Ty nodded as he watched her go to work. “I’ll tell him.”
As Catt cared for Mandei, her heart went out to her. She was a beautiful young woman, though her long, black hair was soaked with perspiration, and fever had made her huge black, almond-shaped eyes even larger looking. Her pupils were dilated and there was a wild expression in them. She lay on her side, muttering deliriously, in the clutches of a high fever. The simple cotton shift she wore, a faded lavender print with tiny white flowers sprinkled across it, was twisted damply around her knees and slender thighs.
Kneeling down beside her, Catt placed her hands on the woman’s shoulder. Mandei looked up at her, a quizzical expression on her face. Catt gazed gently down at her, smoothing her hands over her shoulder reassuringly, knowing that a comforting touch needed no translation no matter what part of the world she was in. Touch was universal.
The chief knelt opposite Catt and spoke rapidly in his language to his ill daughter. Mandei tried gamely to smile at Catt, but she could not. Lifting her hand weakly, she placed it briefly over Catt’s and whispered something in a shaky voice to her.
“She’s thanking you for coming,” Ty said grimly as he translated. “She said you are an answer to her prayers.”
Catt shot a look toward Ty. “Don’t I wish.”
His mouth twitched uneasily and he spoke to Mandei. The young woman managed a weak smile.
“What did you just tell her?” Catt asked as she continued her examination.
“That your touch was magical.”
The way Ty said it made Catt’s heart ache. She vividly recalled Ty’s own touch. Too vividly. Shrugging off the thought, she busied herself. Through her thin latex gloves she could literally feel heat rolling off the woman’s skin. Ty knelt down on the other side of the woman, next to the chief, and Catt snapped a look up at him. He was already opening her examination bag for her. At least he was efficient, she thought as she reached across Mandei and took the stethoscope he handed her.
“Do you know how to take a pulse?” she demanded.
“Yes.” Ty gently picked up Mandei’s limp, damp arm and placed two fingers against the inside of her wrist.
Chief Aroka hovered anxiously nearby. “Does he know any English?” Catt asked under her breath to Ty as she listened intently to the woman’s breathing and lung sounds.
“None,” he murmured. Frowning, he placed Mandei’s arm against her body. Jotting down information on a sheet attached to his clipboard, he said, “Pulse is thready and uneven. It’s 150 beats a minute.”
“Damn…” Catt placed the stethoscope around her neck. “Her blood pressure is high, too—200 over 100.”
“Not good,” Ty agreed in a softened voice as he wrote down the numbers.
Very gently, Catt turned the delirious woman over on her back. “Tell her that I must examine her,” she ordered Ty. Even beneath the cloth that stuck damply to the woman’s body, Catt could see large, ulcerated sores here and there. Wrinkling her nose, she lifted one of Mandei’s arms and closely examined an ulcer, which was as large as a silver dollar.
“If this isn’t anthrax, then I’m in the wrong business,” she whispered to him tautly. Moving her latex-protected fingers around the sore, she gave Ty her medical diagnosis as she continued her examination of the woman. As Catt slid her hand across Mandei’s swollen abdomen, where her unborn baby lay, she met and held the woman’s gaze, her heart contracting.
Mandei moaned and reached weakly toward Catt’s hand on her abdomen. She began to talk in a combination of Juma and pidgin Portuguese. Pleadingly, she held Catt’s gaze, huge tears streaming from her eyes.
“What’s she saying?” Catt asked quietly.
The corners of Ty’s mouth drew in. “She’s begging you to save her baby. Mandei says she knows she’s dying. If you can save her baby, that’s all she asks.”
Closing her eyes, Catt dragged in an unsteady breath. She opened them, leaned over and grazed the side of Mandei’s face with her fingers. “Tell her I’m going to give her antibiotics and that will save both of them. Tell her to fight back. To hold on. Tell her the drug is going to cure them both.”
Ty translated and then watched as Catt drew out a syringe filled with an antibiotic. “It sure does look like anthrax.”
“No kidding.” Catt squirted a little of the fluid from the syringe and then gripped Mandei’s arm firmly. “Well, she’s going to get a third-generation antibiotic that will grapple with it.”
