There was hunger in his gaze. Lust.

“We have a lot in common, Grace.” He smiled. “And not only because we’re shifters.”

She had managed to control the desire she felt whenever she was with Simon. But now, her passion flared, as if it had suddenly burst into flame.

Impulsively, she reached up—and she was suddenly in Simon’s arms.

His lips met hers, claiming them. His tongue penetrated her mouth, entering into a sexy duel that made her knees weak.

His scent was raw and masculine and hypnotic. His body was hard and skilled. His growls and sexy rumbles were wild as their feral natures.

But she knew once he took her to bed, there would be no turning back.

Dear Reader,

Guardian Wolf is the third full-length novel about Alpha Force, a highly covert military unit comprised of shapeshifters. It features Lt Grace Andreas, MD, an Alpha Force member—and shapeshifter—who is sent to an Arizona military hospital on a special assignment. There, she runs into Dr Simon Parran, the man she once loved. A man who’d hidden from her the fact that he was also a shifter.

I enjoyed writing about their mutual suspicions, emotional baggage … and hot sex life! How easy is it for two werewolves to hide what they are from each other, and everyone else, while both attempting, for their own reasons, to stop the thefts of some highly dangerous biohazards? Throw in a fiery attraction they can’t deny, and that’s Guardian Wolf!

I hope you enjoy the story. Please come visit me at my website: www.LindaOJohnston.com and at my blog: http://KillerHobbies.blogspot.com

And, yes, I’m on Facebook, too.

Linda O. Johnston

About the Author

LINDA O. JOHNSTON loves to write. More than one genre at a time? That’s part of the fun. While honing her writing skills, she started working in advertising and public relations, then became a lawyer … and still enjoys writing contracts. Linda’s first published fiction novel appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and won a Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for “Best First Mystery Short Story of the Year.” It was the beginning of her versatile fiction writing career. Linda now spends most of her time creating memorable tales of paranormal romance and mystery.

Linda lives in the Hollywood Hills with her husband and two cavalier King Charles spaniels. Visit her at her website, www.LindaOJohnston.com

Guardian Wolf
Linda O. Johnston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Thanks to Dr Ken Zangwill for ideas about some of the diseases referenced in Guardian Wolf. Of course, I approached the plot fictionally, and any inaccuracies are due to my imagination, in the interest of enhancing the story.

As always, this book is dedicated to my husband, Fred, who enjoys that sometimes wild imagination of mine!

Prologue

No way. It can’t be her.

That was Dr. Simon Parran’s first reaction as he moved uncomfortably in his seat in the medical center’s small, crowded auditorium.

His second was to visualize Grace Andreas in his mind. That gorgeous face with her high cheekbones, full, inviting lips—and soft brown eyes that flashed each time she asked a question. Too many incisive questions, nearly all about him. Questions he wouldn’t answer. That had been the problem, back then.

“Lt. Andreas is a physician,” continued Colonel Nelson Otis, M.D., the commanding officer at the renowned and well-regarded military hospital where Simon worked. Speaking into a microphone, he stood at the podium at the front of the room, clad in a lab jacket like most of the staff here, including Simon. “Her specialty is infectious diseases.”

Simon wouldn’t have guessed the Grace he’d known would go into the military—if this was her. But her specialty made sense. Not only because Grace gave a damn about people—or at least she used to—but she was also prone to take on any cause and fight till she won, no matter how badly the odds were stacked against her.

Almost any cause.

Okay, what if this was the Grace Andreas he had known for a short, intense while, during their early pre-med studies in Michigan? He didn’t need to do more than be civil to her. No chance of avoiding her, though. He was an infectious diseases specialist, too.

“With Dr. Andreas will be a nurse, Sgt. Kristine Norwood,” the commander continued.

Most doctors and other medical staff had gathered in the lecture hall at Charles Carder Medical Center near Phoenix, Arizona, for the short, monthly update about pending matters at the facility. One item always covered was the frequent comings and goings of staff members.

Because the hospital was a military facility, the fluidity of personnel was a fact of life. Most of the time, Simon didn’t care one way or the other.

This time was different.

Well, even if he couldn’t help seeing Grace during her tour of duty here, it wasn’t like he didn’t think of her a lot anyway, despite the passage of so many years since they’d last been together.

But what if she was still as inquisitive as she’d been back then? His primary reason for being here, his secret experiments, were finally beginning to pay off. They were the direct result of who and what he was—and the information he had refused to admit to Grace, no matter how hard she had pressed him. She had hinted more than once that she was like him, making it look as if it shouldn’t matter if he disclosed everything.

So had those SOBs who’d feigned unity and friendliness with his family—till they had run amok and killed two close relatives.

If it was his Grace, she might try to repeat the past. It wouldn’t matter. He was older. Things didn’t bother him as much as they had back then. He had learned many ways of protecting himself, his family, their friends.

Now, if she dug in, demanding answers in her sweet but unyielding way, he could laugh it off more easily. Better yet, turn it on her, since she had hinted of her own secrets. Threaten to harm her and her career by reporting her harassment via official military channels. Not that he’d carry through, of course, unless he could do it in a way that wouldn’t invite more questions.

Yet … hell. It came to Simon suddenly, in a surge of awareness that nearly made him stand despite being in the middle of a crowded row.

Her timing could hardly be worse. It would be one thing to deal with her almost any day of the month.

But tomorrow night—the night of the day she was arriving?

There would be a full moon. And he had plans.

Chapter 1

Freedom!

Yet potential danger, too. Her control was less this night than most times while shifted.

She reveled in it.

Now, with unleashed pleasure, she ran beneath the full moon in territory unknown and vast. She inhaled unfamiliar, tantalizing scents of the desert, where military aircraft landed in the distance, and buildings filled with people squatted nearby.

Around her were yuccas and cacti and gritty sand beneath her paws. Coolness, because it was night.

All illuminated by the round, gleaming moon.

She had been in this area for hours, alone and out of the way. Pacing in her cherished wildness, yet not going far. It was long into the night now. The risk of being seen by people, even on hospital property, was smaller. She ached to release even more pent-up energy. Her last shift had been more than a week ago.

But she was not here for pleasure.

She had viewed her target before, a special building not far from where she stood. Now she needed to observe it with her heightened senses.

Wolfen senses.

