The Phoenix Encounter (4 page)

And as she gazed into the electric blue of his eyes, the endless months they'd been apart melted away like steel in
a smelter. The pang of longing was so powerful that for a moment she couldn't catch her breath. The urge to go to him pulled at her like a dangerous tide. A riptide easing a hapless swimmer into a treacherous sea.

But because she knew he represented a very real danger to her—because she represented an even bigger threat to him—Lily banished the thoughts. She could never think of Robert in those terms again. Going to him, touching him, getting too close were things she couldn't allow herself to do. Giving in to the feelings coiling inside her might just get them both killed.

A cry from the bedroom at the rear of the cottage jolted her. She felt Robert's questioning stare on her, but she didn't dare meet his gaze. In her peripheral vision she saw him glance toward the rear of the cottage, and a shudder ran the length of her. For a instant, she stood there, frozen with indecision, a hundred emotions pulling her in a hundred different directions.

“Is there a child here?” he asked.

Trying in vain not to shake, Lily rose from the chair. “That's…Jack.”

“Jack? Who is Jack?”

She started toward the bedroom, keenly aware that Robert was following her and that she didn't have the slightest idea how she was going to explain a one-year-old baby to a man who had every right to know.

Lily closed her eyes. “Jack is…my son.”

Behind her, she heard Robert stop dead in his tracks, but she didn't slow down. She didn't turn to look at him. She wasn't sure what her eyes would reveal if she did. She'd never been able to lie—not to Robert. She wouldn't lie now—even if the truth was more brutal than any lie she could have fabricated.

 

Jack is my son.

The words reverberated like the echo of a killing shot inside Robert's head. He stood in the semidarkness of the
hall and watched Lily disappear into a small bedroom at the rear of the cottage, his head reeling.

Lily had a child. He couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe she'd moved on so easily while he'd spent the last twenty-one months crippled by the past. The thought angered him, shook him more than he wanted to admit. He tried to blame his reaction on exhaustion and stress and the shock of seeing her again after believing her dead for so long. But he knew there was more to it than that. Knew it went a hell of a lot deeper than any of those things.

Movement down the hall yanked him from his dark reverie. He looked up to see Lily holding a small bundle wrapped in a blanket. A blue blanket. He wondered how, in a country as devastated as Rebelia, she'd managed to find a blue blanket for her baby boy.

He stared at her, then the child, trying desperately not to think about what her having a child meant.

I've moved on. You should have, too.

The full meaning of the words penetrated his brain. Evidently, she had, indeed, moved on. Judging from the size of the baby, she hadn't waited too long after Robert had left to do so. He wondered who the father was and tried like hell to ignore the knot of jealousy that tightened in his gut. He knew it was stupid to feel that way. His relationship with Lily had been over for a long time. Any feelings he'd once had for her had been replaced by bitterness.

The bitterness surged forth now with such force that Robert could taste its acrid flavor at the back of his throat. He watched her approach, then pass him without acknowledging him. Feeling angry and out of place, he trailed her to the living room, then paused to watch her spread a blanket on the sofa and lay the child down to change him.

“He's your…
son?
” he asked.

She didn't look at him but continued tending the baby. “Yes.”

Robert felt the affirmation like a physical punch. Lily
had a son. He couldn't believe it. His brain simply refused to absorb the information. “How old is he?”

She did look at him then, but her hazel eyes were cool. “About nine months.”

Mentally he calculated the months, felt a hot cauldron of anger begin to boil. No, she hadn't waited very long at all.

“His name is Jack,” she added.

“Jack.” He repeated the name, thinking of the young man who'd brought him here. His name was also Jacques, but he'd had a French accent and pronounced it differently. Robert wondered if Jacques was this child's father.

Robert thought of the endless months of grief. The kind of black grief that ate at a man's soul and changed who he was. He thought of all the surgeries that had been required to repair the shattered bone in his thigh. The ensuing months of rehabilitation. The knowledge that he would never be the same. He thought of the secret hope he'd held in his heart that Lily would show up alive and smiling and ready to spend the rest of her life with him. God, he'd been such a fool.

