The Guardian (The Wolfe Series)

by Donna Oltrogge

  Jake had never experienced anything like what he was feeling for the woman he held in his arm. He knew without a doubt he’d found his mate.

  Morning arrived and brilliant sunshine bathed the desert with a soft ochre glow. Laurie could feel Jake’s rolled up t-shirt beneath her head and breathed in his special scent of musk and man. She could see Jake tending the fire that had helped to keep them warm during the night, appreciating his finely chiseled abs and well toned body. She wanted to ask him when they would be leaving but couldn’t seem to get the words past her parched lips. Her vision blurred and her teeth chattered as shivers shook her body and she doubled over in pain.

  Jake could tell that Laurie was awake and wondered why she didn’t say anything. When he turned and caught her staring at him he tossed a wicked wolfish smile her way. Instead of a smile in return, Jake watched Laurie’s eyes glass over in pain as she curled up into a fetal position.

  “My brother, Taggert, should be here soon,” Jake said as he jumped to his feet and rushed to Laurie’s side. “We’ll have you out of here and to a hospital in no time.” They would normally have taken her directly to a hospital except for having to use the helicopter which they needed to keep a secret at all costs. Damn it!

  Laurie grabbed Jake’s arm, her nails digging desperately into his flesh. “No hospital. No doctor,” Laurie ground out. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t jeopardize this man’s or his brother’s life. She’d find a way to make it on her own, she had to. “You have to promise me.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re burning up with fever, Laurie and you need a hospital, not my tender ministrations.” He tried to make light of the situation but could feel the fever’s heat radiating off her body even though he wasn’t touching her.

  “He’ll kill you! He’ll call all of you! You have to promise me! No doctor! No hospital!” Laurie screamed, her face a mask of pure terror and desperation.

  “Okay, okay, calm down. We’ll talk about it when we get to the ranch.” Jake gathered her into his arms and held her against his heart. At that moment he would have agreed to anything to get rid of the terrified expression he saw on Laurie’s face. He felt like killing the bastard that had caused his mate to feel such terror. And she was his mate, or at least she would be.

  The helicopter was the color of gunmetal, it’s rotors whisper quiet as Taggert homed in on Jake’s radio beacon. The copter was sleek and its lines aesthetically pleasing, it’s additional sixteen cubic feet of cargo space allowing for a stretcher that could be used in case any of them were wounded during one of their rescue missions into the desert.

  Taggert frowned, which was something he rarely did. It seemed Jake had finally found his mate and she was in trouble just as Jake had always feared. Taggert couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have a female in their lives again, and whether it would be a good or bad thing. He had always wanted a sister and hopefully she would become that to him and Rand. Taggert was especially concerned about Rand’s reaction to having a woman around. Their younger brother had very little to do with women except to appease his baser needs with an occasional one-night-stand. They all had had their flings over the years but none of them had found the one woman who would share their lives, or become their mate, until now.

  Taggert landed the helicopter, the powerful rotors kicking a dust cloud high up into the air. He quickly shut down the rotors and was in the process of unbuckling his seatbelt when he saw Jake striding toward him. What the hell? He’d expected to meet Jake’s mate but that she would be standing on her own two feet. The woman Jake carried so possessively in his arms looked unconscious, her head nestled beneath Jake’s tight jaw and her long blonde hair hanging down over his right arm. Damn! Taggert jumped out of the helicopter and ran toward his brother.

  “Get the stretcher!” Jake shouted. “She’s hurt! We need to get her to the ranch as soon as possible!”

  Taggert did an about face and raced back toward the helicopter, quickly opening the door and dragging the stretcher out onto the ground. His heart in his throat, he watched Jake place the woman on the stretcher with the greatest of care before fastening the straps across her body that would hold her in place during their flight.

  “What the hell happened to her?” Taggert asked as he gawked at the woman. Damn, but she’s gorgeous! Even unconscious, with her long blonde her in disarray and her clothing dirty and torn, the woman was magnificent. He couldn’t wait to see her eyes which he was sure would be as beautiful as the rest of her.

