With a big sigh that Ronnie knew meant that Venetia was beginning to understand what she was trying to teach her, Venetia added more wood to their fire and looked to the skies. Tonight, she’d enjoy the stars and the company of a good friend; tomorrow, she’d face Lewis and all the turmoil that surrounded their relationship.
They took their time getting home the next day, stopping frequently to harvest more plants. When they finally reached the village, it was late and dinner was over. Venetia was tempted to go right to the medical hut and confront Lewis but knew that she needed to help Ronnie put away all their plants. If not cared for properly, they might lose their healing power.
By the time they were finished, it was late and the village was dark and quiet. She went to bed promising herself that first thing in the morning she would deal with Lewis and his appearance here. She felt stronger than she ever had before, capable of facing him and everything they’d been through together. But one thing was clear, if they were going to be together, they would have to make a fresh start.
She slept well that night and woke refreshed. As soon as she was dressed, she made a bee line for the medical tent, hoping that he was up, but knowing that there was a possibility she might find him still in bed. As she approached the door, she heard voices inside and knew that not only was he up, but Max was in there with him. Embarrassing or not, she wasn’t going to wait till Lewis was alone. Hopefully, Max would be sensitive enough to know when to leave.
The sight that greeted her eyes when she stepped through the door was enough to make her heart stop. Lewis had obviously just gotten out of bed, his clothes were rumpled and his hair was a mess. He was just taking a sip of his coffee, she could smell it, when he saw her. He choked a little then set the cup down, crossing the room in few steps.
“Venetia, you’re back,” he said, searching her face for a sign of what she was thinking.
“I got back late last night. How have things been since I’ve been gone? I’m sorry I left so abruptly, but I’m sure you found what you needed.”
Lewis then understood that she was going to be professional as long as Max was in the hut. The man had been driving him crazy for days, the idea that he might be involved with Venetia driving him to distraction every time he thought about it.
“Yes, everything is well organized. I haven’t had to treat very many patients, so it’s been a little boring to be honest.”
“Well, consider yourself lucky. Sometimes it’s like an emergency room in here. I’ve had to kick Max out several times,” she said, then added, “Hi, Max. How are you?”
“I’m fine. The tests on the panel are going great. In fact, I better go check on it now,” he said, knowing when he wasn’t wanted. He’d known that something was up when Venetia disappeared with Ronnie the other day. He’d also been aware that she’d had her heart broken recently.
Once Max was out of the room, Lewis opened his mouth to speak, but Venetia held up her hand to stop him. “I don’t know why you followed me here, and I’m sure you’ve planned on apologizing profusely until I forgive you, but I don’t know if I can or want to.”
“But, Venetia, you have to know how sorry I am,” he said, taking her hands in his.
“I saw how sorry you were. I saw you with that woman. After all the things you said to me, you sure didn’t have a hard time moving on,” she said, pulling her hands out of his and stepping away.
“That was my sister. I took her to the benefit I was planning to take you to.” he said, crossing again to where she stood.
Venetia moved away again. He wasn’t making this easy. Every time he got near her, all she wanted to do was throw herself into his arms. But she knew that would put them right back where they’d started, and she was a different person than she’d been back then.
“That still doesn’t explain why you never called me, never tried to talk to me. You just turned your back and walked away.”
“You’re the one who walked away,” he challenged.
“I left you a note explaining why I left and asking you to call me. You’re the one who chose to ignore it,” she said, anger beginning to show in her voice.
Lewis realized that he was trotting out the same excuses he’d tried to use to convince himself that he’d been in the right. With a sigh, he said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t handle the situation very well. Can we just start over? I came all this way because I love you. That hasn’t changed.”
“I don’t know if I can believe that, and if it’s true, you have a strange way of showing it. Lewis, I came over here to not only help these people but to learn something about myself. It seems to me that you need to do the same.”
“But what about us?” he asked, thinking that this had not gone the way he’d planned. In his mind, Venetia would be so happy to see him that she’d throw herself into his arms and forgive him for everything he’d done.
“I honestly don’t know,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “I thought I knew before, but now I’m just not sure how I feel. You’re just going to have to give me some space.”
“Okay,” he said, feeling that old annoyance that came when he didn’t get his way, but this time he’d learned his lesson. He’d be patient, let Venetia have her space.
“Good. Now that we’ve cleared that up, if you haven’t had breakfast I’m headed that way,” she said, feeling strong and in control.
“That would be nice. The people here haven’t exactly been friendly. They haven’t been rude, but other than Max, I haven’t made many friends.” The thought of Max made him want to question her about their relationship, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.
By the time they got back to the medical hut after breakfast, there was a line of patients at the door. Word had spread that Venetia was back and they all wanted to see her, but when they saw that she trusted Lewis, they were happy to be treated by him instead. There was little time for talking that day, the hut resembling an emergency room as one case after another presented itself for them to deal with.