“Does she have a chance?” he asked as she injected the young woman with the shot.
“I don’t know for sure…maybe. We’re catching it at a very advanced stage. But she’s young and she’s got a good immune system to fight back with,” Catt whispered tautly as she rubbed the area with cotton and alcohol after delivering the shot. And she has a baby, Catt thought, but didn’t say. A living baby within her. Catt couldn’t remain emotionally distant from Mandei’s fight to survive for her baby’s sake. Oh, how well she knew that battle! Shoving back her feelings, Catt said in an uneven tone, “Tell Chief Aroka what we’ve done. Tell him to begin bathing her with cool water to bring down her fever. She needs fluids,” she continued as she moved her fingers against the woman’s tight, golden skin. “She’s dehydrated. We don’t have IVs. Damn. She could lose the baby just from that alone.” Her gaze moved to Mandei’s belly one more time. “Tell the chief to get her to continually sip water or fresh fruit juice. We have to get her electrolytes back up and in some kind of balance or she’ll miscarry for sure under the circumstances.”
Ty scowled as he knelt opposite Catt. He saw the anguish in her eyes and heard it in her voice. Yet despite her own suffering, Catt managed to comfort the sick woman. Just her touch, her healing presence had quieted Mandei. “I’ll tell the chief what you said,” he promised her in a husky voice. The fact that the woman was pregnant was eating at Catt. Ty saw it all too clearly in her eyes. Was she thinking of her own miscarriage? The loss of their baby? Yes, she was. His heart twinged. What a helluva situation.
At that moment, Ty wished with all his heart and soul that he could get Catt out of this hut and away from this dying woman. The look of devastation in Catt’s wide, vulnerable-looking blue eyes shook him deeply. Suddenly he began to imagine all that Catt had gone through without him, and questions filled his mind. Where had Catt miscarried? At her dorm? Alone? Unaided? Had she made it to the hospital? Who had held her after it happened? Or had anyone? Bitterly, Ty felt the knife of guilt twist deeper into his gut. No wonder she hated him.
In the half-light of the hut, he studied her—her hair curling from the high humidity, her face naked with emotion—and he felt a fierce, almost overwhelming urge to reach across and hold her. Catt needed holding. He felt it. He knew it. And he was the last person on this earth whom she would ask or allow to support her, or even try to protect her from the awful reality of Mandei’s situation.
“We need to move on,” Ty said gently. “I can swab her throat, take blood and—”
“No, let Maria do it later,” Catt said, swiping her hair from her perspiring brow. The instant her gaze locked with his, she gasped softly. The hurt, the worry in Ty’s narrowed eyes caught her completely off guard. Here was the man she’d known so long ago. The man who was gentle, who cared, who loved her so fiercely and uncompromisingly. Catt knelt there, her hands on her thighs, caught by his tender expression. The corners of his mouth were drawn in and she knew what that meant: he was suffering just as much as she was for Mandei. The raw look in his cinnamon eyes tore her heart open. His suffering for Mandei was real. This wasn’t a game to Ty. He was just as caught up in the drama of her struggle for life as Catt herself was.
“Come on,” she whispered unsteadily, “we’ve got a lot more patients to see. We’ve only got daylight to work by….” And she rose unsteadily to her feet.
At two in the morning, Ty finished delivering samples to the lab tent set up at the river’s edge, and walked back to the village. The outbreak team was at the
houseboat—all except for Catt, who had told everyone to go eat a very late dinner and catch some badly needed sleep. As he entered the community, the familiar crying, the weeping and moans, met his ears. This was a dying village. Exhaustion tore at him as he moved along the line of huts. He knew where Catt was because a number of family members were huddled anxiously at the front door. When darkness had fallen, Catt had retrieved a flashlight and continued to treat the villagers and give antibiotics to those in need. She was driven. She refused to eat or rest.
Moving through the group, Ty eased his way into the hut. Catt was on the floor, next to a pallet containing a boy no more than six years old. The boy’s breathing was harsh, his body cratered with ulcers. The parents were off to one side, holding one another and sobbing. Catt had her bag open and was giving him a shot. In his heart, Ty knew the boy would die, the harsh breathing an indicator that his body was failing him.
