by Dianne Drake
As it turned out, Gertie knew the way, and however hard Paul struggled to guide her turned out to be an annoyance to the beast because she brayed, then bucked and finally threw him off. Laughing, and actually glad for the momentary distraction from some impossible feelings trying to clog her thoughts, Solange scrambled off Pete and ran to him. “Are you OK?” she asked, extending a hand to help him up. “I should have warned you that she can be stubborn.”
“Physically, I’ll let you know in the morning if I’m OK, after the rest of my bruises have had a chance to come out.” He got up, brushing the dust off himself with one hand and holding onto her hand with the other. And faking a scowl. But it wasn’t long until the humor came sparkling right back into his eyes.
She’d already memorized it there, and counted on it. And dreamt about it the previous night. “I think Gertie’s intention is to show you who’s boss.” He was holding onto her hand much too long, she thought, even though she made no attempt to pull away. It had been for ever since a man had touched her in any way, even Mauricio, and this little brush with Paul was setting off sparks she hadn’t even known she had. Sparks she didn’t believe Paul was feeling, as he was still rambling on and on about the donkey.
With a yearning sigh she was certain that he heard, Solange finally let go of Paul’s hand and backed away from him. “You could always walk, and lead Gertie.” She looked up at him, suddenly feeling self-conscious, like he could read all those confusing thoughts swirling around in her mind. “Maybe that’ll save you from getting any more bruises.”
“Bruises I can take.” He chuckled. “But being outsmarted by a donkey I can’t.” He reached out and brushed his fingers across her cheek. “I make you uncomfortable, don’t I, Solange?”
Solange glanced back down at the ground. “No, it’s not you. It’s…it’s something I don’t know how to explain.” Or wouldn’t explain. Not to him. “I don’t have friends, Paul. Or relationships. Outside the people I work with, and the villagers I call on, I don’t have…” She shrugged. “It’s not my life.”
Her eyes were still on the ground because she knew if she looked up right then he would be able to read things no one was meant to read. Longing and desire…things she’d put away a very long time ago, vowing never to let out again. And maybe there was more. Maybe she did have some fledgling feelings for Paul, something other than attraction on the purest physical level, the beginning of feelings she couldn’t yet sort out, or didn’t want to. Or maybe was afraid to. Paul was a perceptive man. He would see it all in her eyes if she looked up at him. So she wouldn’t look.
“What is it you want, Solange?” he asked, slipping his hand under her chin to tilt her face up to his.
So many things, things he would never know. “Nothing ever changes with me, Paul. I want what I’ve always wanted. To do what’s best for my patients. It’s simple, and it’s complicated, but it’s what it always has been.” And always would be.
“I think you want more. I think you want so many things you’re denying yourself. But let me just say that you’re an amazing woman, Solange Léandre. One who would be so easy to love, if I did that sort of thing any more.” He put a finger to her lips to silence her budding protest. “But I don’t, so don’t worry. From the moment you entered your father’s party I knew that I wanted to know you. And, yes, that was physical attraction, pure and simple. You’re some great-looking lady, and I’m not denying that I noticed the physical thing first. Every single man in the room noticed you, in case you weren’t aware of it. But who you are…My God, Solange! There aren’t any words to fit what’s going on inside me right now other than to say you’re an amazing woman. One who could be so easy to love.”
Solange brushed Paul’s fingers away from her face. “We are who we are, dictated by what we do. It’s a pure vision, Paul. But not always such an easy one, is it?” Maybe in a while, once Paul had returned to his life, and she to hers, she would come to realize it had all been innocent flirtation, or that finally, after a year, she was rebounding from Mauricio. Maybe she’d come to realize she enjoyed being with Paul like she’d enjoyed being with no one before. Including Mauricio.
It was starvation in a way she was just now coming to understand. But right now, to her, it felt like love. One thing was sure. Since she wasn’t reining in her own emotions very well, at least she could count on Paul to keep a level head.
Grabbing a canteen off the donkey Lulu, Solange opened it and took a drink, then handed it over to Paul. “Are you playing an angle with me, Paul?” she blurted, almost as surprised by her words as he appeared to be. But why was he here? In spite of what he’d told her, and in spite of her feelings, she did still wonder.
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t want to, but it’s a possibility, because isn’t that what you do, Paul? You play all the right angles in the hope of someone giving you a nice fat contribution? Do you not play the angles with my father in exchange for funds for your hospital?”
“Well, I’ll admit that you do have some awfully nice angles, Solange.” His mouth curved into a wide, boldly sexual smile just to show how much he admired those angles. “But I’m not playing one with you, because, to be honest, you don’t have anything that will benefit me. You’re not so connected to your father that he’ll up his contributions to me, if that’s what you think this is about.”
“It did occur to me.” Shaking her head skeptically, she walked back over to her donkey. “Everybody wants something, Paul. I know I do. So you can’t fault me for wondering what it is that you expect by coming along with me. Especially since time spent with me is time spent away from your efforts.”
The hope of a one-night stand wasn’t it, she didn’t believe. He was a handsome, charming man who could have any woman he wanted—a thought that did sting a bit. So, was this the ultimate act of altruism for him, coming to her rescue? Was she the damsel in distress appealing to his knight-in-shining-armor fantasy?
