“Connor?”
That’s all it took.
“Thanks.” Connor stepped down from the exam table and pushed his way through the curtain. “I’m right here.”
“Where are we?”
“We’re on a navy vessel. As soon as you’re cleared, we’ll be taking a Chinook to Dhaka and then flying back to The Hague.”
“Another helicopter?”
He couldn’t blame her for being sick of them. “This one won’t crash.”
“I can’t believe we’re going home. I was so afraid the soldiers would kill you.”
“I’m a hard man to kill. What happened after I left you?”
She told him how she’d tricked the villagers at first into believing that she was just a tourist and how they had helped her—until the soldier had walked up with her photo on his cell phone. “He struck me. I think I hit my head on a rock. After that, it’s just bits and pieces.”
“You are the bravest, most beautiful woman I know.”
“I saw my Uncle Abani—the one who was killed in the genocide.”
“Your uncle?”
“One minute I was swimming, and the next he was there, beside me underwater, telling me to keep going.” Tears filled her eyes. “He said my family was proud of me but that I had to fight because I still had work to do. Then I was under the water, and he was gone. I kicked for the surface—and then you were there.”
“I thought I’d lost you. God, Shanti, I thought you’d drowned. One minute you were there, and the next…”Shit.“I’ve never been more afraid in my life.”
“Do you think my uncle was really there?”
“What matters is that you thought he was there, and it woke you up.”
“What happens now?”
He brought her up to speed. “You’ll be back in The Hague late tonight.”
“Do you remember what you promised me?”
A night of unlimited kisses.
He stroked her cheek. “I haven’t forgotten, but I might not be able to keep that promise. We’ll probably be leaving The Hague for Denver after you deplane.”
“So soon?”
“Yeah. I’ll have a lot of questions to answer when I get back.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“We’ll see. I broke some big rules.’”
“You don’t have to tell them what happened between us, do you? I won’t.”
“I won’t volunteer information, but I won’t lie.”
Sadness filled her eyes, her cheek bruised and swollen. “I’m not ready to say goodbye, Connor. I love you.”
He had to say it. He felt a moral obligation to tell her. “You’ve been through a real ordeal. Adrenaline has a way of messing with people’s emotions. When you get home and life goes back to normal, you might not feel what you feel today. You deserve a guy who can share your life, not a soldier who’s gone all the time and can’t function in the real world. A month from now—”