Dr. Bodyguard. Jessica Andersen

unlikely to sit tamely at home waiting to be picked up.

      Of course she’d called a cab.

      Nick locked the Bronco and jogged down the cement staircase to exit the garage. Though the hospital had built a series of catwalks and connecting tunnels to allow its employees to move from building to building without venturing outside, Nick preferred the quarter-mile hike through Chinatown. It added an interesting variety of smells to his day.

      As he walked, he pondered Genie’s defection until he had to laugh at himself. When he stopped to buy a soda from a street vendor, he finally admitted the truth.

      He was disappointed, darn it.

      He’d wanted to drive in with her. He wanted to be sure she was okay, wanted to walk into the lab together in case the memory came crashing back all at once. In case it didn’t. Sure, they’d never gotten along particularly well before, but there was a first for everything. Maybe this horrible incident would have a positive side. Maybe they could call a truce. Find some common ground.

      Take another shower.

      Wincing at the thought of her reaction if he ever suggested such a thing, Nick swiped his passkey for admittance into BoGen’s Genetic Research Building, stepped through the sliding door—

      And froze when he saw Detective Sturgeon standing in the lobby surrounded by most of the researchers, interns and techs who worked on the thirteenth floor. Genie wasn’t among them.

      Nick’s heart thundered in his ears as he crossed the lobby with quick strides. Her attacker had come back to finish the job. Watson had been hurt, raped, or worse.

      “What happened?” he practically yelled.

      A babble of voices erupted as, excited, each of the techs tried to answer at once. The words “spill,” “gel boxes” and “radiation safety Nazis” filtered out of the hubbub and Nick relaxed a fraction as he called the elevator.

      “Jared, keep everyone down here until I call down with the all clear, okay?” The tech grimaced and nodded. The chain that dangled from his pierced nostril swung from side to side at the motion.

      Then the elevator arrived and Nick took a deep breath and told himself to relax as the car began to move. Genie was fine. It was just a radioactive spill. A serious but containable lab incident that had nothing to do with the previous day’s events in the darkroom.

      Or did it?

      UNTIL NICK ARRIVED, Genie hadn’t known she’d been waiting for him. But when he stepped over the yellow Caution/Radioactive tape and joined her in the little room where they ran the DNA separating gels, she felt the tension drain from her in waves and had the insane urge to throw her arms around his waist and blubber while he dealt with Dixon and plied her with painkillers for her headache.

      Since that probably would have horrified him, she didn’t. But she thought about it. That is, until he looked down at her, grinned and said, “Hey, baby, you new here?”

      She rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Wellington.”

      He pretended surprise, but his perfect teeth flashed. “Why, Dr. Watson. Is that you? I didn’t recognize you for a moment.”

      He meant because of the big, ugly bruises on her cheek and the stitches crawling across her forehead like a mutant Gypsy moth caterpillar. Genie didn’t want to cry on him anymore—she wanted to punch him. She knew she looked terrible. He didn’t have to rub it in. He’d made it plain enough the night before that he didn’t consider her desirable. She sighed and jammed her hands into her jeans pockets. Oh, well.