He studied the waist-high cabinet. The shelf looked like it would fit inside. He spotted another one tossed on the floor.
His eyes narrowed. The cabinet doors were ajar the tiniest bit.
Something moved inside.
Lachlan whipped his CXM rifle up and aimed. With his foot, he kicked the door open.
A woman sprang out with a yell and rammed into him. She was tall and solid, and he staggered back into the bench behind him.
She struggled wildly. Lachlan tried to contain her flailing arms without hurting her. Then he slipped on ice and they went down.
“Fuck,” he bit out.
The woman managed to straddle him and lifted a Glock. Her hands were shaking, her blue eyes a little unfocused, but there was a look of determination on her face. Her teeth were clenched together, tightening an already strong jawline. Dark-red hair escaped from a black, knitted hat on her head.
“Hey.” Lachlan held his palms up. “I’m here to help. My team was sent to find out what happened here.”
She blinked pale-blue eyes rimmed with darker blue that looked strangely familiar. “You’re not the…thing?”
Thing? “No. Just a man.”
“You’re wearing all white…I thought…” She shook her head. “They’re dead.” Her blue-tinged lips trembled.
Lachlan realized her shaking wasn’t all fear or shock. She was dressed in dark cargo pants and a green sweater—which he was man enough to notice clung to very nice curves. However, the clothes clearly weren’t enough to keep her warm in the cool temperature.
“I know,” he said quietly.
Damn, he wasn’t usually the one calming down victims and witnesses they encountered. He usually left that to Seth or Axel. Both had enough charm to make anyone feel easy with them. Well, Seth only turned his on when it suited him, but for Axel, it was like breathing.
But for some reason, Lachlan wanted to comfort this woman.
He reached up and touched her arm. “Let me help you?”
The pistol stayed stubbornly aimed at his chest. Lachlan weighed the odds, then in a lightning-fast move, he gripped her wrist and reared up. He spun her around until her back was flush against the front of him, her curvy butt resting in his lap.
She gasped, bucking against him. She tried to wrench her arm and the gun out of his grip.
His lips brushed her ear. “Just relax. You don’t need the gun.” He didn’t want to hurt her, but he tightened his hold until the gun clattered on the floor.
Her shaking increased. “They’re dead.” A tortured whisper.
“You’re cold.” Lachlan wrapped his arms around her, sharing his heat. “We need to get you warmed up.”
She held herself stiff.
“Let me help you,” he said. “I’m not going to let anything hurt you.”
She was stiff for another long second, then she relaxed into him. She turned her head, their faces only inches apart. “Okay.”
He nodded. “Okay.” She had a faint smattering of freckles he found pretty attractive.
They stayed there, him wrapped around her, for a full minute.
“I’m going to find you some warmer clothes and blankets.” Lachlan moved to stand.
Her hands gripped his wrists. “Don’t leave me.”
There was fear buried deep in her quiet words. Lachlan felt an insane need to protect this woman. “Okay.” He touched his ear. “Callie? Can you find some cold-weather clothes and blankets, and bring them to the lab? We have a survivor.”
“Roger that, boss,” was Callie’s steady response.
For now, Lachlan kept his hold on the woman. He focused on keeping her warm, and not on the curvy ass nestled against him.
“What’s your name?” she whispered.
“Lachlan.”
“They’re all dead, Lachlan.” Her voice hitched.
“Yeah, they are. I’m sorry.”
She swiveled to look at him again and those blue eyes hit him. “They’re dead, and it’s all my fault.”
Chapter Four
Rowan sat on a chair in the rec room, wrapped in a blanket.
Someone had finally shut off the door to the damaged dome, and the air was starting to warm up inside. She finally felt like she was thawing out. Unfortunately, as her body lost its numbness, so did her head.
She couldn’t believe what had happened. Emily, Isabel, Samuel…
Rowan cleared her throat. “I need coffee. Really strong coffee.”
She glanced around at the white-suited team, all holding futuristic-looking rifles slung over their shoulders. None of them were smiling, and they all looked like they had badassness running through their veins. She sighed. She wasn’t sure badassness was a word.
