CHAPTER 11

Josie woke at three o’clock, suddenly and completely. One minute, she had been sleeping hard and deep, like a toddler after a day at the park, and the next her eyes flew open, her brain engaged, and the idea of any further sleep became instantly and completely ludicrous. She knew why it had happened, too, because she woke with the idea on the tip of her tongue.

Slides.

After seeing the results of Rosemary’s initial blood tests, Josie had ordered Ben to make up some slides of the Lupine’s so that she could examine it under the microscope, but things had gone so crazy since then that she’d never gotten around to viewing them. Those slides might hold an important clue about the Lupine’s condition. Plus, if she prepared another set of slides with samples of Bill’s blood, she could compare the two and confirm or disprove the idea that they were infected with the same illness.

Gah! Why hadn’t she thought of this before?

Reaching for the heavy blanket draped at her waist, she began to lift it away so she could rise when she realized that down duvets didn’t usually feel quite so... firm. Memory came flooding back—along with a blush—and Josie knew exactly what had been keeping her warm half the night. Not her duvet, but a very special and efficient furnace named Eli Pace.

She subsided and turned her head to gaze at him, resting quietly on the pillow beside her. He looked more relaxed in sleep, but no younger. His face had too many ridges and angles to appear innocent, even while unconscious, but he did appear pretty content, the corners of his mouth curved just barely upward in an expression of satisfaction. Go figure.

Josie had to admit, she’d woken feeling pretty satisfied herself, at least as far as her body was concerned. Her mind still dwelled on the medical mystery before her, but every muscle in her body felt deliciously limber and stretched. By dinnertime, that would probably turn into overextended and aching, but for the moment she would just savor the pleasant sensations.

She had certainly savored them last night.

Blinking up into the darkness, Josie felt a smile curving her lips. She had absolutely no regrets about last night. How could she? She’d never felt anything like that. She couldn’t even decide if it qualified as mere sex. Surely something that stupendous, that mind bending, had to have a less mundane title? She couldn’t think what it would be, but it definitely deserved something more. Otherwise people would think it had been just the same as all her other experiences. They would think they might have had similar experiences themselves, and she couldn’t allow the world to delude itself in that fashion. What had happened between her and Eli last night had transcended the realm of physical intimacy. It had turned into something else entirely.

Josie’s smile slipped away as it dawned on her that she couldn’t think exactly what.

Pushing the odd and unsettling thought away, Josie returned her attention to the question of the slides and realized that she was just too impatient to wait until morning to see them. Technically, she told herself, it was morning. The wee hours still counted as morning, otherwise they would have called them something else.

It took about ten minutes, a lot of excruciating slowness and incredibly gradual movements, to extract herself from Eli’s grip without waking him, but Josie managed it. She slid from the bed with a sigh—was that relief, or wistfulness?—grabbed her yoga pants from the floor beside the bed, and padded silently back into the living room for her shirt.

From his position on the sofa, Bruce opened one eye, acknowledged his mistress’s presence, then went back to sleep with a disconcertingly human sound of disgust.

Josie dressed quickly, shoved her feet into the fleece-lined rubber clogs she wore as cold-weather slippers, and was headed for the door when she realized that if Eli woke up while she was gone, her absence might give him the wrong impression. She didn’t want him to think she’d run away from him, after all.

Taking a moment, she found a bright yellow sticky pad, jotted down a note, and affixed it carefully to the doorjamb between the bedroom and the living room. She even left it sticking conspicuously out into the doorway so that he couldn’t miss it. Satisfied, she cast one glance at his sleeping form, then slipped out of the apartment and padded down the stairs to the back door of the clinic.

It took a few seconds to let herself in and deactivate the alarm before she flipped on the lights. She tended to leave that for last since the buttons on the alarm pad glowed in the dark and she could see them just fine without the overheads. Once the lights were on, she dropped her keys on the counter and made her way to the slide prep area.

Conscience demanded that she make a brief detour to the kennels to check on Rosemary and Bill. They slept side by side in separate cages now, each still unconscious, their conditions unchanged. At least they had been able to extubate Bill just before closing last night. Once the sux wore off and they had weaned him onto a different sedative, the danger of having his breathing stop had lessened to negligible levels. She felt certain he was more comfortable breathing on his own.

