by Ann Gimpel
“You wouldn’t do such a thing,” he sputtered.
“I would, and I have.” Juliana narrowed her eyes. “I wanted to tell you personally. So you’d have all the information before you decide which horse you want to bet on, Mr. Smithwick.”
Before she told him he was an old sexist pig, she turned and stormed out of his office. He couldn’t fire her. She had tenure, but he could make her life damned miserable. He also wouldn’t pull the plug on a successful field expedition, no matter how much she’d pissed him off. If he did, the wealthy patrons who funded archaeology projects would jump down his throat. Grateful she’d walked to this meeting, she settled into a fast jog as she headed home.
She’d be late to meet her folks at Overlake, but she’d already texted them, told them she had something critical and work-related to take care of. Fury still bubbled, and she curled her hands into fists. Despite affirmative action and the addition of boatloads of female staff and grad students, academe’s hallowed halls were still pathetically biased against women.
She hoped she’d lived long enough to see the tides shift.
The only good thing about her standoff with Smithwick was it had driven Brice to a back burner. So what if he hadn’t texted her back? She had bigger problems than an old love affair gone bad. She needed to get a message to Katie, something to reassure her.
What was the best way to accomplish it?
Far from dumb, Orestes would probably be monitoring all incoming and outgoing communications. No way around it. She’d have to go in through the front door. She’d call and ask for Katie and tell her the problem was handled. Let Orestes stew in his own juices figuring out what she meant by it.
“Geez. Never realized what a vindictive bitch I am,” she muttered and ran faster. If everything went well, she’d be at the hospital before one.
Chapter Eleven
Brice shouldered out of the operating room. He’d been called in by oncology to assist with a highly complicated lung cancer surgery. The patient had waited far too long before bringing his condition to anyone’s attention. Understandable in today’s insurance market. This particular patient hadn’t had any and wasn’t willing to compromise his family’s finances with an expensive medical intervention.
His wife had brought him to the ER shortly after midnight, gasping for breath because his lungs had filled with fluid.
Brice shucked his surgical paraphernalia. Some days he hated the U.S. medical system where the very rich and very poor had coverage and large percentages in between languished. He and the oncologist had bought today’s patient time, not much, but enough to get his affairs in order.
Enough for his wife and children to say goodbye.
Brice slammed a fist into the wall. Not so hard as to injure himself, but it had a centering effect. He used back corridors to get to the locker room where he showered and dressed. He still had time to pick up Angus. Not an overabundance, but enough.
He scrolled through texts, zeroing in on one from Lupe. Social Services would be delivering Timmy tomorrow morning before noon. Brice smiled softly. Not that he’d see much of the boy with his schedule, but at least Timmy would have a safe, protected environment until Millicent was well enough to be released. He texted back a thumbs up icon. Lupe sent him a picture of cookies.
What had gotten short shrift today was his rounds. He hadn’t seen any of his patients, but he’d checked with nursing, and they were all progressing. Sarah was doing so well, Erika had practically crowed.
For some reason, the charge nurse had taken a shine to the Wray girl—and her family. Brice drew himself up short as he shrugged into a sports shirt, slacks, and loafers. Sarah was hardly a girl, and it was disrespectful to characterize her as one. He grabbed his jacket, transferred his pager from his lab coat to his belt, and got ready to leave. The only thing left was stopping by his office for his briefcase, laptop, and phone.
He climbed the stairs—a joke in the exercise department, but slightly better than nothing—and came out in a hallway off limits to visitors. It was his normal route to his office since it cut down on the possibility of anyone waylaying him. Ducking inside, he collected what he needed and left by the main hallway, selecting the most direct route to the garage.
“Brice, hold up.”
He froze. He’d know Julie’s voice anywhere. The breathy contralto that promised passion and never failed to deliver.
“I looked for you all day, the afternoon part of it, anyway.” Catching up with him, she wrapped her long fingers around his upper arm.
Heat from her hand seeped through his jacket and shirt as if they weren’t there, and a shock traveled up his spine. Her touching him brought everything roaring back. Heat. Need. Memories of intense conversations where they’d solved all the world’s problems and then gone out for pizza and beer. In those days, he’d have done anything for her. Followed her to the ends of the earth—beyond, if necessary.
He wanted her touch, craved it, longed to crush her in his arms and slash his mouth over hers. Dangerous ground. Treacherous territory. He tugged out of her grasp to lessen the temptation. While he was at it, he shifted the position of the jacket he’d tossed over one arm, so it covered the suddenly tented out front of his trousers.
“Sorry. I was in surgery. I got called in.”
She nodded. “Erika told us.” She scanned his face. “Your patient made it, huh?”
Uncomfortable beneath her frank stare, he looked away. “I can’t discuss patients with you or anyone else.”
“Maybe not, but I can still read your expressions. I can’t explain it, but you’d look different if your patient died.” Without waiting for him to reply, she forged ahead. “I’m sorry about texting you. It was bold of me and uncalled for. I am sorry, though, and I wanted to make certain you knew. I won’t bother you anymore, but”—her forthright inspection shifted to floor level—“you were the best thing that ever happened to me. I blew it, and I blew it big-time. I hope you find someone wonderful. You deserve to be happy.”
