Free Dance with the Devil by Sandy Curtis Page B

return in the morning.
    The sun's dying rays glowed golden through the eucalyptus trees, casting long shadows across the road. Cicadas droned in perpetual rhythm, an auditory balance to the heat. Emma drove slowly, aware of every ache in her body, the tiredness creeping into her bones.
    She felt Drew's gaze on her. 'Does it always make you feel like that?' he asked. 'Childbirth, I mean.'
    She understood what he was asking. She had seen his reaction to the sight of the baby. And her heart had melted at the look in his eyes. She had connected with him then, connected in a way she had never expected to do with a man. And it had shaken her badly. She didn't want to feel that way, didn't want to be vulnerable.
    She considered carefully before she replied. 'For me, yes. I've never lost that sense of awe, of wonder. Even when the child is born into famine or war, I'm still struck by the absolute miracle of birth. But it breaks your heart to deliver a baby for a woman whose other children are starving to death. There's no joy in her eyes. Just the bleak knowledge that by the time the famine or the war is over, all her children could be dead.'
    'It bothers you, doesn't it? Not being able to save all the children.' Drew's voice was gentle, a verbal caress on her heart.
    'You try not to let it get to you. You try to develop some sort of objectivity. But sometimes you could weep for the utter waste of life. In one refugee camp in Africa where our doctors were working, a camp officer brought in a baby girl who'd been tossed into the cesspit. She was newborn - less than an hour old. Tossed away like a piece of sh…'
    The road wavered in front of her and she fought back the tears stinging her eyes.
    A minute passed. She forced herself to concentrate on her driving, forced from her mind the thousands of pleading eyes, the sad resignation.
    'What happened to the baby?'
    'They searched for the mother - couldn't find her. She could have been desperate; the baby could have been the result of a rape. Who knows why she did what she did. The doctor eventually adopted the child.'
    'Was that a wise decision?'
    Emma glanced across at him. There was no cynicism in his tone, and only genuine curiosity in his expression.
    'I queried that myself at the time. You can't save them all. But perhaps if you give one child a chance at life, you feel your efforts haven't been in vain.'
    They reached the top of a rise and started down towards the river. It took a few seconds for them to realise what had changed.
    The bridge had disappeared. The river had risen and now lapped the road on either side. Everything was covered in a swirling muddy sea.
    'Damn!' Emma punched the steering wheel with her fist. She stopped the Land Cruiser at the water's edge and opened her door.
    'I'll walk across to see if the bridge is still there. If it is, you drive after me.'
    'What!?'
    Emma didn't need to look at Drew. She could feel the fury emanating from him.
    'We don't know if the flood has knocked the bridge down,' she explained patiently. 'I'll have to see if it's still there, and I'm not driving across and risking the Land Cruiser.'
    'I know what you meant , Emma.'
    She could practically hear him grinding his teeth together.
    ' I'll walk across! You drive.'
    'Don't be ridiculous. I'm not having you get muddy water in your wounds. I don't have a never-ending supply of antibiotics if you get an infection.' She glared at him. 'I'm going.'
    He glared back. For a moment Emma thought he was going to argue, but he surprised her. 'Do you have a rope?' he asked. 'If you're going to be so damned foolhardy, at least tie a rope around you so you don't get swept away.'
    She gave him a what self-respecting horse breeder wouldn't carry a rope look, walked to the back of the vehicle and dragged one out. She was tying it around her waist when Drew appeared at her side.
    'Not a slip knot,' he sighed in exasperation. 'You don't want it to tighten up and cut you in half. You need a reef knot so