Donovan's Child by Christine Rimmer

brought it up, I’ll have you know that I did ask Ben, that very first day. He told me that you fell several hundred feet down the side of a mountain, that both of your legs were badly damaged in the fall, each sustaining multiple fractures. He also said there was a possibility you might someday walk again.”
    â€œI can already walk.” He smiled in a very self-satisfied way. “Your mouth is hanging open.”
    She snapped it shut. “But if you can walk…?”
    â€œThe chair is much more efficient,” he explained. “And you have to understand that when I say I can walk, I mean with crutches. And also with considerable pain. Slowly, I’m improving. Very slowly.”
    â€œWell. That’s good, right? That’s excellent. What mountain was it, where?”
    â€œWhat difference does the mountain itself make?”
    â€œI would just like to know.”
    â€œWe do eventually need to work today.” He spoke in an infinitely weary tone.
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘we’? Last I checked, all the work was on me. What mountain?”
    He shook his golden head. “I can see it will take more energy to keep backing you off than to simply answer your unnecessary question.”
    â€œWhat mountain?”
    â€œIt’s called Dhaulagiri.” He pronounced it doll-a-gear-ee. “Dhaulagiri One. It’s in Nepal, in the Himalayas. The seventh highest peak in the world. It’s known as one of the world’s deadliest mountains. Of all who try to reach the summit, forty percent don’t come back. At least, not alive.”
    â€œSo of course, you had to try and climb it.”
    â€œIs that a criticism?”
    â€œNo. Just an observation. So what happened—I mean, after you fell?”
    â€œMy climbing partner managed to lower himself down to me. And then, with him dragging me and me hauling myself along with my hands as best I could, we ascended again, to a more stable spot. He dug the ice cave. I wasn’t much help with that. He dragged me in there. After that, he had to leave me to get help. That’s a big no-no, in the climbing community. You never leave your partner. But we both agreed it was the only way, that since both of my legs were out of commission, there was no possibility I could make it down with only him to help me. So he made the descent without me. I was fortunate in that the weather held and a successful helicopter rescue was accomplished—but only after I spent three days alone on the mountain.”
    â€œIn terrible pain,” she added, because he didn’t. “And is that it, then, those three horrific days? Are they whyyou say you won’t work again, why you’ve retreated from the world?”
    He studied her face for several very uncomfortable seconds, before he demanded, “What does it matter to you? What difference can it possibly make in your life, in the work that I’m perfectly willing to help you with, in the things I’m willing to teach you about the job I know you love?”
    â€œDonovan, I want to understand.”
    He watched her some more. A searching kind of look. And then he said, “No.”
    She didn’t get it. “No, you won’t tell me?”
    â€œNo, it wasn’t the three days in the ice cave—not essentially.”
    â€œSo you’re saying that was part of it, right?”
    â€œNo, that’s not what I said.”
    â€œBut if you—”
    He put up a hand. “Listen. Are you listening?”
    She pressed her lips together, nodded.
    â€œIf I’m a different man than I was a year ago…” He spoke slowly, as if to a not-very-bright child. “…it’s not about my injuries. It’s not about how I got them or how much they hurt. And it’s not about the endless series of surgeries that came after my rescue, not about adapting to life on wheels. Society may ascribe all kinds of negative values to my