by Debra
Well, crap. He couldn’t help but wish for a rewind button. Only an idiot stopped a beautiful woman. Right about now they could be riding the crest of that adrenaline rush, the world’s problems forgotten. If he hadn’t put a halt to that kiss, she’d be naked under him now, incapable of forming words, much less giving voice to uncomfortable questions.
“Not much to know,” he said, determined to keep it light. “All-American kid heads into the navy, gets cocky and somehow makes it through to become a SEAL.”
“You never struck me as cocky.”
“Huh.” She had no idea how much he’d changed in recent years. “I’d better work on that.”
“All right.” Her soft laugh echoed through the cave. “New question. When was your first kiss?”
“Kindergarten,” he confessed. “By the swings at the end of recess. She had blond pigtails and a frog on her shirt.”
“Wow. Impressive memory.”
“Some things you don’t forget.” And other things you couldn’t forget no matter how much you wanted to. Jacob’s face drifted through his mind.
“I bet you dated cheerleaders and homecoming queens.”
Wary now, he hesitated. “Don’t tell me guys weren’t falling all over you growing up.”
“Only in rugby.”
“You played rugby?”
“Two seasons,” she said with pride. “Keeping up with my brothers.”
He’d pay good money to see those videos. “Bet you were good at it.”
“I brought home my share of scrapes and bruises.”
She didn’t ask, but he heard himself answering. “My brother and I came up in soccer and eventually made the shift to baseball.” He rubbed the scar on his chin. “Funny story. I got clipped by a bat in practice. My mom was scared of football...” His voice trailed off. She hadn’t been big on sending her boys into the military, either, but he and his father had assured her all would be well. He remembered when she’d looked at him with pride shining in her eyes. But that sweet memory had been blotted out by the blame and sorrow overflowing her gaze from the other side of his brother’s grave.
“My brother joined the marines,” he heard himself whisper. Why didn’t he just talk about something trivial, like taking the homecoming queen to the dance his senior year? “He told our parents he was inspired by me.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
He swallowed. “Worst-case scenario.” It still sat like an elephant on his chest when he thought about it. Which was why he didn’t think about it. “It was a training accident. He was the less than two percent of training casualties no one talks about. No one’s fault, just...”
“The fluke that could’ve happened to anyone, but it happened to your family.”
“Yeah.” How was it she understood?
“I’ve seen my share of life, Will,” she replied, making him wonder if he’d given voice to his question. “Up here you can do everything right and still get screwed over.”
“My parents haven’t spoken to me since the funeral.”
She shifted, one hand stroking up and down his arm in a soothing touch. “You can’t be serious.”
He wished he wasn’t. Wished he could shut up. “My kind of work doesn’t make it easy to stay in touch anyway,” he said.
“You’re stateside now,” she pointed out briskly.
“True.”
“Ah. They don’t know. You haven’t told them.”
He didn’t like how easily she figured him out. Smart or not, it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss. “This is all a little heavy for a cave-date conversation.”
She gave his shoulder a light thump. “Maybe it’s time to stop running away.”
She was right, but he didn’t have to like it. “It was easier to work. I couldn’t fix it, couldn’t change what happened. Still can’t.”
“How long has it been?” She raised their joined hands and pressed a soft kiss to his scraped knuckles.
Her compassion, along with her courage, was a force he couldn’t stand against. “Long enough to be a habit.”
“Will.”
The gentle censure tugged at the protective walls he’d built around his heart. If she brought them down, he had no idea what would happen. To him or her if he couldn’t defend her. This was the worst time and place for an emotional breakdown. He searched for a way to get back to something lighthearted. “Enough about me. When was your first kiss?”
“Sophomore year.”
“High school?” He turned toward her, though he couldn’t get a read on her expression. “That’s impossible.”
“I’m sure it would’ve been sooner if I’d worn frog T-shirts.”
He laughed and felt the heavy burden of grief easing inexplicably. “Hey, I’m a guy. We have standards.”
“I noticed,” she said, her voice full of appreciation. She cleared her throat. “First heartbreak?”
He wasn’t sure anything could compete with the pain of losing his brother. They’d been so close, shared everything along the way. “Sally Bowman,” he decided. Romantically, it was the closest he’d ever come to falling in love. “She ditched me at the homecoming dance to make out with the quarterback.”
“Poor Will.”
He didn’t hear much sympathy in her tone. It made him smile. “And you?”
“I’ve had a few crushes along the way, but no one took enough interest to sweep me off my feet or break my heart.”
The male population of Durango was stupid or blind. Maybe both. It sounded as though romantic neglect might qualify as a unique kind of heartbreak all on its own.
“Will?”
“Yeah?”
“If I told you I had a frog T-shirt with me, would you kiss me again?”
“Not tonight.” It was too dangerous. Not mission danger—he was used to that. But he was far too vulnerable where she was concerned. Letting his desire get out of hand would erode his success on the mission.
“All right.” She slipped away, burrowing under the sleeping bag and hunching her shoulders.
