Wolf Fever (18 page)

“No,” Carol quickly said to her patient, shaking her head as if her word wasn't enough to convince her.

The woman looked back at Ryan, raised her brows, and smiled a little.

“You might have heard I had some trouble last night, and, well, Ryan's watching over me to make sure there's not another… incident,” Carol continued, as she readied a thermometer to take Miss Silverpenny's temperature.

The woman's kindly eyes widened, and then she nodded firmly. “Yes, you know how it is here in Silver Town. Everyone was alerted to the problem with the reds, and should anyone see any sign of them, they're to be reported.” She waved her hand at Ryan.

“As for Ryan, I
thought
he was your boyfriend.” She said it as if she hadn't heard Carol say he wasn't. “You can tell by looking at a man if he's good or good-for-nothing. Ryan has nice smile lines beneath his eyes. Not much in the line of wrinkles between his brows, which would indicate he frowns a lot.”

Then she directed her comment to Ryan. “Welcome to the…” She stopped speaking when a human man walked into an exam room across the hall with Nurse Matthew. “…to the neighborhood.”

“Thank you, Miss Silverpenny, but I'm just here for a short stay.”

“You're taking our pretty little nurse away with you? Oh my, whatever will we do without you, Carol? She hasn't been with us for very long, but we adore her. Anyone who steals Darien's ribbon in a game of tag, other than Lelandi, of course, is someone to be
admired.” She seized Carol's hand and squeezed. “We'll miss you.”

Carol's cheeks flooded with color. Ryan loved the blush on her cheeks. She didn't try to explain any further that she wasn't going anywhere and, instead, took the woman's temperature and then her blood pressure. Afterwards, Carol escorted her down the hall, led her into an exam room, and sat her in the chair across from Doc's, while Ryan closed the door for privacy.

“Is he going to stay with you all day?” Miss Silverpenny asked. “Night, too?” She smiled broadly.

Yeah, she was just like Ryan's Aunt Tilda. If his aunt knew he was staying with Carol, she'd have him mated to her already, at least as far as gossip went.

With her pen poised over the patient's chart, Carol cleared her throat and asked, “What are you having trouble with today?”

“Allergies. Doesn't matter if I'm a wolf…” She glanced at Ryan. “…or running around as an old lady. I can't quit sneezing. If it's not that, my skin's itching to high heaven. But if I took that darned allergy medicine the doc gave me, I'd be sleeping my life away.”

“Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil from salmon, herring, and sardines can help as natural anti-inflammatory agents,” Ryan said, trying to be helpful.

Carol opened her mouth to speak, but Ryan kept talking. “My Aunt Tilda had trouble with grass, ragweed, and mold. You name it, she was allergic to it. We didn't want her shifting into the wolf because her feet and legs itched so much from walking through tall grass. She'd chew on her exposed skin incessantly until she turned back into her human form.”

“Ryan,” Carol said, her tone indignant. “You are my bodyguard. Not the doctor and not a trained nurse.”

“Sorry,” he said to Carol. He turned to Miss Silverpenny. “My apologies, ma'am. But if you try some of that fish oil, you never know. Good for your heart and whatever else ails you. And also, although it's not been proven scientifically, my aunt's allergies are better when she has a little homegrown honey daily.”

The old woman smiled at him. “Thank you, Ryan.”

“Is there anything else that is bothering you, Miss Silverpenny?” Carol asked, her tone clipped.

“Oh no, dear. Since I'm already here, I might as well see Doc while I'm at it, but my goodness, you ought to hire your boyfriend at the hospital.”

“The doctor will be here any minute.” Carol seized Ryan's arm with one hand and the doorknob with the other, opened the door and pulled him out, and then shut the door behind them.

A woman had never accosted Ryan in such a rough manner, and while he didn't think he'd like it if most anyone else did, Carol was another story. Hell, the woman was a tinderbox ready to ignite, and her firm touch was stirring up his libido all over again. Too bad they couldn't put all that fire to good use.