At the end of the day, they were both too exhausted to do more than eat dinner and fall into bed. Venetia thinking just as she fell asleep that she’d finally managed to conquer her feeling for Lewis. She still felt that pang of desire when she saw him, but now she could control it. He seemed to have accepted that they were on a different path now, and she was glad; after all, they were stuck here together for at least a couple of months.
If it became unbearable, she’d make him leave. It would only take one call to the administrative office to get him reassigned. With that comforting thought in her mind, she drifted off to sleep.
Lewis, however, couldn’t seem to get to sleep. No matter how he arranged himself, sleep just wouldn’t come. It was difficult knowing that somewhere in the village Venetia was going to bed without him. But before the old frustration could surface, he took a deep breath and promised himself that he would be patient.
He’d never had to wait for the things he wanted in life he now realized, either they’d been bought for him or he’d been able to get them himself. Now the one thing he wanted the most was just out of his reach. He’d have to learn to wait, that much was clear, but the waiting would be hard. Knowing that he might leave here without Venetia was a thought that kept him awake at night, but if he wasn’t careful that was exactly what would happen.
He wished that there was someone he could talk to about this, but he still didn’t know if Max and Venetia were more than friends. He’d seen them talking at dinner that night and they’d seemed awfully friendly. He knew that those were unfair thoughts, but his jealousy fueled them. Frustrated, he got up and went outside to pace.
Finally, he wandered over to the fire in the middle of the village and sat down with the other men gathered there. He’d seen them there each night but had been too uncomfortable to join them. But tonight he didn’t care if they ignored him, at least he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts, company of any kind would be a welcome distraction.
The me
n looked at him when he sat down, and one of the old men handed him a bottle, He took a swig then coughed when the fiery liquid slid down his throat, burning all the way to his stomach. The men laughed and one of them pounded on his back until he started breathing again.
“You look like a man who needs to unload his troubles,” the old man said, handing him the bottle again. Lewis took a more cautious sip this time, then decided maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to get some advice. These men would certainly have a different perspective on what he needed to do to win Venetia back.
Chapter 9
One of the younger men got up and added some wood to the fire, anticipating a good story. No one had missed the fact that Venetia and Lewis knew each other, but they knew little besides that. In a world where there was no television or other entertainment, stories were all that they had, and a new story was always the best.
The men went silent, making Lewis feel uncomfortable at first, but after another swig from the bottle, the alcohol loosened his tongue and he began to talk. Unlike the other times he’d told this story, he never made excuses for himself; even in his slightly inebriated state, he knew that these men would take no excuses.
As he told his story, he tried to distance himself from what had happened, to look at it from an outsider’s point of view. What he discovered was that he’d made mistakes from the very beginning, he should have taken more time to really get to know her. He should have given her more space. Instead, he’d let that force that seemed to make them lose control guide their relationship.
Seen from the outside, he’d done some very stupid things that had doomed their relationship from the start. He really couldn’t blame Venetia for any of it; he’d know how innocent she was, even though she was a grown woman. He’d taken advantage of their sexual attraction to force a relationship that had no foundation. One of the biggest mistakes a man can make.
When he finished his story, the men were silent for a few minutes. They’d made little comments though out the story but now seemed to be forming opinions. Tradition held that the oldest man in the group would speak first, so Lewis looked to him for his opinion.
He took a swig from the bottle, then said, “You talked a lot about balance, but it seems to me that you don’t have balance in your life.”
Lewis stared at him for a second. He’d always been proud of his ability to balance the areas of his life. “That’s not true, I have plenty of things in my life besides work.”
The old man considered his words then said, “You can balance your time any way you want,” putting emphasis on the word time. “But that doesn’t mean that you have a balanced life. Why do you think you were so stuck on the idea of having a baby?”
“I just thought it would be a wonderful thing,” Lewis said, confused. He’d accepted that the baby had been a bad idea.
“But why? And once you had the baby, what would you have wanted next?”
“I don’t know, a new house maybe.”
“So, you would keep looking forward to what was next?”
“Yes, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?” Lewis said, a thought suddenly occurring to him. He’d been so busy planning their future, he’d forgotten about the present.
The old man just looked at him, waiting for Lewis to understand what he was trying to make him see. “I was so busy planning our future that I forgot to take care of the present,” he finally said.
“I think you might be beginning to understand,” the old man said, nodding to another of the men. He cleared his throat, as if what he was going to say was very important. “Here we teach our children that it is important to not only look to the future, but to enjoy the present. To absorb the people and places around you, to learn something each and every day. To us that is balance.”
