by Jen Doyle
“In triplicate,” Ian added, a smile on his face.
Lyndsey wasn’t entirely happy that the smile was directed at—and returned by—Julie.
“That we do,” Julie affirmed. “Oh, good. The guides are here.” She waved over four men who had just appeared at the head of the path. Standing up, she added, “I’m sure you’re eager to get started.”
The other three guides—from the Lac La Croix tribe, from what Lyndsey understood—were named Dale, Richard, and Joe. Joe—and Dominic, of course—were the two assigned to Ian’s team, but Joe would be the one working more closely with Ian and Lyndsey’s group for the duration of the trip. Within a few minutes of the guides showing up, Tommy came down the path. With so many newcomers, Matt got up on one of the benches and called for everyone’s attention.
“We’ll be heading out soon,” he said. “But before we do that, you’ll notice a bunch of new faces. Some of you know Tom Catalano from ZSJ. As you all know, ZSJ is running this op; Tom and I will be running the Command post from here at Camp Atikokan. And this is Julie Langdon, the park administrator. Tom? Julie? Anything you’d like to say before we head out?”
Julie spoke first, keeping it unexpectedly short and sweet. After introducing Frank and Kevin, and then the guides, she said, “Welcome to Quetico Park. We think it’s pretty amazing. Thank you in advance for helping us keep it that way.”
Tommy being Tommy wasn’t nearly as concise, but he also kept it to a minimum. “Lyndsey’s more of an ambassador than I ever could be, so I’m not here to speak on behalf of ZSJ or our client. And since you’ll be hearing more than enough from me over the next few weeks, I’ll just say we’re really happy to be here and thank you for making us a part of your team.” He started to step back and then changed his mind. “I know we’re the official lead on this and we’re up to it, no doubt. But at the same time none of us have any problem admitting that Colonels Fox and Lee are really in charge. We’ve done our homework and know this is one of the best teams out there.” He grinned. “Honestly? I think Lyn, Fox, and Lee might be the best there is. Period. It’s an honor to serve with all of you. Hoo-ah, and all that.” Then he stepped back into the line.
Folding her arms across her chest, Lyndsey looked at Tommy appraisingly. Not that she particularly disagreed with anything he said, it was just surprising he’d been so open about ceding control. Then again, given his particular skills, he’d probably sensed a lack of buy-in from the Army guys despite what Matt had said to them in the briefing. Although Sprague and Ana, possibly even Brady and Brooks, seemed to have no problems with her, Lyndsey had sensed the distance throughout the week she’d trained with everyone. And since it wasn’t in her nature to try and build a bridge, she’d have to earn their respect and trust out in the field.
Tommy, on the other hand, hadn’t just built a bridge—he’d made it a party. The resounding claps and HOO-AHs back were almost deafening. Which was good. Given the glance exchanged between Ian and Matt, she could tell they thought so too.
Not bothering to hide his smile, Matt held his arms up in the air and brought the cheering to an end. “On that note, gather your teams. Introduce yourselves to the ZSJ folks and the guides. I’ll also introduce Dominic Garneau; Dominic, you’ll be with Brady’s group, on Ian and Lyndsey’s team. Wheels up in ten.”
“Not bad,” Lyndsey said as Tommy came over to where she was standing a few minutes later. “Not sure I’ve ever seen you do that before.”
He seemed humbled—he actually seemed to care about this team; that was unusual. Being more a lover than a fighter meant he generally got along with everyone; it also meant, however, that he formed very few attachments. He’d been working with ZSJ a good two or three years before he really became a friend with any of them.
Shrugging, Tommy looked over at Ian. “I’ve never seen anyone matter to you the way he does. And they matter to him. And anyway, you set it for me; all I did was spike it.” He smiled. “Turns out they know you matter, too. They just don’t know who to.”
