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