Since he was unconscious, though, Josie decided to take advantage of the opportunity. She gathered up a needle and empty syringe and carefully drew a couple of milliliters of blood for some slides before she headed back into the other room. Although her impatience to see the slides Ben had created for Rosemary nagged at her, she took the time to prepare five new slides using the sample she’d just taken from Bill before she turned on the microscope and pulled out the small, blue plastic box beside it, carefully labeled with Rosemary’s name and patient number, the date, and the number of slides it contained.

Josie’s mouth quirked when she saw there were exactly five slides. Ben had been with her for almost four years now. He knew how she liked to work.

Pulling out the first small glass rectangle, she positioned it under the scope and fit on the slide clip. Then she chose a lens, peered through the eyepiece, and began to adjust the focus. When everything came into view, she would begin to scan the smear systematically, looking for foreign bodies, abnormal cells, or any other irregularities.

That was the plan, at any rate, but it turned out to be unnecessary. As soon as the cells came into focus, she found what she was looking for. She just couldn’t quite tell what to make of it. Brows knit together, she stared at the slide until her temples began to throb. She fiddled endlessly with the fine-adjustment knob of the microscope, but the view never varied. Neither did it change when she swapped the first slide for the second. Or the third. Or the fourth. She had just inserted the fifth slide when a hand on her shoulder had her jumping out of her skin.

Josie spun around on her stool and glared ferociously at Eli. “Damn it, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Sneak up on me like that again, and I’m going to tie a bell around your neck. I swear to God.”

The sheriff, dressed in nothing but his jeans, his feet bare, merely quirked an eyebrow and leaned forward, kissing her directly on her frowning lips.

“You know, if this is what starting work at three fifteen in the morning does for your temper,” he drawled, “you might want to consider changing your hours.”

“Ha-ha.” Josie crossed her arms over her chest, but her expression softened. “I guess you saw my note.”

“I did. I also appear to have pissed off your dog by walking past him while he was trying to catch up on his beauty sleep. He gave me a very dirty look, which I got the feeling I was meant to pass along to you on his behalf.” He leaned a hip against the side of the counter and mirrored the set of her arms. “But the note somehow failed to explain what could possibly be so important that you had to come to work to deal with it in the middle of the night, rather than waiting until you actually have to be at work in—” He glanced at his watch. “—three more hours. Did something happen with one of the Lupines?”

“No, I just remembered the slides. I asked Ben on Sunday morning to prep some slides with samples of Rosemary’s blood for me to look at. Since we couldn’t seem to find the source of her infection, I thought putting them under the scope might help me figure out what was going on. Maybe I’d even be able to spot the bacteria. Though, given the power of the equipment I keep on hand, that wasn’t very likely.”

“So were you pleasantly surprised?”

“I was surprised, but I’m not sure how pleasant it was.” She gestured at the scope. “Take a look.”

“Even though I have no idea what I’m looking for?”

“Just tell me what you see.”

Eli nudged her out of the way and bent his eye down to the scope. He peered inside for a minute, then shrugged. “It looks like a bunch of tomatoes, half of which recently served as ammo during a pretty vicious food fight.” He straightened and looked at her. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

Frustrated, Josie ran her hands through her loose hair and tugged it absently. “Yes. It means that Rosemary’s red blood cells have lysed. Basically, something has broken open the cell membrane and let the contents spill out.”

“Okay. Well, that’s something, then. What can cause it?”

“Usually, it’s one of three things: a virus, an enzyme, or a shift in the osmotic pressure of the cell.”

“So, then you were right about an infection. Unless you think it was... one of those other things.” The confused expression he wore told Josie that Eli wasn’t quite getting this.

“I don’t know! That’s the problem. Technically, the hemolysis—the destroyed red cells—means that I should diagnose Rosemary with hemolytic anemia.”

“Hemolytic anemia?”

“A disease where red blood cells are destroyed prematurely, and the bone marrow can’t replace them fast enough. It can be inherited or acquired, but if it were inherited it should have presented a long time before now. And she just doesn’t present the classic signs of a chronically anemic patient.”

“Which are?”

“Fatigue is one, and I think we can assume she has that, but otherwise, nothing. Her skin and gums pinked up after surgery, so they’re not pale anymore. She’s not showing any signs of jaundice or abdominal pain, her urine is fine, and her heart sounds strong.”

“But?”

