Clinch (The Underground Book 2) (13 page)

He chuckled. “If you call five hours at the gym lifting weights and punching both humans and heavy bags napping, then yep, that’s what I did.”

She leaned back in her chair and tapped a finger on her desk, tipping her head to one side.

“What?”

“Would you mind if I took a blood sample from you?”

He stiffened long enough for her to notice. Righting himself, he turned around to wander back and forth in her small office. The carpet was old, worn, green Berber. The furniture consisted of mismatched pieces—a second-hand desk and bookshelf that didn’t go together at all. But they were cheap, and inexpensive was her motto in the clinic.

“You got Mikhail’s results back already, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “The lab did a rapid antibody detection test for me. I had it back by noon.” She glanced at her watch. “My guy could probably do yours within a few hours too. It’s only two o’clock.”

“Tell me what you found in Dmitry and Mikhail,” he finally said, wrapping his hands around the back of the fiberglass chair on the other side of her desk—the one she used for guests, though no one would stay long in her office sitting on that uncomfortable rickety olive-green contraption. The crappy love seat along the side wall wasn’t much better. Anything nicer wouldn’t fit in her budget.

She hesitated. Of course she had to tell him. No one in their right mind would want to be her guinea pig without knowing what they were up against. In fact, between patients, she’d spent the better part of the day trying to decide how much she wanted to divulge.

Not that she had secrets. Just that she didn’t want him to freak out.

So, she decided to give him a few crumbs and then divulge more after she saw his blood work. He deserved to know everything about himself. The other two men fell under a certain amount of patient privacy. “I can’t talk about their blood work without their permission.” She shrugged. “I was just surprised at some similarities, particularly the presence of antibodies for childhood illnesses I don’t often see.”

Never, actually. But he didn’t need to know that.

Leo stared at her for several moments. “Fine. Under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You tell me everything you find, and you don’t share the details with anyone. Not even your friend the scientist. Ted, or whatever his name is.”

Hmmm. Did it matter? She decided she could talk him into giving up the results later if it seemed necessary. For the moment, she was more curious than anything else. “Christianson. And you have a deal.”

He lifted a brow. “No one. Don’t even mention you ever took my blood.”

“Got it. Swear.” She pushed back from her chair and led him down the short hall to one of the exam rooms.

Without a word, he sat on a chair, rolled up his sleeve, and offered her the vein on the inside of his arm.

She was quick, tapping the vein a few times and then inserting the needle. Moments later, she had two vials of his blood and pasted a smile on her face. “You do realize besides Dr. Christianson, my lab guy has also seen these results.”

He grimaced. “Right. Didn’t think of that. Can he keep anything he’s seen to himself?”

“Stuart certainly can’t talk about labs with other people if that’s what you mean. It’s against the law.”

“Still, would you reiterate this to him?”

“Of course.” He followed close on her heels as she made her way to the back room at the end of the hall to her office. She picked up her phone and called the lab.

Stuart answered on the first ring. “Katie. S’up? Don’t tell me you have another ridiculous blood sample.” He chuckled. “I’m still trying to shake the heebie jeebies from the last one.”

“Actually, I do.”

“No shit? I was kidding. I mean the one you sent me six months ago made no sense, so I had to agree with you that something was wrong with the sample. But two more like it in the same day?” His voice rose.

“Yeah, and I need you to keep this information to yourself. It’s important.”

“Katie, you know you don’t have to ask that.” He sounded a little offended.

“I know.”

“I’m curious. I’ll send someone over to grab it from you. He’ll be there in ten. I’ll call you back in a few hours.”

“Thanks, Stuart. I totally owe you one.”

“Nah. You don’t, but I sure wouldn’t mind knowing what this is all about if you ever have the freedom to discuss it.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He chuckled. “Got a few patient waivers around the office that allow you to discuss medical conditions with lab techs?” he teased.

She forced a chuckle. “No.”

“Anyway, my guy’s already on his way. I’ll have to live with the curiosity, I guess.” He ended the call.

