by Dana Marton
“They can. They’re here to keep us warm.” She didn’t rise to the bait.
Well, what do you know? She had matured.
Man, things had changed. For one, three years ago they sure hadn’t needed a dog team for heat. Their wild and crazy escapades had been plenty hot.
Obviously, she didn’t feel that way about him anymore. Walking out on him with the parting words “Drop dead” should have given him a clue.
He’d been hoping for a warmer reunion, had entertained some fantasies while sleeping in the snow on the way to her—about Tessa Nielsen jumping into his arms in gratitude. Of course, the woman never could appreciate a good rescue. He should have remembered that.
Sasha slid from between them, abandoning the humans for her canine family. Thank God her injury wasn’t worse.
“Reminds me of one of Grandpa Fergus’s stories about a whole winter he spent in a cave in the highlands,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
She was mad all right. She used to love his Grandpa Fergus stories.
They huddled in the dark silence of the tent. He assessed their situation and tried to come up with a workable plan, but it wasn’t easy with Tessa right next to him.
He could have recognized her by scent alone. She’d never been one for perfumes, but she had her own unique feminine essence that made him think of soft warm places and the way she would taste if he pressed his lips against her neck just below her ear. The way her eyes would glaze over if he dragged his day-old stubble over that sensitive patch of skin.
“So you and this Dr. Lippman, living out on the snowfields for months at a time, were…” He voiced the question that had been bugging him for days.
Two dogs snapped at each other, and she recognized them from sound, called them by name and calmed them down before returning her attention to him.
“Lovers? Is that what you want to know?”
The idea hurt. Man, he was an idiot. What had he expected? A woman like Tessa had probably had a dozen lovers in the past three years. Hell, she could get anyone. “Never mind.”
“We tried, but it didn’t work. We were much better at being colleagues than being a couple.”
Some of the tension seeped out of his shoulders. He held back the need to ask what exactly “tried” meant. He wished he could see her face, but it was pitch-dark, their makeshift tent smelling like eau-de-wet-dog.
He moved closer in the direction of her voice, and they bumped knees. She pulled away.
She didn’t fool him, though. No way had she forgotten what they’d once had between them. She was probably hurt that he hadn’t come after her before this. Hell, he would have, but he’d been on one overseas assignment after another.
He remembered every damn night they’d ever spent together—in detail. No time like the present to refresh her memory. He reached out and found her, cupped her face.
“I missed you,” he whispered before lowering his mouth to hers.
Her lips were soft and warm, and he sank into the sensation awakening his body from head to toe. He tasted the corners, not wanting to push, even as he burned for the rest of her. Then he felt the barrel of a gun press against the soft spot under his chin.
“Get away from me, McNair,” she said, her voice as cold as the gunmetal.
SHE HATED THE WAY her body responded to him still, like a dog to the voice of his master, panting and jumping with excitement. Mike McNair did not control her. Not anymore. She’d worked hard to exile his memory and the emotions tangled up with it.
Tessa pulled back the gun and licked her lips to make the tingling go away. He was the devil’s own. God, she was glad he’d come. Just this once. Even if she would never admit it out loud.
The past had slammed into her, knocking the breath out of her the moment she’d seen him. The power he had over her scared her spitless, so she’d gone on the offensive and attacked him. The only other choice she had was to collapse into his arms, and she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t give him a toehold. If she did, he would take everything and leave her empty again.
They were so close she could smell his tangy scent, feel his breath feather her cheek. She tucked her hands under her armpits so she wouldn’t reach out to him in the darkness.
This was the man who took her virginity, ruined her career and broke her heart. In that order. Mike McNair was nothing if not thorough.
“Remember Captain Tchaikovsky?”
Of course she did. She grinned at the memory, glad it was dark and he couldn’t see her. Captain Tassky had been one mean SOB, called Tchaikovsky because he was considered a regular nutcracker. He was also the man who had sent Mike and Tessa into the woods with nothing but a pup tent and one knife between them for a two-week survival exercise. Which was exactly what Mike wanted her to remember.
“I haven’t thought about Special Forces in ages,” she lied.
“I thought about you every day,” he said in a quiet voice.
Damn it. Why did he have to be like that?
His uncanny ability to unsettle her without half trying drove her mad.
“Remember how it used to be?”
Right. Sex. That’s what he was all about. “Not really,” she lied again, hating that she had to. It should have been true. She should have forgotten it, him, long ago. There had been other men in her life, in her bed, whom she did barely remember, but she still recalled Mike’s touch with sharp clarity.
No way were they going to discuss sex. “They won’t all come after us. Maybe two. At least one will stay with the other three crates at the research vehicle. They’ll be faster than us. It won’t take them much to fix the other sled. We’ll be slowed by the weight of the crate we got.”
“How long do the dogs need to rest?”
They’d done a brief stint of Arctic training, but it hadn’t involved dogs. In that, at least, he would have to defer to her. “An hour would be fine, we haven’t come that far, but we can’t go out there until visibility improves. I don’t want to run them onto sharp ice or into a ravine or a creek.”
