Bear Claw Bodyguard

by Jessica Andersen

  She rubbed her hands over her arms reflexively, shivering even though it was comfortably warm in the basement lab. The move made her very aware of the echoing emptiness of the lab space, though, and the nerves just served to reinforce the knowledge that she was seriously off balance, off her game. She didn’t feel like herself, didn’t even look like herself really.

  She had gotten a change of clothes from one of the CSIs—a dark-haired profiler named Maya Thorne. The other woman was petite enough that at least Tori wasn’t swimming in the borrowed clothes, but the other woman’s high-end, understated taste was very different from Tori’s usual preference. The tailored navy slacks and silky, subtly ruffled button-down shirt were loose on her but still managed to feel constricting somehow…and the navy-and-yellow “Property of the BCCPD” sweatshirt Tori was wearing for warmth, which Maya had scrounged from another of the CSI’s lockers, held a good dose of irony after last night.

  Don’t go there.

  “Are you getting anywhere with an antidote?” Chondra asked, bringing her back on task.

  Tori gave herself a mental shake and, when she realized she had spun around in her chair so she was facing the doorway leading to the main stairs rather than her borrowed workstation, she deliberately turned around and put her back to the door. The floor above her was crawling with cops, so there was no way the militia could get to her, and she didn’t need company, darn it. She was fine on her own.

  Aware that her friend would have seen the carousel routine and had to be wondering about it, Tori cleared her throat, tapped a few keys to zip several files into an email-able package, and sent it to Chondra’s address. “I’m sending you what we’ve come up with so far.” Although Tori and her lab employees weren’t drug specialists by a long shot, the FBI analysts who had taken over that part of the investigation had asked her to stay on the case from her end, knowing she might have a unique take on things. “A couple of labs in this country and a few more abroad have been working on using the parental fungus for medical applications.”

  “I thought it was poisonous.”

  “There are dozens of compounds out there that are medicinal at one dose, poisonous at another, higher dose,” Tori pointed out, trying not to sound like an instant expert after several hours spent reading up on the three organisms that had been spliced together to create her, or rather Bear Claw’s, fungus.

  “True enough.” Chondra’s attention went to the corner of her screen, then returned to Tori. “Your email just came through. What do you want me to look for?”

  “Have you been able to get in touch with anyone from Howard’s old lab?”

  “I’ve got a friend in the department, actually. She’s getting us everything she can find and will email what she can and ship the rest.”

  “If it hasn’t already shipped, have her hold on to it. I have a feeling it should go straight to the task force, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred. I’ll check on that, though.” Tori wrote herself a reminder, then said, “Beyond that, just keep doing what you’ve been doing all along.”

  “Except that now I can do it officially.”

  “There is that.” The moment Tori’s bosses at the university and in the Park Service had heard about her discovery, they had thrown their full support back behind the investigation. Which probably should have been gratifying rather than annoying, but she figured she was entitled to a little grouchiness given that they hadn’t trusted her word in the first place. Granted, they’d had a point about the danger. But if she hadn’t stayed, they wouldn’t be where they were right now with the case.

  Or her emotions, for that matter, although that hadn’t been the danger her bosses had been worried about.

  Don’t think about it.

  “Given that the task force seems to be more focused on the Death Stare drug angle, do you want me to concentrate on ways we might be able to help the forest?”

  “No, I’d like you to take a look at what they’ve come up with for antidotes against the addictions and overdoses, and see if you see something they haven’t thought of. People are dying, and that’s got to take precedence over the forest.” When guilt stung, Tori added defensively, “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “I know that…I just didn’t think you did.” Chondra’s expression went speculative. “And no offense, because you know I love you just the way you are, but I’m not sure you would have put drug users over the possible demise of a state park last week. So what gives?” Her eyes sparked. “Did something happen between you and the hunky cop bodyguard you were telling me about?” Whatever she saw in Tori’s expression must have given it away because her mouth went round in an O of surprise and excitement. “It did! Come on, come on, give me something here. Remember that I’m stuck back here in the lab, living my dreams of adventure vicariously through you.”

  Tori snorted. “Your idea of an adventure is sidewalk sale day at the outlet mall, not roughing it overnight in a cave.”

  “A cave? Sounds romantic. And potentially Freudian.”

  That surprised a rusty laugh out of Tori, but she shook her head. “It was…” She trailed off because it hadn’t been perfect, not by a long shot, but that was the word that kept getting stuck in her head. That wasn’t right, though, it couldn’t be.

  Could it?

  You’re just tired, stressed out, strung out, she told herself. There was no other reason why she would be so close to tears for no reason.

  Chondra’s smile tipped to real concern. “Seriously, Tori. Are you okay?”

  To her surprise, she was sorely tempted to talk it out when that had never been her thing before. To her, guys came and went. Sometimes it pinched, sometimes it was a relief, and most times it was with fond memories and promises of “I’ll see you around.” Now, though, she was worked up, churned up, her emotions far too close to the surface of her mind.

