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‘Only drink the bottled water from our supply and only eat the food that Sung has prepared. I don’t need you getting sick.’
A rush of emotion swirled inside her, battering the protective guard she’d erected long ago, frightening her.
Keep a safe distance.
She took in a deep breath and reinforced her guard. His caring tone, the worried look on his face didn’t indicate concern for her. It was concern for the village. He needed all the help he could get to deal with this epidemic.
She tossed her head and flashed him her best ‘don’t boss me’ look, similar to the one she’d used in Hanoi. The one that hid her true feelings. ‘The same goes for you, too, Tom. I don’t want to waste rehydration solution on someone who should have known better.’
She ran back to the clinic, thankful that the huge job in front of her wouldn’t allow any time to think about a broad-shouldered, dark-haired doctor with deep worry lines between his chocolate-brown eyes. Lines she longed to smooth out.
* * *
‘Tom, I’m sorry, but I think we need another IV.’
He glanced up from examining a woman whose eerie calm worried him intensely. She clung to life by a thread. In three days they hadn’t lost a patient and he didn’t want this woman to be their first.
Bec stood next to him, petite and exhausted from days of almost non-stop work. She should have been prostrate with fatigue but her strength and implacable determination kept her going.
She’d organised a remarkable clinic in a short space of time and with limited resources. Everyone who entered the isolation ward washed their hands and feet at the chlorine station beside the door.
Patients lay on bamboo mats with one member of their family to care for them. Bec had organised the healthy men into a team to dig a new latrine and the area around the clinic had been quarantined with a fence. Fires burned continuously outside, boiling water to make it potable. Further away, women boiled the clothes of the sick.
‘We’ve got plenty of oral solution but intravenous packs are getting low.’ She worried at her bottom lip with her top teeth.
His blood surged.
Fury at himself immediately followed. What the hell was wrong with him? Vomiting patients surrounded him, he was cloaked in heat, operating in the most basic of medical facilities, and now his body was reacting like a hormone-fuelled teenager’s.
Bec was a nurse, a much-needed colleague, nothing more.
Make that your mantra. ‘If we have a patient who needs an IV, we insert it. And we hope the new supplies arrive before we run out.’ He rose slowly, weariness vibrating through him.
‘Can you insert the IV now, please? Then you need to take a break.’ Clear, violet-blue eyes bored through him.
Indignation bristled. ‘You should talk. You’ve been going for longer than me. I get to sit down when I do my daily briefings with the elders. So I’ll insert the IV, you do another oral rehydration round and then we’ll both take a break.’
She held his gaze, her mouth firm. Suddenly, the corners twitched upwards and she smiled. ‘Fair enough. But only because the local health worker from the next village has arrived to help.’
Her smile took away the tension that seemed to dog her.
He couldn’t help grinning back. ‘Deal.’
Hin explained to the mother of the child about inserting the IV and Bec held both the mother’s and the child’s hands. Tom continued to be amazed at how she seemed to channel supportive care and understanding to these women and children.
Somehow he managed to slide the cannula into the almost collapsed veins of the dehydrated child. As he reached to release the tourniquet, Bec moved forward to tape the needle securely to the skin.
Their hands collided, his palm gently skating over her fingers.
She flinched, her hand suddenly rigid, hovering over the child’s arm. Tension vibrated up her arm and through her body. A moment stretched out, her hand suspended, fingers taut.
He glanced at her as he released the tourniquet. Her colour, usually tanned and healthy, had faded to ivory. Her skin stretched tightly across her high cheekbones.
She moved jerkily, her fingers flexing before she quickly taped the drip in place. ‘I can’t believe how effective the oral rehydration solution is. I would have thought antibiotics would have been required.’ The words had rushed out, tumbling over each other.
Her reaction to an accidental touch mystified him completely. But an inexplicable need to protect her surged inside him. He matched her conversation, hoping to put her at ease. ‘It’s amazing what some salt water, sugar, potassium, magnesium and other electrolytes can do.’
He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Although it’s the glucose that does the trick. It means the sodium moves into the gut, taking the electrolytes and fluid with it, and that’s the key to rehydration. Simple yet so effective and life saving.’
‘Talking simple but effective, I can smell the rice soup Sung’s made for us.’ Bec stood up, her usual ‘in-control’ demeanour back in place. ‘Let’s go.’ She waited for him to start walking, as if she didn’t trust he would follow her.
‘We need a complete break so how about we eat outside?’ He led the way, hearing her gentle, uneven footsteps behind him, her slight limp more audible than noticeable.
