JAKE CLUTCHED THE bottle of red wine that he’d brought as a thank-you for Tersia and Nelson. He’d thrown his bike onto the carrier on the back of his SUV just in case. In case of what? It wasn’t likely that Elia was going to want to leave her mom and dad in order to go bike riding with him. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to do it. But with the bike festival next week, he needed to get some training time in while he could. If worse came to worst, he could leave the bike on the back of his vehicle and take a ride during his lunch hour tomorrow or something.
Knocking on the door, he was surprised when less than fifteen seconds went by before someone opened it. It was Elia. She motioned him inside.
“I brought this for your mom and dad for inviting me. But since it’s your house, I’m not sure who I should give it to.”
“My parents. They’ll appreciate the gesture. Wine is actually a customary hostess gift in Portugal. And since she’s made a traditional pork dish, it’ll pair perfectly with it.”
She smiled, and he couldn’t hold back his own grin. It felt homey and comfortable to be standing here talking with her like this. Like he really was meeting her parents for the first time.
Except this wasn’t that kind of occasion at all.
“Good to know, since I guessed.”
“You guessed correctly.” She again motioned him inside. “Come in, please.”
Her apartment was just as comfortable as their conversation had been, and he could definitely see the Portuguese influence here. Clay plates with blue and white glaze were hung on the walls in the dining room. Almost every free surface had some sort of representation of Portuguese pottery. It was beautiful and fit who Elia was to a tee.
Despite the heat of the day, she still wasn’t wearing shorts or even a sundress. Instead she was dressed in a long, loose skirt that looked both comfortable and safe as far as her leg went. He still hadn’t seen the scars, but for there to be contractures the damage had to be pretty rough.
And he wasn’t likely to see them, although the surgeon in him wondered if there was anything that could still be done to ease the pull. He’d dissected various surgical procedures in his head, knowing that he would never suggest them. It was Elia’s body and her choice as far as what she allowed to be done to it.
It was unlikely even if he did offer to examine her that she would go through with surgery. She’d lived with her leg like it was for a long time. She was comfortable with how it functioned and he needed to let her be.
At that moment, Tersia came out of the kitchen with Nelson following close behind.
“Ah, Jakob. It’s so good for you to come.” Elia’s mom’s accent was much more pronounced than that of her daughter, and she gave more weight to the last syllable of his name than she had the first. He wondered if Elia would do the same. He thought she might have said his full name before but couldn’t remember. He had to admit he loved to hear the nurse talk. Her words rolled through his senses like fine scotch, and he sometimes found himself paying more attention to her cadence than the phrases themselves. Although if he concentrated hard enough...
Which he did. Because he didn’t want to embarrass himself by having to ask her to repeat herself. Although it was damned tempting at times.
Cut it out, Callin.
He would assume Tersia and Elia spoke Portuguese when in each other’s company, and so while Elia worked in an English-speaking job, there wouldn’t be as much need for Tersia to speak the language. Except, hadn’t Elia told him that she worked in a bakery, cooking traditional pastries? Yes, but they also probably had a good-sized Portuguese or Brazilian clientele, if that’s what their business catered to.
“Mãe, Jake brought wine for dinner.”
Okay, even without saying his whole name, it had still come out warm and slightly accented. And having his name whispered against his skin in the heat of passion...how would it sound then?
He shut off those thoughts in a hurry, when he realized both women were now looking at him. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”
“I simply said thank you, Jakob.” Tersia’s expression was a little sharper than it had been, and her eyes were scouring across his face as if searching for something.
Something she wouldn’t find, if he had his way. The last thing he wanted was for some woman’s mother to try to play matchmaker. Not that that’s what she’d been doing. He knew he was acting kind of strange and that’s probably why she’d looked at him sideways. He’d better get his head on straight or there would be a lot more than sideways glances. She’d be asking some hard questions. Ones he really didn’t want to answer.
Just then Nelson came in and walked over to give his hand a firm clasp. “Good to see you again. Sorry I was late getting to the door. Tersia had me in the kitchen waiting on the bread to finish cooking. I think you’ll like it.”
