Guardian (The Protectors Series)

by Nancy Northcott

  “Any confusion or other problems today?”

  “No.” She clipped off the word.

  He stared at her, waiting. Having started this as a diversion didn’t prevent him from caring about how she was doing.

  Mel looked into his eyes, and the tension in her shoulders ebbed, as though she’d read the concern in his face. A rueful smile curved her mouth. “I talked to a colleague in Atlanta, caught up on my e-mail, read up on reported sightings of nonexistent beings on the Internet, met a charming friend of Cinda’s and her delightful if enormous golden retriever, talked to Cinda’s lawyer about starting probate, and browsed amid crystals, candles, tarot decks, Wicca whatnots, and pastries in Wayfarer. I can tell you every shop on Burke Street and several of the ones on the side streets. I had my nails done in the strangely named Beautiful Auras salon. I had dinner with a couple of the deputies and Detective Forrest, none of whom seemed to think I was behaving abnormally, and am now on my way to the motel to turn in early. I’m fully capable of managing alone tonight and of doing light duty tomorrow, as you can see.”

  “You’re mouthy enough, anyway.” He smiled to take the sting out of the words and to hide his relief. If she could rattle off a description like that, she had full possession of her faculties.

  Her eyes widened, as though his teasing took her by surprise. The corners of her mouth crooked up. “Come on, Stefan, let me out of the box, huh?”

  Humor gleamed in her gray eyes, and the years of estrangement seemed to drop away. So often, this kind of teasing had led to lovemaking. He stuck his hand in his trousers pocket to keep from cupping her cheek. “Okay. Light duty tomorrow. That means nothing even vaguely resembling the ‘enforcement’ duties of your job description.”

  “Okay, Doc.” Her smile widened, warming, and his idiot heart thumped faster. Raising an eyebrow, she asked, “Have you made any progress?”

  “Not much.” He let out a breath that sounded frustrated, even to his own ears. The urge to confide in her the way he used to hit him hard. Her way of gently listening to what bothered him, to his fears and concerns, had always healed him, lifted his stress. But she couldn’t deal with what he was. He’d best keep reminding himself of that.

  “I’m headed home now,” he said. “I have some more tests to run, and then I’m coming back to Wayfarer.” He needed to do the kind of investigating no Mundane could.

  Stefan had a standing offer of a bed from his friends Griffin Dare and Valeria Banning, Griff’s fiancée. “I’m staying at a friend’s place out near the swamp, but you can reach me on my cell. Even tonight, call me if your head starts to hurt.”

  Damn it, that suspicious look was back, shadowing her eyes and tightening her jaw.

  “I don’t know what it is,” she said slowly, holding his gaze, “but something’s not right here. Boone was supposed to be worse.”

  “There’s no way to predict recovery patterns or pace in a victim when we still don’t know about the toxin. Besides, this whole situation isn’t right. Purple-eyed assailants, maybe hopped up on PCP, strange wounds at nerve junctions, liver cuts. Since you’ve been to the sheriff’s office, I assume you read the statement I gave Deputy Garner about the other night.”

  The suspicion in her eyes gave way to indecision. He blew out an audible breath and rolled his shoulders. “Look, we’re all on edge, and we all want this solved. I’ve had a long day, and I’m heading out. Give Forrest my best.”

  Stefan kept his back straight and his stride brisk until he cleared the door. He sensed, rather than heard, Mel walk to the opening. Reaching out with his mage senses, he could feel her intense energy focused at the center of his upper back. She was watching him walk away, likely trying to figure out what he’d done, and that did not bode well. Not at all.

  * * *

  The next morning, Mel and Forrest walked toward Wiley Boone’s room together. “It’s the damnedest thing,” Forrest mused, “Wiley improving so much between the time Dr. Howe did rounds and the time we saw him last night.”

  Below his thinning, blond hair, the stocky man’s face wore a perpetual frown, and his clothes were always wrinkled, as today’s blue suit was. But his colleagues admired his tenacity and insight.

  Mel matched strides with him and tried to stop wondering what Stefan was up to. He’d looked exhausted when she walked in last night, so weary she would’ve asked him what was wrong if he’d stopped grilling her about her own health for a minute or two.