“But it’s driving me crazy. I need to know what’s causing the hemolysis and why she’s not reacting to it the way every other living creature would.”

Josie paced while she talked, her hands gesturing and her expressions shifting constantly. At least she did until Eli grabbed one of her hands in his and pulled her into his arms.

“Can you run any tests to tell you if there are problems with the enzymes and whatever else you mentioned before?”

Josie sighed and allowed herself to lean against his broad chest. She had to admit, it felt good. Comforting. Strengthening. “I’ve run every test I’m equipped to do, and so far everything except for her white blood cell count is normal. Well, her white cells and now her red cells.”

“So you still think this is some kind of infection?”

“That’s what my gut keeps telling me. I don’t know why. I mean, she doesn’t have any of the classic signs of that, either. No fever, no redness at any of her wound sites. Nothing.”

Eli nodded toward the microscope. “You said your equipment wasn’t powerful enough for you to see any bacteria on those slides. Do you think someone else with better equipment might be able to?”

“Sure,” she said dully, “and I can send samples to a microbiology lab, but it will probably take weeks for those results to come back. By then, it may be too late to help her.”

“I might be able to help with that.” She gave him a skeptical look and he smiled. “Not personally, but I have a few useful friends, one of whom happens to work for the military. He’s a scientist, and there’s a chance either he or someone he works with could do me a favor and look at something a little quicker than in a few weeks.”

Hope sprang up like crabgrass in Josie’s chest. “Really? That would be so amazing. He won’t want my slides, though. I’ll pack up some fresh samples for you to send him. I’ll send copies of my case files, too. If there is evidence of an infection, he’ll want to know about the antibiotics I’ve administered. And I’ll send Bill’s blood, too, as soon as I check out his slides, but I’m sure they’re going to look just the same as Rosemary’s. I should start that. I need to get to work.”

She leaned up and kissed him enthusiastically, but her mind was already on her task. She tried to twist out of his arms and get back to the microscope.

He held firm.

“In a minute,” he drawled, and his green eyes glittered at her with a newly familiar intensity. “The slides and the patients and the microscopes will still be there later. Right now, there’s some work that I need to get started on.”

Against her will, Josie felt herself softening and melting already. Her mind might be focused on other things, but her body was clearly focused only on him. With a mental shrug, she decided that he was right about the work still being there in another hour or so. Letting herself relax, she slid her hands from his chest where they had been trying futilely to push him away, and wrapped them around his neck. She pressed her body against his and raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

“I might take offense to being labeled as ‘work,’ you know,” she purred, running her nails over the back of his scalp until he echoed the sound.

“You prefer to think of yourself as play?” His hands slid under the hem of her T-shirt and skimmed over her belly, making her muscles clench. “As in, let’s play doctor?”

Josie snorted a laugh. “I don’t want to think about what it would mean to play doctor with a veterinarian.” Then his hands cupped her breasts and the laughter died in her throat. “Besides, I’m always a doctor. I think I’d rather play cops and robbers.”

Eli chuckled against her throat and scraped the sensitive skin with his teeth. “Does that mean I should go get my handcuffs?”

She flicked open the button on his jeans and grinned up at the ceiling tiles. “No, I’ll go easy on you this time. But I warn you, if you resist arrest, I might have to get rough.”

With a throaty growl, Eli spun around, lifted her to sit on the edge of the counter, and tugged her yoga pants down to her ankles. After that, she didn’t think about work for another two hours.

Eli felt mellow and limber as he strode into his office on Tuesday morning. He might not have slept all that long last night—or this morning—but what he had done had left him feeling energized. It also helped that he wouldn’t be the only officer on duty all day today. Jim Cooper would be working with him early in the day, and Mike Driscoll would take over in the evening, giving Eli time to deal with the administrative details of his job. He swore the damn things bred like rabbits every time he stepped away from his desk.

Having backup also meant he’d have time to make a few phone calls. Two of those topped his list of priorities. Out of habit, Eli emptied out his uniform pockets onto his desk before he settled behind it and reached for the phone. After a check of the clock, the first call skipped over a time zone to a number on the outskirts of Denver.

“Boyle.”

“I thought it was ‘Colonel Dr. Stephen James Boyle, sir!’ these days,” Eli said with a grin.