Nelson’s speech was reminiscent of Elia’s. His English, like hers, was excellent, but there remained a tiny bit of an accent. Enough of one to give their way of speaking an exotic flavor that made you want to sit and listen to them.
“I’m sure I’ll like all of it, if that wonderful aroma is anything to go by.”
“You must come in and sit, while I uncork the wine. Dinner is almost ready.” Elia’s mom led the way into the living room as if the space were hers rather than her daughter’s. Elia threw him a pained smile and mouthed “sorry.”
He shook his head and touched her arm as a way of telling her not to worry about it. Her answering smile was much more at ease. “Why don’t you sit on the couch and I’ll help Mom with whatever else needs to be done. I hope you’re hungry. She always makes enough for an army. Seriously. You don’t have twenty friends joining us, do you?”
“Sorry, no.” He chuckled and everything seemed okay again. He liked being able to joke about things with her in a way he rarely did with other colleagues. There just wasn’t much time or the opportunity, since so much revolved around their work.
Well, tonight didn’t involve work, and he might as well just settle in and enjoy that fact. He might even be able to unwind. Really unwind. Something he’d wondered if he’d even be able to do when he’d left his apartment an hour ago. Maybe he could after all.
Suddenly, he was looking forward to spending time with them and getting to know Elia and her folks a little better. It was rare that he enjoyed a meal with friends or anyone else, so he would just sit back and allow himself to eat and laugh and give himself permission not to dwell on work or the cases he was currently working on. Those would all still be there tomorrow. And so would he.
The pork with clams in its rich, flavorful sauce proved to be every bit as good as Nelson had said it would be. Even better, actually. And he was enjoying the stories of Elia and her brother when they were kids.
“And then Elia lifted up her hand to throw the seeds toward the pigeons, but they decided she was being too slow about it and one landed right on top of her head. On top of the cute little white beret she had insisted on wearing to the National Bird Park. And that beret...” Tersia smothered a laugh with the back of her hand. “That puro branco beret—soon wasn’t pure white anymore. And what the bird had dripped down onto her nose.” She clapped her hands. “If you could have seen Eliana’s expression...”
Jake could picture the pure look of surprise that must have been on a young Elia’s face. He laughed again, as he’d been doing for the last half hour.
She chuckled. “I did not invite that pigeon to use me as a perch, nor did I invite it to...” She swirled her hand in the air to get the point across.
“And what did you do once it did both of those things?”
She leaned her shoulder in to bump against his. “Well, I can tell you what I didn’t do. I didn’t wear that beret ever again. I’m not sure what even happened to it.”
“Oh, I still have it,” Tersia said. “It’s been professionally cleaned, but it holds a special memory. Her grandmother made it for her.”
Elia’s eyes widened. “She did? I didn’t remember that. I feel badly about never wearing it again, then.”
Tersia came over and kissed her on the cheek. “I had enough pictures of you in it that day to make her think it was your favorite garment. I certainly never told her about what the bird did to it. She might have burned the thing until it was nothing but ashes.”
As soon as the words came out, her mom stopped talking and covered her mouth with her palm, a look of horror crossing her face. Then she wrapped her arms around her daughter’s shoulders. “Forgive me. That did not come out the way I intended it to.”
“Mamãe, it is fine. You don’t need to worry every time you mention something burning.”
Tersia didn’t look convinced. If anything, her distress seemed to grow. “If only I hadn’t been paying as much attention to Tomás that day.”
Elia gave him a helpless look, as if this subject had been repeated ad infinitum. “So was I, Mãe. So was I. You were not to blame.”
Tomás must be a relative. Or a close friend.
As if she felt like he needed an explanation, Tersia said, “Elia was burned as a child while helping her brother learn how to walk. She backed into a fire and fell on it.”
He nodded, understanding that Elia was feeling pretty uncomfortable about this subject appearing on the radar. “She told me about her accident. And although I know it was hard for all of you to go through, it has given Elia a wonderful way of empathizing with her patients, something she might not be able to do if she didn’t intimately understand what it felt like to go through all of the pain and treatments that our patients have to endure.”
