The Wolfe (130 page)

“Hey, look, if you had something
else to do, I totally understand,” he said quickly. “I’m probably not going to
be much good with this bum leg. We can take a rain check.”

She put in the final stitch. “I’m
not busy,” she repeated.

He was back to feeling hopeful. “How
about dinner?”

She looked at him. “Tonight?”

“Sure.”

She fought off a smile. “I’d love
to, but you really aren’t going to be any good tonight. I just shot you full of
Demerol and you are going to be floating in a few minutes so we’ll have to
another night. Got anybody coming for you?”

“My team’s here,” he replied.

She cocked an eyebrow at him,
putting her instruments back on the tray. “Team?” she repeated, glancing at his
wound again. The only personnel in the navy that referred to their comrades as
a ‘team’ were SEAL’S and she caught on quickly. “Are you a S.E.A.L.?”

He lay his head down on his arm
wearily. “Could be.”

She moved over to her tray and
thoughtfully moved to the sink, dumping everything into it. “Commander Wade
Wolfe,” she mumbled to herself, then turned around. “You are not the guy who
just led that raid into Columbia, are you? The one they call the Fox?”

“The Wolf,” he corrected her
indifferently. Now that she figured out who he was, she was probably going to
march right out without another word and he resigned himself to that fact.

But she didn’t leave; instead, she
stood over by the sink and grinned knowingly. “I shouldn’t have asked you that.
Are you going to kill me now because I know too much?”

He tilted his head back to look at
her. “No, but I might spank you for being a smart ass.”

She laughed and his heart did that
strange thumping thing again. He would have attributed it to the Demerol except
her laughter made him feel like smiling, too. Not the usual drug reaction.

“Then you must be why half of the
Pentagon is out in the waiting room,” she said, mildly impressed. “Everybody
wants to know firsthand what happened, huh?”

He shrugged, not really committing
one way or the other. She went back over to him and pushed him onto his back,
noticing how wonderfully firm and taut he was under her hands. She wanted to
run her fingers all over his naked chest, but she settled for dressing the
wound instead. His eyes were closed as she worked and she was sure he had
fallen asleep, disappointed because the conversation was over.

The Wolf
. The guy was famous  -
or infamous, if you were the enemy - in military circles. Rumor had it that he
was so good, foreign governments tried to hire him out. Gazing down at the man,
Jeremy could only see that he was incredibly handsome and built like a god. And
strangely…familiar, in a dreamy sort of way, although she knew she had never
met him. She would have remembered a face like that. She could hardly wait to
tell her father who she had worked on. And a bullet wound, yet.

Wade’s eyes were closed but not
because he was asleep. He was very much awake, feeling her expert hands touch
his thigh, her soft fingers on his skin and it was the most amazing, erotic
experience he’d ever had and prayed she didn’t notice. Fortunately, his t-shirt
was torn and baggy, and hung over his crotch, or he was sure she would slap
him. He felt like a pervert with his reaction to her, but in his heart he knew
perversion was far from the truth. This woman, somehow, touched him. Literally,
of course, but in another, more personal way as well.

She finished but was still looking
down at him, studying his face. His breathing had become deep and regular and
she knew it was the painkiller kicking in. She sighed; God, he was beautiful.

She broke away from his face and
started to step away from the gurney when his hand suddenly shot out and
grabbed her arm. She yelped, startled, and his eyes slowly opened to look at
her.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to scare
you,” his voice was a whisper. “I just wanted to say thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied, feeling
his warm hand on her arm like a scalding iron. “Just try not to get shot
anymore, okay? Next time it could be worse.”

“It
has
been worse, but I’ll
try. For you, I will try.”

She smiled and he returned it. “Can
you let go of me so that I can throw this stuff away?” She indicated the bloody
gauze in her hands.

“If I let you go, will you come
back?”

“I won’t leave you.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

He lifted his eyebrow, feigning
reluctance, but his hand dropped back onto the gurney and as she moved to the
trash can, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Glancing over to
the doorway, she could see several men crowded in it. One man, a very handsome
blond, looked at her.

“Can we come in?” he asked, his
voice deep and pleasant.

“Sure,” she said, laying the chart
down. “He’s doped up, but he’s ready to go as soon as I get his prescription.”

The man smiled openly at her and
moved into the room, followed by the rest of the group.  She counted seven in
all. At the sound of their voices, Wade’s eyes flew open.

“Boys,” he greeted with an
exaggerated drawl.

The blond looked down at him
critically. “You faker. Now get up and walk the hell out of here.”

“Leave me alone,” Wade mumbled; the
Demerol was hitting him hard. “I am staying here, all night, with her.” He
pointed limply to Jeremy.

They all looked at her and she was
suddenly extremely self-conscious. Feeling her face grow hot, she picked up the
chart and walked around to the other side of the gurney, opposite his team.

“I only said I’d have dinner with
you. I never said I’d spend the night with you.”

He smiled at her but his expression
turned hostile as his team members looked surprised.

“Yes, I have a date. What a damn
miracle,” he said belligerently. “And don’t look at her that way. I found her
first.”

A man who must have played football
because his neck was as wide as his head looked at her with kind brown eyes.

“Too bad,” he said. “Hell, if I’d
known she was here, I’d have thrown myself into the hail of gunfire, too.”

“Shut up, Kevin,” Wade muttered,
glancing back over at Jeremy. “Do I really have to go?”

“Yes, you do,” she said, although
she didn’t want him to go, either. “Come on, now, and sit up. I shall go get a wheelchair.”

She walked around the gurney as his
team members heaved him up into a sitting position.  The moment she left the
room, Wade’s teammates bombarded him with questions about the gorgeous nurse.
He put up his hand to shut them up, wincing.

