The Guardian (Mended Souls Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

do.
    “Are you all right?” The slightly winded cadence of his voice didn’t inspire confidence. He raised a hand, as though to calm her, and she let out a squeal.
    Too late, she was officially freaked out.
    Her heart fluttered against the walls of her chest; a butterfly caught in a jar with no chance of escape. She hysterically wondered if Hank would be the one to do her autopsy.
    “Miss, I asked if you needed help?”
    He sounded harmless, but then, the Boston strangler’s victims probably thought the same thing.
    “Who are you? How did you get in here?” Impossible to tell for sure from where he was standing but Tracy didn’t recognize him as one of the many employed in the building. She’d worked here for five years and knew almost everyone—at least by sight.
    He moved forward a couple of feet, the shadows casting broad stripes across his torso. The artificial lighting caught in curls at the nape of his neck, turning them an antique gold. Though she crouched, he seemed tall, well over six feet. His frame was lean and lanky, a runner maybe with those strong-looking legs.
    G ood thing with his line of work.
    If things weren’t so serious she would have smiled. Nothing like a little gallows humor. A sad little whine tugged her gaze to the mangled pup. He was coming around. Elated, she traced shaking, bloody fingers along the animal’s muzzle in an effort to reassure him she meant no harm.
    “Hush, little one. You’re going to be just fine,” she murmured, and hoped she wasn’t lying. Soft brown eyes with absurdly long lashes stared up at her filled with hurt and bewilderment. “I know, you didn’t deserve this, you poor thing.” She’d used her scarf to wrap the wound and staunch the flow of blood, but it was only a temporary fix. The dog needed help, and soon.
    The stranger appeared on the other side of the pup, startling both of them. Tracy palmed the mace and held it up, warning him away. “Get back. This stuff burns. I don’t think you want to feel its effect.” The dog growled low in his throat, its body tensed.
    He ignored them to crouch with an odd grunt, and run his hand over the mangy coat. The dog snapped, his teeth gleaming a dull yellow.
    “Relax, boy. I’m not here to hurt you,” he said. “You, or your master.” He glanced up from beneath that ugly cap and speared her with ice-blue eyes. “Were you injured?”
    Tracy pulled herself out of the laser beam intensity of that gaze and realized he meant her bloodied hands. She shook her head. “No, I found him this way. It couldn’t have happened very long ago or he’d be dead. That’s why I thought maybe you were…” She shrugged, feeling a little sheepish now that her nerves were settling. He didn’t look like the serial dog killer type, but that didn’t stop her from keeping the mace at the ready.
    He sat back, seemingly offended. “You think I did this?”
    Now that he was closer, she noticed his arm was in an Orthopedic cast and that reassured her more than anything else could have. Not very likely a man with a broken arm would be able to attack a dog and deposit him in front of her car without getting any blood on himself.
    “I don’t any more,” she muttered, her nervous gaze doing another loop of the area. That meant the real perpetrator was still on the loose.
    The blood on her hands was drying now, leaving them covered in a thin film like when she used to use school glue for decoupage and managed to get it on her fingers. As the paste dried she would dig with her nails until the edge lifted and then peeled way from her skin, quite often coming away with an outline of her prints in the cast. Great fun—unlike now.
    “You never said; how did you get in here? This is a gated garage.” She kept a wary eye on him while checking the dog’s dressing. “We need to get this guy upstairs so I can help him.”
    “You? Are you a vet, then?” He looked her up and down, the doubt obvious in his expressive face. “I called