by C. J. Miller
She pressed her lips together to keep from screaming. Looking to where their bodies met, she couldn’t believe this was happening, that she was having sex with Rafe Granger. Again.
He slowed. “Hey, where’d you go? Look at me.”
She lifted her face. “I don’t know how this keeps happening.”
“You are irresistible,” he said. “As soon as you said you were coming home with me, I knew this would happen.”
He moved faster and she tried to keep the thread of the conversation. “Sure of yourself.”
“When it comes to us, to this, yes I am.”
He grabbed her legs behind the knees and brought them close to her body. The tightness increased and the feeling of fullness sent her body into fulfillment.
He slid her back onto the bed and collapsed next to her.
“What about you?” she asked. Her sight was still cloudy, sparks dancing in her vision.
“What about me? Finishing? Didn’t you notice?” he asked.
“No.”
“Too much thrashing.”
“I was not thrashing,” she said.
“As the man holding you, I can assure you that you were.”
“What are we going to do now?” she asked.
“Are you asking for an encore performance? Because if you give me a few minutes we can go again.”
She was more thinking that they shouldn’t stay in bed and risk falling asleep with his head injury. But as long as they were moving and awake, she didn’t see the need to hurry out of bed. “Okay, but this time, I want the blindfold on you.”
“Sure.”
“What else is in your box?” she asked, glancing over at it on the nightstand.
“You’ll have to stick around and find out.” Then he rotated, getting on top of her. He rocked his hips, giving away he was ready again. “Look at that. Just needed to catch my breath. That’s what you do to me, Gemma.”
“Then lay back and let me see if I can live up to your body’s expectation.”
* * *
Gemma opened Rafe’s refrigerator. She was wearing a pair of his flannel pants and a T-shirt. He would prefer her in less, but as she’d reminded him, Danny was asleep upstairs and if he came down for a midnight snack, he’d be traumatized at the sight. “I would have a criticism about the state of this kitchen, but I know grocery shopping is probably low on your to-do list, in addition to the stores running out of staples on a regular basis.”
The last time he had been to the grocery store, the bare shelves had been a disturbing sight. “The destruction of the latest shipment won’t help that,” Rafe said.
“Who do you think is doing this?” Gemma asked, taking a few items out and setting them on the counter.
“A psycho,” Rafe said.
Gemma gave him a look. “No, seriously. Do you think it’s Hank Bittard?”
“The escaped killer? I don’t see what he stands to gain by keeping us trapped in Dead River without supplies.”
“What about Jimmy Johnson? Trying to create a distraction so he can breach the perimeter and escape Dead River?”
“What I know of Jimmy Johnson implies he’s too stupid to mastermind this. But the town is locked down. I can’t see anyone getting out without risking their life. Causing a distraction in the town won’t divert the National Guard patrolling the border outside Dead River.”
Watching her in the kitchen was as interesting as watching her with her patients. She was methodical and tidy.
Gemma prepared him an omelet and then made one for herself. It was tasty and he found himself eating despite not feeling hungry. His head was feeling better and his vision was clear.
When they were done eating, he had the strange realization that he had talked with Gemma for over two hours. They’d had no awkward lulls in the conversation and he was enjoying himself. His physical hunger was sated and the time he’d spent in bed with her had satisfied a deep-seated longing.
He’d connected with her. She was a friend and his lover. He couldn’t point to a past relationship that had ever been both.
“Is your head throbbing? Do your stitches hurt?” Gemma asked, standing and circling around his chair to look at his head.
She must have noticed the expression on his face. “My head is fine.”
“Maybe we were rough with you too soon,” Gemma said. She lightly touched his hair around the injury.
Rough with him? “If anything I was rougher with you,” Rafe said.
Gemma lightly squeezed the back of his neck. “I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
He admired her courage. She was made of stronger stuff than he would have guessed. She took life and the inevitable problems in stride, including his.
* * *
Flint was not happy that she’d answered Rafe’s door wearing a pair of Rafe’s pajamas pants and his T-shirt. But her only other clothing choice was her scrubs. She hadn’t planned to stay the night.
“I thought I warned you to keep your distance from him,” Flint said.
“You’re overreacting to nothing.”
“I will arrest him. Might be illegal, but who will stop me?” Flint asked.
Gemma rolled her eyes. “Stop. You told me to take care of Rafe. After the incident in the parking lot, I stayed to make sure he didn’t slip into a coma. Besides, I wanted to help Danny get ready for school.”
Flint didn’t look like he believed her, but he wasn’t planning to press his sister for details about her personal life. Her brothers saw her as pure and virginal and she was content to let them think whatever they wanted as long as they didn’t interfere.
“What did you make for breakfast? Pancakes and sausage?” Flint asked.
“Pancakes and turkey bacon. No sausage in the house,” Gemma said.
Flint waited a beat. “Do you have leftovers? I had breakfast with Nina, but you flip a mean pancake.”
Gemma waved him in. “There’s more.” She always cooked extra, a habit of growing up with brothers.
