From the Beginning

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AMANDA CRAWLED OUT OF BED at the first knock, stumbling to the door on unsteady legs. She was exhausted, after having spent another sleepless night in her too-plush bed, trying to avoid her failures as a mother and a doctor.

  She hesitated with her hand on the lock, unsure if she really wanted to open the door. She knew who was on the other side—who else would it be?—and she did not want to deal with Simon right now. Not if it meant they were going to fight. She was tired and more than a little shaky. Certainly not up to holding her own with him, at least not right now.

  But she also couldn’t leave him out in the hall. He wouldn’t give up and it was still early enough that people in the neighboring rooms would be annoyed. Besides, she didn’t want a repeat of yesterday, anyway. Finally, she turned the knob, prepared to tell him to get lost.

  But the second she caught sight of him, the words clogged her throat. For the first time since he’d shown up in Somalia, he looked as tired and worn-down as she felt. And when he held up a cup of coffee and a pastry bag, she saw a hint of vulnerability in his eyes that he didn’t try to hide.

  It was that look, more than anything else, that had her pushing the door wide and stepping aside so that he could come in. She thought about going into the bathroom and slipping on one of the hotel robes to cover the shorts and tank top she normally slept in, but in the end decided it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t already seen everything she had, more times than she could possibly count.

  “I think I got it right,” Simon said as he handed the coffee to her. “Lots of milk and one packet of sugar?”

  She nodded. “That’s perfect. Thanks.” She took a sip and again felt that curious warmth deep inside of her. For a moment, she wondered if it was the coffee or Simon, then let the thought go. It didn’t matter, because the only thing in the room coming close to her mouth today was the coffee.

  Whatever had happened between them the day before had been an aberration and she was so not going to repeat her mistake. Not now and not ever.

  Silence reigned for long minutes as they simply stood at opposite ends of the room and quietly sipped their coffee. Tension stretched taut between them and she had a difficult time keeping herself from doing something she never did—nervously chattering to fill up the disquiet. Mindless chitchat was so not her bag, but the tension was making her long for a distraction. Any distraction.

  Simon must have felt the same because he broke first. Holding up the bag, he mumbled, “I brought muffins.”

  “Oh.” Her uneasy stomach almost revolted at the thought of the rich pastry. “Well, thank you.”

  “Chocolate and blueberry. I mean, one of each, not together. I didn’t know what you wanted. I mean—”

  He seemed to forcibly stop himself, and as she stared into dazed green eyes, Amanda realized he was as shocked by his inane outburst as she was. Simon was a lot of things, but a rambler was not one of them, and there was something oddly endearing about watching him bumble around. Maybe because it meant he was even more nervous than she was.

  Concern bloomed inside of her, along with a hint of affection that made her head hurt all over again. She tried to nip both emotions in the bud, not wanting to feel anything for him after the debacle of yesterday afternoon. But it was nearly impossible. Not when she suddenly remembered all of his good points and the warm feelings she’d once had for him. Feelings that she’d thought had been totally eclipsed by what he’d done eighteen months before. Now, however, she wasn’t so sure, and while that uncertainty made her very nervous, she also felt more compassion toward Simon than she had in a long time.

  “Blueberry,” she told him.

  “What?” he asked, staring at her blankly. She almost laughed. It was as if his mouth had been totally disconnected from his brain.

  “The muffin. I’ll take blueberry.” But only because she remembered that he had a liking for all things chocolate. “You want to sit down?”

  “Yeah. I’d like that.” He handed her a bag, before sinking gratefully into the chair near the window, while she perched on the bed.

  She stared at the pastry for long seconds, trying to decide if her stomach could handle the sugar and fat it was sure to be loaded with. Before she could make up her mind, he whispered, “I’m sorry, Amanda.”

  The words were so unexpected that at first she couldn’t process them. But as they sank in, she found herself stiffening, her fingers forming fists of their own volition.

  “For what?” she asked, the words coming automatically. But as she waited for him to answer, she realized they were completely apropos. Not because she didn’t think he had anything to apologize for, but because he’d done so many things wrong, she wanted to be clear what it was he was sorry for.

  He looked her straight in the eye. “For drugging you, for bringing you here against your will. For—”

  She forgot how to breathe, waiting for the words she’d spent the past eighteen months anticipating, but never really thinking she’d hear. Still, when they came, she was completely unprepared.

  “For Gabby. I’m so sorry for not being there, when she died. I should have listened to you. I should have—” He crossed to the window, but not before Amanda saw the tears sliding down his face.

  She wanted to be hard-hearted. Wanted to let him suffer, as she had for so long. But now that the moment she’d thought she wanted was finally here, she couldn’t do it. She had loved this man once, enough to want to marry him. Enough to have his child. And no matter how satisfying she’d thought it would be to see him humbled, she was in no way ready for the reality of it.

  Crossing the room quickly and quietly, she slipped her arms around his waist. Rested her cheek against the rigid muscles of his shoulders. He stiffened even more, jerked as though an electric current had hit him. But he didn’t pull away and neither did she.

  “She asked for you. At the end. She wanted to see you.” She didn’t say the words to hurt him, but because they needed to be said. For months now, she’d held them inside and nursed her bitterness. Nursed her anger and disappointment at him.

