“But the fever?—”
“Is 38.3. High, but not emergency room high.”
He stared at me like I’d suggested we ignore a fire alarm. “Are you mad? She’s burning up. Babies die from fevers.”
“Neglected fevers. We’re not neglecting anything.”
“Then why is she so hot?”
“Because they spike fevers fast. It’s what they do.” I shifted Hazel in my arms, trying to project calm while guilt gnawed at my insides and something warm and terrifying bloomed in my chest watching Griffin fall apart over his daughter. “Let’s call a doctor first. Someone who can come here.”
Griffin ran both hands through his hair, his fingers visibly shaking. He was coming apart at the seams, and it was the most attractive thing I’d ever seen.
Christ. What was wrong with me?
“What if we wait too long? What if by the time they get here, she’s?—”
“She won’t be.”
“You don’t know that.”
He was right. I didn’t know that. But one of us had to stay rational, and Griffin looked about two seconds from scooping Hazel up and sprinting to the nearest emergency room.
“Look at her,” I said, my voice gentle. “She’s fussy, but she’s alert. She’s not lethargic. She’s not vomiting.”
Griffin crouched beside me, studying Hazel’s face with the intensity he usually reserved for telemetry data.
“But what if?—”
“No what-ifs. Just facts.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt. “High fever, some fussiness, but she’s responsive. That’s manageable.”
“She’s two months old and burning up in a foreign country.” His voice pitched higher, and I had the ridiculous urge to smooth the lines from his forehead. “Nothing about this is manageable.”
“Griffin, breathe.”
“Don’t tell me to breathe. My daughter is sick.”
A lump formed in my throat at the way he said “my daughter” with such fierce love. Julian had never sounded like this about anything, least of all me. Had never looked at me with this kind of protective devotion.
What would it be like to have Griffin look at our children this way? To know that no matter what happened, he would fight the entire world to keep them safe?
Our children.
Where the hell had that come from?
I pushed it away before it could take root, but the damage was done. The image lingered, Griffin cradling a baby with my dark hair and his green eyes, looking at them with this same fierce devotion.
“I know. Which is why we’re going to handle this properly.” I reached for his phone, my fingers brushing his palm. The contact sent sparks up my arm. “You have the Aedris medical team’s number?”
“Why?”
“They’ll know someone good who makes house calls.”
Griffin’s hands were shaking as he scrolled through his contacts. While he paced and talked to a doctor, I took note of the tension in his shoulders, the way he kept glancing at Hazel like he was afraid she might disappear.
“She’ll be here in twenty minutes,” Griffin said, hanging up.
“See? Twenty minutes. We can handle twenty minutes.”
