THE MAVERICK DOCTOR AND MISS PRIM/ABOUT THAT NIGHT... (26 page)

Her bag. Her satellite phone. But she had no time. The voices were only a few houses away.

Violet slipped her arm around Hasana’s waist, ducking her head, and they made their way as quickly as they could between the houses. She had no idea where she was going. All she knew was that she couldn’t head toward the truck.

A figure stepped out in front of them, causing her to gasp in alarm.

The dark-skinned Fulani man in traditional dress silently pointed his finger in one direction. She’d vaccinated his children earlier.

She nodded in acknowledgment and hurried in the direction he pointed. It only took a few seconds to realize he was sending them out of the village and into the nearby hardwood forest. Plenty of cover for both of them.

They stopped for a few minutes as Hasana was gripped by another labor pain. She held on to a nearby tree trunk until she’d breathed her way through it. The voices were coming nearer. Closing in on them.

It was the most terrified Violet had ever been. She didn’t know if she was more scared for Hasana or for herself. What would they do to Hasana if they caught her with the doctor? Would it actually be safer to leave Hasana behind?

No.

Hasana needed her right now. And she couldn’t imagine abandoning her—not even for a second.

They stumbled through the forest, moving away from the thinner trees on the outskirts and into the darker depths. She felt herself drop something again as she held on tightly to Hasana, helping support her, but didn’t dare look back to see what it was. They pressed on into the forest.

Violet kept glancing over her shoulder, praying that no one had noticed them and no one was following. She couldn’t hear the voices anymore or the gunfire. That had to be a good sign.

She urged Hasana on. What she really wanted right now was her satellite phone. If she’d had it she could have phoned Evan and he could have arranged to get them out of here and get some support for Hasana.

In her head she could see it lying on the floor of the birthing room. Going back for it might have cost them their lives. No phone was worth that.

Hasana crouched down, her labor obviously progressing. They were near a mound of dark moss. Violet spread a blanket across it and urged Hasana to sit down. She pulled some gloves from her pocket and checked her again.

But she didn’t need to. Hasana’s baby was almost crowning.

Violet raised her eyes skyward and started some silent prayers. Please don’t let them be found—they couldn’t move now.

Please don’t let there be any birth complications. It was too late to save the baby. But Hasana’s life could still be at stake here. Hemorrhage, abruption, there could be whole host of delivery complications that could risk Hasana’s life. And she was hardly equipped to deal with them.

She gestured at Hasana, signaling when to push and when to relax. Hasana’s sobs grew louder. She didn’t have her friend’s hand to hold any more. She didn’t have anyone other than Violet to support her. And they both knew what would happen next.

* * *

Evan was staring at the calendar, counting the number of days until they could head back to Atlanta.

What on earth would he say to the director once he got there? The polio program was likely to be a success. But his teamwork? His professionalism? His relationship with Violet?

Strike one. Strike two. Strike Three. Out.

It didn’t bear thinking about.

Violet had barely spoken to him for the past two weeks.

And he couldn’t blame her.

It didn’t matter that her last words had been about forgiving himself. She couldn’t really have meant that. Not after what he’d told her.

It was no wonder she didn’t want to be around him. He didn’t want to be around him either.

He knew that she’d spoken to her brother a few times in the past two weeks. Had she told Sawyer what had happened between them? Would her brother be waiting at Atlanta airport with a baseball bat? That was all he needed.

He’d told Violet that they had
unresolved issues
. And he was right. They did.

Violet had told him he needed to forgive himself. And he was sorting all that out in his head—truly, he was.

But in order to fully be at peace with himself, the one thing he was absolutely sure about was that he was going to have to speak to Sawyer.

He didn’t want to do it over the phone. He could have used the opportunity in the past few weeks when Sawyer had phoned to speak to Violet. But this was too big for Evan. Too important. He needed to do it face-to-face.

The way he should have done six years earlier, before Matt Sawyer had disappeared.