Nelson, who was still sitting at the table, tossed him a grateful look. “I’ve said this very thing to Elia, and she agrees that it helps her do her job, don’t you, filha?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I love my job. And it does help me understand them, even though no one has had the exact same experience that I had.” Under the table, her knee touched his as if thanking him for saying what he had. Or maybe she’d just accidentally touched him and it meant nothing at all. Except, she didn’t remove the pressure like she might have otherwise, so he nudged her back.
And when she turned toward him and smiled...
He was transfixed, unable to move for several seconds before finally shaking himself free and including the rest of her family in his return smile. He shared a little about Matt without revealing his name or any identifying information and said what a help Elia had been the first time he actually met her.
“You actually met me before that. You just don’t remember.”
Tersia murmured, “But you remember her now, don’t you.”
There was something about the way she said the words that made her daughter say, “Mamãe...” as if her mom had said something wrong.
But she hadn’t. Elia was pretty damned memorable. “I do, for sure.”
She threw a look at Jake. And he couldn’t for the life of him understand what it meant. But all she said was, “Mom, are we ready for dessert?”
“We are. I hope you like,” she said to Jake. “We call them filhós de abobora. At the bakery, we call them fried pumpkin cakes, but they’re not like your traditional American cake. They are Elia’s favorite thing. I’ll go get them.”
There was something about trying something that was Elia’s “favorite” that made him anticipate whatever this dessert was that much more.
When Tersia brought in a plate of what looked like misshapen donut holes, he was immediately intrigued. These were golden brown and sprinkled with sugar. And the smell was wonderful.
“Cinnamon?”
“Yes,” Tersia said. “They do have cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on them, and I mix a little cinnamon in with the pumpkin. At Christmas time, filhoses are sometimes made with decorative iron molds that are heated in hot oil, dipped into a pumpkin batter and then plunged back in the oil to fry until they come free of the mold.”
“They are sooo good.” The way Elia drew out the word made him take a quick breath.
Anything that got that kind of reaction out of her had to be heaven on earth. And damn if it didn’t have him salivating for the dessert. But it wasn’t just that. He wanted her. To feed her those desserts and hear her make little sounds as she savored them.
Jake swallowed, suddenly feeling like he was in over his head and wanting things he damned well shouldn’t want. And yet he did.
Elia’s mom set the tray of pumpkin cakes on the table and then went over to a small sideboard and picked up some blue and white dessert plates that matched the set they had used for dinner. They kind of reminded him of the Wedgwood dinnerware they had in the States, but these were heavier, with a more pottery-type feel. He liked them. They fit with who Elia was. She was delicate looking, but there was something solid beneath that veneer. Something that was more than just a pretty face. It made him glad, for some reason.
He accepted the plate with the small cakes Tersia had placed on it, waiting to see if they used forks to eat them or just their fingers.
Nelson seemed to sense his hesitation, because he glanced at him and then picked one up with his fingers and popped it into his mouth whole. Jake followed suit and a second later saw what the fuss was all about and why these were Elia’s favorite dessert. Light and incredibly fluffy, it was like a cross between a donut and a sweet bread. And it melted in his mouth, making him want to repeat the experience.
Elia was watching him as she chewed her own cake, eyes closing for a second as she savored it before looking at him again and saying, “Good?”
“Very.” And not only the cake. There was a sensual quality to the way she enjoyed the morsel that seemed to go beyond it as a simple food. And he’d enjoyed the sight a little too much, feeling a little like a voyeur who was watching something he shouldn’t. Maybe because he was equating the food with sex. He could admit it, although he hoped to hell no one in this room guessed that little secret. To try to shake it from his thoughts, he popped another cake into his mouth. Except this time it was as if his perceptions had been altered, because he was letting it linger on his tongue just a little longer, trying to keep the sensation from ending.
Shit. He needed to get out of here.
His cell phone buzzed in his pocket, as if the universe had heard him. Taking it out to quickly glance at the screen in case it was an emergency, he saw it was indeed the hospital. “Sorry, I need to take this.”
“Go ahead,” Nelson said. “There’s a balcony right through there, if you need some privacy.”
“Thanks.” As he walked toward the sliding glass doors, he was vaguely aware of someone else’s phone ringing behind him. Glancing back, he saw Elia take her phone from her purse and glance down.