She fell silent for a moment. “I hate leaving the other team behind.”
“Why didn’t you bring them?”
“We’ll be lucky if we can feed the ones we’ve got. The rest are better off at the trailer. It’s stocked for them.”
“Makes sense.” He looked up as the wind shook their cover. “Did I mention I spent last winter in Siberia?”
“Doing what? The Russian Army has exchange students now?”
“Not exactly.”
Damn him. He’d been on some secret mission. She should have been going on secret missions instead of stuck in research for the past eight months. She hoped he had frozen his ass off. No, no, she wasn’t going to think about him in terms of body parts. That would take her down the slippery slope as fast as an avalanche.
“We have a good sled and good dogs,” he said. “We’re dressed for the weather. While we’re trapped here, we can get some rest, inventory our resources and figure out a plan.”
Not bad. He had gotten in all three points under “eliminating fear and increasing your chances for survival” within two minutes flat: have confidence in your superior—which he apparently considered himself—have confidence in your equipment, focus on the task at hand. Captain Tchaikovsky would have been proud.
“We have the dogs, the sled, the furs and some extra wood.” She rapped on the crate. “Two good rifles.”
“A good knife, waterproof matches and a small survivor kit,” he added.
She went through the pockets of the parka she’d taken. Her left hand came out with a bottle, the right with a cell phone. “Check this out.” She handed them to him, pulling back too fast when their fingers touched.
“Well now, what’s the challenge in this? We’re as good as out of here.” The bottle cap squeaked as he unscrewed it, the air immediately filling with the smell of cheap booze.
“You still go out with the boys?”
“I lost touch
for the most part. I’m not in the army anymore.” He screwed the cap back on.
She’d figured that from his comment about Siberia. As friendly as things were between the U.S. and Russia now, they weren’t doing sleepovers just yet. “CIA?” He used to talk about giving that a try back in the old days.
“For a while.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m here.”
Fine. “Are you going to make that call?”
He was some kind of special commando, while she was in the U.S.A.C.E., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Hands down he had to have better connections.
He was dialing already. “No signal.” He closed the flap with a click.
“We can try again once the storm passes.”
“You could debrief me in the meanwhile. What happened with those men?”
She closed her eyes. Oh, damn. She didn’t want to think about that now. Guilt was eating at her still, and anger for letting them take her so easily. She took a deep breath as Mike waited. Might as well get it over with.
“They came in the middle of the night. Roger opened the door. They shot him right away.” She swallowed. “I don’t suppose they viewed me as much of a threat. They didn’t look like they knew what the hell they were doing, so I convinced them I could help. Told them I was an Arctic survival expert.”
“You always thought quick on your feet.”
The small compliment, the acknowledgment of her abilities, felt ridiculously good. Especially since she’d been beating herself into the ground over what she had and hadn’t done, for not being able to save Roger.
Mike was moving around, but she couldn’t see what he was doing. Probably just settling in.
“Did they hurt you?” His fingers brushed against her bruised cheek, but withdrew almost immediately.
“I tried to get away and fell down the steps, banged my head against the side of the trailer. My feet were bound,” she told him, hating to admit her failure.
He said nothing for a while, until she thought he might have fallen asleep.
“They were coming from the direction of the pipeline instead of going toward it,” he spoke up suddenly. “But they still had the explosives. Doesn’t make any sense.”
“Pipeline? We weren’t anywhere near the pipeline.”
“Exactly.” He paused. “I came across some classified information. Supposedly, those men are in some radical environmentalist group. A few miles of the pipeline are shut down for repair. They were looking to blow it up.”
“Nothing was said about that. They were definitely heading home. They sounded pretty happy about their mission. The only glitch was, the plane that was supposed to pick them up went down in the mountains in that storm five days ago.”
“Odd. Lift up a corner of this cover for a second, would you?”
She slid over and did so on the opposite side from where the wind was blowing, letting in some light. Mike already had his knife in hand, going at the crate. She propped the opening with a rifle and went to help him. “TNT?”
“That’s my best guess.”
The wood protested loudly, but after a few seconds the lid popped off. Mike picked through layers of padding before the smooth sheen of metal became visible. His hands stilled.
She didn’t have to have the symbol of yellow triangles explained to her.
Far more disturbing than a pile of explosives, the crate they cradled between them housed a small nuclear warhead.
Chapter Two
“Something tells me those guys are not ticked-off environmentalists.” Mike swore as he put the crate’s lid back on. This changed everything.
Snow swirled into the tent, but he barely saw it. Did the CIA know about this? A number of things made perfect sense suddenly. Did the Colonel know?
“Weapons dealers?” Tessa went to check on Sasha.
Apparently satisfied with the dog’s condition, she removed the propped rifle and let the cover drop, shrouding them in darkness once again, closing off the cold that had been pouring in.
