To get him through the game, he cracked open a beer. Thankfully, his job gave him a good reason not to drink heavily. It would have been easy to slide into an alcohol-laced oblivion after Samara. But the fire station had saved him. The guys were his second family. Or hell, maybe his first family. He hadn’t seen his own parents in weeks, possibly months now that he thought about it. He should call them.
He sauntered to the closet and found his phone in his coat pocket.
Leaning against the wall across from the TV, he half watched the game while he called home.
“Yeah?” his father, never one to worry over social niceties, answered in his casual, get to the point manner.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Jakub!” He bellowed with the same enthusiasm he used for the word “goal!” at a soccer game.
“Who’s playing today?”
“Come over and find out for yourself. Game starts in an hour.”
“Maybe I will.”
A half hour later, Jakub was in Portage Park sifting pierogis out of a boiling vat of water on his mom’s stove.
His mom waddled into the kitchen, rubbing her hip while she wrapped up a call with his aunt on her cell phone.
She put the phone down and taking the sifter, placed a kiss on his cheek. “I’ve got it now.”
“How’s Aunt Agnes?”
“Oh, terrible as always. Her husband is never home, never does anything around the house.” She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t be that man.”
“I never was that man.” He backed off as she took her place at the stove and transferred the Polish potato dumplings into a bowl.
She pointed the strainer in his direction. “You were always a good boy. Made your bed like a soldier every morning.”
“Don’t talk too loud. You’ll make Marianna jealous.”
“Oh, that girl. She’s been asleep all day. She’ll wake with only enough time to get ready to go hit the dance clubs.”
A disheveled Marianna appeared in the hall that led to the bedrooms of the duplex apartment. “What are you saying about me?”
“Just how fun you are.” Jakub smiled at her, and she swatted his arm.
She wrinkled her nose. “What are you doing here? Some woman dump you?”
“Marianna!” His mother stomped a foot.
Marianna’s face turned beet red. “Sorry. It’s just that he never shows up here unless something goes wrong.”
Maybe he didn’t show up often because of asinine comments like this. Jakub bored a disapproving gaze into this sister. She was the epitome of clueless. She withered under his stare. Guilt pricked at his ribs. He swiped her into his arms and rubbed his knuckles on the black roots of her bleached blond—and pink—hair.
“Ow! Jerk.” She wiggled free and poked her nose over the bowl of pierogis. She pinched one and popped it into her mouth.
After she sat on the kitchen barstool next to Jakub, she gave him a sad puppy face. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“I’m the jerk, I know.”
“You’re just a young twenty-nine. Everyone matures at a different pace. Some of us take several decades.”
She swatted his arm again as his mom pushed a bowl of pierogis in front of him.
Mmmm. Why had he stayed away so long?
As his mom and sister chatted away, Jakub’s thoughts drifted to Harper. He regretted now the way he’d left her townhouse so abruptly. Why hadn’t he just called her to ask her out instead of showing up on her door like a stalker? Normal people used phones. Bad set up for what he only made worse by losing control.
He’d wanted to be near her. And she’d wanted him too for those few moments of the kiss no matter what came out of that pretty mouth.
He polished off a bowl of pierogis and sat to finish watching the soccer game with his father on the couch. His dad’s team was ahead and he was in a good mood. He broke out the Polish vodka and poured a couple of shot glasses.
“Oh, Dad, I’m good.”
“What? You’re off for two more days, right? It’s not every day I get to see my son, the courageous firefighter.”
“Stop with that crap. All right. Fine. I’ll have one.” He held up a finger. “One.”
Too many shots to count later, after his father’s favored team had lost, Jakub stumbled to the spare room and fell face down on the daybed. He should have known: One drink was not a phrase that existed in his father’s vocabulary. Something poked him in the right side of his pelvis. He rolled and patted himself down. His cellphone was the culprit. He pulled it out of his front pocket and stared at the thing.
Scrolled to Harper’s contact info. Why wait for her to call after her trip? It would be a miracle if she called anyway. He could text her right now.
Yep. He could.
He rolled to his back and punched out a message on the keypad. A voice in the back of his brain barked like a yappy dog that to text her in this state was a bad idea.
He ignored it.
After he hit send, he dropped his phone on the floor and surrendered to the pillow.
Vaguely, he was aware he had no idea what he’d just sent her, but he was too drunk to fish around for his phone to find out.
Damn, if he didn’t miss her already. He coughed out a laugh into the pillow. This woman had powers to do some strange shit to him.
With the words bad idea in his mind, unclear whether this referred to his text or to the whole situation in general, he drifted off to sleep.
Harper leaned on her kitchen counter and stared at the green text boxes on her cellphone, trying to make sense of what she was reading.
Harp so fucking beaful so fucking awful I lef you leaving fuck! Ebola relly? Fuck that come bak with me. Harper harper harp
Either he was illiterate, which was not possible, or…he was drunk.
The realization pressed down on her. She didn’t really know that much about this man. She didn’t even know what to make of this text. A drunken rant. Who was to say he wasn’t an alcoholic?
A chill passed through her. She most definitely would not respond.