“Here.”
She looked up and saw that her rescuer had brought her a steaming-hot mug of coffee. It wasn’t topped with chocolate, but it would do.
Rowan wrapped both hands around the mug and took a sip. It was heavy on the sugar, and to her caffeine-starved system, it was heavenly. Her gaze moved back to Lachlan’s face as he sat across from her. Okay, this man might be easy on the eyes, but he didn’t just have badass running through his veins, she was pretty sure it permeated his cells.
Luckily, Rowan didn’t scare easily. He was handsome, in a rugged way, with dark scruff on his cheeks and jaw. From what she could tell, under the bulky, cold-weather gear, he was big and muscled. She looked at the other soldiers lining the rec room. They were all big and tough, except for the two females. They just looked tough.
“Dr. Schafer?”
Her gaze came back to the man in front of her. He had scary eyes, flat and assessing, and they were an unusual color—gold, like a tiger’s eyes.
She froze. It couldn’t be…
“What?” He tilted his head, a move that unlocked memories from a long time ago.
“Lachlan?” she whispered.
He went still.
“Lachlan Hunter?”
He blinked slowly, his face still impassive, but she got the impression that she’d surprised him.
“It’s Rowan,” she said. “Rowan Caswell.”
Now his eyes widened. “Little Rowan?”
She set her drink down. “Not so little anymore.” Without stopping to think, she moved, cupping one of his cheeks. This was the boy next door, who’d snuck her chocolate and made her childhood bearable. “God, it’s been years.”
“Over twenty.”
When his family had moved away, she’d been devastated. Of course, his father’s suicide had changed everything. She’d spent hours in her treehouse with Lachlan, both of them escaping their homes and the difficult lives within.
Lachlan had always been quiet and intense, with those tiger eyes. He’d been trying to avoid his father’s depression and vicious mood swings, and at times, his fists. She’d been escaping her parents’ indifference, and her endless hours of homework, violin lessons, and tennis lessons.
“Rowan.” Lachlan pressed a big hand over hers.
“Lachlan?”
Rowan dropped her hand and looked up at the blonde woman watching her with an assessing gaze. Rowan blinked. The woman had two different colored eyes—one bright blue and one that was…silver? She realized it was some kind of prosthetic.
“Rowan, this is my second-in-command, Blair Mason,” Lachlan said.
Blair’s blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked like she’d pull out your fingernails if you made a wrong move. Note to self: stay on Blair Mason’s good side.
“Rowan was my neighbor when we were kids,” Lachlan said.
“I was a lot more gangly then, with braces and unruly red hair.” Rowan knew she’d been awkward and plain. Thankfully, she’d grown out of that phase.
“You grew up nicely.” A faint smile tipped Lachlan’s lips.
Rowan felt a tingle. She liked the way his lips curved. She wondered what it looked like when he outright smiled.
“Schafer?” Lachlan’s smile disappeared. “Yo
u’re married?”
She shook her head. “My parents divorced a few years after you moved. My mother changed my surname to hers.”
Lachlan nodded, his face turning serious. “As glad as I am to see you again, we need to talk about what happened here, Rowan.”
Rowan’s stomach dropped away. The small amount of coffee she’d drank curdled in her belly. “Someone got the mayday call.”
Lachlan nodded. “They sent my team in. You managed to survive the night.”
A quick nod. “I snuck out and pulled a blanket into the cupboard, but I was getting colder by the hour and so scared—” Her voice cracked.
“Take your time. Let me introduce my team. You’ve met Blair.” Lachlan gestured at a lean, dark man leaning against a table. “This is Seth Lynch.” The man inclined his head at her, his pale eyes unreadable. One side of his face was handsome, while the other was covered in terrible scars.
“Smith Creed.”
The big, bearded man had dirty-blond hair that looked several weeks past needing a haircut, and a beard shades darker. His arms were crossed over his immense chest, and Rowan had the crazy thought that he needed an axe in his hand. He lifted his chin at her.
