Lori Wilde - Racing Against the Clock

“I’m safe for now. It’s better if you don’t know where I am, but I’ll be headed in your direction as soon as I can.”

“You sound odd. Is there something else you’re not telling me?” he coaxed. Her old friend knew her too well. She was trying to be brave, but it was so tempting to let down her guard just a bit with someone she trusted.

“Daycon’s men found me.” She gulped, then briefly told him about the accident.

“My God, Hannah, are you okay?”

“Marcus, I’m really scared. Some very bizarre things have been happening to my body.” Gingerly, she reached down to rub the leg that had been fractured and then traced her fingers over the right-upper quadrant of her abdomen. “And I think it was because the vials of Virusall broke during the accident and burned my skin.”

“The drug is toxic?”

“Not exactly.”

“What exactly? Talk to me. I want to help.”

Deciding to tell him everything, Hannah took a deep breath and related her suspicions that absorbing Virusall through her skin had cured her injuries.

“That’s amazing,” he said.

“But how would it be possible?”

“You said the drug was very unstable and that it did have miraculous healing properties.”

“We’re talking spontaneous regeneration here, Marcus. It’s the stuff of science fiction. And nothing of this magnitude occurred during the clinical trials.”

“Did any of the test subjects have AB negative blood like you do?”

“No, but would my blood type actually make that big a difference?”

“Look what Virusall did to the people with type O.”

“I can’t believe it’s simply the drug and my blood type responsible for my healing. There’s got to be something more.”

Marcus’s tone dropped an octave. “I know what it is.”

Her heart thundered. She couldn’t even believe they were having this conversation. The discussion flew in the face of rational scientific evidence, but she could not deny what was happening to her.

“What?” she whispered, bracing herself for his theory.

“Remember when we were experimenting with radioisotopes last summer?” he said. “And there was a radiation leak at the lab? Daycon hadn’t installed the proper safety ventilation and we both got sick.”

“But he assured us the exposure was minimal. We were even tested for chromosomal changes and we came up clean.”

“And you believed him? You’ve already learned how ruthless he is. The man would lie about anything to serve his own nefarious purposes.”

Hannah sucked in air as the reality of the situation hit her. Inexplicable as it seemed, with the triple combination of her rare blood type, the topical absorption of Virusall and her recent exposure to radiation, she’d become her own human guinea pig. While the womanly part of her was horrified at the realization, the clinician in her recognized what an amazing opportunity she’d been given.

“But, Marcus, what does it all mean?” she cried.

And that was when the line went dead.

Tyler couldn’t sleep.

No matter how hard he tried to quiet his turbulent thoughts, his mind stayed hitched on that fascinating woman sleeping in his guest bedroom right down the hall. It had been an eternity since anyone had entranced him, much less set his soul ablaze.

And he was scared spitless.

He recalled the way her skin had felt beneath his fingers when he had examined her—smooth, cool, creamy. He remembered the way her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths as he had placed his stethoscope above her breasts. He recollected the manner in which she had peeped surreptitiously up at him from behind those long, pale eyelashes.

He thought of the way she’d looked swaddled in his T-shirt that was five sizes too big for her. Her eyes wide and round as she’d studied him. Her blond hair floated softly about her slender shoulders. Her feet were bare, her toes appearing childishly innocent in their unpainted state. She’d looked china-doll fragile, except for the hard set of her determined chin.

Who was this mysterious Jane Doe? More important, why was he so drawn to her? And most interesting of all, how could he explain her instantaneous recovery from life-threatening injuries? Concern for her welled up in him from as far south as his feet and throbbed through his chest.

How had she managed to resurrect his emotions so completely in such a short time? How did he fight these dangerous feelings while at the same time help her?

He felt confused, baffled by both his attraction and her extraordinary afflictions. He found himself caught up in backwash he did not understand, unable to solve his dilemma but equally unable to retreat. Like it or not, he was caught up like a fish in a net. He was involved.

High time you got truly involved with something again, his conscience gloated.

But he feared he was not up to the challenge. It had been a long time since he’d put himself out for another human being and he wasn’t so sure he could handle the implications. What had he gotten himself into?

She was an enigma, a riddle, a paradox that compelled him despite his reservations. If only she could remember something about herself. If only he knew what chemicals she had been carrying with her and for what purpose. If only he could explain this inexplicable pull toward her.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face—those vulnerable lips, those wide blue eyes, that mass of golden hair.

After wrestling with the covers for over an hour, Tyler switched on a small bedside lamp, slung his legs over the side and browsed through the books mounted on the shelf over the headboard.

There weren’t many medical books here. Yvette had been loath for him to work at the beach, so most of the volumes were either basic textbooks or short paperbacks on first aid. Nothing about chemicals and certainly nothing about spontaneous healings. Then one title jumped out at him, squeezing off his airway.

Healing Your Cancer From Within.

After all these years, any reminder of Yvette still had the power to knock the wind from his lungs. She had been so young, so pretty and full of life, looking forward to conceiving their first baby. It had been during a routine visit to the ob-gyn, in preparation for getting pregnant, that the doctor had discovered she had leukemia. But it had been over four months before she had broken the bad news to him.

Tyler fisted his hand as the familiar anger rocked back into his life. His wife had cheated him of precious moments, all because she hadn’t wanted to worry him while he was finishing his surgical residency.

The memory of that awful day when she finally told him the truth was burned into his subconscious. Metastasis. To her lungs and liver. Prognosis poor. Six months to live. With chemo. Four months had already passed and she had decided on her own not to have chemotherapy. Single-handedly she had made the choice without him.

There would be no babies. They would not grow old together.

Shocked, Tyler had slumped into denial. He simply could not bring himself to accept the cruel diagnosis. The doctors had to be wrong. This could not be happening. Not to his young, beautiful, vibrant wife. She could beat it. She would live.

Yvette had handled the news with her usual quiet calm. She had always been spiritual and she turned deeper into her religion. Buying books such as this one that promised if you just prayed hard enough God would heal you.

Rubbish. Tyler jerked the book from the shelf and flung it across the room. It struck the wall with a resounding whack.

He’d lost whatever naive beliefs he’d ever held about miracles.

He was still angry, still very guilty. He should have detected her cancer himself. But no, he had been as useless as a third thumb, and even after the diagnosis he had been unable to do anything but sit idly by and watch her die. There was no greater torture for a physician. Because of his denial, he had never said the things that needed to be said, but he had brought her to the beach in the end, as she had wished.