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  “Callie…” His suitcase slid to the ground, and she stood before him, breathless. “I don’t want to leave like this…so abruptly.”

  “I don’t want you to…”

  To stay? To go? To kiss me? What was she going to say, and why did she stop herself?

  “I hate goodbyes,” he said. Especially to you, Callie.

  He could never say what he was thinking to Callie. Never. He had no right.

  “So do I,” she said.

  Time crystalized. Caught in that diamond-bright web he saw not merely the moment but every moment he had spent with her—the embrace under the cocoon of blankets, the hands linked across the space between their narrow beds, the kiss.

  To kiss her again. That’s what he wanted. To kiss her and never let go.

  And yet…

  “You’ll miss your plane,” she said.

  “Yes. Don’t want to do that. It’s a long way home.”

  A very long way. Especially without Callie.

  “Goodbye, Joseph.”

  Her face was tilted upward. It would be so easy to kiss her, so easy.

  And so hard to let go.

  He touched her cheek, softly, trailed his fingertips downward, across her lips. She parted them slightly, tasting him, and he died a little inside.

  “Goodbye, Callie.”

  He left quickly, while he still could, left her standing in the sunset with her lips slightly parted, left without looking back.

  He could never look back. He knew that. Only forward to the next outbreak, the next hot virus, the next battle, on and on until he was exhausted in mind and body. And someday, if was very lucky, he might forget about a bewitching woman named Callie Red Cloud.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Callie’s file was open on Jenine Rayborn’s desk. Jenine picked up the application and studied it as if she were looking for some clue she might have missed the first time around.

  “Dr. Red Cloud,” she said.

  So formal, Callie thought. That wasn’t a good sign. Or was it? Callie tried not to look as nervous as she felt.

  “You have very impressive credentials.”

  “Thank you, Miss Rayborn.”

  Jenine closed the folder and studied Callie over the tops of her reading glasses. “If I were ever misfortunate enough to come in contact with one of these rare viruses, I’d certainly want you as my doctor.”

  “Thank you.”

  Why were they discussing her medical prowess? Didn’t Jenine Rayborn want to know what kind of home she planned to give Ricky? What kind of parenting skills she had? What kind of education she could provide, what kind of advantages?

  “Your work is very dangerous, isn’t it, Dr. Red Cloud?”

  “Certainly there are risks, but isn’t living itself a risk?”

  Jenine smiled. “Well said. But then, I expected no less from you.” She took off her glasses, then went to the coffeemaker. “Coffee?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t drink it.”

  “My goodness. How do you manage to keep going?”

  “Diet, exercise, overall good health. I keep myself in optimum condition, Miss Rayborn. I work hard, but I know how to make the most of my leisure time. I can provide a very good home for Ricky.”

  “I have no doubt about that. You could give him everything money can buy.”

  Callie resented that remark, but she was careful not to let her feelings show. A little boy’s future hung in the balance.

  “I can give him more than that, Miss Rayborn. I can give him love. I can be a real mother to him, and isn’t that the most important thing here? Finding a home where Ricky will be loved?”

  Jenine sat behind her desk and sipped her coffee.

  “Not entirely. I’ve seen the two of you together. It’s obvious you love him, Dr. Red Cloud.”

  Jenine set her cup in the saucer and focused her full attention on Callie. “What is also obvious to me is that you will not be a full-time parent, not with your kind of work.”

  Callie had expected this argument, and she was fully prepared to make a case for herself, and for Ricky.

  “Many homes have two parents in demanding professions such as medicine and law,” she said, “but they also have the resources to provide the very best care while they are away. Statistics show that quality is more important in terms of time spent with a child than quantity.”

  Jenine’s face gave nothing away. Callie decided she must have been a card shark in another life.

  “Everything you say is true, of course, but as you said, you are talking about two-parent families.” Jenine sipped her coffee, made a face, then poured a fresh cup. “I can’t abide cold coffee.

