by Amelia Autin
Chapter 13
“Dirk’s wife, Sabrina, has cancer,” Juliana said on a rush. “But there’s a complication. She’s also pregnant.” She gave Andre an appealing look. “You can’t tell anyone, not even Dirk, that you know. Bree has told people about the pregnancy, but she doesn’t know Dirk told me about the cancer. He told me in confidence. I’m trusting you because—”
“So that is it,” he said softly, interrupting her, and Juliana knew he’d made the connection between this information and all the seemingly intimate exchanges he’d witnessed between Dirk and her. “Why could you not tell me this before?” There was a strained note in his voice—not harsh, not accusing, more like...hurt. Hurt she hadn’t trusted him enough to confide in him. And surprising to her, hurt and regretful he hadn’t trusted her, either.
He got up and walked over to one of the bookcases that lined the room, running his fingers blindly over the bindings. “I owe you an apology, little one,” he said with his back still turned to her, his voice very deep. “And DeWinter, too.”
“Yes, but you can’t apologize to him. Not now. You can’t tell him you know.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s why they’re changing the schedule all around. Dirk wants to take Bree back to the States for treatment. Bree wants him to finish filming King’s Ransom first. Dirk thinks he can be done in less than two weeks, and it’s possible. But that means putting all my scenes without him off into the future.”
“So you will be staying in Zakhar longer than originally planned?” Andre still hadn’t turned around, but now he did. And there was an expression on his face that told Juliana this was good news to him.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “And because the shooting schedule’s been rearranged on King’s Ransom, that means I’m free the next few days to film that appeal for the Red Cross you mentioned. And free to help in any other way I can.” She looked him full in the face. “What can I do? How can I help?”
* * *
Juliana stood in the midst of the devastation, hearing Andre’s voice from the night before, “Ninety-seven dead, thirty-two of them children.” Looking at the houses knocked off their footings, some buildings seemingly exploded from the inside out and some just literally wiped off the face of the earth, it was hard to believe anyone had survived when the mountain had rumbled down on Taryna.
Electricity was still out, and the natural gas was still turned off, Andre had told her just before their helicopter had taken off. But large portable generators had been brought in to provide power for the cleanup crews, along with tents, cots and portable restrooms for their use. And there were a couple of Red Cross food trucks dispensing hot coffee and meals for the workers around the clock. Andre had mobilized a small army on short notice.
Juliana glanced down at the script she’d been given, in both English and Zakharan, but she’d already memorized her few lines that would be spoken on camera. The rest would be a voice-over, while the disaster footage the camera crew was shooting now was shown. For that she didn’t need to memorize; she just needed to rehearse so it wouldn’t sound as if she was reading from a script when she spoke her appeal for donations.
She looked over to where Andre was standing with a team of structural engineers, hydrologists and geochemists he’d carefully assembled to assess the damage and ongoing situation. They were all dressed in sturdy clothing and hiking boots, including Andre. Every resident of the small village had been accounted for, but there were still questions. When—if ever—would the survivors be able to return to retrieve their personal possessions? Which houses were safe to enter, if not to occupy? Would the records in the town hall be recoverable, the official lists of births, marriages and deaths that went back hundreds of years? And could Taryna be rebuilt where it was? Or was it just too dangerous? What had caused the landslide in the first place? And was there any way to tell if the mountain was done, as Andre had so succinctly worded it?
Two more victims had died that morning—an elderly woman and her infant granddaughter, who’d both been barely clinging to life when they’d been found in the wreckage of their home—raising the death toll to ninety-nine, fully a third of them small children. Juliana had been standing next to Andre, preparing to board the helicopter, when he’d received that unwelcome news. He’d folded his lips even more sternly, but that was the only reaction he’d allowed himself. And yet...she knew it was another blow to him, the same way it was to her. It mattered.