She sought out an opening in the fence between the air force base and military hospital. She slipped through to the medical side, careful to test the scents in the air, listen, ensure she remained alone. Her aide, nearby, would not follow.

The texture beneath her paws turned hard, uneven, warm—a paved road. She loped carefully at the edge so as not to be spotted in moonlight, toward the far border of the parking lot.

She stopped abruptly as she neared the building. The scent—another wolf like her?

Or a feral, nonshifting wolf? Perhaps. But why would it contain a hint of something so familiar? So … alluring?

She waited, still testing the air with her keen senses. Listening. Hearing nothing out of the ordinary. Watching the building surrounded by concealing foliage and shadows. No movement anywhere around.

Too uneasy to approach further, she slowly returned toward where she had crossed from one property to the other.

She inched along the fence on the air force–base side, reaching an area in which shrubbery between the sites was thick.

And waited. Soon, a hint of light over the horizon signaled dawn—and the waning of the full moon’s power. Ready? Yes. Pleased? No.

She felt the tugging at her skin, her insides, that warned of her next shift. Her aide would seek her now, to ensure that, while most vulnerable, she was in no danger.

As the pulling and aches increased, she glanced back through the fence.

And saw what she had anticipated, lurking among parked cars in the large hospital parking lot, not far from the now-distant storage building.

A canine form. Another wolf?

Her change took over then, hurting, not unbearably, but inevitably intense.

It would be over soon.

In a short while, Lt. Grace Andreas, M.D., hunched along the edge of the sand on Zimmer Air Force Base near the fence separating it from Charles Carder Medical Center. She had been sent to the renowned military hospital on her latest mission for Alpha Force, the covert special ops force to which she belonged.

Her knees were bent, her back arched, as she inhaled deeply with her human senses.

She was still nude, and the cool breeze tickled her bare skin. Her assigned aide, Sgt. Kristine Norwood, would catch up soon, with her clothing.

But—with special thanks to the elixir developed by Alpha Force—Grace recalled well the near-human sights and sounds and emotions that engulfed her while in wolfen form.

Including the scent she had smelled near the building at the far edge of the medical center property—the site where, she’d been told, the biohazard materials taken from patients were stored temporarily until incinerated. The site where security was heightened and armed guards were always present, at least in the room adjoining the storage area. The site she had needed to check out, even cursorily, upon her arrival, while in both forms. It was the heart of her mission.

A canine had begun prowling there in the parking lot, most likely a wolf. Another shapeshifter? One not part of Alpha Force?

Dawn had now overtaken the area. She carefully edged along the air-base side of the fence, staying in shadows, especially since she remained unclothed. Other Alpha Force members had altered the base’s security cameras in this vicinity. She would not be photographed.

She wanted—no, needed—to see the storage building from this angle, too.

There. Another gap between some of the non-native, well-watered hedge plants—not much, but enough for her to view the hospital property.

The scent she had inhaled before still seemed to fill the air. She was aware of it even in human form, partly thanks to her enhanced senses.

She looked through foliage and fencing, and saw movement on the other side, a distance from where she crouched. Too far for her to be sure, but the glimpse of something—flesh, or perhaps light-colored clothing—from between cars suggested a person, not a wolf.

One who had just shifted, like her, as daybreak arrived?

She couldn’t see the person at all now. But the scent. It had been very like one she had known a long time ago, though never in shifted form. Perhaps its owner had not, in fact, been a shifter.

She must be imagining that scent. But why now?

Why, after all these years, did she believe she inhaled the musky, enticing aroma of the man she might have loved long ago, had he been what she suspected—and honest about it?

The person she had glimpsed so briefly, in the distance, was surely not Simon Parran.

“This wasn’t where we planned to meet,” hissed Sgt. Kristine Norwood. Grace’s aide held a blanket around her while handing her a backpack filled with clothing.

“You’re right,” Grace agreed, observing Kristine’s struggle with Bailey, her dog, who tugged on his leash, straining toward the fence.

“Sit, Bailey,” Kristine ordered. The well-trained shepherd-Doberman mix obeyed, but Grace could see his eagerness to get through the fence. He must have smelled the same scent Grace had, with his permanently enhanced canine senses. Of course her senses were better than most humans’, especially right after a shift. But at the moment Kristine, acting like a mother hen—which was her duty—seemed oblivious.

Kristine was in her late twenties, with short, raven-black hair and a strong yet attractive chin that complemented her no-nonsense attitude. In addition to being a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, she was a nurse.

Most important, like Grace, she was a member of Alpha Force.

Unlike Grace, she wasn’t a shapeshifter. Her mission was to watch Grace’s back, in whatever situation, whatever form, Grace found herself. Like last night, and this morning.

“Sorry.” Grace finished pulling up her jeans. “I sensed something interesting over by the storage building. I’m still not sure what—who—it was.”

Kristine regarded her with piercing brown eyes. “Bailey growled when we were near there a little while ago, but I didn’t see anything. Some guy was wandering around the area earlier, though, after dark. I saw him in the moonlight. I kept Bailey and me way back like you wanted so you could do your special form of recon on the area. Was it the thief?”

“I don’t know,” Grace said slowly. She couldn’t believe she’d sensed who she’d thought she had. She’d never forgotten Simon but, even as often as she still thought of him, he’d never appeared in her imagination that way before.

Only in her dreams.

Somehow, she had to find out more about that wolf. More important, she had to learn who the person was whom she’d seen, and why he’d been so close to the biohazards storage facility. Logic suggested it was the thief.

Were the two beings one and the same? She’d caught only one scent from this distance.

As if hearing her thoughts, Kristine said, “Well, you’d better find out who it is and why he was there—preferably before we call Major Connell.”

Major Drew Connell was Grace’s superior officer in Alpha Force. He would expect them to report in soon about how things were going—especially after last night’s full moon.

“I agree, but it won’t happen immediately.” Grace strode off toward the residential quarters near the entrance to the air force base where Kristine and she, and the other visiting Alpha Force members, were staying while on this mission.

“When do you have to report for duty at the hospital today?” Kristine asked. “Do you have time for a nap?”

She could take the time but didn’t want to. “I’ll just walk Tilly, then shower and change clothes,” she told Kristine. Tilly, a German shepherd mix, was her cover dog—one who resembled her in shifted form. If anyone ever saw Grace while she was wolfen, she could laugh it off, say they’d seen Tilly. She had been left in Grace’s room last night and would need some TLC this morning.

