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She’d never do that. She just couldn’t even contemplate it. Even with her active imagination. Deep down, that just wasn’t her.
She wanted to win her place on his team fair and square. She’d probably have to be interviewed along with another ten members of staff. But she could do that.
No matter how much he was making her skin tingle, or how much her imagination went into overdrive. Donovan Reid was always professional at work. The last thing he’d be doing right now was having any erotic thoughts about her. Up until a few minutes ago he hadn’t even known she existed.
No. Donovan would be contemplating whatever substance the mystery powder was. Just like she should be doing.
Guilt flooded her. Where was her professional responsibility? What about her colleagues out there? It wasn’t just her that had been potentially exposed—it had been all of them. Her fingers clawed into her hair, scrubbing for all they were worth. What was the powder? Was it really something dangerous? Could it be an act of terrorism?
The DPA worked worldwide, often leading to some difficult conversations on a global level about their findings. Governments could often take offence when suggestions were made about their contribution to a disease outbreak. Her brain was going into overdrive. The DPA was a US institution. Everyone knew about the work that they did. Maybe someone had decided to make an example of them and hit them with one of the diseases they fought against.
She shuddered. She couldn’t help it. The seriousness of the situation was really coming home to her now.
‘Grace, are you okay?’ The voice came from behind her. Donovan had leaned forward, his head almost resting on her shoulder. The concern on his face made her catch her breath.
If she had to be exposed to something nasty, at least she had one of the best in her corner. No matter what he looked like, as a doctor he was brilliant.
She was in safe hands. Figuratively and literally.
* * *
‘Turn around,’ she said briskly to him. He snapped to attention, meeting her glare. There was no point in trying to pretend he hadn’t been staring.
‘What?’
She spun her index figures in circles. ‘Turn around, so I can do your back.’ Of course. She’d spoken to him as if he was an idiot. Which at this point he was.
Her eyes were fixed firmly on his. He could almost see the determination in her glare that she wouldn’t make the same mistake he just had and look in places she shouldn’t. That sent an immediate rush of blood through his system and he pivoted on his heels quickly.
No. This was work. This was an emergency situation. His body might be reacting with a rush of hormones but his brain wouldn’t let him go there.
Her hands scrubbed his back a little more roughly than required. He so wanted to lighten the moment, so wanted to quip, Wanna go lower? But Grace Barclay wouldn’t find it funny.
He started scrubbing his face to try and take his mind off the fact there was a very gorgeous, very curvaceous, naked brunette inches away from him. All his fantasies about a woman in the shower with him hadn’t started like this.
What could they just have been exposed to?
His brain flooded with possibilities. Anthrax, botulism, cholera, smallpox, bubonic plague. The list was pretty long. All high-priority agents that could be used in a bioterrorism attack. Easily spread and transmitted from person to person, with high death rates and the potential for spreading panic.
Some of his colleagues called him Worst-Case Don. And it was true. He always imagined the worst-case scenario in any situation. It was his mantra. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. It was what any doctor working at the DPA should do.
He looked back over to the wall. Steam was clouding the clock’s face so he strode across the tiled floor and wiped it clean with a towel.
‘Time’s up, Grace,’ he called, reaching for the switch to the showers. But she hadn’t heard. The showers around here didn’t halt automatically. No, they had some weird anomaly that meant for the final few seconds they turned icy cold. Everyone around here knew about it.
Half the fun of new recruits was letting them find out for themselves.
He picked up a towel and started rough-drying his legs, smiling as he heard the yelp behind him.
‘Yaoow!’
There was the padding of wet feet behind him and the noise of someone whipping a towel from the top of the pile on the bench.
‘You did that deliberately!’
He looked over his shoulder, vaguely aware that right now Grace Barclay had a prime time view of his bare backside. ‘I did not. I shouted to warn you. You obviously didn’t hear above the noise from the showers.’
‘Obviously.’ The word dripped with sarcasm.
He wrapped a towel around his waist. The immediate crisis was over; it was time to start handling a whole new one. He turned to face her.
Grace was holding the towel directly in front of her bare body. She hadn’t even had time to wrap it around herself. If someone came in the door behind her they would get an unholy view of Grace Barclay.
He pointed to the scrubs in the corner. ‘Get dressed. Someone should be along to let us know if the isolation room is ready.’
He pulled a set of navy scrubs over his head. Already the room seemed too small. Donovan didn’t do well in small spaces. Maybe it was the steam? Clouding his vision and taking up space. If the air-con had been working, this would have been gone in seconds.
There was a knock at the door. Through the glass he could see the outline of a hazmat suit. A face appeared at the door.
He breathed a sigh of relief. Frank, from the lab. He already spent most of his day in one of these suits. They’d probably just unplugged him, fastened him to an oxygen cylinder and sent him upstairs.
He signalled a thumbs-up. ‘Ready, Grace?’ She’d wound her hair in a wet knot at the nape of her neck and was wearing a pale green set of scrubs.
There. That was better. That was the sight he was used to—a colleague in a set of scrubs. Now he didn’t need to worry about his eyes wandering to places they shouldn’t.
She gave the slightest of nods. He paused for a second. He might be known as a brilliant doctor with an encyclopaedic knowledge, but his people skills were sometimes lacking. Should he have sat her down and given her a pep talk? She looked a little pale. Her hand was pressed against the wall as if to stop her body swaying.
But there was no time for pep talks. Donovan needed to be surrounded by colleagues who conducted themselves in a professional manner. There were things to do. Tests to be ordered. Clean-up precautions to be taken. Risk assessments made on the exposure of others. Chances were he’d be
stuck in an isolation room with Grace for hours—maybe days. There’d be plenty of time for pep talks later.
Her gaze met his. ‘Let’s go.’ Was she trying to convince herself or him?
He didn’t really have time to think about it, and if Grace Barclay was a potential member of his team she was going to have to be ready for anything.
He pulled open the door and gestured towards spacesuited Frank. ‘Then let’s go.’
* * *
Ninety minutes later Grace had been X-rayed and her bloods were being analysed in the lab. She was still in shock.
The negative pressure room was used frequently for training scenarios at the DPA. She’d been in it countless times—she’d just never expected to be a patient in one.
The glass walls reached from ceiling to floor, leaving every aspect of them on view to outside observers. The only part of the room that had any modicum of privacy was the screened-off bathroom and shower area. In the meantime, she and Donovan were prime viewing material to the rest of the department, who all seemed to be staring at them from outside.
People were scurrying around, huddled in conversations, talking on phones. All busy. All doing their jobs. Grace just wished she could be out there with them.
It was like being a goldfish in a bowl. A big bowl, with a shark circling inside.
Donovan didn’t seem to like being in isolation either. He hadn’t stopped talking since he’d got in here—talking about everything and anything. If she didn’t know better she’d have thought he was nervous or a bit agitated. But that didn’t fit with what she knew about Donovan Reid. The guy was practically a legend around here.
Last year he’d led work on an outbreak of West Nile virus, saving the lives of over a hundred people because of his rapid diagnostic skills. Then there had been the incident that had made the news the year before. Donovan had shown complete and utter self-control when dealing with a gunman who’d entered a hospital where the DPA was working. He’d managed to persuade the gunman to release some hostages and had eventually tackled and disarmed the guy himself. Donovan Reid was every schoolgirl’s hero. But it wasn’t helping her head. She pressed her fingers to her temples and started rotating them in small circles.
