When I Found You (A Box Set)

by Webb, Peggy

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Mrs. Bellafontaine. It’s probably just a phase, like you said. We’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Simpson.”

  As soon as she got out of the building, Margaret Anne took three deep, calming breaths before she put on her sunglasses and her society smile. In a small town somebody was always watching. You never knew when it might be somebody interesting.

  “I will not let this small setback affect me,” she said to herself.

  Inside her car Margaret Anne took a small jar out of her purse, then pulled down the mirrored visor and smoothed a firming lotion into the tiny vertical creases between her eyebrows.

  o0o

  Ruth played a game with herself. If her mother’s car never came back, Ruth’s father would return from wherever he was and take her off to a wonderful house with a big garden and a big kitchen and lots of cats and dogs.

  “Your mother would never let me see you,” he’d say, “but now that she’s gone, the two of us will be a family.”

  Ruth would learn how to bake gingerbread that made the whole house smell good, and her father would help her with her math and teach her things like how to bait a fishhook and how to tell the weather by looking at the sky.

  She flung open her bedroom door. The kitten and the music followed her out into the hall. Ruth played another game with herself: Nothing bad had happened to her in New Orleans. She was the same girl she’d been before she went away, and this was the same happy home.

  The sun felt good coming through the upstairs window. She stood in its spotlight and sang along with the tape Mr. Carr had given her, pretending she was a famous jazz singer, all set to do her grand finale and then mysteriously disappear. She knew every word by heart.

  The ringing of the phone cut into her live performance. Miranda trailed her down the stairs and curled into a ball at her feet when she stopped to pick up the receiver.

  “Hello.”

  “Ruth? I’ve been worried about you.” It was Max. “Why have you refused to talk to me, sweetheart? You know I would never do or say anything to make you unhappy.”

  Rage obscured her capacity to think, to move.

  “Say something, Ruth. I want to hear the sound of your voice once more.”

  He spoke in the honeyed tones he’d used when he’d been especially pleased with her. A dark, hateful feeling curled through her like smoke, and a new terror seized her.

  I’m just like my mother.

  It all came back to Ruth—the things Max had made her do, the awful truth about her mother, the panicked flight from home. She had meant to stay away forever. The first night she’d spent in the alley behind the school, using her clothes for a pillow. Morning had brought rain and reality. She’d had no food, no shelter, and no means of supporting herself.

  Unless she became a thirteen-year-old version of her mother.

  That horrible thought had driven her to Wanda’s. After a week of taking charity and lying about why she had run away, Ruth had gone back home. Not because her mother wanted her to, but because she decided to go. She would stay until she was old enough to support herself, and then she’d leave and never look back.

  That was her plan.

  Most plans had flaws. Hers had two: her mother and Max.

  And now he was saying things to her, things she didn’t want to hear—dark, wicked things that sickened her.

  His voice dropped to a whisper.

  “Remember, sweetheart? You remember, don’t you, Ruth?”

  She bit down hard on her lower lip, drawing blood. The quick pain jolted her out of the awful spell he was weaving.

  “Get lost, Max.”

  She slammed down the phone, then quickly scooped Miranda into her arms. The kitten’s loud purring soothed her. Ruth stood very still while that soft, contented humming wiped out the awful excitement of Max’s voice.

  “What a good girl you are.” Ruth rubbed the kitten’s head, then pressed her face into the fur.

  “What a good girl I am,” she whispered.

  With her mother off in the car and Max’s voice silent, she could believe in her fantasy.

  Almost.

  Chapter 7

  CENTRAL AFRICA, 1982

  The minute Lorena Watson woke up, she knew the buffalo was in her flower garden again. Without even bothering to put on shoes, she grabbed the baseball bat from beside her bed and charged. Sure enough, there he was, front feet planted in her summer annuals, head down, eating as if he owned not only the flowers but the whole damned place.

  “Get out of here, you big ugly mutt. Shoo! Scat!”

  She raced around the porch wielding her bat, her cotton gown flapping behind her like a bird gone mad. The big animal gave her a mean look as if he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be stubborn and make her fight for the flowers or whether he would just go quietly back where he’d come from and forget the whole thing.

  Shouting, she waved the bat at him once more. With a disdainful snort he tossed his head in the air.

  If he charged, she was in big trouble. Chances were he’d gain the front porch before she gained the door.

  “Don’t you mess with me, you ugly lout. I’ve got twice the balls you do. I’ll beat you up and eat you for dinner.”

  With a final toss of his head, the big buffalo left her garden and sashayed off toward the meadow. She stared at the wreckage. Every night for the last week he’d trampled her flowers, and every morning she marched right down to the nursery and bought some more.

  Wanting to survey the damage close-up, she stepped off the porch and right into a pile of buffalo dung. It oozed between her bare toes.

  If Lorena hadn’t been married to her career, she’d have pulled up stakes and headed home to Georgia then and there; but she was totally devoted, had in fact chosen Africa for that very reason, knowing that nothing less than total devotion would be required to live in a place so far from what she had known as civilization.

  Looking down at her feet, she chuckled. “You think a little buffalo dung is going to make me give up, mister? Well, you don’t know this tough Georgia cracker.”

