The Beautiful Daughters Read Free Page A

we’re safer in the house? They’re cement block walls. A hammer would take them down.”
    â€œYou said we were safe.”
    â€œWe are.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œI’m messing with you,” Adri said. She wrenched open the door and held it for him.
    Caleb was a year or two older than her twenty-six years, knocking on the door of thirty, but she couldn’t help feeling like the more experienced one. She interpreted his optimism as naïveté, and sometimes doubted the wisdom of the board of the nonprofit she worked for in appointing him her second-in-command. He was confident, enthusiastic, gorgeous. He was wreaking havoc in her carefully ordered world. And yet, Adri knew that pickings had to have been slim. Not many people wanted to live halfway around the world in an unstable countryfor little more than room, board, and the unfamiliar, often slightly rancid food they ate.
    Adri hadn’t known what she was getting herself into when she signed the contract fresh from college. She just wanted to get away. And Africa was as far away as she could imagine. The plan was to run and keep running—staying hadn’t really been an option, but the kids at the orphanages she served turned out to be a pure addiction. Adri loved them simply. Fiercely. They made Africa home.
    â€œCan I say something off the record?” Caleb said. He didn’t move to step into the house, but stood in the grass just off the cement slab that served as a front step. He blurted, “Sometimes I hate it here.”
    She didn’t know what to say. He had been her faithful sidekick for weeks, his enthusiasm a veneer that seemed impenetrably thick, slathered on with a heavy hand. Caleb had never once given her the impression that life in Africa struck him as anything other than a grand adventure. But here was something real; the riot had scratched the surface. Beneath was the flush of sincerity, something as heady and masculine as the scent of his skin before a swim. It tested the safe borders of their roommate/coworker relationship. The intimacy of it made Adri white-knuckle the edge of the door.
    Caleb ran his hands over his head, his eyes widening at the prickle of the buzz cut Adri had given him only a couple of days before. His hair had been camel-colored and just a little curly, but when he finally begged her to get rid of it for him, the cut had revealed dark roots that accented his jawline and sun-bright blue eyes. He was beautiful in a rugged, unexpected way, and that only made him more likable. Adri didn’t want to like him.
    â€œI don’t mean that,” Caleb said, dropping his hands to his sides. “I don’t hate it here.”
    â€œYes, you do. At least, a little.” She almost said, We all do. But that was a terrible lie. And also the truth. Adri let the door fallshut behind her and tossed her pack onto the grass. “I shouldn’t have teased you. We shouldn’t have gone out today, and I shouldn’t have teased you.”
    Caleb looked up at the door frame of the house, the tile roof, and the crumbling breezeway blocks of the two front windows. His jaw hardened almost imperceptibly. “What if I want to go back?”
    He certainly wouldn’t be the first. “Why?”
    â€œMaybe I can’t cut it here. The schedule, the mosquitos, the sickness, the poverty. The kids. They break my heart, Adri. What are we doing? We’re not their parents, but that’s what they need. I feel like I’m drowning sometimes. It’s too much. We can’t help everyone, and I wonder if we’re helping anyone at all.”
    It was true, everything he said was true, but it felt like an attack all the same. She bristled, wanting to fight. But just as quickly as her anger had flared, it fizzled out and died. “Fine,” Adri sighed. “Whatever. I’m sure the board will want to hear from you before you make any travel arrangements, but this