Читать книгу About the Baby - Tracy Wolff, Tracy Wolff - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

IFSOMEONEHADASKEDHER if she’d ever planned on kissing Lucas, she would have told them—quite truthfully—that she never had. If that same person had asked her if she’d ever thought about kissing him, she would have lied like a rug and told them the same thing. But nothing she had ever thought about in passing, nothing she had ever imagined, could have prepared her for the jolt that went through her as Lucas brushed her lips with his.

It was a quick kiss, just a passing press of his lips to hers, really, but as he pulled away, he looked as stunned as she felt. Then she was reaching for him, her fingers tangling in the silky, cool strands of his hair as she pulled his face to hers. If they were going to do this, then she wanted a real kiss from Lucas. Even more, she wanted the real Lucas, not the one he usually showed to the women he dated.

It only took a moment before his lips opened against hers, moving in a gentle sucking motion that had her trembling and her hands grasping at his shoulders for support. He laughed a little and wrapped an arm around her waist to ground her. But as his tongue darted out to lick gently at the corners of her mouth, she acknowledged that it was going to take a lot more than a supporting arm to keep her steady.

But, as she pressed her body against his, she realized she wasn’t the only one trembling. Lucas was as shaky as she was. Somehow, that realization made what they were doing so much more real—and so much more delicious.

He sucked her lower lip between his teeth and her mouth opened on a gasp. It was the invitation he was waiting for, his tongue darting inside her mouth to tease and tangle with her own.

There was a strange ringing in her ears, one she tried to ignore as she lost herself in Lucas. It was probably her subconscious’s way of telling her that this whole thing was a really bad idea. But she ignored it—or at least, she tried to. All of this was overwhelming enough without facing the consequences of her actions at the same moment she was acting. Besides, for these few minutes when she was in Lucas’s arms, she wanted to forget what she was doing out here. Forget all the pain and ugliness and devastation she’d seen, and all that was to come because she wasn’t strong enough to find a way past the bureaucracy.

She wanted to lose herself in Lucas, to immerse herself in the desire whipping between them. He must have felt the same way, because his arms tightened around her, pulling her up to her knees so that their bodies were flush against each other, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. It was his turn to delve his hands into her hair, to pull on her curls until her head tilted at an angle satisfactory to him.

It alternately felt like they had been kissing for seconds, then hours. Long, luxurious kisses that made her lips burn and her head whirl. It felt good to kneel here, lost in the desire pumping through her body. She’d felt dead inside for so long, had deliberately tamped down on her emotions so that she wouldn’t feel the pain of what she did on a daily basis. It felt amazing to say to hell with it. To toss her inhibitions and worries and anguish to the wind and just feel.

But Lucas broke the kisses off abruptly, pulling back and staring at her. She whimpered, tried to cling to him and he cursed even as he fumbled for her purse. “Your phone’s ringing,” he told her breathlessly as he handed it to her.

She felt pretty breathless herself, and also pretty stupid, as she realized the bells she’d been hearing hadn’t been coming from inside her at all.

“Whoever it is has called three or four times,” Lucas told her, his voice a few shades deeper than normal. “It must be important.”

She checked the call log. Her heart sank as she saw that her worst fear was true—her boss’s private number. Already? she wanted to scream. Couldn’t she have just one day, one night, to herself before they came for her? Before she had to hurry down and try to contain an epidemic when they refused to give her the tools—and the time—that she needed?

She gestured to call him back, but the hand holding the phone was shaking so badly that she couldn’t even punch the call button. Seeing her dilemma, Lucas wrapped his own hand under hers, held her steady. “It’s okay, Kara,” he murmured to her, his thumb stroking across the back of her hand. His touch soothed her like nothing else could.

Her boss picked up on the first ring, grim and to the point. He didn’t even say hello, simply, “They have an outbreak of Ebola in Eritrea.”

“Ebola?” she asked, a little stunned. Beside her, Lucas stiffened, made a sound of protest, but she turned her head, focused on the tree right in front of her. She couldn’t afford to let him distract her right now. Until she made a decision one way or the other, this was her job—whether she liked it or not.

