Bad Nerd Rising (10 page)

What the Apes could do with that scenario
made her shudder.

Maybe Admiral Rich could
pull some strings to free her from her lonely cell, but she’d be
marked as a prince jumper after that. Princes from all over the
world would avoid her, knowing they’d have to feed her in prison
otherwise.

Tia started to seriously doubt her
sanity.

Now she was thinking up
really bizarre scenarios, in the hopes of encouraging herself to
keep her lusty little paws off the too-amazing-for-her prince. All
she’d have to do was mention to one of her brothers that she had a
few dreams involving Aleksi, and they were perfectly capable of
weaving wacky, frightening stories.

Note to self – do not mention Aleksi to the
Apes, at all, ever.

They’d pick up on her
attraction, because that’s what obnoxious brothers did. Tia made
another mental note. Don’t mention anything to her mother, either.
Because her mother was naïve enough to not know she couldn’t say
anything to the boys.

Macy knew, but she had
enough sense to keep quiet. Nick sort of knew, but his attention
span was severely lacking, so Tia didn’t think she had to worry.
Unless he compared notes with Bryan and Josh, she should be
okay.

Besides, they probably
didn’t know how to make overseas calls, so she was likely safe.
None of them would admit to not knowing such a thing, so they would
never ask for help.

Tia’s eyes trailed to her
aunt. Emma had already picked up on her feelings for Aleksi.
Indeed, they had talked about him. She’d better mention to her aunt
to keep that information to herself. Not that Tia feared Emma would
talk, but just to be safe...

“I think we’d better turn in,” her aunt
said, and smothered a yawn behind a dainty hand.

Rich nodded. “That’s a good
idea. We’re feeling the time difference.”

Tia smiled. “It took me a
little while to adjust, too. I should probably head off to bed.
Looks like it’ll be a busy day in the lab.”

Aleksi rose to his feet and
shook hands with her uncle. He kissed her aunt gently on the cheek,
and Tia was heartened to see her sophisticated, savvy aunt blush
discreetly under such incredible masculinity.

“You should be used to
gorgeous men kissing you,” she hissed cheerfully to her aunt on
their way up the stairs.

Emma sent her a knowing
smile. “Aleksi’s definitely gorgeous, love.”

“You can’t mention that I’m
attracted to him at home, you know,” Tia said, sending her aunt a
warning glance.

“I know. Your brothers will
be all over the subject and you won’t get any rest.”

“Not that any of them knows how to make
overseas calls, but it’s still just as well they don’t know about
my weakness for Aleksi.”

Emma laughed. “That’s not
very nice.” Her scold fell a little flat since she couldn’t stop
giggling.

Tia’s lips twitched. “But
true,” she pressed.

“Maybe.”

“What’s not very nice?” Rich asked as he
followed them up the stairs.

“Tia’s picking on her brothers.”

“I imagine she’s had a lot of practice.”

Tia loved the way his lips
curved to the side and his eyes went a little hot when he looked at
her aunt. There was no doubt this man loved his wife. And their
love had lasted for thirty years. Apart.
[
The Nerd’s Pocket Pets
– Book 4 – The Morrison Family Series]

She hadn’t thought such a
love possible, but her Aunt Emma and Uncle Rich proved otherwise.
For that matter, her parents, grandparents, and many of her aunts
and uncles had solid, lasting, loving marriages.

The thought of a man like
Aleksi loving her for that many years nearly blew her cell
membranes. Men didn’t love nerds. Well, a Marine fell in love with
her cousin, who was a nerd. And their marriage seemed solid. Lainy,
after a few years of marriage to Mitch, still glowed with
love.

Okay, so princes didn’t
fall for nerds. Marines did.

Tia sighed as she waved to
Emma and Rich who continued to the next room down the hall. Men
didn’t fall for
her
. Maybe that’s what she should have said.

Guess it was a good thing
she liked her job. Hopefully it’d keep her warm at night. Because
it’s all she could see in her future.

Tia plodded into her
bathroom and stroked the shower levers. When she got home, she just
might install one of these babies in her bathroom. At least she’d
have something to look forward to when she got home.

It was something she had
to dole out a little money for, but it would keep her warm at
night. Since the sexy prince probably wasn’t for sale.
Too bad
.

Chapter
8

“No, Tia, I’m sure we have that
information,” Jorge said, frowning at the lab notebooks lining a
shelf.

Tia’s lips slid to the
side. “Okay the big question is then,
can
you locate it?
”

Jorge sent her a superior,
haughty look amid Helena and Maria’s laughter. “Shall we place
odds?” Helena challenged.

Tia laughed. “We can, to
keep things interesting. But remember, if he can’t find that data,
we have to recompile it.”

Groans greeted that
statement. She held her palm up in defense. “I know, I know. But I
think if we can locate the most contaminated, potent wells, we’ll
know better how to proceed. So we’re already well ahead if we have
this data.”

“What’s the plan?” Maria
asked as she moved to stand beside Jorge. The pair of them stared
at the crammed notebook shelf with pursed lips.

“We’re never going to find that
information,” Helena said under her breath as she moved to Jorge’s
other side.

Jorge sent her a quelling
look. “We’ll find it,” he repeated. He didn’t sound nearly as
confident as he looked.

“Wouldn’t you also have
this information in the computer?” Tia asked and was greeted with
blank looks. “Shouldn’t you?” Her voice sounded small.

“We should,” Helena said
and bit her lip. She turned on her heel and hurried to her
computer.

The only sounds in the lab
came from her tapping keys. Jorge and Maria both removed volumes
from the shelf and were leafing through them. Since everyone
appeared to be concentrating, Tia strode to the shelf and chose a
couple of the most recent notebooks.

