by Rachel Grant
He wasn’t certain, because he’d only just arrived in town himself—in fact, they’d arrived on the same flight. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed her on the small, twenty-four-seat airplane, but then his concern about Chuck overrode everything—even pausing to admire a pretty face. He considered telling her she’d made a mistake in assuming he was his cousin, but that would likely scare her off, and he wanted to know how she’d obtained the mask and why she had the look of desperation in her eye.
He rose, plucking Chuck’s keys from the desktop. “Let’s go, then.” He hoped he could remember the way to Chuck’s house. The roads were twisty across the tundra and rarely marked with signs.
“Do you mind… Can I leave the mask here?”
He frowned. There was definitely something up with that mask. The look on her face when she touched it… It was a strange mixture of aversion and elation. A pleasure-and-pain thing. The woman was a strange puzzle, and not at all what he expected to find when he came to search Chuck’s office for clues as to who’d poisoned him and why. “No,” he said, simply because leaving the mask here seemed to be the thing she wanted most, and until he knew exactly why, he had no intention of giving her what she wanted.
She frowned and huffed out a sigh, seeming reluctant to touch the thing. But then she did, and again her face expressed the strangest mixture of pleasure and pain. It was almost sexual, the way her eyes hooded and jaw clenched, triggering an unwelcome jolt of desire that sent blood rushing to his cock.
He clenched his jaw against the unwanted reaction. She was a stranger, and odds were she had something to do with Chuck’s near-death experience. He reminded himself he’d likely experience a similar low-grade erection if he saw an arousing photo of a half-naked woman, especially one with Sienna’s soft curves.
It wasn’t personal, just physiological.
But still, he didn’t like that the seed of attraction—however biological—had been planted.
She placed the mask in the large carved wooden box, sealing it with the attached leather strap, which she anchored with a carved stick—or maybe it was bone. He itched to ask questions about both artifact and container, but it would be increasingly obvious he knew nothing about artifacts or his cousin’s Iñupiat heritage.
She reached down to lift the box and strained, as if it were Thor’s hammer. She muttered a curse and tried again, this time bending at the knees. But the box didn’t budge.
He could swear her effort was real and her grip on the box solid. He nudged her aside. “I’ll get it.”
She shot him a glance that was almost a challenge. As if she were handing him a pickle jar with a stuck lid, and it was time to see how tough he was. Prior to law school, he’d served two tours as an explosive ordnance disposal specialist in Iraq. He wasn’t intimidated.
He bent down and lifted the box easily. It practically floated, it was so damn light. Her jaw dropped.
He felt as if he’d pulled Excalibur from the stone and tossed her a skeptical look. “You feeling okay? This is even lighter than it looks.”
Her face flushed, and she muttered, “Damn thing is determined to embarrass me.”
Okay. Maybe she was just a nutcase. In which case he was wasting his time here. He was tempted to toss the box into her arms and be done, but something about the desperation in her wide hazel eyes stopped him. Well, that and the fact that the box held the mask.
He could call the police right now. Chuck had reported the mask stolen, but he didn’t like the idea of passing this off to the cops just yet.
Was he being a sucker because she had pretty eyes?
He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t particularly like what that said about him. He suppressed a sigh and led her out of the office, locking Chuck’s suite and the front door to the building on the way out. In the parking lot, he walked with her to her rental sedan. She opened the trunk with the fob, and he set the lightweight box inside. “The roads aren’t marked, making directions complicated; it’ll be easier if you follow me.”
She nodded. “Thank you. It’s very kind of you to take me in like this.”
He shrugged. “This is what people do in Alaska. It’s either be neighborly or let people freeze to death.” He knew this to be true, even though he’d never lived here. He’d grown up in Oregon but had visited Chuck over the years. His two most recent visits were five years ago for Chuck and Jana’s wedding, and six months ago for Jana’s funeral.