They had reached the boxy, five-story residential building. Other military folks poured out, apparently ready to start the day at the base. Grace and Kristine waited, not wanting to buck the crowd. They received a few curious nods and other greetings, but neither was in uniform and no one saluted them.

Soon, as fewer people were exiting, the two used their key cards and went inside.

“I’ll call you when I’m ready to go to the hospital,” Grace told Kristine, and headed for her apartment.

Grace knew she should be exhausted. Instead, she was full of nervous energy.

Rather than a walk, she took Tilly out for a jog. There was a running track near the front of the base, where most living quarters were located. They were alone at this hour. Fortunately, although the Arizona day promised to be a hot one, the temperature was bearable for exercise.

When they returned to their quarters, Grace fed Tilly and ensured she had sufficient water, then took a shower and dressed. Adrenaline had awakened her enough to face the day.

That, and the intriguing identity of the stranger near the biohazard storage last night. Two beings, a wolf and a man?

And by some odd happenstance, could either have been Simon Parran?

She had seen no indication last night of anyone staking out the storage facility for potential thieves. Unless, of course, that was the intent of the person she had glimpsed so near dawn and so briefly. Or the person Kristine had seen just after sunset. He, at least, couldn’t have been a shifter, since they all changed as the full moon rose in the darkness of night.

A lot to check into.

As promised, she called Kristine. “You awake?”

The sergeant muttered something, then said, “Of course.”

“Take your time. In an hour or so, you can go back to the investigation you started yesterday. I’ll want you to bring Tilly to the hospital for therapy visits this afternoon. Meantime, get some rest.” Kristine wasn’t reporting for nurse duty until tomorrow.

“Yes, ma’am,” her aide said crisply, humor in her tone. “I’ll get an extra forty winks for you, too.”

Smiling, Grace called the medical center–commander’s office. She learned from his secretary that he would squeeze her in first thing that morning.

After donning white hospital scrubs and attractive yet comfortable rubber-soled shoes, she left for the hospital next door. On arrival, she stopped in a doctor’s lounge she’d seen yesterday, grabbed a spare medical jacket from its supply of extras, and pinned onto it the name tag she’d been given.

The medical-center building was vast and smelled of antiseptics overlying odors of wounds and disease. As Grace hurried through the halls, she glanced at the faces of people she passed. She recognized a few she’d met yesterday, but their scents were not the one she had smelled in last night’s moonlight.

In a few minutes, she arrived at the commander’s office.

“Have a seat, Lieutenant.” Colonel Nelson Otis waved in the direction of the chairs facing his gray metal desk, where file folders were stacked in six neat piles. Like Grace, he was both a military officer and a medical doctor.

“Thank you, sir.” Grace sat down.

Colonel Otis was a large man, also dressed in a white lab jacket. His face was round, his gray hair a stubble that started halfway back on his head. He sat behind the desk in his large, military-pristine office, regarding her so intensely over half-glasses that she felt uncomfortable.

But she regarded him right back with an unwavering stare. She had long ago learned to deal with people who attempted to intimidate her for no reason other than to stroke their egos. She had to be careful with her attitude, now that she was in the military, but in most Alpha Force situations, she fortunately did not have to impress the brass to whom she ostensibly reported. Her real commanding officers were on the East Coast, at Ft. Lukman on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

On the other hand, she had to get along with folks on her missions, especially egotistical military sorts. She made herself look away first.

“What did you think of your first day here yesterday, Lieutenant?” the colonel asked. “Did you find out who our thief is?”

She doubted he would be so sarcastic with a man in her position. He of course had no idea of her special abilities, or why she was much better qualified to find the missing hazardous substances than almost any other member of the military.

He certainly didn’t know how she had patrolled the air base and medical center last night.

“Not yet, sir. But I will.”

“Don’t get overconfident,” he snapped. “I’ve had not only local military security but also investigators from the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations check things out, and they found nothing definitive. Because of the sensitive nature of what’s being stolen, and the need for a quick resolution, I asked for additional help—and they had you and your buddies assigned to Zimmer. But none of you seems the kind to figure this out fast. A medical doctor, a flight communications officer and some NCOs—who the hell are you?”

“We’re members of Alpha Force, Colonel.” Grace knew that the pride that came through in her tone would only irritate him more. “I know you’ve been told we’re a covert special ops force, sir.” If he only knew how special …

“But nothing more about you,” he asserted belligerently. He was aware, though, that all Alpha Force members who had been sent for this assignment were women, which undoubtedly factored into his attitude. He seemed all old-school military to her.

“No, sir,” she responded politely. “As I said, our operations are covert. But you can always speak with General Greg Yarrow, who oversees our operations. He’ll vouch for us.”

“I’ve already done that. He’s as close-mouthed as you.” The colonel settled back, apparently deciding that confronting her antagonistically wasn’t getting him anywhere. “Okay, tell me about your initial impressions. Did you see anything that might help accomplish your mission as fast as we need it done?”

“Not yet, but I’ll make sure we do our best to bring down the perpetrators as quickly as possible, sir,” she said, purposely obscure.

“I’m sure you will.” The colonel rose, using his bulk to move his chair from beneath his desk. She was clearly about to be dismissed—and was glad. “What’s your next move?”

“I want to retrieve my therapy dog from my assistant and start my visits to the appropriate floors first. Then I’ll check out the infectious diseases wing, start seeing patients soon.”

“Those areas aren’t where you’ll find anything relating to our thefts.” He snapped at her once more, and she swallowed her irritated retort.

“No, sir. But I hope to be of service as a medical doctor, as well as visiting patients with my dog. Both are part of my cover, and as a doctor dealing with infectious diseases I’ll oversee extraction of the kinds of samples from patients that can become biohazards like those that were stolen. I’ll report anything I find of potential interest to you.”

“Yeah, you do that. Meantime, I’ll get you started with your medical duties.” He lifted the receiver on the phone on his desk and pushed a button. “Is he here yet?” he immediately asked whomever answered. “Good. Send him in.” He looked at Grace. “One of our other infectious-disease specialists will take you to that wing and introduce you around, since I assume you didn’t meet anyone there yesterday with all the paperwork you were doing.”

A shudder of warning immediately passed through Grace. It was all she could do to continue just to sit and keep an impassive yet interested expression on her face.

