by Tawna Fenske
That came out dorkier than I meant it to, and I probably sound like a prep school snob.
But Blanka smiles, and damned if those blue eyes don’t send waves of happy heat sloshing through my chest.
Focus.
I glance back at Isabella. She’s tracking the conversation in a listless sort of way with glazed eyes. Is it my imagination, or is there an odd yellowish tint around the whites?
She catches me looking at her and takes another sip of water. “Fascinating.”
The word comes out forced, and I don’t know if she’s talking about the seltzer or the conversation. Either way, I’m thinking we should keep going a little longer.
“Ever wondered why fingers have fingertips, but toes don’t have toe tips?” I throw out. “But ‘tiptoe’ is a verb, while ‘tipfinger’ isn’t?”
Laughing, Blanka shakes her head. “Don’t get me started. Take the word shit.”
“Take it where?”
“No, I mean think of all the meanings—‘you ain’t shit’ is an insult,” she says, warming to the topic. “But ‘you are not shit’ is a reassurance.”
“And ‘you’re the shit,’ is a compliment,” I add. “That is weird.” I glance at Izzy, who looks more than a little baked. But her eyes are ping-ponging between us, doing a decent job of following along. Maybe we should keep going.
“Have you ever wondered why it’s called ‘tuna fish,’” I ask, “but no one ever says ‘chicken bird’?”
“Or ‘pork pig,’” Blanka says. “That is weird.”
“Porky Pig?” Izzy looks from Blanka to me, eyes glazed. “I’m sorry, I have no idea what we’re talking about.”
Fuck. This isn’t good. We really need a medical opinion. I’ve got basic first aid training, but that won’t get us far. I wish my mother were here. She’s a retired nurse, and she’d know what to do.
But even my untrained eye can see my sister’s taking a turn for the worse.
Wait. “Is the expression ‘turn for the worse’ or ‘turn for the worst’?” I look from Blanka to Izzy, genuinely unsure.
Probably a good indication I shouldn’t be the one assessing anyone’s mental health, but Blanka rallies anyway.
“Worse is a comparative word, just like better,” she offers. “The expression is ‘take a turn for the worse,’ though it’s far simpler to say ‘worsen.’”
“Good point.” I glance back at my sister, who’s swaying a little in her seat.
Sensing my eyes on her, Izzy bolts to her feet again.
“Excuse me.” She starts to sway, and I jump up to catch her before she falls. She overcorrects and tips the other way, but Blanka’s there sliding under her arm.
“We’ve got you,” she soothes. “Look, maybe you need to get checked out. A doctor or something—”
“No!” Izzy winces and clutches her low back. “I’m fine. I don’t want to make a scene. Please. Just let me go back to my room and rest.”
I catch Blanka’s eye, and she’s thinking the same thing I am. No way in hell we’re putting my sister to bed alone. Whatever’s going on here is more serious than that.
Blanka breaks eye contact and starts scanning the room. “Bradley Parker is a doctor,” she says. “He was at the wedding, right?”
“Right.” Thank God one of us is thinking clearly. I survey the crowd, looking for the guy I’ve played poker with a couple times. I spot him in a corner chatting with Sean, my famous chef brother. Sean’s wife, Amber, catches me staring and gives us a curious look.
“Please.” Isabella’s voice is faint. “Let’s try not to make a scene.”
Sean says something to Bradley that makes him laugh, and the two guys do some kind of shoulder slap ritual. The doc is having a good time, and I hate to ruin it.
But I’ve got a bad feeling about Isabella.
“Wait here.” I ease my sister back into the chair and look at Blanka, who nods in silent agreement. “We’ll be discreet,” I assure her. “I promise. But if he thinks you should go to the hospital, you’re going to the hospital.”
Isabella grimaces, lips pressed together in a thin line. The fact that she’s stopped arguing tells me plenty.
I turn and sprint toward Bradley Parker, mentally chanting a prayer for my sister. A sister I’ve known a week and already love as fiercely as all my other siblings.