It infuriated him that while he'd been going through all those things, she'd taken up with another man—and had a son with him.

Anger and jealousy melded into a single, ugly emotion and snarled inside him like a rabid beast. He wanted to lash out at her. The words were poised on his tongue, sharp as a knife and ready to cut. But he knew better than to let that beast out of its cage. Knew it would take him apart if he let it.

With the mission foremost in his mind, he couldn't let that happen.

Relieved that Lily was busy tending to the baby, Robert closed his eyes, willing away the emotions swamping him. She'd moved on. He had to accept it. She was alive. That was the important thing. It would have to be enough.

“He's been ill,” she said, fastening old-fashioned diaper pins at Jack's pudgy hips. “I've taken him to the doctor in
the village, but Dr. Salov hasn't been able to give me a diagnosis.”

Robert's attention snapped to Lily. “The baby has been sick?” For an instant, angry male and concerned doctor clashed. Then his physician's mind clicked into place. “What are the symptoms?”

Lily lifted the child, then pressed a kiss to his forehead. “The symptoms haven't been consistent, but several times I've noticed that his fingers and toes are blue. Sometimes he's cold to the touch. He had a low-grade fever last week, but it went away after a couple of days.” She looked at the child in her arms, worry creasing her brows. “Sometimes he's…lethargic. He sleeps a little too much. Some days he doesn't eat enough.”

Robert glanced at the child and for the first time got a good look at him. Jack was a beautiful baby with vivid blue eyes that were alert and intelligent. He had thick brown hair with a cowlick at his crown and the face of an angel come down from the heavens. Robert had never been partial to babies. But the sight of Lily's baby awed and amazed him nonetheless.

“Nice looking kid,” he said.

“Thanks.” Robert saw the quick flash of pride in her eyes and the smile she couldn't quite hide. “He's everything to me.”

“Do you mind if I examine him?”

She cast him a startled look but made no move to hand over the baby.

“Lily, for God's sake, what do you think I'm going to do? Throw him out the window? Come on. I'm a doctor. Let me examine him and see if I find anything out of the ordinary.”

“All right.” She glanced toward the rear of the cottage. “I can put him down on the bed in the bedroom,” she said and turned to carry Jack down the hall.

Snagging his medical bag off the floor, Robert followed, entering the bedroom just in time to see Lily lay Jack on
the bed. He knew he should be paying attention to the child and not the bed, but he couldn't help but notice it was little more than a twin-size mattress set up on a homemade wooden pedestal. Hardly big enough for Lily, let alone Jack's father. The thought of her sharing that bed with another man disturbed him a hell of a lot more than he wanted to admit, and another wave of jealousy seared him.

As if realizing his thoughts, Lily said, “I thought you'd have more room if I laid him on the bed.”

“This is fine,” he snapped.

She unwrapped the blanket, and Robert found himself staring at a perfect baby boy wearing pajamas with little blue ducks and tiny booties that had been made to look like traditional Rebelian shoes. And he found himself smiling despite the knot of tension at the back of his neck. “What's up, doc?” he said in his best Bugs Bunny voice.

Jack kicked out his legs in delight. “Gah!”

“That's what I thought,” Robert said.

Lily leaned forward. “What is it?”

“A Bugs Bunny fan,” he said deadpan.

She didn't quite laugh, but he heard her release the breath she'd been holding and figured the level of tension wasn't going to get any lower.

“Let's have a look at you.” Struggling hard to keep his mind on the business at hand, Robert dug into his medical bag for his stethoscope and thermometer and quickly examined the baby. All the while Jack cooed and kicked his feet in quiet protest.

“Temperature is slightly elevated,” Robert said.

Lily pressed her hand to her breast and looked worriedly at her son. “He's got a fever? What does that mean?”