  She slid behind her desk once more. “Now, as I was saying, Dr. Red Cloud, you’re making an application as a single parent. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “There will be no father for Ricky?”

  Callie had a vision of Joseph playing the guitar while Ricky sat in his lap, but she quickly shut her mind to what might have been.

  “No, there will be no father. But I have a very close, very loving family. My own father is living, as is my mother. My brother and his wife and two boys live next door. I can assure you, Miss Rayborn, that Ricky will have the love and support of family at all times.”

  “Doctor, what I have to look at is the parent adopting the child, and in your case, the parent seeking adoption will not be available to the child much of the time.”

  Callie had heard all this before, but not from Ms. Rayborn. From her own mother: “Callie, you don’t have time to spend with your family. I know you love your work, but I hate to see it consume you.”

  Callie had never considered doing anything else—until now. Until she was faced with the prospect of losing Ricky.

  She hesitated only a moment before responding to Jenine’s argument.

  “What if I told you that I am considering leaving the field of virology and taking up practice with my father in a small clinic in Apache Tribal Lands?”

  Could she really do it? Reason balked but the heart said yes.

  “I can only go by the facts. You are a virologist, you are in the field much of the time and you are at high risk.” Jenine shook her head. “I’m sorry, Dr. Red Cloud.”

  Defeat was galling to Callie, but this was more than merely not winning. This was a loss with such sweeping consequences that she didn’t even want to think about them right now.

  “Can I continue to see him?”

  “Yes. As long as he is a ward of the state. Afterward…well, that would be up to the family who adopts him.”

  Callie escaped to the bathroom to collect herself before her visit with Ricky. He would surely ask to go home with her.

  How do you tell a little child that the rules of a bureaucracy take precedence over the tenets of love?

  Callie thought immersing herself in work would ease the pain, but she was wrong. There was a deep dark void inside her, and nothing she did could fill it.

  Some days the emptiness was so bad she found herself actually wishing for another outbreak so she wouldn’t have time to think about anything except fighting a hot virus…and possibly teaming up again with Joseph.

  “Time for a break,” Peg said, interrupting her thought.

  Callie headed to the refrigerator for a cup of orange juice and Peg headed straight to the point.

  “Pour me one, too, then sit over here and talk.” She patted the sofa. “You’ve been miserable ever since we got back from Houston and I want to know why. And don’t you tell me it’s just fatigue or worry over your father, because I know better.”

  “If you know all the answers why did you ask the question?”

  “Because I want to hear you admit that you’re human like the rest of us.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I saw how it was with you and Joseph in Texas, and what’s this all about, you flying off to Houston every weekend?”

  “Ricky misses me
, and I miss him.”

  “Every weekend? Come on, Callie. I like Ricky, too, but don’t you think that’s excessive? Besides, you know the rules. Don’t get emotionally involved with patients.”

  “Ricky’s more than a patient to me.”

  “I see.” Peg was thoughtful for a moment. “And what about Joseph? Was he more than a colleague?”

  “No.”

  Peg snorted, and Callie jumped off the sofa.

  “All right. All right. He was. What does any of this matter? He’s in Italy and I’m in Atlanta, and as far as I’m concerned it’s over.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes,” Callie said, but she shook her head no.

  “Well, I guess that’s definitive.” Peg rinsed their glasses then put them in the dishwasher. “Mike’s grilling steaks this weekend. Want to come?”

  “Sorry. I can’t.”

  “Don’t tell me. You’re flying back to Houston.”

  Since coming back to Atlanta, Callie had retreated into a safe cocoon of silence. It was the only way she could handle her pain: pretend nothing had happened in Houston, pretend she had returned to work as she always did, her spirit high and her heart intact.

  Peg caught Callie’s hand. “You want to know something, Callie?”

  “What?”

  “When I first came to work at the center I thought you were some kind of deity. You’re so smart, so self-assured, so focused. I was in awe of you. Still am, sometimes.”