  That’s not why she told him, though. She told him because she could hear his heart beating unsteadily beneath her ear, feel the same anguish coming off him that she’d always felt. And it made her understand in a way she never had before.

  He needed to know that he’d mattered. For too much of his life, he hadn’t. To anyone. If she could give him the gift of knowing how much his daughter loved him, then the pain—for both of them—would be well worth it.

  Her words made Simon jerk again, harder this time, and he let out a low moan that she felt all the way to her bones. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. Sorry I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to understand, didn’t want to believe that she was really that close to the end.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “I was stupid. A child. I thought if I wasn’t there, it wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t die. She couldn’t.” Tears thickened his voice and he sucked in a deep breath, talked through them, though the effort obviously cost him. “But then she did. And I didn’t know what to do. I got that phone call from you and I wanted to die. Wanted to curl up in a ball and die, right along with her.”

  He was sobbing now, deep, harsh cries that shook his whole body and were oh, so painful to listen to.

  “She knew you loved her,” she told him, because it was the truth and because she wanted desperately to stop his pain. She’d lived with that kind of agony for eighteen months—she wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even Simon. No matter how much she’d once thought he deserved it.

  “Did she?” he demanded bitterly. “Did she really?”

  “Oh, Simon—”

  She didn’t get a chance to finish, because he turned, wrapped his arms around her and squeezed so tightly she could barely breathe. His breath came in shaky gasps as he buried his face in the curve of her neck. “Our baby died and I wasn’t there, Amanda. She died and I was in Euro
pe, following up on yet another bombing. She died and I was off, listening to other people talk about their own pain, about losing their own children.”

  He took a deep, shuddering breath. “She died and I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there.”

  She couldn’t hold out any longer, against Simon or the pain that seemed to flow from his body and into hers on an invisible current. Though she had shed copious tears the night before, it turned out there were more inside of her. So many more that she feared she’d drown if she didn’t get them out.

  So she did, standing there, clutching Simon to her as if he was the only other survivor in a shipwreck. And maybe he was—the only survivor in their own personal disaster.

  For long minutes, he cried along with her, his hot tears mingling with hers—on their cheeks, their necks—as they mourned their daughter, together, for the first time since the funeral she’d been too numb to pay attention to.

  As she stood there, holding Simon, Amanda felt the anger she had carried with her for so long slowly begin to drain away. The hard kernel of resentment that had resided in her stomach for two years now slowly dissolved until only sorrow remained.

  Sorrow and guilt and more regret than she imagined one body could hold.

  Eventually Simon pulled away. Strode into the bathroom and returned with a box of tissues that he offered to her. She took a couple, wiped her face and blew her nose. Waited as he did the same.

  His eyes, when he looked at her, were red-rimmed and filled with the regret she, too, felt. “I wish—”

  She shook her head and pressed trembling fingers to his lips. “Wishes don’t get the job done,” she murmured, repeating one of Gabby’s favorite phrases.

  He winced, but nodded. Then he didn’t say or do anything else for a long time. When he did talk, it was in a whisper so low she had to strain to hear. “I’m tired. I’m so tired, Amanda.”

  She knew exactly what he meant.

  Without giving herself time to second-guess her motives, she led Simon to the big bed she’d had such a hard time crawling into on her own. Somehow it wasn’t so difficult when he was there with her—a fact she was not going to examine too deeply.

  “Sleep,” she told him softly as she stretched out beside him.

  He reached one big hand up between them, cupped her face in his palm. “Stay. Please.”

  “I will.” She stroked the too-long strands of his damp hair away from his face. Watched his swollen eyes close and his face relax as he drifted into sleep, quick and quiet as a baby.

  She hadn’t planned on sleeping, hadn’t thought she’d be able to with the numbness obliterated and emotions running riot inside of her, but as she lay there on the comfortable bed, her body pressed tightly against the familiar warmth of his, Amanda felt herself begin to relax for the first time in a long while.

  Closing her eyes, she let the dreamy lassitude take over and drifted, slowly, into the first restful sleep she’d had since Gabby was diagnosed with cancer.

  SIMON AWOKE WITH GRITTY EYES and a pounding in his head that was so bad he feared it was the result of a weeklong bender. But as he opened his eyes, squinting against the early-afternoon sunlight that was drifting through the window, he remembered everything that had happened. Not sure how he felt about his loss of control—and subsequent vulnerability—he started to stretch. Then stiffened when he realized that Amanda was curled against him like a cat.

  “What’s wrong?” she murmured in sleepy protest.

  “Nothing,” he whispered, brushing his mouth against her jasmine-scented hair. “Go back to sleep.”

  She shook her head, then it was her turn to stretch a little. “What time is it?”

  “I’m not sure.” He craned his neck around to get a glimpse of the clock on the nightstand behind him. “Almost two.”

  “Wow. We slept the whole day away.”

  “Yeah.” He tried to pull her close again, but Amanda pressed against his chest, rolling until she was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed. She was facing away from him and he didn’t like it. Not after everything that had passed between them that morning.