Robert held up his hand to silence her. “Heartbeat is regular and strong. Pulse is good.” Using his penlight, he checked the baby's eyes and ears, then moved on to do a quick check of his extremities. The blue tone of his fingers and toes worried him. Taking one of Jack's fingers between his thumb and forefinger, Robert pressed and watched the
tiny pad turn white. When he released it, the blood returned slowly. A little too slowly in Robert's opinion.

“Okay, big guy. I think that'll do it.”

Leaning forward, Lily pulled on his pajamas then carried him to the crib. “Why is his temperature elevated?” she asked over her shoulder as she laid him in the crib.

Robert walked to the crib and looked at Jack in time to hear him giggle and was surprised to find himself smiling. He didn't have much to smile about at the moment, but there was something contagious about the sound of a baby's laughter. “I don't know. The fever isn't high, certainly not anything to worry about at this point. I can give him a dose of acetaminophen to take it down.”

“All right.”

“He appears to be just fine at the moment, but I'd like to run a couple of blood tests.”

Lily turned on him, her eyes huge and concerned. “Blood tests? Why? What did you find?”

“I didn't find anything definitive, but just to be safe I'd like to rule out a few things.”

Never taking her eyes from his, she came around the crib, a mother lion facing off with a big male who'd just threatened her cub. “Don't give me some vague doctorlike answer, damn it. What are you looking for?”

Robert didn't want to worry her needlessly, but he had to tell her what he thought, regardless of how difficult the truth might be.

“I'm not looking for anything specific at this point,” he said. “But from the cursory exam I performed, I can see that his circulation isn't quite normal. I don't think it's anything serious at this point, but it definitely warrants a few nonobtrusive tests.”

“Circulation? Oh, my God.” She pressed a hand to her breast. “What could it be?”

He shrugged. “It could be something as benign as a slight case of anemia. Any number of things that aren't too serious—”

“But…it could be serious?”

He hated to be the one to put that sharp-edged worry in her eyes, but he didn't see any way around it. “I don't know, Lily. That's why I'd like to run some blood tests. Just stay calm. This is nothing to get worked up about, okay?”

Biting her lip, she looked over her shoulder at the baby cooing in the crib. “He's everything to me,” she said. “I could never bear it if something happened to him.”

“Nothing's going to happen to him,” he said firmly. “These are routine tests. Chances are the pediatrician will prescribe some vitamins with iron, and Jack will be just fine.”

She didn't look convinced, but at least she no longer looked as if she were going to jump out of her skin. He supposed they'd both learned that fate didn't always bestow a kind outcome.

The instincts he'd developed in the course of his experience as a doctor told him to reach out and touch her, just to reassure her that her child was going to be fine. But Robert didn't dare touch her. Deep down inside he knew it wasn't the physician who wanted to touch her, but the man who'd never gotten her out of his system.

“I'd like to take him to the hospital in Rajalla where there's a pediatric unit and laboratory facilities,” he said.

Lily visibly paled, but masked it by quickly turning away. Noticing that her hands were shaking, Robert watched her closely and wondered about her level of anxiety at the mention of the hospital in Rajalla. “Is there a problem with Rajalla?”

“No. Of course not.” She looked directly at him and smiled, but Robert saw the shimmer of nerves beneath the surface. “It's just that the city has…changed since you were last there.”

Rajalla was the capital city of Rebelia. Robert had spent a good bit of time there and remembered it as a pretty, bustling metropolis with several sleek skyscrapers, ancient
stone churches, a bazaar where local farmers and artisans sold stone-baked bread and Rebelian stained glass, and some of the most beautiful parks in all of Europe.

Robert had researched Rajalla carefully before leaving the United States. He knew DeBruzkya's soldiers had invaded the city. He knew those soldiers had destroyed many of the buildings, including several historical cathedrals. He knew the once-healthy economy had slumped, that people had fled to the nearby country of Holzberg to become refugees.

But he was getting some odd vibes from Lily and wanted to hear her view. “How has it changed?”

She moved away from the crib as if what she were about to say was somehow harmful to her son. “DeBruzkya is in control of the entire city now. There are armed soldiers everywhere, including the hospital.”