Loe raamatut: «A Proposal For The Officer»

Chapter One

Leaning against a stack of cases of bottled water, Captain Molly Markham put a hand to her head as nausea overwhelmed her. Closing her eyes for a second, she debated whether or not she was at risk of passing out right there in the middle of Duncan’s Market. She grabbed a liter of water off the shelf, unscrewed the cap and took a big swig. Her mouth was dry and suddenly her body felt weighted down.

Oh, no. It was happening again.

She’d sworn to the Bureau of Personnel reviewing her medical board that she could keep these episodes under control, but apparently they’d been right to doubt her.

Molly heaved herself off the tower of water and put one foot in front of the other, needing to get as far away from the curious glances of the shoppers who were sure to know her sister, Maxine, and would be only too eager to ask Maxine about her little sister’s “incident” out in public.

She needed space and she needed to think. Maybe somewhere to lie down, too. Like her rental car. She grabbed another bottle and made it to the exit before she realized she’d left her purse back in the grocery basket. Damn. She also hadn’t paid for the water.

When she did a one-eighty, her hip banged into a giant bag of ice. Or was it a bag of limes? A man dropped both as he reached out a hand to steady her.

That was gonna leave a bruise. The ice, not the guy’s hand. His grip was actually gentle and balanced her. His black framed glasses made him look smart, serious. Maybe he was a doctor. Or a reporter.

He kind of had a Clark Kent vibe going for him. At least from the neck up. She took in his blue hooded sweatshirt and checkered canvas sneakers. Maybe The Daily Planet had sent him to do an undercover exposé of a nearby skate park.

“Are you okay?” He enunciated like a record player on a low speed. Or was it her hearing that was set to slow motion? It felt like someone had replaced her brain with hot, heavy sand. She licked her lips.

“Of course I’m okay. At least, I think I am.” Molly lowered her own voice when she noticed the cashier staring in their direction. “By any chance, do you know how many carbs are in a fruit smoothie?”

His straight white teeth were visible beneath his smirk. “Probably a lot more than the ones in that peach muffin you gobbled down back by the juice bar thirty minutes ago.”

“Oh, crap.” It was good thing he was holding on to her arm because trying to mentally calculate how much sugar she’d recently ingested made her want to sink to her knees. “The teenager behind the counter said they were organic.”

“You mean the kid who also told you the baked goods on display were half price since they’d been sitting out since this morning and it was now late afternoon?”

Wait. How did this guy know what she’d talked about with the store employee? “Have you been following me?”

“No. I was sitting at that wrought iron table in the back of the store, trying to answer some work emails, but a bunch of clanging drew my attention to the display of soup cans at the end of an aisle. You were stocking up on the minestrone as though a blizzard had just been predicted.” He tapped something on his watch and showed her the sunshine icon on the tiny display screen. “It hasn’t, by the way. But then I saw you again when you were slouching against your shopping cart in the freezer section where you almost took out a display of ice-cream cones. Are you going to be sick or something?”

She didn’t feel any less confused after that description of her sluggish attempts to make her way through the store. Or dizzy. “I don’t think so.”

“Come on,” he said, and moved his hand to the small of her back. “There’s a bench right outside and you can sit down.”

“I need my purse,” she said. You also needed to use the restroom, her bladder said.

“Where is it?” he asked.

The guy looked familiar, but his non-military-regulation hairstyle eliminated him as someone she’d served with. Molly had only been in Sugar Falls a few hours, yet her gut told her this man wasn’t a local, either. Of course, she’d also been pretty convinced that anything with fruit in it was healthy so perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to listen to her instincts.

Who are you? she wanted to know. But she didn’t exactly have time for formal introductions. Instead, she replied, “Back by the bottled water.”

“Okay, stay here,” he ordered as he sprinted away. Yeah, right. Molly wasn’t about to stand around and wait. She weaved toward the parking lot, her only plan to get to the safe privacy of her rental car.

Her feet had barely hit the pavement when the Good Samaritan jogged up beside her, her very feminine tote bag swinging from his very masculine shoulder. “Should I call someone?”

“No,” Molly said, her eyelids widening in frustration despite the fact that she wanted to close them and take a nap. “I don’t want anyone to know.”

“To know what?”

She clamped her teeth together, wishing she would’ve done so sooner to keep those telling words from slipping out.

“Never mind.” She pulled the key fob out of her pocket. “The little white Toyota over there is mine.”

“I seriously doubt you should be driving right now.”

