Every part of his body wanted to keep living on the adrenaline. To keep going, to find the next person to help. But the truth was, his muscles ached. The aroma coming from the food in his hand was tempting. And the thought of sitting down for five minutes didn’t seem quite so alien as it might have. Particularly when he was with Amber.
He nodded. “Okay, then—you win. But five minutes. There’s probably still a whole host of people that need help. The damage from the hurricane seems huge.”
He followed Amber down the corridor. Every room they reached seemed packed with people, some sitting, some lying on the floor. Amber frowned as they struggled to find somewhere to sit.
Suddenly Jack had a brain wave as they kept walking. He bent toward her ear. “I have an idea. Back this way, I think.”
Two minutes later he found what he was looking for. The janitor’s storeroom. He nudged the handle with his elbow to open the door. Sure enough, it was empty, even though it was tiny. There was a metal cage packed with supplies. A large chair in one corner and a mop and bucket in the other. Amber turned toward him. “Good call. Now let’s sit down.”
He thought about being polite for a second, then realized they were past that point, so he let her sit down first, then crushed in next to her.
She laughed as he joined her, giving him a last glimpse of those bright blue eyes as the door slowly closed behind them.
“Oops,” giggled Amber as they sat in the pitch darkness. “I guess there’s no light in the store cupboard.”
“I guess not,” agreed Jack. “Looks like we might need to eat in the dark.”
“I can do that. I can eat anywhere. I’m so hungry,” said Amber.
Within a few minutes their eyes started to adjust to the darkness, the only light being the thin strip at the bottom of the door from the corridor outside.
Amber finished eating and set her paper plate on the floor, sagging back into the chair. Jack finished too and clashed shoulders as he rested back beside her.
“Do you think this is really a chair for one?”
“I don’t care.” Amber waved her hand. “After the day we’ve had, I’m happy to share. Hey, do you think we should have gone back to the hotel?”
Jack shook his head. “I was wondering though—we weren’t the only doctors at the conference. There were lots of others. I wonder if anyone has thought to draft them in to help.”
Amber sighed. “Please tell me that in an emergency situation, some of them will have volunteered like we have. It can’t possibly just be us.”
She stretched out her arms in front of her, then clasped her hands to stretch out her fingers too.
“Are you stiff? Sore?” It suddenly struck him that he’d asked Amber to do things today that were totally out of her comfort zone. When was the last time she’d had to support an airway? And she’d done it expertly—just like checking broken bones and assessing a potential head injury.
“I’m just trying to stretch out the sore bits,” she confessed. “I thought my hands were going to cramp at one point when I was supporting the airway.” She shook her head. “And we definitely didn’t need that to happen.”
Jack smiled at her. “You did well today, Amber. Better than others that I’ve worked with in the past.”
It took her a few seconds to answer. “Thanks… I think. Truth was, I was worried. I thought I might forget everything and have to ask you to remind me. But once I started, everything just kind of fell into place.” She let out a sigh. “Maybe the director was right. Maybe I should do more field missions.”
“The director?”
“Of the DPA. He’s been at me for a while, telling me it’s time to do some more field missions.”
“I thought you’d already done some.”
She nodded slowly. “Oh, I have. But I’ve always been part of a team. I’ve always had other medics and nurses around me. I’ve never actually been the one in charge. I guess I’ve just been a little afraid.”
Now he was curious. He shifted onto one hip so he faced her a little better. “Afraid of what? You’re a capable and competent doctor.”
Her head dropped and her hands kneaded together in her lap. “Amber?” he pressed.
She let out a long slow breath. “I know I am. I know that I’m capable at what I do. Infectious disease is my comfort zone. I like it—more than that, I enjoy the work. The variety. The locations.” Her head lifted and even in the dark he could see her meet his gaze. “But…” Her voice tailed off.
“But what?” He couldn’t understand why she would doubt herself.
She leaned her head back against the chair, her eyes staring out in the darkness. “I guess I’ve spent my life feeling as if I wasn’t good enough.”
Jack shook his head. “Why on earth would you think that?”
She blinked and he thought he could catch a glimmer of moisture in her eyes. “It was just the life I was brought up with,” she said slowly. “My father was obsessed with his work as a surgeon. My mother and I barely saw him. Even when we did, he would spend his time at home, studying journals or taking hospital calls. My mother was basically a widow on the day that she had me. It was never a marriage, and he was never a father.”
Jack held his breath at the intensity of her words. He could hear the pain in her voice. The rawness of it all. This obviously ran deep.
He remembered small parts of their original conversation at breakfast. He still couldn’t really get his head around it. “Surely, he was proud of the results you got to get into medical school, then the fact you qualified?” He put his hand on his chest. “I don’t have kids, and would never want to push them in any direction, but if any of my kids went after their dream and achieved it, I would be over the moon for them. Isn’t a parent’s job to be proud of their kid?”
Her voice cracked. “Maybe. In an ideal world. Instead, I had a father who never seemed to notice or acknowledge me, or my mother, and now, after he’s gone, I feel as if my mom wasted forty years of her life on someone who never loved or appreciated her.”
He reached out and took her hand in his. He could tell how upset she was by this. “But she got you. And I bet she’s prouder than you can ever imagine. I can’t second-guess your parents’ relationship, but she probably has a whole host of reasons for why she never left. But now? Now she can pursue whatever she wants, and know that her daughter has her back.” He squeezed her hand. “And I’m sorry about your dad. When did he die?”
Amber cleared her throat. “A couple of years ago. It was ironic, really. The surgeon had an aortic aneurysm. He could have been screened at any point, but hadn’t found the time.”
Jack nodded. He didn’t need to ask any questions. As a fellow surgeon, he completely understood how fatal a ruptured aortic aneurysm was.
He couldn’t help but try and lighten the mood. “So, runaway bride, are you still dead set against dating doctors?”
It was almost as if something in the air changed between them instantly.
Her voice rose in pitch. “Oh, we’re going down that road again, are we?”
“Yeah, well. It seems I’ve got five minutes on my hands.”
“Okay, then. So, I’ve had a lifetime’s experience of an almost vacant father, then a follow-up with the jerk of the century.”
Jack gave a little laugh. “Yeah, the guy you left in full tuxedo standing at the end of an aisle.”
She gave a smothered laugh too. “Yip. But I did it because he was a butt-licking, using social climber.” She turned to face Jack, their faces just a few inches apart. “It seems I have terrible taste in men.”
His lips automatically turned upward. He could smell a hint of her floral scent. It had been there earlier, but after the day they’d had, he would have expected it to vanish. But, as they sat together with their bodies pressed close, he could smell it again. If he reached up right now he could touch her cheek—the way he should have done after he’d met her in the bar. But in a way, it was probably better that he hadn?
??t. At least now he knew why this intriguing, smart, sassy woman wanted to brush him off. And although her exterior was sassy, her interior was entirely different. How many people actually knew that about Amber?
“Hey,” she said quietly. “I’ve spilled a whole lot more than I ever usually do. What’re your dark secrets? You’ve just told me that you’ve got no kids. Well—none that you know of. But what else don’t I know? After all, I have spent the night with you. Will I get messages at some point from a wife, an ex-wife, a girlfriend, and have to reassure them that actually nothing happened between us?”
He sucked in a breath. Even though his eyes had adjusted, they were still in the dark. He could see her profile, her eyes and her eyelashes, all highlighted by the tiny strip of light at the bottom of the door. There was something so private about this—even though they were in an evacuation center with around two thousand other people. They’d found a tiny little spot where they could be alone. And he was grateful for it.