Now as she watched him walking about the ruins of Taryna with the assessment team she realized he wouldn’t spare himself in this. He wouldn’t ask anyone to take a risk he wasn’t willing to take, wouldn’t stand back while others did the work. He was a “Come on, men!” leader, not a “Go on, men!” king. She remembered the way he’d looked last night, remembered his hands particularly. Bruised. Filthy. Nails broken off. As if she’d been there beside him yesterday in the wreckage, she knew he’d been in the thick of the search for survivors, using his hands to dig out those who were trapped when using machinery would have been just too dangerous.
And then, when everyone who could be rescued had been rescued, he’d gone directly to the chapel in the palace. Bone weary, but not ready to give up until everything that could be done had been done. He would push himself until he collapsed, because that was the kind of man he was. The man she’d fallen in love with years ago...and still loved. Not cold. Not callous. Not uncaring. She’d been wrong about that. What else had she been wrong about?
* * *
Juliana and the film crew were long finished taping. The crew had packed up their equipment in the helicopter they’d arrived in and had headed back more than an hour ago. They’d willingly offered her a ride—she recognized the frank, male appreciation in their eyes, but she knew it wouldn’t go beyond that, and that wasn’t why she’d turned the offer down. She just wanted to wait for Andre, no matter how long it took. She’d come here with him and wanted to return with him. Dance with the man who brought you, she heard her father say in her head. And despite the tragedy that had occurred here yesterday—or maybe because of it—she couldn’t help but smile a little at the quaint normalcy of her father’s advice.
It wasn’t a modern concept. But then, her father was nearly old enough to be her grandfather, so his mores were those of two generations earlier. He’d married late—he’d been almost forty-six when she was born, and since her mother had died when Juliana was four, she was his only child and the darling of his heart. He’d retired when she was twenty, barely a year after she went to Hollywood—Zakhar had been his last ambassadorial posting.
He’d been a good father, though. A good role model. Not perfect, but he’d done his best, and she loved him dearly. I should call him, she reminded herself, making a mental note. They were in constant contact via email, but that wasn’t really the same he’d told her more than once. And no texting for him—he preferred hearing her voice—he was old-fashioned that way, too.
Some of the things he’d taught her growing up were definitely outdated, like the fact that the first and last dance of the evening belonged by right to the man whose date you were—hence the advice, dance with the man who brought you. Like the fact that good girls don’t.
Her smile faded. Good girls don’t. But she hadn’t been a girl when she’d sought Andre out. She’d been a woman. A woman in love. She hadn’t thought she was doing anything wrong by showing Andre how much she loved him. And he hadn’t seemed to think anything bad of her because of it...not that night, and not the next morning. It was only later—when he’d sent her the money—that she’d writhed in humiliation at how easy she’d been. How cheaply he seemed to hold the gift she’d given him. How cheaply he seemed to value her.
And yet...that didn’t seem to be the way he thought of her now. “You gave yourself to me once,” he’d told her the other night. As if she’d been a precious gift, one he treasured in his memory and wanted to keep forever.
Once again she realized that too many things didn’t make sense.
Too many contradictions between what she knew had happened then and what she was hearing now. Dirk telling her Andre believed she’d deserted him, but he was determined to win her back anyway. She’d been adamant Andre had lied to Dirk, but...what if he hadn’t been lying? “Tell me, Juliana,” Andre had said that night in the little library even before he’d talked with Dirk. “If not DeWinter, then who? Someone hurt you. Someone broke your heart... Tell me who it was.”
And when she’d accused him of being the one who broke her heart, he’d said, “Do not lie to me, Juliana. Your heart was not broken when you chose to go to Hollywood instead of returning to Zakhar that summer.” She’d been shocked at how he was twisting things around. But...what if he wasn’t? What if he truly believed it? Was it possible?
Nothing made sense anymore. Least of all the money he’d sent her. The money...and the motive behind it. She could forgive him almost anything else now that he seemed to love her again. But the money was the one thing she was finding nearly impossible to forgive because it was the one thing she couldn’t explain away.