  Knowing that she didn’t dare let any of that loose, though—not now, when she needed to be focusing on the case and handling herself in as professional a manner as possible—she shook her head and swallowed down the choking emotions to say, “Listen, we’ll talk about it later, okay? Much later.”

  Chondra looked dubious. “Okay, but if you change your mind…”

  “I won’t.”

  “If you do, call me, anytime. I mean it.”

  Tori nodded, but didn’t quite trust herself to speak.

  “And do me a favor? Give this guy a chance. If he’s got you all worked up like this, he’s got real potential.”

  “I’m worried about the investigation, not him,” Tori contradicted, hearing the edge of desperation in her own voice. “He doesn’t figure into this. If anything, I’m worked up because I’m itching to get out of here. With the feds on the case and things moving in the directions of biochemistry and genetic engineering rather than plant pathology, I’m not really needed.” The statement brought a dull ache that served only to increase her growing conviction that she’d be better off hitting the road sooner than later.

  “But your detective—”

  “He’s not my detective,” Tori interrupted too sharply, then sighed and shook her head. “Sorry. I just…I need to get out of here, that’s all.” She reached for the cutoff. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Chondra had barely begun a too-perceptive, too-sympathetic nod when Tori killed the feed. Then she just sat there for a long moment, staring at the computer screen, which showed her email in-box. It was loaded with everything from routine correspondence to flagged answers to her inquiries on the Bear Claw case. And although she knew she had to keep going, she couldn’t make herself click on the first of those flagged messages.

  She didn’t want to think about the case right now, which was selfish, just as it had been selfish of her to hang up on Chondra when she was only trying to help. And even that selfishness wasn’t typical of her—usually she turned her moods inward, hiding them from others and dealing with them in private. Not now, though. Now, she was stirred up…and none of that
mattered. What mattered was that there was a chance that she could help the task force find a treatment for the fungal poisoning, and save some lives in the process. Which had to trump anything she might, or might not, have going on in her personal life.

  Tapping her forehead against her closed fist, she said, “You’ve gotta pull it together and figure out where to go from here.”

  “I hear Maine is nice this time of year,” Jack said from behind her.

  She stiffened, heart leaping at the sound of his voice. “Jack!” She turned her chair to find him standing in the doorway, filling it with the sheer impact he commanded in clean jeans, a tight white T-shirt, shoulder holster and leather jacket. But any thought she might have had that he was suggesting a romantic getaway died the instant she saw his thunderous expression. She lowered the hand she had started to hold out to him. “Jack?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “If you want to go, then just go. Nobody’s stopping you.”

  Shock slapped through her, driving her to her feet to face him. That shock should have been followed quickly by anger, which was her usual fallback response when faced with irrationality, especially in the form of someone so much larger than her. Her hands should have balled to fists and she should have given him a “What the hell?” or some version of it.

  There was nothing usual about today, though, and there was nothing typical about the way her throat closed in hurt and dismay as he straightened away from the door-frame and crossed to her, not stopping until they stood toe to toe. He stared down at her, mouth tight, eyes as cold as if those deep lakes had frozen over to glaciers that had no hope of a thaw for a long, long time.

  She started to reach for him, but the downward twitch of his mouth stopped her, as did the sure knowledge that he didn’t want her touching him now.

  “Wait, why are you…” she began, but then trailed off as she remembered the things she’d said to get Chondra off her back when it came to him. He doesn’t figure into this, she had said. And was there anything more dismissive than that? She had also denied that he was her detective—even though that was how she’d been thinking of him for far too long—and she’d said she needed to get out of there. She had meant the basement, not the city, though she could certainly understand how he could make the leap given his own personal history. “Jack, wait. Listen. I didn’t mean—”

  “Stop,” he said sharply. “Think about it, because whatever you say next had damn well better be the truth.”

  Again, her normal response would have been anger. Again, she felt pain instead. More, she imagined his pain, as well. She hated that he’d heard the things she’d said, wished she could go back and delete them because she would have hated to hear them if the roles had been reversed. Because of that, she breathed past her instinctive and indignant denial, and said firmly, “I have never lied to you. Not once.”

  “Last night you asked me to make love to you,” he rasped. And for a second, she thought she saw pain behind the anger as he said, “Sex is just sex. Making love is the next step in a relationship, even one in fast-forward like ours.”

  Thudda-thudda went her heart, and she blew out a soft “Oh” of understanding. “Jack, no…” she began, and reached up to touch his face as she had done time and again throughout the night until it had become in a way her own private code for “It’s you, you’re really here,” which had come to matter to her more and more as the night had gone on, though not as much as he had apparently thought.

  Now, however, he flinched and backed up a step, then glared at her, and the expression immediately did away with any thought she might have had that he was in pain. The only thing she could see in him right then was a familiar sort of cold, hard judgment—the kind that said he was a cop and that meant he knew the truth of the matter, even if he didn’t really.

