Gwen, Moses and Ned clapped without much enthusiasm as the last of the runners crossed the finish line. Where was Derek?
Tito had crossed the finish line ages ago in second place behind an American. She ran over to where Tito stood talking with the winner.
“Where’s Derek?” she asked.
“Good question,” said the American.
He introduced himself as Owen—she didn’t catch the last name. Her mind was racing. Did they need to go search the trails for him?
“Mr. Derek didn’t show up at the start line,” Tito said.
“What?”
She turned to Ned and Moses as they approached. “Tito said he didn’t start the race,” she said, her voice wavering.
“Should check his hotel,” Ned stated quietly as they moved away from the throng of celebrating people.
That sounded like a good idea. Unfortunately, when they arrived at the hotel, they discovered that Derek had checked out of his room a few hours earlier.
“He probably went back to the village,” Moses offered as they all climbed back in the jeep.
“Maybe.” Gwen couldn’t understand it. Why wouldn’t he have run his race? He’d trained so hard. It had seemed so important to him.
They made the long drive back to the village. When they arrived, a new minivan was parked in front of the clinic. Gwen jumped out and ran inside. She skidded to a halt at the welcome sight of Derek sitting with Craig, Joyce and Ethan. He wore a dress shirt and slacks. She hadn’t even known he’d brought such nice clothing with him.
He smiled as he rose from the folding chair. “Hey, I heard you went to see the race. How’d Tito do?”
“We went to see you win. Tito came in second,” she stated.
“Good for him. I had something more important to do.”
He didn’t look regretful or bummed to have missed the race. “Like what?”
“Let me show you.” He took her by the elbow and led her outside.
She glanced back and was met with big grins from the others. She allowed him to lead her down the path he’d so often disappeared down when he went running. “Where are we going?”
“Trust me.”
He halted at the dry, dusty riverbed. Brown grass stuck up in tuffs here and there. The acacia palms lining the embankment looked withered and dry. “Okay, what’s going on?”
He released her elbow and grabbed her around the waist. She squealed in surprise as he spun her in a circle. “Stop! I’ll get sick,” she exclaimed with a laugh.
He came to a halt and set her feet on the ground but he didn’t release her. “I spent the day at the Ugandan parliament building trying to get someone to help us. Finally, this wonderful lady said she’d help.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The river. Since I failed at taking down the blockade myself, I went to those who could.”
“Ah.”
Disappointment at her lack of enthusiasm stopped him cold. “Ah? That’s all you can say?”
“That’s great.”
Derek frowned. Why wasn’t she more pleased? “The villagers will have water soon.”
“I’m ecstatic. It’s amazing. You’re the hero.”
He released her and stepped back, his heart withering. “Why the sarcasm?”
She closed her eyes for a moment as if gathering her patience before looking at him with a gentle expression. “I am really, really thankful and happy about the water. I know everyone will be. And I’m proud of you. I know what a sacrifice you made. But Derek, you are not a failure because you couldn’t take the dam down yourself.”
Wariness colored his vision. He had a feeling she was going to start on him again. Try to analyze him. She should have gone into psychology. “Right. We should get back and help the others start to pack up the clinic.”
He only got a few paces away before her softly spoken words halted him in his tracks.
“You’re still running.”
Derek slowly pivoted on the edge of the riverbank. Dry grass brushed against his legs. He’d done everything he could to try to help. To try to please Gwen and still he failed. His temper flared. “What do you want from me?”
There was almost an imperceptible note of pleading in her expressive face. “I don’t want anything from you, Derek, that you’re not willing to give.”
He frowned, sensing a trap of some sort there at the edges of his mind. Gwen would never use manipulation or deceit, but somehow her words felt confining, as if a boundary line had been drawn. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”
She came to him. Determined, confident, beautiful. She put her hand over his heart. “I don’t know where you got the idea that you had to earn people’s respect or their love. You have to stop looking for your self-worth in what you do or how you please others.”
His defenses rose at the suggestion he was hiding from motivations that stemmed from a need to placate others. “I work hard, push myself physically to please myself.” He backed away. “You are way off base.”
“Am I?” She cocked her head to the side and regarded him intently. “I don’t think so. I think you’ve spent your life trying to get your father’s attention by being a winner.”
He reared back, her words stinging. He hated that what she said was true. He’d done everything within his power—excelled at school and sports—to gain his father’s attention. “That doesn’t mean I’m trying to earn anyone’s love.”
She gave a look that said “Yeah, right!” “That’s the thing, Derek. You can’t earn people’s love, sometimes it comes to you just because of who you are.”
