by Megan Crane
There was another low sound throughout the room, the kind of growling male assent that Bethan knew was about the highest level of support these colleagues of hers had to offer.
Which was why Alaska Force was so much more than a job. It was home.
Oz changed the photos on the big screen. “I looked for the kind of places Judson Kerrigone might stash not just our scientist and his sister but a lab where Sowande could create any practical applications of his research. Two possibilities jump out.”
“Two?” Templeton laughed, loud and long. “I don’t have a single place in my life that could contain a science lab. Didn’t realize it might be required.”
“Only if you’re a psycho,” Blue said.
That only made Templeton laugh harder.
“As an at-risk teenager, he spent some time at his uncle’s orchard in Upstate New York,” Oz told the group. “It was supposed to cure him of petty theft, vandalism, and truancy, but it didn’t take. And for about six months while he still thought he could convince a branch of the military to let him enlist, he spent a lot of time making like Rocky in a warehouse in New Jersey.”
“A warehouse in New Jersey?” Templeton asked. “Isn’t that a fate worse than death?”
“It is death. Straight up,” Lucas retorted.
Kate laughed. “I’m happy to say I haven’t spent enough time—by which I mean any time—in or around New Jersey.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re an Alaskan by birth, we get it,” Templeton rumbled at her, which made them both grin.
A great many aspersions were cast upon the great state of New Jersey then, while Lucas, the only person in the room who had spent any time there—or would admit to it—mounted what could only be called, at best, an anemic defense.
“Everyone’s feelings on the Garden State are noted,” Isaac said when that had gone on for a while. “We’re going to break this up into two teams, because I think we have to get a move on this, and also, I’m pissed. I don’t like that Dominic Carter, Judson Kerrigone, or whoever he is, tracked us. I don’t like him at that wedding, I’m not happy about biological weapons that close to a major metropolitan area, and mostly, I want to personally express my feelings about an individual who almost killed two people standing in this room.”
“Hear, hear,” Templeton drawled.
And the rest of the group echoed him, while Bethan found herself lost once more in Jonas’s dark, deep gaze. She wished it didn’t feel as much like finding herself at the same time, because she should know better.
Isaac issued assignments, ignoring the heated argument that sprang up over who got to go. Because everybody wanted in on this one. Bethan was back on the original team that had gone into the South American high desert, plus Blue, which suited her fine. They all nodded at one another, then focused on the rest of the briefing.
“I’m downloading schematics and mission parameters to your tablets,” Oz told them. “Go take care of your personal business, and then let’s be back here after lunch to really dig into it.”
“We’ll fly out tonight,” Isaac added. He nodded at Jonas, and thereby the rest of the California team. “Let’s do the wedding debrief in thirty.”
Then there was the usual flurry of activity that followed mission guidelines as everybody went to sort themselves out. Some people had to talk to significant others. Others simply had to pack their go bag and make sure anything that needed switching off in their cabin was taken care of. Others had to make phone calls.
Bethan went back to her cabin, packed and closed up in an easy ten minutes, then headed back down to the lodge, where she planned to find a quiet corner and study what Oz had sent to her tablet before the debriefing.
When she got to the lodge’s front doors, Kate and Caradine were standing there, while Horatio sat at Caradine’s feet. They were talking while leaning against the rail that looked over the cove, the water still draped in ribbons of fog.
“I would’ve thought you’d be back in Grizzly Harbor,” Bethan said as she joined them. “Aren’t you usually open for lunch?”
“Otis Taggert pissed me off,” Caradine said with her trademark smirk. “So I closed for the day. If people are mad about it, they can take it up with him or snack on whatever treats he offers in the Bait & Tackle.”
“He’s the one who has that grudge against Isaac, right?” Kate asked.
Both Bethan and Caradine were well aware by now that Trooper Kate Holiday very rarely asked questions she didn’t already know the answers to.
But Caradine didn’t seem to mind. “Apparently he has an epic generational grudge against all members of the Gentry family. Whatever. He can explain to all the fishermen why they couldn’t get their coffee this morning.”
“To be clear,” Kate said, not quite grinning as she met Bethan’s gaze, “she didn’t just close the café. She put up a sign in the window stating exactly why.”
“Of course she did,” Bethan said, and couldn’t keep her own laugh back.
“He said some things about Isaac I didn’t care for, three seats away from me in the Fairweather.” Caradine smiled a lot more now than she used to, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an edgy affair. “One of the benefits of small-town life is being able to respond in kind.”
As the other two started talking about the particular Alaskan flavor of small-town life here, Bethan couldn’t keep herself from thinking about last night. It had been a dream come true and a nightmare in the making all at once, because Bethan didn’t know how on earth she was going to live here, in the one place she’d ever felt like she belonged, when Jonas was here, too.
Because unless she was missing something, while he might have enjoyed having sex with her, he not only had no plans to take it further than that but probably wouldn’t even know what that looked like.
