diseases center,” Simon told Grace. “The stairs are there.” He pointed to a closed door with a sign above depicting a stairway.
“I figured,” Grace said drily.
“Would you prefer the elevator?” Simon asked.
“The stairs are fine.”
That was the extent of their conversation until they were on the second floor. The silence was anything but comfortable.
As they started walking along the polished floors of the long, meandering hallway, past other hospital wings, Grace said, “So you’re in internal medicine now. Interesting. I’d have figured you for emergency medicine, years ago, or maybe surgery. Better yet, an area related to anatomy. Or something else altogether, like dermatology. Or veterinary medicine.” She looked up at him challengingly.
Why did that expression on her beautiful face make his insides start to burn? Or maybe it was simply the sudden closeness again of Grace, after their very long separation.
“Same goes,” he retorted, intentionally making his tone grating. “Are we going to start on that same woo-woo obsession of yours all over again?” He glared right back—and was discomfited to see what appeared to be a gleam of triumph in her eyes before she looked away.
As if she finally had gotten him to admit the “truth” she had goaded him for so pointedly back in pre-med.
She couldn’t really know … could she?
Even if she didn’t, her being here, at such a critical time to his personal experiments, could be a huge problem. He needed to work even harder, after his only partly successful test last night.
The second-floor hallway seemed to go on forever. That should have been a bad thing, considering the chilly atmosphere between them. Even so, Grace couldn’t help feeling excited that she was once again in Simon’s presence.
Although it hurt. She couldn’t turn off her emotions now any more than she’d been able to way back when they’d known each other.
She had loved Simon, nearly from the time they had met in their first pre-med classes at Michigan State University. Their passion had been nearly overwhelming, their lovemaking incredible and intense.
And then he was gone. He transferred to another school at the end of the first term.
Left her.
Never mind that she had been the one to break things off first. She had expected candor from the man she wanted to spend her life with. Instead, she had gotten equivocations. Lies.
Ridicule.
She had nearly revealed to him what she was in order to get him to disclose that he, too, was a shifter—assuming it was true.
Thanks to his derision, she’d never dared to mention it.
Good thing.
“Here we are,” Simon finally said at a door with frosted windows. The wall beside it held large metallic letters reading Charles Carder Infectious Diseases Center. He held the door open, and Grace walked in.
The next half hour was a blur of introductions to the nursing staff and other physicians, and a tour of the facilities.
One person Grace met was Captain Moe Scoles, also a doctor, the head of the Infectious Diseases Center. He was working on a computer inside a moderate-sized office beside a nurse’s station. Tall, with hair shorn nearly to his scalp, he gave Grace a rundown of the extra precautions taken here, where the illnesses were, of course, contagious—often highly so. Then he told Grace, “We’re all staffed up today, but we’ll assign you an office tomorrow and put you to work seeing patients.”
“Thanks, sir.” That meant she would have the afternoon to start something else she intended to do—all with the design of aiding in her real mission.
To get started, she needed to cut short her uncomfortable interlude with Simon. “Thanks for showing me around,” she told him once they were back in the corridor.
“You’re welcome.” His golden-brown eyes bored into hers. “It really is good to see you again, Grace.” He sounded surprised, the words apparently erupting from him without forethought. His wide lips immediately flattened as if he were trying to withdraw what he’d said.
She couldn’t help smiling at his sudden unease. “I’m as surprised about it as you are.” She kept her words intentionally ambiguous. “I’m sure we’ll see each other around. Don’t worry. I don’t bite.” Catching the slight widening of his eyes, she couldn’t help adding, “Do you?”
She hurried down the hall—but not before hearing a burst of laughter from behind her.
Okay, she had intended to goad him, Simon thought as he started to walk in the opposite direction to look in on a patient. But it had nevertheless struck him as humorous. This time.
But the reason they’d broken up was because Grace had tried hard to get him to admit he was a shapeshifter. She hadn’t been teasing about it—or so he’d believed.
She’d even hinted that she might be one too. For a while, he had hoped it was true, had interpreted her scent, her movements, as if she was. How great it would have been, if they’d had something so profound in common.
But after what his extended family had gone through before he went off to school … well, he wasn’t about to burst out with the truth, trust just anyone, even someone who’d gotten under his skin that way.
She hadn’t given up. Her insistence rubbed him wrong, and he’d just poked fun at her—supposedly—ridiculous claims.
And then she’d backed off. Good thing he hadn’t said anything—though he still wished he knew why she’d zeroed in on him. Was she related to that murderous group? He didn’t want to think so. But to protect himself and his family, he’d backed off too.
And in retrospect …?
Well, hell. After all this time, it didn’t matter. She was in the military, so he’d been right. She couldn’t be a shifter. Back then, something about him, something he’d said or done, had simply made her curious. Hopefully, now that she was older, wiser and a whole lot more distant from him, she’d lay off the subject.
Except, perhaps, to make jokes about it.
But he had to stay away from her. As far as possible, despite, or possibly because of, the way she still attracted him.
He didn’t want her, or anyone else, interfering with what he was here to accomplish.
At lunchtime, Simon headed toward the stairway to the medical center’s lobby floor, where the cafeteria was located beyond the auditorium. On his way, he heard children’s laughter from somewhere down the second-floor hallway. Curious, he veered in that direction.
And saw Grace in the large visitors’ lounge with a dog that looked mostly German shepherd. Three kids were there, too, dressed in hospital gowns. Half a dozen nurses also watched.
The dog, wearing a vest identifying it as a therapy dog, was sitting on its haunches, waving both paws in the air. That brought another peal of laughter
