Gray scratched a hand along his bristly jaw. "I'll need your help inside."
"Mine?"
"If you don't mind," he said, the best wicked grin back in place.
Ah, a gauntlet. "You're a bad boy, Grayson Clark."
"You're only just figuring that out?"
She ignored his question and parried with her own. "You want me to assist you for the next four hours while you check out these kids?"
"Why not? You and I can work together, probably better than I can with the others in your office, since we know each other. No sweat."
He met her with a challenging stare, as if daring her. To do what? To prove something by showing herself and everyone else they could work together, no sweat, like he'd said? Was he trying to convince himself, as well?
The mere thought scared her all the way to her hiking boots. "No sweat?"
"Of course not. We can focus on the job. I'll be getting the heavy-duty cases, greater injuries and traumatized kids. I can use your help. Put that social work degree of yours to good use. You're the boss after all. Shouldn't you take on the tougher ones?"
The kids. War orphans. How could she refuse? And he no doubt knew her well enough to realize she couldn't. "You're a bad boy, and you don't play fair."
He shrugged. "So tell my mom."
"A little late for that." Lori sucked in air like water. Her gaze shifted from Gray's handsome face to the landscape behind him—the rounded mountain peaks, the smattering of quaint stucco cottages. Beautiful, except half of the buildings were missing sides or bore gaping holes in their clay roofing. How many of those children in the hangar had lived here? Had they played with parents and siblings in the yard? Watched planes fly overhead?
Witnessed the devastation.
She'd seen more than her fair share of poverty and destruction in the world, following her parents from country to country. And it never failed to fist in her stomach, compacting within her a need to act, fix, change things.
Lori pointed to the hangar. "Let's get these children checked out and loaded up."
"Yes, ma'am." Gray charged after her, weaving through the crowd of military and relief workers.
Lori strode the last few feet to the shelter that housed seventy-two scared kids. Did Gray have to walk so close behind her? Too easily she could inhale that mixture of bay rum aftershave and just him tinged with sweat, a scent too reminiscent of summer afternoons spent making love, sleeping entangled, making love again.
She stepped inside, and any fanciful musings fell away. Controlled mass activity echoed up to the metal-beamed ceiling. The dark, muggy warehouse rumbled with voices, mingled languages, babies crying, children playing, others whimpering. The sheer magnitude of her responsibility for these seventy-two little lives nearly staggered Lori back a step into the strong support of Gray's broad chest.
She braced her shoulders and donned her training for support. More reliable, anyway. "Okay, Doe, where do we start?"
His hand hovered around her back, low, near her waist. She could feel the heat, although he never touched her as he ushered her forward.
"Atta girl. Knew I could count on you. If only you could say the same for me, huh?"
She shot a startled glance over her shoulder.
A half smile curved his mouth. "Broke the keep-it-light rule there for a second, didn't I?"
"Whose rule was that, anyway?"
Before Gray could answer, a loadmaster called to him. Tables, chairs, even a few stretchers had been set up at makeshift exam stations to triage patients. She studied one young face after another. The flight was only slated to transport ambulatory passengers.
And if someone needed care beyond what they could provide in-flight? How could she leave behind a sick child in a country where bombs and gunfire still whispered insidiously in the distance?
She refused to think about that. Gray would patch them up and board them. When it came to his job, the man was determination personified.
Lori flipped her braid over her shoulder. "What do you need from me?"
His eyes snapped to hers. "Going for a little rule breaking yourself, huh?"
She shot him her best withering stare. "In the examinations."
A self-deprecating smile flickered across his face before disappearing altogether. "Keep the flow moving, bring me a child, pass the one I just finished with over to the load-masters so we can board them. The faster we get out of here the better."
"I thought we had four hours?"
"The sooner we're out of here, the better," he repeated. Bombs growled in the distance as if applauding him. Uniformed workers didn't even break stride. Children barely winced. "Thank God the Red Cross already gave them their immunizations and TB tests. Saved us time and the kids' irritability in-flight. For now, anything you can do to calm them, hugs, pats, whatever, will speed things along."
"Like their mothers would have done for them in a checkup." Her own mother hadn't been much for chicken soup, but she'd always ordered the best of room service. Hugs and an afternoon of cartoons rounded out the treatment. Hugs. The cure-all for kids. She could do that. Longed to do that.
"Exactly." Gray's gaze swept the roomful of children who would never see their mothers again. His cheeks puffed on an exhale. "Just do what you can for them."
"Got it."
A representative from the orphanage brought the first child forward—a toddler, not more than a couple of years old but with none of the chubby-cheeked health of the babies in Lori's dreams. Carefully she scooped him into her arms. So frail. Even needing a bath and fresh clothes, he carried that precious baby scent universal to all small children.
Cocking his head to the side, the boy studied her with dark, curious eyes. Quick as a flash, he yanked her braid.
"You're a little stinker." She grasped the tail of her braid and tickled his chin, earning a gurgling giggle. She passed him to Gray, their eyes locking over the tiny head. Their arms brushed in the exchange.
