Half an hour later they found themselves standing in the middle of a footbridge of rope and wood, suspended over a gorge. A stream ran far below them; they stood suspended in the sky. “Can you hear that?” Lara asked, tipping her head as if her ears were sniffing the faint scent of sound in the air, beyond the delicious sweetness of the stream rushing over the rocks below them and the fragrance of the birdsong from the trees on either side of the rope bridge. “Church bells,” Jones told her. “On Sundays the people up here in the mountains hold services morning and evening—and think going to a doctor on the Sabbath is a sin.” “I want to tell you something . . . and ask you something.” “Shoot.” “In the week I’ve been here, every day’s been happier than the last. The operating room we’re putting together for Mavis’s daughter? I want to make it permanent. Okay?” “Okay. Did you think I might say no?” “That wasn’t what I wanted to ask you.” “I can’t operate on you.”
