by Cindy Skaggs
“Cabin fever?”
The laugh bubbled up, half hysterical. They had checked into the motel four days ago, and that was four days too many. “God, yes.”
“That’s a half truth. You’re hiding something. Why don’t you tell me the rest?”
The attack by Team Echo was the living embodiment of the anxiety that had defined most of her life. She was quite possibly going crazy. On the run, she hadn’t had time to think—thank God—but four days in this ratty motel room freaked her out. Too much time to think. Too much time to add fear to the mix. “I’m terrified,” she answered. It was simplistic, but the best way she could possibly explain.
“That’s normal.”
She snorted, and she was so far gone, she didn’t mind him seeing the unladylike reaction. Beat the heck out of him witnessing a panic attack. The last man who saw her freak hadn’t bothered with a follow up call. The fear was ugly, no doubt. At the thought, her breath panted out, her heart raced, and, despite the cold leaking inside from the crappy motel door, sweat slicked her skin. She wanted to keep pacing, away from him, but she needed to get a grip before he saw a full-blown attack.
She dropped into the dining chair and let her head hang between her legs. The look she aimed for was mopey. Mopey was one of the Seven Dwarves, right? Mopey sounded better than Fearful. “God, I could use a cigarette right now.”
“You smoke?”
“Quit. Two years ago.” The day her father had kicked her out of his life.
“Why start back now?”
The list was long. “Psychotic killers, drug dealers, and medically enhanced soldiers.” And that was just the beginning.
“You survived all that with flying colors. You don’t need a cigarette now.”
Oh, she definitely needed one. “Obviously you’ve never smoked.” She reacted to all tension with a need for a cigarette. They calmed her when little else did.
The bed squeaked and moments later, a hand the size of a platter rubbed between her shoulder blades. “What’s going on?”
Her hands shook, so she braced them against her thighs. “Not a thing.”
“Looks like a thing.” He settled into a rhythm of caressing her back. “Pulse is high, breathing erratic, and you haven’t used sarcasm in the last ten minutes.”
A laugh tried to bubble through the panic. She took a halting breath.
“Sweetheart, you’ll feel better if you tell me what’s going on.”
“What’s going on is some real psychos are chasing us.”
“And they’re nowhere around. So whatever is trapped inside, let it out. Yell, scream, cry—”
“I don’t want to cry.”
“But do you need to?”
She needed to do something. Sitting around had only made the panic worse. She focused on his touch until the panic eased.
He kneeled in front of her and braced his hands on her thighs. “Better now?”
It was a testament to how messed up she was that she didn’t try to sneak a peek at his assets. Tears threatened. She didn’t want to talk about it, so she nodded her head. “I’m fine. You should go back to bed. Get some sleep.”
“Is that what the people in your life do?”
Talk about a landmine. Crap, he was hitting every one of her triggers. “Honest to God, I don’t want to talk about what just happened.”
“Ok, what happened is off the table.” He nodded his head, all agreeable like, which was definitely suspect. “When’s the first time you remember having a panic attack?”
See, she knew that agreeable nature was a lie. He wasn’t going to let it go. “Most people ask why.” And they assumed some defect inside her.
“I’m not most people.”
That was the unadulterated truth. “I need some space,” she said. She’d studied panic attacks and fear until her mind was numb with it. Most people wanted comfort after an attack, but she’d found little comfort from those closest to her. Distance and denial were the true heroes. Rose stepped away, taking his heat with him. Moments passed before the bed springs moaned and he’d taken his seat back on the bed.
He’d done exactly as she asked, and she felt cold.
A rhythmic squeak filled the silence and she wondered if he was rocking on the bed. Minutes passed before she realized she was the one rocking out on the four-legged chair, arms wrapped around her middle. He didn’t say a word and his infinite patience wore her down. “I was still in grade school. I was at my father’s condo.” The slick marble floors and granite counters were unreal, unlike anything in her mother’s house. Debi had raced through the condo in her stocking feet, screeching with delight at the speed, gliding on the polished floor like she was skating. “I fell, split my head open.” One minute she was upright, the next her face planted on the marble. “Blood flew everywhere.” Her father had gotten her a towel, and then spent more time cleaning the floor than assessing her injury. He hadn’t explained that she was going to be okay. The white kitchen towel had soaked with her blood, and the less he talked to her, the less she could breathe. “The attacks are a weakness.” The words cut through the silence in her head.
Knock it off. Tears don’t change anything. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
But she had been afraid, afraid of her father, afraid of the attacks, afraid of... Everything. It was the last time she’d seen her father before she applied to the university as an undergrad. “I don’t like blood.”
“You’ve seen more than your share these past few days.”
She nodded as any response caught in her froggy throat.
“Want to know what I think?” he asked.
Her chest ached.
“Sweetheart, you held it together in the townhouse when Echo kidnapped you. It’s only now that you’ve had a chance to think about it that your brain gets in the way. As long as you stay busy, you’re fine.”
She peeked up through her hair. No judgment marred his strong features, and she saw the truth in his eyes. He didn’t judge or hate her. And he made a good point. “So you’re saying that staying here is bad for me.”
