The Line of Duty

by Nichole Severn

  Focus on him. She could do that. She’d spent so long trying not to notice him while they worked their joint investigations, it was a nice change to have permission for once. Pins and needles spread through her feet and hands as cold worked deep into her bones. The back of the plane had been separated from the main fuselage, and the bloodied windshield had a large hole where she’d expected to see the pilot in his seat. They were in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, and temperatures were dropping by the minute. “You’re...bleeding.”

  “I’ve survived worse.” He skimmed his fingers over hers, and her awareness of how close he’d gotten rocketed her heart into her throat.

  “Worse than...a plane crash?” How was that possible? She’d read his service records, thanks to a former partner now working for the NYPD. Vincent Kalani had been assigned to the department’s Detective Bureau’s Forensic Investigations Division, collecting and analyzing evidence from crime scenes for close to ten years. Until suddenly he wasn’t. There was nothing in those files about an injury in the line of duty. In fact, it was as though he’d simply disappeared before signing on with Sullivan Bishop’s new security firm here in Anchorage.

  “I think I’ve got this loose enough to move it. You ready? I need you to push the seat forward as hard as you can.” Vincent handled the leather seat crushing her chest. “On my count. One, two, three.” Together, they shoved the debris forward, and Shea gasped as much crisp, clean air as her lungs allowed.

  “Thank you.” The pain vanished as he maneuvered the hunk of metal to the front of the plane, and a panicked laugh bubbled to the surface. Because if she didn’t have this small release, Shea feared she might break down here in front of him. The ground rumbled beneath them, and she stilled. The plane hadn’t moved. At least, not as far as she could tell. So what—

  Another shock wave rolled through the fuselage, and she tightened her grip around the backpack in her lap. “Vincent...”

  Fear cut through the relief that’d spread over his expression. “Avalanche.”

  Shea twisted in her seat, staring up at the ripples creasing through the snowbanks high above, her fingers plastered against the window. Strong hands ripped her out of her seat and thrust her toward the back of the plane. Adrenaline flooded into her veins, triggering her fight-or-flight response. The plane tilted to one side as they raced toward the back, threatening to roll with their escape. Cargo slid into her path. Her boot caught on a black duffel bag, and she hit freezing metal. The rumble was growing louder outside, stronger.

  “Go, go, go!” Vincent helped her to her feet, keeping close on her heels as the plane shifted beneath them. With a final push, he forced her through the hole where the tail end of the plane was supposed to be, but they couldn’t stop. Not with an entire mountain of snow cascading directly toward them.

  Flakes worked into the tops of her boots and soaked through her jeans. She pumped her legs as hard as she could, but it wouldn’t be enough. The avalanche was moving too fast. She was going to die out here, and everything she’d worked for—everything she’d ever cared about—wouldn’t matter anymore.

  “There!” Vincent fisted her jacket and shoved her ahead of him. “Head for that opening!”

  Trying to gain control of the panic eating her alive from the inside, Shea sprinted as fast as several feet of snow would let her toward what looked like the entrance to a cave a mere twenty feet ahead of them. Her fingers ached from the grip she kept on the backpack, but it was nothing compared to the burn in her lungs. A rush of cold air and flecks of snow blew her hair into her face and disrupted her vision, but she wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Ten feet. Five. She pumped her free arm to gain momentum. Sweat beaded at the base of her neck. They were going to make it. They had to make it. Glancing back over her shoulder, she ensured Vincent was still behind her, but the plane had already been consumed. Snow started to fall over the cave’s entrance in a thundering rush, and she lunged for the opening before it disappeared completely.

  And hit solid dirt.

  She clutched the backpack close to her chest, as if it’d bring any kind of comfort.

  Within seconds, darkness filled her vision, only the sound of her and Vincent’s combined breathing registering over the rumble of them being buried alive. She reached for him, skimming her fingertips across what she assumed was one of his arms, but the padding of his jacket was too thick to be sure. Dust filled her nostrils as she fought to catch her breath. Silence descended, the wall of snow and ice settling over the cave. “You saved my life.”

