that. Did you bed down?”
“Not yet. Did some night-time filming, and I think I’ll keep on going for another couple of hours before I crash.”
“Tent on the end has a leak, and it smells like a wet dog,” she muttered.
“Sounds like you had a jolly time of it.”
“Jolly,” she muttered, then took another sip of coffee, turning up her nose at it as she forced herself to swallow. “Anything come in while I was down?”
“A few patients that I saw. Don’t think they were serious, but the crew here is keeping me away from the medical tents. There’s a general opinion about that we’re intrusive. The one called Gideon is downright hostile about the camera. He threatened to smash it if he caught me filming around him again.” He snorted. “Like he could!”
Leave it to Gideon to make friends everywhere he went. Actually, she didn’t blame him so much for the attitude. Their job here was to be intrusive. “How many casualties?” she asked.
“Forty-seven injured, nine of them critical. And hundreds missing. No accurate count on that yet, since the people are still moving around, finding shelter in the churches in town, going to friends and family.”
Hundreds missi
ng. However it turned out, and wherever they were, the thought of that caused her to shiver. The first of this mud slide had happened nearly forty-eight hours ago, and the prospects for those not yet rescued who might have suffered injury…she didn’t even want to think about it. “Maybe most of them made it up to the town,” she said, trying to sound optimistic, although feeling anything but.
“Or didn’t,” Frayne responded rather flatly.
“So you don’t believe in being an optimist?”
He shrugged. “I take pictures. My world revolves around what I see, and I’ve seen some awful things in my time. I expect I was an optimist when I started out. Most of us in the media are. But that was a damn long time ago, and I’ve seen too much.” Frayne stood. “Come daylight, I want to get some footage of you doing whatever it is you’re going to be doing. I’ve got plenty of background material, but I don’t have you, and if we’re going to get out of here by afternoon, we don’t have a lot of time to waste. So what you might want to do is think about putting some script together and concentrating on exactly where you want me to film you. I’m thinking a shot among some of the ruined houses would be good. Maybe standing on the roof of one of the flattened ones. That’ll set up a good visual, I think.”
“We’re leaving in the afternoon?” She knew it was to be a fast trip, but nobody had told her how fast. She was only the talent, the one before the camera. Frayne was the producer, the one who was actually in charge of the shoot.
Frayne blinked his surprise. “You didn’t think we’d come down here for the duration, did you? They want this on air this weekend, which doesn’t give us much time.”
Actually, she didn’t know what she’d thought. But apparently it didn’t matter. In another sixteen or so hours she’d be on her way back to NewYork, to her real life. That was probably a good thing, but the curious part was she felt a little uncomfortable about it, like she was letting the people here down—volunteers and medical staff alike. None were her responsibility, of course. And Gideon hadn’t even wanted her there to begin with. So hopping on the transport that would take her back to the helicopter that would take her to the airplane that would take her to New York was probably the smartest thing to do. Still, she felt uncomfortable, and maybe even a bit disappointed. “Give me some warning so I can make myself presentable for the camera,” she said, raising the coffee to her lips, then changing her mind and setting it down on the wooden crate. “I’ll be in one of the hospital tents.”
Priscilla was still there, watching over the patients, as Lorna walked through the door. “Two hours goes by pretty fast,” Priscilla said. “Every twenty-four hours, we sleep for four, which is a little better.” She was sitting on the floor, holding a small child in her arms, the way only a mother could do. The child was sound asleep, with the look of an angel on her face—a look that belied trouble, pain, suffering. “We haven’t found her family yet. One of the volunteers found her a while ago, and we’ll keep her for a while before we send her on to the authorities. People know to come here to look,” she said, brushing a strand of black hair back from the child’s face.
“There’s nothing wrong with her?” Lorna asked.
“Jason took a look, and she’s fine.” She smiled sadly. “Fine, except that she’s not with her mother.”
“Does she have a name?” Lorna scooped the child from Priscilla’s arms, and the transfer didn’t even cause the child to stir. Poor thing had to be exhausted, she thought.
“I’ve been calling her Estella. She’s too young to correct me.” Priscilla stood, gave Estella a kiss on the cheek, then headed for the door. “I’m going to catch a couple of hours’ sleep, then we’re taking the dogs out come first light.” She glanced up at the night-time sky, as if she could see the stormclouds up there. “All this rain…I don’t even want to think what we’ll find in the morning.”
“Do you miss your children?” Lorna asked.
“All the time. It’s not easy, leaving them.”
“But yet you do.”
“They’re well cared for, and Jason and I don’t always go out on the same rescues. I like to think that someday, when they’re old enough to understand why we leave them from time to time, they’ll be proud of what their parents do.” She gave a faint smile, then looked at Lorna. “You don’t have any children, do you?”
Lorna shook her head as she cradled Estella. “Some people just aren’t meant for it.”
“No one in your life to change your mind about that?”
“I have my work.” Lorna watched Priscilla until she disappeared into the night, continuing to cradle the child, wishing she had a stuffed bear for Estella to cuddle. Maybe when Estella’s mother came for her, she’d bring one. If her mother came for her.