Scowling, she guided him against a wall and released him, hands on her hips, brows furrowed in a cute little frown, standing so close to him to keep the conversation private that he could feel the heat from her sweet body. He wanted to pull her into a full body embrace, kiss her lips, draw the venom out of her bite, and prove to her that as much as he had irritated her, she couldn't stay annoyed for long.

Drawing him from his wayward thoughts, she said, “Let's get this straight. You are
not
a doctor
or
a nurse, and you're
not
to give patients any medical advice.”

Jake approached from down the hall, wearing a big-headed smirk that Ryan interpreted to mean he'd been the subject of her ire before. Or maybe he was just amused at seeing Carol pinning Ryan to the wall with her verbal assault.

“In the exam room, you stand against the door and look like a bodyguard. Not my boyfriend. Not medical counsel. A bodyguard. Period,” she said to Ryan, her body so close to him that he could breathe in her peach scent, remembering vividly how he'd rinsed the soap from her skin the night before, every inch silky and soft. And later, when he'd kissed her soundly, his senses had filled with the delicious fragrance of her, the sweetness, the arousal, the heat of the moment.

The way her chest rose and fell with her hurried breathing and the flush of her cheeks stimulated some deeper need in him. Even the way she berated him appealed to him. He knew she was doing her job, making sure her patients got the best advice, although his advice came from his local doctor, so he knew it was sound. He loved the way she stood up for her patients, even if she had to know he was giving good information.

He wanted her. Wanted to take her all over again. To share the intimacy. To feel the heat burning between them and escalating.

A smile tugged at his lips as he bowed his head slightly in agreement, his face nearly touching hers. He wanted to kiss her in the worst way. He was sure his smile led to her reiterating her point.

“I'm serious,” she said, a little breathless and a lot flushed. He could tell she was as affected by their close proximity as he was. She motioned to Jake. “If you can't be quiet, Jake can take your place.”

Jake lost the smirk and cleared his throat as he neared them. “Didn't find anyone in the unoccupied exam rooms who shouldn't be here. Outside the hospital is clear. Deputy Trevor's watching things out front now. So far no problems with anyone coming in through the front door, and no one trying to slip in or out through the back door. How are the two of you getting along? Need a break, Ryan?” Jake's expression was again amused.

“Maybe a little later,” Ryan said, never taking his eyes off Carol's sharp blue ones. “I'll practice being a bodyguard a while longer.” Hell, forget the recliner. He was guarding her body in bed again tonight. He smiled.

Carol turned away from him, whipped out the next patient's chart, and stalked down the hall to the waiting area.

Jake chuckled. “She's a spitfire when she's angered. What did you say to rile her?”

“Told the patient she could use fish oil to help with her allergies. I also would have mentioned a dehumidifier if she was having trouble with mold. Worked for my aunt.”

“And you have a degree in?”

“Life.” Ryan headed after his charge.

Jake laughed behind him.

At first, Ryan couldn't see Carol in the waiting area from his location in the hallway, and his heart pounded faster as he increased his pace. But when he reached the sitting area, he saw her waiting for a man whose whole expression brightened when he saw her. He was about
Ryan's age, limping toward her and smiling with a look that was an attempt at “Woe is me—give me sympathy.”

“Robert, did you need a wheelchair?” she sweetly asked.

She didn't sound as professional as Ryan would have liked. Not as serious. More good-natured and, well, way too sweet.

As Ryan approached, the man's amber eyes, pig-like in appearance, switched from Carol to Ryan, and he swore Robert looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

“The nurse asked if you needed a wheelchair,” Ryan said, his voice verging on a growl as he advanced toward the muscular man.

Carol's mouth dropped open as she stared at Ryan. “Ryan McKinley, whatever is wrong? Mr. Grayce has lived in the area forever.”

Ryan glowered at the man and folded his arms. “You sure?”

After forgetting all about Tom, Ryan finally noticed him leaning against the check-in counter. Tom nodded to confirm Carol's statement, his expression bemused.

Carol cast Ryan an annoyed look and then took Robert's arm and helped him back to an exam room. Her hip pressed against the man's as she eased him down the hall at a crawl, and Ryan swore the patient leaned into her more than necessary. She should have gotten him a wheelchair or, at the very least, crutches or something. She didn't need to use her body to hold him up!

