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  But as he opened his mouth, she dove in first, blurting out, “I’m sorry, Lucas. There’s no reason for me to take my crappy mood out on you. I guess I should have stayed home and popped a sleeping pill instead of surprising you.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.” Even if his inability to do anything for her was killing him. He was a doctor, for God’s sake. Shouldn’t he be able to fix this? Fix her?

  “You know what’s sad?” she said after a minute. “I think you mean that.”

  “I do mean it.”

  “I know. But just because you’re my best friend doesn’t mean you have to put up with all this maudlin shit.”

  “It isn’t maudlin if it’s how you’re really feeling.”

  “Sure it is—the two aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.”

  She sat down on the grass, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. The innate defensiveness, the wariness, of the position struck him. Made him sad. So that when he sat down beside her, he made sure to give her plenty of personal space.

  For the first time in a very long time, he was unsure of what to do, what to say. Still, he had to try—for both their sakes.

  “The Department of Public Health isn’t your only choice here, you know. As you yourself acknowledged, you’re one of the leading field epidemiologists in the world. You can write your own ticket at some university here. Hell, if we’re being honest, you know you can write your own ticket at the CDC. You don’t have to let them send you all over the world. You can stay here, work in America. There’s a lot going on here that isn’t the flu— tuberculosis, the resurgence of hep C,

  new strains of MRSA. Disease is disease, but at least it’s not like it is over there. When you’re here, it doesn’t hurt the same way.”

  Kara was already shaking her head, as he’d known she would. This was an old argument between them, one that neither of them ever truly won. “If not me, then who, Lucas? I am good at my job. Damn good. Besides, the CDC has already lost two of their most experienced epidemiologists this year. If I punk out, how many more people are going to die because the person they send isn’t as thorough as I am?”

  “How long before you die?” he countered.

  She shrugged off his concern. “I’m careful.”

  “That isn’t what I meant and you know it. I haven’t said anything because you always put up no-trespassing signs, but I’ve been able to see what this job is doing to you for a while now.” Every trip Kara went on she came back a little more tired, a little more distant, and each time it took longer for her to bounce back. She left a piece of herself in every country she went to, a piece of her heart—a piece of her very soul. The things she had managed to hang on to were joined together so precariously that he often wondered how long it would take before she fell apart completely. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a loose embrace. Part of him expected her to fight—Kara was fiercely independent and she’d already shared more of herself tonight than she usually did—but she didn’t. Instead, she wrapped an arm around his waist, laid her head on his chest.

  As she did, his body stirred to life, despite the circumstances. Cursing silently, he did his best to ignore

  his very inappropriate arousal in the hopes that it would go away if he didn’t acknowledge it. After all, the last thing she needed was to feel like her best friend was putting the moves on her when she was at her most vulnerable.

  Of course, it didn’t work—it never did with her—which just pissed Lucas off more. But Kara was everything he admired in a woman—strong, self-sufficient, involved, intelligent, kind. He might know intellectually that being stuck in the friend zone was exactly where he wanted to be, but sometimes convincing his body of that fact was a lot more difficult.

  Embarrassed and more than a little annoyed at his lack of control, he started to pull away from her.

  Kara made a low, humming sound of protest and her arm tightened around him.

  “Not yet,” she said, tilting her head up to look at him with eyes made luminous by tears and the dim lights of the park. “Don’t pull away yet.”

  * * *

  KARA COULD FEEL LUCAS’S discomfort. His body had stiffened against hers and she knew she should let him go. She’d already cried on him, yelled at him and dumped her problems in his lap. Now she was clinging to him like he was the only thing standing between her and insanity. No wonder he was uncomfortable.

  Needy much?

  Still, she wasn’t quite ready to let go of him. Being near Lucas, absorbing his warmth and feeling the steady beat of his heart comforted her in a way nothing had in a very long time. Squeezing even closer, she closed her eyes and tried to block out the fears and memories clamoring inside of her.

  She focused on Lucas instead, on the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

  On the warm, delicious scent of him, like a pine forest on a bright, sunny day.

  On the feel of his muscled body against her, so big and capable and comforting.

  When she was with him, she felt safe in a way she never really had before. She’d been on her own a long time—her mother had died the summer before she met Lucas—and she was more than capable of taking care of herself. Still, there was something nice about knowing, really knowing, that Lucas had her back.

  Oh, she’d never ask him for anything important—the last thing she wanted was to be a burden to him—but still, it was nice to know that someone was there if she needed something. Nice to know that he was there.

  Turning her head a little, she glanced up at Lucas through her lashes. She didn’t know what she expected—maybe that he’d be looking out at the park, maybe that he’d be deep in thought. Maybe that he’d just be relaxing and enjoying sitting here as much as she was. But when she looked up, she found him staring at her, his jaw clenched tight and his eyes glittering like sapphires.

