Leah glanced over at Adam. His face was as white as his shirt. A look of pure horror.
The shopkeeper shooed the children out into the street. Leah held her breath and watched them until they were safely on the other side of the narrow, crowded roadway. She turned back as the ebb and flow of Saigon street life surrounded her again. She was alone. She looked around. Adam was already a hundred feet away and walking fast. Surely he hadn’t turned tail and run because a group of kids had hustled them for a couple of dollars. Then she remembered the look on his face and thought maybe he had. She watched him go, a head taller than everyone else around him.
“Adam, wait! Your watch.” She might as well have saved her breath. The level of street noise made it impossible for him to hear her. She didn’t think he would have stopped if he had. He’d left her alone in the middle of a strange city without a word of explanation. She had every right to be angry with him, but she wasn’t. Being stranded didn’t worry her—she could take care of herself. What bothered her was the memory of that look on his face. She wanted to know what had put it there. She wanted to help take it away—and that bothered her most of all.
CHAPTER THREE
A DELIVERY-TRUCK DRIVER made a U-turn in the middle of the street two blocks from the market, tying up traffic in every direction, when Leah was heading back to the hotel. It took her driver almost an hour to maneuver his cyclo through the snarl. When she finally arrived, the bus to take them to Dalat was waiting, engine idling. She paid the driver and hurried to her room. While packing, she listened for sounds of movement from Adam’s suite, but heard nothing. She couldn’t stop wondering where he was and what he was doing. She couldn’t forget the horror she’d glimpsed on his face—an old horror, familiar and long remembered. It sent a shiver of dread up and down her spine. When she left her room, she knocked on his door. There was no answer. She hadn’t really expected there would be.
Adam wasn’t in the lobby. He wasn’t on the sidewalk outside the hotel. He wasn’t on the bus. She shoved her duffel bag into the overhead bin and looked around. The passengers were all women, except for Roger Crenshaw.
“Glad you’re here, Leah. Only two more to come,” he said, putting a tick beside her name on the clipboard he was holding.
“Join me. We’re almost ready to leave.” Kaylene smiled and beckoned from across the aisle.
“Where are the others?” Leah asked, sliding onto the cracked leather seat beside the woman she already considered a friend.
“B.J. and most of the men left for the airport—” Kaylene glanced at her watch “—half an hour ago.”
“Dr. Sauder, too?”
“Yes, I believe I saw him with the group.”
Leah was relieved to learn that Adam had made it safely back to the hotel. Something of what she was feeling must have shown on her face, for Kaylene looked as if she wanted to say more. But just then the bus doors screeched shut on unoiled hinges behind the final two members of the group. Moments later they pulled out onto the street, parting the waves of opposing traffic like a whale in a school of shrimp.
The ride to Dalat was one of the most nerveracking experiences of Leah’s life. The highway out of Saigon was crowded with all manner of vehicles, from eighteen-wheelers to high-wheeled carts pulled by water buffalo. There were seventies-era American cars, Japanese motor scooters, Chinese trucks and buses, cyclists and pedestrians, and no one paid any more attention to the traffic laws here than they had in Saigon. There seemed to be only one rule of the road: have a horn and use it. It was a long, harrowing drive, and even the beauty of the mist-washed hillsides was not enough to take Leah’s mind off their driver’s suicidal tendency to pass other vehicles on the winding stretches of narrow roadway with sheer, unguarded drops only inches from the bus’s wheels.
The sun had set and the short twilight had almost faded when they arrived at the hospital compound in the jungle, several miles outside the hill-country city of Dalat. Father Gerard, the French Canadian priest in charge of the hospital, and two of the nuns, whom he introduced as Sister Grace and Sister Janet, came out of the square, two-story, brick building to welcome them.
Leah took a moment to look around and get her bearings before following the white-cassocked Father Gerard and the others on a tour of the compound. To the west of the hospital was a church made out of the same dusty-red brick, its copper-roofed steeple green with age. Grouped between the two buildings were half-a-dozen thatched-roof huts. Smoke from cooking fires curled through holes in the roofs while small children played outside in the dirt, among chickens and potbellied pigs. Here, Father Gerard explained, as he led them to their rooms in two larger communal huts, the families and friends of hospital patients stayed while their loved ones underwent treatment.
They drew names out of a hat for room assignments, and Leah and Kaylene found themselves paired up, an arrangement that suited them both. Their room was at the end of the long building closest to the hospital. Barely big enough to turn around in, it held two hard, narrow beds draped with mosquito netting, a small table and one chair, a metal washbowl and pitcher. A single bare lightbulb hung from the ceiling. The hospital had electricity provided from Dalat, but in the compound there was only an aging generator that produced electricity for two hours at dusk and one hour in the morning. Showers and toilets were in the hospital building. The kitchen and refectory were there, too.
The evening meal had been held for them. They took their places at the long benched tables and the Vietnamese nuns brought them soup thick with noodles and bits of pork and chicken. It was spicier than anything Leah had ever eaten, but delicious. The rest of the meal consisted of steamed rice, stale French bread, dried fruit—and tea—no coffee. Adam wouldn’t like that, Leah thought. When they’d finished eating, they toured the wards and the operating suites. It was dark by the time they returned to their rooms to unpack. The generator shut down at eight as advertised. They undressed by candlelight and were in bed by nine.
