Authors: Catherine Palmer
“A
helicopter?” Vince gripped the telephone. “Is it reliable?
“My men will check it out as soon as it arrives in Khartoum, sir, although we’ll have to use the native pilot.” Mack Harwood sounded weary. Agrimax’s security chief had stayed at the airport well into Friday night, trying without success to get Sudan’s visa and inoculation requirements waived and to arrange a flight to the refugee camp in Rumbek. Saturday had proven equally futile. Finally, early this Sunday morning, he was calling from the airport to say he had received clearance and found transportation.
“And you tell me Josiah Karume authorized the use of this helicopter?” Vince asked.
“His office staff here in Khartoum gave us permission, sir. It’s an old Soviet-made chopper that I-FEED uses to transport food to remote areas. It’s been over near the border with Chad, which is…uh…west of here. It’s supposed to arrive back here around noon, and we’re trying to find fuel—”
“Trying to find fuel?”
“Basic supplies and parts are scarce, Mr. Grant, and the bureaucracy is a nightmare.”
“Have you talked to Karume himself?”
“No, sir. Evidently, he’s down at the refugee camp in Rumbek, but we’re not getting a phone connection. They tell me the camp does have service off and on, but Karume usually stays in touch with his staff by computer, using a wireless modem with satellite—”
“So is Karume answering your e-mail messages?”
“Not yet, sir. We weren’t able to find his office until yesterday morning, and then it took us most of the day to locate his secretary and the other staff. Businesses shut down early on Fridays for religious reasons, and you also have to work around their prayer times. We’ve just now managed to get permission to use the helicopter, and we’ll keep trying to connect with Karume in Rumbek.”
“Does the office staff know anything about the boy? Has he made it to Rumbek?”
“No one has heard from Karume. He flew into Khartoum from Paris last week and immediately took the train down to the camp.”
“Get me out of this hotel, Harwood.” Vince tossed his wet towel on the bed. He’d been swimming that morning, trying without success to distract himself from the fact that the merger meeting was now forty-eight hours away. “Send a limo for me. I’ll be bringing Ali along. He’s a good bodyguard.”
“Well, sir, about the limo—”
“I want to be at the airport when the chopper arrives, Harwood. And keep trying with Karume. E-mail him. Tell him the boy is coming his way, and warn him not to do anything until I get to Rumbek. Make sure he understands the seriousness of this, Harwood.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You work on patching me through to the refugee camp by phone. I want to talk to Karume.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.” Harwood paused. “Mr. Grant, I won’t be able to send a limo for you. There aren’t any in Sudan. It’ll be another taxi.”
“A taxi?” Vince raked his fingers back through his damp hair. “Just get me out of here, Harwood.”
Jill leaned against the metal window frame of the old bus and stared out at the African grassland beyond the dirt road. Despite Daniel’s dire warnings, she and Cole had changed back into their regular clothes, boarded the humanitarian train and made it safely to Wau. After baking for several hours in the extreme heat, they boarded this bus bound for Sudan’s southern capital city of Juba. It would stop in Rumbek that afternoon—providing its bald tires didn’t burst, it didn’t bottom out in a pothole, and its radiator didn’t explode. Every two or three miles, the driver stopped the bus and added fluid. Engine coolant? Water, more likely, Jill surmised. As they rolled along, steam and smoke drifted steadily from under the hood.
“What are you thinking about?” Cole asked when she let out a sigh. He was wedged up against her, because two other passengers had decided the three-person seat had plenty of room for all. In fact, humans and livestock all competed for space in this packed menagerie on wheels.
“I’m hoping this bus makes it to Rumbek,” she told Cole. “I’m thinking about Matt and Billy, too, wondering where they are. I pray they’re safe at the camp with Josiah Karume.”
He shook his head. “If they’re there, it’ll be a miracle. I don’t see how two kids from small-town America could survive this.”
“With God all things are possible.” She shrugged. “Sounds nice, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Got another one?”