“Only to little girly boys like you, son,” the voice on the other end of the line shot back. “How’s it hangin’, Pace? I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“Hangin’ low and happy. How ’bout yourself?”

“You know I don’t like to brag. You still wearing a tin star in East Bumblefuck?”

“Northeast Bumblefuck, thanks. And it beats taking orders from a lowlife like you. I don’t know how those idiots stand it. But then, I guess that’s why they call them idiots.” With the customary exchange of insults covered, Eli moved on to the point of his call. “Listen, Steve, I was wondering if you might be able to help me out with a little problem.”

“You need me to write you a scrip for some penicillin?”

Eli rolled his eyes. “Wiseass. No, I need to know if you know anyone who could look at a couple of medical specimens for me.”

There was a brief silence, then Steve spoke again. “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“Animal. Mostly. I have something a little weird going on around here.” Briefly, he outlined the story of Rosemary and Bill and their odd symptoms. “The vet is convinced it’s some kind of an infection, but she said none of the normal cultures have come up positive. She thought a microbiology lab might be able to look at a blood sample and find a germ, if there really is one hiding there. But she’s afraid that if she sends it to a commercial lab, the Lupines will be dead before she gets an answer.”

Another pause stretched out before Stephen replied. “I could probably do it myself. I do have a lab, and I am a microbiologist, after all.”

“Is that what you are?” Eli demanded. “Well, hell, I thought you were doing a study of the total force required to make a cadet airman shit his pants.”

“That’s just a hobby. Bugs are my job.” The scientist’s voice sobered. “Listen, though, Eli, if the vet is right and the second Lupine contracted whatever this thing is from the first one after spending just a few hours in close quarters, that would mean it’s a pretty volatile little microbe. You might want to suggest that both the patients be put into quarantine until you hear back from me. Better to be safe than sorry.”

Eli frowned. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that. Would the clinic staff be in danger, do you think?”

“From what you’ve told me, I doubt it. If it is a virus or a bacteria of some kind, I suspect it must be infectious only to Lupines. Otherwise, after all this time, they’d probably already be infected. And after you were bitten by one of them, you’d already be showing symptoms.” Stephen cleared his throat. “No, I’m probably being overly cautious, but it can’t hurt to take a few extra precautions until we figure out just what’s going on.”

“Right,” Eli agreed. “I want you to know that I really appreciate this, Steve. I’m gonna owe you one. Now, how am I supposed to get these blood samples to you? The faster the better.”

“Talk to your vet friend. He ought to have materials for shipping biological samples. Have him overnight them to me.”

“Her,” Eli corrected. “Dr. Barrett is a she. Josephine.”

Steve snorted. “Oh, so it’s like that, is it? Here I thought you were motivated by community service, and it turns out you’re just trying to get your dick wet.”

The surge of anger that spilled over Eli surprised him. “Be careful where you step here, Boyle.”

“Really?” The other man sounded incredulous. “Well, I’m impressed. I apologize, to you and the lady in question. But I’ll expect an invitation to the wedding.”

Eli forced himself to relax. He knew Steve hadn’t meant anything by his comment, just as he knew the other man didn’t mean anything now. But that didn’t mean he should feel so calm and even a little bit pleased at the idea of marrying Josie Barrett.

He fiddled with the keys and loose change he’d emptied onto the desk a few minutes ago. Oddly, the thinking about Josie always gave him the urge to do something with his hands.

“You’d come to my wedding?” he shot back, trying to sound casually amused and not convinced he had succeeded. “I didn’t know you owned any good dresses.”

“I’ve got a sassy little taffeta number that would be perfect. The blue really brings out my eyes.”

Eli snorted and shifted the keys to the side, exposing a small vial of clear glass. The one he’d found in the hunter’s blind. He’d forgotten all about it. He’d meant to tell Josie what he’d found as soon as he saw her yesterday, but he’d been a little distracted trying to save her from a crazed Lupine. Then there had been so many other things to deal with.

To make love to.

The vial had totally slipped his mind.

“Hey, one more thing,” he said, shifting the phone against his ear. “You don’t happen to have any chemists around there, do you?”

“Chemists?” Steve repeated. “You think you’ll need to drug her before you propose?”

“Funny. No, but there’s something else I’m going to slip into that package I send you. I found something near where the Lupine was shot. It looks to me like a medicine vial—you know, the kind of thing my flu shot comes out of—but it’s missing its label. It might be unrelated, but I’d still like to know if someone can tell me what was in it.”

