That had been his rationale at the time, but now he wasn’t so sure. Heather wasn’t the kind of woman who would be afraid of his mother, who wouldn’t stand up for herself. He’d been waiting for her to call, hoping that she’d catch him before he got on the boat, but she hadn’t and now he was beginning to think that he’d made a huge mistake, that he should have stayed and faced his mother. He was tempted to turn around and go back to Alaska, but the boat captain was signaling to him that he was ready to leave so he got on the boat, hoping that Heather would call before he was out of cellphone range.
When he got to the village and she hadn’t called, he began to become concerned but then he walked into his lab and saw the mess and all thoughts of Heather vanished. The lab was in shambles, the equipment uncovered, papers spread everywhere, and his samples still spread out on the table. It brought back memories of the day he’d left, the searing fever that had racked his body and left him almost unable to work. But he pushed those memories away and began to clean up, a chore that took most of the night and left him exhausted.
After the crisp dry air of Alaska, the heavy air of the Amazon was draining and he collapsed into bed exhausted. When he woke up the next day, it was mid-afternoon and he missed Heather so much it was a physical pain. He checked his phone, afraid that he’d slept though her phone call, but the screen was blank, the phone dead. Cursing his stupidity, he plugged the phone into the portable charger and left his tent, unable to stand the closed stuffy space any longer.
He wandered into the village and looked around, realizing that in the two years he’d been there, he’d hardly connected with the villagers at all. The village was buzzing with activity and reminded him so much of Homestead that he knew he’d have to distract himself or he’d lose his mind with longing. The people were a bit surprised when he offered to help them with their chores but put him to work and soon enough he’d managed to put Heather from his mind. The problem was that it only lasted until he was back in his tent alone and he realized that he had a long lonely night in front of him.
When Josh arrived a few days later, it was to find Brian packing up the lab. “What are you doing?” he asked, setting down his duffle bag.
“I’m packing up the lab,” Brian said.
“I can see that, but why?” Josh asked.
Brian stopped packing and turned to Josh. “I’ve decided that we can finish the project somewhere else, we’ve done all we need to here,” he said, hoping Josh would let it go with that explanation.
Josh narrowed his eyes at Brian. “Brian, there’s still plenty we can do here, we can’t just leave.”
“We can and we are,” Brian said, not willing to tell Josh the real reason he wanted to leave was that he missed Heather and Homestead and was afraid that he’d lost Heather with his immature actions.
“But what about the fungus? We don’t even know if it will grow under artificial conditions, I thought we were going to work on that.”
“Heather took care of that, she not only got the fungus to grow, but found a way to extract the compound we’ve been looking for,” Brian said, then added. “If you hadn’t been out running around Alaska you’d have known that.”
“I see, and you’re okay with a woman making the break though you wanted to make?” Josh asked, skeptically.
Brian didn’t hesitate, “I don’t care who made the breakthrough, I just wanted to give the world something wonderful, something that will make a difference for millions of people.”
*****
Josh didn’t know what to think about the man who was standing in front of him, he was nothing like the man he’d had to drag out of the jungle only a few months before. Something had changed but he wasn’t sure what, but over the next few days as they packed up the lab for transport back to Macapa, he began to understand that Brian was a different man. Instead of locking himself up in the lab and working for endless hours as he used to, he called a halt to the work at dinner time and headed for the village.
It took almost two weeks for them to pack up the lab, two weeks that left Josh confused and concerned for Brian, who seemed lost to Josh. His moods often melancholy, an emotion he didn’t even know that Brian possessed, finally it became too much for him and he decided that he was going to confront his boss, find out what was really going on, because it was clear to him that something was wrong.
One morning he found Brian staring out at the jungle, a cold cup of coffee in his hand. “Brian, I’ve done everything you asked pretty much without question since we came here, but I think it’s time you explained what’s going on. I’m worried about you, I know coming that close to dying can change a person, but are you sure this is what you want to do? It’s not too late to change your mind, there’s so much more we could be doing here,” he said, startling Brian who hadn’t heard him approach.
*****
Brian looked at Josh, the man had been a good assistant and friend for the last two years and he deserved an explanation. He took a deep breath wondering where to start, how to explain what he was feeling and what he’d done to Heather who clearly wasn’t going to call or come to him as he’d hoped.
“I have to get back to Homestead,” he said. “I left unfinished business there and I know I won’t be happy until I go back.”
“Are you really going to leave it at that?”
Brian knew that he wasn’t being fair to Josh, especially considering the decision he’d made just that morning as he walked thought the village. “No, you deserve a better explanation,” Brian said, then added, “It’s complicated, but I think I’m in love.”
Josh stared at him, “Love? With who?” he asked, knowing full and well that they were talking about Heather.
“Heather,” Brian said, then felt his heart break a little thinking about her. “But I made a stupid choice and I think I might have ruined things. I have to go back and try to fix things.”
“Well then go back and fix things then come back here,” Josh said, as if it was that simple.