Right. Both Ana and Brooks had made that clear. She was still grappling with the fact that they thought it was Matt she was involved with. And no wonder—the second she glanced at Ian and Matt, Matt was the one who gave her the dazzling grin. To anyone observing, it would look like it meant something; to someone who could actually read the look on Ian’s face at the moment, however, it would be entirely clear that Matt was giving Ian grief for something or other. And, right now, Lyndsey had a feeling it was about her.
Well, good. Turns out she was a little irritated Ian wasn’t more obvious about his feelings. Not even just a little bit.
That was probably why she had a hard time not glaring as they ended whatever conversation they were having and made their way over. Matt reached out to shake Tommy’s hand. “Thanks, TomC—” He stopped himself before the ‘at’ came out; Ian must have told him Tommy didn’t love the nickname.
“It’s okay,” Tommy said, laughing. “I know it’s only a matter of time—I appreciate it taking this long. You can make it official.”
“TomCat,” Matt said, smiling. “It does have a good ring to it, you know.”
Rolling his eyes, Tommy sighed. “I know.” With a quick grin thrown Lyndsey’s way, he shifted a little and began asking Matt about setting up the command post. It was done so subtly that there was a chance it hadn’t been a deliberate move allowing Lyndsey and Ian to talk on their own; at the same time, one never knew with a telepath. And, yes, that was sure as hell what had been going through Lyndsey’s mind.
Or, rather, the desire for the slow grin, dark and hungry eyes, and low, gravelly voice as Ian said, “Morning.”
Hitching herself up onto the picnic table, Lyndsey felt her cheeks flush. “Good morning.” She tried not to think about how badly she wanted to tear his clothes off right now.
Casually leaning back against the picnic table across from her, Ian folded his arms across his chest. God, he was beautiful.
Lyndsey cleared her throat. “Um, thank you by the way. For the, uh, flower. And…” Damn it, she could feel the tears suddenly gathering in the corners of her eyes. “For the other stuff, too.”
He watched her for a few seconds—a little too perceptively—and then looked down at the ground. “Yeah. Kind of a lot going on there, it seems.”
Biting her lip, Lyndsey looked away. A lot. Right. Like all the things she needed to say she was sorry for. He wasn’t having any of that, though; he’d made that clear last night. I’m sor— was all she’d been able to get out when he’d put his finger to her lips and said, Don’t. Not now. Maybe someday, but not now.
“I’m guessing this isn’t ‘someday,’” she said, smiling and briskly wiping away the one tear that did manage to escape.
“Nope,” he answered.
Okay, then.
Sitting here now, almost within arm’s reach but not quite, Lyndsey realized she wasn’t quite sure where they were supposed to go next. Behind closed doors, thankfully, they seemed to have no issues; the problem was, they wouldn’t have closed doors—hell, they wouldn’t have any doors—for the next three weeks.
Before she had too long to think about how bad an idea this might be, she asked, “If you and Abby hadn’t been…discovered, how long would it have taken for you to come clean with everyone?”
Ian’s head jerked up. There was a question in his eyes for a split second, then a glance over at Brooks. “Was wondering what you guys were talking about last night.”
That made Lyndsey smile. She hadn’t meant to make him jealous—she would much have preferred to be sitting next to him than anyone else. She figured it wasn’t a bad sign, however, and one she’d need to file away. He’d spent the whole night without any outward sign he was aware she was even there; this morning, however, he either wasn’t trying or wasn’t able to hide it as well.
She waited him out; she wasn’t going to let him get away without answering.
It didn’t take him too long to figure that o
ut. “I don’t know,” he answered less than a minute later. “Probably would have waited until we were married.”
“I could understand if I worked for you,” she said. “That would be a whole other story—but I don’t. This is a totally random situation. I’m already different…”
Although the happy and hungry look had faded from his eyes, the smile he gave her sent another wave of heat through her. “What are you going for here?”
She glanced away from him, reminded that, for as many different motivations she’d attributed to him over the years, the one thing she should have remembered was that he really didn’t play games; he was a straight-shooter, through and through. Her eyes were solemn as they came back to his face. “I don’t want to hide how I feel. I’ve done that too many times for one reason or another, and it never seems to end well.”
