Rafael's One Night Bombshell

by Tina Beckett

  And that stupid time they’d spent at Mad Ron’s.

  He’d said it was an anniversary, hadn’t he? An anniversary of what?

  She glanced at the blood on the floor, the breath hissing from her lungs. Surely not. But from the way those whiskey glasses had been lined up, it very well could have been. Hadn’t she thought that he was a man in just as much pain as she was?

  If what she suspected was true, he’d been a man in much more pain than she could ever imagine. Because he hadn’t been scorned by a fiancée or cheated on or any of those other things that people suffered on a regular basis. His experience had been so much worse.

  His parents had been killed in this very bodega.

  And Rafe had had to stand there while they’d been working on Samantha. And from the look on his face, he’d been wondering if the past was coming back to pay him and his brothers a visit. A visit that might end up being just as deadly as what he’d faced all those years ago.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “YOU SHOULD HAVE seen his face, Bonnie. It was eerie.”

  “That’s horrible. I can’t imagine going through something like that.”

  “Me either.” Cassie stabbed a bite of broccoli from her plate, suddenly wishing she’d canceled their dinner date.

  Chez Paris was one of her favorite restaurants. It was expensive, but since she didn’t eat out all the time, she felt like she could splurge periodically. At least that’s what she’d told herself when she’d left the house that morning. It all seemed so different now.

  But it was their “thing.” She and Bonnie had taken to coming here once a month when they’d started working at the hospital. And now that Cassie was footloose and fancy-free...

  Yes, and she was determined to keep it that way. Footloose. Free. No more impulsive moves on her part.

  Like picking up men in bars?

  That didn’t count. She’d been angry and hurt and had wanted to get back at her ex in any way she could, even though Darrin would never know about what she’d done.

  “So you said this CDC guy has a few cute brothers?”

  The interest in her friend’s voice made her roll her eyes. “Forget it. I already told you, they’re taken. Or some of them are. It’s hard to remember whose name is whose, much less their marital statuses.”

  “Are they all as gorgeous as the one who came to the hospital?”

  Yes, but this was a line of conversation she didn’t want to follow. She tried to shrug it off.

  “They come from the same family, so of course there’s a resemblance.”

  “So, like I said, they’re all gorgeous.”

  They were all attractive, but Cassie had to admit she’d only had eyes for Rafe. Maybe that was because she’d spent the night with him.

  And, boy, what a night that had been.

  She was smart enough to know that sex often brought with it some level of emotional connection, but she’d be a fool if she let herself think there could be anything more to it than that. Hadn’t she already gone down that path once before?

  Her date with Darrin Myers had turned into two. They’d slept together and the relationship had taken off from there. If she looked back on it, she could see that they’d let things get out of control, the whirlwind romance turning into an engagement within three months.

  It had lasted all of a year.

  But they’d seemed so compatible, and she’d been happy to be swept off her feet—wanted—for once in her life. Happy to finally feel a sense of belonging.

  Still, Cassie had always been one to take things slow and easy, never rushing into anything.

  Like having sex with a complete stranger?

  Evidently, since that’s what she’d done with Rafe.

  “Don’t get any ideas, Bonnie. I don’t know any of them.”

  “Not even that Rafe guy? Seems to me that you know him quite well. At least from what you told me.”

  “It was one night, and it was a huge mistake. I’m not involved with him, and I’m not planning on getting involved with him, so you can find yourself another wingman.”

  “Rats. A girl can hope.” She took a bite of her chicken and swallowed. “Any word on the stabbing victim?”

  “Not yet. Rafe said he’d let me know if he heard anything from Alejandro—one of the brothers. He rode in the ambulance with the woman—Samantha.”

  “It’s hard to believe people can do such horrible things. Was she trying to kill Samantha? Or just steal the baby?” Bonnie paused. “I guess it doesn’t really matter what the motive was. It would have been a death sentence for the poor woman either way. It’s just plain evil.”

  “The police think the fiancé’s ex-girlfriend was trying to get back at Samantha for ‘stealing her boyfriend.’”

  As soon as the words had left her mouth Cassie’s muscles tensed. Hadn’t she tried to do the same thing by sleeping with Rafe? Get back at her ex?

  But she hadn’t harmed anyone in the process, not Darrin and not Rafe. If she’d hurt anyone, it had been herself.

  “I hope she makes it,” Bonnie said.

  “Me too. I’ll send Rafe a text tomorrow and see if he knows anything.”

  “You could always send it now. Surely he’s heard something?”

  Cassie glanced down at her watch. Eight o’clock. Still early by Miami standards. When he’d dropped her off at home that afternoon, she’d decided she was going to steer clear of Rafe Valentino and his brothers if at all possible.

  But she did want to know how Samantha and her baby were doing. And if the woman—Bridget?—who’d attacked her had been apprehended. “Okay, but I’m not going to send him ten messages just to satisfy your curiosity.”

  “This would make how many messages?”

