The sound of the toilet flushing was immediately followed by the hiss of the shower turning on.
Now he figured it was safe to venture forth.
Strolling into the bathroom, he found her bent over the tub, adjusting the temperature. The sight of her bare ass, all beautiful and heart-shaped, had his cock twitching.
Of course, the thing always had been stupidly optimistic.
He was fairly confident there’d be no more playtime tonight. And when she spun to glare at him, hands on hips, accusatory fire shooting from her eyes, he went from fairly confident to 100 percent certain.
“How old were those condoms?” she demanded, her full breasts jiggling slightly when she stuck out her chin.
“Um,” he scratched his head. “Two or three years, I think.”
“T-two or three years!” she sputtered. “And you thought it was okay to use them?”
“I wasn’t thinking at all at the time,” he admitted, taking a step toward her, but she only waved him off. “I guess I just assumed they were like Twinkies. Had a shelf life of, like, a thousand years or something.”
It was at that moment that her eyes zeroed in on the offending prophylactic still decorating his happily erect cock—Come on, she was standing there naked. There was nothing he could do about it. It was evolution. Woman plus naked equals erection—and now she was the one reaching for him.
“Why are you still wearing that useless thing? Just to tick me off? Get rid of it!”
“Okay, I—Hey! Ouch! I’ll do it!” He turned away from her very un-gentle hands and peeled away what was left of the condom.
When he turned back, she snatched it out of his hand and glared at it. He was surprised the thing didn’t burst into flames. Then she tossed it toward the trash like most guys toss a hand grenade before jumping into the shower and slamming the door closed behind her.
“Look,” he stood outside the semi-transparent glass. “What are the chances you’re pregnant? Where are you in your cycle?”
The door slid open with a snap. “I’m a week past my period, and I—”
“Okay. Okay, that’s good, right? You shouldn’t be ovulating, yet.”
“What the hell would you know about it!” she said, her face contorted with fear and something that looked very much like rage.
Was he missing something here? She was overreacting a bit, wasn’t she?
“Look, if you are pregnant, we’ll deal with it.”
She blinked and opened her mouth, then seemed to think better of whatever it was she about to say, because she slid the door shut in his face, mumbling something he couldn’t hear above the hiss of the shower.
He reached up to open the door when a snippet of music had him rethinking his move. “Uh, Shell? I think your phone is ringing.”
“It’s in my clutch,” she said in a tight voice.
“Clutch?”
“My purse, you big Neanderthal.”
Okay. Obviously he was missing something here. Because in the space of about five minutes, he’d gone from Jake, again and Jake, don’t stop to Jake, you big Neanderthal. “Does that mean you want me to answer it?”
Once again the door snapped open, and she glared at him. “What do you think it means?”
He sighed and shook his head, completely flummoxed as to why this was all his fault, before he turned and strolled, er, limped back to the bedroom.
Ouch.
He cupped his abused dick in one hand while digging through her little purse with the other. When he located her iPhone, he saw Boss’s name on the screen and decided to answer it himself. “Yo,” he said, “what’s up?”
“Snake?” Boss’s voice was tight, and Jake’s instincts kicked into overdrive. He bent to grab his jeans.
“Yeah. What’s the problem?”
The next words out of Boss’s mouth had him cursing and scrambling into his jeans as he yelled for Shell to get her sweet ass out of the shower, double-time.
Chapter Twelve
“That was Becky,” Frank said, pocketing his cell phone as he turned away from the gurgling water cooler plunked in the corner of the tidy waiting room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “She says she’s sorry she’s not here now, but Steady and Zoelner caught one of Johnny’s goons climbing to the roof of the bagel shop, and Ozzie had to maintain his post until after Rock arrived to question the guy. But Ozzie has finally schlepped his sorry ass—her words, not mine—back to the shop in order to act as her escort, and they should be arriving within the next half hour. In the meantime, she wants me to tell you she’s thinking of you and saying a prayer for Franklin.”