“It’s ours.” He stared in the direction of the warhead, although he could no longer see the crate. “I’m guessing the American half of the group was selling it to the Russians, then the plane crashed and they got stuck here. How did they get to you?”
“Snowmobiles. They were just about out of gas.”
“What I want to know is, where the hell did they get the warheads?”
The wind whistled down the plain, shaking their flimsy shelter, but enough snow had fallen to have buried the edges and keep them frozen in place. He bounced the furs on top to shake off accumulation, to avoid the “roof” collapsing on them. A few tears here and there in the stitching allowed for air. They wouldn’t suffocate as long as they didn’t let the snow completely bury them.
“Where did you get this old thing?” He ran his fingers over the coarse fur.
“From the Inupiat.”
“Close by?”
“About fifty miles west. But they’ve already gone to their winter camp.”
“What were you two still doing here?”
“We had a plane pick up scheduled for…” She thought for a moment. “Yesterday. Since we were planning on flying out, we didn’t have to worry about an early snowfall closing Black Horse Pass.”
“As best as I can remember the map, the nearest town should be about a hundred miles south?”
“On the other side of the foothills. We couldn’t take the sled.”
“How are your dogs at hunting?”
“That’s not what they were trained for, but I suppose once they get hungry enough their instincts will kick in.”
“I can carry Sasha, maybe make her a travois.” The dog should be able to walk some, the wound wasn’t that bad, but there was no way she could keep up with the others over long distances.
“There’s a permanent Inupiat village about sixty miles northwest. We can make it there on the sled and wait for the rescue team. They’ll have an easier time finding that than spotting us among the snowdrifts or in the woods.”
Sixty miles. A hell of a lot closer than the town to the south. Still. “I hate the thought of going farther north. Any polar bears around here?”
“They’d be closer to the coast. If we come across any surprises, we have good guns.”
She sounded calm and confident, reminding him of the jams they had fought themselves out of together. And that, of course, reminded him of the steamy nights they’d spent in each other’s arms.
“So what are the chances of us picking up where we left off?”
He heard her swallow.
“We left off with you drunk and a half-naked woman in your hotel room.”
“Before that?”
“You mean when you got me kicked out of Special Forces training and destroyed my dreams?”
“I’m not going to apologize for saving your life.”
She was too stubborn to admit that she would not have made it through the obstacle course in the Florida Everglades, but he remembered the day in crystal-clear detail. He could be stubborn, too. Was he not a Scotsman by blood? She had scared ten years off his life.
She’d been sick with fever and weak from bleeding, hanging on to life by a thread after she’d fought off an alligator. She’d lain half under the beast without moving when he’d found her, and he had thought for a moment that she was dead. Turned out she’d just been collecting her strength to push off the gator. She’d had a badly broken collarbone, her body covered in bruises and cuts, some of which looked infected.
The sight of her had made him forget the test, the only thought in his mind to get her to medical help, to get her to safety. At the end, he’d gotten a special commendation for saving a teammate, while she’d gotten the boot. She had failed the course and lost her chance with Special Forces. When she’d been released from the hospital four days later, still steamed at him, he had made things worse by being drunk.
She had left, and obviously she had moved on.
&n
bsp; He sure as hell hadn’t pictured that during the lonely nights he’d spent thinking about her. He’d pictured her waiting, regretting her rash actions. Mostly, he’d pictured their reunion in detail. It hadn’t looked anything like this.
He had deluded himself into thinking their breakup was temporary, that she would come back or that, if she didn’t, he would go after her and charm her back to him. But he’d barely been in the country in the past few years. The odd week here and there he’d spent tracking her down as she’d moved around, and by the time he’d found her, it was time to leave again, without a chance to actually contact her.
He had never for a moment figured that by the time they hooked up again, it would be too late.
“Listen, about the women… They were there for Shorty.” And he’d trounced Shorty good afterward for his role in the breakup, before he realized it wasn’t Shorty’s fault. He had the right to whatever entertainment he chose. Mike was the stupid idiot who’d thought his worries for Tessa would be best drowned on the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
“I swear to God,” he said. “We went out with the guys and I drank a little too much. I was worried about you. I went back to the room and passed out. I woke up five seconds before you came in. Shorty must have brought the girls back. Can you believe he’s married now?” He tried to change the subject. “Caught in the net. Never thought I’d see that happen.”
She didn’t look amused.
“I’m telling you the truth. I’ve been telling you the truth from the beginning.”
“I didn’t believe you then, and I don’t believe you now.” The steel in her voice told him she had made up her mind a long time ago.
Frustration pumped up his volume. “That’s your problem, babe. Maybe if you trusted me more we would have lasted.”
HIS WORDS HUNG in the musky air of the tent. Tessa wrapped her arms around herself. This couldn’t be real.
He couldn’t be here. She was dreaming. The pain she had gone through after she’d left Mike three years ago, the long months she’d spent miserable without him, on the verge of going back and forgiving everything against all reason—she couldn’t have made it through all that for nothing. She couldn’t go back there. She had enough need for self-preservation to save herself, didn’t she?