  “One, but you know what I mean.” Bonnie knew how to get her to crack. She pulled her phone from her purse and clicked the button to open the window, only to stop in shock. “Well, that’s strange.”

  “What is?” Bonnie asked.

  She had a missed call, and a voice message. From Rafe.

  “Mmm...maybe this is something.” She hit the icon and put the phone to her ear.

  A rich, familiar baritone filled her ear. “Listen, Cassie, my boss and a few folks from Washington are flying in tomorrow to look at the cases you sent me. Is there any way you can come to the office and fill them in in person? Let me know what your schedule looks like, and I’ll try to work around whatever you can give us. There will be a couple of doctors from other hospitals joining us as well. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

  That last line made her swallow, which was ridiculous. She listened for more, but that was the end of the message.

  Don’t get excited, Cass. He only wants you to call because he has some folks coming in.

  Then it hit her. Yikes. Folks from Washington wanted to talk to her?

  “Anything?” Bonnie’s voice brought her back from her stupor.

  “No.”

  Her friend’s brows went up. “A whole lot of something went across your face as you listened to that message, so don’t give me that.”

  “I don’t mean ‘no’ about that. It just wasn’t about Samantha or what happened today at the bodega. It seems some bigwigs are coming to town tomorrow and want to interview me about the Zika scare.”

  “So it’s a scare now?”

  “Wouldn’t it be a scare if you were pregnant?”

  “Yes, of course. But I don’t have any prospects, so that’s not even on my horizon.”

  “Ditto.” Thank heavens she didn’t have to worry about that.

  She and Darrin had decided to wait on having children.

  You dodged a bullet there, that’s for sure.

  “So what time is this meeting?”

  �
�He didn’t say. Just said they’d try to work around my schedule.”

  For the first time, Bonnie didn’t try to turn her words around into a joke. Her brows came together. “Are we seriously looking at an epidemic in the making?”

  Were they? Cassie couldn’t remember the last time some fast-moving disease had landed on their shores from other parts of the world. And she hoped this turned out to be a big lot of nothing. But from the sound of Rafe’s message, people in very high places were beginning to get worried.

  “I don’t know, Bonnie,” she said. “But I sure hope not.”

  * * *

  Rafe met Cassie at the front door of his office building, walking her through the sign-in process and making sure she went through the metal detectors without incident. She was the last of the medical staff in the Miami area to be called in for an interview, her schedule not having allowed her to make it before five o’clock.

  They were waved through the last of the checkpoints, where Cassie’s purse was searched and her cell phone was tagged and placed in a small locker for her to retrieve when she left. His bosses were taking no chances, and he couldn’t blame them. This was a touchy situation that could easily turn into mass panic if not handled with care. The news was already having a field day reporting on the gruesome possibilities of the virus traveling from place to place through mosquitoes and sexual contact. It had the makings of a catastrophe. There were already warnings about pregnant women traveling to places where Zika was known to be. Would Miami soon be one of those places? The tourist industry was a huge source of income for many folks. To have that suddenly shut down...

  Rafe didn’t even want to think about it.

  Nor should he. This was about saving lives. He hoped everyone could keep their focus on that and leave the financial implications for another day.

  As they walked down the hallway, Cassie touched his arm. “Is there any word at all on Samantha?”

  His mind went blank for a few seconds. “Samantha?”

  “The woman who was attacked yesterday.”

  The blood on the floor of the bodega flooded his memory. He’d flashbacked to his parents’ deaths eighteen years ago. The floor had been slick with blood on that day too. And his father’s labored breathing as he’d lain on the floor...his mother’s lack of response. She’d been dead at the scene. And his brother...

  Don’t think about it.

  “Alejandro said she’s holding her own.”

  “The baby?”

  “They delivered him by C-section. He’s alive. The knife pierced his arm, but it didn’t damage any tendons or ligaments. A couple of sutures and he was good to go. He’ll have no lasting damage.” Unlike Samantha, who would probably be haunted by what had happened for the rest of her life. “They also found her fiancé. He’s devastated. Said he never dreamed his ex would do anything like this.”

  Of course, Rafe had never imagined he’d have to make the decisions required of him after the shooting. But he had. And then he’d had to stand beside a bed knowing how things were going to end. He never wanted to do that again...never wanted to be responsible for deciding if someone’s life support should be cut off, his heart placed into someone else’s body.

  If he hadn’t done it, though, Alejandro would be dead too.

  Dante had told him time and time again that he’d made the right decision. Papi had been brain-dead. The last-ditch effort to save his life through surgery had failed and caused a massive brain bleed.

  But seeing his father in that bed had been surreal. His familiar face had been infused with color, even though it had been the machines that had kept his blood oxygenated, that had kept his heart alive. Despite the grim prognosis, it had been hard for his teenaged mind to comprehend that his dad would never again open his eyes or recognize the faces of his sons.

