Blue by Danielle Steel Page B

special?” Ginny wrinkled her nose and made a face at whatever they were eating. She had a cup of tea with them at the end of the meal, and they walked around town for a while, then got back in the truck for the drive back to camp.
    She brought Rupert his messages, and they sat and chatted for a while. It was still cold, and freezing at night, as it had been since she arrived. It was still winter there in early March. She and Rupert talked about some of the medical problems they’d been dealing with, and he said that they’d be going back up into the mountains in a few days. He asked her to come with him, as he liked the way she handled the locals, and she was especially good with the children. She had a warm, gentle way with them.
    “You should have some of your own one of these days,” he said with a warm smile. He was married but was known to be something of a womanizer, with a wife in England he hardly ever saw. He knew nothing of Ginny’s history and was startled by the frozen look on her face in response to his comment.
    “I…actually I did have a little boy,” she said, hesitating. “He died in an accident with my husband.”
Which was my fault,
she thought, but didn’t say.
    “I’m so sorry,” he said, looking mortified. “Stupid thing for me to say. I had no idea. I thought you were one of those American single women, who put off marriage and having children until they’re forty. There seem to be a lot of them these days.”
    “It’s all right.” She smiled pleasantly at him. The words were always hard to say, and she hated how pathetic they made her sound, and the implication of tragedy that went with them. But it seemed wrong not to acknowledge Mark and Chris’s existence. It reminded both her and Rupert of how little they all knew of each other or what had led them to this kind of work. In his case, he had dropped out of medical school when he was young, and had a wife he was happy to see only a few times a year.
    “I take it you have no other children?” He looked genuinely compassionate as she shook her head.
    “That’s what got me into this kind of work. I can be useful to someone instead of sitting home and feeling sorry for myself.”
    “You’re a brave woman,” he said admiringly.
    The memory of looking into the East River on the anniversary of their deaths flashed instantly into her head. The only thing that had stopped her that night was meeting Blue, and she had felt differently about her life ever since. She felt more hopeful for the first time in a long time, and now she wanted to help him, too.
    “Not always brave,” she said honestly. “There have been some pretty rocky moments, but I don’t have time to think about it here.”
    He nodded and walked her back out into the center of the compound, well aware that even in her burqa and layers of warm clothes, she was a beautiful woman. He’d had his eye on her since she arrived, but having heard of his reputation from the others, she’d been careful not to encourage him, since he was married, and she didn’t want complications in her life. She was there to work.
    The comings and goings in the camp kept things interesting, and occasionally brought in new people. There was a delegation from the Human Rights High Commission in Geneva, and a group of German doctors, who were very welcome while they were there. Ginny and a few of the others rode up into the mountains with them. They delivered a baby, and examined a number of sick children. They brought two of them back to the camp with their mothers for additional medical treatment.
    Two weeks before she was scheduled to leave, she went back up to the mountains again with some other members of the medical team at camp. Everything had gone smoothly so far, and her replacement was due to arrive from the New York office in another week. She was relaxed and chatting with Enzo, a young Italian medic who had arrived the week before. As they rode up the steep, rocky path on horses and