by Peggy Webb
It had been a terrifying experience, but not nearly as terrifying as the one she’d just gone through. She’d felt the shock of Joseph all the way to her heart.
Who was going to rescue her now? That thought blocked out all else as they drove through Houston to the Hispanic barrio on the east side of the city.
Their headquarters was just ahead, two large trailers, which served as research center and dining hall, with two smaller trailers off to the side for sleeping quarters. Dr.Swift opened the door of one of the smaller trailers, and Peg vanished inside.
Callie dallied, torn by conflicting thoughts.
“Is anything wrong?” Joseph asked.
“No.”
The last thing she wanted was for this man to think she had one iota of personal interest in him, one ounce of feeling other than contempt for the way he denied his heritage. True, he was reputed to be one of the most brilliant virologists working today, but he’d have to earn respect.
“I was just thinking about the battle ahead of us.”
She looked at the surrounding area, building after building, so much humanity per square inch that a hot virus running rampant could fell thousands in one day.
“It would be daunting to some, but I suspect that you are a woman who is never daunted.”
Her eyes swung back to him, the face that looked as if it had been carved from granite, the wild tangle of black hair, the broad chest, the strong legs.
“No, never.” It was only a small lie, and she crossed her fingers behind her back the way she had when she was a child.
“The night comes swiftly, Callie, and the darkness can be dangerous in this part of town.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You don’t want to be caught alone in the dark.”
It wasn’t the prospect of being alone in the dark that had her quaking inside like an aspen. She tightened her grip on both her bag and her common sense.
“I don’t intend to, Doctor.” She walked toward her trailer, her proud posture daring him to say another word. Turning back, she leveled the playing field with one glance. “I have better things to do than fumble around in the dark.”
“Somehow I don’t think of you as the fumbling kind.”
“That’s something you’ll never find out.” She regretted the words the minute they were out of her mouth. Someday her quick wit was going to be her undoing.
The glints in his eyes were not laughter but something far more dangerous.
“It’s my loss.”
Until that moment Callie had known only two men who could bewitch with words—her father and her brother. Combining the lyricism of Athabascan with the poetry in their souls, they could persuade the sun to come down from the sky or the ocean to give up its tides. Where the fairer sex was concerned, their tongues were lethal weapons.
Apparently the Apache had nothing over the Sioux.
“I’m vaccinated against all deadly viruses,” she said, “measles, diptheria, typhoid, insincerity.”
Joseph roared with laughter. “Nothing invigorates me more than an agile-minded, tart-tongued woman.”
Glancing across the barriers at the section of the city that had become a battleground against a deadly enemy, he sobered. “If you can keep that lively sense of humor in the days ahead, it could be the salvation of us all.”
She stared in the direction he was looking, but the sun suddenly dropped as if it had been shot from the sky, and a curtain of darkness descended over the city.
Joseph offered his arm, and this time Callie took it.
“Don’t let go,” he said.
Was the double entendre deliberate, or was fatigue playing tricks on Callie’s mind? “Just tired,” she told herself. Tomorrow she would view Joseph strictly as a colleague.
Peg had turned on all the lights inside their trailer, and together Callie and Joseph walked toward the glow. She could barely see his face, but she had no trouble at all feeling his body heat. It came from him in waves, searing her mouth, parching her throat, melting her flesh and bones until she was nothing but a puddle of emotion.
When they reached the door, they paused just outside the pool of lamplight. He stood too close. She held on too long. Neither of them could move.
“Callie…”
She shut her eyes, letting the music of his voice wash over her. She sensed rather than saw his small movement, felt the touch of his fingertips against her cheek, softly, ever so briefly, like the kiss of a butterfly wing.
“Get a good night’s sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”
And then he was gone, swallowed up by the blackness. His touch lingered on her skin, and she kept her eyes closed for a while, breathing deeply and evenly.
“Callie?” Peg called. “Is that you?”
“It’s me.”
Peg emerged from the bathroom, her hair tousled and her eyes droopy with fatigue.
“What are you doing standing out here?”
“Would you believe admiring the view?”
“No.”
“I thought not.” Callie went inside and tossed her bag beside Peg’s. “How’re you holding up, pal?”
“Better than you. Just look at you.”
“What?”
“All swoony and misty-eyed.”
“Jet lag.”
“He lit your fire. Not that I blame you one little bit. If it weren’t for this…” Peg held up the hand with her wedding band. “I’d be consumed by the flames of passion myself.”
“There’s no such things as flames of passion.”
“What about your parents? You’re always talking about how much they love each other?”
“That’s different. They don’t make love like that anymore.” Callie unzipped her bag and pulled out the oversize white cotton gown she used for sleeping. “You want me to turn out the light?”
“Sure.”
Callie reached toward the switch. “What are you grinning about?”
“Nothing. I’m just grinning, that’s all.” Peg climbed into her bunk. “Sweet dreams, Callie. And may they all be about sex.”
