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The door was locked, and Leland pressed the button labeled FOR SERVICE AFTER HOURS. Within seconds, a woman in jeans and flannel with short-cropped gray hair unlocked the door and pushed it open with an urgency that Leland appreciated.
“You’re the one that called in to the preserve?” the woman said, already reaching for Diego, gloved hand brushing his hair out of his face to look at his eyes.
“Yeah.” Leland lifted Diego over the threshold when the kid couldn’t seem to pick his feet up enough to get past the doorstep. “You the doctor?”
“I’m Dr. Fenton.” She locked the door behind them and led them through the empty lobby, the fluorescent lights flickering and buzzing to life when she flicked the switch. “Can you help me get him to the exam room?”
“Nice to meet you, Doc.” Leland grunted at the unexpected weight as Diego went almost limp against him, and he hitched his arm more securely around Diego’s middle. “I’m Leland.” As an afterthought, he added, “His name’s Diego.”
She swept ahead of them into an exam room and helped Leland get Diego up onto the patient table, the white paper crinkling loudly.
A buzzer sounded, and Diego groaned, covering his ears.
“That’ll be Haley,” Dr. Fenton said, changing out her gloves for fresh ones. “The preserve director. Do you mind letting her in for me?”
“Yeah, I got it.” Leland steadied Diego before finding his way back through the clinic toward the front door. When he first saw the girl standing on the other side of the glass, he wondered if maybe it was someone’s daughter instead of Haley Fern, Director of the Pine Grove Nature Preserve. Nothing about her, from her blond ponytail to the soft roundness of her face and generous curves of her figure, matched the gruff, no-nonsense voice he’d heard on the phone that morning. Then again, she was clutching a travel mug with LUANN’S DINER emblazoned on the side like it was the only thing keeping her standing, so maybe that was just how she sounded when she got dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning.
When he approached the door, she lifted the huge sunglasses that had been covering half her face, and wow, those big, brown eyes could stop a full-grown man in his tracks. They almost did.
He fumbled the door open a crack and leaned out a bit, staying cautious in case he was wrong. He’d been wrong before. “Can I help you?”
She squinted up at him, her nose wrinkling under a dusting of dark freckles. Christ, she was so cute it was almost illegal.
“I’m Haley Fern, the preserve director,” she said, and he knew immediately it wasn’t the same person he’d talked to that morning. Her voice was too sweet for that. “And you are?”
He had the oddest impulse to take his cap off, but he just held the door open wider for her instead. “Leland Sommers, the new dedicated deputy. I called the preserve this morning about a kid I found on the way in. That wasn’t you I talked to, was it?”
“Oh, no, that was my ranger, Michele.” She ducked in under his arm as he held open the door, still eyeing him like she was sizing him up. “You’re the one they hired to take George’s place? We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow night.”
She was half his height, but he felt almost scolded. It was all he could do not to feel like he was telling his teacher why he didn’t have his homework. “My lease was already up at my old place, so I figured I’d come up a couple days early, start getting settled in.”
He locked the door behind her, and when he turned around, she was rubbing one eye and biting back a yawn. No one had a right to be that cute and that intimidating at the same time.
She caught him watching her and waved one hand apologetically. “Sorry. Not a morning person. Michele said the boy you found was injured?”
He nodded, shortening his stride so he could walk beside her down the hall. “Bite marks. Looked like maybe a dog or coyote from glancing at it. ’Bout the right size and depth, compared to other likely things.” At her sideways glance, he shrugged, guessing at her unasked question. “Saw a few animal attacks on the force in Arizona.”
He shut his mouth, clenching his jaw against the echo of snarls and growls that were even louder than the screams…
Haley pushed the door to the exam room open, and Leland was grateful for the opportunity to focus on something else. Diego sat on the bench, his knuckles almost white where his fingers were curled around the edge, his jaw clenched so hard the tendons were standing out in his neck.
“Diego, this is my friend Haley,” Dr. Fenton said. “She’d like to talk to you about what happened last night, if that’s okay.”
Leland was several feet away, but he could still hear Diego’s breathing go ragged, the whites of his eyes visible as he started shivering.
“You don’t have to,” Haley said quickly as Diego swayed, and Leland stepped forward, bracing Diego gingerly by his upper arms. The boy twitched at his touch, but his skin was clammy and cold underneath a thin layer of sweat. “Karen, I think he’s…”
Dr. Fenton nodded, opening a drawer and pulling out a plastic-wrapped syringe.
“Can you breathe for me, Diego?” she said calmly as she pulled the wrapper apart. “Your heart is beating very quickly, so I’m going to give you something to relax you, but can you help me by focusing on your breathing? Breathe in…and out. In…and out.” She kept up the soothing breath count while she plunged the needle into a bottle, pulling the clear liquid up into the syringe. “That’s it. You’re doing great.”
Diego flinched when he saw the needle, but when he pressed backward, Leland was there, blocking his route. Dr. Fenton kept talking to him in a calm, soothing voice as she slid the needle into his arm, and within seconds, Leland felt Diego relaxing, starting to slump over.
He lowered the boy to the padded bench, moving out of the way when Haley appeared with a soft blanket that she wrapped around Diego’s torso, tucking it under him gently. She didn’t seem to notice Leland watching her as she leaned forward to look at the bite mark on Diego’s shoulder, and…was she…sniffing him? Maybe to see if he smelled like alcohol, but Leland hadn’t noticed any indication that the kid might have been drinking.
“I appreciate your help, Deputy Sommers,” Dr. Fenton said, drawing his attention. “He’s lucky you found him when you did.”
Seems like it would’ve been luckier if someone had found him earlier,Leland thought, but he just nodded. “Glad to help,” he said instead. “Sorry to ask, but do you have a restroom I could use?”