In the second that he went through the door that led to the balcony, he knew his escape wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. He answered it and heard a panicked voice on the other end. “Jake. Can you come back to the hospital?”
“Sure.” It was Sheryll calling. “What’s up?”
“We’ve just had someone brought in who, according to a relative, had some kind of lye solution thrown on her by an ex-boyfriend. She’s in bad shape.”
“I’m on my way. Start lavaging the area immediately, but make sure you keep the water out of her eyes, in case there’s any lye around them.”
“Will do. I think one eye may already be compromised. Mary is trying to reach Elia to see if she can come, too. Do you know where she is? We’re shorthanded and... Wait.” She said something to someone in the background before coming back. “Never mind. We reached her. She’s on her way in, too.”
Elia evidently hadn’t said anything about them eating together, so he decided to follow her lead. “Okay, I’ll see you in about twenty minutes.”
“Thanks.” With that she hung up without saying goodbye. But Jake didn’t need goodbyes. From what it sounded like, they needed a miracle. A big one.
Elia couldn’t believe what she’d heard. She’d never dealt with a chemical burn that was on purpose before, although there were all kinds of ways that people hurt others. But to throw some type of caustic substance onto another human being... It was unfathomable.
Also unfathomable was the fact that she’d gone from laughing with Jake one minute to riding in his car as they each silently prepared for what they were about to find.
They burst through the emergency room doors, and as soon as the staff saw them they directed them to the burn unit.
“They’ve already transferred her since you guys have more of the needed equipment on hand to deal with serious burns,” one of the residents said.
Jake kept moving, throwing back the words, “Nothing internal?”
“Not that we could assess. But the lye... It’s caused quite a bit of damage.”
Lye burns could be some of the worst, because you didn’t immediately feel pain where the chemicals touched the skin. It was a case where the length of contact helped determine how much damage it caused to the skin and mucus membranes. It could literally dissolve tissue, turning it to jelly.
They caught the elevator just as the doors were opening. Jake didn’t attempt to talk to Elia, but she couldn’t blame him. He was probably running treatment options through his head, the same way she was. But even so, the silence wasn’t an uncomfortable one and she didn’t feel the need to try to break it.
Her mom and dad sometimes embarrassed her with their enthusiasm toward their guests when entertaining, but Jake hadn’t seemed bothered. He’d seemed charmed by them, if anything.
As soon as the doors let them off on the floor, she glanced to the right where the empty nurses’ station stood as a testament to the battle that was happening in one of the rooms, the one that people were going in and out of.
Jake nodded to one of the doctors who came out, an ophthalmic surgeon from the ground floor. “How’s it looking?”
“She’s almost certainly going to lose the right eye. The cornea is gone, and it’s reached some of the deeper structures.”
“Hell, how does something like this even happen?” the plastic surgeon asked.
“Breakups can bring out the ‘mean’ in some people. They feel like they have to hurt the other person back in some way. You know how that works.”
Jake had a weird reaction to the words. He flinched, his head going back an inch or two. The other man didn’t seem to notice, or if he did he didn’t place much importance on it. “At least skin can be grafted, although her face is going to need some major work.”
“Was it straight lye?”
“She evidently has a small business endeavor making homemade soap products. She was just adding lye to a wet solution when an ex-boyfriend came in and upended the folding table she was working on. She had eyeglasses on, but not safety goggles. He’d evidently made some threats, but nothing she’d taken seriously.”
Elia started to edge past the two men so she could go in and help the team, when Jake put an end to the conversation. “Thanks. I’ll get in there and see what I can do.”
“Let me know. I’ll be back in about a half hour. I have a procedure I’ve rescheduled three times already, and there’s nothing more I can do for this patient right now.”
With that, the young doctor strode toward the elevator they’d just exited.
They went through the door and found it was strewn with medical wrappers and containers. Two nurses stood next to a patient who was on a special table specifically made for lavaging large areas of the body. With raised sides that kept water and liquids contained, the head of the bed was slightly elevated so that everything flowed toward the base, where tubing was connected to a drain in the floor.