And he had to take whatever Sawyer dished out because Violet was right about one thing. He couldn’t live like this forever.

The phone next to him started ringing. He reached over and grabbed it. “Evan Hunter.”

It was a hysterical babble. Not a single word made sense. It took him a few seconds for his brain to recognize the voice. “Jaja? Jaja, is that you?”

He stood up, the tone of his voice causing everyone around the room to stop dead.

“What is it, Jaja? Slow down, I can’t make you out.”

He gestured to one of the other team members. “Pull up the GPS signal.”

He had six separate teams in different areas today, all working on the polio program. Where was Jaja working?

“What do you mean, gunfire? Who was firing? Where is the staff? Is any of the staff at risk? Are you safe?”

He was firing questions at Jaja and he knew he should take a deep breath and keep calm. The connection was terrible. He could hardly make out a single word. All he could gather was that there had been trouble in the village, shooting, and Jaja had barely made it to the truck in time to get out.

He started looking frantically at the papers on his desk, all describing the latest events in the neighboring state. There had been nothing about Natumba state. Nothing at all. He’d been advised to continue working. Had he just put his staff at risk? Had he sent them to an area where they could have been kidnapped? Or worse?

The bounty on a healthcare worker’s head was huge.

The thought made him feel physically sick.

His brain was in overdrive. “What village, Jaja? Say it again. What village?”

He shouted the name across the room to the worker on the GPS system. “Who do we have there?”

Silence. The staff were waiting. Waiting to hear who was at risk.

The tension was almost palpable. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

The man sitting at the screen pulled up a table, covering the intensive GPS tracking system they used. His face paled. He rattled off the names—four community workers, Jaja among them. Then he hesitated and turned to face Evan. “And Violet.” His voice was almost a whisper. Everyone knew about their relationship.

Evan could hear a roaring in his ears. His worst dream had just been realized. For a second time stood still. He felt as if he were in one of those slow-motion movie scenes. This couldn’t be happening.

His legs moved automatically over to the screen. “Do you have the signals?” Beside him a hand picked up the phone, reporting back to headquarters, while another voice started shouting about pulling a team together.

The screen operator nodded, focusing the map on the village. From an aerial view there were five signals. One was moving away rapidly—Jaja.

Three others were unmoving, one slightly outside the village limits.

One of the local staff moved up next to his elbow. “The workers will be hiding. The villagers will have taken them somewhere. Somewhere they won’t be recognized.”

“Where’s this? Where is this area?”

Evan’s finger was stabbing at the screen. This whole exercise was futile. Even though the workers all wore the GPS trackers, it only showed their positions. They didn’t show a heartbeat. Didn’t tell him if they were dead or alive. Didn’t tell him if they were injured. Didn’t tell him if they were safe or in danger.

And right now that was all he cared about.

The screen operator pulled up satellite images of the area surrounding the village. His face screwed up a little. “That looks like the outskirts, leading into the forest.”

A forest. Cover. It could mean only one thing.

Evan felt a pull at his heart. “Violet. That’s got to be Violet.”

There was only one person who would need to head into the forest during conflict. One person who would be easy to spot in the village. He only prayed that Violet had headed into the forest of her own volition and not under duress.

The thought that entered his mind horrified him.

He pressed the phone next to his ear. “Come back here, Jaja. Right now. Don’t stop. I need you to tell me everything you know.” He turned to someone else. “How far away is that village?”

One of the staff members signaled him and said, “Headquarters say you’ve to stay put. You’ve not to go to the village under any circumstances. They will try and find out more intel for us. In the meantime, all staff are to start packing. It’s likely they’ll pull us all out.”

Most of the faces in the room had paled. Imminent danger. That was the message from headquarters. They all knew what that meant.

You cleared out. You didn’t go back for team members. This wasn’t the military.

Evan let out a roar. His hand cleared the nearby desk of everything that was stacked on it. Several staff jumped out of their seats.