  Jake felt a stab of jealousy, a dark and dangerous trait of his wolf side, as Taggert continued to stare at Laurie.

  “She was attacked by coyotes last night,” Jake said gruffly as he and Taggert lifted the stretcher holding Laurie’s body into the waiting helicopter. “I killed the leader and ran off the others of his pack.” Jake pointed back toward the rocky outcropping where he and Laurie had spent the night. “That’s his body laying over there. Grab it and throw it in the back, will you? I want it tested for rabies.”

  “Shit! Coyotes, huh? Never heard of coyotes attacking a human before,” Taggert mumbled as he hurried to do his brother’s bidding.

  “And grab the satchel I left under that outcropping,” Jake ordered as only an alpha male could.

  “Aye, aye, captain,” Taggert mock saluted his older brother and sprinted toward the outcropping.

  Slipping into the helicopter’s passenger seat, Jake reached back and took Laurie’s hand into his much larger one. She was still burning up with fever and her lips were parched and dry. Tremors shook her body and she moaned in pain, unable to curl up into the fetal position she seemed to prefer because of the straps restraining her.

  “Hurry up, damn it!” Jake roared as he slammed the helicopter door shut and fastened his seat belt.

  “Take it easy, man,” Taggert said breathlessly. He threw the dead coyote in the back of the helicopter and jumped in the pilot’s seat.

  “Sorry,” Jake said drawing a deep breath. “Just get us back to the ranch, okay?”

  “I wish we could take her right to the hospital,” Taggert said as he started the engine.

  “You know we can’t risk anyone seeing the copter. It’s bad enough that you had to come pick us up during the daylight.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “No buts,” Jake said grimly. “She doesn’t want to go to a hospital, and she doesn’t want a doctor.”

  Taggert’s eyes grew wide and he looked back at the unconscious woman, not missing the fact that Jake was holding her hand. “She needs a hospital, Jake, and a doctor’s care. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Just fly this damn thing will you? I’ll call Doc Edwards when we get to the ranch. He can be trusted to keep his mouth shut.”

  “What’s going on, Jake?” Taggert probed, his green eyes flecked with amber trained on Jake’s face, waiting for an answer and not to be denied.

  Jake expelled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “She’s in big trouble, Tag. I don’t know what kind of trouble but it’s bad. She’s running from someone and I imagine I’ll have a hell of a time trying to find out who it is.”

  “You know you can count on Rand and me to help, whatever you need, big brother.” Taggert slugged Jake in the shoulder and smiled. “We Wolfe’s have to stick together.”

  Jake looked back at Laurie and shook his head, the flowery print sundress and strappy sandals she wore totally inappropriate for her sojourn out into the desert. “I know I can count on you guys,” Jake said hoarsely, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. “She’s hurt, Tag, and she’s scared. I’ve never seen anyone as scared as she is.” He gave Laurie’s small hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll kill whoever did this to her, Tag, I promise you that.”

  Taggert Wolfe cringed at his brother’s solemn promise, knowing that once Jake made a promise he kept it come hell or high water. Taggert almost pitied the man or men Jake would eventually go after, almost, tha
t was until he looked back at his future sister-in-law and saw her grimace in pain.

  “And I’ll help you,” Taggert vowed as he pointed the helicopter in the direction of the ranch.

  The Wolfe brothers would stand together during this time of trouble as they always did, and woe be to anyone who tried to take what was theirs!

  He would carry it always, the jagged scar that marred the left side of his once handsome face. Enrique had considered having surgery on his damaged left cheek for all of about ten seconds before deciding to leave it as it was. He wanted it to serve as a constant reminder of how he had been bested by a mere woman. He promised himself that he would never be that lax again when going after a woman he wanted, and that many women would pay a horrific price for what Laurie Kincaid had done to him. She would be the first of many and he would take the greatest of pleasure in breaking her using some of the cruelest torture techniques known to man. Or to beast in my case. Enrique smiled grimly at the thought and turned away from the mirror. He heard the door of his suite open, knowing only Luzaro himself would have the effrontery to enter the suite without his permission.

