The Phoenix Encounter. Linda Castillo
son. He couldn’t believe it. His brain simply refused to absorb the information. “How old is he?”
She did look at him then, but her hazel eyes were cool. “About nine months.”
Mentally he calculated the months, felt a hot cauldron of anger begin to boil. No, she hadn’t waited very long at all.
“His name is Jack,” she added.
“Jack.” He repeated the name, thinking of the young man who’d brought him here. His name was also Jacques, but he’d had a French accent and pronounced it differently. Robert wondered if Jacques was this child’s father.
Robert thought of the endless months of grief. The kind of black grief that ate at a man’s soul and changed who he was. He thought of all the surgeries that had been required to repair the shattered bone in his thigh. The ensuing months of rehabilitation. The knowledge that he would never be the same. He thought of the secret hope he’d held in his heart that Lily would show up alive and smiling and ready to spend the rest of her life with him. God, he’d been such a fool.
It infuriated him that while he’d been going through all those things, she’d taken up with another man—and had a son with him.
Anger and jealousy melded into a single, ugly emotion and snarled inside him like a rabid beast. He wanted to lash out at her. The words were poised on his tongue, sharp as a knife and ready to cut. But he knew better than to let that beast out of its cage. Knew it would take him apart if he let it.
With the mission foremost in his mind, he couldn’t let that happen.
Relieved that Lily was busy tending to the baby, Robert closed his eyes, willing away the emotions swamping him. She’d moved on. He had to accept it. She was alive. That was the important thing. It would have to be enough.
“He’s been ill,” she said, fastening old-fashioned diaper pins at Jack’s pudgy hips. “I’ve taken him to the doctor in the village, but Dr. Salov hasn’t been able to give me a diagnosis.”
Robert’s attention snapped to Lily. “The baby has been sick?” For an instant, angry male and concerned doctor clashed. Then his physician’s mind clicked into place. “What are the symptoms?”
Lily lifted the child, then pressed a kiss to his forehead. “The symptoms haven’t been consistent, but several times I’ve noticed that his fingers and toes are blue. Sometimes he’s cold to the touch. He had a low-grade fever last week, but it went away after a couple of days.” She looked at the child in her arms, worry creasing her brows. “Sometimes he’s…lethargic. He sleeps a little too much. Some days he doesn’t eat enough.”
Robert glanced at the child and for the first time got a good look at him. Jack was a beautiful baby with vivid blue eyes that were alert and intelligent. He had thick brown hair with a cowlick at his crown and the face of an angel come down from the heavens. Robert had never been partial to babies. But the sight of Lily’s baby awed and amazed him nonetheless.
“Nice looking kid,” he said.
“Thanks.” Robert saw the quick flash of pride in her eyes and the smile she couldn’t quite hide. “He’s everything to me.”
“Do you mind if I examine him?”
She cast him a startled look but made no move to hand over the baby.
“Lily, for God’s sake, what do you think I’m going to do? Throw him out the window? Come on. I’m a doctor. Let me examine him and see if I find anything out of the ordinary.”
“All right.” She glanced toward the rear of the cottage. “I can put him down on the bed in the bedroom,” she said and turned to carry Jack down the hall.
Snagging his medical bag off the floor, Robert followed, entering the bedroom just in time to see Lily lay Jack on the bed. He knew he should be paying attention to the child and not the bed, but he couldn’t help but notice it was little more than a twin-size mattress set up on a homemade wooden pedestal. Hardly big enough for Lily, let alone Jack’s father. The thought of her sharing that bed with another man disturbed him a hell of a lot more than he wanted to admit, and another wave of jealousy seared him.
As if realizing his thoughts, Lily said, “I thought you’d have more room if I laid him on the bed.”
“This is fine,” he snapped.
She unwrapped the blanket, and Robert found himself staring at a perfect baby boy wearing pajamas with little blue ducks and tiny booties that had been made to look like traditional Rebelian shoes. And he found himself smiling despite the knot of tension at the back of his neck. “What’s up, doc?” he said in his best Bugs Bunny voice.
Jack kicked out his legs in delight. “Gah!”
“That’s what I thought,” Robert said.
Lily leaned forward. “What is it?”
“A Bugs Bunny fan,” he said deadpan.
She didn’t quite laugh, but he heard her release the breath she’d been holding and figured the level of tension wasn’t going to get any lower.
“Let’s have a look at you.” Struggling hard to keep his mind on the business at hand, Robert dug into his medical bag for his stethoscope and thermometer and quickly examined the baby. All the while Jack cooed and kicked his feet in quiet protest.
“Temperature is slightly elevated,” Robert said.
Lily pressed her hand to her breast and looked worriedly at her son. “He’s got a fever? What does that mean?”
Robert held up his hand to silence her. “Heartbeat is regular and strong. Pulse is good.” Using his penlight, he checked the baby’s eyes and ears, then moved on to do a quick check of his extremities. The blue tone of his fingers and toes worried him. Taking one of Jack’s fingers between his thumb and forefinger, Robert pressed and watched the tiny pad turn white. When he released it, the blood returned slowly. A little too slowly in Robert’s opinion.
“Okay, big guy. I think that’ll do it.”
Leaning forward, Lily pulled on his pajamas then carried him to the crib. “Why is his temperature elevated?” she asked over her shoulder as she laid him in the crib.
Robert walked to the crib and looked at Jack in time to hear him giggle and was surprised to find himself smiling. He didn’t have much to smile about at the moment, but there was something contagious about the sound of a baby’s laughter. “I don’t know. The fever isn’t high, certainly not anything to worry about at this point. I can give him a dose of acetaminophen to take it down.”
“All right.”
“He appears to be just fine at the moment, but I’d like to run a couple of blood tests.”
Lily turned on him, her eyes huge and concerned. “Blood tests? Why? What did you find?”
“I didn’t find anything definitive, but just to be safe I’d like to rule out a few things.”
Never taking her eyes from his, she came around the crib, a mother lion facing off with a big male who’d just threatened her cub. “Don’t give me some vague doctorlike answer, damn it. What are you looking for?”
Robert didn’t want to worry her needlessly, but he had to tell her what he thought, regardless of how difficult the truth might be.
“I’m not looking for anything specific at this point,” he said. “But from the cursory exam I performed, I can see that his circulation isn’t quite normal. I don’t think it’s anything serious at this point, but it definitely warrants a few nonobtrusive tests.”
“Circulation? Oh, my God.” She pressed a hand to her breast. “What could it be?”
He shrugged. “It could be something as benign as a slight case of anemia. Any number of things that aren’t too serious—”
“But…it