  He pushed himself onto an elbow, ran a gentle finger down her back. “Thanks.”

  “For what?” The eyes she turned to him were dark and stormy, the way he’d always liked them.

  “For not kicking me out. For listening. For not hating me. Take your pick.”

  “I’d rather take a shower,” she said, climbing off the bed and heading toward the bathroom. “I won’t be long and then it’s all yours.”

  He watched, perplexed, as she closed the bathroom door firmly behind her. What had happened here? He’d tried to start a real, meaningful conversation and she was the one who had ducked out? After years of telling him that they needed to communicate more?

  It was another role reversal, another change he wasn’t sure how to deal with. Still, he wouldn’t try to force her to talk to him. Not when he was still feeling so raw and exposed himself.

  Maybe they’d done enough soul-searching for one day.

  His stomach grumbled, loudly, and he reached for the room-service menu. After a cursory glance, he ordered both of them a steak, complete with baked potato, salad and dessert. Amanda wasn’t a huge meat eater, but she was going to have to suck it up for a while. She needed to put some weight on, needed to get herself healthy, and a bunch of vegetables weren’t going to cut it on their own.

  The shower was still running, so he stood and stretched. What he wouldn’t give to be standing under the hot spray right now, letting the water wash away all the kinks and knots that seemed to have taken up permanent residence along his spine.

  What he didn’t relish was the thought of getting back into the same clothes when he was done. He’d been wearing them for over thirty-six hours, and while it wasn’t the first time he’d slept in his clothes—doing so was practically Journalism 101—he’d never enjoyed it.

  As he glanced around the room, his gaze fell on Amanda’s suitcase and he wondered if she had any scrubs in there. Whatever she had was guaranteed to be utilitarian and baggy and might fit him. The pants would be a little short and snug, but if it meant not having to put these clothes back on, he could live with his ankles showing for a little while.

  He felt more than a little guilty rummaging through her suitcase, but it took only a minute for him to find something he thought might fit—scrubs that were a size large despite her extra-small frame. Either he was right and they completely dwarfed her or she’d packed a pair of Jack’s scrubs by mistake.

  The thought had every muscle in his body tightening as he imagined how she might have ended up with the other doctor’s clothes. None of the scenarios—and if he was honest, there was really only one—were reassuring and he found himself wondering if there was more between Jack and Amanda than he had thought to look for. They’d been friends for ages, but had that changed into something else, something more, during this last trip?

  Not that it should matter if it had, he told himself viciously. He and Amanda hadn’t been together for years. Whom she chose to spend time with was absolutely none of his business.

  Of course, that didn’t mean he didn’t want to rip Jack limb from limb, because he did. Very much. It was bad enough that the other man had been there for Amanda when Simon wasn’t able to face the pain of losing their daughter. The idea that Jack had also made love to her when she was at her most vulnerable was almost more than Simon could bear.

  Failed romantic relationship or not, a part of him still thought of Amanda as his. A feeling that had been reinforced by the fact that he’d never seen her with another man. Not in that way.

  Which only made this whole thing with Jack more concerning. He didn’t know exactly how he felt about Amanda yet, but he knew he didn’t want to lose her. Not to a man he’d considered a good friend for well over a decade now.

  Determined to get his mind off thoughts of Amanda and Jack together, Simon glanced around the room. And in doing so
, realized how little Amanda had let herself relax there. Her bag was still neatly packed and there was nothing personal anywhere else in the room, except for the gray sweater draped across the table. There wasn’t even a water bottle—the only clutter the still-full coffee cups he’d brought with him that morning.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she had no long-term plans to stay here. Which made him nervous—the last thing he needed was for her to bolt. Or maybe she simply wasn’t comfortable here. Which meant he might be able to talk her into moving into his apartment, for a whil, anyway.

  He hadn’t pushed Amanda about choosing to stay at a hotel instead of with him because she had seemed determined to be on her own. Plus, he’d needed time to assimilate their situation on his own, to wrap his head around the changes—in her and in his life.

  And he hadn’t wanted her to think it was a lascivious thing. Sure, he wanted her—sometimes he thought he’d go to his grave wanting her—despite the fact that she looked as if she’d been ridden hard and put away wet. But his desire for her wasn’t a factor in why he wanted her to come stay with him. He wouldn’t let it be, not now, when she had so much healing to do.

  Besides, she couldn’t stay in this hotel forever, he told himself as he folded the sweater and shoved it into the suitcase. It was too expensive, too impersonal, too empty. She needed to come home with him, where he could take care of her.

  The shower finally turned off. Convinced he’d be able to persuade her to move to his apartment, Simon waited impatiently for the bathroom door to open. Of course, when it did, he found himself face-to-face with an Amanda he hadn’t seen in a long time. Wet, wildly curling hair, dark, sexy eyes, a skimpy towel wrapped around her slender body but still showing plenty of skin.

  Desire hit him with the power of a freight train and it was as if all those years without her had never existed. He was taken right back to the beginning, when he had first seen her and would have done anything to have her.

  Still, just because he’d shot back in time didn’t mean she had, and he tried to tear his gaze away from her. Find something other than the soft, creamy expanse of her thighs to focus on.