by Allie Adams
“Did he wander off?”
Spencer hesitated. He only hesitated when he needed to come up with a lie to cover whatever TREX really had on their agenda. “Yes.”
“In the middle of January?”
“That's right.”
“With a Winter Storm Warning in affect?” She caught herself and drew in a breath before she called him out on his bullshit.
“Some families like to live on the edge.”
God how she hated it when he lied, and so convincingly. If she didn't know every tone of his buttery voice, she would have never caught it. His lies, forced by TREX or otherwise, was the reason behind all their fights and, ultimately, why they'd never work as a couple. She wanted answers and he refused to give them.
And now, their first find together after a year apart, started on yet another lie. Awesome. Kat laughed and didn't even bother to filter the disgust and bitterness in her tone. “Some things never change.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“You're lying to me.”
“Who said I was lying?”
“I did.”
“Kathryn, please. You know if I could tell you more I would.”
Damn him. Goddamn him for calling her that name. She hated when he called her that. No, she actually loved it. She just hated that she loved it. No one outside of her immediate family called her Kathryn, except for Spencer. To everyone else she was Kat Davis, owner of K-SAR. To Spencer, she was Kathryn Louise. Or, when he really wanted to get to her, he'd call her his Katy-Lou.
She blew out a breath. This didn't have to be this hard. She needed to get over the fact that they'd never be more than what they were right now. He could call her whatever he wanted. That wouldn't change anything.
“Fine,” she conceded, not willing to expend the energy needed to sort through his lies. She'd find a way to learn the truth. She always did. “Let me ask this: how did TREX get involved if it's a simple case of a kid wandering off? Don't you guys only take cases to stop world domination? Or terrorist acts before they happen? How does a missing six-year-old boy fall into any of those categories?”
“Tommy's grandfather has connections.”
“Clearly.”
“And?” he asked after she didn't say anything more.
“And what? Take the win, Spence. I'm not going to dig.” Without missing a beat, she switched gears and snapped into head of K-SAR mode. “The B-Line logging roads surrounding Larch Mountain scatter across the north side of the entire Black Hills. Has TREX searched every road?”
“In progress.”
“There are little spurs that finger out for miles. That campground is the most popular site for camping because there are so many places to tuck away for privacy.”
“So we could have civilians up here with us?” He didn't sound happy about that.
“No one is going to be up there at twenty-six hundred feet in the middle of January with a Winter Storm Warning in effect. Being on the mountainside closest to the water makes the weather too unpredictable.”
“NOAA says the snow won't hit until noon.”
“NOAA's wrong.” She flicked her gaze to the dark sky. It had cleared out, dropping the temperature down. No wind. No clouds. The storm would hit, but not until later and then it would sock them in.
“You think it's going to stall,” he said, reading her mind. She both loved and hated that he could still do that.
“Yep. So when it hits, it's going to hit us hard. If we don't find Tommy before that storm does, we aren't going to find him at all.”
Spencer ground out his favorite cuss word. “So we find him before the storm hits. It's our only option.”
Finally, something they both agreed on.
“I'm almost there. See you soon.” She ended the call as she turned off the highway and started her ascent up to the Larch Mountain campground. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel. She hated the dark and hated driving in it even more, especially on a narrow, windy gravel road.
After a tense eternity, Kat pulled into basecamp and parked her Xterra next to the Com Van before she let out a sigh of relief. But then she sucked in another breath at the sight of the man who had just walked into the beams of her headlights.
How did he make ordinary look so damn extraordinary? That black material strained to cover his tall, broad body. His wide shoulders displayed perfectly in that snug turtleneck. His wavy brown hair, worn longer than she remembered, still drove her to the brink of sanity. He thrust his fingers through it, a nervous habit of his that she absolutely adored. Something about this chance meeting clearly had him upset.
She couldn't agree more.
Still, her angst over seeing him again took second to the concern swirling in his dark eyes. She fought to calm her racing heart and keep her expression slack, unreadable. In an instant, he snapped back to the hard, dark brooding man that was all business and never any pleasure.
No, that was a lie. He definitely knew how to deliver pleasure. Spencer defined the very word, but only on his schedule, never hers. And always planned. He never did anything at the spur of the moment. The man didn't have a spontaneous bone in his body.
Something unsettling moved in his eyes, something she rarely saw in the hard-bodied male. Was that emotion shadowing his gaze? Not fair. She'd worked up her defenses the entire drive out here, but if he used something as raw as emotion against her, she'd never survive.
Kat stepped out of her vehicle, leaving her headlights on so she wouldn't miss a single change in his expression. The smell of snow hung in the air like a dense fog. It was cold, too cold for a six-year-old boy to be out in the elements. Heavy cloud cover kept the temperature hovering right below freezing. Ice crystals formed on the vehicles lining the parking lot. The fog floating around base camp made for an eerie scene and would, no doubt, hinder them using any of their air support come daylight.
Inhaling deeply, she let it out, nice and slow. She'd always loved the smell of the forest, even at three in the morning. The crisp air awakened her senses like a cold drink on a hot summer's day. The ice glittered as it floated in the air, catching the light off the halogens illuminating her Com Van.