  “What the hell happened to you and where is Laurie?” Luzaro raged as he stalked across the room. His face was mottled in rage and his hands were fisted at his sides as he snarled into his second-in-command’s face.

  “She ran,” Enrique said languidly, absently touching the bandage that covered most of the left side of his face. The doctor who was permanently in residence at the estancia had shot him full of morphine and had stitched up the gash, which had taken seventeen stitched to close. Enrique was feeling no pain when he said, “Just like I told you she would.”

  “Like hell she did!” Luzaro shouted, further enraged by Enrique’s casual acceptance of the situation. “She was starting to love me. It was you she hated and feared, you who she was running away from!”

  “You’re not facing reality, my friend,” Enrique said blandly. “That woman would never have loved you. She waited for her chance to escape and she took it, knowing full well the consequences if she did.”

  “Is that where you got the wound on your face? Did she do that to you?” Luzaro exclaimed, shocked that anyone, especially someone like Laurie could get the better of Enrique Perez. He took a step back, wondering how he could have misjudged Laurie to such an extent.

  “Like they say,” Enrique drawled when he saw that Luzaro had finally faced the truth about the woman he thought he could force to love him. “Love is a blind bitch.” He walked toward the bedroom of his suite and said back over his shoulder, “I need to rest now, doctor’s orders. We’ll talk later about this and what we need to do about Miss Laurie Kincaid.”

  Luzaro watched Enrique walk into the bedroom and close the door with a click. He knew Enrique would go after Laurie and he also knew there would be no way to stop him short of a bullet to the brain. Luzaro didn’t know if he was ready to take that step yet, especially for a woman he might never be able to trust.

  As Luzaro left the suite he sighed and felt regret for the first time in many long years, regret that the only woman he had ever tried to love was as good as dead.

  ChapterFifteen

  Charging down the long hallway with Laurie in his arms, Jake didn’t stop at any of the four guest bedrooms along the way where Taggert assumed Jake would take the injured woman. Laurie, her name is Laurie, Jake had told him on their short helicopter ride back to the ranch headquarters. The main ranch house was magnificently situated in the high Sonoran Desert and rolling grasslands of Arizona, surrounded by the Mustang, Whetstone, Empire and Santa Rita mountain ranges. The house they had grown up in was a twenty-two room adobe and had been remodeled over the years to its current lavish style. Its history could be dated back to 1870 when their great-grandfather, Joseph Wolfe, had settled in the area.

  “What are you doing,” Taggert asked when he saw Jake push open the door to the master bedroom, which was also Jake’s bedroom, and carry the woman inside, placing her on the huge four-poster bed that graced the center of the room.

  “She’ll be staying in here with me,” Jake said, brooking no argument as he removed Laurie’s sandals and drew the quilt that had been neatly folded at the end of the bed over her flushed body. He would be the one who would look after her and protect her from whoever had done this to her. “I’ll not have her alone for even a minute. Someone did this and until we find out and eliminate the threat, she’ll need to be guarded by one of us at all times.”

  “Hopefully she won’t mind all of that attention,” Taggert grinned for the first time since hauling his brother and the woman out of the desert.

  “You can leave now,” Jake said, fighting the possessive and unreasonable jealousy that coursed through his veins whenever his brother looked at Laurie. “Go watch for Doc Edwards. He should be here any minute.”

  “Ole Doc is here, boys,” Doc Edwards said as he walked into the bedroom and toward the bed where his patient lay. He was shocked to see a beautiful woman in the throes of a raging fever, her body tormented by unrelenting shivers. “What’s going on here? What happened to this girl?”