  She squeezed Callie’s hand. “Don’t shut me out, Callie. Let me be the kind of friend to you that you’ve been to me. Everybody needs somebody.”

  Sometimes, Callie thought, a truth will hit you with such force you wonder why you never thought of it before.

  “Thanks, Peg,” she said.

  “For what? I didn’t do anything yet.”

  Everybody needs somebody.

  “Yes, you did. I was going to Houston this weekend. I still am. But after that, I’m going home. I need some time to think about a lot of things.”

  “Good girl. I’m sure Ron will approve. He’s been worried about you, too.” Peg cocked her head to study Callie. “Will you be back?”

  Would she? Callie told her friend the truth.

  “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The only reason he was flying back to America was to see Ricky. That’s what Joseph kept telling himself.

  “Liar,” his mind whispered. Callie had been with him every waking moment since he left Texas. Her face in every sunflower, her laughter in every breeze, her tears in every dewdrop. Nothing he did could obliterate her, and that astonished Joseph.

  Italy belonged to Maria. It was her homeland, the place where they had loved and lived, the place where she was buried.

  He’d visited her windswept grave the day before he left. The stone angel that kept watch had grown mossy, but the rosebush he’d planted was in full bloom.

  As he knelt in the soft earth he’d expected the old pain, the old guilt, the old rage. Instead he felt a lurching inside himself, a lifting, a letting go.

  “Goodbye, Maria,” he whispered.

  A white dove flew down from the ancient tiled roof of the nearby church, then perched in the rosebush and murmured to him with soft throaty sounds. Though the air had been perfectly still moments earlier, a breeze brushed against his cheek and whispered in his ear.

  Maria was giving her blessing.

  Joseph had smiled, and he was smiling still when his plane landed in Houston.

  The second thing he noticed, the thing that ripped his heart, was the forlorn quality of the little boy. Ricky had always been an exuberant child, even after he was orphaned.

  “Ricky.” The little boy looked up. “Surprise.”

  Joseph expected a quick rush across the room, then a bear hug. Instead Ricky flashed a big grin that quickly faded.

  “Hi, Joe.”

  “Is that all I get?” Joseph sat on the edge of the bed and draped his arm around the thin shoulders. “Just a plain old hi.”

  Ricky cocked his head, studying Joseph solemnly. “You want to see my bear? Callie gave it go me.”

  He pulled a bedraggled and well-loved plush teddy bear from underneath his pillow. “See. I call him Homer.”

  “That’s a good name.”

  “Homer can run fast.” Ricky raced around the room with his teddy bear to demonstrate, then hopped back onto the bed.

  “He can really run. Maybe he’ll grow up to be a long-distance sprinter.”

  “I got a splinter once. Callie took it out.” Ricky cocked his head to study Joseph. “She comes to see me every Saturday.” Every cell in Joseph’s body went on alert. “Why don’t you come every Saturday?”

  “It’s a long way to Italy. Even on the plane.”

  “Callie flies from Atlanta. She told me.” Ricky stuck out his chin, not giving an inch. “She loves me.”

  “I love you, too, pal.”

  “The Smiths don’t love me.”

  Joseph listened as if Jenine Rayborn hadn’t already told him about her first attempt to find parents for Ricky.

  “I’m sure they love you, it just takes some people longer to show it, that’s all.”

  “No, they don’t ’cause I poured ink on Miz Smith’s white rug. She screamed and Miss Rayborn took me away.”

  Ricky made his announcement without sentiment, but Joseph read between the lines—a little boy, feeling abandoned and unloved, defying the rules that made him a ward of the state any way he knew how.

  Reluctant to leave this child of his heart, he stayed until bedtime, and by then Ricky’s naturally sunny nature had returned. In spades. He demanded good-night kisses and hugs and three bedtimes stories.