In the months since Jana’s death, Rhys and Chuck spoke on the phone every few days, so it had been quite a shock when he got the call that his bereaved but otherwise healthy cousin had gone into kidney failure. Chuck had been transported to Anchorage as soon as he was stable, and now it was a matter of waiting to see if he was one of the lucky few who would recover after a few dialysis treatments, or if he’d eventually need a kidney transplant. If Chuck needed a kidney, Rhys hoped he was a donor match.
Chuck was certain his illness wasn’t a case of accidently eating a poisonous mushroom, but the tiny local police department wasn’t exactly investigating. Chuck had recently discovered artifacts—including one ancient carved wooden mask—had gone missing from the cultural department’s off-site storage facility. The day he started asking questions, he was poisoned.
Itqaklut police had conducted a cursory investigation of the poisoning, then declared the poisoning accidental and Chuck paranoid, case closed. Itqaklut’s finest were used to investigating assaults, drunk driving, and the occasional theft. Attempted murder was too far outside their expertise. It didn’t help that the officer assigned to the investigation dated Jana once upon a time and still resented Chuck.
When Chuck begged Rhys to use the investigative skills he’d honed working his way up to assistant US attorney in the Seattle District US Attorney’s Office to figure out who’d poisoned him and why, Rhys found he couldn’t say no. Particularly because he believed Chuck, when no one else did.
He might not be a private investigator, but he’d worked with enough PIs and FBI agents to know how they operated, and he was determined to find the proof needed to convince the police to conduct a real investigation. He’d gone straight to Chuck’s office from the airport so he could search the suite and get started.
Rhys dialed Chuck’s hospital the moment he was alone in the car. The nurse said he was sleeping. Finally. Rest had been hard to come by for his cousin. He couldn’t ask Chuck about Sienna Aubrey tonight. He’d let her assume he was the tribal CRM guy for the rest of the night. She was clearly exhausted. Hopefully she’d want to go right to bed.
Bed. That was a loaded word given his reaction to her. He’d set her up in Chuck’s guest bedroom and be done.
Luckily, he remembered the route to Chuck’s house, on the farthest outskirts of the sprawling arctic settlement, without taking any wrong turns, and parked in the deeply rutted driveway as she pulled up behind him. He hesitated for a moment, realizing he couldn’t get his suitcase from the trunk. Not in front of her. Instead he grabbed his leather satchel and met her by her rental car.
She popped the trunk and frowned at the contents. Was she going to pretend she couldn't lift it again? “What’s it saying?” he asked as a joke.
She met his gaze and said in a completely serious voice, “It wants to go inside.”
He’d made a huge mistake inviting her here. She was a total nutcase. But there was no backing out now. He let out a heavy sigh and reached into the trunk to lift the box with one hand.
It didn’t budge.
He tried two hands.
Nothing.
If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was bolted to the trunk. He could deadlift well over three hundred pounds, and this box didn’t so much as wiggle when he touched it.
She glared at the box as though it were a misbehaving child and brushed him aside, muttering, “It’s a damn nuisance.” She lifted the box easily—as he’d done in the office not ten minutes ago.
What the hell?
She shrugged apologetica
lly but didn't say a word. What could she say that would make sense? Welcome to my crazy world?
He had the distinct feeling that was exactly what she was thinking. He led her up the front walkway, an uneven brick path that shifted and moved instead of cracking with repeated freezing and thawing, and unlocked the door to Chuck’s home.
Inside, he looked at her pointedly. “Is there a place the box wants to go?”
Her gaze focused inward as if she were again taking his flippant question seriously. Finally she said, “The bedroom?” Her cheeks turned pink the moment the words slipped from her mouth.
What the hell was her game?
He shrugged and led her to the guest bedroom. No way was he letting her use the box as an invitation into the master bedroom. “This way.” He pushed open the guest-bedroom door and stopped short.
It wasn’t a guest bedroom anymore. Chuck had converted it into a home office. Shit. The house only had one bed—and now he had no choice but to offer it to her. “This can be the artifact’s room,” he said. Great. Now he sounded as crazy as she was, but he’d say anything to cover the fact that he was clueless about the house. “There, uh, is no guest bedroom. But you can sleep in the master bedroom. I’ll take the couch.”