  For a single moment, when she walked into the room, he’d also looked guilty. Why? He had every right to see his patient, and he had admission privileges here at Wayfarer County. She blew a breath and shook her head at herself. Maybe she was just inventing reasons to think about Stefan Harper.

  Forrest continued, “Doc Howe said Wiley’s skin was yellowish during afternoon rounds yesterday, jaundiced on account of that stuff in his blood. If his skin tone improved, is that crap gone?”

  “We can hope.” There was so much they didn’t know about this toxin. And she couldn’t explain it, but she had a weird feeling Stefan knew more than he was saying. Maybe he had theories and was simply holding them back until he confirmed them. Why else wouldn’t he speak up if he learned something useful?

  Yet her gut said he’d done something. She’d almost …felt it when she walked into Boone’s room last night.

  Forrest said, “When I spoke to Dr. Howe, he said the level of that junk in Boone’s blood had gone up since morning. Seems like it’d take time to go down, too, but damn if he didn’t look pretty good last night.” He glanced at Mel. “If this guy suddenly recovered, maybe others can, too. Though God forbid there be any others.”

  “You said it.” Mel nodded, but the phrase suddenly recovered stuck in her mind.

  Yeah. Right. She knew better than to think hocus-pocus could cure anything. Being around Stefan was throwing her off her stride. Or maybe this town and its love of the metaphysical was messing with her head. It wasn’t as though he had instant curative powers. She must’ve imagined that guilty look, maybe because she figured he deserved to feel guilty when he was around her.

  And it was time she finally let that go. Work with the man, keep her distance, and focus on the now. Dwelling on past hurts or the man who’d caused them wouldn’t fix what she had lost. Or erase the stupid urge she’d felt last night, the desire to soothe his weariness, to just…talk to him.

  Time to let that go, too.

  They reached Wiley Boone’s room as he was finishing breakfast. Lying with the bed’s head raised, the thin man smiled at them. “Good mornin’, y’all. You talk to Dr. Howe yet?”

  “Yes, sir,” Forrest answered. He and Mel had agreed that he, as the local officer, should take the lead. “Dr. Howe told us your blood’s cleared up. That’s great. We appreciate you sharing your medical information so freely.”

  “I want that sumbitch caught.” Boone shook his head, and silvery stubble along his receding jawline glimmered in the morning light. “Say, y’all don’t know if my sculptures is damaged, do you?”

  “We can have someone check,” Forrest said. “My dad’s right partial to those sculptures of yours.”

  Sculptures? Trying to remember, Mel stifled a frown. Oh, those metal things in Boone’s yard. A flash of memory hit her. She stood on Boone’s porch, weapon in hand, as Stefan pulled up in his car. She’d waved him back, with those sculptures between them…and the rest was still blank.

  “…feelin’ a lot better,” Boone was saying. “Better’n yesterday, and sure as he—as goodness—better’n yesterday evening.”

  “When did you notice an improvement?” Mel asked. The question had sort of sprung out on its own. She shot Forrest an apologetic glance, and he shrugged.

  “When I woke up this morning.” Boone nodded at them. “I didn’t want nothin’ to eat yesterday, but today, I’m ready to go. Give me a little more rest, and I could cut a rug with you, young lady.” He laughed, revealing a gap between his front two teeth. “That nice young do
ctor told me I’d be okay.”

  Dr. Jedediah Howe was in his sixties. Mel glanced at Forrest, who looked puzzled but nodded to her to go ahead.

  “What doctor?” Mel asked.

  “The one what was there when I come in the other night. Hastings, Henry…some ‘H’ name.”

  “Harper?” Reassuring a patient would be natural for Stefan.

  “That’s it. Nice young fellow. Kept saying to rest easy, he wouldn’t let me down.”

  “In the ER?” Mel asked, not sure why she was following up.

  Boone’s brows knitted. “Nooo. I don’t think so. Last night, maybe. But I didn’t have no visitors before I went to sleep. Must’ve been down in Emergency. I remember him talking to me. Bandaging these stick-holes that damned fool jabbed in me. Bandaging ’em more’n once, seems like.”

