by Cindy Dees
After he’d kneaded her back into a boneless mass of jelly, he worked on her legs and then her arms—and it felt so good it surely couldn’t be legal. Her brain actually shifted into acceptance of the massage, and by degrees, finally shifted into outright enjoyment of it. In fact, she almost found herself getting annoyed that Anders was being so well-behaved. Couldn’t he maybe be just a little more…exploratory?
Whoa. Rewind. No explorations. The guy was working loose her muscles. Nothing more. No way did he find her attractive. This guy was just like Colonel Scatalone. The same colonel who called her: She-man, a manly-girl, Queen Kong.
It was decent of Larson to be polite. But she didn’t really think for a minute that he was truly attracted to her. Norway was full of willowy, sweet, gorgeous Nordic beauties. The guy was an Olympic athlete. In this ski-crazy country, he was no doubt a celebrity. He could have any woman he wanted.
She realized his hands had stopped moving and rested, warm and easy on the small of her back. “What is it?” he asked.
“What is what?” she replied cautiously.
“Your back just went rock-hard. What tightened you up like that? What are you thinking about?”
Yeah, right. Like she was going to tell him. “Uh, I’ve decided I’ve had enough of this whole pretending-I’m-a-goddess thing.”
He retorted dryly, “Don’t you like sharing a hut with your manservant?”
Well, there was that. A definite bennie to the whole misunderstanding. “No, no, that’s not it. I’m just uncomfortable with this whole adulation business. First thing in the morning, I’m telling these folks that I’m a plain old soldier. Nothing special.”
“Bull.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are not a plain old soldier. Not even close.”
And suddenly the hut felt way too small and way too hot and way too private. A burning need to force the conversation into less dangerous waters overwhelmed her. “That’s kind of you to say, Anders. I’m glad the Medusas are making a good impression on you.”
His hands lifted away from her. She looked over her shoulder, pinning him with a look that dared him to say it aloud. To admit he hadn’t really meant the innuendo in his words. He sat back on his heels and frowned at her. Opened his mouth to say something. Frowned again. Shut his mouth.
Yeah, that was what she thought. When push came to shove, he couldn’t pretend he was actually attracted to her. He might flirt a little and make nice with her, but he couldn’t honestly say he liked her.
In a way, she respected Jack Scatalone’s attitude more. At least he’d look her in the eye and tell her what he thought of her.
Unfortunately, even that grim thought didn’t put a dent in her attraction to Anders Larson.
Dammit.
Chapter 7
Larson eased his hands away from her now-boneless body. “Do you lift weights to get such excellent definition in your back muscles?” he asked lightly.
Please, God, let the conversation turn to anything other than her muscles. She sighed and answered in resignation, “I used to power-lift, but since I joined the Medusa Project I haven’t had time for that. We stay so active, though, I don’t think I’ve lost much strength.”
“Tell me about the Medusas.”
She shrugged under his hands. “Some folks in the U.S. government decided to silence women once and for all on the subject of being allowed to join the Special Forces. A project was funded to select a team of six women and run them through full-blown Special Forces training. We were supposed to fail.”
“But you didn’t?”
“But we didn’t.”
“Then what?”
“Then a few people with serious clout went to bat for us and got us permanently funded. And here we are.”
He snorted. “It’s not as easy as that. You keep forgetting I’ve been through the same sort of training you have. It’s incredible to think a group of women survived what I did.”
“Yeah, we get that reaction a lot from our American male counterparts.”
“How did you do it?”
“Same way you did. We gutted it out and worked as a team. For what it’s worth, we try to compensate for our lack of muscle by applying extra brain power to scenarios. Plus, our handlers try to profile missions to take into account our lack of strength. We have no illusions about being as strong as a male team.”
“Had you ladies used weapons in your ambush of my team, you’d have had us all, you know.”
“Yup, we know. We chose to go hand-to-hand to test ourselves—and to prove something to you. We still have a ways to go before we can beat a male Spec-Ops team unarmed, though.”
“It was a near thing that my men managed to win. That little one—Katrina—she all but had Ollie. Her hand got wet and slipped a grip, or she’d have taken him down. And two of the other women nearly won as well.”
Wow. She’d had no idea. She’d been so tied up dealing with him she’d had no time to check on her comrades during the ambush.
“One advantage you’ve already got over many of the other Special Forces teams in the world is the breadth of your training. I talked with Colonel Scatalone at some length about what you women know how to do, and your résumés are impressive.”
“Enough for the FSK to consider training a female team of its own?”
“A few days ago, I’d have laughed at the notion. But after seeing the way you women handled yourselves in that firefight at the drug lab, I might consider it.”
Karen commented dryly, “You ought to see us when we have real bullets.”
Anders grinned. “Have you ladies checked with these Samis to see if they have any ammo?”
“Viper was going to ask when we got to this camp. I haven’t talked to her yet to see what the answer was.”
“When we get access to a radio, I can call my support center and have ammo flown out to us. You carry standard MP-5s, right?”
“Yes. Our sidearms are also 9 mm.” She added, “And you can never go wrong with a few pounds of C-4 and some grenades.”