Her expressive eyes held compassion, understanding and a tenderness that chipped away at his defensive armor. He didn’t want to disappoint her but he couldn’t accept that he could be loved unconditionally.
“And,” she continued, her voice taking on a determined edge, “you can’t find your sense of self in other people. Only in God can you find your identity, and He is the only one you have to please. He gives us the freedom to choose how we respond and react to what happens to us in this world.” She spread her arms wide in a gesture that encompassed the dry, dusty riverbed, the brown-and-yellow grass and the thirsty trees lining the banks of the river. “Your sense of self-worth is your responsibility.”
His throat tightened, blocking his airways. He fought for breath, his mind scrambling with a crazy mixture of hope and fear. “I am not doing this,” he ground out and moved to turn away. She stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“You can’t run your whole life. One day you’ll wake up old and alone and regret that you never let anyone in,” she said softly with a touch of sadness in her eyes.
He curled his lip in defiance. “I let you in.”
She rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “You may have opened the door a little, but you promptly shut me out as soon as I tried to step through.”
His heart began to pound and his lungs constricted. Shut me out. He shook his head as the words bounced around in his mind, turning into the echo of something he didn’t want to hear.
Don’t shut me out. A chorus of female voices, Jenny’s and more than a dozen other women over the years, all saying the same thing.
Now Gwen was saying the same thing.
His breathing sounded labored in his ears. His heart hammered painfully in his chest as if he’d just run a ten-kilometer uphill in high altitude. He held her gaze. He didn’t see forever—a lifetime of commitment—in her eyes but he did see her heart. Her generous, compassionate heart. The heart of a doctor wanting to heal.
“You can’t fix me, Gwen,” he said harshly to hide the sadness and the regret burrowing into his soul. No matter how skilled she was or even if she had some cure-all pill, she couldn’t make a difference.
“Why not? You fixed me,” she quietly replied.
He swallowed. “What?”
She stepped closer. “I’ve lived so long in fear. Fear of being touched, fear of intimacy. Afraid that I’d never be a normal woman with normal desires.” Her gaze shifted to her dirt-covered feet.
His heart contracted in his chest at the thought of what she’d endured and had lived with for so long.
Her chin lifted, courage and resolve shining bright in her gaze. “God brought you into my life to heal me.”
He wanted to believe she was right, that God had brought them together for a reason. For her healing. Yeah, maybe. But that didn’t mean he needed to be healed and that she was the one to do it. No one could.
“I thought when this journey started that my promise to your father was the only thing between us. I was wrong. There’s a lot between us,” she added as she reached out once again to touch his arm.
He focused on one word. Every muscle in his body contracted. What game was she playing? Had they been scheming against him? “Promise?”
“He loves you a great deal, Derek.”
He didn’t want to hear about his father’s love. She couldn’t understand how hard it was to believe when nothing he’d done had been enough.
“Your father made me promise I’d help you see the importance of our work here.”
Her words hurt worse than the blow he’d sustained to the side of his head. Doubt flooded him. “So all your attention to me, all your pushing at me, was for my father? Now who’s the pleaser?”
“It started out that way.” She gazed up at him, the tender expression in her eyes cutting through him. “But it turned out to be so much more.”
Oh, man. He couldn’t let her or himself go down that dead-end road. “I’m sorry, Gwen. There can’t be more,” he stated in a monotone and felt as if his heart was being ripped from his chest.
“Why? Because you can’t trust my motives?”
He swiped a hand through his hair. Gwen’s heart was pure, just filled with misguided loyalty. “No, that’s not it.”
She took his hand, the warmth of her skin chased his pain all the way to his heart.
“Don’t be afraid of love,” she said, her voice fragile and shaky.
“It’s not love that scares me,” he rasped out. “It’s…it’s knowing that I’ll fail. And I don’t want to see the hurt and disappointment that failure will cause.”
Her eyes narrowed. “The only way you’ll fail is if you don’t love. You’ll fail yourself. You’ll fail God, because He made you to love.” She once again placed her hand over his heart, her palm burning clear through.
“I’ve seen the person you try to hide,” she continued. “You are so capable of great love. I’ve watched you with Cam, saw the bond you formed with him. I’ve seen the camaraderie you have with Tito and the others. The only way you could ever disappoint anyone is by denying your ability to love, by holding yourself apart.”
He staggered beneath the weight of need her words heaped on his heart. He didn’t want to hear, to believe it could be so easy and simple when all his life letting himself care only brought pain and heartache. He wanted to get away from her and her words. He wanted to…run away.
He hung his head in shame and regret. He had been running from love. Over and over again, whenever love came too close, he’d bolt because he couldn’t bear the thought of not measuring up. He saw that now.