“How long since the outbreak started?”

“Three weeks.”

“Three weeks? And it hasn’t burned itself out? Did it start in a major city?” Ebola was a disease that sounded, and looked, incredibly frightening, but it wasn’t something that usually created long-term epidemics. It was an awful way to die, but it was fast and it wasn’t airborne—it could only spread through contact with bodily fluids. Which usually made it pretty easy to contain. Plus, with a high mortality rate, it usually died out—once its hosts died out—pretty quickly.

“They don’t know where it started—figuring that out is your job. But right now it’s in every major southern city—Om Hajer, T’io, Assab, Os Mara. It might be in the northern cities, as well, but we just don’t know that yet.”

“A couple of those cities are awfully close to the Sudanese and Ethiopian borders.”

“That’s what we’re afraid of.”

“Has it spread?”

“Based on the information we’ve been given, we don’t think so. I’ve reached out to health organizations working in both countries and am waiting to hear back. But my gut tells me if it hasn’t already jumped the borders, it’s going to soon.”

“But how is that possible? You can’t get Ebola from sitting next to someone on the bus, and those who have it get sick so quickly that they don’t have much chance to travel.”

“I am well aware of that, Kara.”

“I know, Paul. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this. Are they sure it’s Ebola? And why weren’t we contacted before this? If it’s been going on three weeks, that’s a lot of deaths. Did they call in the World Health Organization instead?”

“WHO got the call at the same time we did.”

“Why did they wait?”

“The Eritrean government isn’t known for its willingness to allow outsiders in. They don’t want anyone to witness what goes on inside the borders.”

She knew that. But this was a disease that could kill a lot of people if it was already in the major cities. How could that not have mattered to them? Then again, it was just more of the same political bullshit she’d been struggling with for months now.

Frustrated, angry, she blew out a steady stream of air. No matter how long she was in this business, she would never understand how a government could stand by and watch its people die, simply to protect itself. The whole thing was anathema to her.

Her mind racing, she repeated her first question. “Are they sure it’s Ebola?”

“Frankly, I don’t think they know what the hell it is. They say it’s Ebola and it has all the markers of the disease, but the growing infection rate doesn’t make sense. And their labs aren’t our labs. I won’t be happy until we have a team in the field.”

“Is this thing airborne?”

“They say no. Again—”

“I know, I know. You want a team there. When?”

“Three weeks ago.”

She laughed, though the sound had no humor in it. “Right.”

“I’m putting together a meeting for two o’clock tomorrow afternoon—I guess that would be this afternoon, since it’s past midnight. I’ve scheduled a flight out at eight o’clock. You’ll head up the team.”

It wasn’t a question, but she said “yes,” anyway. There was no doubt she’d be on that airplane. From the second she’d seen his name on her caller ID, she’d known it would lead straight to this. Some mutation of Ebola? Hemorrhagic viruses were her specialty. Morbid as it sounded, she’d been waiting her whole career for something like this to happen.

“What time can you be here?”

“I’m out right now. I need to get home, repack.” God, had she even gotten the last of her laundry done? “Catch a few hours’ sleep if I’m going to be alert in the meeting. And I’m going to need to refill my field kit.”

“I know. I’ll have everything ready and waiting for you.”

“Please. I’m a mess, totally jet lagged and nowhere close to organized. If you organize it then I go over it, there’s less chance I’ll miss something.”

“So what time?” he asked again.

She turned around, grabbed Lucas’s wrist to look at his watch. It was one-thirty. “If everything goes okay, I can be there by ten.”

“Good. I want you up to speed before the rest of the team gets here.”

Panic had her heart racing and her breath quickening but she refused to give in to it. She didn’t have a choice—she had to keep it together. Lucas must have heard something in her breathing, though, because this time he reached for her free hand, threading his fingers through hers and squeezing tightly.

It wasn’t much, wasn’t a huge gesture of comfort, but it was enough to cut through the fear and get her focusing on what needed to be done.

