by Tracy Wolff
He knew she trusted her doctor, but he was going to drag her into the clinic for an exam, kicking and screaming if he had to. Both Jack and Amanda had a lot more experience with DHF than some Atlanta ob-gyn could hope to have and he wanted them to check Kara over from head to toe. If they said she was recovering, that everything was fine with her, then and only then would he relax.
As for the baby…he felt a little pang deep in his heart at the thought of his child. He still didn’t know how he felt about becoming a father, but he knew he wanted to give the baby the best shot at survival he could. And that meant finding an obstetrician that had dealt with cases like this before. He wasn’t sure where he’d find one in Atlanta, but he wasn’t going to rest until he did.
With that settled in his mind—or as settled as it could get—he logged out and started to search for DUI attorneys for his sister, then decided that could wait until the morning. It had probably been a bad move for him not to find one today, but he just hadn’t been able to wrap his head around it. She was absolutely guilty and it seemed wrong—horribly wrong—to hire someone who would stand up in court and say that she wasn’t.
He had to get over his aversion. He knew it. After all, the justice system was built on the accused getting his or her day in court. And still it rankled, still it drove him mad that Lisa—who had everything at her disposal—had been so selfish. So stupid. So weak.
He shut the tablet down with a sigh, then dropped it on the floor beside the bed. He might not be able to deal with it tonight, but he would find Lisa a lawyer tomorrow, he promised himself as he shut off the bedside lamp. He was running out of time.
* * *
WHEN KARA AWOKE AT FOUR the next morning, her stomach was churning. Whatever was left of the frittata from the night before was very definitely on its way up. Determined not to wake Lucas and get him even more upset, she made a mad dash for the guest bathroom down the hall.
She made it, but with only seconds to spare. After getting sick, she pushed herself to her feet and went to rinse her mouth out in the sink. As she did, she got a glimpse of herself in the mirror. No wonder Lucas had been so concerned yesterday. She looked like hell, nearly as bad as she had when she’d been suffering from dengue hemorrhagic fever.
She knew he was worried about her and she hated that she’d added to his stress. She wanted to tell him that she was okay, that she could handle this by herself, but she knew he wouldn’t believe her. Or even if he did, he wouldn’t let her. He’d already decided this was his responsibility, and nothing was going to sway him from that.
Even worse, she’d gone and complicated things last night by making love to Lucas. She’d done it partially to comfort him and partially because she’d wanted him so badly that she hadn’t thought about the consequences. But it was morning now and she had no idea what last night had meant. Was it another aberration, as they’d discussed in the shower? Or was it something more?
Deep inside, she knew she wanted it to be more. Her feelings for Lucas were huge and so much more than friendship. She’d figured that out in the months she’d been without him in Africa, and in the way she felt about the unborn baby she carried. She wanted it for itself, but also because it was Lucas’s.
That didn’t mean he felt the same way about her. He was a responsible guy and now that he knew she was pregnant with his baby, he would consider her an obligation. Someone else he had to take care of. She hated that. She wanted him to be with her because he wanted to, not because he felt he had to. He had enough obligations in his life. She didn’t want to be one more.
And yet, here she was, with no one to turn to but him. It was an untenable situation, one that could have no happy ending. For either of them.
Worried, unsure what to do about anything, she finished rinsing out her mouth and shut off the tap. Whatever the solution was, it wasn’t coming to her now so she might as well go back to bed and hope the nausea abated enough to let her sleep a little more. She was so tired, more tired than she could ever remember being.
But as she stepped away from the sink, she glanced down. And froze at the drops of blood she spied on the shiny white tile where she had been standing. There were only a couple, but they were more than enough to strike terror into her heart. She checked herself, realized a couple more drops had rolled down her legs. Not much. Not enough to indicate a miscarriage. But more than enough to indicate the possibility of one.
Horrified tears filled her eyes and for long minutes she couldn’t think past the fear. Dr. Beaumont was right. She was going to lose the baby. She was going to—
Her breath sawed in and out as panic took over, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound as she sank to the ground. She couldn’t wake Lucas up, couldn’t let him see this. The last thing he needed right now was to deal with this on top of everything else.
Besides, she couldn’t take his pity. Bad enough she had to put up with his sense of responsibility. But his pity, too? No. She wasn’t going to go there.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she started to rock back and forth. As she did, her mind raced, went over everything she knew about miscarriages—from med school and from the research she’d done the past couple of weeks, since Julian had told her how unlikely it was that the pregnancy would remain viable.
Going through it all calmed her down, especially as she realized that there wasn’t enough blood for this to be a sixteen-week miscarriage. She thought of the woman in Eritrea, who had lost her baby at seventeen weeks. There had been a lot of blood, plus pain and cramping.