Katie lifted her gaze to Leo. “Guy’s on his way to pick it up. It’ll only take a few hours.”

Leo nodded.

»»•««

It was five o’clock when Stuart finally called.

Leo had paced a hole in Katie’s carpet, driving her bonkers while she finished up paperwork in her office and filed patient data from the day.

She opened her email to read the results after hanging up with Stuart.

Damn. Unbelievable.

Finally she leaned back and met Leo’s gaze.

Leo stopped pacing and crossed his arms. He was nervous. “Talk to me.”

“Do you remember being sick as a child?”

He shrugged. “Not really. Considering I lived in an orphanage, I was surprisingly healthy.”

“I mean really sick. Really
really
sick.”

He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his gaze. “No. Not that I’m aware of.”

“Oh, you would know. In fact, according to the blood work, you should have been deathly ill a number of times. That and the fact that you must be about a hundred years old, considering the number of unlikely or extinct viruses you’ve had.”

“Pardon?”

She sighed. “Whenever someone gets sick or receives an immunization, their body makes antibodies to protect them from contracting that same strain again. You and your friends have antibodies in your blood from diseases you couldn’t have either contracted or been immunized for. Smallpox is the most absurd. The last known case was in 1977. What year were you born?”

“Eight-four.”

She shook her head. “It makes no sense. And polio? It hasn’t been eradicated yet, but it’s rare, and there haven’t been many documented cases where you were raised since before 1984.” She turned off the computer.

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea. I’ve been wracking my brain for hours. I shouldn’t be speaking to you about other patients, but at this point we’re way past that. When I saw similar results six months ago in Dmitry’s blood work, I thought I’d lost my marbles. I assumed my machine was broken or the blood had been tainted. I even had two samples, the one from the night he came in and the one from the next morning. Same results.

“With no explanation and no similar results from anyone else, I put the findings away and put it out of my mind.” She pushed herself to standing and rounded the desk to sit on the front edge, facing him. “Honestly, I was embarrassed to show the slides to anyone out of fear I would lose my license if I made such a grievous mistake.

“Then you come in here with Mikhail, and, well, obviously I found the same results in his blood work.” She winced.

Leo swallowed hard and glanced at the floor. “What made you think to take a sample of his blood in the first place?”

She sighed. No sense holding back any information. “His ribs, actually. When you brought me Dmitry with a kidney injury, saying it was originally twelve days old, I thought you all had lost your minds. It was too far healed for that.

“Again, I assumed he’d been injured far longer than he claimed and put it out of my mind. But this time, with Mikhail, I’m stumped. I was
there
last night.” She leaned toward him, her hands on her thighs, her brain hurting from the absurdity of this entire situation. “I saw him fight with my own eyes. He didn’t have broken ribs when he started that fight.” She shook her head. “Not a chance in hell.

“And even if he did, he couldn’t have had four of them. Four…cracked…ribs… No one can fight like that. Not even you super-human Russians.” She sucked in a sharp breath at the end of her choice of words.

“Super human, huh?” Dmitry’s eyes were narrowed. His face was flushed.

She couldn’t blame him. “Seems like it. Those ribs were already healing after only six hours. Not possible.”

“So what do you think?”

“I don’t have a clue.” She reach a hand up and ran it through her hair, dislodging the curls and letting them fall through her fingers. “That’s why I called Ted and sent him Stuart’s results. He’s good with diseases. Even eradicated ones. He’ll know what he’s looking at. It’s not my specialty. All I can say is I hope he figures out what the hell it all means and sets me straight so I can sleep.”

Leo released his crossed arms and held them open to her. “Come here.”

She slid off the desk, closed the distance between them, and let him wrap her in his embrace, tucking her against his chest. He threaded his fingers in her hair just as she had and held her tight. “It’s going to be fine,” he said against the top of her head. “I’m sure your guy will have an explanation.”

“I hope so, because the thought of you enduring so many rare diseases as a small boy makes me physically ill.”

