Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(117)
No surprise there considering how much Zane liked coffee. Beth’s pregnancy and Zane’s mirroring her symptoms was really f*cking with his LC.
Mac hid a smile behind the swipe of his hand.
“Get her some crackers. Saltines, or as close as you can find,” Marion advised, leaning forward so she could see Zane around Cosky’s massive shoulders. “She’s what? Four months along?”
“Four and a half,” Zane said, blowing out a hard breath. He frowned, worry lines wrinkling his forehead. “The doc said the nausea would improve by the end of the first trimester. She’s six weeks past that now.”
Marion sat back and swung her legs over the bench seat. Standing, she bustled over to pat Zane’s arm. “I’m sure she’s fine, dear. Every woman reacts differently. I was sick well into my second trimester. Why don’t Kait, Faith, and I drop by for a visit? She might enjoy some girl talk.”
“You better pick up double the rations on those crackers,” Rawls told Zane with a wicked grin. “Beth’s not gonna be happy if you munch on hers.” He glanced toward Faith, who was watching Zane with sympathetic eyes, and he slid an egg and a couple of slices of bacon back onto her plate.
If Mac wasn’t mistaken, it was the same egg and bacon that Faith had offloaded earlier.
“I’m going to set up a meeting with Wolf and his COs for later today, so make yourselves available. We need to track down that damn prototype of Faith’s and take it out of play,” Mac said.
With luck, their very well-equipped and tapped-in hosts would have a starting place in mind. If they didn’t, then James Link would have to do.
“Let’s hope they haven’t discovered its nifty little side benefit yet,” Cosky said, grimness hard on his face.
A shadow darkening his eyes, Rawls stopped eating long enough to glance at Faith. He caught her trying to sneak the egg back onto his plate. With a couple of quick slices he quartered it and lifted the morsel to her mouth. “Eat.”
She rolled her eyes and glowered, but opened her lips, accepting the offering.
“At least we have allies now,” Amy said quietly when the grim silence went on too long.
She was right. Mac relaxed slightly, taking another sip from his mug. They did have allies. Powerful ones too.
But even more importantly, they knew who their enemies were.
Assuming you could trust a ghost.
* * *
Epilogue
* * *
AS YOU CAN see from the test results, Dr. Ansell,” Francis Kerry said, sweeping his hand above the reams of data spread across his desk, “we have every reason to believe your heart has undergone a complete rejuvenation.” He sat back in his office chair and pushed his glasses up with a long bony forefinger.
From the armchair in front of his desk, Faith leaned forward to pick up an image of the echocardiogram that had been taken two hours earlier. Since the two prior scans had shown a thorough transformation of her heart muscle, just like this new one did, she suspected this additional imaging had been requested to rule out any sudden deterioration. After all, it would be a mistake to go off the immune suppressors and Cordarone if Kait’s healing had worn off and her heart had deteriorated again.
Which begged the question—did that ever happen, and if so, how often?
Dropping the film, she picked up the printout of the EKG she’d undergone two days before. The description confirmed a normal functioning heart—just as the reports on the transthoracic echocardiogram and Doppler echocardiogram had shown. The video taken of the ultrasound sessions had revealed the same as well.
A perfect. Normal. Heart.
For a moment, disbelief swelled, pressed against her chest. But it faded quickly. She’d had several days to acclimate to the possibility of miracles.
“What about the treadmill test?” Faith asked, rifling through the files, films, and printouts spread across the table. “I lost my breath pretty quickly during that. Isn’t that a sign of my heart not working properly?”
Okay, maybe she hadn’t accepted that she’d been the recipient of a miracle quite yet. There was a sliver of doubt remaining, a piece of her just waiting for the bad news to roll in.
“It can be, of course. But shortness of breath can also be due to a general lack of conditioning,” he said delicately.
Faith’s eyebrows rose. Had he just called her out of shape?
“With the exception of your breathlessness, the exercise stress test indicated a normally functioning heart. There were no irregularities in the blood flow or electrical rhythm.”
Which was doctor-speak for—Hey dummy, you’re out of breath because you’re out of shape. Get exercising, for Pete’s sake.
“So she can go off the cyclosporine, mycophenolate, and Cordarone?” Rawls asked.
Maybe he sensed the distance buffering her, because he leaned forward and covered the hand she had resting on the table with his. She tried to relax, to concentrate on the warmth of his hand, but the tension vibrating through her refused to back down.
“For now.” Dr. Kerry pushed back his office chair and stood up. “We’ll continue monitoring her. And it wouldn’t hurt to keep an emergency dose of Cordarone on hand just in case.”
Just in case what? In case Kait’s healing ultimately reversed and her heart failed again?