It surely wouldn’t be …

A knock sounded on the closed office door. Whoever was there opened it without waiting for the colonel’s response.

An instant later, a man walked into the room. He was tall, broad-shouldered beneath a white medical jacket similar to Grace’s but much larger. He was great-looking, with longish thick black hair and a sharp facial structure. His straight, dark eyebrows and wide lips underscored his angry-looking scowl as he glanced at her. The look lightened considerably as he turned to the colonel. “Good morning,” he said.

“You ready to show Dr. Andreas around?” Colonel Otis asked.

“Of course.” He turned back toward her. This time, his expression was neutral, but it still sent shivers cascading down Grace’s spine.

It was Simon Parran. He looked even better than he had all those years ago, if that was possible. And she had indeed caught his intriguing masculine scent last night.

Chapter 2

“Hello, Grace.” Simon continued to stride into the room when he saw her. Of course he had expected to see her here. Colonel Otis had ordered Simon to act as her tour guide that day.

For reasons he didn’t want to think about too deeply, he had agreed without objection.

Grace rose from a chair facing the colonel’s desk and turned. Her movements were slow and supple, her expression neutral. “Hi, Simon,” she said in a soft, cool monotone.

“So you’ve met.” Colonel Nelson Otis sounded irritated, as if he’d planned some startling introduction. Like, Parran, you stupid civilian doctor, I want you to meet this pretty lady physician who was smart enough to join the military. Otis had made it clear he held the civilians around here in disdain. “I thought you’d mostly dealt with the clerical staff yesterday, Dr. Andreas,” Otis continued, “filling out forms, reviewing hospital policies and all that.”

“Pretty much.” Grace crossed the room toward Simon. She didn’t mention that they’d met before. A good thing. Otherwise, they might have to explain the circumstances, and that could be uncomfortable even now. She held out her hand for a businesslike shake. “Good to see you again, Simon.”

Her grip was firm, even as her sable-brown eyes flashed with her lie. She’d been one hell of a good-looker back then. Now, she was even more beautiful, if that was possible: slender in her scrubs and medical jacket, with pert facial features including high cheekbones. Her silver-blond hair had been longer before. Now it was styled in a shaggy cut that brushed her eyebrows and skimmed her shoulders. She smelled like flowers, light and fragrant, yet there was also something heavier about her scent. Something damned appealing. And familiar. He’d imagined smelling it again from the moment he’d heard the name Grace Andreas once more. Her lips were pursed, but he suspected they’d still be highly enjoyable to kiss.

Not that he’d ever get the chance to test that theory.

“Good to see you, too,” he said, sorry to realize that he meant it. Many of the times he’d thought of Grace during the years since they’d met in their first term of pre-med studies, he’d wondered if she had followed through, become a doctor. If so, where she practiced. If not, what else she’d done with her life.

He could have found out. The Internet was filled with resources that could tell him.

He purposely hadn’t looked.

“So,” he said, “you ready to go see the Charles Carder Infectious Diseases Center?”

“Sure.” She turned back to the commander and saluted smartly. “Thank you, sir.”

Yeah, Simon got it even before seeing her. She was in the military despite being dressed like him. The idea turned him off—a little, at least. He had joined the medical staff for reasons of his own. It didn’t mean he had to like the fact that this hospital was affiliated with, and run by, the military.

What he did like was its amazingly useful lab facilities. And that he could visit them frequently, with few questions and no impediments.

He opened the door and let Grace walk briskly through the secretary’s area and beyond, into the wide hallway of the admin wing. It was on the top floor, the third.

“We need to go down a floor to get to the infectious diseases center,” Simon told Grace. “The stairs are there.” He pointed to a closed door with a sign above depicting a stairway.

“I figured,” Grace said drily.

“Would you prefer the elevator?” Simon asked.

“The stairs are fine.”

That was the extent of their conversation until they were on the second floor. The silence was anything but comfortable.

As they started walking along the polished floors of the long, meandering hallway, past other hospital wings, Grace said, “So you’re in internal medicine now. Interesting. I’d have figured you for emergency medicine, years ago, or maybe surgery. Better yet, an area related to anatomy. Or something else altogether, like dermatology. Or veterinary medicine.” She looked up at him challengingly.

Why did that expression on her beautiful face make his insides start to burn? Or maybe it was simply the sudden closeness again of Grace, after their very long separation.

“Same goes,” he retorted, intentionally making his tone grating. “Are we going to start on that same woo-woo obsession of yours all over again?” He glared right back—and was discomfited to see what appeared to be a gleam of triumph in her eyes before she looked away.

As if she finally had gotten him to admit the “truth” she had goaded him for so pointedly back in pre-med.

She couldn’t really know … could she?

Even if she didn’t, her being here, at such a critical time to his personal experiments, could be a huge problem. He needed to work even harder, after his only partly successful test last night.

The second-floor hallway seemed to go on forever. That should have been a bad thing, considering the chilly atmosphere between them. Even so, Grace couldn’t help feeling excited that she was once again in Simon’s presence.

Although it hurt. She couldn’t turn off her emotions now any more than she’d been able to way back when they’d known each other.

She had loved Simon, nearly from the time they had met in their first pre-med classes at Michigan State University. Their passion had been nearly overwhelming, their lovemaking incredible and intense.

And then he was gone. He transferred to another school at the end of the first term.

Left her.

Never mind that she had been the one to break things off first. She had expected candor from the man she wanted to spend her life with. Instead, she had gotten equivocations. Lies.

Ridicule.

She had nearly revealed to him what she was in order to get him to disclose that he, too, was a shifter—assuming it was true.

Thanks to his derision, she’d never dared to mention it.

Good thing.

“Here we are,” Simon finally said at a door with frosted windows. The wall beside it held large metallic letters reading Charles Carder Infectious Diseases Center. He held the door open, and Grace walked in.

The next half hour was a blur of introductions to the nursing staff and other physicians, and a tour of the facilities.

One person Grace met was Captain Moe Scoles, also a doctor, the head of the Infectious Diseases Center. He was working on a computer inside a moderate-sized office beside a nurse’s station. Tall, with hair shorn nearly to his scalp, he gave Grace a rundown of the extra precautions taken here, where the illnesses were, of course, contagious—often highly so. Then he told Grace, “We’re all staffed up today, but we’ll assign you an office tomorrow and put you to work seeing patients.”