  A soft hissing sound preceded a burst of orange flame. Shadows danced over Vincent’s features, his battle-worn expression on full display in the dull flame of the lighter, and a hint of the awareness she’d felt when he’d held her hand during takeoff settled low in her stomach. Faster than she thought possible, he hauled her from the floor and pinned her against the wall of the cave and his body with one hand, her pack forgotten. “Tell me why you were on that plane.”

  His body pressed into hers. Shadowed, angry angles were carved into his features, unlike anything she’d seen before when they’d worked together. Shea pushed at him, but he was so much stronger, so much bigger. “Get off me.”

  “Before we crashed you said, ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen.’” He increased the pressure at the base of her throat, simulating the crushing debris he’d pulled off her chest mere minutes ago. “There was no reason that plane should’ve crashed unless it’d been sabotaged. You know something, and I’m not letting you go until you tell me who sent you after me—”

  Turning one side of her body into him, she struck his forearm with the base of her palm and withdrew her service weapon with her free hand from the shoulder holster beneath her jacket. She aimed center mass, just as she’d been trained, but kept her finger alongside the trigger. “Touch me again and I won’t hesitate to shoot you. Understand?”

  He backed off, easing the blood pulsing in her face and neck.

  “Nobody sent me after you, whatever the hell that means.” In the dim light of the flame, Shea swallowed the discomfort in her throat as though that would make it easier to breathe, but she wouldn’t lower her weapon. “I was on the plane because I need to get my son back.”

  Chapter Two

  “What do you mean get him back?” Shea had a son. Of all the cases they’d worked together, neither of them had revealed more than they’d had to, but a son? Why hadn’t that come up in her background check? How hadn’t he known, and why did the thought of her creating life with another man tear at the edges of the hollowness inside him?

  She lowered the barrel of her service weapon an inch, but kept the gun raised. Like the strong, stubborn, suspicious police officer he’d come to know. He shouldn’t have pinned her against the wall, her sultry scent embedded now in his lungs. But more than that, he hadn’t meant to intimidate her. Hadn’t meant to drive a larger wedge between them than already existed. “My husband—my ex-husband—he...” Swiping her tongue across her bottom lip, Shea shifted her weight between both feet, but her gaze softened in the little bit of flame they had left. “He took Wells from me.”

  The muscles down Vincent’s spine hardened with battle-ready tension. Rage, hot and fast, exploded through his veins. Her son had been taken. He could only imagine the hurt, the fear she’d had to live with this entire time, and she hadn’t said a word. Every cell in his body urged him to find the bastard responsible and make him pay, to bring her son home, but there was nothing he could do for either of them right now. Sympathy flooded through him, and he raised his hands in surrender, the lighter clutched between his thumb and palm. “You can put the gun down.”

  One second. Two. She lowered the gun to her side but didn’t holster it. Pressing her back against the cave wall, she slid to her haunches and collected the backpack she’d held on to so tightly during the flight. “Why do you think the plane was sabotaged? Flights go down all the time.
It could’ve been an accident—”

  “Because of the pilot,” he said. “He reported the gauges were fine, but the engine had stalled. My guess is someone tampered with the fuel tank. Maybe replaced the fuel with some other kind of liquid. The gauge would’ve read full, but the engine can’t run without gas.”

  “I didn’t sabotage the plane.” She nodded absently. “But I might know who did.”

  “Let me guess. Your ex.” Hell. He’d been dispatched to enough domestic cases over the years to understand the lengths some guys went to keep their girlfriends or wives from escaping, but bringing down a plane? Kidnapping a child? Vincent forced himself to breathe evenly. Any evidence that someone had messed with the plane was gone, buried as deep as if not deeper than they were at the moment. No way to confirm Shea’s ex-husband—or anyone else—was responsible, but he wouldn’t discount the possibility that her being on that plane wasn’t just a coincidence. “Tell me about your son.”