She set the box in the center of the carpet without arguing that it wasn’t the bedroom that the artifact had wanted. She brushed off her hands and said, “I couldn’t possibly take your bed. The couch would be wonderful, and it’s more than I could have hoped considering I expected to sleep in the rental car.” Her smile was gracious and genuine. And, if he were being honest, it was also pretty.
They returned to the living room, where he invited her to take a seat. “Would you like something to drink?” Too late he realized he had no idea what was on hand. “Let me check and see what’s here.”
“Thank you. I’ll call my sister.”
He stepped into the adjacent kitchen and quickly searched the fridge and cupboards, taking stock of the food situation and organization. It wouldn’t do to have him searching for the silverware in front of her. Bad enough to be caught off guard by the guest room that wasn’t a guest room anymore.
He scanned the contents of the fridge. There wasn’t much, because the police had collected all open containers and leftovers to test for the toxin orellanine. They were still awaiting the results. A six-pack of bottled beer, a tub of cream cheese, a package of bacon, and a few other items in vacuum-sealed jars were all that remained.
Shifting to the freezer, he found a frozen pizza in a sealed box. It would do for tonight.
Murmurs from the living room got his attention. Was she talking to the wooden box or her sister? He glanced at the clock. Nearly ten p.m. An hour later in Seattle, if that was where her sister was. From her tone, he guessed she was speaking with her sister, and she wasn’t happy.
He grabbed two beers from the fridge and entered the living room. “Alaskan Amber okay?” he asked.
She nodded, said a hurried good-bye, and set down her phone. “Thank you.”
He dropped onto the couch next to her—closer than a new acquaintance but not so close as to crowd her—and clinked his beer bottle against hers. “Welcome to Itqaklut.” One thing he could do was say the name without stumbling over the hard consonants. He grew up worshiping his cousin the half-Itqaklut. As a boy, he’d felt there was nothing interesting about being a fair-skinned, blue-eyed Welsh-American—hell, he didn’t even look Welsh, let alone Indian, like Chuck—until he visited Chuck during winter break when he was thirteen and realized exactly how difficult life was forty miles above the Arctic Circle in winter. No roads led to Itqaklut; the only way to get here during the winter freeze was by plane or sled dog. The nearest similarly sized, similarly isolated town was Kotzebue, thirty miles away.
After that winter visit, he’d still considered his cousin’s life in the far north exotic. But he didn’t want to live that life. No way. Visiting had been enough.
“I’m afraid the house is light on groceries, so it’ll be frozen pizza for dinner.”
She took a long drink of the beer, then smiled. She might be crazy, but he had to admit he liked her smile. “Sounds wonderful. I’d be happy to make it up to you by taking you out to eat tomorrow, before I catch a flight back.”
He shrugged. “If I have time, maybe I’ll take you up on it.”
She bit her bottom lip. “While the pizza bakes, do you mind if I take a shower? I’m afraid I had to get down in the dirt to change the tire, and on top of feeling exhausted, I feel grimy.”
He sprang to his feet. “Certainly.” While she was in the shower, he could get his bag from the car and get settled in. He showed her the bathroom, relieved to see two pristine towels on the rack. No need to search for the linen closet.
Her brow furrowed. “I hate to impose even more, but… my suitcase was lost in Anchorage. Can I borrow something to sleep in?”
His mind flashed on the image of her naked and pulling on one of his shirts, casually flipping her tousled light brown hair from under the collar before buttoning it, starting at the bottom and grinning as her bare breasts remained exposed to his eager gaze. A man’s hand—his hand—cupped her breast, preventing her from closing the shirt. His body flared with heat.
The strangest part was the image felt like a memory. A déjà vu so real he could smell sex—him—on her skin. And in his mind, he heard himself say, Don’t you dare get dressed. I need to fuck you again. Now.