For the first time in a year he touched her, and the pure pleasure of that careless caress closed her throat. She wanted more, like a dangerous, addictive narcotic. She wanted his hands on her again.
Lori transferred the toddler to Gray and backed away.
He plopped the child on the edge of the gurney. With a broad, gentle hand he chucked him under the chin and tipped up the boy's name tag pinned to his tattered sleeper. "Well, hello, Ladislov. What a big name for a little guy."
Gray kept his tone low and reassuring as he skimmed off the sleeper, stripping the baby down to his diaper.
Those big hands were so tender with the child, Lori had to look away. "Sorry. I should have done that for you."
"Next time. We're fine now. Right, Ladislov?" Gray ran his hands along spindly legs and arms, explored a bump on the boy's head, listened to his chest, continuing the physical with relative ease until he tried to peer inside the child's ears.
Ladislov made his displeasure known.
Loudly.
He lurched off the gurney.
Gray and Lori both caught him in midair.
Lori took control and cradled the screeching child. "Hang on. I'll have him settled in a second."
She tucked her chin on top of his head and swayed from side to side, humming reassurance. The oddly domestic scenario wrapped around her and squeezed with suffocating force.
Life wasn't playing fair today, either.
The baby's shrieks dwindled to hiccuping sobs. Gray scratched his jaw. "Just sit on the gurney. Hold him, but turn him to face me and I'll finish up."
Lori hitched onto the edge, a difficult maneuver with at least twenty pounds of baby crawling to snuggle closer. Gray braced her elbow and balanced, lifting until she perched in front of him. His hand dropped away a second too fast.
Her elbow burned.
Gray selected an instrument from the tray. "I need to check his ears. Hold his arms for me." Gray flipped the light off and on in front of Ladislov's face. "See, pal. Just an otoscope. Nothing scary, right?"
Ladislov thrust his bottom lip out mutinously and wriggled. Lori clasped the tiny hands in hers, her arms locked around little Ladislov. Gray canted toward her. He wheeled the chair forward until he was abreast with her legs.
No way in hell was she inching her knees apart for him to slide nearer. Lori angled forward.
In a horrifying flash, she realized just how close little Ladislov's ear was to her breast.
Before she could adjust the child into a different position, Gray leaned the rest of the way and slid the otoscope into the boy's ear. He peered inside. A scant two inches of air separated her breast from Gray's cheek. If she moved even the least bit…
Uncomfortable as hell, Lori held herself very still.
Ladislov wasn't as accommodating. He twisted. Squirmed. Tried to slide free.
Gray bobbed his head, keeping the instrument in place. "Hang tough, buddy," he mumbled words the child had no hope of understanding. "Almost through with this one. There's just so much wax, I've gotta…"
Gray's wrist brushed Lori's breast. Heat flooded her.
"Please, little guy." She whispered a tight plea. "Hold still."
Gray froze. His face tipped, and he peered up at her, his green eyes deepening to a glittering emerald. His brow lifted before he returned to make short order of the other ear.
With the heel of his boot, he pushed, rolling away. Far away. Not far enough. "All set."
Her shoulders sagged as she exhaled. "He's okay?"
Gray scribbled in the boy's thin chart. "Just a minor ear infection, a little fever and congestion. His ears might be uncomfortable when the plane descends, but nothing dangerous. I'll start him on antibiotics now. He'll feel better before we land." Gray passed the chart to one of the technicians and filled an eyedropper with pink, syrupy medicine. He reached for the boy. "Time to drink up, pal."
Lori passed Ladislov to Gray and couldn't stifle the taunting whisper in her mind. She'd once thought this man would be the father of her children. Now she knew with certainty this was the only child she would ever give Grayson Clark.
Damn his too charming soul.
Gray watched Lori pass over yet another newborn, her elegant hand bracing the little behind until he rested snuggly in a loadmaster's arms. She looked so damned right with a child. Why didn't she find some great guy and work on increasing the world population?
Sweat dribbled down Gray's forehead, stinging his eyes. He swiped his wrist over his brow. The hangar had turned into a furnace.
He whipped a red bandanna from the zippered thigh pocket of his flight suit. Three quick yanks and he'd knotted the do-rag around his head. "Bring on the next batch."
With inherent dancer-like grace, Lori knelt in front of a boy. She looked too good, even after being tugged, spit up on—clung to. Way too beautiful.
So much for his bright idea they should work together. He'd only wanted to prove to the crew … to himself … that he could be with her and remain unaffected.
He didn't doubt his ability to do his job, no matter the circumstances. But did she have to test his resolve to the limit? The occasional whiff of her peach scent chased away the acrid bite in the air, if for just a distracting second.
Gray drummed his fingers on a stack of ragtag charts while Lori offered nonsensical, soothing words to a child.
There wasn't anyone better suited than Lori to deal with the traumatized children he would evaluate. Odd how he trusted her more than others from the base he'd worked with countless times.
Even during the beyond-tense moment while he'd checked little Ladislov's ear, leaned too close, she'd never winced because that child needed her. Lori always put others' needs first. A bomb could have detonated, and Gray knew she wouldn't have moved.
