by Em Petrova
Beckett uttered a few quiet words, and she looked up, realizing he spoke into his comms device in his ear and not to her.
A second later, he swung around to face her. “We have to go.”
She blinked at him.
“Captain’s orders.”
The men had been gone an hour. Had they discovered the injured shooter?
“Why?”
“We’re heading off this ridge. We’ve been given a rallying point.” He raised his squared jaw toward her backpack resting on the ground next to her. “Can you carry that?”
“Of course.” She stood and shouldered the pack.
With Beckett walking directly in front of her, she had time to study him. His thick shoulders might as well be two boulders. The white camo hat he wore concealed thick brown hair, she knew from their time around the fire. If she’d run across the man any other time, she would have mentally wolf-whistled. Instead, she couldn’t help but compare him to Penn.
The masculine lines of Penn’s body hit all the high points for Cora. She could easily recall the planes of his hard chest and knew precisely which spots on her own body they pressed against when face-to-face. She knew when he lay on his side, his chest created the perfect pocket for her to snuggle into. And spooning…
Her gaze lit on a track in the snow. Not only one but a line of prints weaving in and out of trees.
From a young age, her father had taken her with him in the woods, first observing wildlife and then hunting. She understood how animals moved, and the tracks belonged to one set of stalking prey.
Zeroing in on the fresh tracks, she searched the forest floor. Beckett walked along as if oblivious to anything but reaching that rallying point he mentioned.
Her father always bragged to his buddies that she had an innate sense of her surroundings and even if they couldn’t see a danger, that Cora would alert him. She’d done it several times when a bear hid in the thickest of brush and she cautioned her daddy not to go that direction. As soon as they started on the path circling the thicket, the bear showed himself.
She pressed her lips together as the ripple of awareness ran from her nape to her buttocks, brushing every inch in between and setting her on edge.
Then she spotted what she was looking for—blood. The tiniest speck on a leaf. She stopped to examine it.
“Beckett.” She pitched her voice low.
“Yeah?”
“Either there’s an injured animal this wolf is tracking or it’s the injured shooter you’re looking for.”
That got his attention. He whirled, making a full sweep of the area. “What do you see that I don’t?”
She pointed to the ground several feet away where the paw prints prowled in a zigzagging line. “That’s wolf. And this”—she pointed to the leaf—“is blood.”
“Captain, we’ve got something.” Beckett’s hardened expression gave nothing away. If not for the fact he informed Penn, she would never know Beckett believed her. The guy had one hell of a poker face, and she hoped never to sit across the table from him.
He provided coordinates through his comms unit and pulled out a device, bringing it to his eye.
“What’s that?”
“Detects body heat. If someone’s hiding in the vicinity, I’ll see him.”
“I think we should follow the blood trail,” she advised.
His stare burrowed into her. “I can’t allow you to make a move. Captain will have me on a spit.”
“Have you ever hunted? Tracked an animal’s blood trail?”
“No. I’ve tracked men.” From the flex in his jaw, she saw there were dark stories there, but he wouldn’t tell her anytime soon, if ever. His eyes took on a distant look as he listened to the voices in his ear.
When the group converged on them, Penn’s heavy stare drilled into her. He made a sweep of her from foot to the top of her head as if ensuring she was okay, but his attention left her feeling even more confused. Did he dislike her? Want to kiss her? He never wanted to bring her in the first place, even though she’d proved her worth several times.
“Wolf?” he asked her.
She nodded and pointed to the tracks.
“I spotted some higher up too.”
Lipton’s brows shot upward. “You didn’t say, Penn.”
“I didn’t realize they were anything more than animal tracks.”
Cora shook her head and moved a few steps to peer at the set of prints in the snow. “See the spacing? That means the animal is sneaking, not just traveling from point A to point B.”
“I see. And the blood you spotted.”
“Here.” She felt Penn brush against her side as he leaned in to investigate the speckle on the leaf.
He straightened. “It’s definitely blood. Here’s the plan.” He turned to his team. “We follow this blood trail. If you come across a wolf and it gets in your way, dispatch it. If you come across the injured shooter, take him alive if possible.”
“Yes, Captain,” came from all five operatives.
He looked at Cora. “Stay by me. We need your eyes.” Something else rang in his tone that made her search his gaze more closely, but he twisted, shutting her out.
Her short rest helped restore her energy, and the bar she’d eaten kicked in for energy. She rushed off following the tracks but soon veered off.
Penn remained right on her tail. If she stepped back, she’d stomp on his boot—not that it would hurt him. But his close proximity both irritated her and comforted. Which made no sense. Why did the man affect her so much? Why did she let him affect her at all?
In the bush, women were few and far between. She’d been told plenty of times that she was pretty and should have no problem getting a husband to take care of her, but Cora wasn’t built that way—she didn’t need a man to take care of her. She could take care of herself. Any man she allowed into her world would be there because he was worthy and complemented her strengths and weaknesses.
“The tracks lead that way.” Penn nodded toward the area she’d just veered away from.