“Hurry,” Blanka calls behind me.
I move faster, my body responding by instinct to her command, to the urgency in her voice.
It’s the moment I know I’d do anything she asked of me. Anything.
Almost.
Chapter 2
Blanka
“We’re less inclined to suspect membranous nephropathy and leaning toward a possible diagnosis of Pauci-immune glomerulonephritis.”
I blink a few times, trying to wrap my brain around Dr. Bradley Parker’s pronouncement. I’ve got a master’s degree in biology and a PhD in hydrology, and most of that was Greek to me.
I should mention I’m fluent in Greek.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” Jonathan Bracelyn has the same relaxed, open expression he’s worn every time I’ve seen him, but the worry lines notched in his forehead show what’s behind the sailor’s practiced ease. “In English, maybe.”
Bradley puts his hands in his lab coat pockets and nods. “In simple terms, it’s an acute, sudden loss of kidney function. And it’s not good.”
“Clearly.” I order myself to breathe, not to think about what could have happened if we’d failed to get Izzy here quickly.
We’re standing in a painfully bright hallway between the ER and the ICU, the air around us humming with beeps and buzzes of medical equipment. A harried-looking nurse rushes past on my right, while to my left, tropical fish bob among the bubbles in an oblong tank. I stare at the aquarium, cataloguing the occupants in my head.
Pearl gourami. Corydoras catfish. Zebra danios. The soothing swirl of trivia calms my brain like it always does.
“We can start dialysis immediately,” Bradley continues. “But ultimately she’s going to need a kidney transplant.”
Oh, no.
I close my eyes as dread washes through me. For a second, I’m back in the hospital the day I found out my dad had a heart attack. Two of them, without saying a word to anyone. It was only when the third required surgery that he finally told us.
But Izzy’s not my father. I open my eyes again and look at Bradley. “Kidney transplant,” I repeat, hoping I’ve heard wrong. “Aren’t waiting lists miles long? I’ve heard of people waiting five or six years for kidneys.”
“Or longer.” Bradley’s voice is grim, and when I open my eyes, his expression’s just as somber. “Sorry, I know this isn’t the best news. She asked me to come out and tell you right away. She also wanted me to ask you to please not worry.”
The way he says it, he knows that’s not going to happen. What an awful thing for the Bracelyns to face on the day of Bree’s wedding.
Beside me, Jonathan clears his throat. “She can have one of mine.”
We stare at him. Bradley and I both stand watching that handsome face and waiting for the punchline.
There’s no punchline. He’s dead serious.
“A kidney,” Bradley says, just in case there’s been a misunderstanding. “You’re offering to donate a kidney.”
“Right.” A slow smile melts the worry on Jonathan’s face, and my stomach flips over. “Her birthday’s coming up, and I wasn’t sure what to get her. Do you guys giftwrap?”
Bradley starts to laugh, thinking it’s a joke. But I can see in Jon’s eyes that he’s not kidding. Not about this.
Bradley tugs at the stethoscope around his neck and shifts back into doctor mode. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he says. “You’d have to be a match, not to mention an entire battery of tests. Chest x-ray, blood and urine analysis, electrocardiogram, intravenous pyelogram, renal arteriogram, not to mention all kinds of psychological tests for—”
> “I know,” Jonathan interrupts. “I went through it when they thought my stepdad might need a kidney.”
“You—really?” Bradley blinks, regrouping. “Was that recent?”
“Couple years ago.” He shrugs. “I wasn’t a match, and he ended up recovering without a transplant. But I added my name to the live donor registry.”
I watch the wheels turning in Bradley’s head as he shifts from “what the hell?” to “this could happen.”
I’m still struggling to catch up, to wrap my brain around the fact that the handsomest man I’ve ever met just offered an organ to a woman he’s known a week. Who does that?
Jonathan Bracelyn, that’s who.
“Wow.” Bradley looks shaken, too. “Okay, well, we’d obviously have to determine if you’re a match for Ms.—for Izzy.”
