Marisa Carroll - Winter Soldier

“I’m not.” She laughed. “I use one, but I don’t understand it.”

“Don’t tell me he’s planning to try and fly a hotair balloon around the world. No, that was last year.” He smiled. “I give up. What is it today?”

“He told me he has a new project he’s working on—containerized hospitals. They’ll fit on the back of a semi-rig or you can sling them under a helicopter and drop them just about anywhere in the world. Pod-Meds, he wants to call them. Completely selfcontained and fully equipped operating rooms with labs, X ray, physical therapy and even water and electricity.”

“What about a stable blood supply and competent follow-up care?”

“I didn’t say there weren’t problems. Big ones. But that’s where people come in,” she said. “To donate blood, solve the problems and teach others how to care for themselves.”

He looked at her and smiled, but it didn’t lighten the shadow behind his eyes. “Never underestimate the power of a dreamer. You and B.J. are two of a kind.”

“I think it’s a great idea.”

“I do, too. I hope he brings it off.” This time his response seemed more genuine, heartfelt, and his smile took her breath away.

They walked in silence, listening to the sound of children’s laughter carried to them on the smoky air. “I always marvel at how wonderfully happy these children are—except for love, they have so little,” Leah said as they moved into the shade of the tall stands of bamboo that grew beside the road where the humid air felt ever so slightly cooler.

“Family is important to the Vietnamese. They’ll do just about anything for their children. Even children like My Lei who haven’t got much of a future.”

“I wish there was something I could do,” Leah said, thinking aloud.

“You’ve done plenty already.” Adam’s tone sounded harsh, resigned.

Leah kept her eyes on the track. “But it isn’t enough.”

“With a case like My Lei it’s never enough.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and lowered his head.

“Are you sorry you operated on her?” Leah asked. If he said yes in that same stony voice, she would turn around and go back. She thought of the happy, smiling baby. Her life was precious even as imperfect as it was.

“No,” he said at last. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t make her well and whole. There’s still so much we don’t know about the human brain. So much that can go wrong.”

“And some things that can be put right.”

They’d come to a place where a small runnel crossed the road. It wasn’t deep, but too wide to step easily across. Adam held out his hand to help her. Leah hesitated. She didn’t want to touch him. She remembered all too well the feel of his hands on her arms, the heat of his body, the taste of him in her mouth. A craving for his touch was part of what kept her awake at night.

A bird called somewhere off in the distance, another answered, calls as strange and exotic as the setting. She and Adam would be together only a little over a week longer, then he would go back to his world and she to hers. She would remember that and keep this attraction between them in perspective. She put her hand in his and jumped across.

“If Vo’s family can’t be located, perhaps I could sponsor them,” she said, hoping he’d attribute her breathlessness to the steepness of the rise they were now climbing. Vo was My Lei’s father, a young widower.

“You can’t take on a responsibility like that. The child has no mother. Vo doesn’t speak English. He has no marketable skills.”

Leah thought of the dying old woman she’d befriended back in Slate Hollow, along with the woman’s pregnant great-granddaughter, Juliet Trent, She had already made herself responsible for the two of them. Adam was right. She couldn’t do the same for My Lei and Vo. “I was only thinking—”

“With your heart, instead of your head.”

She turned on him, stopping him dead in his tracks. “Is that such a bad thing?”

“Yes, when it blinds you to the realities of the situation.”

She started walking again. “I’d rather be blind to reality, if it keeps me from seeing things as callously as you do.”

He reached out and grabbed her wrist, spinning her around to face him. “I’m not blind, Leah. I’ve only learned the hard way how it tears you up inside when there’s no more you can do than what’s been done. I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago.”

“You did work a miracle for My Lei. For the others, too. The old man whose pain you took away, so he can enjoy his last months with his family, and the nurse who will have babies to love and cherish now.”

“Those weren’t miracles, just damned good surgery. If they were miracles I could have cured the old man’s cancer and given My Lei back what a misplaced gene took away from her.”

Suddenly they heard the unmistakable sound of squealing tires followed instantly by a crash. “Oh, God, an accident!” Leah started running.

Adam was faster. He passed her within the first ten feet. The school came into view. Leah stopped at the gate for a moment to catch her breath, but Adam just kept running toward the sound of children’s screams. “What happened?” she asked a Vietnamese nun on her knees in the roadway, her simple white habit torn and bloodstained, her arms around two crying, mudsplattered little girls.

“Our bus. It crashed,” she said in French-accented English. She started to cry, just like the little girls clinging to her sleeves. “There.” She pointed toward the road just out of sight beyond the high brick wall surrounding the school. “It is in the ditch. We came for help. Sister Grace is hurt. Hurry, please. The other children are still inside.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” the nun replied. “I only hurt my shoulder.”

Leah dropped to her knees, ran her hands over the little girls’ arms and legs. “Can they tell you where they hurt?”

“They are okay. Just cuts and bruises. Go to the others. I’ll take care of them.” She began to talk soothingly to the little girls in Vietnamese.

“Send someone to the hospital. Tell them what’s happened!” Leah yelled over her shoulder and started running again. “Tell everybody to come.”

The orphanage bus, an old Volkswagen van, had gone nose first into a marshy ditch in front of the school. It had already sunk halfway into the mud by the time Leah arrived. Sister Grace and three more children were huddled by the side of the road. The nun was dazed and bleeding from a cut on her forehead. One little boy was crying lustily and holding his wrist. His hand was twisted at an awkward angle, the wrist obviously broken. The other two appeared uninjured, although they were wet and muddy and very frightened.

“How many are still inside?” Leah asked Sister Grace just as Adam braced his foot against the frame and literally tore the side door of the van from its hinges.

“I... there was nothing I could do. The tire blew out. I’m sorry. So sorry.” She looked up at Leah with unfocused eyes.

“It’s all right,” Leah said. “It wasn’t your fault. How many children were with you?” The nun was in shock. She would have to be checked for a concussion, but at the moment getting the rest of the children out of the wrecked van was the most important thing to be done. “Sister Grace?”

“I...”

“Adam, how many children do you see?”

“Two. Both girls. Are there any more, Sister?” Adam called.

Sister Grace responded to the command in his voice. “There were eight, no, seven children, and Sister Marie.”

There were two little girls on the road with the sister and three more children here. That left two unaccounted for. Leah relayed the information to Adam as he hoisted himself through the door of the van. She watched the vehicle settle deeper into the mud. One of the children inside screamed weakly. Leah realized Adam would need help getting them out of the van, so she left Sister Grace and stepped off the shoulder of the road, immediately sinking into muck over her ankles. “I’m here, Adam. What can I do to help?”