“Thanks, sir.” That meant she would have the afternoon to start something else she intended to do—all with the design of aiding in her real mission.

To get started, she needed to cut short her uncomfortable interlude with Simon. “Thanks for showing me around,” she told him once they were back in the corridor.

“You’re welcome.” His golden-brown eyes bored into hers. “It really is good to see you again, Grace.” He sounded surprised, the words apparently erupting from him without forethought. His wide lips immediately flattened as if he were trying to withdraw what he’d said.

She couldn’t help smiling at his sudden unease. “I’m as surprised about it as you are.” She kept her words intentionally ambiguous. “I’m sure we’ll see each other around. Don’t worry. I don’t bite.” Catching the slight widening of his eyes, she couldn’t help adding, “Do you?”

She hurried down the hall—but not before hearing a burst of laughter from behind her.

Okay, she had intended to goad him, Simon thought as he started to walk in the opposite direction to look in on a patient. But it had nevertheless struck him as humorous. This time.

But the reason they’d broken up was because Grace had tried hard to get him to admit he was a shapeshifter. She hadn’t been teasing about it—or so he’d believed.

She’d even hinted that she might be one too. For a while, he had hoped it was true, had interpreted her scent, her movements, as if she was. How great it would have been, if they’d had something so profound in common.

But after what his extended family had gone through before he went off to school … well, he wasn’t about to burst out with the truth, trust just anyone, even someone who’d gotten under his skin that way.

She hadn’t given up. Her insistence rubbed him wrong, and he’d just poked fun at her—supposedly—ridiculous claims.

And then she’d backed off. Good thing he hadn’t said anything—though he still wished he knew why she’d zeroed in on him. Was she related to that murderous group? He didn’t want to think so. But to protect himself and his family, he’d backed off too.

And in retrospect …?

Well, hell. After all this time, it didn’t matter. She was in the military, so he’d been right. She couldn’t be a shifter. Back then, something about him, something he’d said or done, had simply made her curious. Hopefully, now that she was older, wiser and a whole lot more distant from him, she’d lay off the subject.

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.

The building was compact and nondescript, with a couple of doors visible. It could have been for storage of garden equipment, or electrical fuses and circuitry for the hospital—whatever. The fenced area around it contained yuccas and palm trees and other drought-tolerant plants that were politically correct for this dry climate. The only thing that indicated it was more than a boring, ordinary storage shed was the illuminated office at one end. In it sat a couple of uniformed soldiers.

“Have you talked to the guards?” Grace asked Kristine.

“Yep, at least the ones on duty earlier.

They try to keep their presence low-key, like they’re just guarding the parking lot and not what’s behind that door.”

“But some biohazards were stolen while guys were on watch?”

“Seems that way.”

“Interesting. I’ll need to find out the excuses given by whomever was on duty during the times samples were taken from here.”

“Count me in,” Kristine said. “Sounds like fun. The building’s not as bland as it looks, by the way.” She pointed toward the door farthest to the left. “On that side is the incineration unit where they dispose of the biohazards.”

“Why do they do it here, I wonder?” Grace mused. “Aren’t there companies that are specially rigged to pick up this kind of material to dispose of it offsite, away from the hospitals?”

“I gather it’s because of the volume and security issues,” Kristine said. “Better to deal with it here than take the chance someone will hijack a disposal truck.”

“A bit of irony,” Grace said.

“Seems that way,” her aide acknowledged. “Anyway, it’s nice and eco-friendly, I gather—everything’s burned, not much ash, nothing escapes into the air. Poof, and the danger is gone … unless the stuff’s stolen first.”

“And that’s exactly what we need to stop,” said Grace.

Grace considered asking Kristine to take Tilly back to their quarters on the air-force base, but it was time for one further piece of exploration, and she wanted her cover dog along.

A short while later, Grace walked slowly along the dimly lit corridor deep in the bowels of the Charles Carder Medical Center. Her rubber-soled shoes made no noise on the gleaming linoleum floor, although Tilly’s nails clicked lightly.

She spotted security cameras that hadn’t been doing their job reliably. Neither had other security devices, including those requiring people to use key cards to enter this floor. Many tests were conducted in the multiple labs on this level of the hospital. But all that security, including locked doors and storage cabinets, and guards out by the storage area, hadn’t prevented the disappearance of biohazard materials collected from patients with potentially dangerous communicable diseases. They weren’t always large samples, but their theft was enough to worry those who knew.

Hence Grace’s mission.

What was that? Tilly had heard the soft click, too. She had been well trained not to bark, which would scare off any subject of their hunt. Instead, she sat still on the slick floor and looked up at Grace, waiting for a command.

Grace held up her hand in the signal that meant “good girl.” Then she gave the signal for Tilly to stay.

This was only her second day here. Would it be this easy for her to discover the perpetrator of the thefts? That would be ideal for the U.S. government, and even for Alpha Force. But Grace had hoped to utilize her very special shifting powers more to fulfill her mission …

Her back against the wall, she slid along the hall toward where the click had originated—the opening of one of the many doors along this corridor?

Yes—one only a few feet away from her swung inward. Grace reached down toward her weapon, a small revolver she’d retrieved from Kristine before heading down here this night and hid in a holster strapped to her waist beneath her loose white medical jacket. As a doctor in addition to her other assets and skills, she believed in preserving life—except at the expense of another’s … or hers.

She hadn’t really expected to need to use the gun, but she was prepared, just in case.

In another instant, a man opened a door and strode into the hall. It was Simon.

Chapter 3

“What are you doing here, Grace?” Simon demanded, knowing he sounded defensive. Was she following him?

If so, how? As always, he’d checked around the area carefully before going into the lab. Listened. Scented the air. No one had been around.

He’d have known, especially if it was Grace—wouldn’t he?

But he was imagining her everywhere now. He’d already acknowledged to himself that the tour he’d given her had been far from the first time he thought he sensed her after learning she’d be around.

Even early yesterday, when he shifted back to human form at daybreak, he had thought—worried—that she was nearby. Had even believed he caught her addictive scent.

He was often hazy, though, during and immediately after a shift, especially an uncontrolled one at the full moon. And now, even a partially controlled one. That was something he intended to fix by perfecting what he had just been working on in the lab behind him.

His formulation would not, however, help his imagination.