  Stefan bandaged him more than once? Mel’s heart hammered. “Dr. Harper came to look in on you last night,” she said. “You don’t remember that?”

  “No, ma’am, not exactly.” Frowning, he picked at the bedclothes. “Seems like I remember him talking to me, changin’ my bandages, but everything’s all confused.”

  They thanked him for his time and walked out. “Where were you going with those questions about Harper?” Forrest asked.

  “Just checking Boone’s memory,” Mel improvised. “In case he has to testify.”

  Forrest nodded, satisfied, but Mel couldn’t forget the way Stefan had looked last night. After hearing what Boone had said, she was certain Stefan had done something to help him, maybe something experimental or a nonapproved use of a drug. Whatever it was, he had to put it on record in case, God forbid, someone else needed it. Unfortunately, she was the only one in a position to convince him.

  * * *

  Stefan slammed a cross-body punch into the heavy bag. The smack of impact rippled up his arm. He followed with a short left jab, then another right cross.

  Jab, cross, jab, cross, jabcross, jabcross, jabcross, jabcrossjabcrossjabcross.

  He’d lied to Mel. Again. Okay, he hadn’t so much lied as omitted, but it still bit. Lying to Mundanes was nothing new and was necessary sometimes, as he well knew, but he was sick of lying to her. He’d wanted to touch her last night. To connect again.

  That damn bright mind of hers had caught that something was off, and she’d cocked her head at him the way she used to when she was poking at something that bothered him, something that had him on edge. Damn, but he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that, missed the way she always wanted to know what was going on with him.

  Except about the magic. About what you really are.

  Breathing hard, Stefan stepped back to find the range for a roundhouse kick. He pivoted on his left foot, hips turning, right leg rising and swinging, then straightening to strike the bag with his shin and the top of his foot. The impact, with its loud thwack, was satisfying but not cathartic, not at all. Maybe because he knew every lie, every omission, built the wall between him and Mel higher.

  Sometimes he thought that wall was dropping. Sometimes the warmth that used to live in her eyes appeared, even if only for a moment. He missed it. Thwack!

  Hell, might as well be honest. He missed her, no matter how immature or flat-out stupid that made him. When they were together, she’d been taking an über-heavy course load to graduate early, spent all her time studying or on her work-study job, but when he felt overwhelmed by the responsibilities he would one day shoulder, she’d always found time to listen. Or to play a duet or two, Mel on the flute, Stefan on his guitar. Or to take him to bed and wipe all his concerns from his mind for a while.

  Fuck. He set his jaw and kicked the bag again, harder.

  No matter how much he wanted to reach for her, touch her, restoke the fire between them that had always been ready to ignite in an instant, that wasn’t going to happen. The stupid lies between them had put that fire out for good. At least for her.

  Stefan snorted. He’d thought those fires were out for him. Yet he couldn’t deny how nice it would be to recapture at least the good feelings toward each other, to conclude this case and then part on a positive note. But every lie he told made that less likely.

  Balancing on his left foot again, he went for high-low roundhouse combinations, thwack-thwack, then triples.

  His blood was hot, his breath coming hard. But no endorphins yet. Scowling, Stefan switched legs. He needed the practice anyway. Every mage who entered combat zones, including medics, had to maintain strength and proficiency.

  Overhead, thunder boomed and rain poured down, the backwash of a hurricane rolling north through the Atlantic near the Georgia coast. If he were a weather mage, he’d go out and spar with the lightning. That would at least hold his attention on something besides a contrary, perceptive, damnably persistent Mundane woman.

  A woman he would never see again once this case was solved. It was long past time he gave up caring what she thought. He’d believed he already had. Then she had to show up in Wayfarer. Too bad he hadn’t had enough power left last night to raise a screen when she knocked on the door, to simply hide himself and walk right past her.

  Trying to get his mind off Mel, he returned to punching. He was staying in Griff and Val’s renovated barn, Griff’s old bachelor quarters. The open-plan living area below Griff’s studio provided plenty of room to rattle around in. With Griff and Val living in their mostly remodeled house, the barn offered far more privacy than any motel, not to mention proximity to the swamp and myriad plant and animal life for recharging.