  Her breath hitched in her throat. Sitting there, he looked dark, sexy and just a little bit rumpled. Basically like his normal, gorgeous self, and while that had never fazed her before, something about this particular moment had her heart kicking into high gear. Her stomach fluttered even as her mouth went desert dry. Trying to get some moisture back, she rubbed her lips together. Licked them. And felt Lucas stiffen against her even as a deep, rumbling growl started in his chest.

  “Kara.” It was a warning, and a blatant one at that, and she felt it sizzle along every nerve ending she had. Drowning now in the scent and sight and sound of him, she reached up and rested her hand against his cut-glass jaw. Stroked her thumb over his dark stubble and lost herself in the pools of his eyes.

  “Kara.” He whispered her name this time, his hand coming up to cup her own face. “What are you doing?”

  She shook her head. She had no idea what she was doing and she didn’t want to know. For this moment, this instant, she just wanted to feel something other than the despair that was her constant companion. Wrapping her other hand around the back of his neck, she pulled him slowly, inexorably closer.

  He didn’t fight her, didn’t shrug her off, didn’t make a joke like she half expected him to. Like she’d been half afraid he would. Instead, he watched her, eyes wide-open as they closed the distance between their mouths one small centimeter at a time.

  And then, when her whole body was trembling in anticipation, he kissed her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IF SOMEONE HAD ASKED HER if she’d ever planned on kissing
Lucas, she would have told them—quite truthfully—that she never had. If that same person had asked her if she’d ever thought about kissing him, she would have lied like a rug and told them the same thing. But nothing she had ever thought about in passing, nothing she had ever imagined, could have prepared her for the jolt that went through her as Lucas brushed her lips with his.

  It was a quick kiss, just a passing press of his lips to hers, really, but as he pulled away, he looked as stunned as she felt. Then she was reaching for him, her fingers tangling in the silky, cool strands of his hair as she pulled his face to hers. If they were going to do this, then she wanted a real kiss from Lucas. Even more, she wanted the real Lucas, not the one he usually showed to the women he dated.

  It only took a moment before his lips opened against hers, moving in a gentle sucking motion that had her trembling and her hands grasping at his shoulders for support. He laughed a little and wrapped an arm around her waist to ground her. But as his tongue darted out to lick gently at the corners of her mouth, she acknowledged that it was going to take a lot more than a supporting arm to keep her steady.

  But, as she pressed her body against his, she realized she wasn’t the only one trembling. Lucas was as shaky as she was. Somehow, that realization made what they were doing so much more real—and so much more delicious.

  He sucked her lower lip between his teeth and her mouth opened on a gasp. It was the invitation he was waiting for, his tongue darting inside her mouth to tease and tangle with her own.

  There was a strange ringing in her ears, one she tried to ignore as she lost herself in Lucas. It was probably her subconscious’s way of telling her that this whole thing was a really bad idea. But she ignored it—or at least, she tried to. All of this was overwhelming enough without facing the consequences of her actions at the same moment she was acting. Besides, for these few minutes when she was in Lucas’s arms, she wanted to forget what she was doing out here. Forget all the pain and ugliness and devastation she’d seen, and all that was to come because she wasn’t strong enough to find a way past the bureaucracy.

  She wanted to lose herself in Lucas, to immerse herself in the desire whipping between them. He must have felt the same way, because his arms tightened around her, pulling her up to her knees so that their bodies were flush against each other, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. It was his turn to delve his hands into her hair, to pull on her curls until her head tilted at an angle satisfactory to him.

  It alternately felt like they had been kissing for seconds, then hours. Long, luxurious kisses that made her lips burn and her head whirl. It felt good to kneel here, lost in the desire pumping through her body. She’d felt dead inside for so long, had deliberately tamped down on her emotions so that she wouldn’t feel the pain of what she did on a daily basis. It felt amazing to say to hell with it. To toss her inhibitions and worries and anguish to the wind and just feel.

  But Lucas broke the kisses off abruptly, pulling back and staring at her. She whimpered, tried to cling to him and he cursed even as he fumbled for her purse. “Your phone’s ringing,” he told her breathlessly as he handed it to her.

  She felt pretty breathless herself, and also pretty stupid, as she realized the bells she’d been hearing hadn’t been coming from inside her at all.

  “Whoever it is has called three or four times,” Lucas told her, his voice a few shades deeper than normal. “It must be important.”

  She checked the call log. Her heart sank as she saw that her worst fear was true—her boss’s private number. Already? she wanted to scream. Couldn’t she have just one day, one night, to herself before they came for her? Before she had to hurry down and try to contain an epidemic when they refused to give her the tools—and the time—that she needed?

