The Secret Path by Karen Swan (summer beach reads TXT) 📕

mainly single-storey, some topped with sheets of corrugated metal. They passed the elementary school, beside it a large unmanicured, unmarked playing field, a group of boys playing football, their rucksacks in a forgotten heap.

The treelines started to became more dense as they rolled further on, the road no longer tarmacked as they headed for the hills. They stopped at lights again and she swept her gaze over the only house on the opposite corner. It was largely hidden behind a concrete-panelled wall which had been defaced with graffiti and it was several moments before her gaze focused to read what it said in Spanish: Foreigners out! Costa Rica for Costa Ricans!

The meaning was clear. She immediately looked at Jed and one glance at his terse expression told her he had already seen it, that he had hoped she wouldn’t. He had wanted that light to be green and not red. He had wanted to shoot through it before she could read it.

The lights changed and Jed pulled away. She glanced back at the house, just in time to see around the concrete wall and into the yard. A man in jeans and a hat was reaching into a pick-up and he happened to look up as they passed. His eyes locked with Tara’s. In the next instant, they had driven past and he was gone again but something in the way he had looked at her, the way his body had tensed as he had seen who she was . . .

‘Who was that?’ she asked quietly, knowing Jed had seen the interaction.

There was a short pause. ‘One of Miguel D’Arrosto’s men.’

‘And who’s he?’

‘Just a cattle rancher who doesn’t like being told no.’

Tara hesitated. ‘. . . Same rancher whose men almost ran us off the road last night?’ she asked, lowering her voice.

Jed glanced at her. ‘Don’t worry. He’s all talk.’

Tara wasn’t sure that was true. That truck bearing down upon them at speed, threatening to tail-end them at eighty miles an hour, hadn’t felt like ‘talk’. It had been action. Open threat.

She automatically rubbed her temples, knowing it made no difference to her headache, knowing this wasn’t the time to discuss it – her friends were in the seats behind, their young child sitting between them; and besides, they had arrived at their first destination. She gave a small gasp as they pulled into the parking lot of the clinic she had only ever seen on a computer screen – her ‘baby’, loved from afar, it had been the first of her award-winning international mother and child clinics, and unlike real babies, she definitely had favourites. This would always be the one she loved most.

Seeing it in three dimensions was surprisingly emotional and immediately she sensed the energy about the place. It was so much bigger than she had imagined, for one thing. It wasn’t an object of beauty – a bright white concrete hulk, single-storey, with lots of windows, a red medical cross sign hanging above the door, the universal language for medical help. But a couple of young mothers were sitting on a bench, one breastfeeding a baby while toddlers played with a hoop around them.

They parked up, and Jed and Dev went round to the back to start lifting out the boxes of supplies she had brought over from England. It was a stocking-up of basic kit – syringes, sterilizing solution, dressings, antibiotics, saline, blood pressure monitors – but she’d also managed to get her hands on some Doppler ultrasound scanners.

‘Pretty decent,’ Holly nodded casually at the clinic. It was hard to impress her friend.

They walked into the air-conditioned cool. For all the bucolic calm outside, inside there were people everywhere – doctors in white coats moving officiously, nurses running between rooms, parents and children and babies sitting on plastic stackable chairs. The noise level was high – babies crying, toddlers shrieking, but also the hum of conversation too, the punctuation of laughs as mothers talked among themselves as they waited to be seen.

Tara looked around with a critical eye. In spite of the seeming chaos, there seemed to be a patient registration system in place and everything looked clean, from what she could see. The antiseptic smell was reassuring.

‘Ah, home sweet home,’ Holly quipped. ‘I can feel my cortisol levels rising already.’

‘Shuddup,’ Tara grinned. ‘This won’t take long.’

She saw the reception desk and walked over. A young woman looked up and smiled at her, asking her something in Spanish.

Tara replied in kind, saying she was looking for Dr Morales, and the receptionist pointed towards an office in the far corner. ‘Gracias.’

‘You speak Spanish?’ Holly asked her as they walked across to it. Now she was impressed.

‘Just enough to get by.’

She knocked on the door and leaned forward, waiting for a voice to tell her to enter. Instead, the door swung open and she found herself almost at eye level with an enormous bosom.

There was a moment of mutual surprise, and then the owner of the bosom gave a huge smile. ‘Dr Tara? You are finally here?’

‘In the flesh. How are you, Yorleny?’

She was swept into a hug by way of reply and it was like hugging pillows, everything soft and warm.

‘It is good to see you,’ the woman said. ‘We have waited a long time for this moment.’

‘I’ve waited a long time to get back here. I’ve missed this beautiful country.’ Tara stepped back to introduce the others. ‘These are my friends, Holly and Dev Motha. They are doctors too. And their little boy, Jimmy.’

‘Welcome, welcome,’ Yorleny said in English, greeting them all with double-hand clasps, including a cheek-chuck for Jimmy. She lifted her head and called out in Spanish: ‘Hey, everybody – this is Dr Tremain, our clinic’s founder and benefactor.’

Tara’s face burned as suddenly all faces turned towards her – doctors, nurses, patients – and people began clapping.

‘Oh God, you really didn’t have to do that,’ Tara said, mortified, under her breath and smiling back politely. She could hear Holly laughing beside her as a train of people