“You are evil and must be destroyed,” Callie said. She doused the light, then lay in her bed listening to the sounds of the restless city—a swish of tires on pavement, the blaring of horns, the yelling of impatient cab drivers. And from somewhere nearby, the plaintive music of a guitar.
She turned on her side, pulled aside the curtain and stared out the small window. In the soft glow of lamplight, Joseph was silhouetted against the stark white walls of his trailer, dark head bent forward, guitar cradled in his arms like a lover, fingers moving rapidly along the neck as he shaped his minor chords.
The song ended and he laid down his guitar, then stood up and stretched, magnificently naked, wonderfully formed.
“What demons haunt you?” she whispered.
As if he’d heard, as if he could see her lying in her bed wondering, Joseph turned and stared in the direction of her trailer. Even across the distance she could feel the heat of his gaze.
Callie shivered. Then lying back, she closed her eyes. For once in her life she was going to squelch her natural curiosity. It didn’t matter what demons haunted Dr. Joseph Swift. Dr. Callie Red Cloud was planning to put her mind to other things.
Joseph was making coffee when Callie emerged from her trailer the next morning. Yesterday had not been a dream. In the unforgiving light of day, even without makeup and still suffering from jet lag, she was quite simply the most sensational-looking woman he’d ever seen. But it was more than her looks that electrified him. It was the sensation of walking through his old neighborhood and discovering that the villa where he’d laughed and loved had suddenly been resurrected from the ashes.
“Good morning,” she called, striding toward him, rolling up the cuffs of her white shirt.
When she entered the temporary mess hall his mind jolted back to the chore at hand, and he finished measuring coffee grounds into the pot, then turned his attention to
the skillet.
“Breakfast is almost ready.”
“I didn’t expect you to cook.”
He lifted the charred bacon with a spatula. “I hate it, but here we do what’s necessary. The fewer people we involve in this matter, the better. Today is my shift, tomorrow is yours.”
“If there is a tomorrow,” she said. “How bad is it over there?” She nodded in the direction of the barricades.
“Still contained. I’ll brief you as soon as Peg arrives.”
“Am I late?” Peg rushed through the door, still buttoning her blouse. “I wanted to make a good impression on my first field trip.”
“Impressions don’t count here,” Joseph said.
In the purple dawn, he finished cooking, then briefed them over breakfast. He told how Simba Kunte had brought the virus to his cousin’s house in the barrio, how he had refused to go to a doctor, how quickly the hot virus spread.
“By the time it had been identified, fifteen in the barrio were stricken. That number is now thirty-seven, but holding. We’ve had no new cases in the last two days.”
“What about the tanker?” Callie asked.
“It’s still under quarantine. Only two developed mild cases, and they are on the road to recovery. As you know, transfer of this virus occurs in the acute stage. Putting a city the size of Houston under quarantine would not only be counterproductive, it would create widespread panic and probably rioting or worse. We can only pray that the stricken ones have been too sick to travel outside their own homes and neighborhoods.”
Both women asked intelligent, pertinent questions. But the true test would come when they crossed the barriers and went into the field hospital.
“Any other questions?” he asked, and they responded, no. “Then let’s suit up.”
Joseph never entered a quarantined area without thinking about his wife, Maria, of the laughing dark eyes and the skin as hot as volcanic ash. How happy they had once been, how arrogant in their presumption that their knowledge and skill could protect them, how totally unprepared for tragedy.
She’d died on the Ivory Coast. Joseph and Maria, the unbeatable team had been beaten by the virus they’d gone in to fight. One small mistake, a mask that had slipped out of place. One small opening, an entrance for a virus so deadly it needed nothing more than a pinpoint to invade and destroy its host.
He’d fought until the bitter end, and at the last all he could do was hold her hand and silently curse the fates for taking her…and himself for letting her die. He should have never let her come into the midst of an outbreak. He should never have let her go down into the village. He should have been more careful, more vigilant.
His list of sins and shortcomings went on and on, but nothing could bring her back. And nothing could bring him to mix business with pleasure. Ever again.
Then why did his heart contract when he saw Callie Red Cloud striding toward him in her safety suit? Why did he want to rush forward and carry her away from this place of damnation?
“Ready for inspection, Doctor,” she said, her voice crisp and full of confidence.
Joseph hardened his heart. Callie was a professional, just as he was. She was a member of the team. Nothing more.
Peg joined her, and he inspected every detail of their suits, from the tape wrapping their wrists and ankles to seal the gaskets, to their boots and gloves, to the fit of their face masks and the seals of the helmets.
On the first inspection he found nothing amiss, but he did it again just to be certain. Hidden in the voluminous pressurized safety suit, nothing but her face visible, Callie still had the power to render him breathless.
Silently damning himself for letting his emotions threaten his good sense, he gave the all-clear signal, and the three of them passed the quarantine lines into the stricken barrio of Houston.