“I will not leave without Violet!” His voice filled the room, echoing in every corner.

He stormed out of the office into the corridor, his head pounding.
No. No.

He couldn’t lose another team member. He couldn’t live with himself.

Not Violet. Not the one person in this world he couldn’t live without.

It didn’t matter if she hated him. It didn’t matter if she never forgave him. He could live with that. He could survive. As long as he knew that Violet was somewhere else in the world and safe.

That was all he could think about. That was all he could focus on.

Luke, one of the team members, approached him. “I’ve got the other truck ready. We’ll be ready to go in five minutes. We can meet Jaja
en route
. We can stop and get the intel we need from him before we get to the village.”

“What?” He tried to focus. Tried to see beyond the rage that was currently invading his head. He couldn’t believe his ears. Everyone had just been told to get ready to leave. The instruction had been clear. Everyone was to pack up and wait for the evacuation.

It didn’t matter to the haphazard plan that was currently igniting in his brain. He couldn’t ever ask any member of his team to do what he was about to do.

He could never let anyone risk their life for him, or for Violet. It was too much. Too much to ask of anyone.

He caught the dark arm next to him. “No, Luke. I can’t ask you to do that. I won’t ask you to do that. Pack up. Supervise the rest of the team. Wait for the call from Headquarters about the evacuation.”

Luke shook his head ever so slightly. There was no emotion in his voice. “You didn’t ask, Evan. You wouldn’t ask. But I won’t leave. I was in the military. I’m the right hand that you need. Now, let’s go get Violet.”

Evan couldn’t breathe. There was an iron fist gripped around his heart. He couldn’t let Luke do this with him. There was no way he’d be leaving without Violet, but the thought that another human being would knowingly walk into something they might not get back out of—for him, for Violet—was too much of a struggle.

His team leader instincts were screaming at him to keep everyone safe. He’d spent the past six years whispering that mantra to himself, ever since Helen’s death. Team safety meant everything to him. Sometimes to the detriment of the role of the DPA. Evan would never let team safety be compromised again.

This went against everything he believed in. It went against everything he lived for.

How could he accept help? Pictures of Helen’s weak body being held by her husband haunted his mind. His brain couldn’t even comprehend the risk.

He shouted some instructions to the other members of staff—to communicate with the villagers, to leave supplies of everything, to pack only essentials, to keep in constant contact with headquarters.

People were rushing past him. “Do you have a portable version of that?” He pointed to the GPS mapping system.

The analyst nodded and pulled a laptop out of the wall. “It’s fully charged. Press this and this. Refresh every five minutes.”

They were all the instructions he needed.

He strode back out toward the truck. Luke had positioned himself directly in front of it. Directly in Evan’s path. His large frame was blocking out the sunlight. “Ready?”

Evan hesitated. He was team leader. He should order Luke to pack and leave. But something was stopping him. Something was making him take stock.

And this wasn’t about Violet.

This was about all the things in life that couldn’t be controlled. That
he
couldn’t control. No matter how hard that was to accept.

Luke was making his own decision. A grown-up, adult decision to accompany a member of staff on a mission they might not return from. A mission to retrieve their colleagues.

He was an adult with his own free mind. Evan knew that if someone had told him he couldn’t try and rescue Violet, he wouldn’t have listened. Not for a heartbeat.

Why should Luke be any different? As a military man he probably understood the risks better than Evan ever could. But he was still here.

And in that instant Evan understood.

Understood that he had to accept the things he couldn’t control. He had to let Luke make his own decision. He wasn’t responsible for everything around him.

He was team leader. Not a ruler. Not a military commander.

He was one man. And there was only so much he could control. So much he could be in charge of. No matter how much he hated it.

And right now all of his thoughts were on Violet.

He extended his hand toward Luke. “Thank you. Thank you for your help.”

Luke shook his hand swiftly. “Let’s go.”

* * *

They’d been in the forest for just over an hour now. Violet tucked her watch back into her pocket.