His eye twitches when he says that, like he’s not used to calling patients by nicknames. I don’t blame him, but I know how Izzy insisted I drop the formalities and treat her like a regular person.
I wonder if Jon can do the same if this kidney thing happens.
“Let’s get the ball rolling.” Jonathan claps his hands together, and I glimpse the man he must be at the controls of a ship. There’s a commanding force behind all that good cheer, and I’m surprised to feel my body responding.
Alpha males aren’t my thing, or any guy intent on taking charge. I’ve got my life under control just fine by myself, thank you.
But Jonathan Bracelyn isn’t the chest-thumping, knuckle-dragging sort of alpha. Maybe that’s why it’s hot.
“What do we need to do?” he asks.
Bradley’s still regrouping. “I’ll see what I can pull up in the database. I’ll need access to your records.”
“The procedure would be done in Portland?” I’m not sure how I know this, but probably from endless hours spent browsing the internet to keep my brain busy. “That’s where the closest transplant centers are, right?”
“That’s right,” Bradley says. “Both OHSU and Legacy can handle kidney transplants. Izzy would be in great hands at either facility.”
Something flickers behind his doctorly composure, a spark of emotion that’s outside the zone of regular compassion for a patient. I know him socially, since he spent several months as Lily’s friend with benefits. That’s before he broke things off citing desires for a real relationship, something Lily avoided like the plague.
Days later, she fell for James. Life’s funny that way.
“Can I go talk to her?” Jonathan asks. “Isabella, I mean. I told my family I’d give them a report. It’s the only reason they’re not here breathing down your neck.”
Bradley shakes his head. “I thought we were going to have to hold your brothers back with pepper spray when we left with her.”
“They only stayed because Izzy didn’t want to make a fuss,” I point out. “Or to ruin Bree’s big day with something that might have just been jetlag.”
But this definitely isn’t jetlag. And we’re all reeling with what it means.
“Izzy’s resting now,” Bradley says. “She agreed to let me brief you on her condition, but she’d prefer to keep it quiet from the rest of the family for the time being. How did she put it? ‘I don’t want to be—’”
“‘—a burden,’” Jonathan finishes, nodding grimly. “Yeah, I’ve heard it.”
I raise my hand, not wanting to interrupt. Jonathan quirks an eyebrow at me. “Yes?”
“I don’t mean to intrude, but if Izzy thought a ride to the hospital was too much to accept, do you really think she’s going to take one of your kidneys?”
Bradley nods. “She’s got a point.”
Jonathan shrugs, surprisingly calm for a guy who’s just offered a body part to someone he barely knows. “She’s my sister. We’re family. She needs help, and I may be able to provide that. It’s simple.”
I look into his green eyes, and there’s not a flicker of uncertainty there. To Jonathan Bracelyn, it really is that simple. I know from career day that he’s devoted his life to humanitarian work, but I realize now it runs deeper than that. His need to save others, it must come from somewhere.
Part of me wants to know everything. Every bit of history that makes this man who he is.
Part of me—the part intent on avoiding any sort of romantic entanglement—knows I need to keep my distance from this man.
Bradley takes a step back, tugging his stethoscope. “I’ll go see what I can pull up from your records, and I’ll order a new battery of tests. In the meantime, think it over. Make sure you’re certain before we broach the subject with Isabella.”
Jonathan nods. “I’m certain.”
His voice, his posture—everything about him tells me this is true. Jonathan’s not backing down.
This is the same guy who’s saved thousands of lives. Literally, thousands. He was modest at career day, but Bree cut him off and explained how Jon rescues refugees fleeing dangerous conditions in northern Africa to seek amnesty in Europe. Most don’t make it across the rough seas on flimsy rafts more suited for lake paddling than a treacherous ocean. They risk it anyway, knowing death is better than what they’re facing back home.
And Jonathan’s out there braving those same rough seas, rescuing as many souls as he can. I can’t even imagine.
As Bradley walks away, I let my gaze slip back to Jonathan’s. He’s watching me with steady interest and no hint of fear at all.
