The Forever Assignment. Jennifer Taylor
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rankled but there was little she could do about it. If she caused a fuss then Adam would accuse her of disrupting the team and use it as an excuse to send her back to England.
Well, if that was what he was hoping for, he was going to be disappointed, she decided, stiffening her spine. She could put up with anything he cared to dish out!
They unpacked their bags then June checked her watch. ‘It’s only four o’clock so how about a tour of the building before dinner to get our bearings?’
‘Good idea,’ Kasey agreed immediately although the other two shook their heads.
‘I’m bushed,’ Mary exclaimed, sinking down onto one of the beds. ‘I need a bit of shut-eye if I’m to be the life and soul of the party this evening.’
‘What party?’ Kasey asked in surprise.
‘Oh, it’s a bit of a tradition with Adam. He always has a get-together on our first night,’ Lorraine explained. ‘He sees it as a way for us all to bond. Anyhow, I think I’ll follow Mary’s example and test out the bed springs while you two intrepid souls go exploring. Have fun.’
‘We’ll do our best,’ Kasey replied, following June out of the room.
They made their way along the corridor, peering into the rooms they passed. They’d been told that the hostel had been used by students from the local college before the rebel uprising and the facilities were very basic. All the bedrooms were fitted out exactly like their room with four single beds and a chest of drawers. There was no carpet on any of the floors but the worn brown linoleum had been swept clean. There was also a small bathroom at the end of the corridor with a lavatory next to it and she heaved a sigh of relief.
‘At least we have indoor plumbing. I had visions of having to creep out of the building in the middle of the night to go to the loo.’
‘All mod cons by the look of it,’ June declared, flushing the toilet.
They made their way up the stairs to the floor above which was exactly the same: bedrooms with a bathroom and a lavatory at the end of the corridor. Although everywhere smelled a little musty, it was obvious that attempts had been made to clean the place in readiness for their arrival.
‘It’s better than I expected,’ Kasey admitted as they went down to the ground floor where a large square entrance hall led to a sitting room on one side and a dining room on the other with the kitchen and storerooms beyond that.
‘It is. I had no idea what to expect when Adam told me where we would be staying.’ June shrugged when she looked at her in surprise. ‘Although I’ve been on a lot of missions, I’ve never been to an area like this before where they’ve only recently stopped fighting so I wasn’t sure how bad the facilities would be.’
‘I see. That makes me feel a bit better. I thought I was the only one who didn’t have any experience and you were all old hands at this game,’ she confessed wryly.
‘Not at all. OK, so most of us have worked overseas and you haven’t but working in a war zone will be a whole new experience for all of us except Adam, of course. He’s already done a stint here.’
‘Really?’ Kasey stopped and stared at her. ‘Adam’s worked here before?’
‘Yes. Didn’t you know? He spent a year in Mwuranda with a French aid team but they pulled out when the fighting started. Adam decided to stay on and he only came back to England because he was injured, quite badly, too, I believe, although he never talks about it.’ June sighed. ‘I always thought there was more to it than just a desire to help which kept him here. It was almost as though he didn’t care about his own safety.’
‘When did this all happen?’ she asked slowly, feeling a cold chill envelop her.
‘I’m not sure…four, five years ago. Something like that.’
Which would be shortly after she’d told him how she’d tricked him, she realised sickly. Had that been the reason why Adam had shown such disregard for his own safety..because he’d been so upset by what she’d done that he’d no longer cared what had happened to him? She didn’t want to believe it but the timing pointed towards it being true. Frankly, she didn’t know how it made her feel to know that he’d put his life in danger because of her actions, but it did make her see how difficult it would be to resolve their differences.
She frowned. Was that what she really wanted, though? Initially, all she’d hoped to do was draw a line under the past but, strangely, it no longer seemed enough. She’d never been someone who enjoyed being at odds with other people; it simply wasn’t in her nature. Maybe that was why she’d found it so difficult to put the whole unhappy episode behind her. It had played constantly on her mind so maybe it was time to try and end the hostilities between them, although it wouldn’t be easy, of course.
Her heart suddenly sank because the thought that she might never be able to make her peace with him was very hard to bear, for some reason.
Dinner that night turned out to be quite a convivial affair. The catering team did them proud, serving up a meal which would have put many high-class restaurants to shame. Kasey found it a little daunting at first to be thrown in at the deep end and expected to mingle. Everyone else had worked together at some point and she couldn’t help feeling like the outsider. Although she knew that she could tag along with June and the other nurses, she didn’t want to get in the way when they were obviously eager to catch up with what their friends had been doing.
In the end it was Daniel who saved the day. He took it upon himself to introduce her to everyone present and soon put her at her ease as he filled her in on people’s backgrounds. He also insisted she sit with him at dinner and regaled her with stories of other missions he’d been on so that by the end of the evening Kasey felt more like one of the team. The only disquieting note throughout the whole evening, in fact, was that Adam ignored her. He spoke to everyone else present but made no attempt to speak to her. It was as though she didn’t exist and she had to admit that it hurt to be treated in such an off-hand fashion.
The party finally broke up around midnight. Everyone was worn out after the journey and started to drift away. Daniel begged her to stay and have a final cup of coffee with him but she refused first of all because she was tired and secondly because she didn’t want him getting the wrong idea. She liked Daniel but there was no way that she was going to risk inciting Adam’s wrath by getting romantically involved with him or anyone else.
She bade Daniel a studiedly casual goodnight and made her way across the hall. Most people had gone straight up to bed so there was nobody about. She headed towards the stairs then paused as she passed the front door. Even though she was bone-tired as well, she desperately needed a breath of fresh air before turning in for the night.
She let herself out of the hostel and walked down the path, carefully picking her way through the rubble. Like most of the buildings they’d passed on the drive from the airfield, the hostel had suffered extensive damage during the recent fighting. Kasey stopped when she reached a clump of straggly bushes and looked back at the building, trying to imagine what it must have been like for the students who’d lived there during those troubled times. It must have been awful for them, living in constant danger—
The sharp report of a rifle cracked through the still night air and she jumped. She spun round to see where the shot had come from then gasped in alarm when a figure suddenly mate-rialised out of the shadows and hurled her to the ground.
‘Let me go,’ she screamed, punching the man’s broad back with her clenched fists. ‘Let…me…go, damn you!’
‘For God’s sake, woman!’ Adam’s face suddenly loomed into view and she gulped when she realised that he was her attacker.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she snapped, glaring up at him.
‘Saving your damned life.’ He put his hand over her mouth when she went to speak. ‘Just shut up, Kasey. There’s someone out there shooting at us so this is neither the time nor the place to discuss your injured feelings.’