Michelle was glad the waiting room was empty save for her, Frank, and Jake, or else the occupants would’ve gotten an earful. Of course, they wouldn’t have understood the half of it.
“I know how much danger you guys are in,” she said, trying to hold back the tears burning behind her eyes. She didn’t want to add a hysterically sobbing woman to the list of things her brother was dealing with right now. “None of you should be here. You should be back at the shop taking care of business. Back at the shop where it’s safe.”
And they would be if she hadn’t taken it into her head to go on that stupid date. Which had led to Jake’s hotel room. Which had led to them making love. Which had led to her not being home when her son—
“A hospital is one of the safest places around, Shell,” her brother told her. “And the only business I want to be taking care of right now is my family’s business.”
Okay, and that did it.
“I’m never going to forgive myself,” she sobbed, shoving her fingers back through her hair before she remembered she hadn’t washed out the shampoo she’d applied right before Jake dragged her from the shower. Her head was beginning to dry into a crunchy, pasty mess.
Of course, that was the least of her worries.
Because her son, her life, her whole reason for living, was having emergency surgery.
Emergency surgery!
And she hadn’t been there to say good-bye before he was rushed in. She hadn’t been there to hold his little hand, or kiss his sweet face, or tell him everything would be okay because mommy was here. She hadn’t been there to comfort and console him when he was terrified and in pain.
And why hadn’t she been?
Oh, right, because she’d been screwing Jake Sommers blind, that’s why.
She’d been blissfully and willfully forgetting about everything except her need to finally assuage her own desire. In fact, she’d probably been in the middle of orgasm number two or three while Frank was rushing her boy to the hospital.
Selfish, selfish, selfish!
What had she been thinking?
Or maybe, the better question would be, what had she been thinking with?
Certainly not her head.
“I shouldn’t have gone out on that date. I should’ve been there when he—” she hiccupped, a wash of fresh tears running into her hands when she pressed them over her eyes. It turned the pasty shampoo on her fingers into a sudsy mess which she wiped off on the hem of her skirt.
“Shell,” Frank whispered, coming to sit beside her on the stiff, blue sofa, squeezing her knee. “It’s not your fault. You haven’t been on a date in years. You were due. No one could’ve guessed Franklin would suddenly be struck with appendicitis.”
Appendicitis. The word sent horror streaking through her heart.
“Yeah, Shell,” Jake said from her other side, mirroring her brother’s movement and patting her opposite knee. “You couldn’t have foreseen this. These things happen and—”
She turned on him then. Grabbing his hand and nearly crushing his fingers. “These things happen?” she screeched. “Is that your answer for everything tonight!”
“I don’t…” he shook his head. “I mean—”
“Forget it,” she howled, once more burying her face in her hands.
And yes, she knew she was being unfair, taking out her rage and guilt and frustration on h
im when the blame rested solely on her shoulders. But she couldn’t help herself. If it weren’t for him, she’d have never gone out on that date in the first place. She’d have been home with her son. Where she belonged…
“Hey, Shell, it’s not Snake’s fault any more than it is yours.” Frank ran a hand over her head and grimaced, glancing at her more closely. “What have you got in your hair?”
She turned to ask what the heck that had to do with anything when a red-haired nurse in baby blue scrubs came to the door. “Michelle Carter?”
“That’s me,” she jumped up, her stomach sitting in her throat, disgorging all its acid until she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever be able to swallow correctly again.
“My name is Susan. I’m a nurse on Franklin’s surgical team and—”
“Well, then what are you doing out here?” she demanded, completely mortified, envisioning Franklin’s surgeon going, scalpel…scalpel…scalpel? And then looking around and finding Nurse Susan missing.
“Oh, I’m just observing,” Susan said, walking toward her. The nurse’s hot pink Crocs squeaked against the tile floor.
“Oh, good. So, how’s it going?” she asked anxiously. “Is it over so soon?”