Flint sat at the table and Rafe joined them a few minutes later, his hair wet from the shower. He smelled good, like spices and oranges.
Gemma rushed to check his stitches, but Rafe waved her off. “It’s okay. They’re in place.”
She checked that the wound was sealed and then sat. Fussing over him was unnecessary. He was a doctor. He knew his physical limits, even if he chose to test them.
Rafe poured himself a cup of coffee. “Every time I see you, Flint, it’s bad news.”
Flint drizzled syrup over his pancakes. “Sorry to say I have more to share about last night. You weren’t the only one at the clinic to have trouble. I received a call this morning from a patrol car. Colleen Goodhue was in a car accident. Her car went off the road and into a ditch.”
Gemma felt sick. “Is she okay?”
“Banged up pretty bad,” Flint said.
It was too strange to be a coincidence. Everyone at the clinic knew what was happening and was being careful. How was this assailant continually getting to everyone?
“Is she awake? Have you spoken to her?” Rafe asked.
“She is awake. She said her brakes weren’t working. I had the car towed to the auto body shop. They confirmed her car had no brake fluid.”
“Poor maintenance or do you suspect someone?” Rafe asked.
“Based on what’s been going on around here, I assumed the latter and it looks like I was right. The car had a puncture in the brake line.”
Rafe shook his head. “Who wants us to fail this badly?”
He nodded his thanks when Gemma set some pancakes on his plate. He didn’t delve into them.
“What makes you think the attack on Dr. Goodhue is about the virus?” Flint asked, taking another forkful of pancake.
Rafe lifted his brows. “You don’t?”
“Oh, I do. I think it’s about the virus that’s terrorizing everyone. But I want to know why you think so. You work at the clinic. Have you seen something? Heard something?”
Gemma liked that quality about her brother. He listened well and he talked to the people closest to the problem. It was how he closed so many cases successfully and found so many criminals.
“If I had, you would be my first call,” Rafe said.
“Maybe someone wants one of the victims to die who hasn’t,” Gemma said.
Rafe and Flint turned to her, matching startled expressions on their faces.
Gemma shrugged. “What?”
“That’s pretty dark coming from you,” Flint said.
Her family still saw her as an innocent. Though she wasn’t quick to talk about the disappointments and hurts in her life, she’d had enough of them that she no longer wore rose-colored glasses. She was a nurse in the only clinic in Dead River. She met and talked to people in many walks of life. Some of them were cruel, awful people. Her innocence card had been trampled and torn long ago.
“If someone doesn’t want a cure found, they probably aren’t a victim themselves of the virus. Which means they need some reason why they care about a cure being found. Which means they have a vested interest in at least one of the patients.” Gemma didn’t like to think about someone actively targeting her patients, but if they wanted to keep their patients safe and find a cure, she had to be realistic and protective.
“Could be,” Rafe said.
Flint took a sip of his orange juice. “I’ll look into the victims starting with the first ones and see if any of them believe someone is gunning for them.”
“Maybe Mimi wasn’t patient zero. She could have been the first to die from the virus, but she could have contracted it from someone else,” Rafe said.
“Or from something. I read a study that Dr. Goodhue provided about a case of Ebola that was transmitted from bats to a human,” Gemma said. “Could Mimi have been in the mountains hiking somewhere and come into contact with the virus?”
“From what Dr. Rand and Theo described, Mimi isn’t the type to go hiking, especially since she recently had a baby,” Flint said. “But I’ll talk to Dr. Rand and Theo again. We’ve been filling in the blanks on where we believe each patient contracted the virus and then warning the people who were with them at that time. Maybe we’re missing an obvious connection,” Flint said.
Flint then turned the discussion to Rafe’s attack. Rafe provided what information he could, which was next to nothing.
Flint finished his pancakes and Gemma walked him to the door.
“Be careful with him,” Flint said quietly, slipping his cowboy hat back on. “He’s not sticking around for long. This little picture of domestic bliss you’re painting will suck you in and you’ll be hurt.”
Except she knew where she and Rafe stood. She knew what was at stake. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You know Rafe is my friend. But he came back to Dead River for a short time. He’s leaving the first chance he gets.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Gemma said.
“Just take care of yourself,” Flint said. “With Gram Dottie sick...” He swallowed, unable to continue.
She hugged her brother. “I will be careful. I’m sad about Gram Dottie too.” She visited with their grandmother far more than her brothers were able to, and each visit, she saw changes in her grandmother. Though her emotional strength was ironclad, her physical health was failing.
“I don’t like the idea of you working at the clinic. If I could, I would drive you to and from work every day,” Flint said.
Gemma laughed. “Like when I had that job working at the Dead River library when we were young? You acted like every ride was a huge inconvenience.”
“It was! I was a teenager with a car. A crappy car, but a car. I wanted to use it to cruise around with girls, not with my sister.”
Gemma kissed her brother’s cheek. “I will be fine. The staff at the clinic is looking out for each other. Rafe is closer to finding a cure every day.”