“I’ve got it,” she ground out, despite the fact that she was practically leaning against him as he steered her toward the passenger side of her rental car. She collapsed down on the seat as soon as he got the door open, then she began digging in her purse.

Another wave of nausea tumbled through her as she unzipped a small black case. Ignoring the man’s raised brows, she turned on the little machine, inserted a fresh test strip and pricked her finger. It took all of her focus to press the droplet of blood to the litmus paper. There was a series of beeps before the dinging alarm signaled that her glucose level was way too high. Stupid smoothie. And muffin. She should’ve known better. And she would have, if she hadn’t been so starving after dropping her nephew off at baseball practice. She’d thought she’d been so smart, swinging by the market to pick up real groceries instead of grabbing a Snickers at the Little League snack bar while she waited.

It seemed to take hours for her to dial the correct dose on her insulin pen.

“What are you doing?” The panic in his voice probably matched the horror in his eyes. But Molly didn’t have the energy to explain. She pulled up the hem of her shirt, not caring that she was exposing herself to the poor man. She could administer the shot in her arms or thighs, but the doctor said it would get into her system a lot quicker if she injected it into her stomach. She didn’t even feel the sting of the needle and could only hope she’d landed it into the right spot before depressing the plunger.

“Lady, I really think we need to call an ambulance,” he said, his once-calm voice now sounding about as shaky as her nerve endings felt.

“I’ll be good as new in a second.” She made a circle with her finger and her thumb in the universal signal for A-OK. “The insulin will help even everything out.”

He kneeled on the pavement next to her, and she heard the hearty exhale of breath leaving his mouth. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

“I’m feeling better already.” And it was true. She was. But Molly knew from the last time her blood sugar had spiked like this, it would take a little while to return to normal. She looked at the pulse jumping inside his neck and felt a wave of guilt wash over her. If this was how a complete stranger reacted to her hyperglycemia attack, how would her sister react? Or the rest of her family?

“Sorry for scaring you,” she added, more resolved than ever to keep her recent diagnosis a secret. “I would’ve been fine on my own.”

“You sure didn’t look fine.” His head slumped back against the open car door behind him, then he scrubbed a hand over his lower face. A handsome face actually. The trendy glasses made him look scholarly, but the square jawline made him look determined. Like he wasn’t willing to leave her alone until he knew all the answers. “Does that happen often?”

Molly wished she knew. It wasn’t like the time she got chicken pox, the itchy red scabs on her torso a constant reminder that she was sick. Curbing her sugar intake was tough enough, but remembering to stay on top of her glucose levels was even trickier since most of the time she felt perfectly fine. As a pilot, Molly had to be “combat ready” at all times. Sometimes she was on duty for twenty-four to forty-eight hours straight, which meant there was no way to ensure that she could eat on a certain schedule to maintain her insulin coverage. The military wasn’t going risk both a multi-million-dollar plane and the flight crew because the pilot had hypoglycemia. Everything was still so unpredictable when it came to the disease she’d officially been diagnosed with over a month ago. According to the specialists, that unpredictability meant she could no longer do the only thing she loved.

She drew in a ragged breath and shrugged. “I’m still new to the wonderful world of diabetes.”

“Wait. Why would you eat that much sugar if you’re diabetic?” His expression looked the same as if he’d just asked, Why in the world would you pull the pin out of that perfectly good grenade?

“Because the guy behind the counter said it was healthy.”

“And you take nutritional advice from a kid who isn’t even old enough to shave?”

Kid! The realization made her scalp tingle and she felt her eyelids stretching wide-open. She was officially the worst babysitter in the world.

“I need to get to the ballpark. Now.”

* * *

“Lady, you’re in no shape to be driving right now, let alone playing ball.” Kaleb Chatterson adjusted his glasses while slipping the car key he still held into the front pocket of his hoodie. Normally, he had an army of assistants and interns he could’ve sent to the local grocery store to pick up the ingredients for his dad’s margaritas. But he’d needed a break from his parents’ nosy questions about his social life and his brothers’ incessant teasing about the lack of one.

Coming to the aid of some strange woman in the middle of a medical crisis wasn’t exactly what he’d anticipated when he’d volunteered for the errand.

“I’m not the one playing.” She rolled her eyes, which were a deep shade of blue. “My nephew is. I’m supposed to pick him up from baseball practice at 1630.”

Kaleb noted her use of military time and filed that nugget of information in the back of his mind. “How long does it usually take for you to recover from one of these, um, episodes?”