His eyes narrowed; hardened a bit, as if to say, don’t make this about something it was never about in the first place. “I’m not trying to hide anything. I just don’t generally go around throwing my private life into peoples’ faces.”
That was all fine and good, but she didn’t give a damn. For some reason, though, she chickened out before saying so. It wasn’t like her to hesitate, to worry one wit about what a man—what anyone for that matter—thought about something she said. Nor, however, had she ever really cared so much about where the future would take her. So rather than lay it all on the line, she appealed to his protective side. “They think I’m sleeping with Matt, you know.”
It felt like a whole ten minutes passed before he replied—time enough for him to lean back and cross his arms again, his attention focused a little bit too much on her rather than on any of the things she’d wanted him to think about: asserting alpha male status; concern about what that might mean for Sarah; jealousy, even, like how he’d reacted to her conversation with Brooks. Instead, however, he just kept his eyes on Lyndsey in a way that made her shift uncomfortably. Damn if she didn’t feel she were literally in the hot seat. Clearly, she’d read him wrong once again.
He’d thrown her yesterday—multiple times, she had to admit. But after last night—after it was obvious that he not only had loved her exactly as much as she’d thought once upon a time, but also that what he felt for her now was as intense as it had been then—she’d been under the impression things would be easier going forward. That this wouldn’t be a challenge. He’d just put her on notice, however, that she was mistaken. It was unexpected.
That became even more evident when he finally spoke; a drawl, practically, as he smiled. “Do they now.”
Lyndsey found she couldn’t breathe as he stood up straight, slow and sexy as all get out, a hint of amusement in his eyes as they locked on hers. “I guess we should put an end to that then.”
The rest of the world fell away as he was suddenly standing in front of her, easing her knee to the side so he could stand right up against her. His hands went to her hips and he pulled her up against him in a way that allowed no room for doubt about how often he’d touched her that way; when he bent down to kiss her there was no sound other than the air crackling between them. Her arms went up around his neck so as not to lose her balance as he tilted her head ba…
Okay, she thought, breathlessly. It had nothing to do with balance. Challenge accepted. She could declare possession just as well as he could—and she wanted nothing more than to own him fully. The fact that he’d surprised her every which way this morning certainly didn’t hurt.
As he pulled away from her the only thing breaking the complete and utter silence was the pounding of her heart. Then everything erupted around them as an entire platoon—or whatever you called it—broke out into cheers. Led by Brady, of course, who started it off by shouting, “Well, Goddamn. Looks like the Colonel’s alive after all.”
“Don’t you forget it,” Ian said, laughing as he looked over his shoulder at Brady. Then he turned back to Lyndsey and put his hand to her cheek. Much more quietly he added, “More so than I’ve been in a very long time.”
If Lyndsey weren’t so surprised by what had just happened, she might have sworn she saw some tears in his eyes, too. “I love you,” he said. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you want me to shout it out, I will.”
Too stunned to answer, she didn’t get a chance to reply before he let go of her and turned to the squad. “In fact, I feel so alive that I’m changing our plans. Alpha Team—forget the float planes; we’re hitting the water instead. Shouldn’t be more than a five or six hours’ ride to our first stopping point,” he said over the groans. The reason they’d originally planned on going by plane to the base camp was that the territory between Camp Atikokan and the first crime scene was pretty rugged from this approach. Lyndsey understood why he’d changed his mind though—that kiss had just stirred up a whole lot of heart-pumping. And, unfortunately, the preferred way of working it off wasn’t going to be possible for a while.
So, well, canoeing it was. And as soon as Lyndsey could stand without wobbling, she’d be right on that, too.
17
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Dominic said. The disapproval was written all over his face.
“Done what?” Lyndsey asked innocently, knowing full well he was referring to the enthusiasm with which she and Ian had attacked the rapids they’d all gone through a few miles back. Not that Dominic had actually seen them in the rapids—protocol appeared to be letting the first boat go on ahead, radioing back for the others after the path had been successfully traveled. Or so Ian had said.
