Code Name: Baby

by Christina Skye

  “They must be giving you some kind of meds to keep you in shape like that. Aminos. Maybe steroids, too.” Izzy stared at him. “Or worse.”

  “Not authorized to answer, Teague.”

  Izzy looked back at the road, frowning, “Keep an eye on the mix. You saw what happened to Cruz.”

  Wolfe had seen all too clearly. He couldn’t get the image out of his mind. If the experts at the Foxfire lab were pushing their biology too far too fast, the whole team could end up imploding—pumped up and strung out like Cruz.

  Hell if he’d let that happen.

  “Duly noted, Teague.”

  “If you need outside medical advice, I’m available.”

  Not a small thing, Wolfe thought. Izzy would have access to a variety of resources closed to most. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Good. In the meantime, stay alert. Cruz knows where Kit is now. Our friends in the Hummer leave no doubt about that. Cruz is probably on his way here now.”

  “Neither she nor the dogs will be out of my sight from now on,” Wolfe countered tightly.

  Izzy pointed to a dramatic timber and adobe house at the top of the hill. It was more home than Wolfe had ever seen, much less spent the night in. “You’ll be staying up there.”

  “A little rich for my blood.”

  “You’ll survive.” After passing a dozen custom homes, they pulled into a narrow driveway. Izzy made a thumbs-up gesture to the man in a black uniform who appeared at the side of the van. “Take her inside and keep her safe. I’ll contact her friend in Santa Fe so she doesn’t start making anxious phone calls to the police.”

  Wolfe had forgotten about Miki. But he knew making anxious phone calls would have been only the start of her response, if she thought Kit was in danger. “Kit’s going to need dry clothes.”

  “Already on it. My people will pick up some clothes and keep tabs on the black Lab at the clinic too. As far as her medical condition, let me see what I can find out.” Izzy’s tone didn’t hold much hope. “There are always discoveries and new research. Tomorrow everything could change.”

  Like hell it could.

  Neither said it, but the words hung in the air.

  Kit deserved something better than a bleak prognosis of pain. Given all the geniuses connected with Foxfire, Wolfe vowed to find it for her.

  SHE WAS AS LIGHT as the weight of dreams in his arms as he carried her up the steps to the brightly lit house. Her hair drifted over his hands and her skin was cool with a scent of cinnamon. She was no longer a girl, not even close, and what he felt for her was turning dangerous, leaving them both vulnerable.

  In spite of that, he savored the moment and all the unfamiliar emotions of close contact with someone other than a stranger on hire to the Foxfire medical staff.

  The three dogs tagged close behind, restless and panting as Wolfe strode through the living room. He wanted Kit cleaned up and wearing dry clothes by the time she woke. He wanted…hell, he wanted her, period. In his arms and naked in his bed.

  Fool.

  Baby brushed against his leg,

  “Fog.” Kit moved restlessly. “Men coming.”

  Wolfe didn’t understand, but he nodded anyway. “There’s no fog here, and no men but me. In a few minutes you’re going to be in bed, and then you can really sleep.”

  “Sleep?” Kit opened her eyes, blinking. “Is this where you live?”

  “No, not here.” He pushed open the carved pine door with his foot. “We’re just going to use it for a little while.”

  “Too bad. I’d really like to see your bed.” She smiled sleepily. “Can I?”

  “Sometime.” Wolfe’s stomach clenched. He felt a new tension that had nothing to do with lust. How was he going to keep her from getting hurt? Cruz wanted her dogs, and Ryker wanted her as bait. Somehow he would have to protect her from both men.

  Maybe even from himself. Lately she seemed to strip right through his defenses.

  “We need to get you cleaned up.”

  She fought his hands. “Stop. Where are my dogs?”

  “They’re here beside us. Right, Baby? And Diesel is doing fine, too. I checked a few minutes ago.”

  Kit relaxed when she heard Baby bark. “Probably they’re ravenous. Their food—”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  She curled closer against his chest. “They need a special diet, and I only use the food I make for them.” She yawned. “Out in the Jeep.” Her eyes flashed wide open. “Do I still have a car?”

