Day Three

by Patricia Spencer

  Christ.

  He lurched forward in his seat, his heart pounding.

  He could have gotten her pregnant.

  He hadn’t thought about it. Not in the stairwell, and especially not in the apartment. Neither of them had expected to live. Birth control was something that a man and a woman thought about when they anticipated having a future. During his marriage, birth control was something Aya obsessed about, not him. He’d been wedded for fifteen years to a woman who couldn’t be safe enough, who took the pill and used a diaphragm. He had no habit of using condoms.

  And, sure as hell, when he took off for Kavsak with Brenna, he’d foreseen no need for any.

  He grasped at straws. Maybe Brenna was on the pill. Maybe she didn’t think of it because she didn’t have to. She knew from when she licked his eyes after the van fire that he was free of infectious diseases, so she didn’t mention it.

  Right. She lived in a city where there was no anesthesia for surgical procedures and she was faithfully swallowing that little pill every day. She, who hadn’t made love to anyone since her husband died.

  He sat back and groaned.

  He wanted children, but with a mother who was also ready for them.

  “Is something the matter?” his mom asked, beside him.

  She had a magazine open on her lap, her hands resting softly on its glossy pages.

  He glanced at the empty aisle seat beside her.

  “Your dad’s stretching his legs.”

  “Mm,” he said, unsure he wanted to open this conversation now. Every time he mentioned Brenna’s name in front of his father, his mouth tightened into a disapproving line. Eventually, Daniel was going to have to deal with that. Until he did, however, he wasn’t exposing anything personal about her. He didn’t want her to be criticized.

  But anything he revealed to his mom about Brenna would go exactly nowhere. As a psychologist, she was used to keeping confidences, even from his dad. All his life, she had guided Daniel, helping him find his way when his thoughts were jumbled, while still giving him the space to be his own man.

  “I was thinking about birth control, comma, lack thereof.”

  She studied him, interpreting his comment. After a moment, her eyes widened. “Oh, my.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Oh, my.”

  “I would think,” she said cautiously, “that you’d be thrilled.”

  “I would. But Brenna’s in a hospital right now. And this has all evolved rather fast.”

  He glanced upward. His dad was approaching.

  His mom gave his hand a little squeeze. “One step at a time, dear.”

  “Yeah.” He sat back as his father folded his long frame into the aisle seat. A woman was fertile for about three days out of every twenty-eight. The odds were Brenna was not pregnant. Logically, he should feel relieved. Emotionally, though, the math disappointed him.

  Realizing where his drifting thoughts had taken him, Daniel shook himself. He had to be careful. He was rushing ahead, hoping. Dreaming of children with her eyes. Brenna was nowhere near home—his home—yet. Her desire that he not leave her could have been situational. She’d been terrified that night. She’d just had intense sex with him. She might have blurted it out without thinking. She was emotionally fragile, he warned himself. That same day she’d swung between near-suicide and deep connection.

  What he had was an injured woman and a starting point. They were miles down the road from a lifetime commitment to intimacy. They had to get there together, in the light of a whole different world, one that wasn’t artificially pushing them into each others’ arms.

  At Logan airport, he saw his parents to their gate for their flight to Portland that departed before his to D.C.

  Hugging him goodbye, his mother whispered in his ear, “A baby would be welcome—whatever the circumstances.” She drew back, her eyes misty.

  “Ma,” he said, hugging her tighter, too choked up to say more.

  “Call me. Let me know.”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  His dad pulled him into a solid hug. “I’m glad you’re home safely.”

  “Me too, Dad. I love you. I love you both. You’re particularly fabulous parents, have I mentioned that?”

  “Yes, you have,” his mom said.

  “Well,” his dad said. “Home awaits.” He picked up his mom’s carry-on bag and extended his elbow so she could slip her hand in.

  Chapter 19

  Daniel touched down in Washington in the late morning. Having lost his cell phone in his luggage in Kavsak, he used a public phone in the bank of phones on the baggage level to call his voice mail. His friend Pete, a doctor at the National Naval Medical Center, had left him a message. Brenna was there, thank God not in ICU. Pete would facilitate Daniel getting up to her room.

