The Marine's Return. Rula Sinara

trips much longer, not now that she was well into her eighth month of pregnancy. She’d have to plan to stay closer to the rustic clinic she manned near the outskirts of the Masai Mara.

      But that meant sacrificing patient care. There were children and other pregnant women in those more distant tribal villages who were counting on her. One was barely old enough to be called a woman.

      She refocused on the patient at hand. “This will be over as fast as a cheetah can run,” she promised.

      The little Masai boy clung to his mother and pressed his cheek against the numerous rows of orange, red and blue glass beads that adorned her chest.

      “I’ll need you to hold him still for a moment,” Lexi said to the boy’s mother. Between the few words of broken Swahili she’d learned over the past five months and many of the villagers understanding English, the clinics were running more smoothly than when she’d first moved here.

      Learning Maa was proving to be a little harder, but she was determined to at least understand the native Masai language before her baby became a toddler. She wanted her child to learn it, too...just as Tony would have wanted.

      Lexi planned to build a life on the Serengeti, and she wanted to embrace everything about the land, including the people, languages and culture.

      She swabbed and stuck the little boy’s arm. He wailed as all the others had...an aching sound that crushed her heart. Bless their hearts, she couldn’t blame them. They were too young to ignore the pain...too young to understand that she wanted to help them, not hurt them.

      She’d learned to tune out children crying during her nursing career, for the most part, but today it was wearing her down. Her head hurt. Her lower back and legs ached more than they had in months.

      She wasn’t complaining. Well, she wanted to, but she had no right to. This had been her idea. Her call. She had made the decision to drop everything, quit her position as a hospital RN in the US and move to Africa, pregnant and alone.

      She glanced up and waved at the little boy as he and his mother left the clinic grounds. The child clung to his mother’s hand and disappeared with her down the stone-lined dirt path and around a copse of wild fig trees.

      Here she was, in the middle of this vast, mesmerizing wilderness...but not far enough away to forget. Everything back in their apartment in America had reminded her of the way Tony must have suffered. The burn scars that had rendered him unrecognizable to anyone but her had haunted her. They still did.

      He’d been a dedicated military doctor. They’d met less than a year prior to getting married, though they’d tried to stay in touch as much as possible during his tours in Afghanistan. They had talked every chance they could, despite the time difference. They’d been married only three weeks before he had returned to duty. His last tour. Technology had its advantages, but it couldn’t bring back the dead.

      Sometimes she wondered if the fact that there had been a screen between them during much of their relationship had helped them to open up to each other more quickly. She’d never spoken as honestly about her past as she had to Tony. He’d known her parents had gone to prison on charges of fraud and embezzlement. Something no one else knew.

      Her parents had been takers. Greedy in a way Lexi had sworn she’d never be. She was only nine years old when they were imprisoned. But it wasn’t until almost a year later, after being shuffled from one foster home to another, that she’d realized she would never live with her parents again. There had been no other relatives to take her in. She’d never forget her tenth birthday. That night, she had gone outside long after everyone in the house was in bed, sat in the cool grass and wished desperately on a star for a permanent family. One made up of good, loving people who cared about others. Givers.

      But instead of getting her wish, her foster mother found her curled up in the dewy grass that morning and yelled at her for unlocking the door and wandering outside after midnight. The concern hadn’t been for her safety. She’d supposedly put the house at risk of getting robbed. That day had hardened her...made her a survivor. Relying on hopes, dreams and wishes wasn’t enough. She had to rely on herself.

      And if the other children—fosters and non-fosters—she’d spent time with during her patchwork tween and teen years hadn’t been strong enough to rely on themselves, she’d taken care of them, too. That had led her to nursing school and, later, to Tony.

      They’d met at the hospital during one of his short leaves in the States. He had been visiting a young woman—a medic—who’d been wounded while en route to the field hospital where he was stationed. Lexi had felt an instant connection with Tony. So immediate, it had scared her at first.

      She hadn’t been able to stop herself from loving him. He had been just as open with her as she had been with him. He’d been an only child, too, except he’d had good parents. He’d been raised in Kenya and had grown up with his best friend who’d been like a brother to him. A brother who hadn’t been able to make it to her and Tony’s wedding because of his deployment. But Tony had promised he’d introduce her to him someday.

      He’d also promised she would never be alone again.

      Ever.

      The last time they’d been together had been the final day of his leave, only three weeks into their marriage. He’d proposed as soon as he had returned home from duty and they were married that week. In retrospect, she wondered if he’d somehow sensed he might not make it back and it had been his way of ensuring that he kept his promise in one form or another. They had married, honeymooned locally...then he’d had to return to duty. And then their life together ended. Just like that. He’d been gone less than two weeks when he was injured.

      She’d rushed to be by his side but he’d been in a medically induced coma. One he never awoke from.

      His death had felt like the sharp edge of a knife twisting and carving its way through her chest. She’d lost everything that day. She’d thought she had nothing left to lose...until she’d discovered she was pregnant on the day of his funeral.

      Lexi’s eyes burned from the memory. She blinked and sniffed to stop any tears from falling, then focused on clearing her clinic supplies. She needed to keep her head. Tony had never been comfortable around emotional outbursts or signs of weakness. She needed to stay strong for him...for his baby.

      This had been Tony’s dream—to complete his service as a marine medic then return to his father’s native Kenya to set up a clinic and provide medical care to tribal villages that were in dire need. After he’d told her about visiting his grandmother at a Masai village, Lexi had understood his vision. She’d assured him she’d wanted to be part of it and they’d had their future here all planned out. Living in Kenya would be a fresh start for her...a way to leave the past behind and build a future with family.

      They were supposed to be here, in Kenya’s wild west, working side by side. And even though Tony had died, there was no way she could let that dream die. Being here honored him. Being here was the only way she knew how to stay strong. And for all the broken promises she’d suffered in her life, she would never break the one she’d whispered to him moments before he was gone—that she would find a way to fulfill their dream to bring medical care to the Masai and other tribes. She’d do it for him. She’d do it for the only family she’d ever had.

      She picked up a small box of supplies off the table and headed for the storage room built against the side of their bungalow. They always had the exam tent on the other side of the clinic camp stocked, but there wasn’t enough room there to store all their supplies.

      “I finished the inventory,” her assistant, Jacey, said, knotting her long dark hair at the nape of her neck. “We need more alcohol wipes and gauze bandages. Everything else is good for now. I don’t know where all these supplies went, though. I could have sworn we had more, but I guess between all the clinics we held this week and yesterday’s trip, we used more than anticipated. I’ll restock in here first thing in the morning.”

      Lexi was lucky to have Jacey, who had been working as a tech assistant out here at