An awkward silence fell between them. Karen wondered idly if discussions of weapons and ammo usually killed the chatty mood between normal men and women. But then, neither she nor Anders was at all normal. She’d lay odds most girls didn’t think about tucking grenades in their hip pocket.
To break the moment, Karen said, “On the hike back here, the Medusas had time to talk things over. We think we need to move this encampment and get the Samis back to a major village where they’ll be safer.”
“You think those drug dealers will come after us?”
“Maybe. We left a trail a mile wide for them to follow.”
“What’s the local weather doing?” Anders asked tersely.
Karen shrugged. “It’s blowing hard. Beyond that, I don’t know. You’d have to stick your head out and have a look.”
He pushed fluidly to his feet and did just that. A gust of icy cold burst into the small space and the fire guttered. He pulled the crude door shut again and came back down to sit by the fire. “It’s getting cold.”
Karen laughed shortly. “It has been cold.”
He shrugged in concession. “Perhaps I should say it’s getting colder. Wind’s picking up. Weather the next few days could be nasty. The last forecast I saw was for some heavy weather to pack in and stay for several days.”
“Lovely.”
He grinned. “What did you expect at eighty degrees north latitude at this time of year?”
Certainly not a bronzed god like him. She shrugged. “Doesn’t make it any less cold just because I expected it to be that way.”
“True.” The look he gave her was anything but cold, however.
As much in self-defense from further looks like that as in real sincerity, Karen said, “We probably ought to try to get some sleep. Next couple of days could be long if we end up slogging around trying to move this encampment and tracking our drug-maker friends in a blizzard. How do you feel? M
aybe I shouldn’t let you sleep until Mamba has a look at you. You were unconscious a long time. I’d hate to have you go to sleep and lapse into a coma on me.”
“Is Major Gautier a good doctor?”
Karen snorted. “She’s a topnotch trauma surgeon. Harvard Medical School.”
Anders nodded, suitably impressed. “I’m sure I have a concussion, but I’m not feeling symptoms of anything more severe.”
“Nothing beyond a headache?”
“No.”
“No dizziness, personality changes, feeling foggy? No memory gap except just before the accident?”
“Nope.”
She gave him a suspicious look.
He retorted, “Are you this untrusting of everyone you know, or just me? You really need to stop questioning everything I say. I promise, I will always tell you the truth.”
Karen started. Her? Untrusting? She started to give him a snappy comeback that she didn’t question everything he said…until it occurred to her that he was absolutely right. She frowned. She wasn’t usually suspicious of people. Why him?
And then it hit her. Of course. She disliked and didn’t trust Jack Scatalone. And Anders reminded her a great deal of Jack. Great. Now she could add ruining her for any future relationships with guys to Scatalone’s list of sins against her. She cursed under her breath.
“Sorry. I didn’t catch that,” Anders said mildly.
He darn well had heard her. He was sitting about a foot from her…and she was doing it again. If he said he hadn’t heard her mumbled imprecation, then he hadn’t heard it. Sheesh.
She looked him square in the eye. “I’m sorry. You haven’t given me any reason whatsoever not to take you at your word. You just happen to remind me of someone I don’t trust very much.”
“Ahh. I’m sorry.”
She laughed without real humor. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s my problem. I’ll try not to transfer my ambivalence for him to you.”
“This word ambivalence. It means…”
“Simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from someone or something.”
“Attraction? Perhaps you should concentrate on that aspect when you are with me and leave behind the repulsion.”
Karen’s stomach flip-flopped. She blurted, “Nothing about you repulses me. You’re okay on that score.”
Her cheeks exploded with heat. Why in the hell had she just said that aloud? As she glanced around the hut for a rock to crawl under, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Damned if his expression wasn’t unfolding into the sexiest, most incendiary smile she’d ever laid eyes on. Well, then. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad idea after all to make that little true confession.
He lay down and pulled his sleeping bag up around his shoulders, and she did the same. And that sexy smile was still on his face as she risked a peek at him across the fire.
“Sweet dreams, Karen.”
Crud. She still had to work with this guy, and she was about a millimeter from going around that fire and crawling into his sleeping bag with him. Okay, so maybe it had been a really, really bad idea to confess her feelings.
Northern Norway, March 4, 6:00 a.m.
“How are we coming, men?” Jack Scatalone huddled deeper in his parka and pulled the hood farther forward. The Norwegian team in front of him was crouched around a deceptively simple-looking radio setup.
“Just about ready. Batteries are almost up to operating temperature,” one of the Norwegians replied.
Larson’s men were good. They were almost like working with his own Delta 3 team stateside. He watched as one of the men took off his gloves to complete the last step—inserting oversized field batteries into the body of the main transmitter. Jack started counting in his head. One potato. Two potato. Three potato… The guy had about ten seconds to expose his fingers to the raw air before frostbite would start to set in.
At six, the guy nodded and pulled his glove back on with a grimace. It was gratifying that even these Norwegians thought it was stupidly cold this morning. He’d take a jungle any day over this arctic misery.
“We’re ready, Colonel.”
