“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.