Surprise registered on Flint’s face. “Is he? He hasn’t said anything.”
“He’s keeping it quiet. He doesn’t want anyone to know. Just in case the person committing these crimes amps up their efforts in stopping him.”
Though Gemma couldn’t imagine anyone she worked with intentionally hurting someone, paranoia might keep her safe.
* * *
“Dr. Rand said he was happy to take the first part of your shift and Dr. Moore is taking the second half,” Gemma said.
Rafe groaned. “Don’t treat me like a patient on bed rest. I am fine. I can work.”
“You’ve suffered a head injury. Take a break.”
“What am I supposed to do? Sit around the house and watch television?” Rafe said.
Gemma shook her head and handed him some paperwork. She knew better than to think Rafe would sit around and stare at a screen all day. “I have some light reading for you.”
Rafe took the folder and opened it. “What is this?”
“Copies of the relevant information about our inpatients related to the virus. I’ve input the data into your computer so you can graph it and analyze it in different ways. Also, I have the profiles from the CDC of the ten most similar viruses and papers published about them.”
Rafe seemed to cheer up at that. “Will you check our samples in the lab and take the recordings? Check the temperatures and the humidity levels?”
“Of course. Immediately after my rounds with the patients,” Gemma said.
“You’re a life saver,” Rafe said.
“That’s what I was trained to be,” she said.
Before she left for the clinic, she kissed his cheek and waved. The moment could have been awkward. How did lovers part ways? But too much analysis would land them in trouble. With her brother’s warning in her head, Gemma promised herself she would keep it light and carefree. She wouldn’t fall for Rafe Granger anywhere except bed.
* * *
Gemma hated wearing the protective gear while in the virus wing. It was uncomfortable. It was loud. She wanted to hug her grandmother and her best friend without what felt like a spacesuit between them.
Gemma was tempted to tear off the protective gear and throw her arms around her friend. Only knowing that she would be forced into a quarantine area for monitoring and that she had work to do stopped her. If she did catch the virus from the virus wing, the clinic would have one less person to help in the lab.
Gemma stopped in each patient’s room, taking the patient’s vitals and recording them in the computer. The results were uploaded at the end of the week to the CDC.
Gemma stayed with each patient for a few minutes, taking some notes on their requests and finding out what was new in their lives. Monitoring their emotional health was as important as their physical health. Being separated from their families and friends was hard and the strain was showing in some of the patients.
Though most of the patients spent their days watching television, sleeping or reading, a patient requested paper and paints. Gemma couldn’t see why she couldn’t have them, but requests had to be approved by Dr. Goodhue. The staff was limiting factors that agitated or spread the illness and the more items brought into the virus wing, the more variables at play.
Gemma sat next to Jessica, who was sleeping. She laid her hand on her friend’s and said a quiet prayer, asking for the strength and knowledge she needed to heal her.
Jessica opened her eyes and smiled. “I love when you’re on shift. You stick around and keep me company.”
“I love that I can visit you,” Gemma said.
“How’s Annabelle? How’s Tom?”
Ge
mma had good news to share on that front. “Tom took her to sit on Santa’s lap at the hardware store and he snapped a few pictures. I uploaded a bunch of new ones for you.” Trying to keep Jessica looped into what her daughter was doing was critical to keeping her friend’s spirits high.
“I can’t wait to see them,” she said. She looked away and then she broke down into tears. “I can’t believe this is happening. I’m going to miss Christmas with my family. My daughter is going to decorate our tree without me.”
Gemma didn’t tell Jessica that most traditions were on hold. Residents of the town couldn’t get specialized food for holiday treats and baked goods. No one felt like hanging wreaths on the street lamps. Few people had decorated their homes.
Gemma hugged her friend. “We’ll get you out of here.”
“I’ve been here forever. I’m missing my little girl. I miss my husband. I miss my bed. I miss sex!”
“It will be okay. Everyone in town is banding together. Molly has no problem pitching in to babysit Annabelle until Tom can pick her up after work. The other day, Danny was even playing dolls and ponies with Annabelle. He’ll deny it if you ask him, but I saw it with my own two eyes.”
Jessica laughed and wiped at her cheeks. “You must think I’m deranged. I feel like my emotions are being jerked around everywhere.” She looked at her hands folded in her lap. “Can I ask you a question and get a straight answer? I need to know that you’ll tell me the truth.”
“That’s a loaded request,” Gemma said. She didn’t like lying to anyone, but Rafe wanted to keep their progress with the cure under wraps. If Jessica asked about that, could she tell her? “What are you worried about?” A careful way of answering the question.
“Am I going to die?” Jessica asked.
The adamant no had to be stamped on her face. “You are not going to die. I will not let that happen.”
“Will you find a cure?”
“We are trying.” How much could she say? She wanted to put her friend’s mind as ease. But they didn’t have a cure yet. They had been working on it. Setbacks and sabotage were slowing them down.