Before he could come up with anything to say, she turned and fled.
Longing beat a path through him. He wanted to go after her, tell her she deserved every happiness too, but if he did, he’d be late picking up Angus because he wouldn’t stop with just talking. Once he kissed her and felt her enticing body pressed against his, he’d be lost.
His heart hammered against his ribs. His breath came fast, and his cock strained, hard as it ever got. The place she’d touched his arm still throbbed from her touch, and her scent clung to him. He inhaled hungrily, swept away by memories of how they’d been together.
Breath rattled out of him. Angus could call a cab. Brice ran a few feet in the direction Julie had gone, but stopped. Now wasn’t the time. Putting his own needs second was so ingrained, he felt disgusted with himself.
If not now, then when? an inner voice argued.
He didn’t articulate a reply because it was “probably never.” Their time had come and gone. That boat had left port years before. He might still want her, but it took more than sexual attraction to build a lasting partnership.
He moved slowly toward his car. He was a coward when it came to women. No two ways about it. After Julie’s abrupt dismissal, he’d searched for a woman who’d be a sure thing, someone who’d never hurt him no matter what. No such creature existed. The ones who had no spirit, no backbone, also held zero appeal.
He edged close enough to the car for it to recognize he had its clicker in a pocket. Pulling the door open, he got in, doing his damnedest not to think about anything. Not the poor son of a bitch with stage-four small-cell lung cancer. Not Juliana with her sparkling, challenging blue eyes and acres of dark hair.
Never mind the long legs she used to wrap around him and the purring sound she made when she wanted him. His body ached for her, alight with desire. He told it to stand down.
Traffic moved along at fifty miles per hour, so it took him a while to reach the Army post located south of Tacoma. The
gate guard was expecting him and waved him through with a smile.
What the hell? Maybe Angus had been something slightly more important than one more RAF chopper pilot. He’d have to ask him, except the military was even more closemouthed about their exploits than doctors.
He followed the instructions the gate guard provided and pulled the BMW into a convenient parking place adjacent to the airstrip. He’d been told to remain near his car, that Angus would come to him. It was a mild evening for so late in the year. He got out and raised his arms over his shoulders, rotating tight muscles in his back and neck.
The roar of a jet shook the ground, sounding closer than close. Brice looked up in time to spot its sleek form hurtling from the sky. He didn’t see it land because of solid fencing between where he stood and the runway. The plane had looked more like a business-class jet than a military transport, but maybe the Army flew them too. Or the Air Force.
About ten minutes later, Angus ambled toward him, a camouflage duffle slung over one shoulder and a black leather bag dangling from his left hand. Tall and rangy, all bones and angles, he stood about an inch taller than Brice’s six feet two, but probably weighed thirty pounds less. Black hair fell straight as a stick to his collarbones. A beak of a nose sat over thin lips, a square chin, and a mouthful of very white, very straight teeth.
“Hey there, mate,” Angus called. “Damned decent of you to come for me.”
Brice clapped him on the back and hit the remote to open the car’s trunk. Angus whistled and dropped his gear inside. “I remember this. You bought it and had it shipped home, right?”
“Yup. You should remember. You were there.” He pulled the passenger door open and gestured Angus inside.
The Scot fell through the door and scrambled for the seat belt. “Great to see you. Apologies in advance if I fade out. How far to your place?”
“Depends on traffic. Might be two hours.”
“I’d offer to drive, but I’d be a road hazard what with righthand drive hardwired into my brain.”
“Yeah. It’s always taken me a while to make the transition when I’m on your side of the Atlantic. Not so much the steering wheel being on the wrong side, but everything else is reversed too.”
“My point exactly. Except it’s yours that’s on the ‘wrong side.’”
Brice waited until they’d cleared the gate and were heading north on the interstate before starting with the easy questions. “How come the military offers you rides in their planes?”
“I’m in the RAF reserves.”
“Not buying it.” Brice shook his head. “I know dozens of folks in the reserves, and they fly commercial. The U.K. is smaller, but so’s their fleet, plus that looked a whole lot like a business-class jet.”
“Good eyes. It’s why you’re a world-class physician.”
Brice snorted. “Spare me. Fancy words won’t get you off the hook. Why do you merit perks usually reserved for generals?”
Angus angled his body until he almost faced Brice. “The plane was one of the long-range Gulfstreams. The RAF owns a few of them. They’re handy because they can transit the poles and most of the globe without refueling.”
“Still doesn’t explain why you hitched a ride on it.”
“Some questions can’t be answered. Not directly. Let’s just say I’ve been helping for years with a type of biological warfare. Some of my experiments have been brilliantly successful, and every once in a while I call in my chips.”
It was as perfect an in as he was likely to get. Brice jumped on it. “Why exactly were you wanting to call in chips? What’s unique about our treatment for Sarah Wray? I can name at least ten other patients where we’ve done the same thing. Double that if we count the ones at the Paris Institute.”
Rather than answering, Angus inserted a question of his own. “Did you tell Sarah I was on my way?”
“I did.”
“And?” Angus cocked his head to one side watching Brice intently.
