The Doctor's Lost-and-Found Heart. Dianne Drake

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      To Doctor Nance, the ID specialist who saved my life.

      You made the diagnosis when nobody else could find the ‘bug’. Thank you.

      CHAPTER ONE

      WRAPPED around her pretty little finger. That was how he felt, traipsing around out here in God-forsaken nowhere, with nothing but a backpack full of testing supplies and a sneaking suspicion that there was going to be more to this mission than a couple of days. Way more than a couple of days …

      Jack Kenner swatted a mosquito on his neck, flicked it away, then wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. If he’d been smart about this, or had had time to plan, he’d have had his hair buzzed down to a bald cut, because collar-length wavy and summer jungle humidity weren’t a good mix. And it was damn humid out here. Unseasonably so for mid-December. He’d have also had time to order adequate testing supplies—he never liked to go unprepared. But when Amanda had called him, told him what was at risk, and that it was urgent … First plane out. What could he say? He was a sucker for a beautiful face and a worthy cause. She certainly had the beautiful face, and a bunch of sick kids was a worthy cause.

      Thinking about her brought a smile to his face. Amanda Robinson. More than beautiful, actually. Stunning. Exquisite. Wild, black hair when it wasn’t all trussed up. Dark skin. Eyes the color of onyx. Exotic in every sense of the word. A real breathtaker who was totally unaware of the power she could hold over a man.

      Outside a handful of professional encounters back in Texas, Jack hardly even knew the woman, yet here he was, somewhere in Argentina, because she’d asked. The hell of it was, he didn’t do that kind of looking anymore. Kept it strictly off his radar. Except when Amanda walked by him that first time his radar had blipped. For him, though, one or two blips and that was as far as it went. His life was screwed up in every way that counted and he wasn’t even sure he could define what a real life was anymore. So, why drag someone else into his confusion?

      Easy answer. He didn’t. Not even casually. Anything other than a passing glance and a wishful sigh got complicated, so he kept it uncomplicated, simple as that. The fewer lives he screwed up, the better.

      On the other hand, being here was bordering on complicated since this was everything he was trying to put behind him. Medicine, unidentified outbreaks, epidemics … he wanted all of it out of his life. Problem was, controlling hospital-acquired infections, now called HAIs, was a growing specialty and the bigger problem in that was he was pretty good at what he did. It was hard to walk away from it when you were in demand. Harder still when he actually let himself think about the lives depending on his discoveries. But walking was what he’d been trying to do for the past two years. Walking, but always getting pulled back in.

      So now, this Hospital de Caridad he was trying to find … He was promising himself it would be the last one. The last of the line for him, come hell or high water. Amanda Robinson had worked miracles with his nephew and this was paying back a debt of gratitude. Meaning, he’d find the HAI infecting the hospital she owned with her brother, then finally be done with it. Done with everything, without a clue what came after that.

      Another mosquito dive-bombed Jack’s ear, and he slapped at it, hitting it in midair. “You dirty little …”

      “Dr. Jack Kenner?” a young voice piped up from the bushes just beyond the edge of the trail. “Are you Dr. Jack Kenner?”

      “I’m Kenner,” he said, quite surprised by an obviously СКАЧАТЬ