Page 28 of Her Tempting Protector

“Jesus. I don’t know what I would have done except hold him and cried right along with him,” Cullen admitted.

“I wanted to do just that, but I was in the middle of a never-ending assembly line. There’d been a camp psychologist, a good woman from France, but she was in over her head, I think we all were. Just too many refugees, not enough space or resources, and no solutions. When I found him again, they were taking his father away to be buried. He had no hope, and neither did I at that point. I gave his mom everything I owned before I left to go Stateside. Marie-Clair, the psychologist, told me that the boy and his mother finally made it out of the camp. She’s given me a couple of updates. But there were so many others. I just lost it, Cullen.”

“So how did you get here?”

“One of my med-school friends was a surgeon in Khartoum. She had recommended me to the new prime minister to help put together a coalition with the Sudanese and international communities. After being under a dictatorship for so long, they needed a jumpstart. Prime Minister Hamdok is a very convincing man and he desperately wants a better life for his people. I figured this would be more of a coordination role and I could cope.”

“But then everything piled up and you ended up here with nightmares, right?”

She nodded, her cheek sliding against the muscles of Cullen’s chest. He trailed his hand down the thin shirt covering her back.

“I’m surprised the Santa Flores incident came up. That was almost four years ago, I should be past that.”

Her head jerked up in surprise when he snorted.

“What?”

“If one of my sisters told me that she was almost raped and killed, but she’d put it behind her, I’d have her committed.”

How can a tone be both rough and caring?

He tilted her chin up and she saw his crooked smile. “Come on Carys, you’re a smart woman, you know better than that,” he gently admonished.

“It’s been over a year since I had that nightmare. I thought I was finally over it. I honestly did.”

“And how did you manage that? Therapy?”

She couldn’t keep his gaze.

“Was there someone else you talked to? A parent? A sibling?”

She shook her head, looking at the red clay beneath her shoes.

“A lover?”

She let out a long sigh, “No one.”