“Yes, but…” She touched a finger to a leaf bent downward, snapped off. Looking down at the snow, she thought aloud. “I’d bet anything that if this fresh snow wasn’t here, we’d find a man’s footprint underneath it.”
“Then why didn’t the wolf continue to follow him?” Penn asked.
“I don’t know… Maybe there were two? One’s bleeding and the other split off from him.”
“There’s gotta be some evidence. A track that’s not covered by snow. Lip, Hep, follow this. The rest of you, keep alert.”
When Penn went into captain mode, it sent shivers through Cora. Her stomach flip-flopped at the sharp, harsh tone of command in his voice, and she knew if she looked at his face, she’d get even more caught up in the moment, so she avoided taking a peek and continued searching for blood.
What felt like hours passed. When she glanced at the sky, she no longer saw the color of her father’s eyes, and instead the North Star winked down at her. Night was rapidly falling, and soon it’d be too dark to see blood or tracks without night vision, and she hadn’t been provided any.
Despite being acclimated to the cold, she was aware that she needed to stop and warm up too. Looking at the Xtreme Ops team, none of them appeared to be affected whatsoever by the cold or snow that had been falling since after that shootout.
Now that she’d stopped walking, the cold seemed to seep into every crevice of her clothing and find the most vulnerable bits of skin. Her nape pebbled in goosebumps, and she stamped her feet to keep warm as she moved.
Penn assessed her. “You’re cold.”
“How is it you’re not?”
“After you’ve been through the training I have, there’s no such thing as cold—only discomfort. Here, take these.” He withdrew some heat packs from his pocket and handed them to her. The thermal packs in her pockets had long since burned out, and she was grateful for a small bit of warmth.
She stuck the packet in her
teeth and tore it open. Penn momentarily closed his eyes and then opened them again. She shook the thermal pack to activate it and then unzipped her coat and dropped it down the neck of her shirt.
“Jesus, you are cold. Can you make a fire? We’ll make camp and continue our search throughout the night.”
“I can make a fire.” She dropped to her knees in the powdery snow and unzipped her pack. Inside, she not only had her tinder box but had saved some of the dry sticks and leaves she found along the way. She withdrew these and created a grid with them, sprinkled leaves in the center, and proceeded to light the fire.
Her hand trembled from cold the first time she attempted to light the match, and the wind snuffed out the fragile flame. She didn’t get a second chance, because Penn’s big, warm, bare hand covered hers.
She looked up, mouth suddenly parched. When her gaze landed on the hard lines of his lips, her breaths started to come faster.
“I’ll do it.” He took the match from her. After a pop and sizzle—and a loud thump from her heart—a wisp of smoke rose from the cotton she used as a wick.
He held out the matchbox and dropped it into her hand without so much as brushing her fingers.
“Better put your gloves back on.”
“You put your gloves on,” she sassed.
He gave a snort of a laugh. “It’s a good thing you’re helpful, Hutton.”
“Or what?” She arched a brow at him. She sat so close to him. She wanted to be warm…in his arms…against that steely hot chest with her legs tangled around his.
His dark brown stare roamed over her face for a split second before he stood from his crouching position. “Or I’d call for an airlift.” He paced off to speak to his men in quiet voices.
She extended her hands toward the thin flames no decent Alaskan born person would call a fire. Penn stood there another heartbeat, watching her. When she reached for another stick, he said, “Keep it small, all right? I don’t want anyone seeing it and coming in.”
She sighed. “This isn’t a fire. Unless flames are shooting high into the air and the hair singes off your head at three paces, you can’t even call it a fire.”
The corner of his lips twitched but the man seemed incapable of smiling. She’d really gotten herself into a group of uptight party poopers.
“Fine. I’ll keep it small.”
He reached out, his hand moving upward as if he was about to cup her face the way he had on the ridge right before he kissed her.
Focused on the creases around his hard lips, she waited. Her insides jerked into a tight knot as the moment stretched on between them.
Penn dropped his hand and stepped from her. “Keep it small, try to get some nourishment into you and don’t wander.”
“Wander,” she murmured under her breath as he stepped away to speak with Beckett. The only thing wandering would be her nails on his broad back…
If she ever got the chance.
Chapter Six
“I say the guy rolled under a log and died.” Gasper’s announcement had several heads bobbing in agreement.
After a full day of searching, they’d lost the blood trail, and even when it grew too dark, they switched to night vision to comb the ridge.
“What the hell is that?” Broshears pushed off the log he sat on and tipped his face to the sky.
Over the ridge of the mountains, a streak of green light flickered toward the heavens. As they looked on, the phenomenon changed, extending in an arch and then flattening out horizontal while undulating through several shapes.
“Northern lights,” Cora told them at the same instant Penn did.
Their gazes met.
Finally, she shifted her gaze away from him and returned to the guys all watching the light show. “Haven’t any of you ever seen the Aurora Borealis?” she asked.
“Never been this far north.” Despite the cold in the air, Broshears pulled off the tight military-issue knit hat he wore and held it gripped in his fist as if honoring what he saw.
“Have you seen it before, Captain?” Hepburn drawled.