Grace had motioned for her dog to sit on the hallway floor beside her. Now she regarded Simon coolly yet with a hint of amusement. As if she recalled the old days, when he’d made such an effort to answer each of her questions with another question.

Or to otherwise turn the discussion around against her.

It hadn’t worked well then. It wouldn’t work now.

“Tilly and I have been on a walk, exploring our new environment,” she finally responded. “And you, Simon? What brings you to this floor so late at night?” She peered around his shoulder toward the door from which he had emerged, now closed behind him.

He didn’t want her going in there and snooping—or even reporting his presence to anyone else. Of course he still had his stock, planned answers if—and, most likely, when—he was questioned about being here at this hour. He was simply too busy during the daytime to mix the homeopathic healing formulations he was working on to help his patients. When he had applied for the job at Charles Carder more than a year ago, he’d brought samples of some energy tablets and nutritional supplements he’d been working on to help recuperating infectious-disease patients regain their strength. Testimonials, too, from physicians and nurse practitioners and others who had used them. Harmless stuff that wouldn’t require any government approvals.

Genuine? Sure. But also a good cover for what he really was working on.

Though authorized to be present, he had carefully selected a lab outside the area surveyed by security cameras. Not that he would do anything obvious outside the lab that shouldn’t be caught on camera.

He had an ulterior motive for being at this location, sure. But he wouldn’t admit it to Grace. He had a feeling she had an ulterior motive, too—and was just as unlikely to spill it to him.

“Not over that old curiosity of yours, are you, Grace?” He attempted to sound amused. “Don’t worry about me. I’m approved to be here.” Partly. “I’m conducting officially sanctioned business that I can’t get to during the day. But you? Since you’re in the military and probably got briefed about this place, you may already have heard about some local thefts recently. For the safety of this hospital and its personnel, I’ve got the right to ask questions of people who may not be authorized to be in this area, and to report to those in charge. So tell me, what are you really doing here?”

Her lovely brown eyes had widened slightly before her demeanor grew bland once more. “Interesting. May I ask whom you report to about unauthorized visitors?”

She hadn’t answered his question—again. “No,” he responded to hers, “you may not.” Mostly because he’d lied. He reported, in this as in the rest of his life, only to himself—as much as he could get away with.

He had gathered, from her brief change of expression, that she was at least familiar with the thefts. Involved? Maybe. That would explain her questioning his presence. He’d keep an eye on her, just in case.

At least that gave him a good excuse. He only hoped he wouldn’t come to regret her presence any more than he already did.

Grace wanted to scream. To kick Simon right in his smug, gorgeous face—or somewhere else he’d notice.

He’d dared to remind her of the old days, even as he was baiting her all over again. Not answering her questions. Asking his own.

And still managing to get her hormones all stirred into a cauldron of seething, sexually arousing juices.

“Have a good night, Simon,” she finally said, signaling to Tilly to stand. They started briskly down the hall.

Grace wondered immediately if Simon would spend this night, or any others, alone. Someone as hot as he undoubtedly had a significant other waiting for him, panting, in bed. Maybe not a wife—she’d checked, and he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. But a lot of married physicians didn’t wear rings because it was hard to keep them sanitized, or to avoid catching them in sensitive equipment.

Did she believe anything he said? Oh, she felt certain he had rigged some arguably legitimate reason to be in this area, even at night. But could she trust that he was keeping an eye out for whoever was stealing the biohazard samples, rather than doing it himself?

She would keep close watch on him. It was part of her mission.

She’d love every minute—especially if she could prove that Simon was the thief she was after.

Early the next morning, all four Alpha Force members, plus two dogs, gathered upstairs in the furnished quarters assigned to Grace.

As they all took seats in her compact living room, Grace asked Lt. Autumn Katers, a recent recruit, “How’s your alter ego?” Like Grace, Autumn always brought her cover animal along on missions—a female red-tailed hawk who was initially trained for falconry.

“Venus is fine. Wonderful, in fact.” Autumn settled into her seat on the bland umber sofa.

“We’ll take her out for some fresh air once we’re done talking,” said Sgt. Ruby Belmont, who had opted for one of two stiff wooden chairs dragged in from the small kitchen. “We’ll give her as much flying time as she wants.” A tall, thin woman with glasses, Ruby was Autumn’s aide on Alpha Force missions. Like all shapeshifters’ backups, she helped take care of the cover animals—and watched their shifters’ backs while they, too, were in animal form.

Grace was continually pleased by how well her aide, Kristine, accomplished her job, and believed Ruby and she got along well. Right now, Kristine sat on the other kitchen chair, and Bailey lay on the floor next to Tilly.

“Okay, are we ready to report in?” Grace had selected the rust-colored armchair at the end of the coffee table so she could be more or less in the middle of the gang.

“Go for it,” said Autumn.

Using a special high-tech phone she’d brought on the mission for just this purpose, Grace pressed in the number for their commanding officer, Major Drew Connell, who expected their call.

“About time you reported in,” came his voice immediately after the first ring. He was in a time zone three hours later than theirs, so it would be 0930 at Ft. Lukman. Grace knew, though, that he referred not to the time today, but that they had been around a couple of days already.

“Ah, but I’m sure you loved the suspense of waiting,” she said lightly. “Only—well, nothing much to report so far, sir.” She gave a rundown of her first couple of days at the medical center, followed by her late walk-through last night with Tilly. “The lab floor, where biohazard materials are taken to be tested, was pretty quiet. I only saw one person—a doctor. He seemed reluctant to talk about why he was there, so I’ll find out more about him, but he’s my only potential suspect so far.” Grace didn’t mention she had a personal history with that doctor, although she suspected it would eventually have to be revealed.

Next, Autumn gave her report. Her cover as a communications officer allowed her to access the base’s aircraft hangars. She hadn’t been around long enough to explore them all, but she’d seen nothing suspicious in those she’d visited so far.

Ruby, too, had a background in aviation, so she had also started checking out the base’s facilities, but hadn’t yet done anything worth mentioning, other than fiddling with some of the security cameras on the night of the full moon.

Kristine finished. “Bailey and I walked the hospital grounds several times, especially near the remote storage area at the far end of one of the parking lots, and I showed Grace the tunnel leading to it—a way the test materials are transported. I’ve talked to a few military guards who hang out in that area, and I assume some materials are being stored there now. Nothing notable about the building housing the incinerator, either.”

“Good job, all of you,” Drew Connell said. “Now, get busy. We need results as quickly as possible.”