“You know you can’t send my team back out. We just got home from a two-month deployment. Davis’s wife is having a baby in three weeks and Anna’s mom is in the middle of chemotherapy—”

“We’ve called in Team Four to go with you.”

Shock ricocheted through her. “That’s Mike’s team.”

“Is that a problem?” Her boss’s voice tightened up.

“It might be for Mike—and the rest of his team. They aren’t going to want to report to me.” Especially since she and Mike had a very bad, very public breakup three months before.

“Mike knows you’re the best choice for this job, Steward.”

“Yes, but—” Her protests died in her throat. She was the best choice for this outbreak—or at least she would be if she could get her head on straight. And yes, Mike and his team probably knew it. That didn’t mean there wasn’t going to be some hostility on their part. She and Mike ran things differently and team loyalty and cohesion was a big factor in cases like these.

Still, it was past time to put on her big-girl panties and deal. Mike’s team would just have to do the same.

“I want Julian,” she said, naming the CDC’s top field doctor in infectious bleeding diseases.

“He’s flying in from Haiti. He might actually beat you to Eritrea.”

“Good. I also want Frieda and Van.” They, too, were the cream of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Officer crop.

“I’ll get them for you. Any other requests?”

“Sam and Violet.” She named her two favorite microbiologists.

“Violet’s in Alaska, but Sam’s available.”

“He’ll have to do, then.”

“On the plus side, you’ll be meeting up with Pierre La Font’s team from WHO.”

Kara pursed her lips in a silent whistle, wondered what it was Paul wasn’t telling her. It wasn’t coincidence that they were bringing in the heaviest hitters in the industry for this job—herself included.

“You’re going to have to coordinate with him, Steward, so make sure not to step on too many of his toes, okay?”

“I’m not the one who has trouble playing nice in the sandbox. You know that and I know that. My counterpart at the WHO has a different outlook on the matter.”

“Of course he does.”

Even as they joked, the panic coalesced in her stomach, turning into a deep and churning sickness. Five years ago she would have leaped at the chance for this assignment. Hell, she probably would have been vibrating with excitement over it even two years ago. But right now it seemed a lot more like a punishment than a reward, a lot more like she was heading into hell rather than being given the prime assignment of her career.

If this thing was a mutated Ebola, changing its infection patterns, then this was it. This was her smallpox. Her hepatitis. Her AIDS. This was the case epidemiologists waited their whole career for and few ever got the chance to see.

So why did she feel like throwing up? She wasn’t afraid. She knew how to be careful, how to protect herself. But just the idea of going into Eritrea, of dealing with all the problems there—caused by this disease as well as centuries of war, famine and neglect—made her sick. She didn’t want to hurt anymore. Didn’t want to get knee-deep into this thing only to be pulled out before she could help, really help.

She knew she didn’t have it in her to walk away in the middle of this thing. Not again. Knowing she could help but being unable to do so would crush her completely.

Beside her Lucas stiffened, aware of her distress. Somehow it only made things worse. It was bad enough to admit to yourself you were a coward, but to have your best friend know made it different, somehow. Worse.

“You still there, Kara?”

The fact that her boss had called her by her first name told her that, not only was Lucas aware she was a basket case, Paul had a pretty good clue, as well. There wasn’t much softness in Paul, so if even he was questioning her mental health…

“Yeah, I’m here, Paul.”

There was another pause, this time on his side. “You okay to go, Kara?”

The sudden doubt in his voice had her straightening her spine and toughening up her own voice. She wasn’t even close to being okay, but it wasn’t as though she had a choice. Not if she wanted to be able to look herself in the mirror tomorrow. Those people needed help.

“I’m perfectly fine and definitely ready to go.”

Lucas let go of her hand, made a sound of disgust deep in his throat. She glanced over at him and caught the disapproving look on his face before he could banish it. It made her panic worse, but she refused to let herself be swayed by it.

With Lucas looking on like that, she knew there was no way she’d be able to finish her discussion with her boss. She turned her back on him and walked a few steps away.

“I’ve got this,” she continued, forcing steel into a reassurance that she was far from feeling. “But you have to promise me that barring a full-on revolution, you’re not going to pull me out in the middle of this.”