“God, you are making my head hurt.
Not everybody all at once.”

“So tell us about her,” Peter nudged
him.

Wade shrugged, desperately groggy. “Not
much to tell,” he replied. “She sewed me up and I asked her out.”

“How romantic,” Peter said drolly. “What
a smoothie you are, Wade.”

Wade looked at him. “Well, she’s
going so I must not have done too badly.”

Kevin, slightly behind him shook his
head. “When did you last ask a woman out, Wade? Five, six years ago?”

“Up yours, buddy,” Wade snarled,
leaning back against Peter. “She’s not like any other woman I have met.
She’s….different. I do not know, maybe she shot me full of a love potion
instead of Demerol.”

“You have known her for ten minutes
and you already know she’s different?” Peter scoffed. “Guys, it must be love.”

Wade frowned threateningly at him,
lacking the strength or the coordination to do much else.

“So why didn’t you introduce us?”
Kevin wanted to know. “Are you afraid we’ll offend her and she won’t go out
with you?”

“Probably,” Wade nodded. His leg was
throbbing and his head hurt and he didn’t want to do anything now but sleep,
hoping if he gave them one-word answers they’d get the hint and leave well
enough alone.

Jeremy came back into the room then,
pushing a wheelchair. Wade was sitting up, looking at her with a twinkle in his
eye that she knew was brought on by the drug. Too bad, too; she would have sold
her soul for the look to have been real.

“I have just been tongue-lashed for
being rude,” Wade said groggily, then gestured to the men standing around him. “Allow
me to introduce you to these fools I work with. From my right, Peter, Kevin,
Michael, Dennis, Jason and Mark. Gentlemen, meet my future wife, Nurse Jeremy.”

He was drugged and teasing and she
teased back. “In your dreams, buster,” she said, kicking the brake down on the
wheelchair. “Come on, time to go home.”

Peter and Michael, a man that was at
least a half a head taller than the rest of the guys, helped him into the
chair. Jeremy pulled two bottles out of her coat pocket and placed them in
Wade’s hands.

“In my dreams?” Wade repeated as he
opened his palms. “That’s probably true. It’s the only place I’d ever get lucky
with a woman like you.”

Jeremy grinned, ignoring his
comments. “This is the painkiller should your leg hurt a lot,” she tapped one
bottle with a coral-colored fingernail. “And the other one is the antibiotic.
The instructions are on the bottle, and you don’t have to start it until
tomorrow, okay?”

He looked at the bottles before
turning his face up to her.

“Okay,” he replied. “So where do I
pick you up?”

“When?”

“Tomorrow for our dinner date. I
only have forty-eight hours, remember?”

She stood back, crossing her arms
across her chest. “Are you sure? I mean, you may not be feeling so great by
tomorrow.”

He was looking at her but speaking
to his men. “Go wait in the hall. This is a private conversation.”

Snickering and grinning, the big men
did as they were asked, leaving Wade and Jeremy alone.  When they were gone, he
lowered his voice.

“Look, if you don’t want to go out
with me, just say so,” Wade said, without malice. “I’d understand I mean, you
must have a boyfriend….”

She shook her head vigorously. “I
don’t have a boyfriend and I said I’d go out with you. I just don’t want you to
feel obligated to take me out because you asked me when your mind was clouded
with drugs.”

He frowned. “I may be feeling a little
high, but I know what I am saying. I want to see you tomorrow night.”

Jeremy felt her cheeks grow warm as
they gazed at each other but she didn’t care; she was so caught up in him that
she didn’t realize she was smiling. Wade felt the pull, too, as if there was a
magnet between them. It was weird, wonderful, and completely unexplainable.

“If you’re sure,” she said after a moment.
“I get off a six. You can pick me up here.”

He smiled. “Great. I am really
looking forward to it, Jeremy.”

“Me, too,” she smiled back. She was incredibly
glad that he seemed interested in her because, damn, if she wasn’t tremendously
attracted to him.

Jeremy pushed him out into the hall
and his team members were immediately at his side, grinning at their commander
and at the nurse. Down the hall, the hordes of brass began to turn around, one
by one, and Wade looked dubiously at them.

“Damn,” he muttered.

His men followed his gaze. “They’re
going to be merciless,” Peter commented.

Jeremy could see that the S.E.A.L.
team was tired and exhausted and Wade certainly wasn’t up to interrogation by
the brass. She had an idea.

“Where are you guys staying?” she
asked.

“Base housing,” Wade replied. “Why?”

She cocked a thoughtful brow. “Hold
on a second.” She skipped down the hall and disappeared into a door, emerging
mere seconds later. She took Wade’s hand and pressed something cold and hard
into it. He looked down and saw it was a key.

“To my parent’s house on Coronado,”
she told him with a grin. “If you stay here on base, they’ll never leave you
alone. You need to get some rest tonight.”

He returned her smile timidly. “Well…
hell, okay. Where is it?”

“Fifteen sixty-three Bay Park
Avenue,” she told him, then glanced at the others. “There are three bedrooms
and den, enough room for all of you. You are welcome to it.”

Peter took the key. “Cool,” he said
sincerely. “Thanks.”

Wade nodded. “Yeah, thanks,” he
replied. “But where are
you
staying?”

“At my apartment here on base,” she
said with a primly cocked brow. She then turned to look down the hall
thoughtfully. “Now, to get you out of here… wait here one more minute. I’ll be
back.”

Again, she moved rapidly down the
hall and turned a corner. Not a minute later she returned pulling the young
doctor who had originally examined Wade. Much to Wade’s surprise, he felt
himself bristle with jealousy at the sight of Jeremy touching another man and
just as quickly chased those feelings from his mind. Already, he was
possessive, like she belonged to him.