Accidentally Yours

“I don’t want a second chance. I want to be left alone.” He stood and walked into the lab, the one place he could lose himself in his theories and find peace.

“It’s not going to happen,” she said. “You have to look at the résumés and choose the best people for the research. Time is precious. Children are sick.”

He didn’t ever think about the children. Not thinking about them allowed him to go through the slow, methodical process that led to discoveries. He didn’t hurry, he didn’t push. He went one step at a time, as he should, following promising leads when they appeared, but always returning to the original premise.

“I can’t do this again,” he told her, sitting at his computer, staring at a blank screen. “You can’t ask me to.”

“What are you talking about? You always said that with just a little more funding, you could find a way to control the disease.”

“That was before.” Before the nightmare that had ruined everything.

“Nothing bad is going to happen,” she assured him.

He turned on her. “Do you remember? Do you remember the explosion, the fire? People died. Good people died. Everything was destroyed. We were left with nothing and now the town is dying, too, and I can’t stop it. I won’t do it again. I won’t take the risk.”

She walked toward him. “Abram, no. You can’t mean that. You have the money. You need to find a cure.”

“At what price? I killed them, Linda. Me. I’m supposed to heal people, to make the world better, but I didn’t. I put off the repairs and in the end, they were dead. I won’t destroy anyone else. I will live out here, doing my work and when I’m gone someone else can take the money and continue.”

“No,” she said firmly. “You’ll do it. No one blames you for what happened. But you have to move forward. If you don’t, more children will die. Don’t you think the people who lost their lives would want you to continue?”

He stared at her. “No, they wouldn’t.”

“You’re wrong.”

He turned away. “It doesn’t matter. I want you to send them all away. Return the money, if you can. Otherwise, leave it for whoever comes after me.”

He reached for his lab coat, but before he could slip it on, he heard her say, “No.”

He glanced at her. His usually calm, pleasant assistant stared at him with a look of fury in her eyes. Abram wasn’t one to guess at other people’s emotions—when he tried he usually got it wrong. His ex-wife had said it was because he didn’t care enough to pay attention and she’d mostly been right. But there was no escaping Linda’s rage as she glared at him.

“You can’t refuse to do this,” she said.

“I already have.”

“No.”

“Tell them to take back the money.”

“Tell them yourself.”

“What?”

She’d never spoken back to him before. Never been anything but supportive.

“Tell them yourself, you selfish bastard. This is wrong, Abram. It’s bone wrong and you know it. You’re brilliant and with that great mind comes an obligation to the world. You have always believed that. God has expectations. Isn’t that what you said?”

“This is different,” he muttered, feeling strangely small and embarrassed.

“It’s exactly the same and you know it. I won’t be part of this.” She raised her hands and let them fall back to her sides. “I can’t believe it. I’ve given my life to you because I believed in your greatness, but you’re just afraid. You’re terrified to lose again, so you’ve stopped trying. You’re not a great man. Greatness is measured by how one faces adversity. Everyone can be committed when things are going well. I’m so ashamed of you right now. I expected better of you, Abram. So much better.”

And then she was gone. With her stinging words still echoing in the lab, she walked away from him. Something, in the twenty years they’d been together, she’d never done.

She would be back, he told himself. Of course she would. Linda took her obligations seriously. She cared about him. She’d always been there for him. He couldn’t imagine a world without her.

Determined to wait her out, he settled down in front of his computer to study the results of his latest experiment. He believed in his gut that the disease was a defective autoimmune response. If he could isolate the…

He pushed away from the computer. It was too quiet. The silence seemed a living thing that pressed down upon him, pulling the air from his chest.

He usually enjoyed the quiet, but that was before. When he knew Linda would be in her office, or showing up later. Before she’d said he was nothing and that she was ashamed of him.

He tried to tell himself she didn’t mean it, but he wasn’t sure. And with that quiet doubt came unexpected pain.

“YOUR TWO-O’CLOCK IS HERE,” Nathan’s secretary told him.

“Send him in,” Nathan said, then regretted the invitation when Grant Pryor walked into the office.

Nathan leaned back in his chair and studied the man. “And here I thought I had an appointment with a reporter.”

Grant crossed the room and sank down into one of the leather chairs without being asked. He was short and balding, pushing forty, with a forgettable face. He worked for the Seattle tabloid that passed itself off as an independent press. In truth, the rag was nothing more than an excuse for poor journalism. Grant Pryor had joined their staff about five years ago and had decided that Nathan King was his ticket to the big time. He made it a point to cover Nathan’s doings, always putting a spin on them that made Nathan look like the devil trying to destroy the fair and innocent citizens of the Emerald City.

“I was at the charity event on Saturday,” Grant said. “Always a good time. I saw the lady you were with.” He consulted his notes. “Kerri Sullivan. Not your usual type.”

“Maybe I’m stepping up to the next level.”

“We all know that’s unlikely,” Grant said. He pulled a pen out of his inner jacket pocket. “So who is she? I mean, you can tell me now and save me the research. Not that I expect you to do me any favors.”

“Kerri and I are friends.”

“Bullshit. You, friends with a hairdresser from Songwood? No way.”

Grant had a point, but Nathan wasn’t going to concede it. “Have you ever stopped to consider that in all the years you’ve been doing stories on me, you’ve never found anything out of the ordinary? I’m just a businessman, Grant. Nothing more.”

Grant ignored that. “So what’s the deal with her? You’re workin’ something. I just have to figure out what it is.”

Nathan wished briefly for a legal system that made it easier to get a restraining order against the press. But as Grant hadn’t committed any crimes, Nathan was left with the pain in his ass and little he could do about it.

“No matter how hard you try,” he said, “you’ll never get into real journalism. Not now. You’ve been a hack for too long. The New York Times won’t come calling.”

“That depends on what you’re hiding.”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

Grant stood and grinned. “That’s what they all say. But none of them are telling the truth. Neither are you, Nathan, and I’m going to find out what’s really going on.”

KERRI HUMMED as she dropped spoonfuls of chocolate-chip batter onto the baking sheet. She always tried to be a positive person, but these days it was actually easy. For once, everything was going well.