“Where are the wheelchairs?” Ryan growled.

Continuing down the hall with her charge without a backward glance, Carol ignored Ryan.

Half hiding a smile, Tom pointed to a storage room. Ryan stalked inside, grabbed a wheelchair, and hurried
it after the limping man. Just in case the man was truly hurting, Ryan couldn't slam the chair into the back of Robert's legs like he wanted to, but he'd give the poor guy a seat so he wouldn't have to limp all the way to the exam room.

Ryan stopped the wheelchair and seized the man's arm, assisting him into the seat, and then grabbed hold of the handles. He gave Carol a smile as her mouth gaped wide again. Then she snapped it shut.

“The least I can do as your bodyguard, Carol, is help with your patient.”

As red as her face was, he was certain that, at the first opportunity, she would attempt to replace him as her bodyguard with anyone else. Mervin even.

He sighed heavily and wheeled Robert into the room Carol motioned to. He had never suspected that guarding the woman would be this difficult.

And this was only the first hour.

“H
E'S IMPOSSIBLE
,” C
AROL SAID OVER HER CELL PHONE
to Lelandi and then took another sip of her bottled water to finish it off. She was making the call from the hospital staff lounge during her break. Although as annoyed as she was with Ryan, Carol hated to admit she'd miss him when he no longer had to guard her during her patient visits.

Ryan stood with his legs apart, arms folded, staring out the break-room window, still playing bodyguard and listening in on her conversation. Small break room. Wolf's hearing.

Coffee bubbled in a pot nearby, the aroma mixing with someone's beef-in-wine-sauce lunch that was hastily heating in the staff microwave.

“Impossible,” she repeated and cast Ryan an annoyed look, but his back was to her so he didn't get the full benefit of her irritation.

“What did he do that was so wrong, Carol? He's supposed to be there protecting you. You have to make allowances. I know it's hard to have someone watching your every move. But he's only trying to help.” Lelandi was her usual reassuring self, as if she was practicing her psychology lessons on Carol.

Feeling worn out from her experience in the woods the previous night and Ryan and her early morning romp into sated bliss, Carol propped her cheek on her hand as she rested her elbow on one of the lounge tables.

“He gave medical advice to six of my patients! Six! From allergy remedies to how to relieve tension headaches. Even gave them all kinds of dietary advice. And where did all this medical wisdom come from? Dealing with his Aunt Tilda, who has every ailment known to man and wolf kind.”

“Was any of his advice dangerous?”

“Well, no, of course not. But he shouldn't be offering it!”

“Do you want Jake to stay with you instead? He said he would. Or Tom, for that matter.”

Carol lifted her head and watched Ryan. His whole body had tensed. Something she had said? Or did something he was watching out of the window catch his attention?

He jerked his phone off his belt and then hesitated. She parted her lips to speak with him, but he suddenly flipped his phone open, punched a couple of buttons, and said, “Jake, south of the hospital, three men met across the street and then hurried down an alley. Yes, of course they should be checked out. I would, but I have to watch Carol. All three were wearing blue jeans and sweatshirts, real casual. They were taking a lot of interest in the hospital. Yet they didn't make any move to approach it. One even motioned to your truck and then mine.”

“Carol?” Lelandi said over the phone, breaking into Carol's concern about Ryan's conversation with Jake. “Did you hear me? Did you want Jake to watch you instead?”

“Jake's got another mission,” Carol said. She sighed. “After Ryan's finished guarding me here, I'm going to recommend he go to medical school.”

Ryan snapped his phone shut, folded his arms again, and continued to watch out the window.

Even though she didn't want to believe that the men Ryan saw were the same ones who had grabbed her, she couldn't help the shiver trailing down her spine. The best medicine for what ailed her was work, though. She glanced at her watch. “Break time's up, Lelandi.”

“I'll have dinner on when you get home.”

“Can't wait. See you later.” She closed her phone and said to Ryan, “Ready to go back to work?”

He turned around and nodded, his face a mask of indifference.