* * *
It was nearly dark by the time Andre returned to the village with the assessment team, and the temperature had dropped with the setting sun. Even though it was summer, the average temperature in the mountains here near Taryna was twenty to twenty-five degrees cooler than it was in Drago, and Andre and the rest of the team had dressed accordingly.
His brain was fully occupied with the answers the engineers, hydrologists and geochemists had come up with for all the questions he’d originally posed to them, as well as the additional questions that had been raised as a result of what they’d uncovered. Exhaustion tugged at him, but he refused to give in to it. The rest of the team was dragging after the miles they’d hiked today, miles in the thinner mountain air that made it more difficult to replenish the oxygen their muscles burned.
But Andre knew no one would complain as long as he never showed even a hint of weakness, so he was careful not to show it. Still, he was glad to see the church tower of Taryna in the distance. He’d pushed himself to the limit yesterday, and today had been the same. He’d be glad to get back to the palace, glad for the simple luxury of being alone so he wouldn’t have to hide his weakness from the world.
They passed through the village, and Andre stopped to talk with the man spearheading the cleanup operation—a colonel in the Zakharian National Forces and a whiz at organization. “Go on ahead,” he told the other members of the team. “Do not wait for me. We will meet tomorrow at the palace at—” he looked at his wristwatch and amended his initial time “—9:00 a.m. I would like a written report from each of you detailing your observations and recommendations.” He smiled at them. “Thank you. You are all invaluable to this team. I will see you tomorrow.”
Dismissed, the rest of the assessment team headed to where the helicopters had been waiting since their arrival this morning. Andre’s personal bodyguard stayed behind with the king, of course, and Andre mentally counted up the number of team members and the number of available seats in each helicopter, satisfying himself that everyone would have a seat in the three helicopters that had brought the team here, even though a couple of the structural engineers had arrived earlier this morning with the cleanup crew. He wouldn’t hold anyone up by staying to get a progress report on the cleanup.
He spent twenty minutes with the colonel, committing relevant information to memory, and agreeing with the colonel’s request for more manpower. “You will have it,” he told the colonel in no uncertain terms. Even if I have to disregard the Privy Council’s wishes, he thought with a sudden spurt of internal anger. Again.
When he was done Andre and his bodyguard headed to the royal helicopter. He suddenly thought of Juliana as they passed the spot where she’d stood in front of the cameras, a children’s playground, where the playground equipment—swings, jungle gym and seesaws—were all half buried in dirt and rocks. He smiled to himself, remembering how she’d unerringly picked that spot as the most poignant, and the most likely to appeal to parents the world over even without her saying a single word. He’d watched the filming for a few moments before the assessment team had headed up the mountain. Somewhere in the piles of wreckage that had once been houses, Juliana had uncovered a battered and filthy baby doll, and she’d cradled it in her arms as the cameras rolled.
He’d already put in motion the soon-to-be-broadcasted Red Cross appeal, both on television within Zakhar and via the internet worldwide. Juliana’s face, her emotive voice, her appeal in both English and Zakharan, would soften the heart of anyone, and donations would pour in as soon as the edited film was available. He made a mental note to check on that first thing in the morning, before his meeting with the assessment team. The sooner the Red Cross appeals began, the better for the Taryna villagers, no matter how the Privy Council dragged its feet on the relief effort.
His smile faded when they reached the royal helicopter and he saw Juliana huddled inside, curled up in one of the seats, fast asleep. The military pilot, who’d waited with the chopper the entire day, and one of Juliana’s bodyguards—a man she wasn’t aware was her bodyguard—had both placed their jackets over her, Andre noted. But even though she was a little bit of a thing the jackets wouldn’t stretch to cover her entire body. She was wearing slacks and a long-sleeved shirt, but she wasn’t dressed for the mountains, not after the sun went down and the temperature plummeted. He cursed under his breath. Why didn’t Juliana return to Drago with the film crew earlier? he asked himself. Why did she stay here?