She had none of that, just these few drops of blood. She was spotting. Just spotting.
Serenity came to her slowly. Spotting wasn’t good, especially considering the fact that she’d had a hemorrhagic illness. But it wasn’t the end of the world,
either. It didn’t mean she was going to lose what might be her only chance at being a mother.
Once her doctor’s office opened in a few hours, she would call, see what Dr. Beaumont suggested. And then she would go from there. She’d probably have to take it easy for a few days, would need to get plenty of rest. It wouldn’t be easy, especially with what was going on in Lucas’s life right now, but she would do it. To keep their baby safe, she would do whatever she had to.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LUCAS AWOKE SLOWLY, with the sense that something was terribly wrong. It took a minute for everything from the day before to rush back into his mind, and when it did, he groaned and pulled the covers over his head—something he hadn’t done since he was a child.
Not that he planned to stay like that, but surely five minutes of hiding couldn’t hurt before he faced what was sure to be the day from hell.
In the end, he didn’t even make it two minutes. There was too much that needed to be done, too much information he had to get. And perhaps, most importantly, he had Kara to attend to. But when he reached a hand across the bed, expecting to encounter Kara, sleep-warmed and sweet smelling, all he met was air.
Her absence galvanized him as little else could. In fact, he hit the floor running. Not bothering with a
T-shirt, he called her name as he hurried down the hall. What if she’d gotten sicker during the night? What if she’d gotten up to use the restroom and the nausea had made her dizzy? She could have slipped and fallen....
He knew he was being alarmist, but in those minutes, he didn’t care. He needed to find Kara, needed to make sure she was all right. He’d done a crappy
job of looking after her yesterday—for God’s sake, he’d all but forced her to her knees in that shower. Definitely not the act of a best friend, or even a caring lover. And now, now she was…sitting under a blanket on the couch, curled up with a cup of tea or coffee and a newspaper on her lap?
Relief slammed through him, powerful and all encompassing. It was followed quickly by anger. Surely she’d heard him calling. Why had she ignored him? She must have heard the worry in his voice.
But when he walked around the couch, intent on confronting her, he realized she was fast asleep, the newspaper dangling from her limp fingers. At the sight, his heart gave one great big kick of fear—old habits died hard—and he stood there for a few moments simply watching her, making sure that her chest really was rising and falling. Which it was, slowly and steadily. Thank God.
Figuring the past two days had probably taken five years off his life—maybe ten when all was said and done—he grumbled to himself as he headed into the kitchen. He planned to start a pot of coffee, only to pull up short when he realized she had already made a pot for him—and judging by the smell, it was pretty close to fresh. She’d done a good job of anticipating his wake-up time.
The fact that she knew him well enough to anticipate it shouldn’t make him so damn happy, but for some reason it did. Almost as happy as the bowl of cut-up fruit she’d set on the counter next to a big pile of his favorite blueberry bagels.
How long had she been up before she’d fallen back asleep, anyway?
After pouring himself a cup of coffee, he snagged a bagel, then settled himself at the kitchen table with his laptop and a telephone. He had a million things to do that morning. First up, he needed to call the hospital, see how his sister was. And then he had to find that damn lawyer. He thought of calling Amanda’s husband, Simon, who had connections all over Atlanta. Maybe he’d have a suggestion for a lawyer who could help Lisa.
He picked up the phone, prepared to get started despite the early hour, then froze as his gaze fell on a legal pad next to his laptop. Kara’s writing was all over it and she had divided the front page into three sections.
The first section read, “Six-fifteen. Lisa made it through the night. She’s still asleep but Aaron plans to ease off on the medication and wake her up around two this afternoon. Two of the children in critical condition. Mother and third child, stable.” As he stared at the last couple of sentences, he couldn’t help wondering what strings she’d pulled at the hospital to get the information. Must have been some pretty long ones, considering how hard it was to get news like that because of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
The second section on the legal pad listed the names and phone numbers of three attorneys, with a star next to the first one on the list.
And the last section reminded him to eat, and mentioned that there were bagels that she’d had delivered on the counter.
For long seconds, he sat at the table staring at her note, an unfamiliar emotion rushing through him. It was so unfamiliar, in fact, that he wasn’t sure what to call it. He knew only that, for the first time in his adult life, someone was truly taking care of him instead of the other way around. It felt strange. Nice, but strange.
He hoped Kara would let him do the same for her. She’d always been prickly about asking for help no matter how many times he’d tried to offer it. So prickly, in fact, that he’d stopped offering years ago, though it was hard. After all, she was closer to him than just about anyone else on earth. Why shouldn’t he want to make things easier for her if he could?
