Guardian Wolf

Except, perhaps, to make jokes about it.

But he had to stay away from her. As far as possible, despite, or possibly because of, the way she still attracted him.

He didn’t want her, or anyone else, interfering with what he was here to accomplish.

At lunchtime, Simon headed toward the stairway to the medical center’s lobby floor, where the cafeteria was located beyond the auditorium. On his way, he heard children’s laughter from somewhere down the second-floor hallway. Curious, he veered in that direction.

And saw Grace in the large visitors’ lounge with a dog that looked mostly German shepherd. Three kids were there, too, dressed in hospital gowns. Half a dozen nurses also watched.

The dog, wearing a vest identifying it as a therapy dog, was sitting on its haunches, waving both paws in the air. That brought another peal of laughter from the children—two boys and a girl.

One boy—Sammy—was Simon’s patient. He’d had such a severe case of gastroenteritis that he’d had to be hospitalized. He had tested positive for norovirus, which was highly contagious, so the kid had been pretty much isolated until well on the mend. He was due to go home tomorrow.

Simon’s enhanced sense of smell had helped in his diagnosis, as always—as well as confirmation that Sammy was healing.

No problem now with him being with the other children—or being entertained by the German shepherd. It now had its head in Sammy’s lap, and the boy petted it gently while the other kids watched in envy.

Simon drew closer, leaning his shoulder against the wall and crossing his arms as he watched. Grace smiled angelically as she, too, regarded the scene. She was more relaxed than she’d seemed before with him. That somehow made her look sexier, too. He tried to hold back his smile as he continued to observe.

The dog next nuzzled the little girl’s hand as she sat in a metal-armed chair. The child squealed “Tilly!” in delight and leaped up toward the dog.

The dog—presumably Tilly—ran away, but when she turned back her head was down submissively, her tail wagging.

“Gently, honey.” Grace took the little girl’s hand, leading her to Tilly and showing her how to pet the dog.

Soon, Tilly slowly approached the remaining boy, who had apparently learned his lesson. He sat still until the dog nuzzled his hand, then stroked her head gently. When Tilly finally moved away, Grace gestured, and the dog stood up on her hind legs and danced in a circle—earning a treat.

Simon had little doubt that all three kids would heal a bit faster now, thanks to the minutes of pleasure Tilly gave them.

“Show’s over, gang,” Grace said. Everyone clapped—Simon included. She seemed to notice him then and aimed her smile at him.

He momentarily considered turning his grin into a scowl. Hadn’t he vowed to stay away from her?

Instead, he felt his smile widen.

As the nurses collected the children, he gave a fake salute to Grace and headed down the hall.

Grace had noticed Simon the moment he appeared in the corridor. She had sucked in her breath when he had stopped to watch Tilly do her performance with the kids.

Sure, she would continue to run into him. Would even seek him out, if necessary to her mission. But the past would remain the past.

So why had she felt so breathless at the sight of him? And so self-conscious, as if Tilly and she were both on display and needed to impress him.

She knew the answer. He was still so damned sexy that she couldn’t help being constantly aware of his appealing maleness. And remembering what he was like in bed …

That was in the past too, she chided herself. It wouldn’t happen again.

“Let’s go, Tilly.” She snapped on her dog’s leash. They weren’t yet through with the patient therapy she’d hoped to accomplish that day, before she took on treating patients tomorrow. For now, she was relying on Kristine to do the initial recon work—like learning all the ways to approach the biohazards storage area.

Later, Grace would commence her own recon. From Colonel Otis, she had learned the location of the laboratories where patient samples were taken for testing—samples that, if from the most harmful of communicable diseases, could be turned into potentially lethal biohazards. She would visit there later, when fewer people would be wandering the hospital’s halls.

For now, Grace headed for the hospital’s senior-care unit. Some colleagues who also worked with therapy dogs were much too depressed after visiting patients whose cognition was severely impaired by age-related diseases. Grace, though, found it stirring to see people whom she’d been told barely moved, or recognized anyone, perk up at seeing an energetic, caring animal like Tilly.