They sat under the shade of a tree, clutching their bowls of rice soup as reverently as if they were highly coveted and rare French truffles.
Bec had chosen a position that left a good metre between them. He noticed she did that a lot. In the truck coming up she’d sat so close to the door that if she’d been any closer she would have been outside the vehicle. And the flinching thing when they’d inserted the drip. What had that been about?
If she feared him, why had she insisted on coming here with him? A guarded reserve and general aloofness toward him seemed to clash at times with real care and concern. But with the women and children she lost that tenseness. He couldn’t work her out.
She put her bowl down. ‘So we’re winning, right? Today we’ve only had five new cases?’
‘We have. This time. But until we can find out a way to truly make a change in a tradition, this sort of outbreak will continue.’
‘What do you mean?’ Her eyes sparked with genuine interest. He could almost see her brain ticking over.
‘Human excreta fertiliser.’
‘Really?’
He smiled at her dumbfounded look. ‘The government is making headway by using the local area health workers, but it’s a long, slow haul, especially in remote communities like this. This practice dates back centuries and the beliefs about it bringing good crops are well entrenched.’
‘And they only get one crop a year …’ Her voice trailed away.
She understood. A warm glow burned inside him. ‘That’s right. Plus we’re close to the border with China here and sometimes cholera comes in that way. But no outbreaks have been reported up there so I think this outbreak must have been started with unwashed vegetables and then it was propelled and promoted by a lack of handwashing and food-preparation skills.’
Bec pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket and smoothed it on her knee. ‘This is a copy of the mud map of the village. Most of the cases came from this area.’ She pointed with her finger.
His gaze fixed on her fine, tapered fingers as he moved toward her to study the diagram.
A line of tension ran through her but she didn’t move away. ‘Why did this section of the village get sick and the other areas didn’t?’
‘We could surmise that they used the fertiliser.’
‘True, but this is also the area where there is the most malnutrition.’ She turned toward him, almost vibrating with excitement. ‘Families all live together or very close to each other so we could conclude that what some extended families do in their daily life can seem to guard them against illness, whereas the practices of other families lead to illness and malnutrition for their children.’
Her energy encased him. ‘So what are you saying?’
Enthusiasm glowed on her face. ‘What if we get the women in the village to identify which women and children are not malnourished? If they can make the connection that some families are eating well and are not often sick then surely they will want to find out how.’
Exhilaration swept through him at her insight. ‘So instead of us teaching a new way of doing things, the villagers discover it and change the way they have been doing things, based on a positive role model.’
She tilted her head. ‘Yes and no. We foster the change by setting up opportunities like your gardens. We use positive role models and the health care workers.’ She wrinkled her nose in thought. ‘Perhaps cooking classes but they gather the food first … I don’t know, I’m making it up as I go along.’
He gazed at her, stunned at what she’d just come up with.
‘I think I owe you an apology.’
Lines scored her brow. ‘Why?’
‘When I met you in Hanoi and you seemed so vague about what you wanted to do, how you wanted to help, I thought …’
‘You thought I was flaky.’
Her matter-of-fact tone slugged him. ‘Sorry.’
She shrugged. ‘You had a valid point. I was vague. I do want to fix it all. You’ve forced me to focus. I wanted to rush in and now I see that I need to take my time and work out what I want to do, how I can best help.’
He shot her a glance. ‘Or how you’re going to generate funds to do it.’
She sipped her tea. ‘Oh, I’ve got the money, that isn’t the problem.’
Her naïvety both entranced and frustrated him. ‘It’s going to take more than a few thousand dollars to start up a clinic.’
‘Will two hundred and fifty thousand dollars do it?’
He choked on his tea. ‘You have a quarter of a million dollars at your disposal?’
She grimaced, her expression unexpectedly hard. ‘I do.’
Her expression worried him. ‘Are you certain you want to use all of it in aid? I mean, I assume you’ve allowed enough for your own needs.’
‘I won’t have anything to do with that money.’ The words, almost menacing, rolled out on a low growl. ‘It needs to work off its origins and do some good in the world. Every child deserves a childhood so they can grow up to be a productive adult. This money will help them achieve that.’
She stood up abruptly. ‘We need to get back.’
Before he could start to ask even one of the numerous questions that had slammed into his mind, she’d turned and marched off toward the clinic, her hair tumbling out of its restrictive band, softening the rigid line of her shoulders.