“Steward—”

“No, Paul. I mean it.” She put it in terms she knew he would understand. “This is the case I’ve been waiting my whole career for. You can’t put me down in the middle of it and then pull me out when it’s convenient for you. I can’t work like that. I won’t work like that.”

“You’ll work how I tell you to work!” he snapped, but then his voice softened. “Look, I know what happened in Somalia was bullshit, but you have to get past it. Eritrea is a whole different game.”

She wanted to laugh, but nothing was funny. Eritrea and Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, they were all the same game. All different sides of the same dice. And the Western world had spent the better part of two centuries rolling that dice just to see what number would come up. She was a fool to think this would be any different, but she had to. She had to believe it or there was no way she’d be able to get on that airplane.

Her prolonged silence must have made Paul nervous, because his voice was hesitant when he asked, “Steward? Are you still there? I didn’t lose you, did I?”

For long seconds she considered not answering, just letting the call drift away. But then where would she be? Where would any of them be?

“I’m still here.”

“Good. Okay, then, I’ll see you at ten. In the meantime, I’m going to put pressure on the Eritrean government to give me all the stats and info they have.”

“Which won’t be much.”

“No. But I’ll try to have a decent report together for you by the time you take off.”

“Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you. And Steward…”

She braced herself for words of comfort she didn’t know if she could handle hearing. “Yes?”

“Don’t screw up out there.”

She laughed. She should have known better than to think Paul had gotten in touch with his softer side.

“I’ll do my best.”

She hung up the phone and dropped it back into her bag. Then just stood for a minute gazing out into the night.

She wasn’t ready to look at Lucas. She didn’t know if it was because of that strange, magical kiss they’d shared minutes before or whether it was because he could so easily see through her. She’d thought she’d shored up her defenses pretty well before seeing him, but in one evening he’d shattered them and had her blubbering like a baby. She was afraid if she turned to face him now it would be an instant replay, and she couldn’t take that. She’d already cried all over him like some kind of high-maintenance whiner. Doing it twice in one evening was just a bad idea.

Besides, if she faced him, she’d have to think of something to say and right now her mind was blank.

Lucas didn’t seem to be suffering from the same affliction, though. “Ebola?” he asked. “A mutant strain of Ebola?”

“Maybe. We don’t know yet. I probably shouldn’t have had that conversation in front of you.”

“Yeah, because I’m going to go blabbing to the whole medical community about this.” He clasped her elbow, and when she still didn’t face him, he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her until there was no place else for her to look but into his eyes.

“You really think you’re in shape to do this kind of thing?” he demanded. “This isn’t a simple assignment, Kara. If you take it, you’re in it for the long-term and you know it.”

“It’s not a choice, Lucas. I’m the one Paul assigned. I have to go.”

Lucas cursed then, something low and vile and violent. “You know that’s not true. You can beg off if you want to. You just got back, for God’s sake. You need time to rest, to get your head back in the game. Hell, you were just talking about leaving the CDC.”

“Yes, talking about it. I hadn’t decided yet—and I still haven’t. Until I do, I follow Paul’s orders. Anyway, my head is already in the game, thank you very much. I can do this. I have to do this, and you telling me I’m not up for it only undermines me.”

“You know I think you’re brilliant. That’s not the point—”

“It is exactly the point,” she snapped. Then relented with a sigh. “Please, let’s not do this. Is flying out barely forty-eight hours after I got back an ideal situation? Not at all. I know it. Paul knows it. And it actually goes against protocol. But emergencies happen and this is what I do. I’m the best suited to go. And none of us wants to be sitting here in six months, looking at a worldwide Ebola epidemic because the CDC didn’t send in the right people.”

She bent down, picked up her shoes. “Now, if you could take me home, I would greatly appreciate it.”

For long seconds Lucas didn’t answer and she was just beginning to wonder if she was going to have to catch a cab when he said, “Come on. Let’s go.”