Certainly, there had to be more to it than met the eye, because Paul wouldn’t be out here right now, risking donkey and tropical storm, simply to tag along.
Or would he? “In other words, you’re not going to tell me why you’re doing this?”
“Like I said, Frère Léon…” He winked at her, then turned his attention to Gertie, holding out a piece of candy to her.
“One piece of candy and you charm the world. You’re good, Paul.” She laughed. “And calculating, I think.” And sexy as hell, with that roguish twinkle in his eyes. Too bad they couldn’t go about this flirtation for real.
“Is it so hard for you to believe that I would go through all this without this great ulterior motive you seem to think I have?”
“Everybody wants something, city boy. That’s the way the world works.”
Paul hoisted himself up on the donkey’s back, then looked down at Solange. “Sometimes it’s not an angle, Solange. Sometimes it’s a reason. And those of us who don’t have angles do have our reasons.”
Gertie gave a snort, then began her slow, deliberate pace along the trail as Solange hung back on Pete, trying to figure out what to make of this—of Paul, of herself, of her feelings for him.
She glanced up at the sky again, frowning. Suddenly, the complication of a tropical storm seemed the least of all her complications, because she caught herself hoping that his only tag-along reason was to spend more time with her. And that was an unexpected desire that came with a huge complication.
Paul wanted to glance over his shoulder at her. More like he was fighting to stop himself from glancing back at her. He knew she was lagging back, and he couldn’t blame her for that. Could be easy to love…What was that all about, anyway? She was definitely easy to love, and he was pretty sure he did in some bedeviling variation, or at least he was headed in that direction, and not able to hold back. She didn’t want the tangle, though, and that was patently obvious. He certainly didn’t either, although he did seem to be tap-dancing around it a bit, didn’t he? Was
he inclined to chuck his well-rehearsed resolve? Yes…No…He wanted to, and he didn’t want to, because the result was predictable. And a simple fling with Solange was out of the question because that would not be enough. Not nearly enough. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough. And he didn’t do lifetimes. Couldn’t.
So possibly the easiest thing to do was admit that he was here because he wanted to spend time with her, then let her send him away since she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, reciprocate. Angle…reason…both the same. He wanted to get to know her, even when every sensible corpuscle inside him knew that he shouldn’t. But it wasn’t those sensible corpuscles winning this round, was it?
“Don’t think we’re going to make it to wherever we’re going before the rain starts,” he called back to her. Not that it mattered, when at the end of this trail, wet or dry, he’d be with Solange. Right here, right now, that’s all that counted. He’d figure out the rest of it later on.
The first splashes of rain were slight. Simply a few big, fat drops in warning. Then the wind picked up, but not so much that it was anything to worry about. Not yet. “Paul,” she shouted above the wind. “You’re going to see a trail veering off the path in just another minute. Take it. We need to get to the village and find shelter there until this blows over.”
He twisted around and waved. “Think we’ll make it before all hell breaks loose?”
“It’s going to be close.” A gust of wind caught her and shoved her off balance. Clinging to Pete, she righted herself, then looked back to make sure Lulu’s cargo was still tied securely.
“You OK?” Paul shouted.
“Fine.” But getting a little nervous. This storm was blowing in hard and fast and Gertie, in her ever-slow pace, wasn’t going to be rushed into anything, meaning they were still ten minutes from safety. Ten minutes and the rain was already picking up. So was the wind. “We have to walk in,” she yelled. “Get off Gertie and lead her.” As she said that, she slid off Pete’s back and took him by the reins. They would keep better pace that way.
She didn’t say a word for the next several minutes as she pulled up close to Paul and followed him along the path. At the turn-off, he stopped and turned around. The wind was blowing against them now, getting harder with every passing second. Luckily, the rain was steady, but not ferocious. “How about you run on ahead and I’ll lead the donkeys in? No sense having both of us knocked about in all this.” He raised his hand to his face to wipe the rain from his eyes, then pushed his wet hair back. “You can get us a nice, cozy lodge. Have a fire started in the fireplace when I get there, call room service.”
“How about you doing that while I lead the animals in?” she countered.
“Are you always this stubborn?” he shouted over the howling wind.
Solange ducked her head to avoid the rain and, like Paul, pushed her wet hair back from her eyes. That’s when she noticed that her totally soaked white T-shirt was nearly transparent, giving Paul a show he was thoroughly enjoying, impending storm or not. Not that she could do anything about it now. “Not stubborn. Practical. I’m better with the donkeys.” She hunched forward a little, as if that would conceal what Paul had already been ogling. And not too bashfully at that.
“Then we’ll just stick together like we’ve been doing. OK?”
Before Solange could answer, Paul pulled off his own shirt, a dark cotton one that wouldn’t go transparent in the rain, and handed it to her. “I’d offer you the dry one from my pack, but I think we’re going to need our dry clothes later on.”
“Thank you, but I’m fine.” She tried handing it back to him, but he refused.
“Allow me my moment of chivalry this one time, will you?”