Part of him wanted to go to her and let his fingers caress the tension from her shoulders, entwine with the softness of her hair …
Stop it. It was official—sleep deprivation had finally got to him. Massaging her shoulders—it was an insane thought. Besides, she’d hate it. Hell, she’d shuddered when his hand had accidentally touched hers.
Getting involved with a woman wasn’t an option. He’d made that decision after two failed relationships. Both women had demanded his full attention. He couldn’t offer anyone that until he’d sorted out his own life. Filled in the missing gaps. So why was he wasting time, thinking like this?
Because she intrigues you like no one else ever has.
He tried to push the voice away, empty his thoughts but Bec’s voice whooshed in. I won’t have anything to do with that money.
That statement generated more questions than answers.
He sighed. He hadn’t wanted her to come on this trip but instead of carrying her, as he’d expected he’d have to, she’d proved her worth in a thousand ways.
But the more time he spent with her the more he needed to know about her. She was a bundle of contradictions. What lay behind her determination to work here? He’d stake his life it wasn’t just a philanthropic desire.
Tom understood that well. For years he’d ignored the call of Vietnam. He was Australian. And yet he was Vietnamese. He had Australian parents who loved him. But their DNA wasn’t part of him. And Vietnam continued to call to that empty space inside him that craved answers.
He pushed himself to his feet. He was working with the best nurse he’d ever met. That was all he needed to know about her. Nothing else mattered. Everyone had their own journey and he needed to focus on his. He didn’t need to get involved in hers.
They were colleagues—pure and simple.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_65ad4459-ba3f-5d08-85d4-9af04201f6cb)
BEC SCOOPED WATER over herself, savouring the sensation of the cool liquid sluicing in rivulets across her heat-irritated skin. As she tipped water from the bamboo cup along her arm, she fantasised about continuous water flowing from a shower nozzle.
But her fantasy was as close as she was going to get. The villagers bathed in the river but she had a strong suspicion that she’d get out of the silt-filled water feeling grimier than when she’d got in. She laughed ruefully that her definition of luxury had been reduced to using some of her meagre supplies of her favourite shampoo.
Her frenetic workload had finally eased. New medical supplies had arrived to replenish the dwindling stocks and no new cases of cholera had appeared. For seven days and nights she’d worked flat out, grabbing power sleeps when she could.
Just like Tom.
Tom.
She dumped water over her head to wash out the shampoo. To wash out the image of a doctor whose delicious lopsided grin seemed to radiate shafts of sunlight and send tendrils of warmth right down to the dark recesses of her soul. A smile that generated such a need in her that it scared her rigid.
She’d be in the middle of an observation round and find herself deliberately searching for him, glancing around until she found him.
On the few occasions he’d caught her glance he’d smiled. Sometimes a broad smile, other times a quirky grin. A ‘How’s it going?’ smile. A ‘You doing OK?’ smile. And she found herself wanting and needing to see that smile again.
For the first time in her life she had a glaring insight into the trials of someone trying to give up something addictive like cigarettes. She’d tried not to look, but she was fighting a losing battle. She craved his smile.
The knowledge terrified her.
She’d come on this trip to learn about Vietnam’s health needs, not to learn about Tom. But for every time she told herself to focus on her job, a new question about Tom flashed into her head, piling itself on top of the growing list.
Why was he here? What was his connection with Vietnam? In some lights the shape of his wide eyes could be considered Asian but nothing else about him was faintly oriental. He was far from fluent in Vietnamese but his way with the patients showed an innate understanding. The questions went round and round in her head.
She grabbed her micro-fibre towel and started vigorously rubbing her skin dry. These strange and unsettling feelings must be connected to being plunged into a foreign and unfamiliar culture, and being surrounded by a language of which she had minimal understanding. Tom, with his laconic Australian approach to life, was the only thing familiar. Of course she would seek him out. It was only a natural extension of being here and feeling a bit displaced.
It had nothing to do with attraction or need. She did not need a man in her life.
She jerkily pulled on her clothes, jammed her hat on her head and strode toward the clinic. Not that she needed to be there now the crisis had eased. She knew she should be taking a break while she had the chance, but she was restless and agitated.
She poured a bucket of hot water from the big pot above the fire and hauled it up the steps. Keeping busy had worked for her all her life. When things got tough, she worked. There was no reason why that strategy wouldn’t keep being useful.
She sloshed water onto the floor and knelt down, attacking the boards with a brush. Tom had mentioned a meeting with the village elders so she’d take advantage of his absence and scrub the clinic.
‘What are you doing?’
She glanced up from her position on the floor, scrubbing brush poised in mid-air. Her breath stalled, catching in her throat.