“I’ll... see what I can do.” Pause. “Go ahead and send it over.”

“Thanks, buddy. Like I said, I’m going to owe you for this.”

“Just give me a chance to kiss the bride, and we’ll call it even.”

“Like hell. You’ll be lucky if I let you dance with her.”

Eli hung up with images of Josie in a long white dress whirling through his mind. They ought to inspire him to panic. Instead they just inspired him to imagine peeling her out of it and making love to her until she couldn’t remember her own name.

Shaking his head to clear it of the distracting image, Eli checked the clock again and placed his second call. When he disconnected a few minutes later, he’d been cursed out thoroughly for calling at what was termed “the ass-crack of dawn,” but he had the information he wanted. One final call and he had everything arranged. The Portland-based witch his friend from Seattle had recommended would drive out tomorrow morning. Luckily, her shop was closed on Wednesdays, so the trip would fit into her schedule. Plus, she’d sounded curious about their problem. She said she was looking forward to meeting them.

Thinking that he’d spoken on the phone more in the last hour than he had in the entire rest of his life, Eli punched in one more number, but this time he sat back in his chair and smiled as he listened to the rings.

“Stone Creek Animal Hospital. How can I help you?”

“You answer your own phone? Don’t you pay people to do things like that?”

He could practically hear her grimace. “Thank God it’s you. It was a reflex. I only realized what I was doing once it was too late to turn back. I was terrified that you were going to be Mrs. Patterson calling about her damn Siamese again.”

“What? You’re not a cat lover?” he teased.

Now he could hear her blush. “I like cats just fine. It’s Mrs. Patterson who makes me break out in hives. I swear, the American Psychiatric Association needs to back a study on her and her unique manifestation of Munchausen by proxy syndrome.”

He laughed. “Well, next time let your receptionist answer.”

“Deal. So what’s up? I have an appointment in three and a half minutes.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I called my scientist friend. He’s agreed to look at the samples for us. He said to overnight them to him today and he’ll make it a priority to run them through the... whatever.”

“That’s fabulous!” Josie breathed, and he could hear the rustle of papers in the background. “Okay, I’ve got a pen. Just give me the address, and I’ll have Ben pack them up.”

“Actually, I was planning to come by in a bit, so I’ll give it to you then.”

“Eli, I told you I can’t take time in the middle of the day for lunches out. I’m sorry, but I’m just too busy.”

“Calm down. I wasn’t going to ask you for lunch.” He lowered his voice to a tone he hoped sounded calming, soothing, and matter-of-fact. “I’m coming to help you figure out where we might be able to quarantine Rosemary and Bill away from any other Lupines. I doubt many wander into your clinic, but Steve thought it would be a good idea to isolate them anyway.”

“Quarantine?” Josie sounded neither calmed nor soothed. “They need to be quarantined? Why? Did he tell you he thinks he knows what they have? Do I need to warn my staff? Eli, what the hell is going on?”

He grimaced. “Okay, now you really need to calm down.” He repeated Steve’s reasoning and his assurances that the illness was not transmissible to anyone other than Lupines. “It’s just a precaution, and probably an unnecessary one at that. But this thing makes me nervous, and I don’t see the harm in an excess of caution. I doubt that Rick would, either. Not when it comes to his pack. I’ll call him and clear it, but I’m pretty sure he’d agree with me. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Me neither.” He heard her sigh. “Okay. For the moment, I’ll make sure everyone here understands that no one goes near the Lupines except for myself, Ben, Andrea, and Daisy. They’ve all already been in contact. I’m not really set up for quarantining anyone, but there’s a storage room that’s mostly empty because I’ve been wanting to turn it into a physical therapy space. I suppose we can put them in there. It’s only accessible through the back of the clinic, and no one needs to go in there for anything unless I tell them to. Will that work?”

“That sounds fine.”

“Well, I have a day full of appointments here. I’ll let you have Ben when I can, but he does have other things to do. Can you handle it yourself, or draft someone else to help you?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“All right. I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“You’ll see me later,” he corrected, his mouth curving wickedly. “And then even later than that, you’ll taste me.”

When he hung up, he was laughing and marveling at the ability of his love to convey a beet-red blush over fiber-optic phone lines. Now, that was talent.

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