Gray snatched the pad from the table and tore off the top sheet. He passed it to her, fingers brushing, pausing, heating, before he sank back into a chair to pull on his flight boots.
Slumping against the door frame, Lori read the numbers jotted in Gray's nearly illegible scrawl. She flipped the paper over and found nothing else jotted. "What's this?"
"Phone number for the Medical University Hospital."
"Are you doing rounds there?" She'd forgotten flight surgeons wore their uniforms even when acting as a doctor. A startling thought stopped her short. She looked down at the phone number. Did he want her to contact him? "Am I, uh, supposed to call you for something?"
"Nope." He tucked his squadron scarf along the neck of his flight suit. "That's the direct number to the nurses' station on Magda's floor."
The blood drained right from Lori's head to her bare toes. A dull ache throbbed inside her as she thought of the scene on the flight line. "Magda?"
"I followed up with the medical corps on base who logged them in last night. Magda was transported to the Medical University. She has pneumonia. I thought you would want to know."
He'd checked on Magda. Warmth pooled low in Lori's stomach. He could be so sweet sometimes. Then his words filtered through and chilled her. "Pneumonia?"
Gray jerked the laces on his boot taut. "Yeah."
"Poor little thing." Lori crossed her feet at the ankles, as if that might somehow ease the urge to race to the hospital. Reason battled some odd instinct within her to bolt out the door, anyway. "At least she has her sponsor family with her. It wouldn't be fair for me to disrupt her bonding with them."
Yanking the laces on his other boot with a vicious tug, he grunted.
"Gray?"
He pulled the legs of his flight suit down over the boots. "Gray?" Lori shoved away from the door to stand beside him. "She does have her sponsor family with her, doesn't she?"
His elbows thunked on the table. "No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"According to the nurse, Magda's back in the system. The couple slated to take her had tried for years to have a kid of their own. And wouldn't you know, the rabbit died while we were in the air. So now they don't need Magda anymore."
"Oh, my—" Lori bit back the need to rage at people who weren't even present. She would have given her eyeteeth for one child, and this couple tossed away the double blessing of two. "How did you find all this out?"
"Side benefit of having privileges there, and my signature is on her chart."
Lori paced around the kitchen, unable to dodge images of Magda's crying face. "I need to check in with the office to step up the search for another family so she'll have somewhere to go when she's released. I can't afford any glitches in placing these children. Neither can Magda." A scary flutter started in Lori's stomach. This kid was wriggling a little too close. Keep perspective. Don't lose objectivity. Lori ignored the warning. "I've got to go up there and see her."
"Of course you do."
"What?"
He tipped his chair on two legs, defensiveness warring with the cocky tilt of his beard-stubbled chin. "I can be through at the base and back here in a couple of hours, long enough for you to wash your other clothes, grab a nap, dry your hair, whatever. I can get you into her room. You'll learn a lot more with me along."
She stared across the kitchen into his eyes and found more of that defensiveness. She knew him too well.
Lori cupped his face in her hand. "Why can't you admit you want to see her, too?"
Defensiveness fled. A snap of anger replaced it, only to fade as quickly as it had fired. He grazed her shoulder with a knuckle, down her side, just beside her breast, bare and tight beneath her T-shirt. "And why can't you admit you still want me?"
His touch felt too good with only the thin barrier of well-washed cotton between them. His face felt too good in her hand, with barriers between them crumbling faster than she could rebuild.
She backed out of his reach. His hand dropped away as quickly as hers. She definitely knew him too well. "Still using sex to dodge the tough questions, I see."
"What can I say? You know me." He shot to his feet and grabbed a travel mug steaming hints of chicory into the air. "I'll be back from debrief in two hours to pick you up."
The front door closed behind him before she realized she should have demanded he drop her off at her car on his way. Why hadn't she?
Lori crossed her arms over her aching breasts. Apparently, she didn't know herself nearly as well as she thought she knew Gray.