  Signing the paper that would turn off the ventilator had been pure torture. He hadn’t wanted to do it. But to linger over the decision meant that Alejandro—whose heart had been hit by one of the bullets and damaged beyond repair—would die. There’d been no time to grieve. No time to process what was happening.

  No time to say goodbye.

  And so Rafe had given the okay, kissing his father’s cool cheek one last time and smoothing his graying locks back from his forehead. Then it was over. His dad had been wheeled away and prepped for a surgery he would never return from. There was no going back. Or reconnecting machines. They’d buried their father next to their mother and then stood vigil over Alejandro’s bed until he’d woken up. Not long afterward, Santi had disappeared, unable to deal with the tragic events. It had taken Carmelita to bring them all back together again.

  If he lost one of them...

  This was why Rafe didn’t do relationships. His brothers were his blood, he was stuck with them. But unlike Alejandro and Santi, Rafe could choose not to link his life to someone else’s. That way, there were never any difficult goodbyes. Just a few superficial friends and temporary lovers. Nothing painful. Nothing permanent.

  “I’m glad she’s okay.”

  He blinked back to the present to find Cassie watching him with curious eyes. He could just imagine what she’d been thinking.

  “They’re still looking for her attacker, but at least they know the woman’s name and where she lives.”

  When they arrived at the conference room, Rafe paused. “Do you want coffee or anything before we go in?”

  Her teeth came down and caught her lip. “What should I expect in there?”

  “There will be a lot of detailed questions. Most on the panel are medical experts, so don’t feel like you need to translate things into layman’s terms, they’ll want specifics. They’ve already interviewed a few other doctors from your hospital.”

  Cassie frowned. “I knew there would be other doctors, but I guess I assumed they were all from different hospitals. Why didn’t they just bring everyone from Seaside in as a group and interview us together? It would have saved them some time.”

  “You’re all on different schedules. And each person’s perceptions are different. They didn’t want you comparing stories and changing details.”

  “Wow. It sounds more like an interrogation than a fact-finding trip.”

  He reached over to give her hand a reassuring squeeze and found her palm clammy. His throat tightened. It took some guts to come down here not knowing what to expect. “It might seem that way, but they want to figure this thing out as much as you do. As much as I or anyone else does. Don’t let them intimidate you. Just answer their questions to the best of your ability. I’ll be right there with you.”

  “Thank you.” She took a deep breath, and her eyes found his. “I mean that.”

  “Ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Cassie accepted the panel’s offer of a break and a glass of water. The questioning had been grueling, and she was again thankful that the hospital had gotten permission from the patients’ families, otherwise she would have been hobbled by HIPPA laws. As it was, the experts had asked whether they had found bites or rashes on any of the new mothers, and exactly what each woman had said about being ill.

  It brought back a lot of the heartache each had faced as they’d given birth to their babies. Two more hospitals had recently come forward with cases that seemed to fit the parameters. The panel could have withheld that information, but she was glad that they were willing to share bits and pieces to help her with future cases.

  Then she was back at it. When the last question had been presented, the experts turned it around, giving Cassie an opportunity to quiz them on the subject.

  “How close are we to a vaccine being developed?”

  The person she had already guessed was the head of the panel slid his glasses further down his nose and peered at her
over the top of them. “Not as close as we’d like to be, I’m afraid.”

  She imagined this question had been asked by every person who’d sat in this conference room today. Including Rafe?

  Throughout the questioning he had sat beside her rather than going to join his colleagues behind the table. She very much appreciated his support. He hadn’t touched her or tried to speak over her or given her hints about what to say. He’d just quietly stayed in his seat as she’d spoken, his pencil and paper untouched in front of him. Maybe he had eidetic memory or something.

  Or maybe he just wanted to help.

  Isn’t that what he’d said everyone in that room wanted to do?

  It made her feel a little less alone. And maybe even a little less like an outsider. She appreciated that more than anything.

  Then it was over and the panel stood, the men and women coming over to her little table to shake her hand and thank her for coming. She expressed her own gratitude for being able to share what she’d observed at Seaside. They all expressed hope that a solution could be found so that lives could be saved and fetal health restored.

  Once outside the room, Rafe sucked down a breath. “Sorry that was so tough.”

  “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I get where they’re coming from, and you’re right. We all need to work together to find a way to beat this.”

  “Thanks for seeing it that way. Not everyone was that gracious.”

  She stopped and looked up at him. “People from my hospital?”

  “No, not yours, but County and one of the others seemed to be more worried about covering their collective asses than anything else. They clamped down on giving us any usable information.”

  “Wow. Did they come of their own volition?”

  “Yes, that was the strange part. They could have refused to come. Instead, they each showed up with a lawyer in tow.”

  That was strange. Especially for a public hospital that had to watch every penny they spent.

  “Would the CDC have subpoenaed them if they’d decided not to attend?” And if she had turned down their invitation, would they have handed her a piece of paper with a judge’s signature and forced her to appear?