by Em Petrova
“Siberian temperatures.”
She came close to rolling her eyes. “At least I won’t be stuck out here with a bunch of meat popsicles.” She proceeded to remove her own tent from her pack. It looked to be a lightweight hiking style, waterproof and capable of withstanding the coldest of temperatures.
He considered offering to help her set up but didn’t feel like getting more lip service from her.
His mind settled on those lips. Wide and full, with almost no upper bow. Not what he needed to think about right now. Taking on a civilian to protect and on his first mission too, he couldn’t figure out what had made him agree to this arrangement.
“Dammit.” Cora’s soft curse reached him on the howling wind.
Penn approached her. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t realize when I pulled this out of the wreckage that it’s damaged. Two of the support poles are broken.”
“We have more than enough tents to provide you with shelter. Leave it.”
She sighed heavily and then set aside the broken poles. She stuffed the tent into her pack.
“Why take that? Lose the weight.”
She arched a brow. “Out here, you learn fast that you don’t waste anything. You don’t know when you’ll need this. It’s waterproof and could save one of us—or all of us—at some point.”
Penn examined her, saying nothing. At the present, she seemed level-headed and helpful. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t prepared for tears and emotional outbursts.
After there wasn’t anything else to do to set up camp, they all gathered around the fire and took turns feeding it with some branches that weren’t as wet from snow and ice. None of them had much time to take inventory of their supplies before leaving base, but he knew they had all they needed.
Across the fire, he watched Cora. She stared into the fire, in her own universe. The pale wisps of hair scattered across her forehead lent her an angelic look.
At least she won’t freeze to death tonight. What my body heat won’t do, hot packs will.
Fuuuuck. What made that thought enter his brain?
She held her hands up to the warmth, but her silence told him she must be thinking of her father and how he fared.
“You know,” Lipton said slowly, “I had an uncle who went sorta nuts. Schizophrenic, we think, but he never allowed a diagnosis. At twenty-two, he set off for Alaska. My mom got word that he was living in a cabin in the wilderness. Next thing she knew, the family got word he was dead.” Lipton’s story made all of them look up at him, including Cora.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Her voice held that hint of emotion Penn knew would sooner or later show up. The sympathy in her gaze as she stared at Lipton made Penn uneasy. “Happens more than you’d think in these parts.”
“Did anybody ever find out what happened to him?” Broshears had removed his hat to reveal thick brown hair, and he scrubbed his gloved fingers through it.
“Heard the cabin caught fire. He couldn’t get out. Lost his dog too.” Lipton lobbed another small stick into the fire.
“Damn, that’s some sad shit.” Broshears swigged from his canteen.
“Grab nourishment while you can,” Penn ordered, breaking the melancholy tone the evening was taking.
They all pulled out MREs and set about sampling the fare the government provided for troops. Penn tossed one to Cora, and she caught it one-handed.
“I have some food in my pack.” She pointed.
“Try it—it’s quick and not too bad.”
Her gaze skittered from his. “I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll eat to keep your strength up, or I’ll have you air-lifted out.” Why did he have to sound like a grizzly just disturbed from hibernation?
“Fine. How do you even eat these things?” She crossed her legs—how in those snow pants, he had no idea—and Lipton leaned in to demonstrate how he opened his entrée and slipped the packet into the hot sleeve to warm.
“Meatloaf.” She shook her head. “Who knew you can keep meatloaf stable enough to carry in a backpack for days?”
“Years,” Lipton told her with a grin. “I got chicken parm. Mmm-mm.”
All the guys chuckled as they enthusiastically tore into their rations.
Penn squeezed some cheese out of a tube directly into his mouth and followed it with a breadstick. As he chewed, he watched Cora unpackage coffee, vanilla protein powder to add water to and create a thick drink like a milkshake and some cherry cobbler.
“This is better than I’d get at home, actually.” She slowly chewed, testing out the cobbler. Eating dessert before the meal. Surely that revealed something about her character.
“What’s your favorite meal, Lipton?” Broshears threw out.
He thought a second, fork in his warmed chicken. “I’m a homecookin’ kinda guy. Give me roast and potatoes any day. And my momma makes these dinner rolls that men would kill over.”
“Tell her to send a care package.” Broshears bit off his own breadstick, having gotten the same MRE that Penn did.
“What’s yours?” Broshears asked Beckett.
They went around the group, talking quietly about meals much better than these.
“We already know Gasper prefers fish soaked in lye.”
Gasper shot him a good-natured smile.
“How about you, Hutton?” Broshears’ use of her last name brought an amused smile to her full lips, and Penn couldn’t help but realize they were bonding—not only as a team but with their guide too.
“At home, I make a lot of venison stew.”
“What if you aren’t at home?”
“On the occasions I go into town, I always stop for pizza.”
Penn imagined her closing her lips around the cheesy point of a slice and nearly groaned out loud.
After everyone finished their meals, Penn pointed to Lipton and Broshears. “Pair up for a watch. Hep, you’re with me.”
He nodded.
Penn turned to Cora. “You should get some sleep.”
She eyed the tents. “Which one do I use?”
“Mine.” He pointed.