“I promise you I didn’t ever have smallpox or polio. Not in my memorable past, at least. If I suffered from some virus before I was a toddler, I suppose I could have forgotten it. But no one ever mentioned such a thing to me.”

She had another thought and tipped her head back to look him in the eye. “Do you remember if any of the other kids at the orphanage were sick or died when you were there?”

He shook his head. “Nope.” He kissed her forehead. “You have to be exhausted. Let’s get you upstairs. You need food and sleep.”

“What about you?” she asked as they turned to leave her office.

“What about me?”

“You got just as much sleep as me.”

He chuckled. “I was napping all day, remember? I’m so refreshed now. Which is perfect.”

“Why?”

“Because now I have the energy to wear you completely out with my tongue to ensure you sleep like a baby tonight.”

She stopped walking and jumped back a few steps to put some distance between them. “No way.” She held out both hands. If he thought she had the energy to go another round with him, he was crazier than she imagined.

He chuckled. “We’ll see.”

“Don’t you need to be somewhere this evening? Like the gym or something? You must work out like eight hours a day to maintain that body of yours. You weren’t gone long enough this afternoon to get all that in.” She let her gaze freely roam up and down his frame. Now that she’d had sex with him, she didn’t see the need to pretend he wasn’t the very male specimen of perfection and hide her admiration.

He shook his head. “I think I’m good. Already been back to my apartment and showered too. I even brought you dinner. And—” he wiggled his fingers in front of him, “—if you’re good, you might get a massage out of the deal.”

She widened her eyes. “A massage?” That sounded amazing. When was the last time she’d gotten a massage?

“Hey, I’m not claiming to be an expert, but I owe you one for taking care of my friends for me, especially at the crack of dawn.”

“You don’t owe me anything, you know.” She followed him when he backed down the hall toward the stairs that led up to her apartment.

He shrugged.

Food sounded wonderful too. She didn’t care what it was he brought. Hell, at this point she didn’t care if it was even hot. She was starving. Her stomach growled as she walked. She hadn’t eaten more than a protein bar and an energy drink since starting her day way too early.

In the back of her mind, she realized she shouldn’t be so eager to spend another evening with Leo Gulin. Would he stay overnight again? Was she ready for that?

For all intents and purposes, they’d only crossed into this new relationship territory last night. Late last night. Wasn’t it too soon to spend every waking moment with him?

Probably, but she didn’t have the energy to send him away. And besides, she rather liked his company.

When they reached the top of the stairs, her phone rang in her pocket. She took it out to see who the caller was.

Marshall Pierce.

She rolled her eyes. The man was relentless. No matter how many times she told him it was over between them, he wouldn’t stop. She ignored the call and put the phone back in her pocket.

She was certain either her parents or his were at fault—or probably both—but that didn’t change the fact that he was an asshole who only wanted her for the prestige she could bring to the union. In fact, that was all her mother wanted too.

Six months ago, she’d been a bit more compliant about the arrangement. Hell, the night they’d gone to Dmitry’s fight, she’d all but talked herself into giving the asshole a chance. But that was before she fully understood where she ranked on his priority list—way beneath that damn fight and the money he had bet. She still had no idea what kind of winnings he made off the fight, and she shuddered to consider how much it might have been, but two things happened that night.

One, she’d seen Marshall’s true colors.

And two, she’d set her eyes on the pure male figure that was the polar opposite of Marshall Pierce.

Now, when she thought back to six months ago, she shuddered. What if she’d married that asshat and became the perfect wealthy wife he wanted her to be? She probably wouldn’t still be working in her clinic. That was for sure. Neither her parents nor Marshall’s thought it was becoming for a thirty-year-old woman to own and operate a free clinic.

It made her mother purse her lips every time the subject came up. Why? Because not only was Katie managing a free clinic, but she used her trust fund to get it up and running.

She was hardly broke, but to hear her mother speak of it, she’d run herself into the ground.

By now she also had a number of grants. And some of her patients could afford to pay their way. The operation still dipped into the enormous amount of money left to her by her maternal grandfather, but with less frequency each year.