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  Which was fine. Better than fine, really. After all, she had more than enough on her plate without adding a long-distance quasi-relationship to the mix. Especially when that relationship would be with a control freak with mommy issues.

  No, she was better off going it alone, like she always did. No one to depend on but herself. No one to hurt her when she wasn’t paying attention. How could she have forgotten, even for a second, that going it alone was the best thing to do?

  Even when it didn’t necessarily feel like it was.

  * * *

  FEELING MORE AWKWARD than he could ever remember feeling, Lucas stared down at Kara.

  His best friend, Kara.

  The woman he had just slept with, Kara.

  The doctor who was about to leave for a multimonth stint in a developing nation, Kara.

  He had absolutely no idea what to say to her. Especially when her posture screamed, Get the hell away from me, loser, while her eyes showed just enough vulnerability to make him feel like a total heel. Even if he didn’t know why he felt that way. After all, it wasn’t like he’d plotted and schemed to sleep with her. She was the one who had thrown him across the bed, after all. “What can I do to help you get ready?” he asked.

  The vulnerability disappeared and she shrugged. “I need to take a shower. Pack. Probably eat something, though I’m not sure what’s in the house. I didn’t even have time to go grocery shopping.”

  “Why don’t you start with the shower and I’ll go see what you’ve got in the pantry. Then we’ll get you packed.”

  “Yeah, okay.” She walked into the bathroom, then glanced at him over her shoulder as she turned the water on. The smile she gave him as she did was both shy and remote, neither emotions he was used to seeing in her. It made him feel even weirder than he already did.

  Once she stepped under the hot spray, he put on his boxers and walked down the hall to the kitchen. A quick glance in the fridge told him she’d been right—there was almost nothing to work with. The pantry proved a little more interesting, but just barely.

  In the end, he managed to fix two bowls of steel-cut oatmeal topped with brown sugar, cut-up dried fruit and evaporated milk. It wasn’t exactly a culinary feast, but it would fill her up and give her some much-needed energy. She was starting a full day of work, jet lagged and with very little sleep.

  It almost made him feel bad about what they’d spent the past hour and a half doing. Almost. Because it was hard to feel bad about sex with a beautiful woman. Especially unbelievable, amazing, earth-shattering sex that came with the added benefit of being with someone he truly cared about. He wasn’t in love with Kara or anything, but he cared about her a great deal. He’d even go so far as to say he loved her as his closest friend.

  But that only made this new—and wholly unexpected—development between them even more awkward. He wished he’d been able to glean an idea of what this had meant to Kara, but she’d shut down pretty quickly in the bedroom. Not that he blamed her. He hadn’t exactly been forthcoming himself.

  But what was he supposed to do? Never, in seventeen years, had he really imagined having sex with Kara. Sure, when they’d first met, he might have thought about her in that context—he’d been an eighteen-year-old guy. But that had only been at the very beginning. They’d become friends so quickly that he’d shoved those thoughts away and hadn’t gone there again. At least not before tonight.

  And now that he had gone there, what the hell was he supposed to do? He didn’t have a clue, especially when he had no idea how he had got himself in this situation to begin with. It was pretty obvious that he hadn’t been thinking. Just reacting to Kara’s lead. So what did this mean? Was he trying to channel years of friendship into something else? Was she? Did this, tonight, mean that they were suddenly a couple?

  The thought sent a shiver of unease through him. He didn’t want to be part of a couple, wasn’t interested in that kind of relationship right now. He’d spent the past year watching Amanda and Simon get back together and then Jack and Sophie fall in love, and while he was happy for both couples, he had no interest in having what they did. Romantic relationships came with all kinds of strings attached, all kinds of responsibilities that he just didn’t have time for.

  He winced at the thought. He didn’t mean to sound callous, but between the clinic and his family, he had all the responsibility he could manage. If he wasn’t finding solutions for one problem after another with his mother, then he was bailing his younger sisters out of trouble. Adding a serious girlfriend to that mix was just asking for burnout.

  But then, where did that leave Kara and him? If she had no more interest in being a couple than he did, had they simply crossed the line from best friends to friends with benefits? No, his entire being rejected that description—his friendship with Kara was too important to him to be classified in such a casual way.

  God, he wished he knew what Kara was thinking. Feeling. Maybe then he could get a grasp on the strange emotions rocketing around inside of him. But Kara was good at hiding her feelings—almost as good as he was—which meant he wouldn’t have a clue what was up with her unless they actually had a discussion about this. And judging by everything she had left to do tonight, it might be months before they actually got the chance to have that discussion face-to-face.

  Which was completely unacceptable, he decided as he slid the bowls of oatmeal onto the table and went to fetch her. She had to take a few minutes to eat, after all. He’d just catch her when her mouth was full and she had to listen.

