“That was the thing. We never had the chance. Hell, even your cousin who died was in thick with them.” Galahad slapped North on the shoulder. “What’s done is done. If we could have, we would have eliminated our leaders and then brought her home. But now?” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “The nine of us have a pact. Start anew. The three of us need mates. Carol Wood’s a red. And unmated.”
“What about the two women we paid off to attend their gathering?” Hank asked.
“They’re grays, and except for an interest in our money, that was it. We need Carol Wood. She belongs to us.” North looked back in the direction of Silver Town. “My cousin and the rest of us need her, and hopefully, soon she’ll have a solution to our problem. We just can’t let Miller know what we have in mind when we get hold of her.”
Carol and Lelandi joined Darien and his brothers, Sam, Ryan, and Mervin for a bite of breakfast. The men appeared to have finished theirs already, with dirty plates remaining, but they were all sipping fresh cups of coffee. The worst thing was that Carol and Ryan’s gaze instantly caught—and held—and she knew everyone was watching their actions. Which made it even worse when her skin flushed with heat as if she’d just stepped into a sauna.
Ryan looked like he felt her pain, yet he wouldn’t release her gaze, as if he wanted her to know he felt no remorse for what had occurred between them. She didn’t either, except that she had had an audience as witnesses, and she was certain she had given Ryan and her activities away.
She hurried over to the teakettle and heated water for a cup of tea.
“You’ve had a traumatic experience and need to stay here with… that cat of yours,” Darien said grudgingly, as she toasted a half a bagel.
At least he wasn’t talking about Ryan and her. She raised a brow.
“Puss. Thanks so much for allowing him to stay with me. He’ll contentedly sleep until he wants to roam in the room, and then he’ll go back to sleep. He’ll be fine.” But that clinched the deal that Darien wasn’t fond of cats. Probably a canine thing.
“I won’t make Matthew and Charlotte put in longer shifts because I’ve failed to report to work. Besides, Doc Weber said another four patients have shown up with cases of the flu. Not the swine flu, thankfully, so no one needed overnight admittance, but the staff is getting swamped.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lelandi said. “Just to hang around for a while until you’re through.”
Carol buttered her bagel. “Absolutely not. I don’t want you coming down with anything.” She turned off the teakettle, figuring it was going to take too long to make a cup of tea if Darien was making an issue about her staying home. Headed for the doorway with bagel in hand, she brushed past Jake, who shook his head.
“What?” she asked him.
“When the boss—that’s Darien—” Jake said in a sarcastic way, jerking his thumb in Darien’s direction, “wants something, he gets it. If he says you’re to stay home, it’s not open for debate.” Jake picked up his plate and took it to the dishwasher.
Darien gave a hint of a smile.
Carol smiled broadly and grabbed Ryan’s hand, while he stood in anticipation of her departure for the hospital.
“I have my bodyguard. Unless you or Tom want the job.”
Ryan’s hand tightened on hers as if he wasn’t giving her up to anyone else’s protection. She glanced up to see his expression. He gave her lifted brows and a small smile in response. But the smile indicated something way more than anything to do with guarding her, as if he was thinking about what she was thinking about—and if she didn’t quit thinking about him and his slick moves in that way, he was going to do something about it.
“I want the job,” Mervin said, sounding peeved and pulling her attention away from Ryan.
“I’m paying for Ryan to serve in that capacity.” Darien cast a hard look at Mervin.
Mervin appeared to still be in the doghouse over his accosting her the night before at the gathering.
“So see? This way, Ryan will earn his pay. If he got to loaf around your house, it would be like paying him for vacation time,” Carol said, squeezing Ryan’s hand. She wasn’t letting him go. And his smile hinted at a darker secret and desire.
“You stay with her even when she’s seeing a patient,” Darien warned Ryan.
He gave Darien a mock salute. “Hadn’t planned on doing anything differently.”
Carol frowned, not believing Darien would suggest that. “Patient privacy issues come into play here. Policy dictates that Ryan can’t be in an exam room when I’m seeing a patient.”
“Make up your mind, Carol,” Darien said, not willing to be challenged in the matter. “Either he stays with you at all times, or you remain home. Your choice.”
She let out her breath hard.
“Doc can put you on werewolf cases only. There won’t be any privacy issues then,” Lelandi said, trying to smooth things over. “Darien’s right. You can’t be alone at any time.”
Carol didn’t intend to be. She planned to make up a syringe full of the same cocktail she figured the red had given her. And she’d give it right back if any of them tried to grab her again.
“That should work,” she said cheerfully, although if the workload was mostly human, she’d help out and Ryan could wait beyond the exam-room door, despite what everyone else said.
“Ready?” she asked Ryan, tugging on his hand.
He yanked out his keys. “Let’s take care of your patients.”
Jake pulled out his keys to his truck. “I’ll follow, just in case.”
“I’ll go with you.” Tom tucked his phone into its pocket at his belt.
Mervin hurried to join them.
At least she felt safe with her entourage of bodyguards, although she really didn’t think the reds would be bold enough to try and take her at the hospital anyway. She hurried to eat her bagel as Ryan walked her to his truck. She’d have a cup of green tea at work later because she was afraid Darien would change his mind and want her to stay if she remained at the house much longer.
Movement in her bedroom window caught her eye, and she looked up to see Puss watching her through the glass, his tail twitching and his ears perked. She had a twinge of regret that she couldn’t have cuddled with him longer.
“You were having nightmares last night. What about?” Ryan asked, pulling her from her thoughts.
She had thought he might talk about their nighttime moves. She sighed and climbed into Ryan’s truck and tilted her chin up slightly. “I have one better than that. A vision. At least I think it was. I was kind of doped up at the time. But I saw Jake become a wolf, and then he was unable to shift back.”
Ryan didn’t say anything as he climbed into his truck and then pulled onto the road toward town. “Did you have a vision of your kidnapping?”
He still didn’t believe that the men in the pack had turned into wolves and couldn’t return to their human forms. “No. I told you the visions can be irritatingly unpredictable. It would have been nice to see it happen beforehand…to at least prepare myself, but it doesn’t work that way.” She stared out the window, watching the firs whiz by. But then an uneasy feeling crept through her when she recalled something else. “Oh, no…”
“Oh, no… what?”
She rubbed her temple, trying to recall the exact details. “I…I had a vision before we went into the tavern yesterday.”
Ryan stared at her. “About?”
“A man with long, red hair. It dangled in my face when he bent over me. He wore a padded vest. And I felt so tired, so incredibly tired.”