  Jake looked at the old man who had nursed him and his brothers through many a childhood illness or broken bone. The old man’s silver hair and stooped shoulders were offset by bright blue eyes full of intelligence and life. Jake knew that the old man could keep a confidence if necessary, and in this case it was definitely necessary.

  “She was attacked by a coyote,” Jake told the doctor. “We found the coyote dead and laying not too far from where we found the woman. I’m going to have it tested for rabies.” He hoped the doctor wouldn’t ask him how the coyote had died. For whatever reason, the old man didn’t question the Wolfe brothers as others might have. Did he suspect they were more than they appeared to be. Their genetics were human when they were in human form and wolf when in their wolf form so Jake didn’t think the doctor could have any idea he and his brothers were shape-shifters.

  “How long has she been like this? She needs to be in a hospital, Jake.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Jake snarled, running a hand through his dark hair. “She refuses to go. She’s running away from something or someone and until I found out who that someone or something is she stays right here at the ranch.”

  Jake gasped when the doctor took off the bandage Jake had applied when he’d first found Laurie. The wound looked painful, red and swollen, with reddish streaks running up her leg that signaled the beginning of an infection. A yellowish-green pus-like substance drained from the wound and Jake felt his stomach roil at the sight.

  “You could be signing her death warrant, you know,” the doctor said. “I’ll dose her with antibiotics and give her something for the pain, then hook up an intravenous so she’s getting fluids and medication. I’m going to leave the wound open so it’ll drain, stitch it up later. That’s the best I’ll be able to do for her under these conditions.”

  “I’ll watch over her, doc, you needn’t worry about that.”

  The old man looked at Jake Wolfe and shook his head. “Fever is a sign of systemic infection. An open wound can become infected, and if not treated promptly will continue to spread throughout the body,” he said as he cleaned the wound, wrapping a new bandage around Laurie’s leg and inserting an IV into her arm.

  “Canine bites are especially traumatic and dangerous events and present a high probability of infection, especially if the bite goes untreated as this one has. A canine’s saliva has a broad diversity of bacteria and harmful bacteria and other dangerous pathogens can be present and transmitted to the bite wound.” Laurie moaned when the doctor pulled the quilt back over her trembling body.

  “You need to keep that wound clean and dry, and monitor it closely. If the fever doesn’t break within the next 24 hours call me and I’ll come back. With a posse if necessary and she will go to a hospital whether any of you Wolfe boys like it or not.”

  “Hey, I’m with you, doc,” Taggert said which
earned him a glare from his older brother.

  “Good, I’m glad at least one of you has some sense.” He snapped his medical bag closed and headed for the door, Taggert close at his heels.

  Laurie could hear men’s voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The pain in her leg had been horrific and the tremors that were shaking her body unrelenting. Then she’d felt a needle enter her arm and pain medication had started to work, thereby alleviating most of her pain and she had groaned in relief.

  Jake felt his heart break when he saw tears slip from the corners of Laurie’s eyes. He took her fragile hand in his, his fingers lightly caressing her pulse point and said, “No one will ever hurt you again, my love. I promise you that.”

  Laurie felt Jake take her hand and run his fingers lightly over her wrist in a soothing caress . . . and she was comforted.

  Jake was beginning to think the doctor was right and that he’d made a grievous mistake in keeping Laurie at the ranch. It had been twelve hours since the doctor had seen Laurie and the fever still hadn’t broken. She hadn’t spoken a coherent word in all that time, had tossed and turned, her moans and groans tearing at his heart. Sometimes she would look at him as though she could actually see him, but Jake knew that wasn’t the case when her eyes became unfocused and seemed to look straight through him.

  “Want me to spell you for awhile?” Taggert asked as he walked into the bedroom knowing his brother hadn’t left their patient’s side since they’d brought her to the ranch.

  “No,” Jake said sadly. “I have to keep holding on to her. I’m afraid she’ll slide into a coma and die if I leave her.”

  Taggert could see the moisture in his brother’s eyes and was staggered by the sight. He hadn’t seen Jake cry since they were children, not even when their mother had been killed.