Heart of the Hunter
Page 5
Reid stared at her hand. Beyond the clean and bluntly cut nails, he saw small, yellowed calluses sprinkled across her palm, indicating that she was an active rock climber. He saw old scars, too, garnered from such exercises against nature and death. She had long fingers—long and expressive—and he hotly wondered what it would be like if she trailed them languidly across his flesh. How would he react? Swallowing hard, he realized his thoughts were not at all appropriate as he held her warm, tearful gaze. But her lips were slightly parted and just begging to be touched, tamed and brought into union with his.
Disconcerted, Reid forced himself to listen to her on a deeper level. “What has the mountain taught you, then?” he asked, his voice gruff with more emotion than he wanted to hear in it.
“It has taught me that even stone has a heart, has feeling… .” She gazed at him thoughtfully. You think you’re made of stone, too, but you ‘re not. I see inside you. I feel your heart, whether you want me to or not… . All those words remained deep within Casey even though she wanted to blurt them out to Reid. She was hoping he’d understand her analogy.
Turning her hand, she studied it momentarily and then allowed it to rest in her lap. The desire burning in his eyes was very real to Casey. She found herself a little breathless and more than a little needy. How could she feel all these things at a time like this? Steve had died a year ago. Her heart was still torn and bleeding from his horrible, unexpected death. But Reid Hunter’s intense inspection made her feel vulnerable in a feminine way that she’d never felt before, with any man. What was going on?
“Climbing that rock face is like continuously taunting death. Is that what you like to do? Face death?”
He had remarkable insight. Much more than Casey would have originally given Reid credit for. “I do it daily, anyway. Does it matter if it’s a virus that might infect me in the lab, or if I miss a handhold on the rock and fall to my death?”
Her words were visceral and he felt his gut tighten at the thought of Casey falling off that sheer rock face. Even though she had the looks of a college girl, she was a courageous woman warrior. A throwback, maybe, to that red-haired Celtic queen who had challenged the entire Roman Empire so long ago. Queen Boudicca and Casey had a lot in common.
Reid saw the challenge in her darkening green eyes as they met and held his gaze. There was an energy connection between them, too, he discovered. He was as physically aware of it as he was of her closeness, of that faint, spicy fragrance she wore on her skin.
Meeting her gaze, he said, “They say that from the moment we’re born, we begin to die.”
Her lips curved. “Just as I thought, Captain. You are a man of great depth and philosophy. Not to mention a diehard pragmatist.”
“Death always gets my attention.”
“What about living?” She saw him scowl as he looked away.
“I don’t know what you mean.” His heart thumped hard to underscore the sudden panic he felt by her incisive question. She could see straight through him, just as Janet had—only Casey was far more insightful, and gentler in some ways. For that, Hunter, who tried to consciously tell himself to relax, was grateful.
“In your work, at least according to the file I was given on you, you’re in the business of death and dying, too.”
“So, what does that make us, good doctor?” he teased abruptly. “Two people unable to live? Too scared to live? Too frightened to jump into that pot called life and take real chances and play emotional roulette? You tell me.”
The parry—riposte with him was new to Casey. “You don’t go for social talk, you go for the jugular, instead.” She grinned a little. Casey knew she’d just scored a direct hit on his most vital area of contention. She saw his face flush—just like a young schoolboy’s. So he was truly like a teenage boy with his emotions.
Reid liked the glow her smile brought to her freckled cheeks. It became her. Aching to reach out and glide his fingertips across them, to feel her soft, firm skin, was nearly Reid’s undoing. “You’re the one who likes honesty, remember? And no, I’m not very skilled at social graces. Maybe that’s why I’m still a captain and not a major. I lack the ability to employ those social tools properly in order to climb through the ranks.”
“Does it bother you, this lack of social graces?” Casey asked, intrigued. She was mesmerized by him. This was not the normal kind of man she usually encountered. He didn’t play games. He was painfully honest even if it meant revealing his weak points. Reid had to have a very healthy ego in order to do that, and Casey had never met someone who had that kind of solid confidence. And yet he skittered around his emotional terrain as if allowing himself to truly feel would be his death.
“No. Maybe it was because I was raised in the wilds of the Rockies. I spent a lot of time fishing and hunting as a kid growing up. Probably more time watching wildlife than killing it. My dad taught me not to kill unless I was going to eat it. I spent a lot of time out in sunlit meadows watching life come and go without me interfering with it via a rifle.”
“I haven’t met many military men who were natural born killers.”
Reid slanted a hard glance at her. “No,” he said slowly, “I see us as protectors, not killers. We defend.”
As the jumbo jet leveled off, the pressure of gravity against her eased. Casey had seen the flare of anger in his eyes when she made her statement. “You’re very protective.” Of me. But she didn’t say that. She felt it to her core. To her bones. He gave her a brusque nod.
“To my detriment at times,” he added sourly.
“Oh?””
He saw merriment in her green eyes, a gentle baiting. Reid was sure she knew who he was protective of. “Okay, I’ll bite. Women and children. They need our protection.”