Though she had imagined dating him—and worse: she’d imagined them making meals together in her kitchen, imagined what it would be like to have him in her bed in the morning. She didn’t usually have such domestic fantasies about men. But Jakub had already stocked her fridge, manhandled her mattress, and burned the image in her mind of him lounging on her couch. So easily he’d inserted himself into such scenes it wasn’t difficult to imagine him as a dedicated boyfriend.
He’d called her beautiful. Fucking beautiful. He got the spelling of the curse words right at least. A wry laugh escaped her. Though the text still unnerved her, she couldn’t help but be warmed by the emphatic nature of the compliment.
And what was it about how he said her name? Even through the text she imagined the way he said it. Firmly. Almost possessively. He had a raw male sexuality that radiated off of him which she was more susceptible to than she ought to be.
But that last kiss… He’d made her feel things that despite having kissed her share of men she’d never before felt. As though she’d been all wrong about her priorities.
She turned out the kitchen light and went to her bedroom. For a long while, she lay in bed unable to get Jakub out of her mind. A man who set her heart racing when he stepped in the room—even at the mere thought of him stepping in the room. A man who was kind enough to go out of his way to help her with her injury. Transport her to the hospital. Drag her mattress down the stairs. Bring her frozen soup and teddy bears and—God, how he’d felt on top of her, pleasuring her. And she hadn’t had the chance to please him back.
The few men she’d allowed herself to get close to hadn’t inspired the depth of emotion she felt for Jakub.
Only Kieran, her college boyfriend. The one time she’d let herself get close enough to believe herself in love turned out to be one big lie. There had been too much love with Kieran. Turned out he was loving mul
tiple women behind her back.
She’d had to ensure she wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past. Wouldn’t be hurt by men like Kieran. Like her father.
She’d been studying microbiology at the time, fascinated by all that could go wrong by tiny, invisible creatures, back to back with pathology, learning how antibodies were created by the body’s brilliant protective mechanisms to fit precisely with the specific germ. Like the body’s immune system, she too could design a system to protect herself. So she’d written up the criteria. After each failed dating experience, the criteria grew, just the way the immune system could learn and respond to its environment.
She couldn’t understand how people treated their love lives like some kind of summer camp where they’d just go along with whoever showed up who happened to be attractive and fun. Despite the fact she harbored the dream of a family, of a successful, reliable man, Harper wasn’t entirely convinced men were worth the trouble. Her father had proven to add nothing but a whole lot of heartbreak to her and her mother’s life.
Jakub Wojcik, despite the fact he’d appeared in her life out of nowhere when she’d needed a little help and immediately burrowed his way under her skin, did not mean he was the man for her.
An hour later sleep still eluded her. She needed to be in top shape for the situation in Atlanta. Maybe if she just got Jakub out of her mind. Some kind of closure might help. Likely, judging from the lack of coherence of his text, he would be passed out by now and not answer anyway.
She grabbed her phone, intending to construct some manner of a polite good bye.
Instead, she typed out the last thing she should say to him: What will I do if I trip on the sidewalk in Atlanta without you?
She only wrote it because she knew it was absurd. She wasn’t going to actually press send.
In Atlanta, she’d see what might come of opening the door to Miles. A man who she knew for certain wasn’t an alcoholic, who was slowly and safely ticking the boxes of her criteria in the proper order, who wouldn’t make unreasonable demands about her career.
So, of course, it was only logical that she pressed send on that text to Jakub.
Chapter Sixteen
In the room that the hospital had designated for donning and doffing of personal protective equipment adjacent to the infected patient’s room, Harper strapped the eye mask over the white hood of her coveralls while the observer looked on.
The respirator came next. A wave of claustrophobia swept through Harper, but she breathed through the sensation. Better to acknowledge the presence of panic and not fight it, allowing it to pass more quickly. Finally, she snapped into a pair of blue nitrile gloves. Then another pair atop that layer while Miles mimicked her ritual on the other side of the observer.
Doctor Morden, the Ebola stricken patient, had lived in Nigeria for years, working in a local hospital and opening satellite clinics, helping establish access to medical care over a wider swath of rural Africa. When the Ebola epidemic struck, he’d volunteered his services to assist in the outbreak. Now he lay in the quarantined room next door in a life and death battle to retain enough hydration to beat the virus.
“I’m glad you came,” Miles said, easing his fingers into his final pair of gloves. “How about we grab some dinner tonight?”
Donned in his white coveralls, mask and respirator, his image and the timing of his request struck her cold. But given the situation, there were not likely going to be many romantic moments to discuss a date.
“Sounds great.” Her voice rang hollow to her own ears.
Creases appeared at the corner of his squinting eyes, indicating he was probably smiling. He opened the door and held out a hand. “After you.”
Harper approached the patient. “Doctor Morden. I’m Harper Peters, head of Infectious Disease for Lincolnfield Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Dvorak invited me to assist with your treatment.”
“Joe,” the patient murmured. He didn’t quite smile, but his face brightened a degree.
“Joe,” Harper corrected herself. “How are you feeling?”
He shook his head weakly on the pillow.