“That’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about. I’m not sure I’m going to publish our results,” he said, wincing when the words came out of his mouth.
“What?” Josh asked, he’d been counting on this discovery to make his career, to allow him to sign on to any project he wanted to. “We’ve been working on this for two years and we found something amazing, I don’t understand.”
“I’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen when this becomes public, everyone is going to want a piece of this, I don’t see how the villagers are going to handle the rush of people coming to search for the fungus,” Brian explained. “I’ve gotten to know these people over the last few weeks and I don’t want to see their lives destroyed.”
“So, you’re just going to pretend that the last two years never happened,” Josh asked, sounding more and more angry.
“No, but until I can figure out a way to protect the village, we’re going to keep this a secret,” Brian said, picking up a vial of the fungus and holding it up to the sunlight.
“I think you’ve lost your mind. Two years of work down the drain. This was my big break Brian and you’ve taken it away from me,” Josh said, then stood up and stalked out of the tent.
Heather rolled over in bed and reached for Brian, expecting him to be there in her half-asleep state, but found only a cold pillow. Then, as it always did, reality brought her fully awake with the gut-wrenching knowledge that Brian was gone and wasn’t coming back. This had been going on for days, the man just wouldn’t leave her mind, whether she was awake or sleeping he was there. Sometimes they were good thoughts, memories of the good times they’d spent together, but most of the time her thoughts were full of the pain she was feeling after his clear rejection of her.
She’d been working as many hours as she could at the clinic, only doing what she had to on the research project because it reminded her of how stupid she’d been to let herself fall in love. Then she’d fall into bed exhausted, hoping that she’d
be able to sleep all night, but it never happened. Instead, she woke in the darkest hour to the pain of knowing that he was gone. What hurt the most was that he hadn’t even said goodbye, just packed up and left without a word as if she meant nothing to him. For days she’d hoped that he’d call but had finally given up that hope after a week, he hadn’t even emailed her about the project, an additional silence that only added to her pain.
Getting out of bed she went to the window and parted the curtain, happy to see that the sun was just beginning to come up. Heading to the kitchen, she put on a pot of coffee and headed for the shower, still feeling exhausted but ready to face another day without Brian. Standing in the shower she let herself think about him but soon found that all it was doing this morning was making her stomach hurt so she focused on the patients she’d be seeing that day. They were the only thing keeping her sane at this point.
By the time she got to the kitchen, her stomach had gone from bad to worse and after the first sip of coffee she knew that she was going to throw up. Her stomach had been bothering her for days, she’d just assumed it was the heartache she was feeling, but now she was beginning to wonder if there was something more wrong with her. After she’d thrown up she felt better, but the seed of doubt had been planted in her mind so the first thing she did when she got to work was check the calendar.
When she’d counted the weeks twice, she sat down heavily in her chair and put her head down on her desk, almost positive that her stomach problems were not just a side effect of her broken heart. Summoning all her strength, she headed for the lab where she took down a pregnancy test with shaking hands and went to the bathroom, emerging five minutes later with the test gripped tightly in her hand. She considered taking another test but knew that it would be a waste of time. Now that she thought about how she’d been feeling for the last week, she knew that she was pregnant, the last thing she’d wanted at this stage of her life.
Not only was she going to be a mother, she was going to be a single mother. Brian had made it perfectly clear that he was finished with her, that what they had wasn’t all that she’d thought it was. She considered trying to call him or email him, but couldn’t imagine what that conversation would be like, nothing positive would come from it and ultimately it would probably only upset her more. Until she decided how she was going to handle this, it would be her little secret. Brian had already hurt her enough, she wasn’t going to give him a chance to hurt her even more. He’d have to be told eventually, but right now she knew that she wasn’t strong enough to tell him.
She carried the secret with her all day, not sure how she felt about becoming a mother this way but adjusting to the idea. When she’d thought about having kids, it had all been so different in her mind, a loving man who would be there to support her and love the child as much as she did. But that wasn’t going to be the reality of her life, instead she was going to be a single mother, the one thing she’d never imagined.
But over the next few days, the shock wore off and she found that she was beginning to become excited about the baby. That the prospect of being a single parent wasn’t quite as scary as she’d first thought. After all, she had wonderful friends who would be there to help her and Homestead was a great place to raise children. She even began to make plans to turn her guest bedroom into a nursery, sitting in the room each night and imagining the baby sleeping in a crib by the window.
As the weeks passed and her belly began to swell, she discovered that the pain she’d felt at Brian’s abandonment was fading, replaced by a love for her unborn child that she’d heard about but never truly understood. She even began to think that it was a gift she’d been given, a small part of the man she loved but could never have that would be hers to keep forever. The only thing marring her happiness was the knowledge that she’d have to tell Brian soon, Theo and Amanda would be back in a week and Amanda would know that something had changed the second she saw Heather.
