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But he remembered what it was like to be an invalid. To be lying in bed with people waiting on him and asking every few minutes how he was feeling. He knew how it felt when your body wouldn’t cooperate and your mind was in overdrive. It was best to play along, get her off her feet, and give her something to focus on. “Every thirty minutes, you take a break. If you start feeling dizzy, sick to your stomach, or you experience blurry vision, you tell me immediately. I’ll get you comfortable at a cubicle and we can bring up your online calendar so you can reschedule your patients, but that’s all. Once you’re done with that, I’m putting you to bed. No arguments.”
She opened her mouth, snapped it shut. He could see the cogs in her head turning behind her glare as she weighed her options. “I’ll agree to your terms if you agree to mine.”
“Yeah?” She was going to regardless, but again, he had enough sense to play along and make herthinkshe was in charge. His experience leading a SEAL team had taught him a lot back in the day, and one of the best things he’d learned was to make every member feel valued and seen. A team was only as strong as its weakest link, and being in a group of elite warriors every bit as trained and intelligent as him, it had only made sense. Looking at the determined woman in front of him, he knew he needed to apply the same tactic.
“Yeah. Are you scared?”
Amelia had an equal amount of experience and intelligence in her field, and he needed to respect that she would tell him if she felt sick or needed rest. Yes, she would push herself to her limits, but she would finally admit when she couldn’t do anymore. “Of you? Please. What’s your condition?”
She pointed at his knee. “You take a break with me after every thirty minutes and we both put our feet up.”
Like that would be a hardship. Although his legs were trembling with exertion, he was enjoying the verbal sparring with her. “I’m fine and I don’t have a concussion.”
She moved faster than he could have anticipated, giving him the gentlest of shoves. While his core was strong from all the workouts he did, his legs couldn’t take the sudden shift, and his knee screamed in pain. He nearly toppled to the ground.
Thank God his reflexes were still decent. Dropping her suitcase, he shot out both hands and connected with the set of wooden cabinets running the length of the wall to keep from landing on his ass. He bumped the blinds and the stupid things banged into each other, causing a clatter. He cursed under his breath, hopping on his good leg and regaining his balance. “That’s cheating, Doc.”
She grinned, pointing a finger at him. “Not cheating. Proving a point. I know you hurt your knee the night of the attack, but you were walking pretty well earlier today. Now, you’re barely able to stay upright and you’re shuffling your feet when you walk. Did you re-injure yourself?”
“Nothing that won’t heal.” He turned away and hobbled to the desk Vivi usually occupied. “Have a seat.”
She was still awkward with the crutches, moving slow as he grabbed her suitcase to slide under the desk. “If you didn’t re-injure it, that means you’re overdoing it. We’ve made incredible strides at getting you on your feet, but it’s okay to admit you need rest.”
“Look who’s talking,” he mumbled. He received a jab in his side in response, and he nearly went down again. “Dammit, woman, would you quit doing that!”
She laughed at his outburst, her hand lifting to stroke his cheek in another unexpected move. “We are quite the pair, aren’t we?”
At her touch, he swallowed the sudden longing that rose in his throat. It had been a long, long time since anyone had done that. Looked at him like she was. He tried to speak, found that yearning trapping his words, and cleared his throat. Still, his voice came out rough. “Amelia, I…”
Her finger moved to his lips, silencing him. “Thank you for this.”
It left him speechless, the sudden rush of her so close, touching him, thanking him. He was lost in her soulful eyes and instinctively kissed her palm. The smile she gave him made his heart beat like a timpani under his ribs. The sound was so loud in his head, he wondered if she could hear it, too.
“I have one other request,” she said softly.
“Name it.”
But before she could, his phone rang with the tone reserved for Beatrice.
The moment gone; Amelia smiled ruefully. “You better answer that. I’ll poke around on here”—she pointed at the keyboard—“and pull up my planner.”
As his cell rang again, she wiggled herself into the chair and touched the keypad.
This time he swore mentally, gritting his teeth as he made his way to his desk. “Yeah,” he said into the phone.
“Sorry to interrupt your dinner, but we have a problem.” Beatrice didn’t wait for him to ask in regards to what. “Ian’s plane went down in Ohio. I’m sending you the coordinates. We don’t know how many, if any, survivors there are. I need to know who we have on the ground in that area and how fast they can get there to search for him.”
“Holy shit.” His insides turned to ice. Amelia glanced over as he sank into his chair, everything else put on hold. “Fucking kid better not die on me. I promised Vivi…”
“Get me that info,” Beatrice demanded before she cut the connection.
“What is it?” Amelia asked.
“The tadpole went and got himself fucked.” His fingers flew over his own keyboard as he checked the coordinates and found they led to a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. He brought up current assignments, the anger in his guts surfacing, if only to hold down his fear.
“Oh no.” She hobbled to his desk; crutches left behind. “Please tell me he isn’t dead.”
He punched in Beatrice’s number, cradling the handset between his cheek and shoulder as he accessed Ian’s SFI cell and saw the blinking dot. “Wait a minute,” he muttered, looking at the two maps.
