“Could it be a stomach bug?” Diane feels my forehead. “No fever. Would you like some mineral water? Or Alka-Seltzer?” she asks.
“Maybe some sparkling water,” I admit, flushing in embarrassment when I think that the entire team will now know about me and my regurgitating. “Do you have any gum?”
She nods and watches me as I quickly try to rearrange my ponytail. “You should stay in this afternoon,” she suggests.
“Miss his training? Never!” I gasp.
“You look so pale, Brooke.”
I pinch both my cheeks and add a bright smile. “There.”
Chiding me with a shake of her head, she leaves and then returns with a packet of gum, and a small hotel travel bag containing a plastic toothbrush and tube of Colgate. “I collect these from everywhere we go. Shampoos too,” she tells me proudly.
“Oh, you’re a lifesaver, Diane.”
As I brush my teeth at the small faucet, I start to seriously wonder what’s wrong with me, and when I come out, he’s on the edge of his seat, elbows on his knees, his black eyes fixed on the plane restroom door.
Added to his, three other pairs of worried stares follow me as I make a straight line for my seat. I feel so weak and dehydrated, I fall into the cushions and sit right on top of my travel bag. Remington pulls it out from under me and sends it flying to the end of the bench, then he firmly cups the back of my head and tips my head up to his. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been myself since the stings.”
I sense, more than see, Diane’s presence nearby, and she seems to be studying us, though that’s neither here nor there; I just want to be coddled. I want to crawl into Remington’s lap and stay there, with my arms around his neck, and my nose in his throat, sniffing the hell out of him, but I’m too tired to move from my seat, so I just tuck my face into one of his hands and close my eyes for a moment and smell his soap.
“Brooke, are you certain it began with the stings?”
Both he and I turn to Diane at the same time, and she wears this devious smile I have never seen before. Her merry brown eyes fix on Remington, rather than me, and when she speaks again, her voice trembles with something that sounds like excitement. “Have you asked Brooke whether you’re going to be a dad?”
Excuse me? I think I just choked on, and then swallowed, a bowling ball. By the time I feel a certain pair of familiar black eyes staring at me, my lungs feel like they’re expanded to the limit.
He waits until I slide my gaze over to his, his voice hardly audible through the plane’s engines. “Am I?”
Holy shit . . . am I?
Pregnant?
The mere word makes the bowling ball in my stomach double in weight. Is he worried that I am? I stare into his face and . . . nothing. Pure handsomeness, and that’s all. I can’t read him with those dark eyes.
“No,” I stress. All my inner walls shoot up in defense mode as the utter fear of what something like this would do to us takes hold. “I have birth control. I’ve had it for years. It’s been making my period fade so I don’t really know when it’s my time anymore. . . .” I pause when Diane wiggles her eyebrows at me. “I’m not,” I assure her grinning face, glowering now.
She brings over a bottle of sparkling water, and Remington takes it from her outstretched hand.
“I can’t be. I couldn’t be,” I say, addressing only him now.
“I want someone to look at you.” He opens the bottle for me, then passes it over as he turns his head to the front of the plane. “Pete, I want someone to look at Brooke right fucking now!”
“Right on, sir,” Pete answers. “I’ll make some calls as soon as we land.”
“Make it a female, with a perfect record and experience, not some newbie!” he adds.
“I don’t want anybody to look at me,” I protest.
He seems to be getting extra speedy, so I drive my hands through his silky black hair to appease him. He exhales noisily through his nose, and when I sense him start to calm, I bury my nose in his throat. Not sure why, but this is the only place where I don’t feel sick or nauseous, with my lungs filled with pure Remy.
“You’re getting looked at,” he says gruffly into my hair, then he snakes his arms around me and pulls me onto his lap. I almost moan in gratitude, I feel so ridiculously safe in his arms.
He lowers his head to smell my neck as if to calm himself with my scent as well, then his roaming lips trail to my ear, where he speaks softly and gently to me, gaining momentum with each word, “If those scorpions caused any permanent damage, I swear I’m going to kill that motherfucker and nail his head to a goddamned pike!”
“Why don’t I at least run out to get her a pregnancy test?” Diane asks.
Remington assesses her with shuttered black eyes. And I can’t help but notice, with a little bit of panic, that they’re not glinting at all, and they’re certainly not laughing.