He laughed, the warmth of it dispelling the remnants of fear. “That’s a pretty fair rationalization.”
“One that works for me.” As did sarcasm.
“I have an idea for getting out if you’re interested.”
“Is that a trick question?”
“Look at me.”
The focus in his intense eyes was absolute. Crossing her arms over her chest, she returned his gaze, hoping her thoughts weren’t written all over her face. “What do you have in mind?”
“It’s mission related, and there are rules.”
“Military men and their rules.” She’d agree to anything that got her out of this small torture chamber. “Do you have a job for me that doesn’t require cooking and cleaning, Rosie?”
He barked out a laugh that softened his lips and brought a full-out smile. Devastating. The little quirk of his lip lit up his eyes and weakened her knees. “Have I done something to make you think I’m a chauvinist asshole?”
The opposite, actually. He’d acted like a gentleman from the moment he’d barreled into her life, literally, when he tackled her into safety after members of Team Echo had tried to infiltrate the ranch. “I know your type. Me man. You woman.” She grunted like a caveman. “Where’s my dinner?”
The smile on his face grew until he flashed white teeth that glinted against his tan face. “Is it all military men or just me?”
Her pulse jumped in reaction to the smile. “What are you talking about?”
“That you hate?”
“I don’t know what you mean. You and the rest of the team are the only military men I know.”
“All men, then.” He said it as a statement, not a question.
“I don’t take orders and I don’t sit in the back seat.”
“Have I asked you to walk three steps behind me?”
Debi leaned back on her heels. “Not yet, but you have all kinds of rules.
”
“For your safety.”
“And there’s that.” Debi pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You’re overprotective, overbearing, and bossy.” The topic was much safer than her attitude toward men, so she grasped it. “Come to think of it, you do ask us to walk behind you.” Yeah, she was being whiny, because he took the lead so he’d take the brunt of any attack.
“You want to vent?” He gave her a come hither move with his fingers. “Bring it, sweetheart. Get it all out.”
The reasonable tone deflated her. She bent to snatch her keys off the floor and tucked them in the front pocket of her jeans. “I’m good.”
“Not even close. You should see your face. Spill it so we can get to work.”
He wanted her to keep venting? At this point, her father would be making phone calls and turning his back to her. “You’ll think I’m a complete witch.”
“I won’t think you’re a witch, I’ll think you’re a female, simple as that, but, sweetheart?” His gaze skimmed her from chest to stocking feet. “I’m fully aware you’re a woman, so go ahead and vent.”
The lower timber of his voice sent shivers along her arms. She flicked the beige curtain aside and saw a dim promise of sunrise lightening the overcast sky. “It’s cold out.”
“Quit changing the subject. Man up, Debi, and tell me what’s in your head.”
Her heart skipped a beat. That was the first time he’d used her name. “Did you tell me to man up?”
The mattress squeaked, causing her to turn. Rose leaned against the headboard and rested an arm against a raised leg, a predator at rest, languid grace that could turn lethal. His expression was inscrutable. “We can sit here all day, but that’ll keep you off the mission.”
“Fine.” First he offered to buy her tampons and now he was telling her to vent. Who was this guy? She dropped into the hard chair that had tripped her. She let her head fall back to stare at the yellowed ceiling tiles. “Letting men call the shots doesn’t work for me.” The brief stint she had spent near her father had been a disaster, and her experience with other men wasn’t much better. Her skin prickled at the idea of letting men take control.
“You want to be a part of the mission? I don’t have a problem with that. It’s all hands on deck as far as I’m concerned, and since it’s not safe for you to go home, you should keep busy.”
Wow. Her mind blanked at what to her was a unique response. He was willing to let her play with the big boys. “What are you working on?” Other than the vague whispering, she didn’t know enough to help.
“We’re working to figure out who was behind the experiments. I want to know what the hell they pumped through my veins to make me fearless. To permanently alter me.” Anger broke through his normal calm and the look in his eyes went hard at the mention of the experiments. “You want a piece of that?”
“I’m a chemist, or I was.” Saying it in past tense hurt. It was the job she had worked her whole life to get. “I know my way around a science lab, and something tells me you can use that. I sure as heck can’t sit around waiting for the big heroes of Team Fear to figure out this disaster.”
“Is that it?” He settled deeper into the pillow behind his back. A muscular man against the soft, white bed. Damn but her hands flexed to get in on the action. “Get it all out now. It’s a one-shot deal.”
Well, if he wanted honesty... “I can’t sit around and let a he-man rescue me.”
“He-man?” A light twinkled in his dark eyes, and she couldn’t tell if he was teasing her for her impulsive choice of words.
“All of you are—” She lifted a hand to gesture up and down his body. “Built like tractors, ready to plow down anyone or anything in the way.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
The rise of heat was instant. “Don’t let it go to your head, Rosie. What’s the mission?”
“We need to know what they dosed Ryder with the other night.”
Debi nodded. In an attempt to make Ryder go crazy, Echo had given him a medical cocktail that sent him into a murderous rage, something that nearly got them all killed. When they were still in the Army, the men had volunteered for an experimental program to make them fearless. Sounded great on paper, but the reality failed to meet expectations. If the guys from Team Echo were any indication, removing the physiological reaction to fear had untethered some link to their humanity. “Baby Faced Joe said it was the same drug that turned you guys fearless.”