“I’ve seen northern lights in Iceland.”
“I’ve always dreamed of going to Iceland. Were you visiting?” Cora asked.
“No. I was on a job.”
By the faint glow of the fire, he saw her light brows arch, but she didn’t ask more. His duty there had been brief, with little time to enjoy the beauty and charm of the land. He was far too busy tracking down a kidnapper.
The lights morphed into an entirely new shape, seeming to scatter through the atmosphere like a burst of fireworks.
“Oooh.” Gasper had the guys cracking up with laughter. “You sound like a kid at a fireworks display, man. Have some damn self-respect,” Broshears quipped.
Of them all, Gasper seemed to be the least seasoned. He hadn’t just scaled to the top of his class in the elite training, but sailed, and he couldn’t even legally drink in most states.
“You don’t have any idea the sheltered life I led. You might have been to places like Iceland or served in the Middle East, but the first time I ever saw the ocean was the day of water training on the Pacific. The first time I ever stepped foot in salt water, and the instructors were hell bent on drowning me and freezing me to death at the same time.” Gasper sat back, still gazing up at the northern lights as he talked. Everyone tuned in to his words. “I was a country kid who grew up swimming in farm ponds and suddenly I was getting hit by seven foot waves as soon as I got past the shore. If you’ve been through it, you know they ask you to swim out a few hundred yards and back without drowning. I didn’t know if I’d make the cut, but I did. Then I thought for sure I’d have to turn in my number and quit when the temps dropped to the forties with the wind. I shook so hard, I felt like my teeth would shatter.”
Penn nodded. “I’ve been through it myself. I know what it’s like.”
All of them had served in the military or trained specifically with the Homeland Security program that had landed them here in OFFAT. Penn felt a special bond with Gasper now that he’d listened to his story.
He reached out and clapped a hand on Gasper’s shoulder. “You men should get some rest while you can. Broshears, Hep, take the first watch. If that shooter is injured bad enough, he might try to come in to the fire for relief.”
“Maybe we should make it larger,” Cora grumbled.
Penn withheld the smile that wanted to appear at her disgruntled suggestion. “We want that shooter, but we’re looking for Yahontov. And he isn’t dumb enough to come into our camp. I’ll take first watch.”
Broshears and Hepburn grabbed rifles and disappeared into the darkness while the others crawled into their tents to catch a few hours of sleep.
Cora hesitated, looking at the tent she and Penn had shared the previous night and then to him. “Can I sit with you a while?”
He hesitated. Being alone with her wasn’t such a good idea, but a woman like Cora wouldn’t ask unless she needed his company.
“We won’t be sitting by the fire to keep watch. I’ll be over there on the edge of camp.”
She nodded and then stood and brushed some snow off her backside from the log she’d been sitting on. Penn looked her over. He couldn’t think of anything less sexy than those puffy snow pants and parka she wore with an extra snow camo overtop. Boots with thick soles, that snow hat with the earflaps and heavy thermal gloves completed the ensemble.
If he spotted all her clothing laid out on the ground, it wouldn’t do a damn thing for his libido. But on Cora, the garments looked cute as hell.
In fact, now that he’d spent so many hours looking at the woman, he made out the slightest curve of her waist and hips. The round globes of her ass made him want to cup them in his palms.
While he knew how she felt against him, he could only guess at how fucking hot she’d be without so many layers.
Or wearing nothing at all.
He twitched his head for her to follow, and she did. They picked their way through t
he snow-thickened underbrush of the forest to a place where he felt comfortable with his vantage point of the area. Plus, it was far enough from the team that he wouldn’t have to worry about them listening to their conversation.
He gestured to a pair of trees, side by side, their trunks like spears shooting into the black tree canopy above. Cora sank to the foot of one. She leaned against the trunk and folded her arms over her chest.
Penn studied her before he sank down with the other trunk at his back. At first, neither spoke. He threw out his senses into the night. From his comms device in his ear, he heard the faint moves of Broshears and Hepburn as they scouted the area.
The thick snow muffled the noises of the night, and he couldn’t even hear a snow fox pounce on its prey. Everything was still.
Even Cora. And that worried him.
He looked at her, so close and yet curled inward…isolated. He wondered if she was thinking of her father, regretting her decision not to spend those final precious minutes with him before he died.
It hit him that he might have been too hasty about her character. She was tough as nails. If she were one of his men, he’d be proud. Many women—men too—would have crumbled to pieces after a loss as heavy as she’d experienced. Yet she kept her tears at bay, only breaking in those dark, private hours after Penn shared the news.
The hours of his watch came and went. Lipton took over, alerting Penn that he would be sitting just on the other side of the trees, out of sight of him and Cora. But Cora didn’t move, so neither did Penn.
Finally, she twisted her head to look at him. The depths of her eyes appeared darker, and something glittered there that gripped Penn by the heart. He switched off his mic so the others couldn’t hear, but he didn’t get a word out before Cora spoke.
“Why did you kiss me?” Her question came out so softly that he wasn’t sure at first if he’d heard her correctly or imagined it because he wanted to know why himself.