He climbed in, hearing the men’s apologies in a distant recess of his brain, and responding to them automatically. “Not your fault,” he reassured them. “It was mine for not making sure she was dressed for the mountains before we left Drago. You did the right thing. Thank you for looking after her as you did.”
He told himself he should wake her. Told himself anything else would be a mistake. But he couldn’t do it. He picked her up effortlessly and sat down in her seat, cradling her in his arms for a moment, and that’s when he realized she was still clutching the baby doll she’d used as a prop that morning. She’d brushed the dirt away but the damage wrought by the landslide was still evident.
She made an incoherent murmur and snuggled closer to him, closer to his warmth, but she didn’t waken. If he’d been alone with her he would have kissed her awake. But he wasn’t alone. And kissing her in front of the chopper pilot and the bodyguards—no matter how discreet they were—was out of the question. Even holding her like this was an indiscretion.
With a tiny sigh he lifted her over and deposited her in the seat next to him, then buckled her seat belt. She woke when he did that. Slowly. Her eyes fluttering open and staring up at him as if she couldn’t figure out where she was or why she was there.
“Hi,” she said, finally focusing, unable to suppress a sudden yawn. A yawn followed by an unguarded smile that took his breath away. “Everything done?”
“For today. Tomorrow is another day, but that will not affect you.” He turned away from her and reached over abruptly to accept the wireless headset the pilot handed him over his shoulder, then fitted the headset in place and buckled his seat belt. He nodded at the pilot’s questioning look, and the engines roared to life.
* * *
They were less than halfway back to Drago when one of the helicopter’s engines began stuttering, like a car that wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Juliana wasn’t worried at first. But when the helicopter began bucking and swaying, when they began losing altitude and the pilot and Andre exchanged a quick flurry of words through their wireless headsets, she grew concerned. She wanted to ask what was going on, but knew now wasn’t the time. Whatever the problem was, it wouldn’t help for her to ask frantic questions. She just had to trust in Andre’s military pilot...and Andre.
Prayer won’t hurt, Juliana decided. She’d always been uncomfortable praying for herself, but she wasn’t the only one in the helicopter. She closed her eyes and clasp
ed her hands tightly together as she prayed, refusing to watch while the helicopter spun out of control and the earth came up shudderingly fast to meet them.
Juliana was grateful for the seat belt holding her in place, because otherwise she would have been thrown from side to side in even more sickening fashion with the buffeting the helicopter took. Then a strong arm slid around her shoulders and a large hand closed around both of hers, squeezing gently.
When she opened her eyes she saw Andre watching her with an expression she was hard-pressed to describe. Love was there, but so was reassurance. Reassurance they weren’t going to crash. And even if they did, his eyes seemed to be saying, she would walk away from it. She knew it wasn’t true. She knew if they crashed no one would walk away. But it helped. Not that she wanted to die, but it helped to know that Andre was with her, that she wouldn’t die alone.
Then she gasped as something suddenly became clear to her. That’s why Eleonora did what she did, she realized. Not just because she couldn’t bear life without her husband, but so he wouldn’t die alone.
She turned her hand and linked her fingers with Andre’s, then she tightened her grip. This time when she prayed, she prayed for the courage to face whatever was to come—for both of them.
The pilot did something—Juliana was never sure exactly what—and the crippled helicopter stopped stuttering and shaking. Then slowly, agonizingly, as seconds ticked into minutes, they regained altitude, though their speed had noticeably slackened. She breathed suddenly, only then realizing she’d been holding her breath in anticipation of crashing.
Andre spoke through his wireless headset to the pilot in Zakharan, too quickly for Juliana to catch the words and translate them. And she couldn’t hear the pilot’s response. But she knew from Andre’s tone that he was angry about something. Not angry with the pilot—that wasn’t it at all. But he was holding on to his temper with fierce restraint.
