style="font-size:15px;"> “I’m sorry, Rafe. No one wanted this. Everyone is pulling for you to find a cure.”
“Not everyone. Whoever did this doesn’t want a cure found,” Rafe said.
Flint folded his arms across his chest. “You have a theory on why?”
Rafe couldn’t imagine anyone who wanted to stay in Dead River longer than they had to. “I have no clue why anyone would want this to drag on longer than it has to. The virus will keep spreading and claiming more lives.”
Rafe, for one, couldn’t wait to beat feet out of Dead River and not solely on account of the virus. He was honoring a promise he’d given his late father by working at the clinic. But that was as far as his commitment to Dead River extended. He wasn’t getting entangled in small-town life again. He could almost hear his mother’s raspy laughter knowing that he’d planned to stay a short time and now couldn’t leave. She’d warned him about getting sucked into this tiny town. She used to say Dead River had wrapped its tentacles around her, one by one, until it was impossible to leave.
His mother’s big dreams had died when she’d become a young mother. Rafe felt lucky he’d had an opportunity for an education outside the small Wyoming town and had used his career trajectory to escape.
Only now, he was back and he was stuck. He refused to let any of the town’s charms keep him here. Not even his friendship with Flint or his attraction to Flint’s sister, Gemma, would trap him. The job and the life he had worked hard for was waiting for him in New York City.
* * *
After a few minutes, feeling nervous about Rafe’s irritation and what he might do, Gemma left Anand in the storage room with an apology and a promise to return. She followed Rafe outside. Her brother Flint was on the scene and she was worried about him and Rafe. Flint had been working too hard and while his new relationship with the Dead River Diner owner Nina grounded him, the pressure was wearing on him.
It was wearing on everyone.
Rafe, on the other hand, didn’t have someone to confide in. From what she could see, he was married to his job and without an outlet for his stress, he was a time bomb. He behaved as if the patients at the clinic and finding the cure for the virus were his responsibility, and that was too much pressure for anyone. Rafe seemed to believe that the health and welfare of every single patient rested solely on his shoulders. Though Dr. Goodhue was leading the effort in finding a cure and lending her considerable expertise and experience, Rafe was driving them hard and closer to a breakthrough.
Gemma had tried to be a friend, but Rafe was a hard man to get close to. He was standoffish and prickly, bullheaded at times, and a strange combination of self-centered and completely selfless. Self-centered in that he thought he had control and selfless because he did it for his patients.
The most difficult trait for Gemma to deal with was how intensely handsome she still found Rafe Granger. Bad-boy-turned-doctor, wild-teenager-turned-disciplined-man and, oh, what a man he was. Sexy and brooding and someone she should stay far away from. Her brothers had warned her in high school about Rafe and her instincts warned her now. He was a twelve out of ten on the scale of her top temptations. Better than wine. Better than chocolate.
If she let him, he would burn her. He would break her heart. She knew it, but even that didn’t stop her from thinking he was the single most fascinating man she’d ever met.
She was closer to her brother and Rafe now and she wished she had minded her own business and stayed inside to help Anand. She had often stood between her brothers Theo and Flint when they argued, but this was different.
She didn’t know Rafe as well and he didn’t have a soft spot for her the way her brothers did.
The tension between Flint and Rafe was palpable.
“Everything okay?” she asked, knowing it wasn’t, but looking to tamp down their mutual frustrations.
“We’ve lost hundreds of hours of research,” Rafe said.
“I know,” Gemma said. “But we’ll get it back.” She didn’t know how they could do more, but they would. Too many people were relying on the clinic to succeed.
Rafe stared at her incredulously. “How is that, Nurse Colton? Do you have the test data and the lab results and additional samples we can work with?”
His sharp tone stung. He was mad and having trouble controlling his temper.
“You know that I don’t,” Gemma said, countering his anger with a cool tone.
“Then how can we make this right?” he asked.
“We have the data we uploaded to the CDC. We have what we’ve learned. We won’t make the same mistakes and we already know what doesn’t work,” Gemma said, thinking of the time they had lost because they’d stored earlier samples at the wrong temperature and killed the virus.
“Mistakes?” Rafe asked.
He and Dr. Rand insisted the temperature issue hadn’t been a mistake. It was research. Gemma preferred to call a spade a spade. “I’ll give you that if we could lower our patient’s temperature to zero degrees Celsius for a time, the virus would die.” A concession.
He scowled. “We learned from that same failure that the virus can’t live off a live host for more than a couple of hours.”
“See? We have dozens of those observations that we can start with. We’re not starting from a blank slate this time,” Gemma said. “We’re past the initial confusion. We know better what we’re doing.”
Rafe looked away, though his shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch. She was calming him and she took it as a win. Every little forward step with Rafe was progress.
“Hey, easy,” Flint said, patting Rafe’s shoulder. “She didn’t do this. She’s trying to help.”
Rafe rubbed his eyes, perhaps trying to shake off his exhaustion. “Let me tell you what I don’t get. How did someone break into the clinic, trash my office, destroy the storage room and then decimate the lab without anyone hearing it? It took a flaming fire to set off the alarms and summon help.”
Gemma agreed the timing was strange. “Dr. Rand, Anand and Felicia were in the virus wing. You know it’s hard to hear inside the suits,” she said. At least, it was her understanding that Felicia, Anand and Dr. Rand had been alone. The overnight shift was bare bones. Dead River wasn’t big enough to support a hospital, so the clinic provided the town’s medical services. Before the outbreak, complex and inpatient cases were referred to nearby Cheyenne Memorial. Now, they were short staffed, trying to run the clinic twenty-four hours a day.
“I’ll look into it, Rafe,” Flint said carefully. “Maybe someone saw or heard something that will help.”
Rafe looked at the sky and then nodded at Flint. “Let me know if I can help. In the meantime, I have more samples to collect. We’re starting over and I don’t have time to waste.”
He turned on his heel and stalked away.
Gemma stared after him for a few seconds, deciding if she should tag along to help or give him time to cool off.
“Careful, Gemma,” Flint