“Axel Diaz.”
The brown-haired man had dark-bronze skin and velvet-brown eyes. He smiled at her, and her chest hitched. It was a hell of a smile.
“I’m sorry about your ordeal, Dr. Schafer.”
He had a sexy voice, and she guessed some Mexican-American heritage. And clearly, the man was a charmer, through and through. “Thank you.”
“And our team medic, Callie Kimura.”
“Ma’am.” The woman had a compact body and a nice smile. Her straight, black hair fell to her shoulders, she had high cheekbones Rowan would sell a kidney for, and her eyes were an amazing gray. She looked like she was Hawaiian or Polynesian.
Rowan nodded, wondering if long hair and beards were regulation in the military. “Hi. Thanks for coming.”
Lachlan shifted closer. “Can you walk us through what happened?”
Dimly, she was aware of Axel and Callie moving away.
“Everything was normal,” she said. “Everyone was back in from being out on the ice. The samples were all stored.” Rowan felt like her chest was filled with concrete. “Emily, our grad student, was excited.”
“Why?”
“Plants she’d been working on in the lab had regenerated. They’d started growing.”
“Plants from the ice?” Lachlan prompted.
She nodded. “They were over five thousand years old, so understandably, everyone was pretty excited. After, we had dinner, and I went to my office to do some work.” She pulled in a breath, feeling panic slither in like a cunning snake.
Lachlan reached out and grabbed her hand. Squeezed.
“I heard screams. I ran. I found Marc first, Dr. Fournier. He was…God—” She clenched her fingers on Lachlan’s hand. “He was dead. Then I heard…it. Heavy footsteps, and it roared. It was coming closer. I hid in a cupboard in the lab, but then I saw Emily run in. She panicked and it took her. I chased it.”
“You chased it?” She saw disbelief flare in Lachlan’s eyes.
“I couldn’t leave her! I grabbed a broom and ran, but I was too late.” Tears pricked Rowan’s eyes. “I saw the bodies. They were dead. I checked the communications system and found Samuel. It was wrecked. And I found Emily dead in the rec room. Caught up in ice.” Rowan felt a tear escape and she swiped it away.
She saw Lachlan trade a look with Blair.
Rowan heaved in a breath. “I heard the thing coming again. It was hunting me.”
“Did you see it?” Seth asked.
“Only a glimpse. It was big and white. It walked on two legs.”
Lachlan traded another weighty look with his team.
Footsteps made her look up, and she saw Axel and Callie return.
“We’ve accounted for all bodies,” Callie said. “One of the scientists is missing.”
Rowan jerked to her feet. “Who?”
“A man called Lars Jensen.”
Her heart leaped. “He could still be alive?”
“We don’t know yet,” Lachlan said. “We’ve searched the domes. He’s not inside.”
“Maybe he ran in the mayhem?” she said.
“Maybe,” Lachlan agreed readily. “Rowan, can you show us the item you pulled from the ice?”
She frowned. “The strange circular object?”
Lachlan nodded and pulled something from the pocket of his coat. It was a printed picture of the object.
She sucked in a breath. “How did you get the photo that I took?”
“Rowan, where is the object?” His face was set in serious lines.
She looked around at all the set faces, her brain whirring. Something else was going on here that she didn’t quite understand.
“I’ll show you.” Steeling herself, she left the rec dome and moved back to the labs. As they entered, she saw the body bags lined up in a row on the floor. The pain and grief were crippling.
So much senseless loss. They’d been her friends and colleagues. Smart, accomplished people with so much to give the world.
She felt a warm hand on her back, and she stiffened her spine. She moved over to the storage shelves. Some had been knocked over and smashed, but as she scanned the labels, she saw the one where the object had been stored was still upright.
Rowan pulled out the tray.
It was empty.
Her hands clenched on the plastic. “It was here.”
She watched the others shift closer.
“Who had it last?” Lachlan asked.
“I think Lars was planning to look at it again after dinner.”