“Hmm, Neanderthal to the core, aren’t you?”
Her teasing was light and he took it in that vein. “I’ve been accused of it from time to time, Doctor. I’m sure on this little jaunt I’ll hear it at least a couple times a day, aren’t you?”
“Neanderthals have their place in our world. Not around me, however.” She smiled a little and then sobered. “Better a protector than a hothead with a rifle in his hands,” she commented dryly. “Because where we’re going you aren’t going to be carrying many weapons.”
“I’ll be carrying a 9 mm on my person all the time,” he warned her in a low tone. “That’s my job this time around. Being a Neanderthal guard dog—of sorts… .”
Casey felt shaken by his sudden intensity. This man was a warrior. Just the clear look in his narrowed eyes sent a chill down her spine—for whomever his enemy might be. “Do you… ” she hesitated, then licked her lower lip. “Do you really expect trouble?”
“From the moment we land.”
Feeling cold, Casey rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Do you feel it will be that dangerous that soon?”
Shrugging, Reid saw the seat belt sign come off. He unstrapped himself and got up to stretch. “We’d be fools to play it otherwise.”
As he rose, Casey appreciated his powerful physique. He was built like a swimmer, not like some musclebound gym maniac who worked out for hours every day. There was athletic balance to the marine officer. As he took off his sport coat and hung it over his seat, she appreciated the sculpted muscling of his arms. Strong arms. And hands that could hold a deadly weapon to kill with, if necessary. Again a chill worked down her spine.
As he flexed his hands, she watched the muscles work in his forearms. He was heavily tanned, and she suspected that he wasn’t an office paper pusher—rather, any chance he got, he was outdoors with his men. Out in nature once again, as he’d been as a boy growing up. Nature didn’t demand emotions of him, either, she thought as she smiled to herself.
“Isn’t it funny how our childhood follows us around like a good friend?” Casey whispered as she unsnapped her own seat belt and eased out of the chair. She wriggled her toes and dug them into the carpeting. There was something about texture that she enjoyed. Reid wa
s walking around the cabin until she spoke. Then he stopped and devoted his full attention to her. Again that sense of protection, like a thick, warm blanket, fell around her shoulders and embraced her. Maybe it was the slate color of his eyes as he held her gaze. Or maybe it was the softening at the corners of his hard, thinned mouth as he studied her in the building silence.
“What do you mean?”
Casey smiled a little. “When I was a kid growing up in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, I was always climbing. I have a younger sister and two older brothers, and I was forever being found on some cliff with my rope and climbing gear.”
“Your parents were rock climbers?”
“No.”
“What does your father do?”
Casey felt an old pain in her heart stir to life. She slowly walked around the cabin. “He was a medical doctor. He died of a rare strep infection when I was twelve years old. It came as a real shock. One day he was alive, the next, dead.”
“Sorry,” Reid offered gruffly. He saw the pain on her face. Every emotion she had registered there, he was discovering. “What about your mother? She a rock climber, then?”
Shaking her head, Casey forced a sad smile. For some unknown reason, she was allowing him into her personal life, her personal world. Why, she had no idea. “No, my mom had her hands full with the four of us. She had opted to stay home to raise us, since my dad made enough money to support us.”
“Probably got tougher after he died?”
“Very. My mom had to take welfare for a while until she got on her feet. My brothers and I found odd jobs and helped pull in money so we were able to get off public assistance.”
“Twelve years old and you were working?”
She put her hands behind her back and halted a few feet from him. “I got a part-time job with our veterinarian down the street. I cleaned animal cages and did odd jobs for him. Actually, I feel Dr. Channing took me on as an excuse to contribute money to our struggling family. He was best friends with my dad before he died.”
“And yet,” Reid noted, “you became a virologist. Maybe the years you spent in the vet’s office helped you decide what you wanted to do with your life.”
“In part, yes. I was angry for a long time over dad dying. I developed a hatred for germs. Dr. Channing used to set me up with slides and the microscope and teach me about lab testing procedures. Pretty soon, I got curious about all these bugs.” She smiled a little. “By the time I was fourteen, I was taking college prep classes and I knew I wanted to be a virologist.” Her smile disappeared. “I didn’t want another family to lose a loved one like we did. I was bound and determined to find out about viruses and bacteria and understand them, so that they couldn’t take the amount of lives they had in the past.”
“I think that your father would be proud of you.”
She arched at his gruffly spoken compliment. Releasing her hands, she clasped them in front of her. “I hope so.” Sighing, Casey lifted her hands and gently massaged the back of her neck. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in a war and we’re losing the battle. The more we know about viruses and bacteria, the less we know.” She gazed at his somber face. “At least on days when I don’t get enough sleep, that’s how I feel.”
“And days when you do?”
“I feel more hopeful.”
Reid went and sat down in his chair. He wished he had Casey’s ease with herself so he could comfortably shed his new hiking boots, which weren’t broken in yet. He’d like to stretch his feet a little, too. “With the viruses and bacteria mutating every time we make an antibiotic, your work must keep you busy.”