“Thank you for coming,” he said as she stopped a few feet from him. When apparently that didn't satisfy him, he closed the gap to a mere six inches and she swallowed tightly as she fought to squelch the fury now twisting inside her. “We really need K-SAR's help.”
Of course he'd make this about TREX and K-SAR, and not about them as man and woman. He was so good at that, building her up and then crushing her like a grape at a wine festival. And she fell for it. Every time. A wave of hearty regret brushed over her senses and burned into her, forcing a sense of calm only surface deep.
“Well, I'm here now.”
Her heart fluttered in nervous anticipation of another search with the mysterious TREX agency. The last search they'd called her in on didn't turn out so well, both for her and for her subject. She'd been so hell bent on trying to read Spencer that she'd failed to find the subject in time. He died of exposure and she'd blamed herself. She still blamed herself.
With a deep breath to clear her thoughts of that search and focus on this one, she turned toward the Com Van. When Spencer didn't follow her, she turned to see him in the same spot, his arms crossed, his fingers drumming on his bicep.
“Are you coming or do you have to return to your secret men-in-black convention hiding somewhere in the shadows?”
“Let's not do this.”
“Do what?” She feigned innocence even though she knew her eyes had to be icy blue. They always were when she got pissed, and she was there now.
“You knew coming out here that TREX was involved. It's never bothered you before.”
“It's always bothered me. I don't like secrets, Spence.”
He kept his gaze on her, that look on his face pure, controlled fury. “Kathryn—”
“Just tell me one thing,” she said and crisply folded her ar
ms under her breasts. “Are you telling me the truth about this search? Was Tommy's PLS really Larch Mountain? Did he really wander off?”
He didn't answer and she didn't expect him to. Kat hated when he got like this. When it was his way or no way. He decided the plan, the where and when, and nothing she said could change his mind.
“I'll check in with you later,” Spencer ground out, his voice cold, exact. “For now, get your teams prepped. We move at first light.”
Frustration boiled in her blood. She did not take orders well and he knew it. “If you think you can just—”
The look he shot her killed the rest of her threat. Anger kept his features sharp, his eyes burning, his expression still. One of these days she'd learn to defy that look.
Today wasn't one of those days.
FOUR
Kat made a beeline for her mobile command center before she said something else to earn another one of those looks from Spencer.
The forty-foot motor home had everything she needed to run a search. State-of-the-art radio equipment lined the walls of the gutted out bedroom. GPS trackers. SAR packs with everything needed to survive in sub-zero temperatures for days. She spared no expense when she created K-SAR. The private funding she received each year allowed her to do what she wanted when she wanted, all without having to jump through the hoops she used to when she worked for the state.
She loved everything about her job—except having to solicit people richer than God for money to fund K-SAR. Still, it was far better than the alternative of hearing those dreaded three words. No one should ever have to hear not enough resources as an excuse when desperate to find a loved one.
Travis stepped out of the Com Van. “Howdy, boss. Who's that with you?”
She glanced over her shoulder to see Spencer walk toward the woods. No doubt he'd be meeting with the rest of his TREX men. They rarely made themselves known, but she knew they'd be close. They always were when TREX had anything to do with her searches. It bothered her to have a group of grown men-in-black babysitting her, but she knew to pick her battles. Fighting the covert agency would be futile. Besides, they called her in on this find. They had every right to be here.
“Is that Spencer?”
“Yep,” she answered, not wanting to give Travis anything more until she had better answers surrounding this search. And she'd get them, but not at the expense of Tommy Miller's life. She'd put her teams into the field first and get them started. And then she'd get her answers.
Travis's attention hadn't left Spencer since he spotted him. “What is he doing here?”
“TREX called it in.”
“Shit. Why the hell didn't Rand tell me that?”
She looked at him. “Why would that matter?”
Travis put his hands up and took a step back. “Still touchy about TREX. Got it and don't blame you one bit. If I had an ex with a covert agency and who built our entire relationship on lies, I'd have serious issues with working with him.”
Kat didn't want to get into this with him. Travis hated when K-SAR worked with TREX. She kept her voice steady as she focused on the search. “Get the Operation Leaders from each of the teams front and center. I want to brief them and get them ready to deploy.”
“You're the boss.” Travis walked off toward the crowd to get the OLs moving.
She brought her attention to the front of the Com Van where they always pitched the large wall tent for the family. She should check in with them and introduce herself. God only knew what story Spencer concocted when he'd talked to them.
When she rounded the corner, she stopped, baffled. The tent wasn't there. Where'd they place the family camp? A quick glance around for anything that would be big enough to house the family of a lost little boy came up empty. Where was this connected grandfather? His dad and mom? Siblings? Add in aunts, uncles, cousins and the plethora of friends who always insisted on helping at the searches, and she should be able to spot them in the biggest tent in site. But she didn't see one. No large tents. No camp trailers. Nothing.
