Page 23 of Too Guarded to Love

Edgar snapped his folder closed. “Agreed, but we have a real fight to worry about. We all know it’s not a coincidence two women related to VIPER were targeted tonight. We don’t know when and if they will come after another one and we’re not taking any chances. Until further notice, we’re all locking down here at headquarters.”

“Wait.” Nic held up his steel hand, as if the gesture would somehow halt the implications of Edgar’s words. “All of us? Here?”

Edgar motioned the group into the conference room. “Until we get some answers, yes. If VIPER gets called on a mission, I want those left behind protected until we find whoever is behind this.”

If Nic’s biofeedback was online, his vitals would blow up Ryan’s computer. So much for keeping Olivia safe and then sending her on her way. He leaned against the long conference table and faced nearly everyone in this world he trusted with his life. “You know the thing I said I needed to discuss earlier? That may have something to do with what happened tonight.”

Olivia inhaled as she concentrated on opening her eyelids. A soft light, not the burn-your-retinas kind from the ER, greeted her gaze. The smell of flowers wafted into her nostrils.

“Hey, you’re awake.”

Olivia turned her head toward the feminine voice. The movement lanced pain through her shoulder. “Shit, that hurts.”

“Gunshot wounds will do that to a girl.” A woman in a white lab coat, who appeared to be around the same age as Olivia, held a vase of wildflowers in her hand. “Welcome to VIPER headquarters.”

So the heart of the military program that Kane couldn’t talk much about was the “somewhere safe” Nic had taken her to. Was she in that much danger?

The woman set the vase on a side table. “I brought these from my office to cheer the place up. I keep telling Admiral Edgar to order somebody to put artwork on these boring white walls, but he doesn’t consider it a mission priority. How do you feel?”

“I’m with you on the artwork. As for the getting shot part? I never want to do that again.” In the hospital, everything had hurt from her scalp to her toes, but she’d been too drugged up to care. Now the pain centered in her wound felt like a blazing ball of molten lava imbued with a magical potion that intensified the agony a hundredfold.

“Well, if you can feel the pain, then you’re alive. That’s what I tell the VIPER boys. And my twins too.”

“You must be the demolition twins’ mom.”

Patience nodded and laughed. “I see Kane has shared tales about my darling hellions.”

“Nice to finally meet the famous Dr. Patience Fairbanks. Kane’s a big fan of yours.” Olivia winced as the burning in her shoulder reminded her there was nothing nice about the reason for being here, but she was alive. Maybe gratitude for every breath she took kept her from freaking out that she’d been shot.

“Your brother’s super leg wasn’t all me, but I’m proud of the part I had in it.” She handed Olivia a small cup with a large white pill in it. “It’s ibuprofen for the pain. If you want something stronger, I can give that to you, but I thought you’d want to be coherent for your debrief.”

“Yes, ibuprofen is fine.” Maybe she’d take something to make her sleepy later, after she’d gotten answers to the dozens of questions flitting in her brain. Did the bullet wound in her shoulder have something to do with the uneasy feelings about someone watching her? Maybe whoever tried to hit her head-on reverted to a good old-fashioned gun after their first plan failed. Or maybe Jonathan hired a hit man because he was furious she’d dumped him. Again.

An image of her ex-asshole standing in the shadows with binoculars, a dark raincoat protecting his expensive suit from the elements as he watched to make sure the hit man did his job, popped into her mind.

A laugh gurgled in her throat. Had they given her a hallucinogenic in the emergency room? Jonathan saved lives. He didn’t take them.

Maybe her brain really had gone haywire, though. She’d swear she hadn’t imagined the intense pull she felt toward the dark-as-sin stranger, as if Satan had come out to rescue her and then demanded a favor in return.

But Nic and his voice, which had melted over her body like warm caramel, hadn’t demanded anything. He’d let her lead. And when she’d kneeled at his feet and the appendage he’d been blessed with popped into her vision? Well, she should run to the nearest church and thank God for sparing that body part. Lord, he’d felt like silk over steel and tasted like hot-blooded male.

She gulped the pill down with a cup of water to cleanse her thoughts.

Patience sat on the side of the bed. “So, surgeon to surgeon, what did you think of how we attached the super limbs to the guys?”

“I, uh…” Olivia cocked her head. “Did you just say super limbs? I mean, Kane calls his leg that, and he calls himself a super soldier because his ego is as big as his horse, but it sounds weird coming from a doctor.”

Patience waved her hand. “I stopped trying to use clinical terms ages ago. I learned with my boys to pick my battles, and arguing with cocky soldiers who like to think their shiny metal arms and legs make them superheroes isn’t one I choose to fight.”

“Yup, that’s my brother.” And Nic too, based on the quicker than any human had a right to be way he moved after she’d been shot.

A memory that may very well have been a figment of her traumatized mind wavered in her vision. Immediately after she’d been hit, Nic had been talking, like he was reporting in to someone, but that was impossible. There hadn’t been a phone in sight, and she hadn’t felt one in his pants pocket during her exploration of his body. Yet, she remembered him saying, “activate me,” with a desperate command, and “fire,” and “direct hit” with dark satisfaction.

Who had he hit and with what?

She blinked, but the memory didn’t sharpen or get fuzzier.

Patience sat on a chair next to the bed. “So, what do you think of our boy Nic?”