Lewis considered his words, thinking about how he’d been living his life, moving from one goal to another. Always having the next big goal in sight. When he and Venetia had become involved, he’d known that she was the one for him. But instead of enjoying the process, he’d tried to skip over the part of their relationship where they built a foundation.
The part where they got to know each other, the part where they learned to compromise, and the most important part, making plans together. He’d decided how their relationship would go based on his goal of having a loving family. Then he’d become impatient when Venetia hadn’t been ready because he wouldn’t achieve his goal.
“I don’t know if I know how to live in the present. I’ve been living in the future so long, it’s the way I was raised,” Lewis said, feeling depressed.
“It is always possible to change ourselves if we recognize our short comings. But you have to want to change. Tomorrow, we will take you hunting. That will be your first step,” the old man said, challenge in his voice.
“I’ll be there, but I don’t know anything about hunting,” Lewis said, getting up from the ground, a little unsteady on his feet.
“After breakfast,” the old man said, waving Lewis away.
When Lewis walked away, the old man turned back to the group and said, “Ronnie has it easy, Venetia is a better student than that one.” And they all laughed.
Lewis could hear the men laughing as he made his way back to the medical hut; it was probably at his expense, but he didn’t care. The new definition of balance was swimming around in his head, making him question all the choices he’d made in the last few months. He didn’t know if he could retrain himself to live in the present, but what better place was there to do it than here.
Regardless of what happened with Venetia, he was going to be here for a while, maybe he could learn to slow down and just be in the moment. He had to admit that their idea of balance made more sense than the enforced balance he’d been imposing on his life. Sleep took him as he was wondering what Venetia was dreaming about right then as always she was the last thing he thought about before he went to sleep, except tonight he simply pictured her where she was now instead of where he wanted her to be.
The next morning, they saw each other at breakfast but spoke little, their fragile truce still uncomfortable for both. Venetia was surprised when Lewis took his breakfast over to a group of the village men and ate with them. After he was finished, he approached her as she was heading to the medical hut.
“Do you think you can handle the patients today? I’d like to go hunting with the men.”
Venetia was even more surprised but decided that it would be good to not have him under her feet all day. “That’s fine. I don’t think it will be very busy today. We must have treated everyone yesterday.”
He laughed and said, “It sure felt like it. But I think they all waited for you. You’ve already made quite the impression with the villagers. I’m impressed.”
A little embarrassed, she said, “Thank you, I’m truly happy here. Not only am I helping, but I’m also learning. Ronnie is teaching me about the plants and how to heal with them. It’s exciting to think about all the possibilities.” Her excitement was evident.
The first thought that crossed Lewis’ mind was that if she liked it so much she might stay longer, messing up his plans. Then he immediately saw the error of his thoughts and said, “I’m glad you’re happy. I’ll see you later. Hopefully, it won’t be because you have to treat an arrow wound.” He then turned and walked away. Time to start learning how to live in the present.
Over the next few weeks, Venetia and Lewis devised a schedule that would allow them both to pursue other interests while keeping the clinic covered enough hours of the day to keep everyone healthy. Practicing medicine in the Amazon was not an easy thing to do, and there were many cases that they just couldn’t handle on their own. Some they managed to get to better facilities and some they just made comfortable until the inevitable end, but they both knew that they were making a difference in people’s lives.
With a great deal of patience and teaching, the men of the village had managed to turn Lewis into a hunter. It had been a long and difficult
process, but after weeks of training he’d finally made his first kill. He’d been worried that he’d feel bad about killing something, but the knowledge that he’d managed to provide food for the village over ruled his reservations.
Hunting would never become his passion at home, but here where it could mean the difference between life and death, it became a part of his daily life. After his night at the fire ring with the men, he’d opened himself up to a new way of thinking and found that with practice he could enjoy the moment instead of thinking about the next one. Hunting had gone a long way toward helping him make the mental transition.
Venetia too was enjoying herself; working in the clinic was more gratifying than it had been at home. She found that her favorite patients were the expectant mothers. She especially loved when she got to help with a birth. Her study of medicinal plants was going well; she’d filled several notebooks with notes and drawings of the plants and an entire section on ways that the plants could be used back home.
When they were together, Venetia avoided touching Lewis because no matter how much she fought it, she was still powerfully attracted to him. Even the slightest brush of his arm on hers started the butterflies in her stomach and a longing in her loins. Many times, she’d had to step outside to get away from him for a second, to get herself under control before she did something stupid.
To say that there was some kind of chemical attraction between them was an understatement, but there was so much more to it than that. But Venetia was afraid that having sex with him would only confuse the situation. She wanted to more than she could describe but also knew that he had a hold on her body that was stronger than her will at times.
Their Miracle Baby (BWWM Romance Book 1) Page 9