  Which proved to be easier thought than done. Because once Kara was in the kitchen with him, he found it a million times harder to voice his concerns than he had imagined. Strange that he would suddenly be tongue-tied by her. Stranger still that a look from her emerald-colored eyes would throw him for such a loop. Suddenly everything he’d planned to say sounded stupid and callow.

  In the end, he decided to just ask her, however much he stumbled over the words like a teenager. “So, what are you thinking? About us? About this. I mean about…” He trailed off lamely. Seriously? It was humiliating. Had he somehow reverted to being eighteen again?

  She lifted an eyebrow. “About?”

  “Us. About us. Are we just—”

  “Just?”

  He sighed heavily, tried to find a description she wouldn’t find offensive. And then narrowed his eyes when he realized she’d been laughing at him all along. “Great. I’m trying to have an adult discussion here and you’re laughing your ass off. That’s terrific.”

  She actually did laugh then, until he pushed away from the table, annoyed. She shut up, but when he looked back at her she was pressing her lips together to hide a smile.

  He made a sound of disgust deep in his throat and she held a hand up, as if she was trying to placate him. “I’m sorry. You were so earnest sitting there, trying to figure out if the sex changed anything without actually coming right out and saying it.”

  “Okay, well, now that you’ve said it, does it change anything?”

  Her smile faded. “It doesn’t have to,” she said quietly.

  Those were the words he’d been waiting to hear, but now that she’d said them, he felt strangely unsettled. Like he was missing something obvious.

  “I’m not so sure about that. I think it already has.”

  “For the better or the worse?”

  “I don’t think anyone could describe what just went on between us as worse.”

 
She laughed, as he’d intended her to, but then grew really quiet. He’d just about given up hope that she would say anything else when she murmured, “We could just wait and see.”

  “Wait and see?” He didn’t like the sound of that and he knew his disdain could be heard in his voice.

  “Yes, Mr. Always-Has-A-Plan-And-Must-Have-Everything-Spelled-Out-For-Him. We could just wait and see what happens. I have this trip to go on, you have a clinic to run. Neither of us knows how long I’ll be gone or what will happen in the interim. We could just call this a one-time thing for now and then see what happens when I get back, if anything happens.”

  “And if nothing happens?” Although he really couldn’t see that happening. He was already hard again, already plotting how he could get her back into bed. Which, in turn, made him feel like a total sleaze. This was Kara. He shouldn’t be thinking about her like that.

  “Then we’ll know this was just a weird confluence of factors that led to an unprecedented event.”

  When he just looked at her, eyebrows raised, she demanded, “What? I was trying to do Lucas-speak.”

  “That was not Lucas-speak. It was Kara the epidemiologist. I kind of want to hear Kara the woman speak right now, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay, fine. If when I come back, either of us is dating someone else or the spark is gone or whatever, it’ll be no harm, no foul.”

  He didn’t like her words, suddenly couldn’t stand the idea of her dating someone else even though he didn’t want to date her. Which was ridiculous. He’d never been possessive of a woman in his life and Kara was certainly not the one he should start having those feelings for. And yet they were there, right under his skin, irritating him beyond measure as he imagined her dating some nonprofit do-gooder in Africa.

  It was probably biological, he assured himself. He was still warm from her, could still turn his head and catch her scent on his skin, and yet she was talking about dating someone else as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Was it any wonder he was getting his back up?

  Frustrated, as much by his sudden inability to say what he meant as by his inability to understand his own emotions, he walked back to the table. But instead of taking the seat he’d set for himself, he crossed to where she was sitting. Leaned against the table right next to her, crowding her in a way he didn’t normally do, just to see how she’d react. He didn’t know what made him do it, didn’t know what he was hoping to see. But when she glanced up, startled, he saw that hint of vulnerability again. She scrambled to cover it up, but it was too late. He’d already seen it and it proved to him that she was just as shaken up by what had happened tonight as he was. Somehow, that knowledge made this whole thing just a little bit easier to wrap his head around.

  “Is that what you want to do, Kara? Just wait and see what happens?”

  She started to look away, but he reached down and cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. Kara meant too much to him for him to just go along with her suggestion—unless it was what she really wanted. He might not know what he wanted, but he did know that he would never willingly hurt her.

  She didn’t answer for long seconds, and he grew edgy, nervous. Which was ridiculous considering he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been nervous before tonight. But then she smiled, clear-eyed, and said, “Absolutely. After all, three months is a long time. Anything could happen.”