She wasn’t looking forward to the conversation, had no idea how Brian was going to feel about becoming a father, but she was doing her best to prepare herself for whatever reaction he had. One thing she was certain of, she would never let him hurt her again. The love she’d felt for him had faded, which was just as well, they probably could never have maintained what they had, it had been too much too fast. But she’d already promised herself that she’d never have any regrets, Brian had shown her what love felt like and if she was lucky someday she’d find a man who really did love her, in the meantime she’d have the baby to love.
Brian stood watching the river rush by, his frustration almost at the breaking point. They’d been trying to get down the Amazon River to Macapa for weeks but each time they found a boat to take them, the rain began to pour down, swelling the river to the point that it was unsafe to travel. He’d considered going over land, a journey of hundreds of miles but had finally listened to the village elders and given up the idea.
But with each day that passed, he knew that his chances with Heather grew smaller. It was frustrating that in a world so full of technology, here in the jungle it was practically non-existent. The one and only cell phone tower in the area had been swept away in a mud slide, and he cursed himself again for not calling her, for choosing instead to make a dramatic gesture. At the time it had seemed the perfect idea, a quick trip down the river to Macapa, a couple of plane rides and he’d have been back in Homestead in only a few days.
Then he could have fixed the mistake he’d made in person, show her that he was willing to stand up to his mother, that he wasn’t coward she thought he was. But it hadn’t gone quite that way, and he’d missed his chance to call her and explain. That had been weeks ago and the way the river looked today it would be at least another week before they could even consider the trip. Knowing that standing there stewing about his bad luck wasn’t going to help the situation, he headed for the village where at least he could make himself useful.
Josh heard the sound of footsteps coming from the path by the river and quickly put the satellite phone into the pocket of his raincoat, then he looked out to the river as if that was his reason for being there. Only seconds later, Brian appeared on the path and spotted him right away, he raised his hand and waved but didn’t alter his course. Josh waved back, then breathed a sigh of relief as Brian walked on without stopping.
They’d had several blow-ups over the last few weeks, Josh determined to convince Brian not to suspend the project, pushing him until Brian had refused to discuss it with him any longer. The man was so stubborn, wasn’t thinking about anything but himself and his love affair, which was pathetic. They were just sitting on the biggest discovery of the century because Brian was in love, because Brian was worried about a few natives.
But Brian hadn’t cared what it was going to do to him, how much he needed this. He was tired of being an assistant, wanted his own project and working with Dr. Brian Taylor was supposed to get that for him. But if the project was suspended no one would know what they’d done. Instead of his own research project, funded by grants and donations garnered on the work they’d done, he would be applying for another assistant position when they got home.
After the last blow-up, he’d done what any smart man would have done and quietly began spreading the word about what they’d discovered. Nothing too specific of course, only vague hints that he’d hoped would reel in just the right investor. It seemed only fair to him that he be allowed to use what they’d discovered, he’d given two years of his life for this project and if Brian wasn’t going to use what they’d discovered he was.
His plan had been simple, he’d go along with Brian, pretend that he’d come to terms with his decision, then follow him to Homestead and steal what he needed from Heather’s lab. His investor would provide him with a lab and the funds he needed and in only a few months all his work and sacrifice would pay off big. But the weather was messing up his plans, his investor was getting anxious, threatening to send his men after him if he didn’t get started soon.
After the last phone call, Josh had done a little research on his investor and discovered that he’d gotten hooked up with a very bad man, a man who was used to getting what he wanted, a man who had incurable cancer and less than six months to live. Seeing Brian just now made him realize that he might have made a mistake, hadn’t completely thought through what he was doing. But it had already begun and there was no turning back now, his only hope was that they could get out of the Amazon before his investor took things into his own hands. As mad as he was at Brian, he didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Especially not Heather who had never been anything but nice to him.
Chapter 11
Heather stumbled out of bed and headed for the bathroom, wondering how many years it would be until she got a full night’s sleep. Most nights she just stumbled back to bed and went back to sleep but tonight she knew that wasn’t going to happen because there was too much on her mind. It had been months since she’d heard anything from Brian both personally and professionally and she was beginning to get worried about him. She could understand the personal aspect of the communication shutting down, but the project was still unfinished and although she’d sent him her results, she had no idea if he’d even gotten them.
She walked over to the window and parted the curtain, pleased when she saw that the first snow of the year had arrived in the night, covering everything with a blanket of white. The world outside her window was a study in contrasts, the bright white snow and the shadows changing the landscape of the street into something entirely new. She’d been thinking about Brian all day, had reached for the phone to call him several times, then changed her mind.
When she’d finally punched his number and let it go through all she’d gotten was a busy signal, increasing her concern even more. If Theo and Amanda had been home she could have asked them if he was okay, but they’d extended their trip and wouldn’t be home for a few more weeks. For days she’d been thinking about calling them, but hadn’t been brave enough to make the call, afraid that the second she got Amanda on the phone everything would come pouring out in a torrent of emotion.
Unbreak My Heart_BWWM Romance Page 10