“Do you think it was them?” she asked, rising from the chair and hoping she didn't sound nervous. But hell, they'd shot her full of dope, taken her out into the cold naked, and dumped her when they thought they might get caught. No wonder it bothered her that they might try something like that again! She shoved her hand in her pocket and felt the syringe, her defensive weapon if she needed one.

“Could have been. Or not.”

She wasn't sure what Ryan's response meant. He kept any hint of emotion out of his words so they were not reassuring but not alarming, either. She threw her empty water bottle in the trash and headed for her nurse's station.

“It's not that I don't appreciate you being here for me, Ryan. I really do. But you could get yourself, me, and the hospital into a lot of trouble if you keep giving medical advice to patients.”

He opened his mouth to speak but then frowned and yanked his phone off his belt. As he walked her back to her station, he flipped the phone open.

“Yeah, Jake? Same ones?” He rubbed his chin, studying her.

Another tremor stole up her spine. Ryan was trying to keep his expression neutral, but she could tell he was worried by the way a small crease appeared between his brows and his eyes slightly tightened.

Hell.
She'd hoped that after Ryan and Darien and the others had kept those men away the night before, that would be the last of it. That today they were being way overcautious. And that tomorrow she wouldn't need Ryan or anyone else staying in the exam room with her.

“All right, Jake. Tom will watch over her. Be right there.” Ryan raised a brow at her as he snapped his phone shut. “Same rules as before. No seeing any humans. Tom will stay with you this time. Christian is going to watch the waiting room. Mervin's got the back door. I'll see you tonight.”

“You're going to try and track them down?” She hated how worried she sounded.

“It's what I do, Carol. I'm a damn good P.I.” He motioned to Tom who was already headed down the hall toward them. “Did your brother call you?”

Tom joined them and stood near Carol in guard stance. “Yeah. Jake said for me to stay with her.”

“She's only to see special patients.”

She rolled her eyes at him, perturbed that he didn't think she could handle this.

Ryan half hid a smile. “Is Christian in place?”

“Yeah, he hurried over here and is sitting in the waiting room, pretending to be a patient, but he wanted to be the one in the room with Carol instead.”

Ryan shook his head. “He can want all he likes, but Carol needs one of
us
to watch over her.”

The unspoken words were that she needed an alpha for protection. And Mervin and Christian were definitely not alphas.

“I agree,” Tom said. “Ready to get your next patient, Carol?”

Ryan hesitated to leave. Did he think Tom couldn't handle it?

“I'll be all right.” Carol shoved her hand in her pocket and ran her fingers over the syringe.

To her shock, Ryan stepped close to her, his gaze remaining on hers as he slipped his hand in her pocket, sliding his fingers over the inner-pocket fabric covering her thigh in a much too sensuous caress before he pulled out the syringe.

Tom's eyes grew even bigger when he saw the syringe. “What's that for?”

“A weapon,” Ryan said. He handed it back to her. “You won't need it, but if it makes you feel safer… keep it with you. I'll be back.” Then he stalked off down the hall.

All of a sudden she didn't feel so safe. Sure Tom was an alpha, but Ryan was truly someone to be reckoned with if anyone got on his bad side. Hell, she had been afraid he might have given Robert Grayce a stroke, and here the poor guy had torn tendons from a bad fall at the silver mine. She thought Robert might have even asked her out if Ryan hadn't been hovering over him until Doc came to examine the man's leg. But she felt incredibly safe when Ryan was with her.

Now, she felt apprehensive again, and while she thought Ryan might be more successful than someone
else trying to hunt the men down because of his P.I. and former police training, she still wished he hadn't gone.

“You okay, Carol? Want to go home?” Tom asked, concern etched in his expression.

“No, I can't leave the others to work here alone. I'll be fine.” She patted his chest. “I have you.” And the hypodermic with the tranquilizer cocktail in her pocket.

Ryan was torn between wanting to stay and protect Carol and locating the bastards who had taken her from her shower. He hated that she felt she still wasn't safe, so much so that she had to keep a weapon—syringe, nurse style—with her for protection. On the other hand, he admired her for having the foresight to protect herself, and he knew she had the fortitude to carry out her plan, as long as a would-be kidnapper didn't get the upper hand.