  “Got that covered, too.” Izzy had already arranged for the Jeep to be towed and repaired. He’d also sent someone to Kit’s ranch to pick up a week’s worth of food for the dogs, along with Kit’s training equipment.

  “Why weren’t you always this nice to me?”

  Wolfe’s smile faded. Nice wasn’t his specialty. Nice didn’t get the job done. For practical reasons, he was weak on niceness skills.

  When he looked down, Kit had drifted back to sleep. Relieved, he carried her upstairs to a bedroom filled with Navajo pottery. Leaving her in the middle of the huge bed, he grabbed a wet washcloth and a clean towel from the bathroom, ready to tackle the job of cleaning her up. For some reason, the prospect left him uneasy.

  Grimly, he focused on her damp jeans and the mud caked up to her knees from the fall in the canal.

  At least he tried to focus. Her shirt had a hole in one arm and ground-in mud across her chest. He wasn’t about to strip her unless it was absolutely necessary. Touching her any more than he had to seemed like a bad idea.

  So she was wet and dirty. He’d start out easy and work from there.

  She gave a soft sigh and reached toward him sleepily as he pulled off her wet shoes.

  Toward, not away, he realized. The weight of her trust made him feel even more uncomfortable.

  He focused on the hole in her shirt instead of the way her nipples rose to soft points against the damp cotton. He didn’t want to see the details revealed by the wet fabric, and he definitely wasn’t going to think about having sex with her.

  Quickly he dried her hair, dropped the towel on the bed and unzipped her jeans. Her skin was cool and smooth as the zipper whispered and denim parted. His mouth went dry when he saw the curve of her stomach with a small half moon tattooed just below her navel.

  Suddenly her arms flailed out, swinging at his shoulder. “Hmmh.”

  Wolfe realized she was still asleep, but she might not be for long. Moving fast, he lifted her hips and tugged the jeans lower, his eyes narrowing at the sight of slim legs and the wedge of cinnamon hair beneath plain white bikini panties.

  Not that he was looking. He wasn’t even thinking about looking. But a man was a man, damn it. With her underwear soaked, he could see one hell of a lot.

  Wolfe forced all images of hot, panting sex out of his mind. He would label this as one of Ryker’s training scenarios, nothing more. He’d had women climbing all over him and his control had never slipped before.

  Grimly, he finished pulling off Kit’s jeans. The contact would not be personal or pleasurable. Her body was irrelevant to him.

  Even if his hand slipped twice as he tried to open her bra and it took him three tries to get her shirt unbuttoned.

  He muttered a curse. The woman was reducing him to tactical incompetence.

  It was time to be tough. He stripped her shirt and tossed it onto the floor. Wielding a towel, he mopped the mud off her arms and bruised legs. He did it all in record time, like a desperate man crossing thin ice. He kept his eyes on her face as he worked off her wet bra and panties, ignoring the brush of her tight nipples against his hands.

  Instead of her pale skin, he focused on the newest requisition order he had placed for 15x image stabilizing night vision goggles. He recited the specs and the serial number to keep his mind off the sight of her smooth hips and the dark tangle of hair that goaded his senses.

  Kit muttered softly when he pulled the thick duvet around her, but she didn’t wake, which was a small
mercy. He turned off the light and walked to the door, then slanted one look back into the deeply shadowed room.

  Her face was pale, her hands tense on the covers. She murmured something he couldn’t make out. Was she dreaming about a vacation? A new car?

  A man?

  It hit him suddenly that he knew miserably little about the woman Kit had become. He knew about the articles she’d written for two professional search-and-rescue organizations and her growing reputation in canine behaviorist circles. He knew that she’d saved her ranch from tax foreclosure after her parents’ sudden death, fighting her way out of debt with back-to-back training assignments. He knew she’d taken high-paying jobs with dogs written off as untrainable. In the process she had replaced choke chains with simple clarity, cages with six-hour exercise sessions outdoors. Her animals ate better, slept better, looked better—and they adored her within days.

  She didn’t yell, she didn’t scold, and she definitely didn’t hit, yet her success rate was unmatched. All of this was in the government file Wolfe had read.

