To Play With Fire

Sitting in the dust outside their house, Marcos carefully sorted through the load his dad had brought home yesterday. Plastics here. Metals here... Careful, don’t get cut. A rusty cabinet he and his brother had to drag over to the pile. Marcos had already snuck the screwdriver out of his father’s backpack, so he could try to take the cabinet apart.

He had to do as much as possible before Papai came home, because it made something in Marcos’s chest hurt to see his dad’s hands shake as he tried to fit the tool into the screws—and the scared look he’d gotten on his face when he hadn’t been able to.

“Watch your brother.” His father’s words had rung in his ears that morning, just as they had every morning since he’d seen his mom in that funny box. His dad had looked real scared that day, too. Marcos had just felt sad and hungry.

So he kept watching Lucas, while moving things from one stack to another. His brother was dragging a stick through the dirt, his feet almost black. Marcos frowned. Where were his flip-flops? There were lots of sharp things out here. But Lucas never listened. No matter how many times Marcos told him. He stomped over to his brother and kicked off his own shoes and pointed at them.

Lucas’s lips got skinny, but he stuck his feet into the shoes. He was mad. Marcos didn’t care. It was his job to make sure Lucas didn’t get hurt.

And now he had to make sure his dad didn’t get hurt, either.

“We have to hurry.” He glanced at the sun, which wasn’t as bright any more. “Papai will be home soon.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do. I heard you today. You said the same thing I did.”

“Did not!” Lucas picked up a plastic drink bottle and threw it as hard as he could across the yard.

Marcos didn’t argue with him. But before his dad had left this morning Marcos had told him he was going to be a doctor when he grew up, so he could make him all better.

Lucas’s head had bobbed up and down. “Me, too. I’m going to be the best doctor in the whole world.”

Papai had blinked his eyes several times and then turned away like he didn’t believe them. But he would see. Marcos would make himself smart. Then his dad would stop shaking, and that scared look would go away.

The sound of hands clapping three times outside made them both freeze. Papai never clapped to get in. Only visitors did that.

Marcos snuck over to the tall fence and peeked between the cracks in the boards. It wasn’t Papai. It was a man in a grey uniform. “Polícia,” he whispered.

He started to shake. Just like his dad.

Then the policeman squatted down and peered through the fence, staring right at him...

CHAPTER ONE

HE COULD HAVE heard a pin drop.

Dr. Marcos Pinheiro began the slow, rhythmic countdown in his head as he waited for the patient on the other side of his desk to react.

Her hands slowly tightened on the armrests of the white leather chair.

One...two...three...four...fi—

“N-no more tumor? Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Your latest CT scan came back all clear. No signs of regrowth on your pituitary, graças a Deus. And your hormone levels are back within the normal range.”

He kept his voice low and soothing, knowing she’d braced herself for bad news and was now struggling to process the fact that her worst fears were not going to be realized.

“Graças a Deus,” she repeated, making a quick sign of the cross over her chest.

Fifty-nine years old, with two children and three grandchildren, Graciela Abrigo might have been any number of patients he’d seen over the last several weeks. But she wasn’t. And his little invocation of thanking God wasn’t one he often made—especially not when talking to his patients.

But Graciela was special. She’d worked in the orphanage where Marcos had grown up—had put up with a lot of crap and acting out from him when his brother had been ripped from his side and adopted by some nameless family. He could still see the flash of fear in Lucas’s young eyes.

“Watch your brother.”

Bile rose, and he swallowed hard to rid himself of the taste.

He still didn’t know what had happened to Lucas. No one by that name had shown up on any of Brazil’s registries that he could find—then again, he probably had a new last name now.

But Graciela had assured him that the couple who had come for his brother had been nice. Kind. She’d seen it in their eyes. Lucas would have had a good home. “Graças a Deus,” she’d murmured, in a voice much like the one she’d just used.

As kind as this mysterious couple had supposedly been, they hadn’t wanted Marcos. Hadn’t seemed to care that they’d separated brothers who had still been reeling from their father’s death six months after the fact.

He shook himself free of the anger that still had the power to wind around his gut and jettison him twenty-nine years into the past.

It was over. Those years were long gone.

Forcing a smile, he stood and rounded the desk. Graciela had been there for him when no one else had. And he was glad he’d been able to play a small part in doing something for her in return.

Because Marcos Pinheiro always repaid his debts.

And he always kept his promises.

Graciela stood as well and embraced him, cupping his cheeks and kissing his right one in customary São Paulo fashion.

The click of the door opening behind him sounded just as she said, “I have to get back to the home. Thank you, Markinho. For everything.”

His smile this time was genuine, even as he tried not to wince at her use of his childhood nickname. “I haven’t heard that in ages.”

“Then it is time. You will always be little Markinho to me.”

Turning to walk her to the door, the smile died on his lips when he saw who’d come into his office.

Ah, hell.

His mind blanked out all thoughts of Lucas and the past. Hopefully she hadn’t heard Graciela’s parting shot.

Because Markinho was not the image he wanted to project to those working under him. Especially not to a certain fiery-haired American who’d been “under” him in more ways than one. Actually, she’d been on top, if he wanted to get really technical about it.

Which he didn’t. All he wanted to do was forget it had ever happened.

He saw his patient out and then slowly shut the door, turning to lean against it.

Dr. Maggie Pfeiffer. All long legs, luscious curves...and cool, collected efficiency.

“Posso te ajudar?” Marcos spoke English fluently, having made it a point to drill it ruthlessly into his head as he’d attended med school, knowing it was a necessity in today’s medical fields. But he chose to address Maggie in Portuguese—though she still struggled at times with the language, even after six months at the hospital.