  After she’d cleaned up and had breakfast, she drove into town for some more flowers, then spent the rest of the day on her knees in the dirt, replanting, humming, and talking to herself.

  “One of these days I’m going to have to get myself a dog.”

  It took her half an hour to get the dirt from underneath her fingernails, but by late afternoon she was ready for her shift at the Ruhengeri Clinic, so crisp and white she looked as if she’d never seen dirt, let alone spent most of the day digging in it.

  She was the dirt-and-dungarees type.

  That’s what Bubba Wilson had told her when he’d relieved her of the burden of her virginity in the backseat of his Chevrolet. When it was all over, she’d decided the whole business was highly overrated, and then she got on with her studies.

  She’d graduated with honors —and she’d pit her skills against the very best nurse anywhere in the world.

  “You’re looking mighty chipper, Lorena,” Dr. Tigrett said when she waltzed through the door and stashed her purse behind the desk at the nurses’ station. “Any particular reason?”

  “Yeah. I was just thinking what a fabulous nurse I am and that you’re damned lucky to have me.”

  “Modesty has always been your greatest charm.”

  They were still chuckling when the Jeep careened to a stop and a young man rushed into the clinic.

  “Help! Somebody has to help my brother.”

  “Where is he?” Dr. Tigrett asked.

  “In the Jeep.” The young man suddenly collapsed onto one of the hard chairs in the waiting room as if it had taken all his strength to deliver his message.

  Tigrett rushed through the door with Lorena right behind him, but the patient wasn’t in the Jeep at all. He was standing by its side, swaying slightly, the left side of his face covered with blood.

  Even in his condition, he l
ooked like a warrior-god who might have been worshiped by some ancient culture. He wasn’t handsome in a traditional sense; he was merely sensational.

  Lorena couldn’t have said whether his impact on her was due to the intensity of that single black eye watching every move they made, or the untamed black hair framing well-defined cheekbones usually seen only in statues, or the awesome sense of strength and power in his body.

  Whatever it was, she’d been mesmerized by him. She didn’t know how long she would have stood there gaping if Dr. Tigrett hadn’t said something.

  “Lorena. Take his other arm.”

  When she touched him, she felt the piercing gaze of that single black eye, and for the first time in her thirty-three years she wished she’d been born pretty instead of plain.

  She’d been right about his strength; he didn’t lean on them as they walked into the clinic.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” the doctor asked.

  “Bush knife.”

  Lorena’s heart plummeted. The natives never cleaned their bush knives, and they were used for everything from cutting through the jungle to gutting animals.

  His brother rushed them the minute they got into the clinic.

  “How bad is it, Doctor?”

  “I won’t know until I take a look.” Knowing the importance of every second, Tigrett never paused in his rush toward the examining room.

  “Oh, God ...” The young man trailed along behind them. “I’ll never do anything like this again, Brett. I promise you... .”

  “Malone!” The patient’s voice cut through the babble. “Stand tall.”

  Malone passed a shaky hand over his face, then turned to the doctor. “Should I fill out papers or something?”

  “Later. There are some things I’ll need to know.”

  “Wait outside, Malone.” The patient fixed the doctor with a single-black-eyed stare. “I can tell you everything you need to know.”

  Tigrett had never had his authority challenged by a patient, certainly not one in Brett’s condition. Lorena watched the contest of wills as she cleaned away the blood.

  “Fine. Let’s not waste any more time.”

  Tigrett adjusted the light to the patient’s face. The bush knife had sliced only once, but one slice was all it took. A deep curving line dissected the man’s face from eyebrow to cheekbone—no wavering, no jagged edges. But the cut had been made right through the center of the eye.

  “Your name?” Tigrett said.

  “Brett Corday.”

  “How long ago did this happen?”

  “About two hours.”

  Lorena put her hand on the patient’s arm. She knew what was coming next.

  Tigrett bent over the eye once more, being careful, being certain.

  “We’ll have to do an enucleation.”

  That he could unflinchingly deliver news that would alter a man’s life was a tribute to his professionalism. Lorena was not so tough. Tears stung her eyes and wet her cheeks.

  “What does that mean?” Brett asked.

  “I’ll have to remove your eye.”

  Brett Corday’s stillness was that of the Virungas that surrounded them.

  “There must be less drastic measures you can take before you make a decision like that.”

  “Two hours was too long. You’ve lost all fluids in the eye, and there is no way they can ever be put back. That means you’ve already lost your vision. Permanently.”

  Lorena felt the slight tremor that ran through Brett. But not so much as a single muscle tic in his face betrayed his feelings.

  “Why take out my eye?”

  “Risk of infection is extremely high with a cut from a bush knife. The eye is too close to the brain. If I don’t remove the eye and clean out the wound, you could die.”

  Brett closed his hand over Lorena’s and squeezed twice, reflexively.

  “What are you waiting for, Doctor?”

  o0o

  During the next five days the old buffalo came to her flower garden every night and wreaked havoc. Lorena hardly bothered to look, much less to replant.

  She lived for her shift at the clinic.

