Read Online Giselle's Choice by Penny Jordan - Free Book Online Page B

simply collapsed and fallen onto the town, covering over a third of it with earth and rocks.
    â€˜What happened?’ Giselle asked Saul, appalled.
    â€˜A landslide brought on by unchecked and unsafemining, allied to heavy rainfall.’ He paused and then told her quietly, ‘The area’s only other source of income came from logging. The landslide buried the logging mill and many of those who worked in it, as well as destroying houses that were in the same area. In all, nearly a third of the population lost their lives. Many of those who survived have lost their homes and close family members. They have lost hope as well. Hope and belief—in themselves and in their country. You and I working together could give them back those things, Giselle, as we have done for other people in other crisis and disaster situations.’
    Giselle swallowed hard.
    â€˜We can head back now, if you wish,’ Saul offered.
    Giselle hesitated. She knew that if she saw those people, so much in need, she would not be able to turn her back on them—and she knew that Saul knew it too.
    â€˜No. It’s too late to turn back now,’ Giselle told him.
    Giselle was no stranger to disaster areas, or to people in need, but to see so many children, some of them dressed in clothes that were almost rags, all of them looking pinched and hungry as they stared at them in silence, tore at her heart and her conscience. If she had not known that they could do something to help, their presence here would have been an affront, an insult to their plight, Giselle acknowledged. The Mayor of the town, hastily summoned once Saul had introduced himself, kept bowing low to him. His words in the local language might be alien to Giselle, but their meaningand his fear and shame at what had happened to his town and its people were painfully obvious.
    Watching Saul speak to him in his own language and then raise him up from his kneeling position increased Giselle’s pity for him.
    â€˜I have told him that what happened was not his fault, and that we are here to help, not to blame,’ Saul translated for Giselle. ‘The problem for the town has been that it is too remote for them to be able to bring in the supplies needed to rebuild, even if they could afford them. The mine paid such low wages that the people could barely subsist, even though they had promised to pay those who worked for them very well.’
    â€˜We can bring in the materials needed to rebuild.’ Giselle told him truthfully. ‘We’ve done it often enough before. We’d need to find a safe place to build first, though. They’ll need homes and schools, a hospital—all those things and more. And they should be built somewhere out of sight of the landslip, so that the people won’t have to look out and watch whilst the mess is cleared up. They’ll know after all that their lost loved ones are under all that rubble.’
    Saul listened to the passion in Giselle’s voice, his heart lifting. He had known that Giselle— his Giselle—wouldn’t be able to resist the challenge there was here. After all he had seen so often already how she reacted to the plight of the helpless, especially when those who were helpless and in need were children.
    Giselle found it far more easy to behave naturally amongst children than he did himself. He was always too conscious of the angry and resentful child he himselfhad once been, seeing his mother give the love he had craved to the orphaned children she’d dealt with in her work, to feel totally relaxed.
    Selfishly, perhaps, once he had found love with Giselle his decision never to have children had hardened—because he didn’t want ever to have to share her love with anyone else. At some stage, but hopefully not for some time yet, they would, Saul suspected, come under pressure from the old guard of the country to produce an heir. When that happened it would be an issue they would