She nodded as she pulled on the shirt, grateful for the gesture. Above everything else Paul was a gentleman, and she liked that. Yet there was the fact that his list of estimable qualities, which just kept getting longer all the time, was making it tougher on her to keep the objective in mind. “I am going to take the lead, though,” she said. “See if I can get Gertie moving faster than you’ve got her doing.”
His shirt was huge on her, so huge she took a quick look at his bare chest. Beautiful chest. Muscular, tanned, a nice matting of brown hair all wet and plastered to his body. It was an odd sensation, seeing him like that. Something caught between longing and anticipation—and disappointment. Well, it was good to know the hormones still worked. She hadn’t been sure they would. “Thank you,” she said, slipping past him to take her place with Gertie.
Gertie did pick up her pace with Solange, and as they made their way along the narrowing road, Solange was almost glad for the storm because it kept her mind off things she wanted desperately to think about, and knew she should not.
CHAPTER SIX
THE village’s guest house was small and bare, with barely enough room inside for a man, a woman and three donkeys. Thatched roof, wooden floors, open doorway—it was a relatively dry place, with only a couple of leaky spots in the roof, and Étoué Babin, the village leader, offered Solange and Paul the use of several clay pots to catch the drips, while his young son, Ràfer, spread woven mats on the wooden floor for their comfort and placed a basket of fruit and freshly baked flat bread in a dry corner away from the donkeys.
Solange loved this place, loved the village, the house and the people. Generosity abounded, and everything they had was shared, even with total strangers. What the village lacked in modern conveniences it made up for in hospitality, and she always looked forward to traveling through, often spending a little longer there than she did many of her other routine stops. “They’re good people,” she said, ripping two pieces of bread from the flat disk, and handing one to Paul. “Sometimes I like coming here just for peace of mind.”
“What’s your day like? When you come here, what do you do?”
“I wait for them to come to me. If they have a need they will. They understand what I do, and respect it. And I respect them enough not to push myself on them. There’s a fine line out here in the way you dispense your medicine, and, as nice as the people are, if you cross that line you’ll offend them, which will undo everything. So I sit here in the visitors’ quarters for an hour and wait. Then if no one comes to me, I leave.”
“Do they come?” he asked.
“Always. And they’re getting less and less shy about it. I’m betting within in the next ten minutes, storm notwithstanding, there will be a line outside.”
“And what are the common complaints? What types of conditions do you normally see?”
“Pretty much the same things I saw in Miami and Chicago. Infections of various sorts, stomachaches, headaches, menstrual complaints. I don’t have anyone here with TB, like I do in a couple of the other villages, although I’m going to send Louise Babin down to you shortly to have a sed rate done because I think she has an early onset of rheumatoid arthritis in her hands, and if that’s the case I want to get her started on some non-steroidal anti-inflammatories right away.”
“Send her down any time. We’ll get the sed rate done, and how about X-rays to see what kinds of orthopedic changes she might be experiencing? Something to use as a baseline for the future.”
“I’d appreciate that. I talked to Bijou and she said that the middle of the week is the best time for lab tests that aren’t urgent, so I’ll see if Frère Léon will be free to drive Louise. I think he’s going to be my shuttle service much of the time.”
Frère Léon to the rescue. He was the one who had brought Paul and her together, and hopefully the one who would stay between them. With her fly-away, weak-willed attitudes lately, she was counting on that.
Paul sat down next to Solange in the doorway, and immediately she sprang up and went back to the basket with the fruit and bread. It was a pretense, to get away from him. He recognized that. And he wasn’t going to point it out to her because it was her choice, her life, and she called the shots regarding it. So now he was sitting there alone, still bare-chested, still wet, with Gertie, not Solange, nu
dging him in the back.
Certainly in the span of twenty-four hours he hadn’t succeeded very well as far as Solange was concerned. Just when he thought they might be friends, she pulled back. Was she afraid? Maybe afraid that a rainy afternoon in a guest house might lead to more than idle conversation? Or maybe she was simply afraid of him. “Do you hate men?” he asked bluntly.
She blinked in surprise. “What makes you think that I hate men?”
“Just a hunch. Relationship gone bad and now…” He shrugged. “And now you hide in the corner instead of sitting down next to me. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’d say that was a pretty good indication of some kind of emotion going on.”
“I don’t get involved,” she said. “That’s all it is. I don’t, I won’t, and when something starts, as Allain would say, quacking like a relationship, I get up and stand in the corner. It’s nothing personal, really.”
“And you’re afraid that’s what this is? The beginning of some kind of relationship between us.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It could be, I’ll admit. Except I don’t do what you don’t do. Different reason, same outcome.” Paul patted the floor next to him. “Friends?”
“Paul, there are so many things you don’t know about me…things that I just can’t…” She walked slowly back to the doorway and sat down next to him.
“You don’t have to, Solange. Whatever it is, you don’t have to talk about it, and I won’t pry.”
“It took me a long time to get to this place in my life, Paul. I don’t want to leave, and I’m scared to death of changes.”
“Nobody’s asking you to leave, and I would never expect you to change. Not in any way.”