Sometimes she thought about the things that man had faced, long before he’d joined the service and become his own personal war machine, and she wanted to cry. Sob out loud. And then break things.
A sentiment she doubted very much he would appreciate.
“You have a very strange look on your face,” Caradine said, snapping Bethan back to the here and now.
“It’s just my face,” Bethan said, but she wiped her expression blank.
Caradine looked unconvinced.
Kate, on the other hand, looked far more speculative. “How was it? Playing wedding dates with Jonas?”
“How do you think it was?” Bethan adjusted the duffel bag she was carrying on her shoulder, though it didn’t need adjusting. “Always the life of the party, that one.”
“If I was the kind of person to ask questions like this,” Caradine said, as if to herself, “I would want to know why you have a little mark. Right here.” She pointed to her clavicle, making Bethan freeze.
Somehow she managed to avoid slapping her own hand to her collarbone. “I don’t have a mark there,” she said flatly.
Kate laughed. “You don’t. But now you’re blushing.”
“I don’t blush,” Bethan gritted out.
“Good thing,” Caradine said then, an evil little glint in her eyes. “Because if you did, you’d be bright red by now. And sooner or later, if you were in the presence of your other friends, who are far less restrained than Kate and me, it would be like an interrogation.”
“I prefer only to interrogate suspects,” Kate said. “As a rule.”
“Great chat,” Bethan replied brightly. Desperately. “Girl power, intimate friend time, whatever. Glad we could do this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go chase bad guys.”
Her friends laughed at her as she turned to go. And it took every bit of training Bethan had ever had to keep from breaking into a run to get away from that knowing sound.
Or worse, to stay right where she was. And unburden herself, when she knew better.
Because talking about w
hat had happened between her and Jonas would only make everything worse.
It might even make it real.
Twenty
Jonas couldn’t sleep.
It was one more indication of what a goner he was, not that he needed further evidence. He was 100 percent screwed, top to bottom, and he knew it.
Because soldiers of his caliber didn’t have insomnia. They couldn’t afford it. He slept when there was time to sleep, because there was no telling when that kind of time would come again. Chances were always high that it wouldn’t.
But here he was, wide awake as the jet hung somewhere over Canada, en route to New York. Staring out at the moon.
Questioning what the hell he was doing.
His bad decisions kept intensifying, and there was a part of him that resented the fact that while his world seemed to be inside out and getting worse by the second, Bethan was currently sleeping like a baby. Six feet in front of him, in one of the reclining sleeper chairs in the main part of the jet. He resented that he knew for a fact that when the jet was packed like it was tonight and sleep space was at a premium, she never went and took a place in one of the staterooms. Because that meant no one would go in and get a little shut-eye next to her the way they would if she were just another guy claiming one of the wide beds. Not that she’d ever drawn that boundary, but everyone tended to give her that respect whenever possible.
Bethan, of course, didn’t want it.
And Jonas would have said that he’d spent his life learning how to keep himself from wanting anything.
Because it was better that way. Safer.
Now he couldn’t stop.
Templeton was sacked out across from him, but Jonas noticed the moment the other man’s breathing changed. He wasn’t surprised to find his brother-in-arms suddenly completely alert, as if he’d downed a pot of coffee in the time it took most people to open their eyes and remember they were alive.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Templeton said, and not in that trademark booming voice of his that would have woken up the entire plane. “It’s giving me nightmares.”
Jonas didn’t bother to respond to that. Or crack an expression of any kind, for that matter. Not that it bothered Templeton.
“The funny thing about you keeping me awake,” Templeton continued, shifting in his comfortable seat that could easily sleep most men but was a little snug for his huge frame, “is that it’s not how you normally roll, is it? You could be freaking out and no one would ever know it, because you’re too busy making like a ghost.”
“I think maybe you’re talking in your sleep,” Jonas replied.
Templeton grinned. “Nice one. But no. I’ve seen you sleep through regime changes. Why are you awake tonight?”
“A better question is why you think that’s your business.”
“Wide-awake on a routine overnight flight, unnaturally chatty, and on top of that, snippy?” Templeton shook his head. “I don’t know, buddy. That adds up to a whole lot of brooding discontent, which I didn’t think was your thing.”
“I’ve never trusted army math,” Jonas replied coolly. “Not thinking I’m going to start now.”
Templeton grinned his appreciation of that one. And for a moment, he was quiet.
But Jonas didn’t relax, because he knew better. Templeton liked to act like he was everybody’s best friend, but the reality was, he was a remarkably tenacious individual. And scary good at getting information out of people who didn’t want to give it.
“To the casual observer,” Templeton said after a while, “it seems like maybe playing Bethan’s boyfriend for a week isn’t sitting too well.”
“That or I’m preparing myself to meet the man responsible for putting me into a hospital rehab center for six months of my life.”