Her blue-gray eyes fixed on his face. “We’re sharing a tent?”
“I’ll be out most of the night on watch.”
He waited to see if she’d protest, but she stood, grabbed her pack and disappeared inside the tent. He figured she knew how many layers to keep on to remain warm. After a few minutes, he peeked through the flap to see she’d laid down a mat and covered herself in a thermal blanket.
“Will that be warm enough?” he asked.
Startled, she shot into a sitting position. “I live here, remember? I’m used to cold.”
“Yes, you’re used to a cabin and a bed.”
“I don’t have those things when I take my excursions.”
Of course not. He pictured her sharing a tent with some guy she traveled with and felt a rumble of irritation roll through his chest.
“Shout if you need anything.” He leveled her in his stare. “Don’t be stubborn.”
She issued a noise somewhat like a huff and then laid down again. He closed the flap. When a call came in to his sat phone, he paced away from the tent out of earshot.
“Sullivan.”
He listened, dread rising with each word the captain of the search and rescue team spoke.
“All right,” he roughed out. “Thank you. That’s unfortunate.”
Lipton cocked a brow in question as Penn ended the call.
He bowed his head. “Fuck.”
Lipton slid his gaze to Penn’s tent where Cora attempted to sleep and then swung it back to Penn.
He nodded. “It’s what you think.”
“Damn. Tough news to break.” Lipton pitched his voice low.
“No shit. I admit I didn’t realize this would be part of my job as captain.”
“Want me to break it to her?” Lipton waited for orders.
“I’ll do it.” He stared at the tent trembling like a lone leaf in the w
ild Alaska wind. How to break the news to Cora that her father had succumbed to his injuries and passed away during emergency surgery?
Chapter Four
Cora lay on her back staring up at the tent ceiling.
Replaying the hijacking over and over didn’t offer a single answer as to how she could have stopped it all. Even if she’d searched Ron Smith’s—Yahontov’s—bag before boarding the Hutton Husky, he likely carried his gun concealed on his body.
She once again winced at the memory of being struck across the cheek. Lifting her fingers to it, she felt around the edges of the bruise that rested across her cheekbone. It could be black and blue for all she knew. Nobody had mentioned it, so perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it felt.
If she’d thrown herself on top of Yahontov instead of her dad, could she have prevented the crash? With decades of flying experience, her father was better at the controls than she was. He probably wouldn’t have let the plane go down.
Was he okay right now? She couldn’t even begin to guess at his injuries. He was bruised and banged up the same as she was, but the fact that he wavered in and out of consciousness scared her.
The tent shook from more than the elements, and a blast of wind hit her. She sat up to see a big man crawling inside with her. Quickly, she crunched her legs up to keep Penn from crushing them as he pushed his way in.
Scooting against the wall of the tent, she stared at him in the dimness.
Then he switched on a flashlight. A warm beam of yellow light illuminated his rugged features. For a heartbeat, she found herself studying him. He was handsome in a way that would earn him good money modeling for an outdoorsman magazine or catalog. His brown eyes were a deep java hue that seemed to burn with intensity the longer he stared at her.
She held her breath as he settled in the empty space next to her sleeping pallet, facing her.
Neither spoke for a long, painful heartbeat.
“You changed your mind about taking me as guide,” she said at last.
He compressed his lips. “No. There’s something else.”
Silence stretched, feeling like a spiderweb cast over them both and something she wanted to scramble away from.
“Just say it.” Her voice sounded thick.
“I received a call about your father.”
Her heart took a quick, fast nosedive far worse than any plane crash. She knotted her gloved hands and waited.
Penn dragged in a deep breath. His gaze riveted on her. “Your father didn’t make it out of surgery.”
Her mind blanked. She stared back at him.
He went on, “I’m so sorry, Cora. I didn’t know how to break it to you, but I knew you wouldn’t want me to sugarcoat it.”
“My…dad?” Pain speared her.
“Yes.” The word sounded as a hot whisper.
“He’s gone?” Her voice broke.
“Oh hell, sweetheart. Come here.” He snaked out a long arm and hooked her around the back, pulling her off her bedding and into his embrace.
The full weight of the situation slammed her. Her father—dead from injuries sustained at the hands of that monster, who she was guiding an ops team through the bush to find.
At first, shock overrode all other emotions. Then fury hit.
She shoved against Penn’s chest. Why was it so impossibly large that she couldn’t break free of it? He held her to him, soothing her with soft words that she couldn’t make sense of.
“It was wrong to have his life cut short, and I will do everything in my power to avenge him.”
Tears hit. Pain carved a hole of grief in her, and she folded over.
“Oh fuck. Cora, I’m so sorry, honey.” Penn held her by the upper arms as she hung forward, head bowed and her body shaking with deep, rough sobs coming up from a black well.
Penn’s big hand came around her nape, and he drew her head against his chest. He smelled cold, of snow and tree sap from the branches they’d cut. Her cheek pressed into his cool jacket as her hot tears flowed unstopped.
“He’s gone. I lost him. I should have been there with him!”
He didn’t let up his hold on her nape. “There’s nothing you could have done, Cora. They did everything they could to save him.”