“How’s Melanie?” Grace asked. Drew’s wife, Dr. Melanie Harding-Connell, a veterinarian, had introduced Grace to Alpha Force. She was pregnant with the couple’s first baby. She wasn’t a shifter, but Drew was.

“Getting along fine,” Drew said. “She’s due within the next few weeks.”

“Our best to all of you,” Grace said, and hung up. She’d be interested in learning all about the baby’s arrival in this sort-of mixed marriage.

A short while later, Grace walked with Kristine to the medical center. They’d left both dogs in Grace’s apartment to keep each other company, since there would be no therapy visits today. Neither would Kristine snoop about the hospital grounds. They’d both just perform the jobs that were their covers, as would Autumn and Ruby.

Grace was glad that this assignment made use of her background as a doctor. Alpha Force was, not surprisingly, a small unit, and its members handled whatever missions they were assigned. She knew that recently Lt. Patrick Worley, also a physician, had played the role of a dog musher in Alaska to apprehend some pretty nasty bad guys.

Once at the hospital, Grace went to the doctors’ lounge, where she again donned a clean white medical jacket over her scrubs and pinned on her name tag. Then she started her rounds, saying hello to the nurses at their stations and visiting rooms of patients she’d already been assigned.

And watching for other doctors … but no sign of Simon this morning. At least not yet. Would he try to avoid her?

That wasn’t like the Simon she’d known—until he’d transferred to another school.

The first patient Grace saw was a woman whose child had brought home Fifth disease from school—a common illness causing a facial rash. By the time the redness appeared, the illness was no longer contagious, but it was easy to pass to others before symptoms were obvious. It was mostly harmless. However, this particular mother had suffered severe anemia as a result and had been hospitalized. Fortunately she was doing well, and Grace didn’t spend much time with her.

When she went back into the hall, a nurse hurried over. “Dr. Andreas, the E.R. called and requested that all infectious disease specialists head there. Only two of you are on duty right now. Several patients were brought in with something that might be contagious and they need a fast diagnosis.”

Grace hurried down the stairs to the E.R. There, she asked the nurse in charge about the situation for which she had been summoned and was directed to an area down the main hallway. When she walked into the large preliminary examination room, she noted several nurses including Kristine, six apparent patients, and Simon, who stalked out of one of the patient cubicles separated from each other by long blue curtains. He wore gloves and a sanitary mask covering the lower part of his face, but there was no mistaking his muscular build and dark hair.

Grace quickly donned a mask and gloves, too, then approached as he removed his gloves and scrubbed his hands at the large sink. “What does it look like, doctor?”

Simon stepped back. Grace was struck by the intensity and concern in his golden-brown eyes. “Symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, fever and severe abdominal cramps. The six who just came in are a flight instructor at the base, his family and a couple of neighbors, who ate take-out food from a restaurant a few miles from this area last night. Chicken salad, they said. My suspicion is shigellosis, since that restaurant had problems with it a while back—sanitary conditions suspect, cited by the local board of health. Could be something else, though. Their symptoms seem a lot more severe than what we saw before. We’ll need tests run.”

“Life-threatening?” Grace asked tersely. At Simon’s nod, she hurried into the first examining station.

The next half hour was busy—especially because several other patients with similar symptoms were brought in. Whether it was a severe dysentery-like outbreak of the highly infectious shigellosis or something different—something worse—it appeared to have resulted from food from the same dining facility. Grace directed that lab techs obtain fecal and other samples from each patient and take them to be tested. She assumed that Simon did the same.

The smells in the ER area were nauseating, especially, Grace assumed, because of her enhanced senses even while in human form. But as a doctor, she had encountered odors as bad, or even worse, before. After examining each patient and directing the medical tests to be taken, Grace moved on to the next. Simon appeared equally busy.

Eventually, a lab tech returned with a preliminary result. Simon had apparently been correct: shigellosis, but a highly toxic strain, perhaps a mutated bacterial version. Almost all the patients appeared ill enough to be admitted to the medical facility. Grace prescribed antibiotics—hoping that this strain was not resistant—as well as other medications to ease the severe symptoms.

After a while, the worst of the emergency seemed over, although a couple of patients remained in serious condition. Grace’s adrenaline was still pumping, but she felt she’d done well in helping the majority of the admittees. She’d keep a close watch on those who were the most ill.

She’d also been highly impressed while observing Simon in action. He might be sharp-tongued and enigmatic when dealing with her, but she truly admired his gentle, caring attitude while dealing with suffering patients.

What a conglomeration of contrasts this man still appeared to be. Was he a viable suspect in the biohazards thefts?

She peeled off her latest pair of gloves as well as the mask, and headed again toward the room’s main sink. Unsurprisingly, Simon was there, too.

“What a morning!” she exclaimed. “It’ll be interesting to get a case history on each of them. Confirm that the infection came from the restaurant, although that seems pretty clear.”

“Right.” He didn’t look at her as he dried his hands on a paper towel from a sanitary container.

“We’ll have to keep a close watch still, of course, to make sure that the antibiotics we prescribed are effective. And—”

“You’re right, Grace. As always. See you later.” He turned his back and started walking away.

Obviously he had no interest in talking to her just then. Well, so what? She was busy, too.

Still, she felt inordinately hurt by his slight. She had an urge to kick him in that nice, firm butt she watched with angry interest as he headed for the examination-room’s door.

And followed him. As she exited the room after him, she called, “Yeah, see you later, Dr. Parran,” and headed in the opposite direction. Feeling upset. Angry.

Not a good time for her cell phone to ring. Especially when it was her commanding officer, Major Drew Connell.

She walked out a door for privacy as she answered.

“Any new developments, Grace? I heard from Colonel Otis that they’re likely to have a large enough batch of contaminants to incinerate them tonight or tomorrow.”

“I wondered about that,” Grace said. “Especially after today.” Holding the phone tight against her ear in the warm breeze as she strolled along a path beside the building, she related what had occurred in the emergency room that morning. “A lot of samples of probable shigellosis-infected fluids were collected, maybe a more virulent strain than we normally see. We still have work to ensure the outbreak is stopped. Plus, we have to make sure no one gets hold of these samples and creates a man-made shigellosis outbreak. I know some strains are fairly harmless, and the disease can’t be passed to more than a few people at a time, but it sometimes appears on lists of possible biological weapons, since the worst varieties can get pretty severe and there’s no vaccine.”