  Standing in her slip, she ran her hands down her body. She was solid but not pudgy. Brett Corday was probably used to the very finest—women with flawless faces and slim young bodies.

  Lorena Watson was nobody’s fool. She knew exactly how she looked. With her thin, straight brown hair that defied both curling irons and pins, and the sprinkling of freckles on her nose, she looked like somebody’s homely cousin who was always being pawned off on unsuspecting blind dates. Besides that, she was nine years older than Brett Corday.

  What chance could she possibly have with a man like him, anyway? Lorena got into her nurse’s uniform and was halfway out the door before she went back into her bedroom.

  It took her nearly ten minutes to find the perfume. The bottle was so old, she couldn’t even read the name, but she remembered it was made by one of those snooty men who designed tight blue jeans. It probably smelled like horse piss, buried as it had been for the last three years at the bottom of her lingerie drawer. Somebody had given it to her the last Christmas she’d spent in Georgia—probably one of her aunts, ever hopeful that Lorena would forget her silly notions of traipsing off to that godforsaken place she worked, and settle down to marry somebody like Bubba and have babies.

  Being pregnant nine months out of a year had never been her notion of the good life, but, Lord, sometimes she did long for the fun that preceded that state of dubious bliss.

  “What the hell.”

  She turned the bottle up and doused herself. If the rest of her flowers didn’t turn up their roots and die when she walked by, she guessed the smell wouldn’t kill Brett Corday.

  o0o

  He was asleep. A shaft of afternoon light pierced the shutters and fell across the bandage that swathed the left side of his face. A lock of thick, untamed hair lay upon the bandage, so dark, it was blue-black against the stark-white dressings.

  She caught her tongue between her lips and was reaching toward his hair when he spoke.

  “What is that fragrance?”

  She jerked her hand back and tried to look busy smoothing the sheet.

  “Gardenia, I think. The bottle is so old, the label is worn away.”

  “It’s nice.” He fixed her with a riveting gaze as his mouth quirked up at the corners.

  His beautiful smile was totally without guile. That, then, was the secret of his impact: Brett Corday had no idea that his mere presence was enough to stun women into stammering silence.

  “I’m glad you like it,” she said. “Open wide.”

  She took his temperature, then his blood pressure. Dawdling. Not wanting to leave the room.

  “Is anything wrong?” he asked.

  “No.” Except that you’ll soon be leaving. “Everything is perfectly normal.”

  “Good. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  Her heart hurt. Now Lorena knew why all her teachers had cautioned not to get personally involved with patients.

  “How are you going to get along without my TLC, not to mention my stories?”

  “With great difficulty.”

  “Did I ever tell you the one about Aunt Priscilla?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “One day she showed up at our kitchen door, dressed fit to kill, every hair in place and sprayed so stiff, not even a hurricane could have moved it. She planted her feet together under the table, put her white gloves on top of her purse, and announced, ‘Murray’s gone. He went away with somebody who would give him oh-ral sex. Please fix me some tea, Lorena.’ “

  “Did you fix her tea?” Brett asked, laughing.

  “No. I asked her what oh-ral sex was. Mother made me wash my mouth out with soap.”

  “I’ll miss your stories, Lorena.”

  “Hey. My cottage is down on Raintree if you get lonesome for a little tale.”

  Chuckling, Brett reached out and squeezed her
hand. Once. Lightly.

  It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

  Chapter 8

  It was a different family gathering from the one he’d imagined. Their first meal together since he’d come back from the United States. The first since he’d been released from the hospital.

  His mother kept staring at his face, stricken. When Brett caught her at it, she attempted a smile that didn’t quite work. His father studiously avoided looking at the bandage that still covered his left eye and the angry red gash down his cheek held together with the doctor’s precise stitches. Instead, Joseph talked to the wall behind Brett’s head in a voice full of forced joviality.

  “Two of Doby’s females gave birth today. He let Eleanor get close enough for some great shots. They’re both females.”

  “It’s high time,” Eleanor said, making a valiant effort to act normal. “We’re woefully outnumbered on this mountain.”

  Though she laughed when she said it, Brett heard the undertone of discontent. He studied his mother closely. At forty-three she was still a striking woman. She’d been a mere child when Joseph had brought her to the Virungas, an eighteen-year-old bride.

  Had she missed the things other women took for granted—concert halls, movie houses, fancy restaurants, shopping malls, next-door neighbors? Until now Brett had never thought about what living so far from civilization would do to a woman like Eleanor.

  “I’ve named them Cee Cee and Dee Dee.” If Joseph sensed his wife’s disquiet, he gave no sign. “The best studies are those that follow the mountain gorilla from birth. I can’t wait for you to get out there in the jungle with me, Brett.”

  “No!” Eleanor’s face turned white as she shoved back her chair and stood up. With her palms flattened on the table, she leaned into her husband’s face. “He’s barely out of the hospital, and all you can talk about is your gorilla studies.”

  “The decision is mine, Mother.”

  Eleanor rushed on as if she had not heard Brett’s quiet rebuke.

  “I won’t have it. Do you hear me, Joseph? Isn’t it enough that he’s lost his eye? Would you have him fall off a cliff and finish the job that drunk bushman’s knife started?”