  But nowhere had he seen a single word about Kit’s personal life or any intimate relationships. In spite of the conversation he’d overheard between Kit and her friend, he figured that a woman with Kit’s spirit and beauty had to have a man in her life. If not currently, then in the recent past.

  His fists clenched at the thought of Kit with another man. He pictured her smiling, saw her opening a belt, her clothes dropping. After that he forced all feeling away. She wasn’t his to claim and he didn’t have time for fantasies. The sooner he drove that fact home to both of them, the safer they would be.

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Wolfe was talking on his cell phone when he heard Baby skid across the plank pine floor. She tried to stop, scrambled hard, and slid to a halt in front of the couch where he was getting an update from Izzy.

  He leaned down, scratching behind Baby’s ears. “Something wrong, honey?”

  “Honey?” Izzy repeated dryly.

  Wolfe muttered a pithy phrase that made Izzy chuckle.

  “I doubt that’s anatomically possible. So Kit’s there with you?”

  “No, it’s Baby, and she’s looking very restless.” Wolfe’s eyes narrowed as Butch and Sundance charged across the room. “Update that. Here come Butch and Sundance. You can’t keep this team apart.”

  Baby gripped Wolfe’s sleeve in her teeth and tugged sharply while Sundance mouthed his other sleeve. What the heck was going on?

  Abruptly he realized why the dogs looked so urgent. “Gotta go, Teague. The dogs need to go out for a pit stop, and they’re not being subtle about it.”

  “Watch where you step,” Izzy said dryly. Then the phone went dead.

  Wolfe looked at the puppies lined up in front of him and found himself grinning. “All right troops, move out. Field formation, eyes forward.”

  But no one moved. Baby looked at him, then barked insistently. Instantly the three dogs shot across the room toward French doors that opened onto a wraparound patio of travertine marble.

  Wolfe shook his head. Clearly, Baby was the team leader in this group.

  After checking out the back yard, he opened the doors and stood back while Baby rocketed past him, paws skidding. Butch and Sundance shot down the steps right behind Baby. The trio raced around the back yard half a dozen times, sniffed at a big mesquite tree, then stopped in a neat row near the side wall.

  Legs rose in a line. Baby squatted.

  Pit stop.

  Wolfe watched them, smiling wryly. Mission accomplished. They even seemed to do this as a team. With their pressing business complete, the dogs looked back at him, then tore around the big yard in dizzy canine delirium. Just watching them made him feel twenty years younger.

  He tossed a big stick across the grass, laughing as the dogs jumped up, changed direction in midair, then tore out after their target. Butch reached the stick first, grabbed it and waved it madly between his teeth.

  Instantly, Baby bumped him with her head, growling playfully. Though Butch was probably twenty pounds heavier and two inches taller, the big dog dropped the stick and stood back while Baby picked it up.

  She trotted back with the stick and waited.

  “Nice moves, Slim. What do I get for an encore?”

  Baby waved the stick close enough to brush his hand.

  Wolfe lunged—but somehow the stick was gone and Baby was six feet across the yard, spinning in happy circles.

  He studied the dog uneasily. “How the hell did you do that?”

  Baby trotted back briskly and bumped his leg with her head. When he was looking directly at her, she tossed the stick up in the air near his hand and caught it neatly.

  Challenging him. The absolute nerve.

  Wolfe lunged.

  In a blur the stick shot through his fingers and vanished, gripped in Baby’s mouth as the three dogs tore across the yard in a tight cluster.

  Incredible, Wolfe thought. Was he exaggerating their speed? He sprinted after Baby, only to find his way blocked by Butch and Sundance, who feinted left as a unit, then raced back toward him, blocking his way until Baby was out of reach.

  The damned dogs had football moves. Maybe they could sign on to coach the Chicago Bears.

  When Baby trotted back across the grass, Wolfe could have sworn that the three dogs were grinning at him, tongues lolling. This time he charged straight for Baby, feinted right, then jumped over Butch and Sundance when they came to Baby’s aid.

  But the dogs turned a split second before he did, and his knees struck fur and muscle. Instantly he twisted sideways to avoid hurting them, in the process hitting the ground on one elbow. He plowed into a planter, struck one knee, and lay still, seeing stars.