“So you and Kristine, and maybe Autumn and Ruby, too—how about keeping watch on that supposedly secret storage area in the parking lot tonight? This might be when our bad guys make their move. And it might be a good thing to have different perspectives in addition to human.”

“That’s what I thought, too. I’ll take a look around, and if it appears useful I’ll shift. I’ll also tell Autumn to. We’ll report to you in the morning.”

For the rest of the day, Simon avoided Grace as much as possible.

Too many possibilities of her getting in his way. Asking questions.

Distracting him with her luscious body as well as her inevitable curiosity.

He regretted—to some extent—his abruptness with her, but he needed to step back. Get some perspective. Ensure that he had time, and his thoughts, to himself that night.

He hadn’t been joking with Grace last night, near his lab. Biohazard materials had been stolen before around here—including during the prior outbreak of shigellosis, which seemed a lot more benign than this one.

The latest shigella bacterial samples would be a practical haul for the thief.

“What do you think?” Grace asked Kristine. They were in Grace’s car in the parking lot behind the medical center. Both were in civilian T-shirts and jeans, to blend in with visitors to the medical center once they exited the vehicle. They’d left their dogs in their living quarters again, at least for now.

“The best places for a wolf to hide aren’t too near this building.” Her aide peered first at the open space near the building, then away from the rows of cars and toward the vegetated areas near the perimeter fencing.

“My thoughts, too. A hawk, though—maybe only Autumn should shift tonight and just perch somewhere to watch.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let Autumn and Ruby know.”

He prowled. At the edges of the medical center. Hiding in bushes. Sometimes between cars. Concern about being seen. But he was faster, now, than any human. More cunning.

Elation. His shift, late this night, was on his own terms. His human awareness, in wolf form, was the best ever.

He would watch where samples were stored. He would—

Wait. The sounds. Human voices in distress, and more.

The smells—ugly. Unnatural here.

Something was wrong.

He carefully slunk toward the area, staying in shadows.

All night so far, Grace had felt frustrated. She’d hoped to shift into wolf form, but she knew her decision and Kristine’s made sense.

Instead, only Autumn shifted, as they’d discussed. The others had, one by one, pulled their cars into the area near the outbuilding and parked, looking as if they were there to visit a patient in the medical center. Each walked casually by the glassed-in office where the guards sat and peeked in. Then they drove somewhere else and parked again, and covertly kept an eye on the area.

Kristine had gone first. Then Ruby. Then Grace, and then they started the routine all over again. They all reported to one another by phone.

“I saw a little activity in the office,” Ruby had said a few minutes ago, after her second swing through the parking lot. “Could be a delivery was made then, since a couple of people were there in hospital jackets. I hid behind a van and watched for a while. They left and the guards settled back down. Everything appeared fine.”

Now it was Grace’s second turn. She pulled once more into the parking lot and drove toward the far end. She parked several rows from the building, finding a spot near a couple of other cars in the sparsely occupied lot. Then she sauntered in the direction of the building, surrounded by its drought-tolerant landscaping.

Was that the scent of a wolf? A shifter? Or was her mind playing tricks?

She looked around, peering into shadows, seeing and hearing no movement. But the scent did not go away.

Was she simply daydreaming of Simon … again?

She tried to shrug off the sensations as she neared the guards’ office. She saw no one through the glass window.

Could they be on a break? Unlikely that they’d both be gone at the same time.

Grace looked around. She still saw no one else around. And then she inhaled deeply, purposely invoking her enhanced senses once more.

That’s when she smelled a different scent—something incongruously chemical in the warm night air.

“Damn!” she whispered as she put her hand over her pocket, feeling the small pistol she had hidden there, just in case. She headed toward the guard enclosure.

The scent, though still faint, grew stronger the closer she got.

The gate in the wire fence wasn’t locked, and Grace burst through it. By the time she looked through the window into the building, she suspected what she would see: two bodies in uniform, lying on the floor. Were they still alive?

She pulled out her weapon, sighting along it as she pivoted. She saw no one else. Leaving the door open to dissipate any remaining chemical in the air so she could enter as safely as possible, she hurried in, felt for pulses. Yes, thank heavens. They were merely unconscious.

One more thing to do, then, before calling for assistance. She checked the door to the adjoining storage area.

It was unlocked. No surprise.

Neither was she surprised to see that it was empty.

The biohazards specimens were gone.

Chapter 4

“You’re sure you want to do this now?” Kristine asked.

Grace stood with her aide in almost total darkness, sheltered by hedges, between the hospital grounds and air-force base. Nighttime heat surrounded them, as well as the slight aroma of jet fuel. They had left both dogs in their apartments.

The investigation of the theft was currently the focus of the security units at both the hospital and the air-force base, but no one was scouring this remote location—not for this moment, at least.

“There’s no better time,” Grace said.

“But there’s too much activity. You’ll be seen.”

“I’ll be careful. If I get in trouble, you can create a diversion.”

“Yeah,” Kristine grumbled. “And then I can get arrested for being the thief.”

“You’re too good for that.” Grace gave Kristine a joking punch on the arm. “Besides, you brought Tilly’s leash and collar, didn’t you?” She looked at the large backpack that Kristine wore over her camo-colored T-shirt and khaki shorts. Except for the backpack, the outfit matched Grace’s.

“Of course.”

“Then if I’m seen, you’ll—”

“Tell everyone that your dog escaped from your quarters and I’m looking for her, which is why I’m carrying the leash—to hook her up when I find her. As long as she remembers her manners and doesn’t bark inside the apartment, that works fine.”

“She’s a great dog.” But Grace didn’t need to remind Kristine of that. They’d both worked with Tilly and with Kristine’s dog, Bailey, knew they were well trained. “Okay, it’s time now. I have to act fast to get access to any remaining scents or other clues before they disappear—or are hauled off as evidence.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Kristine gave a joking salute.

When they’d found the guards unconscious and the biohazards missing, Grace had immediately directed Kristine to call the security assigned to the hospital and tell them to send EMTs. The men’s lives could be at stake.

Then they had contacted Ruby Belmont to let her know what had happened. “Is Autumn still shifted?” Grace had asked, standing outside the room containing the unconscious men. “Do you know if she saw anything?” But Autumn hadn’t yet returned.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.