Given New Worlds

by Rachael Sircar

  With fatherly concern clearly evident on his face, James placed his hand on Abby’s knee. “We need you to work with us in order to catch these bastards.”

  Abby almost jolted at the use of an expletive by James McCarrin. Surely, he’d used it in the presence of his immediate coworkers, but never in front of Abby or her mom.

  “What…” Abby tried to get out the words, but her throat was closing up. She knew what he was going to tell her. Abigail Ellwood had just become a pawn for the sake of national security. She looked up at Sean. His face was red with frustration as he drained the glass in his hand. Abby lifted the wine to her lips and finished it off as well.

  “We’ve already spoken with the director at the hospital. They don’t have the details. They’re under the impression that another crazed stalker is targeting you. This gives us the veil under which to send our teams in.”

  As James relayed details about security protocol and the need for complete opacity, Abby watched Sean set his empty glass on the mantel and walk towards her. He sat next to her on the couch, and as James revealed the unnerving details, he lifted his chin to where Sean sat with focused, frightened eyes. A look she’d rarely seen before.

  “We’ll be sending in Court, of course. He’s going to masquerade as a resident with Dr. Taduri’s neurosurgery team. We were able to green light him through the internship process and accompanying assessments - and in combination with his military record… Well, we’ve beefed up his experience and schooling in order to acquire the necessary records, but I personally believe that his work in Afghanistan and Syria are evidence of his capabilities.”

  Abby knew that James was trying to be reassuring, but the words were no longer making sense. She had barely fathomed the statement that Sean would be at the hospital with her. But neurosurgery was in another building. She wouldn’t be anywhere near him.

  As if to answer her question, Sean placed his hand on her shoulder. She could smell the alcohol on his breath. “I have a view of Dr. Bing’s office through the wing of the neurosurgery department. The media would eat us alive if we ended up working on the same floor, and this is the best scenario we could get. While you’re working, I’m only three minutes away from you. I’ll be driving you to and from the hospital, and we can even have lunch.”

  Abby squirreled her face into a grimace. Sean caught her meaning. “I know. You don’t get a lunch, but we’ve spoken with Dr. Bing and he agrees that it could be good media if we were seen together occasionally at the cafeteria. His wife is head of the hospital’s marketing team, so it only works in our favor that we display a positive view of the hospital by allowing ourselves to be conveniently photographed in key areas of the facility.”

  A fog entered Abby’s mind as she continued to hear the voices around her. She was to travel to and from work as usual but accompanied by Sean. She should be delighted. After all, she would spend time with him, know where he was, get to know the new, new world of Sean Court. But she wasn’t delighted. She was furious.

  She was angry at the people who would not only threaten her life but would involve so many other people as well. She wanted to yell at them all - It’s not worth it. I’m not worth the trouble. But Abby knew there was a lot more to it than James was telling her. He hadn’t spoken the word terrorist, but if her intuition had any foothold, she was certain that was the exact word that was hovering over the room, making the air taste like copper and the floors slippery with adrenaline. These men were ready for a fight - and she was in the sights of the opposing team. She was the bait.

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

  SEAN arrived at six on the dot the next morning. He didn’t need to come to the door. Abby hadn’t slept a wink and had been sitting in front of the security monitors for the previous half hour awaiting his arrival.

  Mom had tried to get Abby to take one of the little white pills. Even Dad had agreed that the situation was dire enough for it, but Abby refused. She needed her brain to process all the information that was running through it and lulling herself into a medicated sleep wouldn’t solve anything.

  Instead, she stepped into the dark of the morning and tightened her lips into a smile as Sean held the door for her. The cool winter breeze was damp with unshed rain and chilled her bones in the few seconds it took her to walk from the front door to the car. “Thank you,” she said as she slipped into the warmed leather seat. He must have preheated it for her.

  She watched the wind play with his coat and hair as he passed in front of the headlights. His face was stone, and she could see the clench of his jaw manage to produce a faint indent where his dimple normally resided.

  He wore a black glove on his left hand, and the prosthetic on his right. She felt the mood in the car weigh heavily on both of them, and attempted to lighten it when he sat and buckled himself in. “I see that it was half-off day in the glove department,” she joked.

  Sean shook his head. Fortunately, a small smile broke the chiseled frown off his face for a moment while he drove down the long driveway, through the gate, and away from the estate.

  He didn’t speak until they pulled onto the highway. “I couldn’t get the glove over the damn fingers,” he said, then started laughing.

  Abby could feel warmth enter her body, not only from the seat that raised her core temperature a few degrees, but from the sound of his baritone chuckle.

  “Well, I guess you don’t have to worry about getting frostbite. That’s one good thing.”

  “And it’s a pretty good window scraper as well,” he said, lifting his right hand to show dirty smudges where he’d wiped the window clean before picking her up.

  “Why wasn’t your car in a garage?” she asked.

  The grin dropped from his face. “I haven’t been home yet.”

  “Sean. You know how I feel about you withholding information. You might as well be lying to me.”