“You’re going to be a match,” I murmur. “Aren’t you?”
There’s no way he can know that—no way either of us could know. But he nods anyway. “Yeah,” he says. “I think so, too. Sometimes you’re just sure of things.”
A strange electric current ripples up my spine, and I’m not sure we’re talking about transplants. There’s an intensity in his stare, a heat in those green eyes that has nothing to do with organs.
Not kidneys, anyway.
“How are you doing?” I ask. “This is a lot all at once. Your sister sick, the idea of a major operation.”
“I’m great.” He leans against the wall beside the aquarium, unknotting his bowtie. “I’m glad you’re here. I would never have noticed anything was wrong with Izzy.”
He’s using her nickname, and I wonder if he knows it. If he’s consciously made the shift to less formality.
“I feel horrible for her,” I say. “I hope she pulls out.”
Jonathan cocks his head to the side. “Pulls out?”
I replay the words in my head, running them through the English-Ukrainian translator in the back of my brain. Colloquial phrases are my weakness, but I’m not sure where I bungled that one.
“Pulls—through?”
He laughs and nods. “It’s okay; I knew what you meant.”
I drag the toe of my sparkly sandal over a mark on the floor, wishing I’d had time to go home and change. It feels weird to be dressed for a wedding as a guy shuffles past us in a hospital gown dragging an IV pole. The patient offers a weak smile, and I smile back, trying not to stare at the space where his left arm should be. Sympathy surges through me, sharp and painful.
I pull my eyes off the man and look back at Jonathan. “Have you ever noticed how many illness-related colloquial phrases exist in English?”
God, here I go. Sprinkle me with a gram of emotional discomfort and watch me fizz trivia like a shaken seltzer.
But Jon just stares at my mouth, then shakes his head. “Can’t say I have.”
“There’s ‘sick as a dog,’ for starters,” I point out. “What does that even mean? Dogs don’t get any sicker than cats or guinea pigs or goats, do they?”
He smiles, eyes still on my mouth. Do I have something in my teeth? I run my tongue across them just in case.
“I’ve never had a dog or a cat or a guinea pig or a goat,” he says. “So I guess I don’t know.”
“Or ‘under the weather,’ I continue, aware that I might sound like a crazy person. “I know it’s an idiom for feeling sick, but what does
it actually mean?”
His green eyes spark with interest, and I wonder if he’s going to tell me to go Google it. I probably should instead of yammering at him like this. But he answers before I can move. “I actually know that one,” he says. “It’s a nautical term. It has to do with how bad weather causes a ship to toss and roll, which results in seasickness.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” I should write that down in the notebook I keep of English phrases. I’ve lived half my life in the U.S., but I’m constantly learning something new.
I should stop talking anyway. Jonathan has a lot to process, and maybe he needs space. Maybe he’s scared. Or conflicted. Or worried. Or—
“Is it weird that I want to kiss you right now?”
I blink, pretty sure I’ve heard wrong. “Is that another idiom?”
He laughs and shoves his hands in his tuxedo pockets. “No. I was just standing here thinking how much I want to kiss you,” he says. “I don’t know, maybe it’s the prospect of life-altering surgery or something.”
My heart thuds in my ears. I’m not having surgery, but I want to kiss him, too. What’s that about? My pulse flutters, libido lunging on the end of its tether like an excited dog.
But my inner science geek grabs the leash and wrestles it to the ground. “Dopamine,” I tell him, licking my lips. “It’s the brain’s pleasure chemical, and it can be triggered by things like danger or the prospect of death.”
“Really?” His gaze flicks over my mouth again. “I think I’m getting hits of dopamine every time you turn on the professor talk.”
Heat creeps into my cheeks, and I know I should back away. Most guys get turned off when I morph into a human encyclopedia, so I don’t understand what’s happening here.
“Maybe Autassassinophilia,” I hear myself blurt.
“Say what?”
“Autassassinophilia,” I repeat, wishing I could make myself shut up. “That’s when someone’s sexually aroused by a fear of death.”