  Daniel intended to take a taxi directly there from the airport—until he glimpsed his reflection in the automatic doors. He stopped with a jolt. His clothes were rumpled, lived-in looking. His face was swollen, bruised, bristly. Worthy of a Most Wanted poster. It was a miracle he’d cleared immigration. If he was going to get past bodyguards to see Brenna, he thought, he needed to look more reputable.

  He turned and went back up the escalator to the Metro level, caught a yellow line to Gallery Place-Chinatown, switched to a red line train and emerged at Cleveland Park. From there, he walked past vibrant shops, crossed the hustle of Connecticut Avenue, and turned up the hill into the residential area.

  Five minutes later, he arrived at his neat, two-story colonial home with the wrap-around verandah and stately Sycamore tree. Home. It made him feel like kissing the ground.

  He walked up the side driveway beside his Benz, and opened the tall wooden gate to his back garden. He’d lost his house key in Kavsak, too, so he opened the French doors on his rear deck using an extra key he kept hidden under a little frog house near the back fence. He stepped inside, entering directly to the family room, with its cathedral ceiling, hardwood floors, and sunlit windows. Ah. Peace. Familiarity. The clean scent of order.

  He took the stairs up to the master bedroom, tossed his wrinkled clothes onto the bed, showered, and shaved. He pulled his charcoal gray Armani suit out of the closet, a black silk mock-turtleneck, and gleaming black leather oxford shoes. He couldn’t help how his face looked, but he was back in the normal world, and form mattered.

  Once finished, he snatched the key to the Benz off the hook by the door, and drove to Bethesda.

  The Naval Medical Center was better than a bodyguard. It was a fortress. The 243-acre, 88-building compound, one of the nation’s largest and most renowned military medical centers, was surrounded by ten-foot-tall fences. Staffed by 4,500 professionals, this was where Presidents—and the daughters of Special Envoys—were brought for medical care.

  Daniel followed Pete’s instructions about which gate to enter, where to park, and which information desk to call him from. He met Daniel personally. Pete was a fit man, medium-built, the husband of a friend of Aya’s, who’d been a frequent guest at Ellsworth-Tanaka backyard barbecues.

  “I appreciate this, Pete,” Daniel said, extending his hand.

  Pete led him up the staircase and through a series of corridors haunted by young veterans ambling unsteadily on walkers, crutches, canes. Amputees, mostly. Pete stopped at a private room. “This is it,” he said. “Good luck.”

  Daniel waited for him to get out of sight before he pushed Brenna’s room door open. He entered quietly, walked past the bathroom on the left—and directly into the chest of a regal man with his coat draped across his shoulders, who was briskly exiting.

  U.S. Special Envoy Brendan Rease.

  The old man glowered at him from beneath his thatch of pure white hair, his eyes hooded as a hawk’s. “Who in blazes are you?”

  “Er…Daniel Ellsworth.”

  The Envoy tipped his head fractionally and studied Daniel’s bruised face and mending nose.

  Had they ever met before, Daniel would have said a flash of recog
nition crossed the Envoy’s eyes. But Daniel wasn’t part of his world. The Envoy had not so much as glimpsed him in the distance at a State Department reception. “I was just in—”

  “You’re with EBS,” the Envoy interrupted imperiously. “A journalist.” He said the word like an epithet.

  “That’s right. I was just in Kav—”

  “Brenna isn’t receiving visitors.”

  “Brenna,” Daniel said, raising his voice. “It’s Daniel. Would you please introduce me to your father?”

  The door opened behind Daniel and a man built roughly like a bull appeared. One of those bodyguards Luc had mentioned? Probably drawn to the room by Daniel’s raised voice.

  The Envoy’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Remove him,” he ordered The Bull.

  The Bull grasped Daniel’s elbow.

  Daniel squared his shoulders. “Sir, I’m about to become your son-in-law.” Daniel wasn’t sure where that came from, but it worked.