Trouble was he didn’t know what to do about it.
Gwen watched the play of emotions etch themselves in Derek’s handsome features. Disbelief, horror, shame, acceptance and self-doubt. Her heart throbbed with empathy. Every word she’d said had been true and he was a strong enough man to handle it.
He could handle anything. That was how much faith and trust she had in him.
Beneath her palm his heart pounded erratically. Her own heart was flopping around in her chest trying to tell her something, but she kept her focus on Derek, on her need to heal him.
“Let the past go, Derek.”
He raised his moist gaze to her. Answering tears gathered in her eyes forming a lump in the back of her throat. She swallowed and forced herself to continue. “Forgive your father for not being the father you wanted and needed. Forgive yourself for letting fear control you. I’ve forgiven myself for the fear, and let me tell you, it’s liberating.”
He frowned, his gaze razor sharp. “You can’t compare what happened to you with my measly hang-ups.”
“If it’s keeping you from loving, then it’s exactly the same. You have to learn to give yourself a break.”
His face became a study of contemplation. She could see his mind weighing her words, turning them over for analysis. He was smart and she had no doubt he’d see the value of the truth she spoke.
“I’ll give it a shot,” he said, his voice betraying a hesitation to commit to the healing process.
She had to make him see that it would take more than just a halfhearted attempt. He had to go the distance. “But you have to start letting people in, otherwise the fear still wins. And that is one race you can’t afford to lose.”
He reached out and touched her braid, sending her senses reeling. The sight of his big, tanned hand holding her hair was a powerful draw and she fought the urge to bury herself in his embrace. Doing so would push him away.
“Who do you suggest I let in first, Gwennie?”
Her heart stalled and then galloped toward some distant finish line. She wanted to rein it in, to control the course she took, but she realized with a clarity that was beyond herself that she wanted Derek to let her in completely, desperately. And the reason flagged her down.
She loved him. With all her heart.
A shiver of anxiety washed over her. Loving and being loved were such unpredictable forces. What if he didn’t love her back? Could she take that?
Only one way to find out. She had to risk relinquishing control of her destiny to him. Let him decide if he’d let her in.
Or not.
She took a deep, steadying breath. “I…I hope you’ll let me in,” she managed to whisper.
His fingers tugged at the band holding her hair together. He might as well have been undoing the bands around her heart.
“Why?” His voice seemed to touch her.
He distracted her completely by taking the band off and running his fingers through her hair, undoing the tight braid.
“Gwennie?”
“Hmm?” She glanced up, falling into his intense gaze.
His green eyes were no longer moist, but shone with a determined, probing light. “Why do you want me to let you in?”
Words formed, but wouldn’t materialize. Old habits of holding back were hard to break. But her life, her heart hung in the balance. She would not fail to fight for what she wanted. What she needed.
“I love you,” she stated simply and prayed he felt the same.
What if he doesn’t? Will the risk be worth it?
Derek stilled, his fingers caught in the mass of red wavy hair now cascading over Gwen’s shoulder. He looked into her eyes and finally saw the light of forever in their amber depths.
“What if I disappoint you?” He whispered the question, hating that he couldn’t just give himself over to her love.
“If I have expectations that you don’t live up to, that’s my problem. I get to decide whether I allow myself to be disappointed.”
He took a shuddering breath. “I’m just no good at relationships.”
She grabbed his face, her palms making imprints on his jaw. “Only because you’ve been too worried about failing, about disappointing. Let that go. Concentrate, instead, on loving and being loved.”
He waited, expecting to feel panicked, trapped. Amazingly, a joyous burst of adrenaline coursed through him, pushing him on to race headlong into that light and embrace his future.
He pulled her to him, holding her as if she’d disappear.
He stroked her glorious hair and let the healing power of her love work its wonders on his soul. She was right that he couldn’t look to others for his self-worth. God gave him the choice to feel worthy or not. Her wisdom never ceased to astound him. And he loved that about her.
He loved her.
Throwing back his head with a freeing laugh, he picked her up and swung her around again. Her laughter filled his soul to bursting. He set her on her feet and captured her face in his hands.
“Gwennie. I love you, too. And I want forever with you.”
The smile of joy on her freckled face beamed as bright as the sun and warmed him to his very depths. A loud rushing filled his ears as he bent to claim her with his kiss.
Suddenly fresh river water swirled around their feet, getting deeper with each passing second. The water finally arrived. Tufts of grass sticking up through the dry dirt bent as if in appreciation of the flowing water. The village would be saved. But more than that, the water was washing away the past and bringing a purity to their future.
A future he’d never imagined.