The Phoenix Encounter

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 could be serious?”

He hated to be the one to put that sharp-edged worry in her eyes, but he didn’t see any way around it. “I don’t know, Lily. That’s why I’d like to run some blood tests. Just stay calm. This is nothing to get worked up about, okay?”

Biting her lip, she looked over her shoulder at the baby cooing in the crib. “He’s everything to me,” she said. “I could never bear it if something happened to him.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to him,” he said firmly. “These are routine tests. Chances are the pediatrician will prescribe some vitamins with iron, and Jack will be just fine.”

She didn’t look convinced, but at least she no longer looked as if she were going to jump out of her skin. He supposed they’d both learned that fate didn’t always bestow a kind outcome.

The instincts he’d developed in the course of his experience as a doctor told him to reach out and touch her, just to reassure her that her child was going to be fine. But Robert didn’t dare touch her. Deep down inside he knew it wasn’t the physician who wanted to touch her, but the man who’d never gotten her out of his system.

“I’d like to take him to the hospital in Rajalla where there’s a pediatric unit and laboratory facilities,” he said.

Lily visibly paled, but masked it by quickly turning away. Noticing that her hands were shaking, Robert watched her closely and wondered about her level of anxiety at the mention of the hospital in Rajalla. “Is there a problem with Rajalla?”

“No. Of course not.” She looked directly at him and smiled, but Robert saw the shimmer of nerves beneath the surface. “It’s just that the city has…changed since you were last there.”

Rajalla was the capital city of Rebelia. Robert had spent a good bit of time there and remembered it as a pretty, bustling metropolis with several sleek skyscrapers, ancient stone churches, a bazaar where local farmers and artisans sold stone-baked bread and Rebelian stained glass, and some of the most beautiful parks in all of Europe.

Robert had researched Rajalla carefully before leaving the United States. He knew DeBruzkya’s soldiers had invaded the city. He knew those soldiers had destroyed many of the buildings, including several historical cathedrals. He knew the once-healthy economy had slumped, that people had fled to the nearby country of Holzberg to become refugees.

But he was getting some odd vibes from Lily and wanted to hear her view. “How has it changed?”

She moved away from the crib as if what she were about to say was somehow harmful to her son. “DeBruzkya is in control of the entire city now. There are armed soldiers everywhere, including the hospital.”

“The soldiers don’t know who you are, do they?”

The hairs at his nape prickled when she didn’t answer.

“DeBruzkya himself has spent a fair amount of time at the hospital,” she said. “His sister is pregnant. The general is fanatical about his sister’s unborn child because that child will become his only heir.”

“Does DeBruzkya know who you are?” he asked.

Lily turned to look at him, her expression troubled and stubborn at once. And suddenly Robert got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Does he know who you are?” he repeated.

“He knows my face.”

Robert cursed.

“He doesn’t know I’m with the freedom fighters,” she said quickly.

“Does he know what you do?”

She stared at him, a hunted animal trapped in the crosshairs of a high powered rifle. “No.”

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I can’t believe you would do something so incredibly foolhardy.”

“Robert, I can handle this. I know what I’m do—”

“You’re so far over your head you don’t know up from down,” he growled.

“I’m not afraid of him,” she snapped.

He shot her a hard look. “You’re too damn smart not to be afraid.”

She evidently didn’t have anything to say to that, so she turned away. Robert contemplated her in profile, liking what he saw even though he was dangerously furious.

He wanted to believe he was just being paranoid, but his instincts were telling him there was a hell lot more to the situation than what she was letting on.

Lily was lying to him. She was hiding something important. Something dangerous. And for the first time in his life Robert found himself hoping his instincts were wrong.

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