Gideon stopped just outside the opening to the tent and looked in rather than entering. It was a sight he hadn’t expected, and one that shouldn’t have bothered him. But seeing Lorna sitting there, cradling and rocking a baby, knocked the breath out of him. She would have been a beautiful mother. Even now, with someone else’s child, she fairly glowed. And the expression on her face as she talked to the child—or was she singing a lullaby?—was as close to perfect contentment as he’d ever seen.
He tried not to think about it too often, about losing their child. Sometimes, though, in the empty moments, he still fantasized what it would have been like, being a father. At times he pictured himself as a father to a little boy, playing ball and all the games little boys liked to play. Often, that fantasy was so real that when he opened his eyes to find it was only a daydream he became physically ill. Then there were times when he was the father of a beautiful little girl. She looked like Lorna—same smile, same wide blue eyes. Then his heart broke because that would never happen.
Did Lorna still think about it? Did her heart still break?
Gideon watched until Lorna laid the child down in a pile of soft bedding, then kiss her gently on the cheek, before he turned and walked away. He’d been angry and hurt when they’d lost the baby. He’d felt cheated. Now he just felt empty. As much as he loved Max, a dog simply didn’t fill the void. And that void had become so much bigger now that Lorna was here.
Sighing, Gideon headed over to the food tent for a bitter cup of coffee, then wandered over to the supply tent to check the rescue grid and plot the next group out. As he passed by the hospital tent, he didn’t look in at Lorna, didn’t look in at the child she still sat with. He couldn’t. Not right now. Not while the fantasy of Lorna sitting next to the bed of their child, singing a gentle lullaby, was ripping at his heart.
She’d seen Gideon wander by twice, pausing outside for a few minutes once, and had thought he might stop in. But he hadn’t. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure why that disappointed her, but it did. Right now the whole thing between them seemed almost…she grappled for the right word. Friendly? No, that wasn’t it. Mellow, perhaps? That seemed good. Thinking that she and Gideon were mellow with each other felt right. Comfortable. The beginning of something different. “So you’re the resident veterinarian?” Lorna asked Dani. Frayne was standing off to the side, filming, and for once Lorna had opted to go sans make-up. Truth was, she was too busy to worry, and tossing this little interview into the middle of her work was almost an annoyance. But Dani and the nurse named Tom had a few minutes and Frayne had nabbed them for a quick interview.
Dani beamed at the camera. “Someone has to take care of the dogs, and when we travel, depending upon who’s on call, we can sometimes have up to five with us.”
“But you’re also a paramedic?” Lorna asked. “Medically trained outside your veterinary practice?”
“Fully trained and qualified. Having the qualifications to work on humans makes me a little more useful, I think.”
Lorna turned to Tom McCain. Handsome man, tall, fair complexion, bright eyes. A real draw to the camera. “And you’re a registered nurse?”
“Yes. Seven years now.”
“So what first attracted you to rescue work?�
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“Anything that gets me outside is good. I like the break from the normal routine, which, on my regular days, is as a critical care nurse. One day, I saw an article in a medical journal about what people are doing in the rescue field, and signed up the next day.” He grinned at Dani. “Glad I did. So far, it’s all good.”
Lorna asked a couple more questions of Dani and Tom, then ended the interview. They were a cute couple and anyone who watched the segment would see that look in their eyes. “So tell me,” she said once they were off camera, “how do you find time for a social life?”
Tom laughed. “This is it. A few minutes between rescues…You don’t get much so you have to make the most of what you get.” He and Dani said a quick goodbye with a very proper kiss, and Dani went off to check the dogs while Tom followed Lorna into the tent.
“And you get used to it?” Lorna asked.
“Not so much used to it as immune to it.” He picked up a medication order tacked to the chart of a little old man complaining of back pain. “Makes you appreciate more what you get,” he said, then dashed off to the medical supply for a dose of ibuprofen, darting past Gideon, who was bringing in an armload of bedding from Supply.
“They’re lucky to still be so optimistic,” Gideon said as he moved past Lorna.
“We were like that once,” she said on a wistful sigh. “Remember?”
“Like that? Those two are starry-eyed. We were merely…” He handed the bedding to Gwen who whooshed by him, then bent over to Lorna and whispered, “Horny.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Nothing wrong with that,” she said, fighting back a laugh. Truth was, he was right. They had been. Chemistry and passion had prevailed at the starting gate of their relationship and the rest of it never had a chance to catch up. “Except getting married because of it.”
“I seem to recall a few good moments out of bed,” he countered.
“Odd,” she quipped, heading across the tent to take a temperature of one of the children brought in earlier. “I don’t seem to recall any moments out of bed. Of course, I’ve spent five years trying not to recall pretty much anything of our marriage.” Except the part where he’d had his goals for himself, and he’d also had his goals for her. Goals that hadn’t been hers. Somehow, that had never gone away because one thing she’d learned over the years had been that out of sight didn’t necessarily mean out of mind. And as much as she wanted to lie to Gideon about it, and even to herself, he’d never really been out of her mind.