  It also had excellent workout facilities, a heavy bag, a speed bag, free weights, and a chin-up bar, with the bathroom and its superb shower handy. But being here reminded him of the role he’d played in his best friend’s disaster, no matter how much Griff disputed that. Six years earlier, a dying deputy reeve, Stefan’s patient, confessed to helping a traitor on the mage council who’d warned ghoul targets prior to a raid. The attacking mages had been slaughtered.

  Stefan had summoned Griff, who was then the shire reeve, to hear what his deputy had to say. Enraged, Griff had accused the councilor, only to have the rest of the Council doubt his word. By the end of the night, Griff had been branded an outlaw.

  Because of what Stefan had told him.

  As of last month, Griff was no longer a fugitive, but he’d lost his powers in the fight he and Val waged to reveal the real traitor. Nothing Stefan tried so far had brought them back. The frustration, the fear, the failure echoed in his mind.

  There was still magic in Griff. Stefan could sense it. But the damage to Griff’s third eye, the seat of mage power, rendered that energy inaccessible or inert or blocked it or something. Stefan hadn’t been able to figure out the exact problem. Neither had the Cherokee medicine woman he’d sent Griff to consult.

  So Griff remained, for practical purposes, a Mundane, and guilt continued to eat at Stefan. Some great doctor he was. No wonder the dreams about Krista’s death, about the day he’d found her, came more often now. With time, he’d realized he couldn’t stop her from telling secrets to the guy she loved. But he should’ve done something—warned her about guys who threw the word love around whenever it was useful, spoken to her parents, his parents, someone. But he’d thought she would stick to the protocols, so he’d said nothing, and she’d died. He’d failed her, and now he was failing Griff.

  Then there was Mel. She’d picked up on the magical energy in Wiley Boone’s room. Sooner or later, she would confront him about it. Then what would he say?

  Stefan set his feet and switched to hook punches. As was often the case with creative people, she had a high degree of intuition, even though she didn’t want to admit it. Now that intuition was working against him.

  Good thing she was so doggedly logical, so against anything that lacked a rational explanation. She could stare this particular truth in the face and not see it.

  Yet part of him wished she would see it, would finally see him. That he could try step one again, try letting her into just
a little of who he was. Surely her logic would then force her to believe, no matter how little she would like it.

  Oh, he could never tell her the full truth. They had no future, and going beyond the initial few steps with any Mundane required Council approval. Before authorizing exposure of the mage world, the Council needed to know that the Mundane in question could be trusted with the secret. That was the part Krista had missed. She’d trusted the wrong guy, and everything had blown up in all their faces.

  Stefan stepped back and kicked the bag again, hard. Damned tabloids.

  Nothing good came of sharing too much too soon. Still, every time he talked to Mel, looked into her clear gray eyes that had once held so much trust for him, he felt the urge, the need, for her to really know him, understand him, and most of all, believe that he hadn’t cheated on her.

  Along with the urge to touch her, taste her, see if she would still melt for him.

  Yeah. Good luck with that one. He kicked the bag again, trying to work off his frustration, most of it sexual.

  Someone knocked on the door. In this weather?

  Scowling, he grabbed the maroon towel he’d draped over the weight bench and headed for the door. When he opened it, still breathing hard, Mel’s eyes widened. Her gaze locked on his chest, dropped to his abs, then quickly shifted aside.

  That flush in her cheeks was gratifying, but he had to play this cool. “Mel.” He raised one eyebrow. “Come in.”

  “Uh, thanks.” She stepped inside and glanced around the space, doubtless noting the high shelving units in dark wood, placed in a staggered formation, that replaced walls as privacy dividers. The plank floor also helped to give the room a rustic, cozy feeling.

  “Your friends have good taste.”

  “Yep. When they finish the house, it’ll be just as amazing. Let me hang that wet coat in the bathroom.” She started to shrug out of it, but he caught her by the shoulders. He couldn’t stop himself from lightly caressing her upper arms as he tugged the garment free. Damn rotten timing for her to show up when he was half turned-on already, just from thinking about her.