  When he left, Ricky was drifting asleep. Joseph hurried toward the office and found Jenine Rayborn still there. For once the fates were smiling on him.

  “Did you have a good visit?” she asked.

  “Yes. He told me Callie always visits on Saturday.”

  All the unspoken questions were in his face. Where is she? What time does she come? Will I see her if I wait?

  “Every Saturday, like clockwork. Except that awful weekend he was with the Smiths, of course.”

  Joseph stood in the doorway, waiting, waiting.

  “Oh…she’s already been here.” Jenine checked her records. “This morning, as a matter of fact. She didn’t stay as long today, said she had to catch a plane to Tucson.”

  Callie had just finished her dinner of fish caught straight from the stream beside her tent and a potato baked on the coals of her fire. Yawning she leaned back against a cypress tree and stretched her moccasined feet toward the warmth of the blaze. It was chilly in the mountains at night.

  In the distance an owl hooted, and from the underbrush nearby came the scurrying sounds of small night creatures hurrying about their business. Overhead the stars were brilliant in a sky as deep and dark as velvet.

  Peace. That was exactly what she needed. Peace and a time to heal.

  The mountains did that to a person. Was it only yesterday she’d made her camp up here? It seemed like weeks. Serious thinking would come later, she knew, but for now she was letting herself flow with the universe, letting go, letting herself embrace each moment and enjoy it to the fullest.

  Callie closed her eyes, listening to the murmur of the brook and the soft soughing of the wind in the trees. Suddenly the tranquility was shattered by an eruption of sound—hooves thundering, branches snapping, earth shaking.

  “What on earth?” Callie jumped up just as one of her father’s stallion’s came crashing into the campsite.

  “Thunderbolt! What are you doing here?”

  The stallion tossed his head and whinnied. Callie eased in close and took his bridle. Her dad had never lost his seat on a horse, and yet why else would Thunderbolt be at her camp? Ellen would never attempt to ride him, preferring instead her staid and steady mare. Eric had his own mount.

  Callie rubbed his m
uzzle. “What’s up boy? What’s wrong with you?”

  “You’re giving comfort to the wrong animal.”

  At the sound of that familiar voice, Callie whirled around, and there was Joseph, disheveled and panting. Her heart took wings, and she dared reason to clip them.

  “You were the one on this horse?”

  “Don’t you dare laugh, Callie Red Cloud.”

  How could she help it? She’d thought she might never see Joseph again, and yet there he was, standing in the middle of the White Mountains, six feet away from her campfire.

  There were a dozen questions she wanted to ask him—why he was here, how did he find her, what were his plans—but that would come later. He was here, and that was all that mattered.

  “I’ve never heard of an Indian who can’t keep his seat on a horse,” she said.

  “That animal is not a horse, he’s a demon. I think your father lent him to me on purpose.”

  Joseph’s hair had grown longer since she’d seen him. She liked him that way. It made him look even sexier than he had in Texas, and every inch Sioux.

  He was still standing across the clearing, and in the blaze from the campfire he looked like some rugged and glorious god, hell-bent on a dangerous quest.

  Callie flicked her tongue over lips suddenly gone dry.

  “And what would that purpose be?”

  The look Joseph gave her sent shivers down her spine.

  “To keep me from doing what I’m planning on doing with his daughter.”

  His black eyes challenged, but Callie wasn’t about to back down.

  “And what is that?” she said.

  “Make beautiful music.”

  Every atom in her body cried out for him. Her hands tightened on the stallion’s reins.

  “Then I hope you brought your guitar.”

  Joseph’s smile was slow and easy, predatory in a way she’d never seen.

  Perhaps it was the setting, perhaps it was the mood, perhaps it was lust, pure and simple. Whatever the reason, Callie accepted the inevitable. No, welcomed it.

  “I don’t need a guitar for the kind of music I have in mind,” he said.

  Joseph stalked her, and what she saw in his eyes was pure magic.