His brow crinkled in the middle. For a moment, he genuinely looked as though he felt badly for keeping her awake. Not bad enough, apparently, because his only response was, “Better make a full pot.”
Chapter 2
After waiting in painfullyawkward silence for the coffee pot to fill, Olivia and Jake sat at opposite ends of her oval-shaped oak table.
Olivia inhaled deeply, the smell of freshly-roasted coffee beans somewhat soothing as she tried to decide where to start. Her life had become such a train wreck lately, it was hard to choose.
As if reading her thoughts, Jake said, “Why don’t you start with why you left Dallas.”
She wrapped her fingers around the porcelain mug, absorbing its heat. “What I said about the reporters was true. After you left...”
She paused, literally biting her tongue to keep from ripping into him about thewayhe’d left. She cleared her throat and tried again.
“After the Homeland agents were done questioning me about what happened in Madagascar and then...after, I was placed under their protection for a few days. As soon as I could, I went back to my apartment, except it wasn’tmyapartment anymore.”
Her eyes rose to find his, and she gave him a sad smile. “Turns out when your landlord thinks you’re dead, he doesn’t tend to keep your place waiting for you.”
Jake didn’t smile back like she’d hoped, so she kept going. “But, he had another unit available with the exact same setup as mine. Thankfully, he’d boxed all my stuff up and put it in storage.” When Jake looked at her questioningly, she explained, “He said he thought maybe a family member or a”—she broke eye contact again—“uh, boyfriend or someone would eventually come by for it.”
“That was nice of him.”
She nodded and stared at the dark, steaming liquid in her cup. “Yeah. Of course, there was no one to get it, so it was just there, waiting for me to pick it up and start over.”
Olivia looked across the table at him, but he glanced away. Her little dig had hit its mark.Good.
A few seconds of silence crept by before Olivia went on. “Anyway, he helped me move my stuff into the new apartment, and I went back to work at Dallas Regional. It was almost like I’d never left.”
“Except you had.”
She glanced up again, surprised to find understanding in his eyes. “Yeah. I had. And I was reminded of it every time I turned around. I couldn’t work on a patient without either them or their friends or family members recognizing me. Even the staff at the hospital that I’d worked with for years couldn’t help themselves. I was constantly bombarded with questions, and when they weren’t actually asking me about what happened, I’d find them staring at me.”
Olivia knew they didn’t mean to, but everyone there made her feel like a freak show. “All I wanted to do was take care of my patients,” she mumbled more to herself than Jake. Then, she added, “The few girlfriends I occasionally hung out with were even worse. They constantly treated me like they were waiting for me to break or something, you know?”
Jake nodded with sympathy. “So, you moved.”
“Not at first. I thought it would die down. I mean, it had only been a week at that point, so I figured they’d all lose interest. Then, the reporters found out I was still living in the city and had returned to the same hospital I’d worked at before. They started hounding me. I couldn’t leave my apartment or the ER without a camera or microphone being shoved into my face.”