“No,” Nurse Susan shook her head, pasting on that look all medical professionals perfected over time. The one that gave absolutely nothing away. “There’s been a slight complication.” At the expression of abject horror that passed over Michelle’s features, Susan of the pink Crocs quickly pressed on. “It’s nothing major. He just has a few adhesions. Those are connections to abdominal organs by thin fibrous tissue. It’s not totally uncommon, but it does complicate the surgery a bit. And in the off chance we’re going to need to transfuse, we were wondering if there was anyone in your family with Franklin’s blood type who’d like to donate. He’s AB negative. And as I’m sure you were told at his birth, that blood type is extremely rare. He could be transfused with A neg, B neg, or O, but an AB donor would be better. Again,” she said, “let me stress that the chances of us needing to do a transfusion are incredibly small.”
The more the nurse spoke, the dizzier Michelle became. But she grabbed on to the back of a chair, steadied herself, and concentrated on the question. “My blood type is A,” she said, raising a hand to one pounding temple. The air in her lungs burned like she was breathing kerosene. “What are you, Frank?” She turned toward her brother.
“I’m A, too.” He shook his head, his heavy brow furrowed with worry, which made her start to panic. Frank was a rock; he wasn’t supposed to get scared.
Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out.
Although that was a lot easier said than done. Her lungs were working overtime, but she couldn’t get enough oxygen.
“It’s not a problem,” the nurse assured them. “I just thought I’d check and—”
“I’m AB negative,” Jake piped up.
“Well,” the nurse craned her head around Michelle’s shoulder to see who’d spoken. “That’s fantastic! Are you the father?”
A fierce, shocking pain slammed through Michelle’s chest, and she plopped down on the chair she’d been using as a support. Bright lights flashed before her eyes.
“No,” Jake shook his head, pushing up from the waiting room sofa. “I’m just a friend.”
“Well, isn’t it lucky you were here then?” the nurse chirped, obviously pleased. “Are you willing to donate?”
“Of course,” Jake said, frowning when he passed her. “Hey, Shell, are you okay?”
She waved him on as Nurse Susan said, “Please come this way then Mr…”
“I’m Jake,” he said, casting Michelle one last worried glance before following the nurse toward the door. “Jake Sommers.”
“Well, Mr. Jake Sommers,” Nurse Susan crooned, obviously having already fallen victim to his dimples, “let’s go relieve you of some of that high octane liquid gold you’ve got running through your veins.”
“Damn,” Frank murmured after they’d gone. “It is lucky Snake was here.”
Yeah. Lucky…
That was the last thought she had before her world went black.
***
The nurse pointed Jake into a little room where a middle-aged guy in green scrubs and bright orange Nikes was busy washing his hands in a miniature stainless steel sink.
“Jake,” she said, “meet Carl. He’s the world’s greatest phlebotomist. He’ll have you a pint low in no time.”
“Have a seat.” Carl the Great Phlebotomist motioned to a chair with padded arms while snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves. The nurse gave him a wink before turning and squeaking down the hall in her ridiculous hot pink rubber shoes.
“Gotta love Susan,” Carl said, watching the sway of the nurse’s rather plump butt with a little smirk before turning back to Jake. “So you’re the elusive AB neg, huh?” He handed Jake a squeeze ball, telling him to give it a couple of good pumps while tapping at his inner elbow with a chubby finger.
“So I’ve been told,” Jake muttered, a vague sense of unease settling over him.
It’s just worry over Franklin, he told himself, though somehow that didn’t seem right.
“Ever given blood before?”
“Plenty of times.” Once during a battlefield transfusion that’d saved the life of a fellow operator but nearly killed him in the process. Of course, Carl didn’t need to know about that.
“Cool, dude. So this is gonna be a piece of cake, especially with killer veins like yours. I always like taking blood from guys who work out. That low body fat really makes the hoses pop, if you know what I mean.”
Yeah, Jake knew what he meant. Especially when he glanced down at his inner arm and saw a vein the size of garden snake winding down to his wrist.