Which made no sense. Weren't they up here camping when Tommy wandered off? In what? And where? This only reinforced her belief that Spencer had lied to her.
She chewed on her thumbnail as she waited for Travis to return from gathering the OLs. When he did, she nodded for him to follow her to the other side of the Com Van, away from the OLs starting to gather.
“What's up, boss?”
“Where's the family?”
“It's three in the morning. They're probably at home, sleeping.” He turned and started back to the front of the Com Van.
“With their little boy lost in the woods? That's quite an assumption. As first on the scene, you should have questioned that right away.”
Travis slowed and tossed her a hard look from over his shoulder. “That's a new record for you. You haven't even been here five minutes and you're already finding fault with what I'm doing.”
She should have known it would come to this. Whenever Spencer Allen got between them, they ended up at each other's throats. When she left Spencer, Travis and she had never gotten along better. Even though Spencer wasn't back in her life, it seemed Travis already had an issue with it.
She really didn't have time to put up with bruised egos. Travis would just have to accept the fact that they were working with TREX on this search. Spencer would just have to accept that Travis would be working this search with her. If either had a problem with it, they could take it out on each other and leave her out of it.
Kat went on. “So you made the call not to involve the family?”
“Rand didn't send them up here. I didn't question it.”
But he should have. She grabbed her cell and dialed Rand's number. As it rang, she called out to Travis, “Don't wander off. We need to brief the OLs.”
“I have to pee and if you don't mind, I'd rather do that without you following me, telling me how I'm doing it wrong.”
She took a breath to say something but Rand answered, pulling her attention to him. “Hey, boss. What's up?”
“Why isn't the family up here?”
“Because they don't work for K-SAR.”
“Cut the crap, Rand. Where are they? Our subject is a six-year-old boy. His family was supposedly camping up here when he wandered off. Why aren't they still up here looking for him?”
“You know the family only gets in the way. They don't think rationally. Count your blessings.”
“What about this well-connected grandfather?”
“How did you know about him?” Rand's voice changed. His usual playful, casual tone shifted to something hard and even. He sounded, dare she say, exactly like Spencer did when she got too close to an answer he didn't want to give. Spencer lying to her pissed her off enough. She didn't need it from her own team, too.
“Spencer told me all about him and his connections,” she said, hoping by pretending to know about it than she really did would get Rand to loosen his lips. He clearly knew more about it than he let on.
“Oh he did, did he?” His voice grew even flatter, smoother, his accent more pronounced.
“So cut the cover, Rand. I already know.”
“And what, exactly, is it you know?”
Her frustration mounted. “Why are you being so evasive? You're my logistics officer. You should have information for me, not keep it from me.”
Rand laughed and, just like that, his hard sound disappeared, replaced by his easygoing demeanor. His accent even seemed a bit more relaxed. “Evasive? Hell, I'm just trying to get answers. I'm supposed to be your logistics officer, yet I'm the last to know what's going on half the time. Do you need me out there?”
She rounded the corner of the Com Van and spotted several OLs gathering around. “Just a sec.” She moved her cell away from her mouth. “Briefing in five, everyone. Make sure you sign out a GPS from Travis in the Com Van. If you have your own, get the local topography downloaded ASAP.” She brought her cell back to her ear. “No. I like you better in th
e office.”
“Thanks so much.”
“You know what I mean.” She glanced up to see Spencer walk out from the woods. His gaze locked on her. He didn't slow as he chopped up the distance between them with his well-muscled legs. Oh, great. He had a hard scowl that tightened the edges of his face and the closer he got, the more she debated running. Her heart rate spiked as she braced herself for fight or flight. “Rand? I have to call you back.”
“But—”
Spencer took the phone out of her hand and brought it up to his ear. Too stunned, she stood there, her mouth open.
“Rand? Who else would she be talking to at three in the morning?” Spencer narrowed that storming gaze on her. “No, I didn't.”
Oh, shit. Rand must have called her bluff on what she knew about the grandfather. She spiked an eyebrow to cover her guilt and crossed her arms in front of her. She knew better than to try and take her cell back. Not only would it not work, she'd draw unwanted attention to them.
“I'll take care of it. In the meantime, get me some air support. If they are in a clearing, I want to know.”
His order broke Kat from her paralysis. “They?”
He growled and turned his back to her. The action had her clenching her fists to stop herself from tearing into him, both arms swinging. She wasn't a violent person but somehow Spencer always seemed to know exactly which buttons to push to drive her into doing things she wouldn't normally do.
“Tell me what's going on.” When Spencer didn't acknowledge her, she pushed at his back. Hard. It was like pushing a building. He didn't so much as sway and continued to ignore her. She brought her left hand back, ready to punch him, when he ended the call and spun around. He spotted her fist up, damning evidence of her next action, and then riveted his gaze to her face. A slow, steady grin pulled across his lips, curling the corners. The smile reached his eyes, causing them to gleam.
Oh, how she hated him right now.
He handed her cell to her and walked away.
She called after him. “You don't get to leave.”
Spencer slowed and faced her. “Get your teams into the field.”