“You mean after Bethan saved your life. From the big, bad wolf, while you were as helpless as a baby. Just to clarify.”
Jonas did not actually give Templeton the finger, because he was above such things. Also, it would only entertain his friend. Still, the sentiment seemed to hang in the air between them.
Templeton grinned. “I’ve known you a long time, Jonas. In and out of too many versions of hell to count. And I think you and I both know that you’re not apprehensive about getting a chance to express your feelings on that subject to Dominic Carter. You can’t wait.”
“I’m only good at one thing,” Jonas replied, meeting his friend’s gaze steadily. Even though he didn’t want to. Maybe especially because he didn’t want to. “And I’m really, really good at it.”
He didn’t say that thing was war. He didn’t have to, not to Templeton, who already knew.
“I know you think that,” his friend said quietly. “But I’m one of the few people who’s seen you fall apart. In case you forgot.”
“I never forget.”
Not that he particularly wanted to remember the cold winter he’d spent in the Alaskan interior. He, Templeton, and Isaac had walked away from their last official mission when no one else did. Then they’d walked away from the service. After they’d left the usual Washington, D.C., circus behind, Isaac and Templeton had decided they were going to head out of there and figure out civilian life.
Jonas hadn’t bothered. He was no civilian. He’d barely been a member of society before he’d become what the navy had made him, and all his years playing dangerous Delta Force games had nailed that down tight.
But what did a man made to make war do in peacetime? What did a loaded weapon with an inconvenient pulse do with himself when he had nowhere to aim?
He’d spent a dark season in a crude cabin with nothing but his guns and his thoughts, puzzling that one out. He knew that Isaac and Templeton believed that he’d been in despair, that he’d been a mess. He hadn’t been. He’d been in a hole, sure, but he’d been deciding if it was worth climbing his way out.
“That wasn’t me falling apart,” he said now. “There’s a reason we lock up certain members of society. It’s for the public good. I was quarantining myself until I figured out where I fell on that.”
Templeton rolled his eyes. “I don’t need a lecture on the benefits of the prison system. You think I don’t know that particular dance? You think I don’t have my own dark nights of the soul? Of course it’s easier to pretend you’re some kind of machine. Everybody gets that.”
“If you get it, then I don’t understand why we’re having this conversation.”
“You get to be human,” Templeton said, so softly that there was no reason Jonas should have felt the other man’s voice go through him as if he’d shouted. Or punctuated that sentence with his fists. “You are flesh and blood and mortal, no matter what you do to pretend otherwise. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I appreciate the biology lesson.”
Templeton shook his head. “Your parents sucked. Your childhood was a war zone. Believe me, I relate. The world isn’t going to end if you let yourself be happy now, brother. I promise.”
And whatever Jonas might have said to that, Templeton cut off the possibility. He shut his eyes again, shoved his headphones into his ears, and gave every appearance of falling immediately back into a deep slumber.
Leaving Jonas even more unsettled than before.
It wasn’t that there was too much noise inside him suddenly. He was good at blocking out noise. He didn’t allow distractions.
But Bethan was more insidious than that. All he could think about was pink. Pastels and pillows. That cottage of hers, soft and cozy, both unexpected and entirely her.
She was like sunlight, reaching into parts of him that had never seen the light of day. He didn’t know if he resented it or thirsted for it, but whatever it was, he felt poisoned. Altered.
Except this was the kind of poison he didn’t think was going to kill him.
Maybe he only wished it would.
Isaac was leading the warehouse team. He and Jonas, leader of the Upstate New York team, conferred for a moment while everyone else threw their bags into the back of their respective vehicles, checked their weapons, and handled their adrenaline.
“I have a bad feeling about all of this,” Isaac said quietly. “You?”
“No more than usual.” Jonas kept his gaze on Isaac. He did not look around to see what Bethan was doing. He did not need that, because he shouldn’t need anything. “This guy already took a shot at messing with our heads. I’m not sure what else he has to go on.”
“We’ll see,” Isaac muttered. He jerked his chin at Jonas, and then they all headed out.
Jonas took the wheel of the SUV and headed north. At this time of the morning, just before rush hour and headed away from New York City—and therefore the worst of the congestion—it was an estimated two hours to the old orchard near the Hudson River, in a typically old East Coast town with one of those Dutch names.
No one talked much until Blue announced he was studying the schematics. That led to talking through various options for taking the perimeter. Then the farmhouse and assorted outbuildings.
“I don’t think it would be that hard to renovate the place on the down-low and get state-of-the-art lab facilities in there without anyone being the wiser,” Blue said.
“Does it have to be state-of-the-art?” August asked. “Or does it just have to be usable?”
“I would think it has to be secure, first and foremost,” Bethan said, from directly behind Jonas. “How unstable is this SuperThrax? Is that a factor in the kind of facility Sowande would need?”