  She watched him flex the fingers on his right hand several times over the gear shift as he considered his words. “We were going over the security breaches in the hospital, alternate routes for egress, planning scenarios, that kind of thing…”

  That, Abby could believe. She hadn’t slept either. It would have been nice to have been involved in something proactive instead of staring at her bedroom walls and debating on the look of a bullet-proof vest under her scrubs.

  “… and drinking.”

  “And what?” Abby asked, attempting to clarify the statement. Sean wasn’t a drinker. Maybe a beer or two at dinner once in a while, but the way he’d drained the scotch last night had proved that he’d been keyed up. She leaned over and sniffed the air around him, it was definitely laced with alcohol, and maybe a tinge of cigarettes as well.

  “I’ve got one hell of a hangover, so no yelling or asking pertinent questions right now.”

  “Sean,” Abby railed, ignoring both of his requests. She wished her voice was stronger so that she could truly worsen his headache. “You can’t be serious. You’re about to start a residency program in the neurosurgery department. I personally will not allow you to step foot in that hospital unless you are completely free of toxins.”

  Sean rubbed at his forehead as they inched forward in the rush hour traffic. “Jeez, Abigail. Calm down, would you? I’ll just be meeting with the security department and marketing director today. I don’t start the residency until next week.”

  Abby wanted to punch him. “Calm down? With all that’s going on? You’re so infuriating. And why did you just call me Abigail?”

  Closing his eyes to her shouts, Sean pressed the back of his head against the seat. “Trying to get into character,” he groaned. “I’m going to call you Abigail. Makes it easier with the media. And as far as calming down goes, you need to get your shit together. If we let on that you’re nervous, those guys could move up the attack or change scenarios. Just having me at the hospital might ruffle their feathers enough to switch gears. So we need to make absolutely sure that everything is routine. So, for Christ’s sake, just… Stay. C
alm.”

  A honk from behind them indicated that the traffic had cleared enough for Sean to put pressure on the gas.

  “Don’t speak the Lord’s name in vain,” Abby fumed at how Angry Sean managed to break into their lives. “Are you still drunk? Maybe you should pull over and let me drive. But then again, if I ended up dead on the side of the road, it would solve our whole problem, wouldn’t it?”

  Abby watched the hood of the car hastily swerve off the road and onto the grass of the shoulder. Finally, she had knocked some sense into him.

  “Stop!” Sean yelled. He had leaned over the center armrest and was pointing an angry finger in her direction. “Don’t do this shit with me. I had to pull a hell of a lot of strings to get myself into that hospital. Don’t think that me driving you here is just an opportunity for us to joke about your demise.”

  “My demise?” Abby said. “Nice word. Is that what you called it at your little smoking and joking meeting last night?”

  “Dammit, Jamie. Why the hell are you making this so difficult. I’m trying to protect you.”

  “No. You’re trying to put me into that little box again. The one you and Dad use to keep me safe from harm, to tie me up into a world so small that I won’t be able to breathe. And you just called me Jamie. Already losing your character, Dr. Court? Or should I call you Sergeant? I just don’t know who you are anymore.”

  Anger and fire burned in Sean’s eyes. She watched as his left hand moved in to grip her neck.

  Calling on God’s strength, she continued to stare at him stone faced. She wasn’t going to let him win. If he was back to the violent Sean she’d seen in Kenya, she’d beat him to death with her tote bag.

  But he wasn’t the old Sean, and he didn’t move into violence. Instead, he slid his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her towards him. The taste of coffee on his lips caused a burst of memories to tear through her axons. Memories of late night study sessions they’d spent with Veena and Spence. Memories of mornings on a wooden porch, overlooking fields covered in Kenyan morning dew. Memories of other lives, other worlds.

  Tears pricked at her eyes. How could she doubt her feelings? All they’d been through, all he’d done for her. She knew he would be the only one she would ever love, and the only one that understood her pain, her joy, her anger. As their lips touched in the dawn before the approach of morning sun, on the side of a busy highway, Abby knew. She tipped her head down, disengaging the kiss, but pressing heavily against his forehead.

  “You weren’t supposed to kiss me,” she whispered. “I haven’t said yes.”

  He dropped his hand from her neck to the glove compartment and flicked it open. Turning her head, she saw that the little box was sitting prettily amongst the napkins, straws, and now - one right-hand glove.

  He pulled the box out and lifted the handle of his door. “Give me a sec,” he said, and waited for a pause in traffic in order to step outside and around to her door. He opened it and dragged her out.

  “What are you doing? This is crazy.”

  “Crazier than pretending to be a resident in the neurosurgery department of a hospital in order to be closer to the woman you love?”

  Abby let the words soak in. The woman you love. She knew. With the depths of her heart, she knew that this new world had been a gift to her from God’s own hand.

  The gnarled traffic on the road next to them had slowed to a standstill, and Sean was surely providing a nice distraction to the rush hour ennui. He took her hand and pulled her through the damp grass in the ditch to a cement block only large enough to hold one woman and one man. A light drizzle shimmered in the shine of the streetlight above them. He let go of her hand and settled his body into a kneel.

  Abby began laughing. She couldn’t help it. The whole thing was absurd. Only minutes ago, they were about to kill each other. And now this? The swing of emotions was unreal.

