Page 47 of Keeping Amanda
“No. But I will be. I want to go see the kids.”
He nodded and took her hand in his, escorting her down the hall and toward the door that led outside. The kids would all bein the dorms eating by now, as classes were over for the day. After dinner, they’d have time for themselves, to play, read, whatever they wanted to do. Then they had an hour designated for homework before they were expected to do chores, bathe, and brush their teeth before going to bed.
The next thirty minutes were excruciating for Amanda. She did her best to keep a smile on her face and reassure the children that she was fine, and that they’d be fine too. She explained that she had to go home, but she loved each and every one of them. She promised to write—though she had doubts Blair would ever give her letters to the kids.
Something had changed at the school, and Amanda didn’t know what. But whathadn’tchanged was the innocence of these children. It had been dinged a bit with the kidnapping, but thank goodness the outcome was ultimately positive. They’d been rescued, thanks to an empathetic vice president who’d tasked Nash and Obi-Wan with coming down to rescue them.
Amanda didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened to them all if the VP didn’t have the connection to Guyana that he did. Colonel Khan might have attempted to help, but his hands had been tied because of tense relations between Guyana and Venezuela.
She’d been lucky. As had these kids. And leaving them felt wrong. Like she was abandoning them. Which has a horrible feeling.
She was exhausted and wrung out by the time she’d finished hugging everyone. Bibi had clung to her, crying and begging her to stay…then asking to go with her. Michael had come to Amanda’s rescue by peeling the little girl off her and carrying her away. The look of sadness and disappointment on his face almost had Amanda breaking down right then and there.
She walked out of the dorm holding on to her composure by a thread. By the time the car door closed behind her and Nashhad the key in the ignition, the tears had already started. Refusing to look back as they drove away, Amanda sobbed.
Buck hated this. Mandy had cried uncontrollably all the way back to the base. She’d continued crying as Obi-Wan greeted them and helped him carry her stuff to the hangar where the chopper was being loaded for their departure the next day. She cried while greeting Rain, after Buck took her hand and led her back to his room.
It wasn’t even a consideration that he was going to drop her off at the room she’d been assigned and leave her to cry alone. No way in hell.
She was still crying as she came out of the bathroom after getting ready for bed, changing into an oversized T-shirt that she obviously slept in. She wasn’t bawling now, but her eyes were continuously leaking.
Rain had whined a few times, clearly concerned, but Buck didn’t have the words to reassure him. Hell, he didn’t know what to say to Mandy to help her through her sorrow. All he could do was be there for her. Let her know she wasn’t alone.
The bed in his room was tiny, but then again, the places they’d slept in the jungle weren’t exactly spacious. Buck got her under the sheet, then climbed in behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her against his chest. He tucked her in close and simply held her as she continued to cry.
Rain was distressed, and he got up onto the bed with them, curling into a ball and resting his head on Mandy’s feet.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Shhhh. You’re good,” Buck told her.
“I’m just…I didn’t think it would hurt so badly to say goodbye to the kids. But after all we’ve been through together… I think they thought they did something wrong that made me want to leave.”
“I’m sure they don’t think that,” he reassured her.
“The thing that hurts the most is that I have no idea what Blair will tell them. She was…socold. I’m not even sure that’s the right word, but it was as if I was sitting across from a total stranger in her office. And I’m guessing being able to adopt is probably out.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t sound receptive at all when I told her I’d be sending in an application.”
“Really? That’s shocking. I mean, isn’t it the goal of every orphanage to get the kids adopted?”
“You’d think so. Nash?”
“Yeah, Rebel?”
“I think…I don’t even like to say this out loud…but what if she had something to do with it?”
“With what?” Buck asked, not sure what she was talking about.
“The kidnapping.”
Buck’s first inclination was to disagree. To reassure Mandy that there was no way the seventy-two-year-old director of the school would do something so awful.
But honestly…he didn’t know the woman. If Mandy thought it could be possible, he’d listen to her reasoning before forming an opinion.
“Why would she put the lives of the children in danger? And one of her staff was killed in the process. It doesn’t make sense.”
