Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(19)
Thankfully, he hadn’t picked up on her intense sexual attraction. Or, his good-ol’-boy Southern manners were ignoring her hormonal meltdown out of politeness. The second possibility was all too real considering he was a Navy SEAL. From what she’d read, SEALs were ultra-observant. He should have picked up on her attraction to him.
And here she was, procrastinating again. Shaking her head in disgust, she eased up to the kitchenette and hovered in the shadowy mouth of the hallway. “Lieutenant Rawlings?”
Silence greeted her. She listened hard. Was that faint whisper the sound of water running behind a closed door, or the wind teasing plastic blinds?
“Lieutenant Rawlings, I brought you lunch,” she said, lifting the plastic-wrapped plate in her hands as an offering, which was absolutely ridiculous considering he couldn’t see the movement.
Okay, this was just silly. Squaring her shoulders, she headed down the hall.
“Leave it on the kitchen counter,” he said from somewhere down the hall and to the left.
She passed a small bathroom as his voice reached her, and she relaxed. At least she didn’t have to worry about stumbling in on him in all his naked glory—regardless of how much her endocrine system would have enjoyed the show. She followed his voice to the end of the hall and the open door on the left.
“I brought you a sandwich,” she said, darting a quick look at the bed, with its bunched, tangled sleeping bag, before seeking out the bed’s current owner.
He sat staring out the window, a clear warning in the rigid length of his spine that he didn’t want to be disturbed. She glanced at the empty glass and capped bottle of whiskey sitting on the windowsill in front of him. The golden liquid still climbed most of the bottle, so he’d abstained from drinking himself into a stupor. Thank goodness . . .
“Just leave it on the table,” he said, his voice so polite there was no question he was masking some strong emotion—probably irritation at her unwelcome intrusion. But at least he harnessed his anger, rather than unloading it on the world like Commander Mackenzie did.
Frowning, she shuffled her feet, trying to force her appeal out. Why was the request so difficult to make? It was a no-brainer, damn it. Her life depended on getting more of her meds. She couldn’t afford to procrastinate, yet here she was doing just that.
He twisted in his chair, scanned her face, and slowly unfurled to his full height. “What’s wrong?”
“I need some prescriptions filled.” The words burst out. “Can you help me with that?”
The drawn flesh across his forehead knitted. He scanned her again, this time a full-body sweep. A quick up-and-down skim that took in everything from her hot face to the hands clenched around the edges of the plate. As his gaze lingered on her hands, she forced her fingers to relax their grip. Crossing the room, she carefully deposited the sandwich on the small table next to the bed.
“What kind of prescriptions?” he asked, his blue eyes as intense as the laser beam in her lab.
“Cyclosporine, mycophenolate, and Cordarone.”
“Cyclosporine . . .” His voice trailed off. He scanned her again, longer this time, more intently, as though looking for symptoms. “Cyclosporine and mycophenolate are immune-system suppressors. What condition are they treatin’?”
Well, he knew his medications. The fact that he’d questioned why she was on the prescriptions was a clear indication he knew the drugs were used to treat many diseases, including psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus, along with organ transplants.
She hesitated before squaring her shoulders. He did need to know her medical history. Her heart condition could have a direct effect on him, as well as the rest of the people in this camp.
“They’re suppressing an organ rejection.”
Dead silence greeted that informational bomb.
“What organ?” he finally asked in a far too quiet voice. A muscle started to twitch in his jaw.
She considered sidestepping the question, after all, the precise organ wasn’t of importance.
“Which organ?” he asked again, louder, the determination in his voice a clear indication the specific organ mattered to him.
She hesitated before shrugging. “My heart.”
“You’ve had a heart transplant and you didn’t reckon it was advisable to warn anyone about your condition?” His voice remained soft for all of three seconds before the lazy glide to his vowels hardened. “How long have you been off the suppressors?”
“Since you dragged me from my lab and over to the Sierra Nevadas.” She forced herself to hold his disbelieving gaze. “If you’ll remember back, you guys didn’t give me a chance to grab my stuff from the motel.”
Although that wasn’t quite fair. She hadn’t asked them to swing by her motel. At the time, she hadn’t been sure she could trust them, so she’d decided to keep her motel room quiet in case she needed to escape. She’d had her emergency stash of cash there, along with her meds, so that, if she needed to, she could go to ground for at least a couple of weeks.
“A heart transplant, sweet Jesus, Faith.” He broke off and she could almost see him counting numbers off in his head. Exactly six seconds later he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You should have told me about this before now.”
Considering his reaction, it was a good thing he didn’t know that her current heart was her second transplant, and the odds of receiving a third anytime soon were . . . tricky at best.