He met her gaze. Her eyes dilated as her chest rose with a sharp gasp. Had she had the same vision? Was he naked and erect in her view?
He took a ragged breath in the here and now and said, “Uh. Sure. I’ll grab something for you.” In Chuck’s bedroom, he searched the drawers for something, anything, to offer her to sleep in. He found a T-shirt and sweatpants, both of which would be big on her, but the pants had a drawstring she could cinch tight. He considered offering her boxers, but they would be too large.
She’d have to go commando.
And like that, he was erect again.
What the hell is wrong with me? He didn’t even know her. She could have something to do with the thefts and Chuck’s poisoning. He counted to ten, willing the erection to go away, then left the bedroom and handed her the clothes. With a mumbled thanks, she disappeared into the bathroom.
Chapter Two
Sienna started with a frigid shower to cool her flushed skin. Holy hell, what had just happened? She was not the type of person to have fantasies of jumping into bed with men she’d just met. She’d actually tried it twice, and the second time had been even less fun than the first.
She’d sworn off quick pickups and one-night stands, which was all this could be. He was equivalent to a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, for crying out loud. Sure, it was a small tribe, but still, THPOs could wield as much power as their state counterparts, and the last time her sister had a run-in with the Washington SHPO, they’d nearly lost their biggest client.
Not to mention the fact that Sienna had stolen the mask from the museum to return it to the Itqaklut, and she would need Chuck Vaughan to go to bat for her when—there was no if—her client went ballistic. Maybe he’d be willing to back her if they enjoyed a rousing night of no-strings sex, except he’d probably assume she’d initiated sex to secure his cooperation. Plus, if the sex were as miserable as her previous two pickups, he would definitely not back her when the time came.
A wicked part of her brain said the vision was real, and sex with Vaughan hadn’t been a fiasco. In fact, it had been the best damn sex of her life.
Had been?
Shouldn’t it be “would be”?
What was up with her mental verb tenses?
She turned the tap to a warmer temperature and worked shampoo into her hair, telling herself sex with Vaughan was not an option, past, present, or future.
She scrubbed the dirt and oil from her skin and tried not to fantasize about jumping into the sack with the rather hot THPO who’d given her a place to st
ay. She was here to return the mask. That was all. Oh, and to find out if she’d lost her mind.
Clean, refreshed, even if not quite sane, she pulled on the sweatpants and T-shirt. She had no choice but to go commando and hope Vaughan had a washer and dryer she could use, so tomorrow she’d have clean clothes.
She found a comb in the medicine chest and carefully detangled her hair, then left the bathroom, ready to face the man she’d seen naked in her mind—and who she was certain had shared the arousing vision.
That damn mask was determined to make her life hell until it was home safe and sound.
She looked freaking adorable with her damp, brown hair with reddish highlights combed back behind her ears, wearing Chuck’s oversize T-shirt and sweatpants. Her hazel eyes were brighter, more amber than brown, and those long, dark lashes glistened in the nighttime sun.
Dammit. Now that he was aware of her, he couldn’t look at her without finding features that appealed. Like that crooked eyebrow—natural, not sculpted with tweezers. His last girlfriend had plucked her brows to a thin, unnatural line. Dozens of reasons had led to their breakup, but now, looking at Sienna, he wondered if his ex’s cold, lifeless arches had been on his subconscious list. He certainly wouldn’t find her attractive now, after staring at Sienna’s organic brows.
And what was the deal with that freckle just to the right of center on her bottom lip?
Lipstick would cover it, and he found himself thankful she wasn’t wearing any. He wanted to nibble on the spot—to be certain it was a freckle and not a stray fleck of pepper.
He shook his head. This wasn’t right. Wasn’t healthy. He should be grilling her about her company and that damned two-ton featherweight mask instead of fantasizing about tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her to the master bedroom.
Crap. Now he was hard again.
“I hate to ask for another favor, but do you mind if I wash my clothes so I’ll have something clean for tomorrow?”