  “Wells?” Her lips tugged into a weak smile as she holstered her weapon under her jacket. Dark patches of water stained her jeans, and he realized she must be freezing right about now. The sun had already started going down when they’d woken up in the wreckage. So they’d have to make camp here tonight, get a fire going once he mapped out the rest of the cave. Maybe there was another entrance that hadn’t been buried during the avalanche. “He’s...a handful. Unlimited energy, great negotiation skills, even though he’s not old enough to talk.” A laugh escaped as she pushed her long dark hair over her head, but her smile disappeared as quickly as it come. “I found out I was pregnant a couple months after Logan and I got married. We were both so excited to be parents, but then...then everything changed.” Shadows hid her expression as Shea wiped her palms down her jeans and stood. “My ex was able to convince a judge to give him temporary custody of our son after the divorce, but I have to fight for him. Logan has been doing everything he can to keep me from seeing Wells. Sending threatening messages, having me followed, but I never thought he’d bring down a plane to keep me from getting to the custody hearing. That he would try to kill me.”

  Whoever was behind this had almost succeeded, too.

  “That’s why you were headed to New York.” Hell. And they’d just crashed in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Vincent gripped the lighter in his hand; her gaze blazed in the dim light. They’d barely escaped with their lives and had been trapped in this cave under who knew how many feet of snow. As far as rescue coming, the tower had no idea they’d gone down, and their pilot had gone missing. Maybe had even been buried in the avalanche after getting thrown from the crash site. Vincent had taken leave from Blackhawk for the next week and a half. No one would know he hadn’t made it to New York. As far as his team was concerned, he was going back home to Hawaii. So he and Shea...they weren’t going anywhere. “Did you file a complaint with the police department?”

  She hesitated, bottom lip parting slightly from the top, then shut down the slight hint of retreat as she leveled her chin with the cave floor. “I’m a cop. I can protect myself.”

  “If you can connect the messages and stalking back to him, you’ll have a stronger case, but you already know that.” Hell, she advised the same protocol when dealing with domestic violence victims on the job. Which meant she wasn’t telling him the whole truth. Closing the small distance between them, he admired the way she held her ground, the way she locked her back teeth and flexed the muscles along her jawline as though to prove how strong she was, how capable and driven. And damn, if that wasn’t one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen. “As of right now, we have to assume no one is coming to save us, but I’m going to do everything in my power to get you to that hearing.”

  “How? We’re literally trapped inside a mountain under several feet of snow, our pilot is missing and the plane is gone.” Shea ran her hands along the cave wall, shadows consuming her from head to toe. “Unless you have a couple shovels in that bag of yours and something to keep us from freezing to death, we’re on our own.”

  “Then that’ll have to be enough.” Vincent knelt beside the duffel of supplies Blackhawk Security operatives were required to carry, no matter the situation. Couple bottles of water, a day’s worth of emergency food, first aid kit, change of clothes, space blanket, lighter, small bundle of kindling, anything portable they—or their clients—might need to survive the harsh temperatures of Alaska. He unpacked his SIG SAUER from the side pocket and checked the magazine in the flame of the lighter.

  “Why are you helping me?” Her voice wavered as chills rocked through her. Shea attempted to warm herself by folding her arms across her chest, but her clothing had already been soaked through. The only thing that’d keep their bodies from sinking into hypothermia was a fire—and each other. “We’re not exactly friends. We work together occasionally. Nothing more.”

  “Either we survive together, or we die alone. I don’t know about you, but I prefer the former.” He dug a flashlight from the bottom of the bag and let the lighter’s flame die. Sweeping the beam over her, he studied the glistening wall at her back. Alaska was known for its gold and silver mines, but a handful of precious metals weren’t going to keep them warm. “Night’s already falling, so we’re not getting out of here until morning. We need to search the cave and find a spot to build a fire. Only problem is ventilation. If we don’t find the right spot and we light a fire, we’ll—”

  “Suffocate.” She turned away from him, following the flashlight’s beam up along the cavernous openings above them. “My brother was an Eagle Scout. I helped him with a lot of his merit badges.”

