Vickie Taylor - Her Last Defense

The senior guard’s tone left no doubt in Clint’s mind that “escort” meant “drag.” The young guy latched a rubber-gloved hand on Clint’s shoulder.

Clint knocked his arm away with a chop to the inside of the elbow. “Back off.”

“Go back to your assigned tent.”

Both guards advanced on Clint. Holding his ground, he looked the bigger of the two, the leader, in the eye and balanced on the balls of his feet, fists clenched. “Dr. Attois! I need to speak to you. Now!” he yelled without taking his eyes off the guards.

The junior man grabbed Clint’s arm, tried to leverage it behind his back. Clint twisted in an escape maneuver, but before he got away, the senior guard leaned on his back, doubling him over, and smashed a knee into Clint’s face. Warm blood gushed from his nose. “Aw, now look what you’ve done,” he whined, still bent over, trying to plug his nose and hoping to baffle them just long enough to get the jump on them. “Gone and ruined my pretty blue jumpsuit.”

The distraction worked. The guards rocked back on their heels, thinking the fight was over. Rage thundering in his chest, Clint bulled forward with his head down, knocking the junior guard to the ground. He shoved the other one behind him and aimed a backward kick at his groin, missing by inches when the man slid aside.

“Stop it. Stop it now!”

The voice was feminine, but there was no doubting the authority in its tone. The guard behind Clint took a step back. The guard on the ground staggered to his feet.

Clint straightened and turned his attention to Dr. Attois, wiping his bloody nose with his sleeve. “I need a word with you.”

“You’re hurt.” She threw a challenging look at the guards.

“I’ll live,” Clint mumbled into his sleeve.

“He refused to return to his quarters, ma’am.”

Clint tipped his head back to stem the flow of blood. “All due respect, doctor, this is a quarantine camp, not a penitentiary.”

She’d taken off her rubber suit and wore Keds, faded jeans and a soft, fuzzy lavender sweater that made his body hum in purely male appreciation. He wondered how blood could still be running from his nose when it felt as though all of it had shot to his groin.

Watching him with curious eyes, she stepped back from the tent flap. “Come inside.”

“Ma’am—” the senior guard complained.

“Enough, Carter,” she said simply as Clint took a step forward.

She stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Take off the booties and gloves and put them in the biohazard container outside. Then step into the pan of disinfectant so you don’t track anything in on the bottom of your feet and clean your hands, all the way up past the elbow, with the solution on the table.”

He’d just left decon, but he followed orders without comment. Inside, a cool breeze chilled the sweat on Clint’s forehead. He rolled his eyes down until he could see something besides the ceiling and sighed appreciatively. The tents were more like big balloons than traditional camping equipment. They were mushroom shaped, sealed up tight, and each had its own air-filtration system. They reminded Clint of an old movie about a boy with no immune system who couldn’t ever leave his hermetic environment for fear of infection.

Dr. Attois pulled a chair out from a folding table and motioned him toward it. He stood, surveying the neat cot and blanket, table and laptop computer. “Nice place. If you don’t mind living like the boy in the plastic bubble.”

“Beats dying.” She dug through a footlocker and came up with a hand towel and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. “Now are you going to sit down or do I have to do this standing on my tiptoes?”

She held the bottle of peroxide up. He reached for it. “I can do it myself.”

She pulled the disinfectant out of his reach and nodded to the chair again. “I’m sure you can. But I’m the doctor, remember. Now sit.”

Reluctantly, he sat. Arguing with her wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

She clucked over him as she cleaned around his mouth. “Now what’s so important that you’d risk bodily harm just to talk to me?”

For a moment he couldn’t remember. She leaned over him, and all he could see was the milky column of her throat. She smelled like Ivory soap and her fingers were soft and gentle as they worked. It had been a long time since anyone had touched him so personally. Since a woman had touched him at all.

He couldn’t help but notice every detail about her as she worked over him. The way the light caught her eyes when she smiled. The way she touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip when she was concentrating. His heartbeat thrummed heavily in his veins, as if his blood had turned to mercury.

The unexpected reaction to her chafed him. This after only a few hours in her company? By the time the quarantine was lifted—if it was lifted—he’d be lucky if he was capable of speech.

He cleared his throat. Telephone.

“I need to use your satellite phone.”

She pulled back from him. The scent of Ivory wafted away, just out of reach. He caught himself just before he leaned forward to capture it again. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. Tilt your head back.”

When he didn’t comply, she eased his forehead backward with the heel of her hand and dabbed at his nostrils with a gauze pad. He grabbed her wrist. Was it his imagination, or did her pulse leap under his fingers?

Their gazes met. Her pupils widened. No, it hadn’t been imagination.

He let her go, easing her back slightly in the same motion. “Look, I need to call my office. Let them know where I am.”

She yanked her gaze away and turned her back to him to put her supplies away. A warning buzz replaced the drumbeat in Clint’s veins.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t let you use the phone. There’s a media blackout. It’s against—”

“I’m not going to call the media. I’m going to call the Rangers. The search for your damn monkey is going to be huge. There are dozens of little towns surrounding the national forest. The evacuation alone is going to eat up nearly every law-enforcement resource in the state. I have to make sure there’re enough cops ready to back us—”

She wheeled. They stood so close that the top of her head was practically under his chin. Her mouth was just inches below his. It opened to speak, paused. He felt the warm rush of her breath. Smelled her mint toothpaste.

“There isn’t going to be an evacuation,” she said. Worry lines fanned out from the corners of her chicory-coffee eyes and her mouth.

“What do mean, no evacuation?”

With one last, suffering look, she ducked away. Her hands shook as she screwed the cap on the peroxide bottle and shoved the bloody gauze into a plastic bag.

“They—” She cut herself off, stumbling over her words. “It’s safer if everyone just stays in their homes,” she claimed, sounding as though she was reading a prepared statement. Or propaganda. She kept her eyes carefully averted and her hands busy, closing the first aid kit and stowing it in her trunk.

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