Lachlan touched his ear. “Brooks, are you there?” He paused. “I need you to run everything you can on a Dr. Lars Jensen.”
“You think Lars stole it?” Rowan shook her head. “That he killed everyone?” She shook her head again. “No, that’s impossible. He’s sweet and geeky. He’s not capable of doing this.”
Rowan studied Lachlan again, her thoughts firing. A few things clicked into place, and she narrowed her gaze.
“Wait a minute. What branch of the military are you guys with?”
Silence.
She took a step back. “Oh, my God. You weren’t sent here to rescue us.”
He stepped closer. “Rowan—”
She pressed her fist to her chest and shook her head.
Lachlan frowned. “We were sent to rescue you, but it isn’t our only objective.”
Her heartbeat was a loud pounding in her ears. “I want some answers.”
“We aren’t authorized to give you answers,” Blair said in a low voice.
Rowan stumbled back, but Lachlan grabbed her arm. She tried to pull away from him, and the dark look on his face told her that he didn’t like it. “Let me go—”
“We’re a covert, black ops team.”
“Lachlan,” Blair growled in warning.
He ignored his second-in-command. “We’re tasked with collecting and safeguarding certain objects and artifacts.”
Rowan frowned. “Black ops?”
“Off the books. We report to one director who reports directly to the president.”
“The President of the United States?” When he nodded, she dragged in a breath. “Artifacts? Why?”
“Special artifacts. Ones with certain…abilities and capacities.”
“This makes no sense.”
“I know. We can talk some more later. For now, we need to focus on finding Lars.” Lachlan looked up. “Smith?”
The big man nodded. “There’s a clear trail leading out of the domes and heading due south on the ice. I’m ready to track.” He lifted his rifle.
“I can’t leave you here alone,” Lachlan said to Rowan.
She nodded. She didn’t want to be left here alone with the bodies of her dead team. “Let me get my gear and boots.”
Lars. She’d focus on her
colleague who needed her help. Rowan just prayed he was still alive. Answers would have to come later.
* * *
As they headed out of the base, Lachlan kept an eye on Rowan. She was in her cold-weather gear, and her color was much better now.
God, little, red-haired Rowan. It was hard to believe this well-built, attractive woman was the skinny little girl who’d once been an important part of his world. For several years, they’d been each other’s lifelines. They’d sit for hours in her treehouse, Rowan doing most of the talking. It hadn’t taken him long to work out how hungry she’d been for attention.
They’d first met, talking through a hole in the fence, one day when his dad was drunk and on a tear. She’d been all freckles and red pigtails.
But the freckles had faded, the red hair had deepened in color, and the skinny was now curvy. With surprising difficulty, he resisted the urge to continue studying her.
As he followed Blair out onto the ice, he pulled his goggles on. The light was bright, reflecting off the white landscape.
“Okay, Smith, you take point,” Lachlan ordered.
Smith moved ahead, and the rest of Lachlan’s team moved into formation. Automatically, they kept Rowan to the center of their group.
Lachlan nodded discreetly at Callie, and the medic shifted closer to Rowan. The woman was dependable and had nerves of steel—combat medics required those qualities in order to race in under fire to rescue injured soldiers. More importantly, Lachlan knew Callie cared. Despite the terrible attack that had ended Callie’s career as a pararescueman, she still cared about the people she tried to save. Lachlan knew the medic would run straight through the worst firefight to get to an injured person.
Smith moved at a fast clip, stopping every now and then to study something on the ice or rub his glove over something.
“You like being up here?” Blair asked Rowan, her voice skeptical.
“Believe it or not, it’s challenging and interesting,” Rowan said. “The team’s doing amazing work on climate science, biology, hydrology…” Her voice hitched. “Or…we were.”
Lachlan hated the grief he saw flash over her face. He wanted to touch her, try to ease that pain. He gritted his teeth. Shit. He’d never felt that need before. Actually, he usually sucked at that kind of thing.
Mission: Her Protection: Team 52 #1 Page 4
