Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(61)

He continued to squeeze the ball, watching absently while the bag filled, his mind turning over the events in the waiting room. That’s what was niggling at him. Something wasn’t right. Something didn’t make sense. But when he tried to get on top of whatever it was, it flew out from under him like an un-waxed surfboard.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Carl broke into his spinning thoughts.

“What makes you say that?”

“The accent, dude. It’s totally So Cal. And I should know. I’m So Cal myself.”

“Oh yeah? Where are you from?”

And for the next few minutes, the two exchanged surfing stories, which Jake was pretty sure were mostly bravado on Carl’s part, especially when the guy claimed to have done an aerial from an A-frame off Australia’s Gold Coast.

But he didn’t call bullshit. Surfing was like fishing. Exaggerations were a prerogative.

After the bag was full, Carl stuck a wad of cotton to Jake’s inner arm and secured it with a two Band-Aids. Then the surfing phlebotomist handed him a cookie and a glass of orange juice, and it suddenly occurred to him what it was that’d been bugging the hell out of him.

That whole take your mind off it and it will come to you thing wasn’t just an old wives’ tale.

“Hey, Carl,” he said with his chocolate chip cookie halfway to his mouth. “You know a lot about blood, don’t you?”

“Dude, I’m the Stephen Hawking of blood.”

Jake figured ol’ Stephen might shudder at that particularly gruesome and, no doubt inaccurate, comparison.

“Why do you ask?” Carl inquired, digging around in the bag of cookies.

“Is it possible for a mother who has blood type A and a father who’s O to have a child who’s AB?”

Carl shook his head, taking a bite of the perfect cookie he’d finally managed to locate. It was obvious from the paunch around Carl’s belly, he didn’t do much surfing anymore, and he partook of his cookie stash far more than he should. “Not unless the rules for genetics have suddenly changed.”

“Huh, that’s what I thought.”

Carl looked at him askance. “Uh, oh. I know that look. That question wasn’t rhetorical, was it?”

“No, Carl,” he muttered, standing and heading for the hall, taking his cookie and juice with him. “It wasn’t.”

“Ah, hell,” he heard Carl grumble as he stomped toward the waiting room.

***

“Okay, okay,” Michelle slapped at her brother’s hand, the one that was clamped on to the back of her neck, keeping her head shoved between her knees. “I’m fine now. You can stop with the manhandling.”

“Give it a few more minutes,” Frank muttered.

“I’m not going to hyperventilate again, I promise. But I might pass out from all the blood rushing to my head if you don’t get off!” She swatted at his hand a second time.

When he released her, she sat up and squeezed her eyes closed as stars happily circled her vision. Then the scuffling sound of footsteps had them snapping open again.

Oh, great. The cavalry has arrived.

Becky and Ozzie—Frank’s resident computer genius and all-around techy wizard—pushed through the waiting room door in front of Jake, who tossed an empty plastic cup into the trash and—

Oh, dear God, no…

She knew that look on his face. It caused her throat to burn and her stomach to ache and she couldn’t avoid it even as Becky rushed over to her.

“It’s going to be fine,” her future sister-in-law assured her, solicitously patting her arm. “Franklin’s going to be just fine. You wait and see. Billy, that’s my brother…” she explained for Jake’s benefit, though the guy wasn’t paying her a lick of attention. He was too busy staring holes through Michelle’s soul. “…had his appendix removed when he was twelve, and he was back to wrestling with me within two weeks and—what the hell have you got in your hair?”

“It’s, uh…it’s…” She didn’t finish. Mostly because she’d already forgotten the question. Oh, the look on Jake’s face…

“Shell,” he said, his jaw working like a rock grinder. “I need to talk to you out in the hall.”

“What’s up?” Frank asked.

Jake jerked his chin to the side. “I just need to talk to Shell.” His voice sounded like it’d been scoured with 24-grit sandpaper.

It was time, as they say, to face the music. She’d hoped and prayed this day would never come, but a large part of her had always feared it would.

Her brother glanced at her concernedly, and she tried to smile and reassure him. But it must’ve looked a bit sickly, because he only scowled harder.

“Shell? What—” She shook her head, waving away whatever question he might’ve asked as she stood to follow Jake into the wide, tiled hall.

Oh, sweet Lord. Her worst nightmares revolved around what was about to happen right this very minute, right this very second.

With her stomach hanging down to her knees, her heart perched dead center in the middle of her throat, and her head floating up around the ceiling somewhere, it was a wonder she could function at all. But somehow she managed to take a deep breath and face him.