“Probably. My brain is too tired to have an original thought. It’s reeling with verses I learned in Vacation Bible School and proverbs my grandpa used to say. ‘All’s well that ends well. The early bird gets the worm. Hate the sin but love the sinner. Be in the world but not of the world.’”
“You’re beautiful.”
She caught her breath, then tried to laugh. “That can go on my list.”
“Fine, but I’ve never meant it more.”
Stunned, Jill realized she was actually blushing. Thank goodness for the scarf. Not only did it hide unwashed and frizzled hair, but maybe it would shield her pink cheeks. This was the first time Cole had mentioned his feelings for her since they left Khartoum. Jill had tried to tell herself she didn’t care. On the train, they had been separated—men in one car and women in another. But Cole had had ample time to talk to her at station stops, and he’d said nothing. She decided she must have convinced him that the weirdness of this time and place had distorted his outlook. After all, they were a long way from his ranch and Penny Ames.
“Do you ever think what it will be like when we get home?” she asked him now. “You’ll be ranching, and I’ll be teaching. We never ran into each other before. So I guess I won’t see you. I’ve gotten…I’m used to us. Being together, you know.”
She could feel his eyes on her, the blue intensity. “I want it to be that way, Jill. Us together.”
“But Penny would—”
“Don’t talk about Penny, okay?” He let out a hot breath. “I know everything you want to say. Yes, I asked Penny to marry me. I know this is a strange time for you and me. And if I lose Matt…”
Unable to hold back, she took his hand and held it tightly. “Cole, you don’t have to—”
“No, let me say this. If I lose Matt, things will be hard for me. I didn’t believe I would ever get through the months after Anna’s death, but I did. Eventually, I made it to the place where it doesn’t hurt every day. I don’t think about her constantly, not the way I once did. But a child…Matt…I don’t know how you could ever get over losing a child. I can’t see
how I could live through one day after another knowing…knowing he was gone.”
Jill blinked back tears.
“Maybe if I lose Matt, or even if I don’t,” Cole continued, “maybe I’ll realize I ought to go ahead and marry Penny. I might stop thinking about you. I might go back to the man I was and be okay with letting you go. But I don’t think so, Jill.”
She took the end of her scarf and blotted the tear wandering down her cheek. “I hope not.”
“Really?” He took her hands. “Is that why you’ve been crying so much? Is it because you don’t want to let go of what we have here? Tell me, Jill.”
“I can’t talk about it. It feels wrong. Like adultery, or something.”
“I’m not married to her!”
“I know, but you are promised. If you promised to be my husband, and then you went off to Sudan and started wooing—”
“Wooing? I’m not wooing you, Jill. I never intended for this to happen with us. I’m an honorable man. God put us together to find Matt, and along the way, I realized I can’t imagine living without you.”
Tension rippled through his shoulder, pressed so hard against her own. The man was amazing, Jill thought once again. Maintain your integrity, her grandpa had advised. And integrity was Cole Strong’s guiding principle.
“I trust you,” she said. “I know you were loyal to your wife, and I believe you intended to marry Penny. And…and I do understand about how this experience has changed you. It has changed me, too.”
“In what ways?”
“I’ve always been so big on mission work. Doing my part, and all that. But all I do is go in and help—an outsider swooping in, doing good, and then winging her way back
home again. I never stay and dig into relationships. I’ve been that way with everything. I help my students, try to influence them and then shuffle them out the door to their next class. My friends know I won’t really get involved in their lives. A lunch or a party, maybe. But nothing serious.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to get hurt. I’ve watched marriages end. I’ve seen kids rebel and leave home. Friends have lied to me and betrayed me. Relationships are risky—and you know that, too. I’ve accused you of being distant, but it was the pot calling the kettle black.”
Cole gave a tired laugh.
“It’s true,” Jill said. “I’ve always been wary. And then…you came barging into my classroom and ordered me to go with you to Amarillo.”
