Close Pursuit. Cindy Dees

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СКАЧАТЬ mean it won’t get cold and windy. At this altitude, it’s not uncommon for temperatures to drop well below zero.”

      She winced at the thought. Give her a nice, cozy fireplace, fuzzy socks and a cup of hot chocolate, and she was a happy camper. Less than one day on this mountainside and she was ready to pack it in and head home. Even a cave would be a step up from a canvas-covered crack in the rocks. At least they had the mountain at their back to block the wind a little.

      “We should have some business before morning,” he announced.

      “Why’s that?” she asked curiously. Was he psychic, too?

      “Female mammals tend to give birth in the worst possible weather. It suppresses the movement of predators and enhances survivability of the gravid female and her offspring during the birth process.”

      Well, okay, then. This trip was going to be nothing if not educational, apparently. Alex commenced rummaging through his boxes of equipment. He looked frustrated, as though he’d misplaced something. “Can I help?” she asked.

      “No.”

      That was Alex. Mr. Monosyllable.

      Intense silence fell around them, disturbed only by the flapping of canvas.

      “Seems like the only predators around here are the husbands of the local female population,” she remarked to fill the void. She hated quiet. She hadn’t grown up with five older brothers for nothing. Their house had been a zoo. But Alex seemed to prefer the transcendent silence.

      He lifted one of the boxes effortlessly and shifted it into the corner. He might run to the lean side compared to her buff brothers, but he was stronger than he looked. He commented, “I doubt the husbands are the problem. It’s an eighty-five percent probability, plus or minus about three percent, that conservative religious zealots have been the ones killing the midwives.”

      Slaughtering them, more like. Religious extremists were killing not only the midwives, but all women who advocated women’s rights or who represented female power in their communities. It was obscene. And largely unreported in the media. The massacre had prompted Doctors Unlimited to fund this secret mission into Zaghastan to deliver babies, in fact. When her brother had asked her to go along and translate, she wasn’t about to say no to helping women just trying to survive childbirth. She’d also just finished her gig with Teachers Across America and had yet to land a permanent teaching job or even decide where she wanted to live. And then there was the bad breakup with the latest rotten boyfriend to get away from. Her friends called her the asshole magnet for good reason.

      “I’d suggest you get some sleep,” Alex said briskly. “You look like you need it.”

      Her eyebrows shot up. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you women don’t like to be told they look like crap?”

      He looked vaguely startled—a first for him. “I beg your pardon?”

      OMG. He really doesn’t know that? “Women don’t like to be told they look bad.”

      He frowned, his formidable mind obviously examining her statement from ninety-two different angles. “I suppose that’s logical if a woman is insecure about her appearance for some reason.”

      “News flash, Einstein—all women are insecure about their appearance.”

      “I have no context within which to place that remark.”

      Oh, for the love of Mike. “Are you always such a geek?”

      For just a second, something incongruous—and totally non-geeky—flashed in his eyes. Amusement. Male appreciation. Desire.

      What. The. Heck? Where did the geek go?

      She did a sharp double take, and his eyes were back to being as guarded and clueless as ever.

      * * *

      ALEX CONSIDERED KATIE—or at least the tip of her nose where it poked out of her sleeping bag. She could prove to be a serious problem. For a self-professed dingbat blonde, Katie had already showed herself to be deeply intuitive. Smarter than she let on. God knew, she was easy on the eye. The first thing he supposed most people would notice about her was the lush, golden hair falling in soft waves around her face. Or maybe her bright blue eyes. Or maybe even her slender, attractive figure.

      Frankly, the thing he’d keyed in on first was her smile. It was warm and genuine and filled a room. He would like to think his mother had smiled like that. But, knowing his father, the man would never have gone for an open, loving woman. His old man would have gone for an ice bitch with a heart as hard and cold as a diamond.

      Which would, of course, be more in keeping with his mother’s early and complete disappearance from his life. He had no memory of the woman whatsoever. Had no idea what happened to her. Never seen a picture. Never even heard a name.

      A loose rock rolled outside, and he jerked to full alert. He shed the sleeping bag he’d wrapped around his shoulders and slid into the shadow beside the tent flap. He shook a razor-sharp scalpel out of his sleeve and slid it into his palm.

      A low voice whispered on the other side of the canvas and then devolved into the persistent cough most of the locals had. Dammit. He didn’t understand a word of what the voice was saying. But it was female. He pulled the flap back, and two lumps of black cloth crouched in front of him. He gestured for them to come inside. The scalpel went inconspicuously back inside his sleeve as he moved to the back of the tent.

      “Katie, wake up.” He gave her shoulder a shake through the down sleeping bag. She felt small and fragile under his hand. A temptation he couldn’t afford, dammit.

      “Wha—” she mumbled as she rolled onto her back. Heavy sleeper. Must be nice to be so naive. It had been a long time since he’d thought the world was safe enough to sleep like that.

      “I need a translator.”

      She sat up sharply. “Oh!” She looked over at the two women huddled by the door and said something in the native tongue. It was a guttural and clumsy-sounding language.

      “You’re on, Doc,” Katie announced. “The one on the left is in labor. Older one is her grandmother. Says she’s worried because her granddaughter is young and small.”

      “How young?” he bit out.

      Another exchange of words. Then Katie answered grimly, “Fourteen. Her first baby.”

      One of the burka-wrapped shapes bent over just then and gave a low moan. Grandma propped up the girl as the contraction gripped her.

      All the deliveries had been routine so far. Adult women, mostly on at least their fourth kid. But a first-timer barely into her teens? This could get interesting. His training in obstetrics was superficial; he was primarily a trauma surgeon. But all doctors were required to pull an obstetrics rotation in medical school. The men in prison with him who had constituted much of his on-the-job medical experience hadn’t given birth to a hell of a lot of babies—which was to say, any babies.

      He’d pulled a short stint in a maternity ward to deliver a few more kids before he’d been sent out here. But he’d never seen a case like this. Nothing like trial by fire to earn his stripes as an obstetrician.

      “Get СКАЧАТЬ