He started toward the exit without waiting for her—which was a totally un-Lucas thing to do. It illustrated just how angry and frustrated he was with her. Which bothered her, but it wasn’t like there was anything she could do about it. Frankly, she had other, more pressing things to worry about.

They walked back up the hill without ever finding the swings, and the trip up the large grassy knoll was a lot less fun than the one down had been. Especially with Lucas grim faced and angry beside her. She wanted to call him on it. To ask him why he was getting himself so worked up. But that strange and powerful kiss had made her shy with him, had turned the easy camaraderie they’d always shared into something stiff and awkward.

As they walked, Kara waited for him to say something to break the silence. But he didn’t say a word. Not as they hiked the hill, not as they climbed the fence—though this time he gave her a boost—and not as they walked down the nearly empty streets of downtown.

It was sixty degrees out and she was still wearing his jacket, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this cold.

By the time Lucas paid the valet and held the car door open for her—all without saying a word—she was fuming. And more hurt than she wanted to admit.

This was why she never opened herself up to people, she seethed. Why she never let them in. Because the first time you did, the first time you started to take for granted the fact that they would always be there for you, you did something they didn’t like and they pulled away. Locked you out.

It had happened her entire life. When her mom would get angry she would shut down, withholding her affection until Kara fell into line. And after her mom died and she’d been forced to return to her dad’s house during college vacations, she’d learned that her father’s love was only as deep as her latest accomplishment. Why she’d expected better from Lucas, she didn’t know.

Because he was her friend, a voice whispered in the back of her head. Because he’d always been there for her. But now, the second she’d broken the unwritten rules that governed their relationship—she’d kissed him and cried all over him in one night—he was pulling back. Getting angry the moment she had the nerve to do something he didn’t like.

The worst part was that it hurt. A lot. Because she hadn’t been expecting it. Because she’d broken her own rules over the years and had learned to trust Lucas implicitly. And yet here she was, here they were, right back where a part of her had always known they’d end up.

Once in front of her house, she barely waited for him to stop the car before she was opening the door and lunging for her front porch. “Thanks,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll…call you when I get back.”

She just needed to get inside. If she made it inside her front door without letting him see how hurt she was, everything would be fine. She had a lot to do and very little time to do it in. Once he was gone, she wouldn’t even have time to think about him.

But she’d barely opened the door when he caught up with her. “What the hell is this?”

Her anger got the better of her. “Oh, so you do talk,” she said snidely.

His teeth ground together, his eyes shooting sparks of rage straight through her. She gave as good as she got, then muttered through her own clenched jaw, “I think it’s time for you to go.”

“Yeah, because that’s really going to happen.”

“Lucas—”

“Don’t start, Kara. I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to talk about this. And if you still decide to go, you’ll need a ride to the CDC.”

“Still decide to go? I am going, and I can get myself to work just fine, thank you. I’ve been doing it for the last ten years of my life without any problems.”

“Damn it, Kara. You don’t always have to be so independent. Can’t you see that I’m worried about you?”

Of course he was. St. Lucas, worried about everyone. She hurt a little inside hearing the words. Not because she was upset that he cared, but because everything had changed between them in the space of one evening.

She never should have cried. For seventeen years their friendship had been based on the fact that she didn’t need him. Lucas didn’t mind being needed—by his mother, his sister, his girlfriends, his patients. He thrived on it, really. But at the same time, her independence helped him put distance between himself and the demanding women in his life.

There’d never been any need for distance between Kara and Lucas—at least not before tonight. And she was smart enough to know that it wasn’t the kiss—it was what had come before it. Now, here he was, feeling like he had a right to tell her what to do. Somehow she’d become just another woman who needed him to save her.

“Look,” she finally told him as she stepped into the house. “I appreciate your concern, but I don’t need it.”

He followed her in. “You’re not thinking clearly—”

She whirled on him, got in his face. “Don’t tell me how I’m thinking. I was upset earlier. That doesn’t make me less competent. I don’t need you to save me, Lucas.”

“Is that what you think I want to do? Save you?”

“It sure looks that way to me.”

“Well, then, you don’t know a damn thing, do you?”