“Charly.” He knew he should explain how much he wanted her. This just wasn’t the right time to act on it. There had to be a way to assure her. He felt terrible that she would lump him into the category of the other guys who’d overlooked her.
“It was worth asking.” She stretched her legs out and then curled up once more. “Come here so we both stay warm tonight.”
He stretched out beside her, his body curving around hers. It was almost too much as she pillowed her head on his biceps. He told himself the layers of clothing were a good thing as he breathed deep of the enticing mountain scents caught in her hair.
“Get some sleep.” She reached back and patted his thigh. “I’ll wake us up in plenty of time to get ahead of Lancaster.”
Chapter Thirteen
True to her word, Charly woke Will in plenty of time. Based on the lack of noise nearby, Lancaster’s crew wasn’t moving yet. Standing at the edge of the cave, Will gazed out across a bank of fog that looked thick enough to walk across. He pulled out the cell phone, waited for it to power up, only to confirm there was no signal. He turned it off and tucked it away, determined to try again later.
To the east, the sun teased the horizon, but it wouldn’t be strong enough to burn through the low-lying cloud for hours. His binoculars were useless. The radio had been quiet all night. Will checked the battery, skimming through other channels, only to hear more silence.
“We should go,” Charly said, hitching her pack onto her shoulders. “If we stay quiet we can get ahead of them.”
“Go where? We can’t see well enough to get out of here.”
“Which means they can’t see well enough to shoot at us.”
“That didn’t stop them last night.”
“True.” She planted her hands on her hips. “The climb down is tedious work.”
“In moist conditions with no gloves, chalk or safety gear.”
She cocked her head, squinti
ng at him as though he was a newfound species. “I thought military types like you would see the fun in that kind of challenge.”
Only if his life was the only one on the line. “It wouldn’t be my first time saving a civilian from stupidity,” he teased.
Her eyebrows shot up in mock horror and he relaxed, grateful they’d found their way back to a friendly rapport after last night’s sharefest. “And here I was hoping for a chance to add ‘saved a SEAL’ to my résumé.” She put it in air quotes, making him smile. “Seriously, there’s an easier way around from this point.”
“Around what?”
“The cliff.”
“Did you call in a helicopter?”
“No good in that.” Waving at the fog, she walked away from the mouth of the cave. “Come on. Trust me.”
He did. Completely. Not the way he trusted his fellow SEAL team members, but in a way that went deeper. Deeper into territory he’d never explored with a woman.
Following her and the pale white beam of her flashlight into a narrow tunnel of rock barely wide enough for his shoulders, he was reminded of his brother.
Growing up they’d gone off without thinking about anything beyond the thrill of the moment, hell-bent on whatever adventure they’d cooked up. He trusted Charly that same way—on instinct. She hadn’t steered him wrong or given him any cause to think she would.
The rock fell away in places, as though someone had carved out windows. He sucked in a breath at the views. The valley below still blurred by the fog, another mountain peak speared up, looking close enough to touch. He couldn’t feel the breeze, but he got a sense of it as fog poured in between the peaks, filling the valley like a giant sink.
“My guess is the plane crashed into the side of that ridge. Across the valley.”
“Why?”
“Pilot error, quirky thermals, you name it.” She rolled her shoulders, fiddled with the straps. “I can’t be sure, but based on what you’ve said and Lancaster’s behavior with the beacon, it fits.”
He pulled out his binoculars, searching the opposite peak for any hint of a crash. He couldn’t see anything definitive. “Take a look,” he said.
She raised the military-grade black lenses to her eyes, making a small humming sound as she adjusted and swept as much of the terrain as the weather allowed. Then she stepped out, swiveled the glasses back toward the cliff they’d slid down last night. “Vultures,” she said, pointing. “Probably circling the man who fell last night.”
He noticed she didn’t use the name. He wasn’t inclined to provide it. Everyone dealt with trauma and loss in their own way. If avoiding the name made it easier for her to deal with the shock and the brutal after effect, that was fine by him.
“Unless something like a deer or horse is also dead over there.”
“Maybe the vultures will discourage Lancaster.” But he doubted anything would keep the man from his revenge. “How many times have you been up here for pilots?” He wanted her thinking of other things, things that she had more power over. Things that might have happy endings.
“A few.”
“Any of them crash into this side?”
“Not traveling westbound.”
“Okay.” So she was giving him a well-educated guess. Not that he expected anything less.
“Best route for us?”
She pointed. “This area is more like a serrated knife with ups and downs of varying degrees between these peaks. At the base of this cliff we can head upstream and cross the water where it’s shallow. Then it’s just a matter of finding something useful.”
“Or we’re back to tailing Lancaster.” Come on, universe. Would it be so terrible to catch a little luck on this op? They were surviving, but only by small margins. He wanted to make some progress today.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” she muttered.
He agreed. So much cleaner to grab the Blackout Key and disappear, letting nature have its way with Lancaster and his mercenaries. Too bad Casey wanted the jerk alive. “Lancaster will head straight for the crash site. Any idea how he’ll get down here?”