Hopefully she would be able
to figure out the information.

Of course, the fact that
she didn’t speak Rurikstani might hinder her. Her lab mates were
working to bring her up to speed. Fortunately, she knew enough to
help them locate the data. Once they located the data she needed,
one of them would have to translate the information into English
for her.

“I found it,” Helena
announced, and Tia heard the printer whirr to life.

“Excellent. Can you
translate it for me?”

“I already did. There’s a
program on here Jorge loaded for me that does
translations.”

“Jorge, you’re
wonderful.”

He grinned, and glanced up
at her from his notebook perusal. “I know,” he said without
modesty.

Tia laughed, and snagged
the sheet from the printer. She trailed to her workspace and read,
tugging a notepad close so she could make notes.

“There are forty-five wells
in Rurikstan?” she finally asked after an hour’s perusal of the
data. “And those comprise the ‘public water’ system?”

“Yes, and those are making
everyone sick. The country water supply isn’t connected to those
that are contaminated,” Maria said. “We tested all of the wells
that supply this city.”

Tia ran a hand over her
hair. She could feel the strands escaping her ponytail, but since
that was normal, ignored it. “I was hoping we could simply use this
data, but...”

“The comparison testing
would prove invaluable. And technically, none of us are
microbiologists,” Jorge concluded for her.

“I hate the idea of testing
all of them, but I think in order for us to be safe, we should plan
to test each well every day for seven days,” Tia
decided.

Maria’s eyes widened. “Wow,
that’s a tall order.”

“Yes, I know. We’ll run a
series of tests on the samples, including both rapid and
traditional methods.”

“That will give us a huge
database,” Helena mused.

“Right. That’s what I’m
thinking we need to do. We know that at least half of these wells
are contaminated from the data you’ve provided. But the samples
were taken over a month ago.”

“We’ve been taking random
samples ever since,” Maria said.

“Right, but unless we know
what has changed, we won’t know how to treat the wells. Let’s do
the testing now, and then proceed from there.”

“How do you think we should do it?” Jorge
asked.

“We need to split up and take between ten
and twelve wells each, depending on how close they are.”

“You’ll show us the proper procedure?” Maria
asked.

“Yes, we’ll practice here.
It’s very important we take the water samples as sterilely as
possible. But all three of you have been working in the hospital
long enough you know how to do sterile.”

“We’ve all processed plenty
of bodily fluid and excretion samples,” Jorge said
dryly.

“That’s what I thought,”
Tia said with a laugh. “You won’t have a problem picking up this
technique. Collecting water samples will be easier than what you’re
used to.” She stared at the data in front of her. “I don’t suppose
you have a map with all the wells listed on it?”

“We do,” Maria said and
carried the notebook she’d been studying to Tia. She leafed through
the book and pointed to a well map taped to the page.

“Excellent. It looks like
they’re all clumped fairly close together.” Tia stared at the map
and took more notes.

“Do you want to start sampling today?”
Helena asked.

“Let’s determine our course
of action first, and I’ll show you how to sample. We can practice,
and do all the prep work today.”

“Prep work?” Jorge echoed.

“Yes. We need to make up
media, pour plates, that sort of thing. It’s going to be a busy
day.”

“We’re ready,” Maria said.

“Now, is there someone we need to notify
that we plan to take water samples?”

“Prince Aleksi. He can have
his staff warn the correct people and they’ll help us, if need be,”
Jorge said.

“I’ll talk to him then,” Tia said, and hated
the thrill that zipped through her stomach and made her heart
flip.

She’d only be talking to
him about well sampling. It’s not like they were planning a family
together. Her heart flipped again, and Tia had to tamp down the
desire that erupted through her body.

Stop.

Calling up her vision from last night about
being thrown into prison didn’t help, because at least she’d get
the opportunity to feel his body pressed against hers.

Tia rose and walked to the
nearest incubator. She opened it and selected a few plates from the
random sampling. Time to get to work. She had to record the growth
on the plate.

Stinky bacteria should
quell further sexy thoughts about the too attractive prince.
Bacteria had a way of knocking things back into perspective. The
stench of certain species was enough to make anyone gag.

Tia thought morosely that she’d probably
lose her sense of smell before this job was over.

***

“Aleksi!”

He turned at the sound of
Tia calling to him. Watching her trot down the hall toward him
cleared his mind of everything pertinent. Why could this particular
woman do this to him every time? Even when she tripped over her own
two feet, the effect of her didn’t lessen.

Normally he had to be
tapped several times to reenter reality when he worked. Not now
that Tia Morrison had arrived. Knowing she worked just down the
hall from him sliced through the important things rolling through
his brain. “Can I help you?” he asked politely. He sounded like he
had ice water running through his veins. Running his head under ice
water was an excellent idea, actually. Maybe it would cool his
overactive libido.

“Yes. I just wanted to let
you know we plan to test all the wells for seven days, starting
tomorrow.” She barely sounded out of breath, and as she gazed at
him with those large blue-green eyes, he was sure he was supposed
to respond, but he couldn’t think of a single thing to
say.

She frowned and bit her
lip. “Is there a problem with that?” Concern etched her face and
Aleksi tried desperately to think of what they’d been talking
about.

Wells. Yes. She planned to
test the wells.

“What do you need me to
do?”
Can I kiss you?

“If you inform the proper
people that we plan to do this testing, that should suffice. We
don’t want to shock anyone when we arrive with all our sampling
equipment.”

He nodded. Time to keep his
mind on this project. It affected his people, so he needed to make
certain he was aware of what they were doing in case he had to
soothe anyone who thought they’d been overlooked.