  The Envoy looked as shocked as if he’d slapped him.

  “I’m marrying Brenna,” Daniel said. She just doesn’t know it yet, he added inwardly, hoping that his sincerity would convey to his face.

  A man’s voice came from the room behind the Envoy. “Let him in, Dad.”

  The Envoy turned and for the first time, Daniel glimpsed Brenna, under white cotton blankets. She was on her back, eyes closed.

  A man rose from the chair by her bed and walked over with an air of tempered arrogance. He was tall, dark-haired, naturally athletic—a male version of Brenna, perhaps a decade older. One of her brothers, he assumed.

  “Based on what?” the Envoy growled. “On this man’s word?”

  “She asked for him in Weisbaden.”

  The Envoy frowned.

  “Dad.”

  Reluctantly, the Envoy conceded. “Very well.”

  The Bull released Daniel’s elbow.

  Daniel stepped around the Envoy and fully entered the room. The sight of Brenna arrested him. She looked so pale, so frail, so forlorn that it broke his heart. A plastic tube snaked out beneath the bedcovers to a humming unit on the floor, with a half-full reservoir of pinkish fluid.

  “Her injuries are on the right side of her body,” her brother said. “Go around to the other side of the bed.”

  He went to the window side, lowered the railing, and leaned over her, brushing her hair off her forehead, gazing intently at her. “Hey, sweetheart,” he murmured. “It’s me.”

  He pressed his lips against her forehead and held them there, inhaling the scent of her, reeling as an overwhelming wave of compassion for her flooded through him. More than anything, he wanted her to be all right. Seeing her again, he realized he loved her. He wanted her to wake up, to see this world, and decide she loved him as much here as she had that night in Kavsak. He was a fool to think he could be cautious about his feelings for her, however prudent that might be. He was in this. His feelings were what they were, irrespective of whether she reciprocated them.

  Her eyelids fluttered.

  He took a small edge of the bed, careful not to jostle her. “Hey,” he said, picking up her hand and chafing it gently between his own. “Aren’t you going to say Hi?”

  She stirred uncomfortably, moaning, then opened her eyes with effort. She focused on him as uncertainly as if he were a mirage.

  He bent forward, bringing his face closer to hers. “It’s me, honey. I’m right here.”

  “Daniel,” she whispered, and lifted her arms.

  He cupped the back of her head and drew her against his chest, feeling himself cave in, holding her lightly because he didn’t know where she hurt.

  Her arms circled his shoulders, light as feathers, her strength gone. “You’re here.”

  The Envoy harrumphed and left with The Bull.

  He slid his hand down the back of her gown onto her warm bare skin, found a patch free of gauze and tape, and calmly stroked her until her trembling subsided.

  Wavering unsteadily, she pulled back and scrutinized him. “Your nose!”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s a bit lumpy.”

  She slipped her hands down his neck and rested them over his heart, her favorite spot. “You found me,” she said, her voice soft as the rustle of dry leaves.

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I did.”

  Still holding his hand, she eased down in the bed and settled on her side. Her eyelids fluttered, then closed.

  Daniel raised his eyes to Brenna’s brother, sitting across Brenna’s bed from him. He’d felt the man’s gaze on him—staring, assessing him with frank skepticism—since he entered the room. “You must be James,” he guessed. “The brother who’s a doctor?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She helped you pass the boards.”

  “Hear her tell it.”

  Daniel shrugged. “She knows what esophageal varices are.”

  “Does she. I bet there’s a story behind that.”

  “Yeah,” Daniel said. “How is she?”

  “How do you expect? She stepped on a land mine.”

  Daniel glanced at the bottom of Brenna’s bed. The bedcovers were tented. He thought of the amputees he’d seen in the corridors, hoping Brenna hadn’t taken a turn for the worse. Luc had said the doctors were worried about infection.

  James followed his line of sight, and frowned. “She didn’t step on the mine directly. She’s got the legs. Her right side was sprayed with shrapnel. And there’s chunks missing from her thigh.”