If he could catch them, he'd make sure they'd never mess with Carol again—or Lelandi either, if they had a mind to go after her next. He met Jake and Darien, their expressions hard and determined, near the woods where the reds had taken off.

“None of us can shift this close to town,” Ryan said.

Darien raised his brows at him.

Jake shook his head.

Well, hell, Ryan was used to being a leader and not used to giving up command, even in another wolf's territory, at least not in a case like this where it was a dangerous situation. Darien motioned for them to get a move on. “We've got several coming to aid in the search.”

“We… you want us to split up?” Ryan asked, trying
to be more amenable and not so much in charge, even if it killed him.

“Ryan, you're good at tracking. Probably better than most of my people. Sam and I will team up. Jake will go with you. Just watch out if they're shooting bullets again.”

Appreciating Darien's comments, Ryan nodded and headed out while Jake ran to catch up to him.

Trudging alongside Ryan, Jake shook his head. “I never in a millennium would have thought Darien would say that about you. But you know, I think he's kind of taken a liking to you. So, do you believe in Carol's sixth sense now?”

Ryan bent down to check out a broken branch and then headed west. “She had a premonition about being taken.”

“Hell,” Jake said.

“I wonder if she thought she had the vision earlier, but she really had nightmares about it after the fact when she was still half doped up.” Not that Ryan didn't believe her, but in his business, he always looked at all possible sides of an issue.

Yet, that didn't explain what she'd been thinking of when she was sitting in his truck with a faraway look, like she was not really there. Just like when he'd be deeply contemplating a case and Rosalind would interrupt his meditation with a question. He suspected Carol was telling the truth, that she'd had a vision and that she truly had other psychic abilities.

“Keep thinking she doesn't have psychic connections, and I'll have to mate her,” Jake said.

Ryan glanced at him. He looked damn serious. “Then why the hell don't you?”

“Annoyingly, she's got a thing for you.”

Ryan almost smiled.

“In this premonition of hers… she didn't tell you that someone might steal her away?”

Glancing up from a footprint, Ryan gave him a look of exasperation. “Are you going to help me search for these guys or just talk your fool head off?”

“Did she?”

“No. She said her visions are too vague. That she didn't know what this one meant.”

“Trouble. Every time she's had a vision, it's been trouble.” Jake sniffed the air. “This way.”

“Always?”

“Since I've known her, yeah. So she'll always be a handful, I suspect.”

Which supported Ryan's opinion that Carol needed someone uniquely qualified in her life. Someone who could deal with the dangerous situations she found herself in. She wasn't a police officer or trained in military tactics. Yet if she envisioned a crime being committed and she tried to stop it, or if the perp learned she knew about his or her commission of a crime, she could put herself in a world of jeopardy. Beyond that, she needed to learn how to control shifting. From what she had admitted to him, she needed someone to help her through the transition.

Ryan paused to examine scattered leaves. “They ran through here.” He quickened his pace. “She needs an alpha, Jake.” But not just any alpha.

“Yeah, I know. So that means you, me, or Tom, unless we let her go to another pack.”

“But Tom thinks he'll find his dream mate.”

“Yeah, and who the hell told Carol that?” Jake frowned at Ryan, in protective brother mode.

Ryan hid a scowl. “She needed to know the truth. She was harboring some notion that Tom might be interested in her.”

“Oh.”

Ryan glanced at Jake. “And you, too.”

“But she practically melted in your arms during the dance. And the way she kissed you…” Jake shook his head. “Guess that means I'll have to call you out.”

“Call me out?”

“Yeah, see who wins the little lady.”

Ryan chuckled under his breath. “I'm sure she'd love that. Probably decide to mate with Mervin instead and give the rest of us up.”

“About what you said to Nurse Matthew. Do you really think he was in trouble in his previous pack?” Jake asked.

Ryan smiled a little. “Only as far as he fought with his pack leader's brother over a woman a number of times. That didn't set well with either the pack leader or his second-in-command.”