Grace had told the nurses ahead of time about her impending visit. Half-a-dozen seniors, mostly in wheelchairs and with blankets over their laps, sat in a semicircle in a lounge similar to that where Tilly and she had met with the children. This therapy session, too, resulted in lots of laughter, even with some patients who stared off into the distance until Tilly bumped them with her nose.

This time, no Simon observed them. Just as well. He was too much of a distraction.

For their planned final session of the day, Grace led Tilly to the psychiatric unit. As with the senior unit, it was behind a locked door to ensure no patient walked away without a doctor’s approval. Having the door click shut behind them hadn’t bothered Grace in the seniors’ area. Here, she wasn’t clear what to expect from the patients, so she felt a little uneasy.

Ten patients waited in this lounge—eight men and two women, most in cotton robes tied over their hospital gowns.

The head nurse, whose name tag read Ellie Yong, came up to Grace. “Mostly PTSD patients,” she said softly, as if conveying something confidential. But in a major military hospital like Charles Carder, that’s what Grace had anticipated.

She soon lost her uneasiness—most of it, at least—during the nurses’ welcome. They introduced Grace and Tilly first and then the patients, calling each by name. Some were quiet, yet stared at her mistrustfully. She assumed they were still in the deepest stages of post-traumatic stress disorder. Several were apparently undergoing detoxification for drug addiction, since she scented some of the medicines often used to help.

One patient, Sgt. Norman Ivers, seemed almost angry about having the dog around, yelling at Tilly and looming over her until the poor dog lay down submissively. Grace determined to tell the nurses to keep him in his room next time Tilly and she visited.

Another, Sgt. Jim Kubowski, seemed utterly indifferent at first, but when Tilly sat in front of him and offered her paw, he shook it, then got down on the floor and hugged the dog.

One patient, PFC George Harper, seemed to really adore Tilly. Another, Pvt. Alice Johns, knelt on the floor and cried on Tilly, and Grace vowed to bring the dog back as often as possible to cheer her.

Soon, Tilly had run through her repertoire of tricks. Their visit was over. “We’ll be back soon,” Grace assured those patients who appeared to give a damn.

She enjoyed this part of her assignment, working with all kinds of patients with Tilly as a therapy dog.

Too bad the rest of her mission wasn’t as likely to give her this much enjoyment.

In the hallway outside the psychiatric unit, Grace considered what to do next. It was getting late, but there was still some daylight. She intended to explore parts of the hospital she hadn’t seen yet, but it remained too early for what she wanted to do.

Instead, she went outside onto the hospital grounds and called Kristine on her cell phone. Her aide said she was around the side of the hospital building with Bailey.

They met up at the sidewalk near the curved patient drop-off area. Grace asked softly, “Have you found anything out yet? Do you know where the entrance to that tunnel is?”

“Of course,” Kristine asserted. “That’s what I do—figure out what you’ll want to see and locate it.”

Grace laughed. “Does that mean you’ve figured out who we’re after so we can easily track down our suspect?”

The sergeant smiled. “Wouldn’t want to take away your fun, ma’am.” She gave a mock salute.

Their dogs leashed beside them, Kristine led Grace toward the emergency-room entrance at the side of the medical center’s largest wing, then around the corner to a delivery area. Fortunately, nothing was going on there. She used her security card to get all four of them back inside the facility.

The tunnel entrance was off a room filled with boxes of benign medical supplies like bandages—but not far from the door to a stairway that, Grace determined, most likely led down to the floor containing labs where fluids and other samples were tested. Made sense, she thought.

Making sure no one was around to see them, they entered the tunnel. Grace saw no particular security there, but not many people were likely to know about this passageway, except staff members who delivered the biohazards to their storage area beyond the main outdoor parking lot. Grace and Kristine and the dogs walked swiftly along the concrete corridor, the sound of their footsteps echoing slightly in the confined area. It was illuminated by occasional recessed lights, and Grace’s nose wrinkled at the dry, musty scent of the surrounding emptiness.

Soon they reached the end. Kristine carefully opened the door and peered out. “We’re okay.” She held the door open, then led Grace and the dogs through a large, nearly empty parking lot toward its far end.

“There.” She pointed toward the concrete outbuilding Grace had seen briefly before—twice, including while shifted. She’d left it to Kristine to start gathering details about it.