“A little pinch now,” Carl said as he inserted the large 17-gauge needle. Jake had been shot at, dodged mortar rounds, rolled a jeep during a getaway, and been stepped on by hadjis while having to lay prone in a hide-site, but nothing gave him the heebie jeebies like a good, thick needle.
“Oh, you’re a quick one,” Carl remarked when his blood raced through the plastic tube and down into the clear collection bag, a red, life-giving river he was happy to know might help save the life of Shell’s son. In terms of shedding blood for a cause, he figured it didn’t get much better than this. “We’ll be finished in a sec.”
He continued to squeeze the ball, watching absently while the bag filled, his mind turning over the events in the waiting room. That’s what was niggling at him. Something wasn’t right. Something didn’t make sense. But when he tried to get on top of whatever it was, it flew out from under him like an un-waxed surfboard.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” Carl broke into his spinning thoughts.
“What makes you say that?”
“The accent, dude. It’s totally So Cal. And I should know. I’m So Cal myself.”
“Oh yeah? Where are you from?”
And for the next few minutes, the two exchanged surfing stories, which Jake was pretty sure were mostly bravado on Carl’s part, especially when the guy claimed to have done an aerial from an A-frame off Australia’s Gold Coast.
But he didn’t call bullshit. Surfing was like fishing. Exaggerations were a prerogative.
After the bag was full, Carl stuck a wad of cotton to Jake’s inner arm and secured it with a two Band-Aids. Then the surfing phlebotomist handed him a cookie and a glass of orange juice, and it suddenly occurred to him what it was that’d been bugging the hell out of him.
That whole take your mind off it and it will come to you thing wasn’t just an old wives’ tale.
“Hey, Carl,” he said with his chocolate chip cookie halfway to his mouth. “You know a lot about blood, don’t you?”
“Dude, I’m the Stephen Hawking of blood.”
Jake figured ol’ Stephen might shudder at that particularly gruesome and, no doubt inaccurate, comparison.
“Why do you ask?” Carl inquired, digging around
in the bag of cookies.
“Is it possible for a mother who has blood type A and a father who’s O to have a child who’s AB?”
Carl shook his head, taking a bite of the perfect cookie he’d finally managed to locate. It was obvious from the paunch around Carl’s belly, he didn’t do much surfing anymore, and he partook of his cookie stash far more than he should. “Not unless the rules for genetics have suddenly changed.”
“Huh, that’s what I thought.”
Carl looked at him askance. “Uh, oh. I know that look. That question wasn’t rhetorical, was it?”
“No, Carl,” he muttered, standing and heading for the hall, taking his cookie and juice with him. “It wasn’t.”
“Ah, hell,” he heard Carl grumble as he stomped toward the waiting room.
***
“Okay, okay,” Michelle slapped at her brother’s hand, the one that was clamped on to the back of her neck, keeping her head shoved between her knees. “I’m fine now. You can stop with the manhandling.”
“Give it a few more minutes,” Frank muttered.
“I’m not going to hyperventilate again, I promise. But I might pass out from all the blood rushing to my head if you don’t get off!” She swatted at his hand a second time.
When he released her, she sat up and squeezed her eyes closed as stars happily circled her vision. Then the scuffling sound of footsteps had them snapping open again.
Oh, great. The cavalry has arrived.
Becky and Ozzie—Frank’s resident computer genius and all-around techy wizard—pushed through the waiting room door in front of Jake, who tossed an empty plastic cup into the trash and—
Oh, dear God, no…
She knew that look on his face. It caused her throat to burn and her stomach to ache and she couldn’t avoid it even as Becky rushed over to her.
“It’s going to be fine,” her future sister-in-law assured her, solicitously patting her arm. “Franklin’s going to be just fine. You wait and see. Billy, that’s my brother…” she explained for Jake’s benefit, though the guy wasn’t paying her a lick of attention. He was too busy staring holes through Michelle’s soul. “…had his appendix removed when he was twelve, and he was back to wrestling with me within two weeks and—what the hell have you got in your hair?”
Rev It Up Page 18