  It also said that she had imagined the pain she had seen, or if she’d seen the flinch for real, it had been a momentary thing. Because guys who looked at their lovers—their wives, their children—like that weren’t the kind of guys to worry about pain. That was how they lost their lovers, wives and children, after all.

  Watch the baggage, she warned herself, well aware that he’d proven to her before that he wasn’t exactly like the others, even if right now he looked far more like one of them than was comfortable for her. But she was also well aware that he could have a point, whether she liked it or not.

  “I don’t see making love as being the same thing as making a promise or commitment,” she said, trying to choose her words so it didn’t sound like she was devaluing his way of looking at things, or her own. “To me, it’s expressing the joy of liking the other person, being attracted to them, and making a mutual decision to enjoy each other’s bodies.” She paused, and when he didn’t say anything, just kept staring at her with that cold, cold look in his eyes, she said softly, “I never said anything about a relationship or a future, Jack. In fact, I was very clear two nights ago that I wasn’t looking for those things.” Why did saying that make her feel like something was tearing apart inside her when it was the truth? She continued on, though. “You were the one who said you’d had a revelation back at the encampment, that you’d changed your mind about things.”

  “Yeah, I decided that maybe it was possible for me to fall for someone in the space of a few days, and that my feelings weren’t any less important just because they grew up so damned fast.” He barked a bitter laugh. “Guess I was wrong about that one.”

  “I’m sorry, Jack,” she said on a sigh that threatened to crack as she started to realize that they’d had two totally different experiences the night before. How could they have been so exquisitely connected on every other level, and so far apart on this one?

  Moreover, deep down inside, nerves were starting to stir when it connected that what she’d been feeling from him—the intensity, the passion—had been the beginnings of what he would bring to a relationship. That wasn’t the scary part, though, because it had been magnificent. The truly terrifying thing was that she knew there was an ultimatum coming, and that it would be one she couldn’t live with, not even to get that kind of loving. Which would mean walking away from it—away from him—instead, and the thought of it tore her up inside.

  “Don’t say you’re sorry. Say you’ll stay for a while and see if there’s a chance for us together.” And, damn it, his expression softened and she saw the pain again.

  I don’t do “together” she thought as panic lumped in her throat. She didn’t say it aloud, though, because the panic wasn’t entirely coming from the fact that he was caging her in and forcing her to make a choice. Some of it—most of it—was coming from the fact that she was, for the first time in her life, tempted to say yes.

  Yes, I’ll stay, she wanted to say. Yes, I’ll give it a try. Heck, she would do better than try because she could do almost anything if she put her mind to it…and that was part of what terrified her, because if she set it as her goal to stay with Jack, make things work with him, what would she be giving up to succeed? She could just see herself getting lost in a life she hadn’t chosen, hadn’t wanted. Unless…

  She took a breath, couldn’t believe she was going to say it, but said it anyway. “How about you come with me instead? Not for long. Just for a few days, a week or so, and see how it goes?” The tentative, ineloquent offer made her once again feel awkward and out of her depth. In this case, though, she didn’t mind as much. This was a first for her, after all, and when she found herself holding her breath and searching his face for an answer, she realized it was something she wanted very, very badly indeed. She wanted to make love with him again, repeatedly, wanted to show him her world and expand the limits of his own.

  And maybe that meant she had the potential to do “together,” or at least try it, with him.

  It was only a three-count, maybe less, before he shook his head and his expression fell into one of a cop’s regret, the one that said, “Ma’am, I have bad news for you…”

  “Tori—” he bega
n, but stopped when she held up her hand.

  “Never mind. I know you’ve got your life here, your career, this case…I don’t blame you. Really I don’t.” How could she? She was a bad risk on the relationship front, and she was offering him a lifestyle he didn’t want.

  He cleared his throat, not looking cold now so much as fatally resigned. “If you won’t stay and I won’t go, then where does that leave us?”

  “Working different ends of the same case,” she said, going for a chirpy tone that she suspected fell badly short of the mark. “Which is what I should probably be getting back to, if we’re done here.”

  She didn’t wait for his response, just spun in her chair and hit the keys to pull up the first of the flagged emails. And as she stared at it, she did her damnedest not to sniffle, wipe her face or give any other indication of the tears that had gathered and broken free.

  Just go, she urged him silently. Stay mad at me and go. Because if he saw she was crying he would know she wasn’t nearly so convinced as she needed to be. And if he said anything to soothe her, she would lose it. Either way, he would know just how vulnerable she was to him right now, and that if he pushed hard enough, he might get her to agree to something that she didn’t want to do.

  Knowing that was almost as terrifying as walking across the militia encampment in a dead man’s hat and shirt, hoping to hell nobody noticed her.

  After a moment, his footsteps moved away. She heard him cross the room and head back up the stairs, leaving her sitting alone, trying to make sense of the computer screen as she swiped away her tears.

  “Damn it.” She hated crying, hated that she’d hurt him and let herself be hurt in return. Of course he wasn’t going to come with her; that hadn’t ever been on the table. For a moment there, though, she had dared to hope. And even that much had been too much. “Damn, damn, damn.”