“What was it? Something internal?”
“A brain bleed.”
“Oh God!” Knowing the truth caused another stabbing knife wound to her gut, and she curled up.
Penn pulled her onto his lap and locked her against him while she alternately raged at herself for not going and at Yahontov for stealing her father from her.
“I’ll get that motherfucker for you, Cora. I swear I’ll see him in custody or dead.”
The harsh words sank into her but did nothing to ease the pain of it all.
She mopped at her face with her sleeve, and he reached into his pocket. He came out with a cloth. When she didn’t immediately take it, he dabbed her eyes for her. He went for her nose, but she accepted the cloth from him and blew her nose.
Cradling her head in his big palm, he watched her so close that she felt the first burn of awareness that she sat in a strange man’s lap, sobbing her heart out and furious at the injustice of the world.
Her gaze met his. His brows drew downward, and she knew the glow of the flashlight must reveal how awful she looked. Her eyes felt grainy and bulging out of her head from crying.
“I’m sorry it had to be me breaking the news to you.”
She shook her head. “There isn’t anyone else now. I don’t have any family. My dad was…” she sucked in deeply, “it.”
Penn pulled off his gloves and set them aside. Then he caught a tear dripping down her face with the big, callused pad of his thumb. The act bore such tenderness that couldn’t stop the steady flow.
“Have you ever lost anyone?” she asked on a whimper.
“Friends. Grandparents. Nobody as close to me as a father.”
“I have. My mother. I thought I’d have my dad for years, but now…” She didn’t know what made her do it, but she ducked into the safety of Penn’s chest.
He brought his arms around her and held her wordlessly. Her mind reeled, and her emotions felt like volcanic eruptions.
After a while, the flicker of the fire outside the tent darkened and snuffed out. She didn’t hear anything, but Penn raised his head, listening as if he did.
She drew in a wobbly breath. “You should go out there. Take your watch.”
“The guys have got it. Here. Lie down. You’re shivering.”
She was, but it could be from her high rush of emotions and not from cold. As soon as she slid off his warm, steely lap and onto her cold pallet, she began to shiver in earnest. She jackknifed onto her side, hands in her armpits.
Penn opened his pack and unfurled a sleeping bag or the like over her. When she still trembled, he lay down beside her and tugged her into his body. Her head nestled under his chin and her knees jutted against his thighs.
“Shhh. Just relax. You’ll warm up in a minute.”
She closed her eyes and focused on just that. She thought of the warm sun on her face on a summer’s day. A mug of hot tea in her hands while sitting before a roaring fire on a fall night.
And Captain Penn Sullivan’s muscled, hard body, his heat penetrating through the layers of clothing she wore.
He moved a hand over her arm and located her hand stuffed in her underarm for warmth. “Take off your gloves.” He pulled them off her fingers and set them aside. “Here.” He flattened her palm against his chest, inside his coat, right up against a thermal layer he wore close to his skin.
Then he did the same with her other hand, until she curled her fingers over chiseled pecs. If she concentrated, she could feel the thump of his heart.
The intimacy of sharing a small cocoon of heat after her display of emotions suddenly warmed her in another way.
From the start, her body had reacted to Penn’s presence. Who had time for such things? She had to guide the team to a criminal. While so
mething tightened in her core from Penn’s presence, her mouth had taken another tactic of trying to push him away, resulting in her giving him a hard time.
But being held by him, soothed by his deep voice as he assured her that there was nothing she could do for her father and Penn would see his killer caught, roused a new warmth inside her.
Her breaths slowed from the shivery gulps of earlier. She unclenched her knees and allowed her straining leg muscles to relax. She tucked her legs against his.
A rough rumble vibrated his chest, but she only burrowed closer to it. She should be ashamed at her behavior right now—she should push him away and endure this bleak night alone.
But she felt too crushed at the minute. Penn could guard her vulnerable side for one night. Tomorrow she would find her backbone and go on.
The layers of down fluff between them shouldn’t fucking turn him on, but dammit, if she moved her thighs like that one more time—
He swallowed a grunt as the woman moved restlessly against him. In sleep, she cried out, tossed and turned. He managed to keep her snug against his body, holding her through whatever nightmares tormented her. Meanwhile, he experienced plenty of torment.
She flipped onto her back but continued to clutch at his sleeve. He’d managed to extinguish the light, and now he wished he hadn’t because her hat had fallen off, and for the first time, Penn could see all of her face.
He stared through the darkness at the shell of her ear that’d been hidden by the flap of her hat. He followed that upward to her hair, a streaky mix of blonde and brown, he knew from the daylight. The wispy ends looked as fragile as her eyelashes, damp from crying, and damn if the sight of it all didn’t cause a hitching sensation in his chest.
Hell. Emotions had no place out here. He had men to lead. A dangerous criminal to catch. He didn’t have time for dealing with an emotional woman too.
All this time, he’d been telling himself that her emotions would be her downfall. Yet her display of feelings rocked him. After witnessing nothing but her strength and determination—matched with an outstanding knowledge of the land—her tears caught him off guard.
Anybody would break down after hearing their father died. But her grasp on his sleeve touched something deep in him.
