“This is Gina, Mr. Pak’s daughter. She’s seventeen. Her real name’s Jin, but, well, everyone calls her.” She was aware that she was babbling. She stopped herself. “She babysits for me.”
Elliot nodded, gravely extending a hand. Then he was all business, opening her front door and preceding her outside. “We’re going to Immaculate Heart Pediatric,” he informed Gina.
“She gonna be all right?” Gina asked.
Elliot’s eyes were on her, not Gina. “I think so. A high fever doesn’t mean anything awful on its own. It’s probably just an infection.”
Oh, thank you, Jesus. She let Elliot propel her into the backseat, allowing him to buckle the seat belt over her lap before she settled her daughter in her arms. In the absence of a car seat, it’d have to do.
He sensed her apprehension. “I’ll get you there safely,” he promised. “Both of you.”
They pulled to a screeching stop in the hospital parking lot. Elliot hopped out and looked in through the window at Shani as she struggled in the backseat with Bee’s deadweight. “How’s the baby?”
“Sleeping,” Shani answered. “Still hot.”
“Then we’d better get in there.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the entrance to the E.R.
It was next to impossible to emerge from the car holding Bee, but Elliot opened the back door and gently, as if lifting something infinitely precious, eased her daughter from her lap.
Shani got out, feeling the sting of pins and needles run through her legs as blood rushed back into them. It had gotten colder. She stamped on the ground, found her land legs again and held her arms out for her daughter. But Elliot shook his head, cradling Bee as though he’d known her since the day she was born. “Keep your strength. You’ll need it.” She couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or outraged.
Of one accord, they moved toward the doors. “You didn’t have to do this,” she pointed out.
His mouth curved, and he shrugged it off.
Maybe it was nothing to him, a little lost sleep and a missed dinner, but she needed for him to know that to her, his small gesture meant everything. “My daughter.” As she walked, she searched for words. “Bee’s all I have, now.” She tried not to think of Christophe. He hadn’t been hers for a long time.
His expression was so compassionate, it hurt to look at him. “She’ll be okay, I promise you. And I don’t mind doing this. Really.”
Which was a good thing, because at that moment Bee was jolted out of her exhausted, fever-tormented sleep. She went rigid, threw open her startled brown eyes, flung out thin, stiff limbs and threw up down the front of his shirt.
Chapter 4
Shani reacted immediately, reaching out to help tilt Bee’s head so that most of the clear fluid spurted onto the ground.
“Elliot, I’m so—”
“It’s all right.”
She fumbled through her bag, cursing the clutter, and pulled out a packet of baby wipes. “At least let me … I’m so sorry!” She dabbed at the wet mark on his shirt, cringing at what he must be thinking. She was a mother, used to dealing with all manner of bodily fluids, but this was a single man. Baby upchuck was probably at the top of his gross-out list.
“Relax. She’s done now.”
She held out her arms, expecting him to hand Bee over as if she was an armload of contraband, but he was walking again. “Better get her inside.”
It was a choice between standing in the cold parking lot and following. She followed. “I’ll get your shirt cleaned,” she promised.
He threw her an amused, patient look over the fluffy blanket-covered bump in his arms. “The shirt’ll wash.” He stepped aside to let her get the door. She brushed past a security guard who was lightly dozing on his feet and heaved against the heavy glass door under a large sign that read EMERGENCY in white on red.
Elliot found them a space in the waiting room and let Shani sit, settling beside her with Bee on his lap. His face was beautiful in its tenderness. His faded shirt and loose jeans were an odd uniform for an angel of mercy, but Shani knew that when angels swooped to Earth, they sometimes left their wings at home. Grounded by their circumstances, they had no choice but to sit back and watch chaos unfurl. It was like a scene from Dante’s Inferno being put on by the local grade school. Children sobbed, babies wailed, worried parents held them close or paced, gulping coffee, guzzling high-caffeine sodas and rooting around in greasy packets of potato chips. Half an hour passed, then half an hour more. Heads lifted whenever a new group of names rang out over the sound system. As each sick child’s name was called, his or her parents left through the swinging doors leading into the guts of the building with a mixture of relief at finally making it inside and guilt at leaving fellow sufferers behind.
She needed to feel the warmth of her daughter against her skin and held out her arms wordlessly. Elliot handed Bee over and then stood to allow the blood to return to his legs. With a smooth movement, he pulled the damp, funky-smelling shirt over his head and tossed it onto the chair. He stroked his chest absently, looking down at himself. “Probably wouldn’t pass dress code around here now,” he commented in amusement.
She opened her mouth again, not even sure what she was going to say, and then shut it as the sight of his sleek, bare chest hit her between the eyes. The body he had on him certainly didn’t belong on an angel; according to her understanding of the heavenly creatures, they wouldn’t know what to do with it. The well-defined lines that accentuated his pecs, the glimpses of rib as he turned and abdominal muscles that plunged downward to the sharp angles of hip bones visible above his low-slung jeans were like the long, sleek lines of a sports car. She tried not to stare, but she lost the battle.
He shrugged the cricks out of his shoulder and snagged the next nurse to pass close enough. She was a fine-boned young Asian woman, probably not more than twenty-three or twenty-four, with straight black hair that escaped her little bonnet willy-nilly. Her large eyes were an unusual shade of deep green. As he stepped out into her path, she gave him a distracted glance—and then that glorious, golden expanse of bare chest stopped her in her tracks.
“Nurse, please. The baby’s very sick, and her mother’s worried. How long do you think it’ll be?”
She swallowed, trying to keep her gaze above his neck. “We’re very busy tonight—”
His voice was low, beguiling, betraying neither anger nor frustration. “I know you’re all doing the best you can.” He smiled disarmingly, one hand on her elbow, the other idly resting over his heart, like someone taking the Pledge of Allegiance—or declaring his affections. “But you look like a kind person. I’m sure you’d be willing to spare me a few seconds of your time.”
Unconsciously, the young nurse lifted her fingers to her full, pink lips. Shani watched in amazement, feeling like Alice in some kind of soft-core Wonderland. She looks as if she’s willing to give a whole lot more time than a few seconds, she thought.
“What I want to know is why is it so busy? This isn’t normal, is it?”
The
