Sanctuary

been relieved that the heat had died out of his eyes, but the question tightened her up all over again. “No. I was just ... I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She reached for his hand, closing the distance. “I really am.”
    “Let’s forget it.” Since he had her hand, he brought it to his lips. “It never happened.”
    When she smiled, leaned over and kissed him lightly on the mouth, he rolled his eyes skyward, wondering if he should thank Lexy or throttle her.

SEVENTEEN
    K IRBY checked Yancy Brodie’s temperature while his mother looked on anxiously.
    “He was up most of the night, Doc Kirby. I gave him Tylenol, but the fever was right back up this morning. Jerry had to leave before dawn to go out on the shrimp boat, and he was just worried sick.”
    “I don’t feel good,” Yancy said fretfully and looked up into Kirby’s eyes. “My mama said you were gonna make me feel better.”
    “We’ll see what we can do about that.” Kirby ran a hand over four-year-old Yancy’s straw-colored tuft of hair. “Did you go to Betsy Pendleton’s birthday party a couple of weeks ago, Yancy?”
    “She had ice cream and cake, and I pinned the tail on the jackass.”
    “Donkey,” his mother corrected.
    “Daddy calls it a jackass.” Yancy grinned, then laid his head on Kirby’s arm. “I don’t feel good.”
    “I know, sweetie. And you know what else, Betsy doesn’t feel good today either, and neither do Brandon and Peggy Lee. What we’ve got here is an outbreak of chicken pox.”
    “Chicken pox? But he doesn’t have any spots.”
    “He will.” She’d already noted the rash starting under his arms. “And you’ve got to try really hard not to scratch when it starts to itch, honey. I’m going to give your mom some lotion to put on you that will help. Annie, do you know if you and Jerry ever had the chicken pox?”
    “We both did.” Annie let out a long sigh. “Fact is, Jerry gave it to me when we were kids.”
    “Then it’s likely you won’t get it again. Yancy’s incubating now, so you want to keep his exposure to other kids and adults who haven’t had it to a minimum. You’re quarantined, buster,” she said, tapping Yancy on the nose. “Tepid baths with a little cornstarch will help once it breaks out, and I’m going to give you both topical and oral medications. I’ve only got samples here, so you’ll have to get Jerry to fill some prescriptions over on the mainland. Tylenol for the fever’s fine,” she added, laying a cool hand on Yancy’s cheek. “I’ll drop by your place in a few days to take a look at him.”
    Noting the look of distress on Annie’s face, Kirby smiled, touched her arm. “He’ll be fine, Annie. The three of you are in for a couple of tough weeks, but I don’t foresee any complications. I’ll go over everything with you before you take him home.”
    “I just . . . could I talk to you for a minute?”
    “Sure. Hey, Yancy.” Kirby removed the stethoscope from around her neck and slipped it around his. “You want to hear your heart go thump?” She eased the earpieces in place, guided his hand. His tired eyes went big and bright. “You listen to that for a minute while I talk to your mom.”
    She led Annie into the hallway, leaving the door open. “Yancy’s a strong, healthy, completely normal four-year-old boy,” she began. “You have nothing to worry about. Chicken pox is inconvenient, irritating, but it’s very rarely complicated. I have some literature if you’d like.”
    “It’s not . . .” She bit her lip. “I took one of those home pregnancy tests a couple of days ago. It was positive.”
    “I see. Are you happy about that, Annie?”
    “Yeah. Jerry and me, we’ve been trying to make another baby for the best part of a year now. But ... is it going to be all right? Is it going to get sick?”
    Exposure to the virus during the first trimester carried a slight risk. “You had chicken pox when you were a child?”
    “Yeah, my mother put cotton gloves on me to stop me from scratching and scarring.”
    “It’s really unlikely you’d contract it again.” If she did, Kirby thought with a tug of worry, they would deal with that when it happened. “Even if you did contract the virus, the odds are the baby will be fine. Why don’t you let me run a backup pregnancy test now, just to confirm? And give you a quick look. We’ll see how far along you are. And go from there.”
    “It’d make me feel a lot better.”
    “Then that’s just