  Daniel looked down on her.

  “You won’t be parading my sister in any skimpy swimsuits. She’s damaged.”

  Daniel’s head shot up. Anger rocketed through him. He wasn’t normally a short-fused man, but James’ cruel remark set him off. “Mind how you speak about her,” he hissed. “She’s not some piece of meat. Nor is she an object to be paraded—intact, or otherwise.”

  “You lied,” James said, his eyes cool. “And now that you’re good and angry, you can tell me why. Because you’re not engaged to her, are you? She would have told me. And she didn’t. She just asked me to call the hospital in Ancona to find out if you were alive.”

  Brenna’s sigh drifted across the room. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, James. He lied so he could get in to see me. If Father had just stepped aside and let him enter, Daniel would have been his scrupulously-honest self.”

  James tugged uncomfortably on his collar.

  “Go eat a sandwich somewhere. Bring one back for Daniel. And a cherry Jell-O for me. And James? Take your time.”

  “You know. Every once in a while, you could say ‘please’.” James got up, patting his rear pocket to verify he had his wallet. Looking at Daniel, he said, “Stay with her ‘til I get back.”

  No ‘please’, Daniel noted.

  Brenna lay back again, visibly spent.

  Daniel kicked off his shoes and lay beside her on top of the covers, sharing her pillow, looking up at the ceiling.

  “I can’t believe you lied to my father,” she said. “The only people in the world who dare lie to him are heads of state. And they build up to it through years in politics.”

  “Fools rush in,” he said. “Though—he looked like he actually believed it.”

  “I married Ari without telling Father. He probably figured it was more of the same. So…what were you going to say next, if the engagement ruse didn’t work?”

  He turned on his side, facing her, and propped his head on his hand. He lifted her arm against his chest and stroked the delicate skin of her inner forearm with his fingertips. Without thinking, he leaned forward and brought his mouth down over hers and gave her a leisurely kiss. “I was going to tell him I got you pregnant.”

  She jerked her arm away.

  He caught her hand. “Don’t even think what you’re thinking, Brenna. I was most of the way home to you before it even occurred to me. Look at me, sweetheart. Look at my face.”

  She closed her eyes and turned her head away.

 
; “I want children—you must know that. I waited through almost fifteen years of marriage before my wife was ready to give me one, and then he was killed in a car accident. A baby with you would make my heart sing. But you have to know I was looking for you, coming for you before the thought of pregnancy even crossed my mind.” He shook his head. How implausible it sounded. He was an adult, fertile male. She was a woman of reproductive age. And they hadn’t used birth control.

  She turned on him, furious. “I wasn’t in mid-cycle, all right? I knew that. There’s no baby—and there won’t be one. I am not having children. Especially not yours.”

  He winced involuntarily.

  “And if you don’t like that, you can just—”

  Leave.

  She caught herself before the word left her lips. She closed her eyes, tried to calm her ragged breath. Her fingers fluttered apologetically.

  He dropped the topic. She was is no condition for a big conversation. And he wasn’t going to push her when she’d already come within a hair’s breadth of evicting him.

  She turned away, put her arm over her face, slowly calmed, then fell asleep.

  Had he fabricated her delight in cradling Squeak? Had he made it up that Brenna had fallen in love with her? She had played with Mr. Fierce, shushed him, sweetly brushed the hair off his forehead. She had named Kristjan and promised to keep him in her heart so he wouldn’t be forgotten.

  Caring for children was a profound responsibility. He could understand that a woman might like children but not be willing to commit to motherhood—especially if she had become pregnant without planning to. But why the fury?

  James pushed the door open.

  “I got you roast beef on home-made white,” he announced, just beyond the bathroom, still out of sight. “I figured you for an All-Ameri—”

  He stopped, seeing him in bed with Brenna. Rapidly, he regained his composure. “Well,” he said, with a faintly gay inflection. “You know how to rumple a good suit.”

  Daniel sat up, gingerly rubbing his bruised eye, and pulled his butt against the headboard. “You should see what I did to my Tweed jacket.”