Harper placed her gloved hands below his jaw, palpating his lymph nodes. More swelling than she’d ever felt in a patient. A shiver ran down her spine. “Your fever has abated. Do you think you can stomach some clear broth today?”
Normally, the medical assistants would attend to feeding a patient, but in quarantine only the necessary treatment personnel were allowed access to the room. Doctors did everything from feed the patient to clean surfaces with disinfectant wipes.
At the mention of food, his face turned ashen. He rolled toward his side but appeared too weak to completely turn.
Miles grabbed the tray next to the bed and reached past Harper to hold it under Joe’s mouth at the precise moment he projectile vomited, hitting the center of the pan. Vomit and bile ricocheted and splashed Harper’s mask. She took the pan from Miles’s hand, ending his awkward reach. Holding it steady, she waited for her patient to finish emptying the liquid-only contents of his gut. There was only a minimal tinge of blood to the fluids. Improvement.
When Joe returned to lie completely on his back, she reached to smooth the hairs from his forehead.
“You’ve been splattered. You need to get out and doff your PPEs.” Miles directed Harper.
She nodded, keeping her eyes on the patient. “You’re going to walk out of this hospital in a few days. We’re going to make sure of it.”
Joe’s eyes widened, suddenly full of emotion. He clapped a hand over her own, pinning her to him for a moment. “There are so many others.”
“Harper,” Miles nagged.
She continued to ignore him and addressed Joe. “Many, many people are doing their best to help them. They’re not your concern right now.” Her heart swelled for this man who even in his darkest moments thought of the patients he’d been trying to help.
Reluctantly, she turned her back on Miles and attempted to feed Joe.
As she peeled off her protective equipment next door while the observer checked the boxes of the proper order of removal on her clipboard, Harper thought about what Joe had said. The crisis in Nigeria was down one doctor now that he was laid up. She felt a twinge of compulsion to help. She was healthy. She could go take his place and offer her help for those still suffering.
She longed to make a wider, more far-reaching impact than what her current position at the hospital afforded. But she’d already put the wheels of such a project in motion with her phage center proposal.
She strolled to the window and looked out over the parking lot to the sprawling neighborhoods shrouded by trees beyond. Kids probably pedaling tricycles on sidewalks under the canopy.
No, Harper couldn’t run off to volunteer on another continent. She wanted to stay close to Chicago. She had a sense that the family she yearned for wasn’t so far off in the future.
Harper stirred her ceramic spoon in her hot and sour soup as Miles chatted about the advancements in the Ebola vaccine. It was being deployed to the ring of people immediately affected by the outbreaks. The CDC kept a share of the national stockpile. Harper had volunteered to be vaccinated upon arrival but it wasn’t a guarantee. It hadn’t worked for Dr. Morden after all.
She listened to Miles with one ear, tasting her soup. But ever since she’d walked into Joe Morden’s hospital room, she’d lost her appetite.
“Don’t you agree?” Miles asked.
“What? Sorry. Agree with what?” She’d remembered Jakub’s texted reply the next morning: I’m more worried about Ebola than your kneecaps. Call me when you get home.
“It’s a travesty the nasal spray lost funding.”
She squinted and rubbed her temple. “Yes, of course.”
“A spray would be so much easier to deliver in areas with less medical infrastructure.”
Harper stirred her soup with the ceramic spoon, trying not to see virus bodies floating in the liquid instead of limp julienned veggies.
&
nbsp; Miles dropped his mushu pork wrap to his plate. “Is something bothering you?”
Harper swallowed. “No. I’m fine.” She wasn’t concerned that she’d contracted the virus. But if she were to develop Ebola, who would miss her? Who would come to her aid? Her mother, of course, would want to come from Philadelphia, but Harper would refuse to let her get close.
Usually, Harper didn’t fall prey to such fears; she could keep her mind set on the task before her. Worrying about getting sick from her patients was like worrying about getting kidnapped walking out your front door. Sure, it could happen, but if you thought about it too much, you’d never go outside.
However, who else would care if Harper got sick? An image flashed in her mind of Jakub in her living room, holding her against the hard wall of his torso. His lips hovering inches from hers, whispering, don’t go. What had appeared controlling at the time now seemed a little more like care. Not to mention that last, sweet text.
“You’re not eating.”
“What?” Startled that the face in front of her was Miles, not Jakub, she continued, “Oh, I was just thinking about a project back home.” She picked up her spoon and forced down a swallow of the viscous soup.
The rest of dinner went tolerably well. She talked about her phage center plans. Miles was a gentleman, listening attentively, politely asking her opinions on dessert and inviting her for an after dinner stroll. They discussed his family—three siblings, all of whom were high achieving: a lawyer, a mayor of a neighboring town in Georgia, a dermatologist.
When he asked about her family, she only said, “It was just my mom and me. She’s a nurse in Philadelphia.”
Miles was polite enough not to pry further. “I’m glad you finally accepted my invitation to dinner, Harper.”
She bristled at the sound of her name from his mouth.
So unlike her reaction to the way another man said her name.
“Me too.” But the words she’d decided were true earlier no longer felt right.
A Beautiful Fire (Love at Lincolnfield Book 4) Page 10