THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

would he win a rematch? And if he didn’t, where would that leave her?
    “Send your friend.”
    A dark eyebrow arched. “Excuse me?”
    “Stay here with me and send your friend Eli What’s-His-Name to do whatever needs doing so urgently.”
    The dark eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Impossible. I must do it myself.”
    “What if that thing kills you?” she demanded. “What will happen to me then, huh? Can your Eli save me? Is he also an expert on vampirism?”
    She’d thought those eyes couldn’t burn with more intensity, but she was wrong. She felt her skin tingle under the brush of his gaze.
    “What makes you think I go to confront the vampire?”
    “Please, Dr. Bowen. You couldn’t be more transparent. I could practically hear your thoughts.”
    He drew back, more startled than offended.
    “No denial? Well, thank you for that, at least.”
    “Just at this moment, Ms. Crawford, you do not look like a woman to be patronized.”
    His tone was gently mocking, the first sign she’d seen that he might not be totally lacking in humor. She thrust that thought aside. “But you’re still going?”
    The sensual line of his mouth hardened. “I must. But I assure you, I will return. I’m somewhat of an expert at this, as well.”
    Vampire slayer?
    Yes. She felt the truth of it as the words resonated in her mind.
    Healer and slayer both. The implications made her shiver. If her transformation were inevitable, if it could not be stopped, would he see it as his moral imperative to destroy her? Her pulse took a jagged leap.
    “What exactly is the focus of your research, Dr. Bowen? Is it a cure you seek for this affliction, or a weapon to wield against the afflicted?”
    His eyes hardened. “If you’re quite finished accusing me of plotting genocide, I really have to be going.” He pushed his chair back and stood. “I’ll send Mr. Grayson in.”
     
    Eli Grayson turned out to look more like a linebacker than anyone’s idea of a nurse. Native American, probably early thirties, though it was hard to tell. He had the kind of face she suspected hadn’t changed much in the last decade. Average height, but with the kind of body that required a lot of gym time to build and maintain. He was also competent and gentler than his forbidding physique might suggest as he attended to her.
    “Delano tells me you’re a nurse also,” he said, when he’d checked her IV assembly.
    Delano. The name sounded exotic, which probably had less to do with the slight drawl with which Eli delivered it than it did with the mind-picture it conjured.
    She nodded. “Mainly in the OR in recent years.”
    He whistled. “I did a few years in OR myself.”
    “Here in St. Cloud?” She lifted her arm so he could get the blood pressure cuff on her.
    “Abroad.” He paused a moment to complete her BP check, then took the stethoscope out of his ears. “US Army. Iraq, mostly. A little in Afghanistan.” He peeled the cuff off her arm.
    Wow. Well, that explained the linebacker body. But why would a man like that temp himself out? Or did he work for Delano Bowen in a more permanent, full-time, multi-faceted way?
    “Trauma, huh?” she said.
    “By the busload.”
    “I’m sorry. That’s got to be hard to see. But the adrenaline’s addictive, isn’t it?”
    He grinned. “Very.”
    And now for the payoff question: “So,” she said casually, “how’d you get from there to here?”
    He glanced up from checking her catheter bag. His easy expression didn’t change, but she sensed a new edge in him. “I found a new war to fight.”
    She inhaled sharply. There could be no mistaking his meaning. “The vampires, you mean?”
    He produced an instant digital ear thermometer, applied it to her ear canal and nodded his satisfaction. “Normal.”
    Ainsley refused to be distracted. “You didn’t answer me. Is the new enemy the vampires?”
    “They are a contagion that has to be contained.”
    A contagion to be contained. She swallowed to ease her fear-dried mouth. If she were infected…
    Think about something else, Ainsley.
    Her gaze locked on the nurse again. Given what she’d pieced together so far about Delano Bowen’s activities, she figured it was a safe bet he’d picked Eli Grayson with a view to more than just his nursing skills.
    “What do you do for Dr. Bowen, Mr. Grayson?”
    The big man finished making an entry in a hand-held electronic gadget and dropped the PDA in the pocket of his lab coat. Then he met her gaze