It seemed like a pretty dumb idea to Lyndsey—risk the lives of your two lead people so the others would know the best way to go—but apparently, as she’d found out over lunch several hours later, it was a practice they’d established after losing an entire squad in Chile.
Of course, it shouldn’t have been Lyndsey and Ian taking the lead, which was why Ian hadn’t given Matt a chance to order otherwise. Instead, he’d glanced over his shoulder at Lyndsey, raised his eyebrows in a silent question, and charged ahead at her smile and nod.
“He’s going to get someone killed,” Dominic muttered. “You’re not experienced enough to be canoeing this area.”
Lyndsey’s attention was focused on Ian, though, who was now standing across the clearing, directing the men in their examination of the area. His hand kept wandering to his shoulder, pulling the t-shirt away from his skin. He caught her staring and smiled, laughing at himself as he shrugged uncomfortably. She grinned and looked away. She hadn’t meant to scratch him quite so badly. Just got a little too caught up in things.
“It’s irresponsible of him,” Dominic continued. “We could have gone around the rapids. I would have taken you.”
Dominic’s idea had been for him and Lyndsey to go several hours out of their way to avoid this section of river. Lyndsey had declined, quite politely as far as she was concerned. She had actually hoped Ian would step in and tell Dominic the team needed to stay together no matter what, but he was keeping majorly hands off in that regard: careful not to do anything that might be construed as crossing the line and making sure he let her forge her own way with everyone. He was also a lot more of an adrenaline junkie than she’d ever realized. For example, back in the early days she didn’t think he would have looked at that particular section on the map—the one that may as well have been marked with a skull and crossbones—and turned to her with eyes gleaming as the roar from the rushing water overtook them.
What do I do? she had shouted.
Avoid the rocks, paddle hard, and don’t fall in! he had yelled back.
Much easier said than done. The canoe had rocked from side to side, the back end shooting up in the air as they went through a series of falls. She’d almost lost her paddle twice, had kept herself in the boat only through sheer willpower, and had found herself understanding why the waterproof packs had to be strapped in, something that had seemed ridiculously unnecessary during the preceding week when the most action they’d had
was a thunderstorm on their third day in.
But, God, what a rush. Relying almost purely on instinct to stay afloat. Trusting your life to the partner you couldn’t even see half the time, either because there was too much spray or because you couldn’t take your eyes off the river’s twists and curves for fear that one unfocused second would swallow you in. Minutes had seemed like hours, and when they were finally shot out into an unbelievably calm cove, her entire body had started to tremble, betraying the tension she’d been holding in. Arms, legs; muscles she hadn’t even known she had.
They’d both been breathing heavily, concentrating on guiding the boat up to the rocky beach as Matt’s voice had came over the comm. Proud of yourselves, aren’t you?
Can’t say it wasn’t fun, Ian had replied.
Lyndsey figured the only reason they hadn’t gotten chewed out further was because of the twenty years of friendship between the two men, plus the fact that the deed was already done. She’d climbed out of the canoe, stretched and sat down, not caring she was sitting in several inches of water. She’d been so wet already, what did it matter?
Straight up the middle is easier on the boats, Ian said into the mic of the comm.
She’d listened as Matt and Ian proceeded to give details to the others; marveled at how much Ian had taken in. Honestly? She couldn’t remember much about the course they’d just come down except for how brutal it was. Matt at least had the benefit of watching it on cameras and, presumably, was able to replay it if necessary.
Ignoring the rocks cutting into her back, she’d laid down slowly, pulling the comm out of her ear and letting the gentle waves wash over her. She’d turned to Ian as he climbed out of the canoe and took his own comm off, reaching for the one she was holding in her hand and depositing them both onto one of the seats. Letting the tide do most of the work, he’d guided the canoe further up the shore and let it rest there, its weight providing a natural anchor.