“Well, last time it took a couple of hours, but I got the insulin dose sooner this time so half that, maybe?”

Kaleb’s stomach balled into a knot. He’d once had a crate of antibacterial hand sanitizer delivered to the office when several employees came down with a minor cold. He didn’t do sickness or injuries or anything that might hint at the human body’s susceptibility to disease. He most assuredly was not the person to go to in a medical crisis. And while it seemed as though the lady now had a decent handle on her situation, he would feel a lot more at ease if they had a second opinion. “Listen, my brother’s fiancée is a doctor. Let me call her and she can drive over and check you out.”

Or check him out. Luckily, his adrenaline was pumping his blood around so hard he wasn’t likely to faint. Hopefully. He stayed squatted down, close to the ground. Just in case.

“No way. Especially not here where everyone in town would see me.”

He eyed the barcode sticker on the rear window of her car, a sure sign that it was a rental. “Are you a local?”

“God, no. I’m just in town visiting my sister and her family. What about you?”

“I’m from Seattle. So if you’re not from here, what does it matter if someone sees you?”

“Long story and I’m about to be late.” She pulled up her blousy sleeve and looked at the sturdy chronograph watch. Her hand and forearm were equally tan, but a thin line of skin around her ring finger was strikingly white.

Telling himself that he wasn’t one of his comic-book heroes and the lady beside him probably wouldn’t like being considered a damsel in distress, Kaleb did what he always did when he was out of his league. He pulled out his phone, tapped on the voice to text feature and spoke into the speaker. “Angela, find out how to recover from low blood sugar.”

“High blood sugar,” the woman corrected him. Yeah, that made more sense considering how much she ate at once.

“Make that high blood sugar,” he said into the phone, then nodded toward her lap. “Would you mind putting that thing away?”

“What, this?” She lifted up the object and Kaleb felt the color drain out of his face. “It’s just a needle. You’re not afraid of it, are you?”

“It looks like someone attached a syringe to Dr. Who’s sonic screwdriver.”

A blank look crossed her face. “What’s a sonic screwdriver?”

“Sorry. Geek reference.” An embarrassing flush normally would’ve brought his color back with a vengeance after that less-than-cool admission, but he was woozily watching her put the cap back on her insulin pen and zip it up in its case.

After several uncomfortable moments, the lady next to him broke the silence. “Who’s Angela?”

“One of my assistants.”

“Just one of them?”

He was saved from having to respond to her sarcastic question by the pinging of his phone. Several texts full of copied and pasted information flooded his screen.

“Hold on,” Kaleb said as he read.

However, he was easily distracted by the woman beside him. Now that her color was returning, he could see that there was an edge to her girl-next-door appearance, an attitude that implied she wouldn’t back down from a fight. She opened a bottle of water sitting in her center console and chugged it until the plastic concaved into itself. Then she used the back of her hand to wipe the dampness from her mouth. “Angela certainly is fast.”

He nodded. That was why he paid her the second highest salary in his company. “Okay, so it says here that, depending on the levels, it can take one to several hours to feel better. She’s also suggesting you drink more water and then eat something high in protein and complex carbs once your blood glucose levels return to a normal range.”

“An hour? I can’t very well sit out here in my car until I’m feeling better. Would you mind giving me a ride?”

“To the ER?” He felt his calf muscles clench, making him eager to stand up and run in the opposite direction. God, Kaleb hated hospitals more than he hated needles. Having multiple medical procedures during one’s adolescence tended to do that to a person.

“No. Just to pick up my nephew.”

“Can’t you get someone else to pick him up?”

She looked at him as if he’d just asked her to hack into the CIA’s router network. “His mom, my sister, left town this weekend on something called a ‘babymoon’ and put me in charge. I can’t very well call her and say, ‘Oops, sorry, I forgot to pick up your son because I was in a diabetic crisis.’”

“Actually, that’s exactly what you could do. Maybe he can get a ride home with a friend?”

“Right. And then my sister would find out and wonder why I couldn’t handle it myself.”

Kaleb seriously doubted that this woman slouched on the seat next to him could handle it. His heart constricted and his head was heavy, which was why he had to keep it supported against the door behind him as he balanced beside her, their bodies only a few inches apart. He of all people knew what it was like to not want someone—especially an overly concerned family member—to think he was weak or needed help.

Still. He was shocked when she turned those pretty blue eyes on him and asked, “Can you give me a ride to the baseball field?”