“Ordered you?”
“Yes, you did. And once I let you in, I started to like you. And admire you. And care about you.”
“And love me?”
Startled, she glanced up. His eyes were depthless. “I can’t imagine my life without you,” she said.
“I love you, Jill Pruitt.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Here on a bus in Southern Sudan, I love you. And I think…I believe that back in New Mexico on my ranch, I’m still going to love you.”
“Okay,” she said softly.
“Okay, what?”
“I love you, too.” Her voice shuddered with the emotion of speaking words she held so dear. “Here on the bus, I mean. And probably…I expect…I imagine that back in New Mexico in my house, I’m still going to love you.”
“It’s enough, Jill. It’s enough for me to know you feel this way now. I still have to work things out with Penny, but I’ve known for a long time what I need to do. I see God’s path in front of me, and I want to walk it, Jill. I want to walk it with
you. When we get back—” he kissed her hand again “—
if
we get back, we’ll take the first steps together.”
Jill leaned her head on Cole’s shoulder and let the tears fall. She was so happy and so miserable and so scared. It was all too much, and she had a terrible fear that this fragile thread of love between them would snap. Danger, loss, pain, even guilt—any of these might sever the thread. They hadn’t had time to weave a thick cord that could bind them together through everything that would pull at them. They had known each other such a short time, and their love had been spun on the unstable loom of this strange pursuit.
Jill nestled against Cole and drank in this moment of union between them. He wrapped his arm around her and brushed his lips across her forehead. She lifted her head and kissed his cheek. For now, this would have to be enough.
As the bus rolled into Rumbek, the sun was settling into the tops of the thorny acacia trees surrounding a collection of thatched huts and white tents. Cole searched the clearing, hoping to see Matt. The barren ground was deserted except for a few people gathered around a fire.
“Why have they lit a fire in this heat?” Cole asked Jill as they waited their turn to step down from the bus.
“Roasting peanuts, I imagine.”
Cole groaned. Though he and Jill carried some packaged cookies and fresh bread from Khartoum, they had run out long before the train station at Wau. Expecting to replenish their supplies, they had discovered that roasted peanuts were the only food available. In fact, at every station and bus stop, only peanuts awaited them, and the price rose as they journeyed south.
“Do you see Matt and Billy?” Jill asked, peering over his shoulder. “I don’t see them.”
“They’re not out in the open.” He climbed down from the old bus and started toward the fire.
“Wait, Cole!” Jill caught his arm. “What’s that sound?”
He glanced upward, recognizing the distinct
thunk-thunk
of helicopter blades.
“Sounds like a chopper. I wonder if—”
“Oh, look, there’s the relief center! Maybe the boys are in there with Josiah.”
They hurried hand in hand toward the small block building. Cole’s heart clenched.
Please, God, please let Matt be here. Please let him be safe!
He hammered on the door. “Josiah Karume? Are you in there? Matt?”
“It’s my dad!” The voice was filled with disbelief.
Cole threw open the door as his son barreled into his arms. “Matt!”
“Dad!” Matt hugged him hard, jumping up and down. “Dad, you came! And, Miss Pruitt—whoa!”
“Miss Pruitt!” Billy threw his arms around her. “Awesome! Hey, Mr. Strong!”
As Billy pumped Cole’s hand, a cloud of dust blew over them. Squinting, Cole turned to see the helicopter setting down in the clearing. He pushed the boys and Jill back inside the building and shut the door against the whirlwind.
“Dad, this is Mr. Karume,” Matt said, hauling his father across the room to where a distinguished-looking African man worked at a small laptop computer on his desk. “Mr. Karume, I want you to meet my father, Cole Strong.”
“Welcome to Rumbek, Mr. Strong.” The African stood and held out his hand. “Your son and his friends arrived not fifteen minutes before you. We were just discussing his journey. How did you come this way, also? And Miss Pruitt—is it you?”