Jack nodded. “Flip the switch.”
The Norwegian communications expert did just that, sending a broad-beam jamming signal out in all directions. All radio frequencies within thirty miles of this innocuous-looking little black box were now officially shut down.
“How long do you think it’ll take your girls to realize we’re jamming everything and come find us?”
Jack retorted, “A word of advice. Don’t call them girls to their faces. I get away with it because I trained them and I know exactly what they’re capable of. But they’d break you into little pieces if you gave them that kind of motivation to do so.”
The other men made the requisite sounds of skepticism that any woman could hurt them, but he saw doubt flicker in their eyes. Hmm. That hand-to-hand encounter with the Medusas must’ve been a closer thing than these guys had let on. The Norwegians had given him the impression that they’d handled the Medusas easily. Maybe not. Next time he saw his team, he’d have to get their side of the story.
One of the Norwegians commented, “Well, maybe that big blond one could hurt one of us.”
Another one retorted, “Nah, she just surprised Anders. She’d never take him in a fair fight.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. He’d trained Karen Turner himself, and he was damned proud of her ability in unarmed combat. “If you’re referring to Python, she routinely fights to a draw with me. She can hold her own with most male special operators. I wouldn’t suggest crossing her in a dark alley.”
One of the Norwegians muttered, “Scary woman.”
Jack’s jaw rippled. He was here to make nice with the allied nation soldiers. But he’d dearly love to see Karen get a hold of this joker. Making a concerted effort to remain calm, he said, “In answer to your earlier question, I’d guess the Medusas will find us in under a week.”
“So quickly?” one of the Norwegians blurted.
Jack nodded casually, “These aren’t Girl Scouts we’re talking about. They’re essentially Delta operators.”
“Still. A week? They’ve got hundreds of square kilometers to cover.”
Irritation flared in Jack’s gut. How the Medusas put up with chauvinistic attitudes like this, he couldn’t fathom. The women usually grinned and shrugged it off. But it made him want to pound the shit out of someone. He crossed his arms casually. “Care to place a little wager on it?”
“Like what?”
“A bottle of Louis Treize to the winner?”
The Norwegian grinned, sharklike, and nodded. A bottle of the aged cognac ran a cool two thousand dollars U.S. “Say five days?”
Jack nodded tersely. “Done.”
Northern Norway, March 4, 9:00 a.m.
Karen woke on a burst of cold air that made her hunker down deeper into her sleeping bag. The fire had burned down to little more than a pile of ashes and someone had just come in, letting in even more frigid air.
“Rise and shine, Python,” Vanessa announced.
Karen groaned under her breath, but painted on a game smile. “’Morning, Mom.” She sat up, still in her sleeping bag, as did Anders. He looked about as thrilled to be awake as she felt. Until he went outside, she wasn’t about to get naked and get dressed.
Aleesha asked cheerfully, “How’d you two lovebirds sleep last night?”
Karen’s cheeks burned. Lovebirds? She threw her teammate a withering glare. Almost in spite of herself, she glanced sidelong in Anders’ direction to see how he’d reacted to the comment. Karen’s eyes opened wide in surprise. He was as red as a cherry. He was embarrassed? Was he that humiliated at being associated with her romantically? Had she completely misinterpreted his comments last night? What an idiot she was! The heat spreading across her face and down her neck took on an unpleasant burning quality.
Isabella tossed some more fuel on the fire while Kat laid a long, ungainly parce
l wrapped in reindeer hide beside Karen.
Vanessa plunked down by the fire and got right to business. “There are currently two working rifles in town and a couple of hundred rounds of ammunition for each. There are two more non-functional rifles. Python, I’m hoping you and Cobra can restore them to operational status.”
Karen took the decrepit weapon Katrina unwrapped from the skin and passed to her. She inspected it quickly. Rust inside the barrel, which was in need of re-rifling. Corrosion in the firing chamber. It needed a new firing pin. The stock’s balance was terrible, but the sights were in pretty good condition. Jack had made them repair and fire worse before. “With the right tools, I can get this working in a few hours.”
Vanessa grimaced. “You may have to improvise your tools.”
Karen shrugged. Jack had made them do that, too. “I’ll check with the Samis and see what they’ve got. Speaking of which, have you talked to the head dude about moving the encampment back to the nearest major village?”
Vanessa frowned. “The siida-isit wasn’t receptive to the idea. They’re having good luck hunting this area and he wants to stay a while longer.”
“Bummer. I really do think they’d be safer in a larger population center.”
Vanessa sighed. “I agree. I think you need to ask the siida-isit to take his people back to the main village.”
“He already said no to you. My asking won’t do any—” But as soon as the words were out of Karen’s mouth, she saw where Viper was going. Because the natives were half convinced Karen was some sort of Viking goddess reincarnated, they might listen to her. Crud. “Look, Viper. I think we really need to explain to these people that I’m just a regular soldier like the rest of you.”
“Fine. After you convince the chief to move his people.”
Karen exhaled heavily. She understood Viper’s logic, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Anders smirked over at her. She scowled back at him.
“Get out of here so I can dress, servant guy,” she snapped.