His throat closed in on itself as if it were the plastic water bottle she’d just drained. He coughed to clear it. “But...you don’t know me.”

“Hi, I’m Molly.”

Instinctively, because his mom had drilled good manners into him, he put his hand out and shook hers. “Kaleb.”

“Good. Now we know each other.”

“But you don’t know if I’m a criminal,” he argued.

“I know that you’re the type to rush to aid a stranger, which means you have a hero complex.”

“Ha,” he snorted. His brothers would argue that he was the least heroic of all of them, or at least the most self-absorbed. “Maybe I have a villain complex and you’re too weak to have figured it out yet.”

“I am not weak.” Her piercing look sent a chill down the back of his neck. He’d always associated the name Molly with a lovable cocker spaniel. But right this second, she looked more like a pissed-off Chihuahua. “Besides, a villain would’ve already robbed me or kidnapped me by now. And bad guys don’t have trusty assistants named Angela.”

“So you’re the expert on bad guys?” Why was he arguing with her about this? Just tell her you don’t want to give her a ride. Because he suddenly found himself actually wanting to take her anywhere she needed to go. She looked so delicate and fragile, yet he had a feeling there was a spine of steel under that petite frame. Plus, she was a mystery, a riddle, and he didn’t like leaving things unsolved.

“If you’d met my ex, you’d quickly figure out that I’m definitely not an expert on jerks.” He raised a brow at that little admission and she clamped her eyes shut. “God, forget I said that.”

Too late. Kaleb never forgot anything.

“Sir,” a cashier with salt-and-pepper dreadlocks called as she crossed the parking lot. “You forgot your ice and your limes.”

“Oh, geez, don’t let anyone see me like this.” Molly slouched lower in the seat. Great, now she was a cowering Chihuahua. “They’ll tell my sister.”

Kaleb sighed and stood up. He jogged toward the cashier, trying to meet her halfway.

“Thanks, Donae,” he said, reading the name tag on her apron. His father always said that people gave better service when you used their first name. Kaleb usually avoided the practice because it tended to invite familiarity when he was usually trying to keep the public from recognizing him. But he had a feeling he’d need all the allies he could get if he was going to survive the next ten days in this small town.

Kaleb took the dripping bag from Donae’s hand and set it down on the asphalt. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Listen, my friend isn’t feeling well and she left her shopping cart in aisle eight. Would you mind ringing those things up and throwing in a liter of water and one of the prewrapped turkey sandwiches from the deli section?”

“No problem, Mr. Chatterson,” she replied. Ugh, that was why he didn’t do familiarity. It gave strangers the impression that they knew him, which was fine if they’d limit their long-winded conversations to his work life and not to which model or actress or pop singer he’d recently dated. Fortunately, Donae only gave him a wide smile and took the large bills he passed her. “And just so you know, your sister, Kylie, called the store a couple of minutes ago asking if you’d left yet. I told her you were on your way. You want me to call her back?”

His jaw went stiff and he fought off the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Just like that, one mention of his awaiting family cemented Kaleb’s decision on whether he was going to give cute, determined Molly a ride to get her nephew. “Would you mind telling my sister something came up and I have to help out a friend?”

Okay, so “friend” was a generous description. In fact, Kaleb sincerely doubted his new acquaintance wouldn’t have already blasted out of the parking lot without so much as a wave if he hadn’t pocketed her car keys.

He hefted the ice into the bed of his dad’s lifted, half-ton truck, knowing he’d have to stop somewhere and get another bag before returning to his sister’s. Wiping a wet hand on his pant leg, he walked to Molly’s car to check on her. She was dozing in the passenger seat and he wondered if he should wake her up. No. That was for concussions, not diabetes. At least he thought so. Hell, he was a software developer, not a doctor. And he certainly wasn’t a damn taxi driver.

But a few minutes later, when the cashier pushed out a cart of bagged groceries, he told Donae to keep the change before loading them in the back of Molly’s hatchback.

Kaleb was often reminded of the fact that he was the shortest of all the Chatterson brothers, yet he still had to slide the driver’s seat back to accommodate his six-foot frame. He started the car and the stereo shot to life. If the booming bass of hip-hop wasn’t loud enough to wake Molly up, the vibration of the cheap speakers through the vinyl seats would’ve done the trick.

“This is for when your levels stabilize.” He tossed the wrapped sandwich on her lap and asked, “So how do I get to the baseball park from here?”