She snorted. “His men will be lucky if he doesn’t test their ability to fly across.” She cleared her throat. “The best way down is south of where we scaled the cliff last night.” She paused again. “After losing a man that way, I can’t imagine anyone else on his crew will be willing to go over the cliff face like we did. That delay alone should give us at least another hour’s lead time to find the plane.”
“All right. How do we get down there?”
A corner of her mouth tipped up. Tempting him to taste, to take. He’d missed a golden opportunity by halting things last night. He reminded himself where that kiss would’ve led, and how unfair that result would be to her. She deserved better than a guy who could only give her a moment’s pleasure. She deserved a man who wasn’t afraid of giving her everything. A man who had everything to give.
“We follow the stairs.”
“Stairs?” he echoed.
“They aren’t up to code and yes, they’re bound to be slippery with this fog, but they are functional.”
“Duly noted.”
He shouldn’t have been shocked that her description was spot-on. The mountainside gave way incrementally from their cave to the valley below. There were slips and some mighty big steps, but overall, their trek down was uneventful.
The fog still hadn’t shifted and the visibility was terrible. Though the sun had to be working on it by now, he wasn’t sure which would help them more. If they could see, Lancaster could see. The sense of solitude and security was deceptive and the vapor amplified some sounds and muted others.
Birds called and squirrels chattered, but they might have been at his shoulder or a mile away. Will pitched his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “How do you even know where you’re going?”
“Compass for a heart,” she said, smiling over her shoulder. “And technically I don’t know more than our general direction.”
A fat black squirrel scampered across a thick tree limb, watching them with obvious interest. “Are black squirrels common here?”
“More common than other places,” she replied with a shrug. “Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
“Sure.” Probably. He didn’t typically pay attention to wildlife on a mission. He kept his focus on his target and ignored the things—cover, animals or other people—who got in the way.
Charly crouched suddenly, pressing her fingertips to the soft, dark earth. She held up her other hand, signaling him to stop.
Obediently, he froze in place while she eased forward.
What the hell was she looking at? It couldn’t be related to Lancaster and unless he’d lost all his field sense, they were nowhere near where Rich’s body might have landed. They’d moved away from that deadly fall just by reaching the cave. Had some scavenger dragged the body this way? He wanted to ask, but refused to interrupt her.
She pressed a finger to her lips and motioned him closer. “Wolf.” She pointed to the big paw print near her knee, then to the next one just out of her reach.
“They don’t travel alone,” he said, mostly to himself.
“No.”
“What does that mean for us?”
She stood tall, her gaze tracking up into the trees, then back down. “Stay alert.” She smoothed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear.
“You have a theory.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I can practically hear the gears turning.”
She smiled, but it wasn’t an entirely happy expression. “The wolves might have come through, but they’re not here right now.”
“Please explain that,” he said when she stopped.
“All the prey is too happy, too active. If a predator was nearby, the immediate area would be absolutely still, hunkered down and waiting it out.”
“Okay, I’ll buy that.”
Now her grin was quick and sharp. “Remind me to send the government an in
voice. Anyway,” she continued, “I was really thinking that the wolves might have, um, found an easy meal if the plane went down nearby.”
“Oh.” Then the full meaning sank in. “Oh,” he repeated, imagining a gruesome scenario.
“Apex predators don’t turn down easy food if they can get it.” She dusted her hands on her pants and set off again.
But now they were both thinking about Clint and how she’d protected his body from a similar fate.
“So the wolves must be somewhere else if the vultures are circling.”
“It’s a big mountain,” she said. “How many on the plane?”
“No idea. I assume it was only the pilot.”
“Well, let’s get up there and find out.” She moved with grace and speed, barely leaving a track along the way. He watched her deliberately choose one step over another without slowing, leaving the wolf prints intact.
“You’d be an excellent teacher,” he said, thinking aloud.
“Because I can intimidate as well as track?”
“Something like that.”
Her braid flowed down her back when she shook her head.
They stopped long enough to fill up their canteens with fresh water. He was fascinated as she pointed out the different tracks of animals who’d visited recently. “It’s been years since I’ve given any thought to tracking down something other than people,” he said.
A smirk curved her lips. “Nature was here first.”
“I’m aware. Nature is often part of the briefing...”
“And what? You ignore it?”
“Not exactly. I listen. But it just...doesn’t matter. The job has to get done no matter what else is out there.” That was simply the way things went in the military. Especially on covert ops. Failure wasn’t an option. Clichéd or not, it was a core principle of his service.
“Usually I give any threatening wildlife a wider berth,” she said.
“But that’s not a choice this time around,” he finished for her. “I’ll stay alert.”
With a nod, she pushed to her feet, her gaze roaming across the cliff they’d just left.
The fog had thinned, but visibility remained limited. The disembodied voices of Lancaster and the mercenaries drifted through the air, accompanied by the occasional sound of an anchor biting into rock.