Chapter Three
No matter how often she saw the effects of one of the hot viruses, Callie never failed to be moved at the sight. The temporary hospital was a huge warehouse, well equipped and staffed by two local doctors and three nurses, nuns who had flown in from a hospital in San Antonio to fight the outbreak. Saints, all.
And around them lay the sick, helpless and hopeless.
Callie blinked back tears, and then she checked on Peg. Her face was ashen and her knees threatened to buckle. Callie put her hand on her friend’s arm.
“Are you okay?”
“My God. I never dreamed it would be so horrible.”
Callie led her outside.
“Take deep breaths.”
“That child! Did you see that little boy?”
“I saw him.”
Peg bent double. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“The first time is always the hardest.”
“Does it get better?”
“No, it never gets better. You just get stronger, that’s all.”
“What’s going on out here?” Ice was warmer than Joseph’s voice.
Callie whirled around. “It’s her first time.”
“Then let her deal with it. I don’t have time for you to play nursemaid to a perfectly healthy woman when we have a hospital full of the dying.”
“Don’t you have a heart?”
“I can’t afford a heart.” He turned back toward the hospital, calling over his shoulder. “Are you coming, Dr. Red Cloud?”
She gave him a smart salute, then with one last reassuring squeeze to Peg’s arm, she marched inside.
“I’ll wire for a replacement for her tomorrow.” Joseph handed Callie a handful of charts. “And don’t give me that look. In this business, nobody gets a second chance.”
“You didn’t even give her a first chance.” Callie was so furious she had a hard time controlling the quaver in her voice.
“It’s all right, Callie.” Peg appeared in the doorway. “I can speak for myself.” She faced Joseph. “It won’t happen again, Dr. Swift.”
He studied her for a long moment, then handed charts to her.
“Let’s get to work, then.”
To all appearances Joseph was completely focused on his work: only he knew of his inner turmoil. Callie was bending over the bed of the small boy who had stolen Joseph’s heart days earlier. Ricardo Valesquez, four years old and fighting like a tiger cub against the insidious virus that racked his small body, lay in the bed closest to the doorway, for even in his feeble state he insisted on seeing the light.
What was he thinking, lying there watching the shadow-play as the sun tracked across the sky? Was he thinking that only a week ago he’d been running through his neighborhood playing ball with his friends? Was he remembering how he tried to sink a goal in the net that was far too tall for him? Was he remembering his parents, struck down in their prime by the arbo virus that sneaked into the barrio like a thief, stealing the brightest and the best?
Everything about Callie conveyed her tenderness and compassion—touch, tone, body language.
“Don’t you worry, little one. We’re going to take good care of you.” She stroked him with her gloved hand, brushing the dark hair from eyes suddenly grown too big for the fever-flushed face.
“But you have to help us. You have to fight. Do you understand? Fight, little one. Fight.”
Suddenly Joseph was spinning through time and space, hearing another voice, seeing another woman, another child. The language was different but the words were the same.
“Fight, my darling, fight,” Maria had said in Italian, and then she’d bent down and placed a kiss on the stricken child’s forehead.
A fatal kiss. The child, already too far gone had died in the night, and Maria, his love, his life, had allowed passage of the deadly virus into her safety suit when she bent to kiss the child.
Joseph had seen what was happening, saw the face mask slip ever so slightly, saw the fatal opening between mask and hood.
“Maria!” He’d raced across the room, jerking her mask back into place, but it was already too late.
Helpless, he’d w
atched the virus consume his wife. Neither his medicine nor his prayers could keep her alive. And neither his tears nor his curses could bring her back.
He’d laid her to rest in the green hills of Umbria she’d loved so deeply. Then he’d locked up his heart.
Young and arrogant when they’d married, as full of life as they were of love, they’d thought it could never happen to them. And yet it had.
Joseph shook his head to clear away the memories. Callie finished recording the small boy’s temperature, then she brushed back Ricardo’s hair and bent over his bed.
“Callie!” Joseph felt as if he were running in slow motion, too late to help her, too late to prevent another disaster.
Callie jerked around, eyes as bright as blue flames through the mask. He gripped her upper arm, his eyes scanning her mask for signs of slippage.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“Straightening his pillow.” She looked at his hand, still held in a death grip on her arm. “What are you doing?”
“Come with me.” He propelled her into the small cubicle that served both as office and break room, then slammed the door shut. Hands braced on the desk behind him, he confronted her.
“You are never to do anything that will put your life at risk.”
“I was comforting a small boy and straightening the covers on his bed. I hardly see how that constitutes a risk.”
“You know the rules—avoid undue contact, never become personally involved with the patient.”
“He’s just a child! A scared little boy.”
There was something heroic about the child, something that had pulled on his heartstrings from the very beginning so that he’d had a hard time remaining aloof, but he didn’t tell Callie that. Instead, he reigned in his heart, a heart that was suddenly threatening revolt.
“If you wish to remain here as a part of my team, you will follow the rules. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly.”
She saluted, a gesture filled with both spunk and humor, but Joseph refused to bend, even a little.