“Ugh, that!” Casey walked over and sat down next to him. “The bugs are winning in that area. It’s only a matter of time before the superbugs outdistance our latest antibiotics and we become really vulnerable.” Her mouth twisted. “And then I’ll be back at square one, just like things were in the days when my dad got sick. The strep that killed him was lethal. There was nothing available to stop it.”
“Well,” he murmured, feeling more and more relaxed around Casey, “we’re both up against a real-time killer— Ebola.”
She studied him in the semidarkness of the cabin. The light cut across his features and emphasized his strength and warriorlike hardness. The thinned set of his mouth told her a lot about his feelings about Ebola. “I saw in your file that you have a Bachelor of Science in microbiology. I was impressed. What I can’t figure out is how you ended up in the Marine Corps.”
He met her winsome smile with a hesitant grin. “As a kid, I used to put drops of water from streams and lakes under a microscope. I was mesmerized by how busy seemingly clear, clean water really was.”
“No such thing as dead water,” Casey agreed with a chuckle. “So, your love of nature got you that degree?”
Reid found himself wanting to share a lot with her. That wasn’t prudent, he realized. If he didn’t keep some distance from Casey, how could he protect her? She was far too easy to like, and to talk with. Maybe it was her nurturing qualities that reached out to him. He could tell by the interest in her eyes that she genuinely wanted to hear what he had to say or thought. Opening his hands, he said, “You could say that.”
“And how did you make the quantum leap from microbiologist to Marine Corps?”
“Sounds a little crazy, doesn’t it?” He watched as she flashed him a grin. When Casey threaded her fingers through her mussed hair, he saw gold, burgundy and crimson highlights dance beneath the lighting in the cabin.
“I learned a long time ago that crazy makes the world go ‘round.”
He didn’t disagree. Rubbing his hands against his thighs, he said, “My dad is a professor of biology at Colorado State University. My mother is a medical doctor.”
“So… ” Casey raised her eyes “… you got the degree because your parents wanted you to?”
“Somewhat,” he hedged. “I really wanted to be a doctor. I’d taken premed.”
“How did the Marine Corps get your attention?”
“It promised me adventure. I was sick and tired of book learning, lab work and too many classrooms. I craved the fresh air, the heat on my skin and the rain against my face. They promised me Recons and let me be the paramedic on the team. They delivered.” He looked up. “And here I am, on an elite NBC warfare team flying halfway around the world hunting two types of enemies at once—one we can see and the other we can’t.”
Sobering, Casey leaned back. “It’s the ones we can see that have me worried. No one has been able to confirm many of Black Dawn’s terrorists by name or photograph.”
“The few we have are here, in my briefcase,” he said, gesturing to the black briefcase beneath his seat. “I’ll need you to look at them and commit them to memory before we land at Kinshasa.”
Rubbing her eyes, she said, “Let me catch some shut-eye first? I’m running low on reserves, with only two hours of sleep under my belt.”
Patting his shoulder, Reid said, “If you need a pillow, here I am.” Why had he said that? He saw the look of surprise mirrored on Casey’s features. The laughter that followed embraced him like a familial lover.
“An officer and a gentleman to the last.” Casey reached out, her fingers itching to make contact with this hard, athletic officer. As her fingers slid across his broad, capable shoulder, heat arced up her hand and into her arm. Instantly, her heart beat a little harder. His eyes narrowed upon her like a predator’s. Mouth a little dry, Casey removed her fingers. She had felt his flesh tighten briefly at her light contact. He was all muscle, bone and tension.
“I’m well known for tossing and turning a lot in my sleep,” she warned him throatily as she settled back into her chair. “So just ignore me if I do try to use you as a big, overstuffed pillow.”
Grinning belatedly, Reid relaxed more. “There’s worse things that could happen, good doctor.” A lot worse, but he didn’t say that. The possibility of her lying against his shoulder was inviting. He found himself wishing badly that it
would occur. Looking down at the watch on his wrist, he murmured, “Go to sleep. We’re got a long time in transit yet. I’ll wake you when it’s time to get down to business.”
Closing her eyes, Casey nodded. “For a Neanderthal, you’re pretty decent, Captain.”
“Thank you, Doctor, I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from you.”
Casey felt the corners of her mouth curve upward. The feeling of protection embraced her once more. She felt safe with Reid. Very safe and cared for. Cared for? Where had that thought come from? Too exhausted and sleep deprived, she just didn’t have the energy to pursue the question in her head, though her heart continued to sense his tender regard. Casey hadn’t felt this tired in a long time, but she understood the reasons for it. Not only was she still in shock over the deaths of her good friends and scared about going back to Zaire, she was excited about being able to perform fieldwork again and possibly finding the Ebola reservoir once and for all. But as sleep spiraled her into a warm cocoon of darkness and rest, Reid’s hard face appeared before her. It was his eyes, her heart whispered, that told her he liked her more than just a little. There was such magnetism pulsing and throbbing between them, so alive and palpable to her. The last thought Casey had was that she had to somehow curb herself and not let the marine officer know how much she honestly did like him. Neanderthal or not…