  She gestured to call him back, but the hand holding the phone was shaking so badly that she couldn’t even punch the call button. Seeing her dilemma, Lucas wrapped his own hand under hers, held her steady. “It’s okay, Kara,” he murmured to her, his thumb stroking across the back of her hand. His touch soothed her like nothing else could.

  Her boss picked up on the first ring, grim and to the point. He didn’t even say hello, simply, “They have an outbreak of Ebola in Eritrea.”

  “Ebola?” she asked, a little stunned. Beside her, Lucas stiffened, made a sound of protest, but she turned her head, focused on the tree right in front of her. She couldn’t afford to let him distract her right now. Until she made a decision one way or the other, this was her job—whether she liked it or not.

  “How long since the outbreak started?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Three weeks? And it hasn’t burned itself out? Did it start in a major city?” Ebola was a disease that sounded, and looked, incredibly frightening, but it wasn’t something that usually created long-term epidemics. It was an awful way to die, but it was fast and it wasn’t airborne—it could only spread through contact with bodily fluids. Which usually made it pretty easy to contain. Plus, with a high mortality rate, it usually died out—once its hosts died out—pretty quickly.

  “They don’t know where it started—figuring that out is your job. But right now it’s in every major southern city—Om Hajer, T’io, Assab, Os Mara. It might be in the northern cities, as well, but we just don’t know that yet.”

  “A couple of those cities are awfully close to the Sudanese and Ethiopian borders.”

  “That’s what we’re afraid of.”

  “Has it spread?”

  “Based on the information we’ve been given, we don’t think so. I’ve reached out to health organizations working in both countries and am waiting to hear back. But my gut tells me if it hasn’t already jumped the borders, it’s going to soon.”

  “But how is that possible? You can’t get Ebola from sitting next to someone on the bus, and those who have it get sick so quickly that they don’t have much chance to travel.”

  “I am well aware of that, Kara.”

  “I know, Paul. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this. Are they sure it’s Ebola? And why weren’t we contacted before this? If it’s been going on three weeks, that’s a lot of deaths. Did they call in the World Health Organization instead?”

  “WHO got the call at the same time we did.”

  “Why did they wait?”

  “The Eritrean government isn’t known for its willingness to allow outsiders in. They don’t want anyone to witness what goes on inside the borders.”

  She knew that. But this was a disease that could kill a lot of people if it was already in the major cities. How could that not have mattered to them? Then again, it was just more of the same political bullshit she’d been struggling with for months now.

  Frustrated, angry, she blew out a steady stream of air. No matter how long she was in this business, she would never understand how a government could stand by and watch its people die, simply to protect itself. The whole thing was anathema to her.

  Her mind racing, she repeated her first question. “Are they sure it’s Ebola?”

  “Frankly, I don’t think they know what the hell it is. They say it’s Ebola and it has all the markers of the disease, but the growing infection rate doesn’t make sense. And their labs aren’t our labs. I won’t be happy until we have a team in the field.”

  “Is this thing airborne?”

  “They say no. Again—”

  “I know, I know. You want a team there. When?”

  “Thre
e weeks ago.”

  She laughed, though the sound had no humor in it. “Right.”

  “I’m putting together a meeting for two o’clock tomorrow afternoon—I guess that would be this afternoon, since it’s past midnight. I’ve scheduled a flight out at eight o’clock. You’ll head up the team.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she said “yes,” anyway. There was no doubt she’d be on that airplane. From the second she’d seen his name on her caller ID, she’d known it would lead straight to this. Some mutation of Ebola? Hemorrhagic viruses were her specialty. Morbid as it sounded, she’d been waiting her whole career for something like this to happen.

  “What time can you be here?”

  “I’m out right now. I need to get home, repack.” God, had she even gotten the last of her laundry done? “Catch a few hours’ sleep if I’m going to be alert in the meeting. And I’m going to need to refill my field kit.”

  “I know. I’ll have everything ready and waiting for you.”

  “Please. I’m a mess, totally jet lagged and nowhere close to organized. If you organize it then I go over it, there’s less chance I’ll miss something.”

  “So what time?” he asked again.

  She turned around, grabbed Lucas’s wrist to look at his watch. It was one-thirty. “If everything goes okay, I can be there by ten.”

  “Good. I want you up to speed before the rest of the team gets here.”

  Panic had her heart racing and her breath quickening but she refused to give in to it. She didn’t have a choice—she had to keep it together. Lucas must have heard something in her breathing, though, because this time he reached for her free hand, threading his fingers through hers and squeezing tightly.

  It wasn’t much, wasn’t a huge gesture of comfort, but it was enough to cut through the fear and get her focusing on what needed to be done.