  “Right.” He nodded. “Anything.” He moved back to his seat and dug into his breakfast, trying to ignore the fact that he was completely unsettled, partially because Kara had said exactly what he’d wanted to hear.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  May

  Hey Lucas,

  Sorry this is going to be quick. I’m leaving for Sudan in ten minutes but you sounded so worried I wanted to answer ASAP. I’m not sure when I’ll have another chance for a while. Yes, things are bad here—from what my microbiologists have figured out, we are indeed dealing with a new strain of Ebola. Even worse, it’s jumped the border, which is why I’m on the way to Sudan. The cases there are similar, but different enough to have me curious. How quickly is it mutating? Is it becoming more or less deadly? Where was the first mutant strain discovered? You know the drill.

  Anyway, please don’t worry (I know, easier said than done). But I’m being careful as always and, so far, the rebels are behaving themselves, although I think that’s just because they’re rightfully terrified of catching this virus.

  How are you? Everything okay at the clinic? With your family? With you?

  There’s so much I want to— Oops, gotta go. I can hear the trucks starting up downstairs and I still haven’t carried my bag down. I’ll write again when I get the chance.

  Take care,

  Kara

  “HEY, LUCAS, YOU GOT A MINUTE?”

  Lucas looked up from reading Kara’s email for the third time and did his best to pretend he wasn’t freaking out. He’d been trying to read between the lines, to figure out exactly how much danger she was in. He knew from obsessively watching the news—something he’d been doing ever since Kara flew out five weeks before—that Eritrea was in a constant state of turmoil. According to CNN, the rebels had been active, but maybe that was somewhere far away from where Kara was. He could only hope. Not that he would put it past her to lie to him if she thought it would keep him from worrying....

  Damn it! Now he was second-guessing his second guesses. Could he get any more insane? This was why he didn’t do this, why he didn’t sleep with women he had lasting emotional connections with. Because it made him crazy.

  He was a control freak. He knew that about himself—hell, everyone who met him knew it—and it killed him that Kara was locked into an untenable situation, one that he could not do anything about.

  In some ways, this trip was no different than any other she’d been on. Since she’d joined the CDC straight out of med school, worrying about her had been par for the course. When she was in India studying malaria for her postgrad work, or in the Andes studying the effects of AIDS on indigenous populations, or in Africa working with epidemics of cholera, dengue hemorrhagic fever, tuberculosis, polio, measles, he’d spent many sleepless nights stressed-out about the million and one things that could go wrong for her.

  But this time, it was different. He tried to tell himself it was because of what she’d told him, about the lack of true support from the CDC. And while that might be true to a certain extent, he knew there was more to it than that.

  Maybe it was because she’d hauled herself into the middle of the biggest hellhole on earth?

  Maybe it was because he spent every day worried about her getting caught in the middle of the rebel conflict—like Jack had the year before—and getting maimed or injured.

  Or maybe it was simply because things were so unsettled between them.

  Usually he could count on her to tell him what was really going on. With work, with her, with the people she saw day in and day out. But these days a couple of inane paragraphs was all he could count on getting from her. Was there any doubt, then, why he was scrutinizing her email like it was a letter from the IRS?

  And since he was scrutinizing it—what was up with that crappy closing? “Take care”? Since when did she close an email with “Take care”? Usually he got x’s and o’s, or at least a quick “Love, Kara,” but ever since they’d slept together her emails had been getting more and more impersonal. This one could have been sent to any of a couple dozen people an
d no one would have known the difference.

  He tried to tell himself he was overreacting, that Kara had obviously been dashing the note off in a hurry. It wasn’t like she’d had time to write an opus or anything. But still, “Take care”? It was like they’d gone backward seventeen years, to when they’d first become friends and were still tiptoeing around each other. It was ridiculous, maddening, especially when he knew that his emails to her weren’t any better.

  Somehow, despite all their reassurances, sleeping together had totally messed with their friendship. She’d suggested they wait and see, but right now, it didn’t seem like there was much to wait and see about. Things were going downhill fast and there was nothing he could do about it.

  It was driving the control freak in him insane. If he could just talk to her for a few minutes, if he could just hear her voice and figure out what she was thinking, things would get better. If he could just reassure her, get her to listen when he told her…what? What was it he wanted to tell her? Maybe the big problem wasn’t with her, after all. Maybe it was that he didn’t have a clue.

  Not that it really mattered, he supposed. It wasn’t like she was answering her phone, anyway. Or calling him back when he left messages.

  At least she was still answering his emails, he consoled himself. Making sure to let him know that she was okay. That was something. Even if she left a maddening line dangling like “There’s so much I want to…” What did she want? What did she want? He had a feeling he was in for a whole new batch of sleepless nights—like the ones he was already having hadn’t stretched his patience to the breaking point.

  “Lucas?” The knock came again, this time with a turn of the doorknob, as well.