He glanced back down at the yellow pad. She obviously had no compunction about making things easier for him. Still, he knew her determination not to accept help was because she’d spent so much of her life on her own, having to take care of everything, much the same way his control freak ways were a by-product of his own family issues. Sometimes, though, understanding the why didn’t make it any easier to accept.
Especially when you were a control freak.
Lucas was on his second bagel, having already called Jack and arranged for him to cover his shift at the clinic that morning, when Kara came stumbling into the kitchen, eyes half-closed.
“Not one word,” she said with a grimace as she fumbled her way to the stove for the teakettle and then to the sink to fill it with water.
“There’s fresh coffee,” he said. “I’ve only had two cups.”
She shook her head, grunted out, “Tea,” before turning on the kettle and dropping into the chair next to his. She folded her arms on the table and then rested her head in the middle of them.
“Sleep well?” he asked, tongue-in-cheek.
Her only answer was to lift one hand and flip him off.
Lucas grinned. He couldn’t help himself. This was the Kara he knew and loved, not that pale, sick creature from the day before. Still, when she finally lifted her head, she looked as hollow-eyed as she had the night before. More even.
“I want you to come to the clinic.” The words slipped out, but once they did, he wasn’t sorry for them. “Just to get checked out. For your own peace of mind.”
“My peace of mind is just fine.”
“Okay, for my peace of mind, then.” He locked eyes with her, refusing to let her gaze go no matter how irritated she looked. Which was pretty irritated, if he was honest. Not that he cared. Not when her health was on the line.
“I have a doctor already, one who is giving me excellent care.”
“And she has much experience with pregnancy and DHF?” He ventured to answer his own question. “No, but Amanda and Jack do.”
“I don’t need you to do all this,” she told him with a glare. “I’m a grown woman and a doctor, to boot. I know how to take care of myself.”
He knew these were dangerous waters even without the telltale scowl marks that showed up between her eyebrows whenever she was really upset. But he wasn’t ready to back down. “I know you do. But, Kara, surely even you can see that you’re not at your fighting best.”
“I never said I was. But I am getting good medical care, so let’s just leave it at that.”
He nodded in understanding, even as he said, “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
This time her eyebrows nearly touched her hairline. “Excuse me?”
He rubbed a frustrated hand over his face and his hair as he bought time to formulate an answer. Nothing brilliant came to him, though, so he decided to tell her the truth as he understood it. It came out all mixed up with the speech he’d prepared for lunch the day before.
“Look, I know I have no right to tell you what to do. I get that. I do,” he insisted at her doubtful look. “But regardless of whatever has suddenly started between us, we’ve been friends a long time. Surely that counts for something.”
“For something?” There was a flash of hurt she couldn’t hide and he felt like a total asshole. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her.
“For a lot, I mean. And I’m worried about you. I just want to make sure you’re okay and that the baby is doing the best it can. Amanda and Jack know DHF—I talked to Jack about it for a long time this morning. I just want—”
He stopped himself abruptly. Who was this moron stumbling over words? The one who couldn’t seem to string two articulate sentences together. Which was ridiculous—he’d graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School. Surely he could have a simple conversation with his best friend.
Kara must have decided to have mercy on him, because she stopped h
is incoherent ramblings with a gentle hand on his forearm. “Thank you,” she told him softly.
“For what?”
“For caring about me. I appreciate it. I really do. But all this worry on your part is unnecessary.”
“You’re my closest friend and that’s my kid you’re carrying. How can worrying about you be unnecessary?”
“You’ve met Julian Banks, right? You know there’s no way he’d let something happen to me. From the moment I contracted the stupid bug, he was right there, hassling me. Making sure I had enough fluids and was getting enough rest. He took enough blood to feed a vampire and then gave me enough blood transfusions to make up for any I’d lost or he’d taken, and then some.”
He nodded, a part of him completely relieved by what she’d said. But there was another, darker part that wasn’t so sure he liked the way she spoke of
Julian with such affection. Lucas should be thrilled she’d had a partner in Africa who had taken such good care of her—and he was, he really was—but at the same time, he’d wished he’d been there. Wished it had been him she’d turned to, who had found a way to help her.
Which was completely ridiculous considering it didn’t matter who had treated her, as long as she had been treated. As long as she recovered. And yet, it was still there, a peculiar shot of jealousy that made absolutely no sense, particularly when he considered that he was the one who had given up on Africa and not the other way around.
“You’re telling me the truth?” he finally asked, needing to hear it one more time. “You’re really okay? There’s no long-term damage?”