“And nothing. She wanted to know why.”
“How did you answer her?” Something sharp as glass sat just beneath his question.
“I couldn’t since I didn’t know. I mentioned you and I had pioneered her treatment, though. Once I said that, she told me she was tired and shooed me out of her room.”
“She would.” Angus spoke softly, almost to himself. “She’ll think I’m here to view her as a fascinating guinea pig, one whose experimental parameters are worthy of attention.”
“Cut the crap,” Brice said. “What happened between you two?”
Angus was quiet so long, Brice figured he wasn’t going to answer, but the Scot started talking out of the blue. “’Tis a verra old story,” he began, his brogue thick as clotted cream. “I was her microbiology professor in med school. She was fascinated by the wee critters, as was I. We fell in love with our heads bent over binocular scopes.
“We had two problems. One was dating students was forbidden, but we worked around it by keeping our relationship secret. The other was her illness. She hit a bad patch around the end of her second year of med school. So bad she opted to drop out.”
“Opted to?” Brice cut in.
“Had to, really. She’d missed so much, she would have had to redo the entire second semester. You understand how CF drags at you. She had no energy. The thought of waiting half a year to redo the semester was too much for her.” He took a deep, noisy breath. “She jettisoned me along with school.”
“I’d put most of that together,” Brice said. “Except I wasn’t certain who’d dumped whom. Why are you here now?” He nosed the car off the primary interstate onto the freeway leading to Seattle’s East Side.
“I’m here to tell her I love her. That I don’t care she didn’t finish med school. Hell, I don’t give a crap if she never works again. I have no idea what her mortality timetable looks like, but if she’ll allow me to be part of however much life she has left, it would make me a very happy man.”
Brice framed his next question carefully. “Does it mean you’d be willing to move back to the States?”
“If I have to. Why?”
“Her parents are here. So’s her twin sister.” Brice stopped there. He’d never confided in anyone about Juliana, and he wasn’t ready to start with Angus.
“Look, mate. I can live anywhere. So can you, and you know it.”
“True enough. We certainly can. Thanks for trusting me. I wish you all the best,” Brice said and meant it. “When I first consulted with you on Sarah’s case, she’d moved out of immediate danger, but you do know she almost died?”
“Of course I know. How could I not? I’m thorough. I review every case I consult on. Where I was remiss was not disclosing I’d had a personal relationship with her.”
Brice dove in headfirst because Angus needed to know how ambivalent Sarah was about being alive. “I’m not certain she was pleased when she found herself back in the land of the living.”
“I ken how that works too. You don’t have a corner on doctoring the dying, mate.” Raw pain roughened his brogue.
“Never claimed to. On a more upbeat note, that two-year-old we talked about will show up tomorrow. Such an interesting story behind the boy. His mother had an affair with a priest—”
“As in a genuine, cassock-wearing padre?” Angus cut in.
“Aye, the same.” Brice copied Angus’s thick brogue, and the other man broke into laughter.
“Have a care there, laddie. Another attempt like that, and Scotland will bar her doors to you forever.”
“A man can dream. Och, to never be faced with haggis again. Or blood pudding.”
Angus socked him softly in the arm.
“Oomph. Even your knuckles have angles.”
“Thanks for having me on such short notice.”
“Thanks for being my friend,” Brice replied. “You know how it is.”
“Aye, that I do. A piss pot of acquaintances and even more colleagues, but no one you trust enough to bare your sou
l to.”
“You nailed it. Hey, your prediction about fading never happened. Another quarter hour and we’ll be home.”
“Pithy conversation has a way of keeping one awake.”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault?” Brice joked.
“Nay, mate. I turned over a whole lot of ways to tell you about Sarah. You saved me the trouble. Be sure and wake me in plenty of time for coffee and a run before we go to work.”
“I would absolutely love a running buddy. You’re on. I’ll wake you at five.”
“It can’t be light that early.”
“It’s not. I have headlamps.”
“Aye, torches will be just the thing.” Angus’s words slurred with weariness.
“Another mile. Hang on. We’re nearly there. You’ll love Lupe.”
“You got married?” Shock ratcheted through Angus’s words, and he sounded way more awake.
“Oh hell no. She’s my housekeeper. Motherly. She’ll fuss and cluck over you.”
“Brilliant. She can cluck me up to bed.”
Brice turned into his drive and activated the electronic gates. They crested the hill, and his house came into view.
“Holy mother of God,” Angus gasped. “You live here? It’s big enough for fifty.”
“Maybe twenty,” Brice corrected him and brought the car to a stop. “Come on in. You’re too tired to appreciate it tonight, but Lupe and her family decorated the place for Christmas.” He pushed his door open and got out of the car. Angus mirrored his actions.
As if on cue, the front door flew open, and Lupe ran lightly down the steps. “You must be doctor friend. Hungry? I make whatever you want. Maybe drink? Wine? Whiskey?”
Angus laughed. “Lupe, I love you already. A nightcap would be appreciated.”
“What kind?”
“Single malt Scotch. What else?” He tilted his chin until Brice could almost picture him with bagpipes and a kilt.
“I bring it to your room.” Lupe bobbed her head and turned back for the house.