Leah was so tired she ached in every muscle, but still she couldn’t sleep. Where were the supply trucks? They should have arrived by now. The highway they’d traveled was treacherous enough in daylight. At night, with only the moon to guide them, it would be even more dangerous. She stared into the darkness and listened to the unfamiliar but comforting sound of Kaylene’s gentle snoring. She found herself straining to hear the sound of trucks laboring up the steep grade to the hospital compound. What if something had happened to them? To B.J. and the others? To Adam?
She forced herself to relax. There was nothing she could do to get the trucks and their occupants here any faster, and tomorrow was going to be a long, busy day. The two operating suites would have to be evaluated and arranged to the surgeons’ satisfaction. The electrician would have to get the generator that would power all their high-tech equipment and computers up and running. All the surgical instruments had to be checked and checked again. There would be patients to evaluate, operating schedules to draw up. But still she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she watched the luminous hands of her travel clock creep forward in slow circles until at last her vigil was rewarded with the unmistakable sound of heavy trucks pulling into the compound.
They were here. They were safe. He was safe. Leah closed her eyes, but it wasn’t until she heard the low rumble of Adam’s voice as he exchanged greetings with Father Gerard that she relaxed enough to fall asleep.
THUNDER RUMBLED in the distance, barely audible above the steady roar of the generator on the other side of the wall. Adam looked out the operating room’s one small window, saw the dark clouds rolling down from the mountains and knew they were in for a downpour. He would be surprised if they didn’t get a thunderstorm at this time of the afternoon every day for the next three weeks. He saw Leah Gentry glance over her shoulder to the same spot and then continue her conversation with Roger Crenshaw.
He’d been avoiding her all day. He owed her an apology and an explanation. The apology he could handle; the explanation he wasn’t so
sure about. Adam watched as Leah and Roger inspected a pressure gauge they’d just unpacked. Roger would oversee the larger operating room next door where the orthopedic and general surgeons would set up shop. He and Leah would work together here. The generator’s staccato beat stuttered and faltered. The lights flickered and dimmed, then steadied again. Leah dropped a screwdriver on the cement floor and mumbled an apology in his direction.
He acknowledged it with a nod and went on checking his own instruments, thousands of dollars’ worth of specialized scalpels and retractors, drills and clamps. He hadn’t bothered to keep them with him on the plane, as Leah had with her red toolbox. If they’d been lost, he wouldn’t have to operate. He could have turned tail and run back to Chicago. He closed the case and set it on the table by the antique autoclave in the corner. From now on they were Kaylene Smiley’s responsibility.
Roger Crenshaw left the room, and Adam found himself standing at the head of the operating table watching Leah work. “Everything check out okay?” he asked.
She was apparently so involved in what she was doing it took a moment for his words to sink in. Then she looked at him and blinked. There were dark smudges beneath her eyes, as though she hadn’t slept well. She probably hadn’t, if her bed was as hard and uncomfortable as his.
She smiled tentatively, obviously not quite certain how to handle him after yesterday’s disappearing act. Her hair was in the same French braid as before, but today little curling wisps had escaped to brush against her cheek and the nape of her neck. “The humidity is giving me fits. Everything’s sticking or jumping around.” She tapped one of the gauges with the tip of her fingernail.
“B.J. said they’ll have the air conditioner installed soon.” Even though it was cooler in the hills this time of year than in Saigon, the humidity would play havoc with the delicate instruments on which both he and Leah relied. The air conditioner was a necessity, not a luxury.
“I’ll run one more check when it’s up and going. Then I’m ready whenever you are.”
“We start patient evaluations first thing in the morning. Would you like to sit in on mine?” Back at St. B’s he let his residents do most of the face-to-face work. These days he kept his distance from his patients, especially the youngest ones.
“Thank you, I would. Caleb and I work together that way. I like to have a feel for the patient. There’s more to anesthesia than just checking height and weight, and looking up dosages on a chart.” She tilted her head slightly and smiled at him.
Adam had been waiting for that smile, and the realization made him angry at himself. He took it out on Leah. “This isn’t going to be fun and games. It’s triage. The oldest, the youngest, the sickest—those are the ones who can’t beat the odds, the ones we’ll have to pass over.”
Her smile disappeared. “I know that.”
“B.J.’s done a hell of a job getting me what I need to operate here, but it’s still a Third World setup. No heroics. No miracles. Some are going to make it and some aren’t. Can you handle that, too?” He looked down at his hands, balled into fists on the metal table. He sounded like the soulless medical machine he was becoming.
“I can live with the tough calls,” she said quietly. “Can you?”
He ignored her question. Losing your soul didn’t mean you had to behave like a jackass. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. We’ll do our best for all our patients. We’ll do fine together.”
“I always give my patients one hundred percent. I’m sure you do, too.”
She didn’t sound completely mollified, but he forged ahead. “And while I’m at it, I also want to apologize for leaving you stranded yesterday.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can. That has nothing to do with it. My behavior was uncalled-for.”