Leaning over her as she wearily placed the syringe back into what was known as a sharps container, which held infected and used needles, Ty slid his hands around her slumped shoulder. “Catt,” he rasped close to her ear, “come home…you’ve done all you can do here tonight….”
Choking, Catt stiffened. She felt Ty’s steadying hands on her shoulders. She felt the grate of his low, gritty voice in her aching heart. He was so close, so incredibly strong when at the moment she felt so weak and useless. And then the past came back to her. Jerking away, she twisted around.
“There are still patients to see.”
He stood leaning over her. The flashlight in her hand barely outlined her facial features, but he saw the darkness beneath her eyes, the strain at the corners of her soft, parted lips. “No, darlin’, not tonight,” he whispered gently. Opening his hand, he said, “Come on. Come back with me. You can only do so much. If you don’t rest, you’ll keel over, Catt, and you know it. Give me your hand and I’ll help you back to the houseboat. You need to catch a couple hours of sleep.”
There was a curious mixture of hunger and firmness in Ty’s gaze. In some dizzy, weary part of her barely functioning mind, Catt knew that if she didn’t get up and go back with Ty, he would unceremoniously carry her out of the hut and back to the boat. She saw that glint of warning in his eyes, a red flag that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
“All right,” she snapped irritably, slamming her bag shut. “Just give me room.”
Ty didn’t try to shield himself from her anger. He understood it. He knew Catt too well. She was a driven woman. Driven to save lives no matter what the physical or emotional toll to herself. What mattered to Catt was to stop the dying. Backing out of the hut, he told the people in Portuguese that the team would return at dawn. The relief on the Juma’s faces made him wince inwardly. Half the people in the village were either dead or dying. Would the antibiotics stop the anthrax?
Reeling unsteadily, Catt gripped the frame of the hut door until she got her bearings. Ty stood nearby watching her worriedly. She was simply too wrung out to even argue with him right now. As she stepped out past the people, who were thanking her profusely, touching her shoulder, her arm in gratefulness, Ty took her bag.
Jerking the mask off her face, Catt moved drunkenly down the path that lead back to the river. The jungle darkness silently enveloped them. She sensed Ty walking just behind her.
“It’s anthrax,” she rasped bitterly over her shoulder. “Damn, I know it’s anthrax.”
“Then the antibiotics will help,” he said, moving up beside her. She wasn’t steady at all. Ty almost reached out to cup her elbow, but decided not to.
“It’s got to turn this epidemic around,” Catt said. “It just has to.”
There was a tree root across their path. Catt didn’t see it because she was too tired, too immersed in her worry for the Juma. The toe of her left shoe caught it. With a cry, she pitched forward.
Instantly, Ty was there. He dropped the bag, threw out his arms and caught Catt just as she fell toward the ground.
“Easy,” he rasped, as he brought her upright and into his arms. She was limp and weary. For an instant, he caught the wonderful perfume of her hair as she momentarily rested her head against his shoulder. Instinctively her arms went around his waist so she could steady herself. Their bodies met and touched. He felt the softness of her small breasts, that rounded quality of her abdomen where she had carried their baby, and the grazing touch of her thighs against his harder ones.
With a soft moan, Catt collapsed against him. It wasn’t something she’d planned on doing; it simply happened because she was so tired. And right now, she needed Ty. That need flowed through her as she felt his strong arms slide around her body, drawing her into his embrace. The feeling was wonderful! Her brain was spongy. Her heart exploded with need, with a hunger that stunned her—hunger for Ty Hunter alone.
She felt his lips press softly against her temple. She heard him whisper her name like a prayer. His fingers were strong and firm as he moved them across her tense shoulders. Somehow, her arms had found his torso and she was clinging to him. Ty felt so strong. She felt so weak and defeated. The masculine scent of him filled her flaring nostrils. She drank it in greedily, starved for the feel of him, the texture and scent of him. So many wonderful memories flowed back through Catt—of times they’d spent at Half Moon Bay, a beautiful crescent-shaped beach on the coast. They would go for a swim in the sparkling blue-green ocean, ride the waves and body surf and then run back to the white sand beach and fling themselves onto the green-and-red plaid blanket. Like two wet, playful seals they would laugh, touch, kiss, and then he would deliciously use his tongue to sip the salty water from her face, her lips, her neck, her aching, waiting breasts….