  He quirked an eyebrow and set her heart ablaze with the one dimple that always managed to send her body into a tizzy. The sound of car horns and encouraging shouts from the highway disintegrated as Sean spoke the words for the second time.

  “Abigail Ellwood… Jamie Poser. Will you marry me?”

  CHAPTER NINETY-THREE

  IT only took two hours for her coworkers to notice.

  She and Sean had discussed the possibility of keeping it under wraps until they’d talked to McCarrin and his team, but they needed this - just this one thing. They needed to claim it as their own, and not give it up to the media, or some crazy stalkers, or even possible terrorists. This engagement was theirs alone.

  So here Abby sat, her coworkers oohing and aahing at the bling on her finger and asking about possible wedding dates.

  It was a surreal feeling. It felt so… normal, as if she were a normal woman, in a normal world, having been asked by a normal man, to marry him in a normal wedding.

  As soon as Dr. Bing caught his staff involving themselves in wedding talk, he shooed them away and dragged her into his office.

  “This new man of yours,” he said. “Sean Court. Am I correct?”

  Abby nodded her head, hoping that he wasn’t going to give her a lecture about not planning her wedding on company time.

  “He’s the man that helped you in the parking lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same guy on the internet, right? From before the… well, before you moved away?”

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Bing rested his finger on his nose in contemplation. “I’ve been informed of the stalker threats. Does Mr. Court’s arrival in the neurosurgery department have anything to do with that?”

  “Yes. Kind of. He wants me to be safe,” Abby said, trying to shift into deceit mode. She wasn’t very good at it and prayed that she was using the right words. “But he’s done some great things overseas - medically, I mean. So they really are lucky to have him.”

  “Yes, so I hear. We all want you to be safe, of course. And my wife is beyond herself with excitement about the positive media attention.” Abby watched Dr. Bing’s face morph into a grimace. He was apparently not as keen on the marketing plan as Mrs. Bing.

  “Just so you know,” Abby reassured him. “I’m not a fan of celebrity, I never have been. I prefer to stay out of the limelight.” She could see the load lighten on Dr. Bing’s shoulders. “Of course, I’ll be available for anything that the marketing team may have in mind, but my first and foremost concern is this hospital, and my commitment to my medical education is crucially important to me. So, if it’s just the same to you, I’d prefer to stay right here in these offices until my rotation is done.” She placed a pleading look on her face, hoping it would convince Dr. Bing that her hope for a quiet and media-free clinical rotation was in his hands alone.

  “Well, most definitely!” he said, lifting his shoulders back like a proud peacock. “As you are aware, I’m known for my discretion. I guarantee that you will be completely safe in this department.”

  Safety is relative, Abby thought as Dr. Bing nodded to himself in acknowledgement. A knock on the door distracted him from his thoughts and he opened the door before Abby could thank him.

  A man wearing working jeans, a heavily laden tool belt, and an orange polo with the words ‘Jayson Security’ emblazoned on it was in the hallway with a clipboard and a face that Abby clearly recognized from the meeting in her family room last night.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Bing? I’m Mr. Clark from the security company. We’ve been asked to take a look at some of the equipment around here.”

  Dr. Bing waved his hand at the man whose last name was definitely not Clark. “Sure, sure. That would be good. Let me know if the staff gives you any trouble.”

  Mr. Not-Clark tipped his head and walked off. She looked down at her hand and wondered if he’d seen the ring and was about to communicate the ‘situation’ to James. Probably not. Men usually didn’t notice things like that.

  On the drive home, Sean informed her that her intuition was wrong. Not only had Mr. Cl
ark noticed, but it had almost gotten Sean kicked out of the game plan.

  “Sounds like your dad isn’t happy,” Sean said as he pulled out of the parking lot. “You want me to talk to him first?”

  “You know why my dad isn’t happy,” Abby muttered.

  Sean shrugged his shoulders.

  “Because it wasn’t his plan,” she said.

  “That wouldn’t surprise me.” Sean said as he pulled onto the highway ramp and Abby sank into the warm seat. “This shift sucks. We’re going to be stuck in traffic every day.”

  “My rotation will be done in a few weeks. Then I’m off to OB/GYN for a while.”

  “You forgot about winter break.” Sean said with a smile.

  “Don’t even,” Abby said, worried that he’d try to take the eight days of well-deserved sleep away from her. “I’m going to lock myself in my room if I have to, but if I don’t get some sleep into this body before my inpatient rotations start, I may end up taking over Dad’s wheelchair.”

  “What makes you think I’ll let you sleep?”

  “You’re such an ass.”

  “That would make you Mrs. Ass, wouldn’t it?”

  “No,” Abby deflected. “Not yet. I could still take this ring off. I’ll have you know that I’ve had at least twelve marriage proposals in the past year. I could shack up with any of those guys… or gals, anytime I want.”

  Sean shook his head and laughed. She knew that dimple was firmly planted on the other cheek and tried to get a glimpse of it in the reflection of the window.

  “Have you had a chance to get online?” he asked.

  “No way. I don’t even want to know.”

  “Well, it only took three and a half hours for the engagement news to hit TMZ. I think that’s a new record.”