“I have your watch,” she said unexpectedly.
The statement and the change of subject caught him off guard. “My watch?”
“The one you bought for your son.”
He’d forgotten all about it. He’d forgotten everything but the past the moment he heard the smallest of the street urchins begin to cry. Leah reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out the wristwatch. She handed it to him. It was warm from the heat of her body. “Thanks,” he said.
“I had the shopkeeper engrave it.”
Adam turned the watch over. To Brian. With Love, Dad. Saigon, 1999.
With love. How long had it been since he’d told his son he loved him?
She waited as the silence grew between them. A frown creased her forehead. “It’s my turn to apologize, it seems. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have presumed. I’ll pay to have the inscription removed.”
He stuck the watch into his pocket and twisted his mouth into a smile. “No, it’s fine. Thank you for taking the trouble. Thanks for everything.” He turned to walk away. Leah reached out and laid her hand on his arm. A current of energy had passed between them when his hand had brushed hers moments before. He’d ignored it. This time he couldn’t.
“What happened there at the marketplace? Why did you take off like that?”
“It was nothing. Not enough sleep and too much sun.”
“It was more than that.”
The storm had rolled down off the mountain. Now the thunder crashed directly overhead. She didn’t even flinch. He knew he was going to have to tell her something, perhaps even the truth, or at least a portion of it.
“Was it being in that marketplace? Or was it being in Saigon?”
Damn, she’s persistent. “It was—” The lights went out. There was no blinding flash of lightning or crash of thunder, but the room was suddenly dark except for the small rectangle of light coming from the window. The rain still pounded on the roof, but the rhythmic stutter of the generator had ceased. It was a distraction, the answer to an unvoiced prayer. “The generator’s out,” he said unnecessarily.
“Do you think it was hit by lightning?” There was a quiver in her voice.
“No. It’s right outside the window. I think we would have known if lightning had struck it.”
“Of course. How stupid of me. It probably just ran out of gas.” He heard Leah suck in a sharp breath, saw her turn toward the light.
He smiled. He couldn’t help himself. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of storms.”
She slid off her stool, looking at him over her shoulder. She moved toward the window, a darker silhouette against the pale rectangle of murky light. “Of course not.” She laughed a little self-consciously. “But I’m not very comfortable in the dark. Isn’t it silly? I’m thirty-one years old and I sleep with a night-light.”
“Don’t tell me you lay awake all night staring into the darkness to keep the monsters at bay.” Why had he said that? Because it was what he did every night?
“I’m not sleeping alone,” she said.
“Does it help not sleeping alone?” He had a sudden vision of her in bed with a man. He didn’t like it. Some of what he was thinking must have seeped into his voice.
She spun around, bringing them within a step of each other. He reached out and steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. He couldn’t see her blush, but he was certain she did. “I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, having a roommate. Besides, I have a clock with an enormous fluorescent dial. It’s practically as good as a night-light.” She turned the tables on him. “What comes for you in the dark?”
“No, Leah.” Then he stopped her from saying more with his mouth. He’d meant only to silence her, but her lips were so soft and warm....
She pulled away. “You don’t have to kiss me to shut me up. I won’t insist that you explain to me what happened yesterday,” she whispered, her breath warm against his lips.
“I’m not kissing you to shut you up. Not anymore.” She opened her mouth and let him inside to explore. She tasted of mint and cola. Her tongue touched his and something inside him flared with a white-hot flame, searing his heart. He pulled her cl
ose. Her breasts pressed against his chest, her softness against his sudden erection. He kissed her harder. He could go on kissing her forever, more than kissing her, making love to her over and over again. Adam found the fantasy taking hold of his heart and his brain. He wanted all of her, the way he hadn’t wanted a woman for a long, long time. “You don’t have to be alone in the dark, Leah. Stay with me tonight,” he said before the barriers of self-control could slam down on his need for her.
She shook her head, but didn’t step out of his arms. “That’s not a good idea.”
He could hear voices beyond the wall, a mixture of French, Vietnamese and English. People were working on the generator. Before he knew it the lights would come back on. The intimacy of near darkness would be erased. “What’s wrong with both of us taking comfort from each other?” He could feel her pulling back and he tightened his arms around her. “Don’t go,” he whispered against her hair. It was half plea, half command. He found her mouth again.
She relaxed against him for a handful of heartbeats, kissed him back and then pushed away, her hands on his chest. Her breasts rose and fell with her quickened breathing. There was a look of wonder on her face, and he knew their kisses had affected her as strongly as they had him. It was a warning signal he should have heeded, but he did not. “Stay with me, Leah.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t sleep with colleagues. I don’t do one-night stands.” She took another step away. He let his palms slide along her arms, then manacled her wrists with his hands, keeping her close.
“This wouldn’t be a one-night stand.”
“I’m not good at short, intense affairs, either.”
“Leah. I...” He couldn’t say “I need you” because she would demand to know why, and maybe he would tell her, and then the thin plate of armor separating him from his private version of hell would buckle and melt away, and he would be lost. “We would be good together,” he finished lamely.
Winter Soldier (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance) Page 3