No. No, this shouldn’t be happening. Catt pulled her arms from around his narrow waist. She could feel the hard pounding of his heart against her ear as she remained sagging against him, relying still on his support. How badly she needed to be held by Ty! He was here for her this time, simply holding her and rocking her gently in his arms. His voice flowed across her swimming senses, his tone low, rough and thrilling to her in every way. This was the old Ty Hunter she’d fallen so helplessly in love with so long ago. Oh, why couldn’t everything have been different in the past? Why had Ty thought his job was more important than her being pregnant?
His arms were nurturing to her, and Catt hungrily absorbed his embrace in those stunning few seconds. The sounds of the jungle—the singing of insects, the croaking of tree frogs—combined with the sweet, heavy scent of orchids that hung in the branches of trees along the narrow dirt path. Unconsciously, Catt rubbed her cheek against his chest. The white cotton shirt he wore was damp and clinging to his flesh, but she didn’t care. As she nestled more deeply into his arms, she felt him groan. The wonderful reverberation moved through him and into her, like a primitive drum being played, throbbing achingly through both of them simultaneously.
“My beautiful Joan of Arc,” Ty rasped as he threaded his fingers through her short, silky hair. “You fight so hard for the sick and the injured. You have a heart so large that it takes my breath away, did you know that?” Closing his eyes, he savored these moments of nearness to Catt. “Just let me hold you,” he pleaded against her ear. “Let me keep you safe…let me give you some of my strength, darlin’….”
The words were coming out of him without thought. Ty was unable to stop himself. He didn’t want to. Catt was in his arms and trusting him again. But the depth of her fatigue scared him. He knew what a fighter she was. Guiltily, he remembered that she hadn’t slept at all last night, and that it had been his fault. Now she was drunk with weariness. She’d worked nearly sixteen hours nonstop. Placing a soft kiss against her hair, he murmured, “You do so much for so many. It’s time to quit and take care of yourself for a little while, darlin’. Let me help. I can hold you. I can help you if you’ll let me….” And Lord knew, he wanted to be there for Catt this time and not screw it up. Maybe, just maybe, he could prove his worthiness to her again by helpi
ng her with this outbreak now. Could Catt look at him through new eyes? Could she give him a second chance with her?
He wanted nothing more than that, he was discovering as she leaned into his embrace more securely, entrusting him with her full weight. He felt the racing of her heart in her breast, the soft firmness of her cheek against his chest. Her embrace was one of innocence, he knew. But he wasn’t so innocent. Ty had been hoping an opportunity to show her he cared for her would occur because he was driven to convince her that he wasn’t the villain she thought he was. He’d made a terrible mistake as a young Marine Corps officer. Couldn’t she see that? Could Catt somehow, someday, forgive him for the terrible decision he’d made? His mouth compressed against the tidal wave of emotions he wanted to share with Catt. Good things. Wonderful things. Would she give him that chance?
For an instant, Ty felt hope rise in his pounding heart. And then he felt her stiffen in his arms, as if finally aware of what was going on. He knew Catt’s exhaustion was making her more vulnerable, more needy, than usual. Without hesitation, he opened his embrace and, placing his hands on her shoulders, allowed her to step a few inches away from him. As he looked down, the bare hint of moonlight filtering through the canopy above them, he saw tears in her eyes. Huge, unshed tears. There was no pain in her expression, just a soft hunger in her parted lips. But questions lingered in her eyes.
“You’re going to be okay,” Hunter murmured, holding her steady as she gazed brokenly up at him. “You’re just very tired, Catt. Come on…let me get you home, okay?”
Though Catt’s brain refused to work, she couldn’t mistake the burning, fierce hunger in Ty Hunter’s narrowed eyes. Her body cried out for more of him. She felt her breasts tighten beneath his burning inspection. She felt a heat begin to pool in her lower body, and the ache for him intensified almost painfully. “Home?” she asked, confused. She felt like a blithering idiot. She couldn’t hold two thoughts together for a fleeting second.
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