From the Beginning Read Free Page B

that she blamed him. Every dollar he paid the rulers was one less to buy medicine and food for the people who desperately needed it. All the money he’d paid through the years meant days and weeks off the lives of Mabulu and all the other boys and girls like him.
But as Amanda approached and got a glimpse through the small crowd that had gathered when the plane landed, she realized that this was no government official. Dressed in jeans and a clean, white Aerosmith T-shirt, the newcomer stuck out like a sore thumb among the impoverished villagers who had come to observe the landing.
The sun glinted off too-long wheat-blond hair, but it wasn’t until she caught sight of the worn leather backpack over the visitor’s shoulder that the truth occurred to her.
She stopped breathing, shock holding her lungs and rib cage immobile.
Still, she told herself that she was wrong. It couldn’t be him.
He was in Haiti, putting together a documentary about earthquake victims.
In Colombia, investigating the cartels and their negative influence on the indigenous population.
In Cambodia, uncovering shady CIA deals. Anywhere and everywhere but here, where she’d been safe from thinking about him, insulated against her past by the immediacy of the present.
But the build was right—tall and rangy with a lean, long-legged frame that was deceptively strong. The shaggy blond hair worn too long—more from carelessness than fashion. Even the T-shirt advertised his favorite band.
Her breath caught in her throat, but her brain refused to accept what her eyes were seeing. That Simon was here— here —when years ago he’d decided that he’d had enough of Africa’s endless suffering.
But if it was him, what was he doing here? There had been no coup, no newly reported human-rights violations, no recent massacres. Only the ongoing famine that was neither glamorous nor seedy enough to attract the Western press here.
To attract Simon here.
For a moment, Jack’s guilty expression flashed into her mind, his warning that he had contacted someone. She’d ignored him at the time, but now, as her stomach constricted, she wished she’d let him have his say. At least then she would have been prepared.
Even as the idea formed in her mind, she told herself that she was being paranoid. There was no way Simon would fly this far to see her after the way they’d parted. She’d completely ignored his existence—and his pleas—in the days after they’d buried their daughter.
The argument was a good one and she’d almost convinced herself that she was mistaken, that her mind was playing tricks on her. She’d even managed to suppress the instinctive, involuntary response that took over her body as it had every single time she’d seen him in the past ten years.
Then the man turned and everything within her stilled. It was him. She was sure of it, especially when his bright green eyes met hers as he scanned the crowd, looking for something. Looking for someone. At first, he looked right past her, but then he froze. His gaze returned to her. Clung.
Amanda wanted to look away, but she was caught. Ensnared. A rabbit in a trap. And she’d do anything to escape. Because he was the one person she didn’t want to see her like this, the one person in the whole damn world guaranteed to make the soul-crushing pain she felt even worse.
     
     
SHE LOOKED LIKE HELL. Jack hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d emailed three days before. Even from this distance, Simon could see that she was much too thin. Tall and naturally slender, Amanda always lost weight when she was on location, refusing to take time to eat when so many people needed her help. Refusing to take any more of the essential supplies than she absolutely needed to stay alive.
“I can eat when I’m home,” she used to tell him. “I’ll curl up on the couch with a loaded pizza and a gallon of ice cream and eat it all.”
“But you never go home,” he would answer. “It’s been two years.”
She’d