  The stars blurred into the form of a looming shape above his head. Wet and rough, a tongue lapped his face.

  Wolfe winced as puppy drool dripped onto his cheek. “Hell, Baby, give a fellow operative a break. No more slobber in the face.”

  When he pushed to one elbow, Butch and Sundance immediately nosed in beside Baby, all three licking his face in excitement. Then Baby dropped the stick neatly in Wolfe’s lap, sat down and barked once—as if rewarding Wolfe for his satisfactory performance.

  Who the hell was ordering around who?

  Wiping off more dog drool, he stood up. “Nice tactical advance, guys, but it won’t work a third time.” He grabbed the stick and sprinted toward the gnarled oak tree in the center of the yard. In a flying jump he caught an overhanging branch, knifed his legs up, did a tight pull-up and circled the branch. Yeah, it was cheating because dogs couldn’t climb, but whoever said life was fair?

  Sitting on the branch in the moonlight with his legs dangling down, Wolfe grinned at the Labs ranged below him. “Show me some moves, guys. Unless you’re a bunch of wimps.” As the wind brushed his face, Wolfe realized he was sitting in a tree talking to a row of panting dogs, and he was having more fun than he’d had in years.

  There hadn’t been any games or laughter in his house. Growing up, he’d known only curses and pain, both quickly suppressed for fear of more beatings.

  As he shoved away the thought, he could have sworn that Baby’s head tilted as if in concentration. She looked up at the tree, then turned around in a tight circle and looked at him some more, growling low in her throat.

  Butch trotted closer and Sundance drew up on the opposite flank, the scene looking for all the world like a NFL huddle. Wolfe watched Baby trot to an open chaise lounge and jump up with Butch right behind her. Sundance jumped up next, shot onto Butch’s back and then stood stock still.

  What the hell were the three Einsteins planning now?

  He had his answer a second later. Baby jumped down and raced back to the far end of the yard. Then she lowered her head and shot over the grass, hit the lounge chair, rocketed up onto Sundance’s back and sailed higher. Grabbing a higher limb in her teeth, she dangled for a moment, and then dropped onto the same branch where Wolfe sat, stunned and speechless. With her tail
high, she crossed the branch carefully, slid onto her stomach and laid her head on Wolfe’s lap.

  And then she took the prized stick gently in her teeth and tugged it out of his unresisting fingers, while her tail wagged at high speed.

  “Holy shit, who are you guys? Forget the Bears—you’re ready for SEAL training.”

  Baby bumped him happily with her head and licked his face. Before he could react she dropped the stick down to Sundance, who caught it in one flying leap and tossed it back to Butch.

  Wolfe couldn’t move. Okay, maybe this was all a trick of the moonlight. Something to do with clouds and shadows and his exhaustion.

  Except his eyesight was way beyond normal limits and shadows didn’t bother him for a second. Exhaustion wasn’t a problem either, because he could go for three days without sleep. What he’d seen was no illusion. This kind of organized planning and teamwork was exactly what the government had hoped for, and despite being kept in the dark, Kit had nurtured those qualities perfectly.

  Wolfe was looking at three dogs that were smarter than most people, that could carry out advanced problem solving and work together as a tight, enthusiastic team.

  He shook his head. “Think what Lloyd Ryker could do with you guys.”

  The image caught him up cold. These dogs had exactly the abilities Ryker needed, put to use in hostile environments. Out in the field, they wouldn’t understand the danger or the risks they took. Thanks to Kit’s dedication, they would spill their hearts, performing to the full extent of body and spirit.

  Right up until one of them took a bullet in the throat or razor wire through the chest.

  He closed his eyes, one hand slipping protectively to Baby’s head. Tactical work under deadly fire was what they were designed for. Like him and his Foxfire teammates, they were trained to obey and succeed, at any cost.

  But unlike the dogs, his team had been given a choice. They’d volunteered, fully aware of the dangers and the consequences. The dogs hadn’t. They would be at the mercy of Ryker and others like him.

  Baby nuzzled closer, her tail banging against the branch. She licked his hand as if she had known him all her life. As if he was a littermate.