Sheryll came over to her. “Thank God, you’re here. It’s been just me and Mary, and she’s not feeling well... Just went to the bathroom. Again.”
As much as they were encouraged not to come in to work when ill, there were times when you just couldn’t help it. At least when there was no fever, just a crappy sensation that you could sometimes work through. “Just tell me what you need.”
“Patient’s name is Dorothy White. We think we’ve lavaged long enough. But Timmons wants to get Jake’s input.”
Jeremy Timmons was a newer resident who was working under Jake’s mentorship program. From what she understood, more and more cases were being shunted from a nearby hospital, which had just shut down their trauma department. It used to be that only the worst of the worst cases were sent to Westlake’s burn unit for treatment after lifesaving triage—like this patient’s lavaging—had already been done. But that meant some of them now had a longer ride in an ambulance to get to Westlake, which meant a longer time until they could get that treatment. She didn’t know if that was the case for this particular patient, but when you were at home and unsure what to do for someone, it was hard. Westlake had hired Dr. Timmons right out of med school before another hospital could scoop him up.
“What needs to be done right now?”
“Let’s see what Jake says. Can you stay here, so I can see to my other patients? It’s been mass chaos up here for the last half hour.”
“Go. I’m good.”
Sheryll squeezed her arm. “Thanks.”
With that the other nurse headed out of the room. Elia scrubbed up in a nearby sink and donned her PPE and then offered to help Jake as he did his. Two of the biggest dangers of large areas of tissue damage from burns were fluid loss and infections. Fluids could be replaced, but without the protective layer of the dermis, opportunistic bacteria were just waiting to move in. It was a continuous battle. And she’d seen one case where a patient with 90 percent burns was told he had little chance of survival. He was advised to say his goodbyes. It was one of the hardest cases she’d ever worked on. And true to what the doctors said, he died of sepsis two weeks after being burned, despite aggressive treatment with IV antibiotics.
Jake had instructed her to start treating the less serious burns with antibiotic cream, while he and Jeremy went over the patient with a fine-tooth comb and devised a treatment strategy that the two of them would carry out. Thankfully Dorothy, their patient, had received some sedation medication due to the extreme pain she’d been in.
“Are there any relatives here?”
“Her parents are out in the waiting room. They’re pretty heartbroken, as you can imagine. We wanted to get her treated and in a room before we let them in. Dr. Perkins said to go ahead and tape gauze over the damaged eye before they see her.”
Right now the patient’s eyes were both closed, but the right lid was swollen and inflamed. She could only imagine the damage that lay below.
“The boyfriend is in custody, I hope?”
The last thing anyone wanted to deal with was an angry ex coming in and harming even more people. It was always a risk, but if you knew ahead of time, security could be increased.
“He was arrested at his home after fleeing the scene.” Timmons looked up. “The guy had fixed himself a sandwich.”
A wave of nausea washed over her. How could one human treat another like this and then go on as if it were nothing of importance?
She forced back the sensation and concentrated on what she was doing. This patient deserved her thoughts, not the man who’d done this to her.
Timmons came over to stand beside her. “How’s it coming?”
“Just about finished with what I can see. Is there anything on her back?”
“Not much. Thankfully her clothing kept it from running down her back, although a little did get on her shoulder.”
Looking at the right side of the patient’s body, she could clearly see the swath of destruction where the caustic substance had either landed or had splashed as it hit. The damage ran from her eyebrow down to her right hip. Large blistered areas had already formed.
She and Jeremy discussed meds for a few more seconds before Jake came over, a slight frown on his face. Had he found something unexpected in his exam? She tilted her head. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, I just wanted to ask Jeremy if he’d go check on the parents and then make sure there’s a room available so we can get her in and start debriding. Sooner rather than later.”
Jeremy blinked at the man for a second before nodding. “Sure thing.”
When he left the room, Elia said, “I could have done that.”
“Her parents would expect one of her doctors to come out and talk to them.”
Yes, she’d forgotten about that part of it, and his explanation was perfectly plausible, but there’d been something in his face she hadn’t quite been able to read. But it didn’t matter. What did matter was getting Dorothy treated and stabilized. And as Jake had said, it needed to happen sooner rather than later.