better already.” And it was true. She was. But Molly knew from the last time her blood sugar had spiked like this, it would take a little while to return to normal. She looked at the pulse jumping inside his neck and felt a wave of guilt wash over her. If this was how a complete stranger reacted to her hyperglycemia attack, how would her sister react? Or the rest of her family?
“Sorry for scaring you,” she added, more resolved than ever to keep her recent diagnosis a secret. “I would’ve been fine on my own.”
“You sure didn’t look fine.” His head slumped back against the open car door behind him, then he scrubbed a hand over his lower face. A handsome face actually. The trendy glasses made him look scholarly, but the square jawline made him look determined. Like he wasn’t willing to leave her alone until he knew all the answers. “Does that happen often?”
Molly wished she knew. It wasn’t like the time she got chicken pox, the itchy red scabs on her torso a constant reminder that she was sick. Curbing her sugar intake was tough enough, but remembering to stay on top of her glucose levels was even trickier since most of the time she felt perfectly fine. As a pilot, Molly had to be “combat ready” at all times. Sometimes she was on duty for twenty-four to forty-eight hours straight, which meant there was no way to ensure that she could eat on a certain schedule to maintain her insulin coverage. The military wasn’t going risk both a multi-million-dollar plane and the flight crew because the pilot had hypoglycemia. Everything was still so unpredictable when it came to the disease she’d officially been diagnosed with over a month ago. According to the specialists, that unpredictability meant she could no longer do the only thing she loved.
She drew in a ragged breath and shrugged. “I’m still new to the wonderful world of diabetes.”
“Wait. Why would you eat that much sugar if you’re diabetic?” His expression looked the same as if he’d just asked, Why in the world would you pull the pin out of that perfectly good grenade?
“Because the guy behind the counter said it was healthy.”
“And you take nutritional advice from a kid who isn’t even old enough to shave?”
Kid! The realization made her scalp tingle and she felt her eyelids stretching wide-open. She was officially the worst babysitter in the world.
“I need to get to the ballpark. Now.”
* * *
“Lady, you’re in no shape to be driving right now, let alone playing ball.” Kaleb Chatterson adjusted his glasses while slipping the car key he still held into the front pocket of his hoodie. Normally, he had an army of assistants and interns he could’ve sent to the local grocery store to pick up the ingredients for his dad’s margaritas. But he’d needed a break from his parents’ nosy questions about his social life and his brothers’ incessant teasing about the lack of one.
Coming to the aid of some strange woman in the middle of a medical crisis wasn’t exactly what he’d anticipated when he’d volunteered for the errand.
“I’m not the one playing.” She rolled her eyes, which were a deep shade of blue. “My nephew is. I’m supposed to pick him up from baseball practice at 1630.”
Kaleb noted her use of military time and filed that nugget of information in the back of his mind. “How long does it usually take for you to recover from one of these, um, episodes?”
“Well, last time it took a couple of hours, but I got the insulin dose sooner this time so half that, maybe?”
Kaleb’s stomach balled into a knot. He’d once had a crate of antibacterial hand sanitizer delivered to the office when several employees came down with a minor cold. He didn’t do sickness or injuries or anything that might hint at the human body’s susceptibility to disease. He most assuredly was not the person to go to in a medical crisis. And while it seemed as though the lady now had a decent handle on her situation, he would feel a lot more at ease if they had a second opinion. “Listen, my brother’s fiancée is a doctor. Let me call her and she can drive over and check you out.”
Or check him out. Luckily, his adrenaline was pumping his blood around so hard he wasn’t likely to faint. Hopefully. He stayed squatted down, close to the ground. Just in case.
“No way. Especially not here where everyone in town would see me.”
He eyed the barcode sticker on the rear window of her car, a sure sign that it was a rental. “Are you a local?”
“God, no. I’m just in town visiting my sister and her family. What about you?”
“I’m from Seattle. So if you’re not from here, what does it matter if someone sees you?”
“Long story and I’m about to be late.” She pulled up her blousy sleeve and looked at the sturdy chronograph watch. Her hand and forearm were equally tan, but a thin line of skin around her ring finger was strikingly white.
Telling himself that he wasn’t one of his comic-book heroes and the lady beside him probably wouldn’t like being considered a damsel in distress, Kaleb did what he always did when he was out of his league. He pulled out his phone, tapped on the voice to text feature and spoke into the speaker. “Angela, find out how to recover from low blood sugar.”
“High blood sugar,” the woman corrected him. Yeah, that made more sense considering how much she ate at once.
“Make that high blood sugar,” he said into the phone, then nodded toward her lap. “Would you mind putting that thing away?”
“What, this?” She lifted up the object and Kaleb felt the color drain out of his face. “It’s just a needle. You’re not afraid of it, are you?”
“It looks like someone attached a syringe to Dr. Who’s sonic screwdriver.”
A blank look crossed her face. “What’s a sonic screwdriver?”
“Sorry. Geek reference.” An embarrassing flush normally would’ve brought his color back with a vengeance after that less-than-cool admission, but he was woozily watching her put the cap back on her insulin pen and zip it up in its case.
After several uncomfortable moments, the lady next to him broke the silence. “Who’s Angela?”
“One of my assistants.”
“Just one of them?”
He was saved from having to respond to her sarcastic question by the pinging of his phone. Several texts full of copied and pasted information flooded his screen.
“Hold on,” Kaleb said as he read.
However, he was easily distracted by the woman beside him. Now that her color was returning, he could see that there was an edge to her girl-next-door appearance, an attitude that implied she wouldn’t back down from a fight. She opened a bottle of water sitting in her center console and chugged it until the plastic concaved into itself. Then she used the back of her hand to wipe the dampness from her mouth. “Angela certainly is fast.”
He nodded. That was why he paid her the second highest salary in his company. “Okay, so it says here that, depending on the levels, it can take one to several hours to feel better. She’s also suggesting you drink more water and then eat something high in protein and complex carbs once your blood glucose levels return to a normal range.”
“An hour? I can’t very well sit out here in my car until I’m feeling better. Would you mind giving me a ride?”
“To the ER?” He felt his calf muscles clench, making him eager to stand up and run in the opposite direction. God, Kaleb hated hospitals more than he hated needles. Having multiple medical procedures during one’s adolescence tended to do that to a person.
“No. Just to pick up my nephew.”
“Can’t you get someone else to pick him up?”
She looked at him as if he’d just asked her to hack into the CIA’s router network. “His mom,