  “So what you’re saying is you’re going to be the one to make sure we don’t die.” Hauling the duffel over his shoulder, he ignored the pain spreading up his leg and treaded deeper into the cave. Blood trailed down the inseam of his pants and into his boots. Freezing temperatures had already worked deep into his muscles, slowing him down, but the addition of the sliver of shrapnel from the crash threatened to bring him to the edge. They had to find a place to camp and get the fire going. Only then would he worry about his leg. “Now I feel safe.”

  Her laugh curled around him from ahead, echoing off the bare walls of the cave, a deep, rich laugh he’d never heard from her before. What he wouldn’t give to witness the smile accompanying the sound, but she’d already moved a few paces ahead of him, weapon drawn once again. Caves like this were perfect for wildlife native to these mountains. Bears, wildcats. They couldn’t be too careful. “Don’t get your hopes up. I wasn’t paying that close attention.”

  A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. Of all the people who could’ve stepped foot on that plane, the second passenger had to be Shea Ramsey. Intelligent, driven, beautiful. She’d pulled at something inside him the moment she was assigned to assist one of Blackhawk’s past investigations, a need he hadn’t thought about since waking up in the middle of the crime scene he was supposed to die in.

  Darkness intensified his other senses as they felt their way deeper into the cave, his awareness of her—of the way her jeans brushed together at the apex of her thighs, of how her hair fell across her back—at an all-time high. A rush of cold air hit him square in the face, and he dragged the flashlight beam along the ceiling. There. A small opening about thirty feet up that hadn’t been covered in snow. Big enough to provide ventilation for a fire. Studying the ground around them, he kicked loose rocks and dirt away from the area. “We can build a fire here.”

  Shea rubbed her hands together in an attempt to warm herself, but it wouldn’t be enough. Not out here. “Shouldn’t we be looking for a way out?”

  “We’re not going anywhere tonight.” Vincent dropped to one knee, unpacking the lighter and small bundle of kindling from his bag. Within a minute, a fire snapped, crackled and popped. They’d been exposed to the coldest temperatures Mother Nature had to offer, and the twigs wouldn’t last all night. He straightened, tearing his jacket from hi
s shoulders, then lifted his soaked T-shirt over his head. “Do you want to be the big spoon or the little spoon?”

  * * *

  HE COULDN’T BE SERIOUS. Of all the members of the Blackhawk Security team, Vincent Kalani ranked first on the people she fought to avoid in the field, with the firm’s private investigator, Elliot Dunham, in a close second. Didn’t matter that they’d crash-landed in the middle of the mountains and had to conserve body heat. She’d freeze to death before considering stripping out of her wet clothing in front of him. She attempted to control nervous energy in her gut, her chest still aching from where she’d been pinned against her seat in the plane. Vigilantes didn’t follow the laws she’d sworn to uphold. And she didn’t trust him. “I’d just as soon spoon a bear.”

  Heat drained from her neck and face as Vincent turned toward her. Intricate tattoos stretched across valleys and ridges of muscle all along his arms, up his sides and across his chest, and his question fled to the back of her mind. Her mouth dried as she studied him, studied the scars marring the designs along his shoulders when he laid his wet clothing on the ground to dry. So many of them. Curiosity urged her to close the distance between them, to run her fingers over the waves of puckered skin to see if they felt as soft as they looked. Did the scars stretch down his back, too?

  “Considering where we are, that can probably be arranged. Although you might not live long enough to enjoy it. At least I don’t bite. Unless you ask me nicely.” His voice was gravelly. Vincent locked dark brown eyes on her, shadows dancing across his expression. Straightening to his full height, he suddenly seemed so much...bigger than he had before. He wiped his hands on his T-shirt as he approached with supple grace. “Got something you want to ask me, Officer Ramsey?”