“And we trust Team Echo to tell the truth?”
“Good point.” Her mind flipped through the scenario and the answers weren’t good. Echo could have given Ryder any drug or a catalyst to what already flowed through his veins. “I should have taken a blood sample.”
Rose laughed. “Dial back the guilt. You were surrounded by more dead bodies than a morgue, and we bombed the house to cover the evidence. None of us were thinking straight. So now we are. We fix the problem.”
“How?”
“Echo laced his bottle of water with an unknown substance. He drank the whole damn thing, but there were two bottles, so there’s potentially a full bottle in the fridge in Lauren’s office on campus.”
“Potentially?”
“Depends if Echo cleaned up the scene before luring Ryder to the townhouse. We killed four of their men, so details may have gotten overlooked. The evidence could be in Lauren’s office.”
Her heart raced with the thrill of being a part of the investigation and the dread at going back to campus. “You want me to get the evidence from Lauren’s office.”
“Not you. We.”
“But—”
“Take the offer. I can find her office on my own, but you want some fresh air. I can make that work since I want in without attracting unwanted attention.”
She snorted in disbelief. “I hate to break it to you, Rosie, but you attract attention.” Hell, given the opportunity, he’d probably attract groupies.
“I have a gift for getting in and out of any location undetected, which is why I snuck into Madigan’s house while Ryder brazened through the front, so I’m not worried about getting inside Lauren’s office.”
“Right.” No way did a badass like Rose sneak anywhere. “You look nothing like the boys on campus and you are not an academic.” He was warrior strong, which was part of her problem. The attraction hit on a primal level, but she was salivating to get out of the motel room, even if it meant more time in Rose’s presence. “I’ll drive.”
He stretched and stood to his full height. “Sweetheart, my ass won’t fit inside your girly economy car.”
Her VW was perfect. For her. But he was right. Not one of his long legs would fit inside her VW, even with the seat pushed all the way back. Debi leaned over to grab her boots and pulled them on her stocking feet. “Alright, Rosebud, but hurry up. We need to get in and out before the first classes start.” Before she ran into complications.
Chapter Two
A bird swooped across the quad, black against the canopy of a rare snow. A flash of red menace glistened on its ebony coat as it made a low dive, squawking like a bad omen. Debi tripped over a nonexistent crack in the sidewalk. The bird’s laughter trilled across the open space in the middle of campus.
“Steady.” Rose grabbed her elbow to keep her from slipping on the wet cement. If he could do the same to stabilize her nerves, she’d be set. Nothing good had ever happened to her on campus. The kidnapping a few days ago capped a very nasty history with the illustrious institution.
A large group of students spewed from the administration building as the first classes of the day let out, because Rose took too long getting ready and informing the team. The whole teamwork thing was outside her norm. Researchers hoarded their findings like ill-gotten booty, but she’d sucked it up and listened to the briefing, complete with contingency plans. She endured another long hour on the road with Rose. The confines of his pickup truck weren’t much better than the motel room. In the cab of the truck,
she smelled his aftershave, felt his heat, and tolerated his silence. The bite of cold from the rare winter weather was a welcome respite from the ride, even if it meant they had arrived on campus.
The snow didn’t stick on the cement, so the sidewalks were like pie wedges cutting through the quad. One path led to admin, another to the science building on the far end, surrounded by a modern art piece the university had overpaid for. If anyone on campus had a budget, it was the science guys. Science was the good old boy program, and her ex was the golden boy who could do no wrong. Oh, he did wrong, but he brought so much money into the coffers through research grants that he wrote his own rules. Even the pristine snow couldn’t hide the darkness underneath the polished campus veneer. Maybe she was the only one who sensed it.
The students leaving the administration building crossed through the middle toward them, sticking to the sidewalk as if walking on the snow was out-of-bounds. Debi held her breath as they neared, then released it on a puff of white when no familiar face took shape in the crowd.
Next to her, Rose walked like he was marching into battle, his suspicious eyes scanning the group for danger. Finished with the students, he altered his focus like he expected a sniper in the bell tower. Not that they had a bell tower, but it didn’t keep him from scanning the rooflines for a threat. The awareness in his eyes sent a shiver through her that had nothing to do with the cold. She rubbed a hand over her arms. Maybe she should be bundled like the students, but she’d left home with only the clothes on her back, and her silent bodyguard hadn’t declared the situation secure enough to return home.
As the students neared, Rose pulled her away from the sidewalk and into the thin layer of white. He placed his body between her and the students who passed by talking about homework, professors, and weekend parties, reminding Debi of her first hopeful year on campus. Her heels sank into the damp earth as she waited for them to pass. When they did, Rose grabbed her arm and led her to the administration building, blocking like he expected trouble. Her breath started coming in quick gasps as her nerves threatened a panic attack. She instinctively moved closer to Rose, who exuded safety in the same way a tank promised protection. A tank might be dangerous, but only if you got in its way.
