Dangerous Ground

by Grant, Rachel

  Fiona nodded.

  “I know hafnium is an element that resembles zirconium, and it’s not found in pure form on Earth, but there’s always the potential for elements to exist in pure form in space, so a meteorite could have hafnium inclusions. I did a quick search on my own computer that night and was reminded that hafnium is spontaneously combustible in powder form. The dry powder reacts with moisture to produce hydrogen, which is of course flammable. The resulting fire can produce an irritating, corrosive—even toxic—gas. But hafnium is safe in bulk—non-powder—form.”

  “Which is why Unangax̂ tool makers could hammer a harpoon head from it without it exploding on them,” Fiona said. “But if they tried to grind the metal into shape . . . that would’ve been dangerous.”

  “Yes. Exactly. And they probably did just that.” His voice was grim. After a somber pause, he resumed his story. “It’s possible hafnium is one of the elements behind the Tunguska event—the massive explosion that occurred over a remote part of Russia in 1908, and which is believed to be a meteor strike—so we potentially have a precedent for a meteoroid with hafnium inclusions entering the earth’s atmosphere. I continued searching and learned hafnium is used in the control rods for nuclear reactors, and then a whole lot of hits for hafnium bombs and gamma ray weapons came up in the search.

  “I couldn’t get most of the articles to load, but the ones that did detailed experiments by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to create massively powerful weapons from a hafnium nuclear isomer. In theory, the isomer can store, per gram, up to ten thousand times as much energy in the nucleus as TNT, and DARPA wanted to use that potential to make gamma ray weapons. So, if the meteorite is high in hafnium . . . without the highly technical and expensive process of separating it from zirconium, it could be very, very valuable to the weapons industry. Like to the tune of billions.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Dean’s head was reeling, trying to take it all in. The euphoria of finding Dylan. The shock at his appearance—underweight, hobbling on a broken leg—and being led into the elephant bunker that had made up his hideout for the last several weeks.

  And finally learning the truth behind his disappearance.

  They’d been on the right track suspecting the meteorite was key, but the idea the material could be worth billions made the risks taken by Sylvia and Trevor more understandable. Not to mention bringing in Victor, whoever he was.

  “So they found you in the tunnels that last day, or you found them?” Dean asked.

  “Trevor and Sylvia followed me. Hoping I’d lead them to the meteorite, I think. He jumped me when I tried to leave, and we scuffled. Sylvia pulled out a gun and fired—trying to stop the fight, I think—but then the floor started to crack. Trevor shoved me down, I slammed into the crack, and the floor gave way.”

  Dylan rubbed his thigh, just below the splint. “I fell hard. I think I landed on a rock that snapped my femur. It’s kind of a blur because I also hit my head. I lay there, bleeding. In agony as Trevor and Sylvia argued about what they were going to do. How they’d explain my disappearance without triggering a search party.

  “I gathered the original plan was for me to slip off the natural bridge archway and die when I hit the rocks below. Then Trevor could say he’d watched me fall, yada yada yada. But without my body, they couldn’t do that. No way could they have anyone searching the caves or hillside for me. They might find me. They might find the meteorite. Plus, they had plans to start harvesting the chunks from the walls, as soon as they could figure out how.

  “I did the only thing I could and played dead. I was bleeding pretty badly, and my leg was busted. I figured I really was dead.”

  Dean’s eyes teared as Fiona covered her mouth with her hand. How close had he come to finding his brother’s body in that chamber?

  Dylan continued. “They were worried about the stability of the floor, so they didn’t get too close to the edge while they were talking. I knew they couldn’t see that I was still breathing, but I didn’t move other than that. Once everyone was gone from the island, they figured they could hire someone to retrieve my body and toss me out to sea. The same guys who would harvest the meteorite debris from the walls.” He glanced up. “I’m guessing this Victor guy you mentioned?”

  “Probably,” Fiona said. “Supposedly, he’s a geologist. Trevor’s replacement.”

  Dylan nodded. “But before they could worry about how they were going to retrieve my body, they had to settle on a cover story. They left me there, broken and bleeding, while they argued over what they would say. Between the moment they walked away and hearing Fiona’s scream as you fell in the pit, I haven’t heard another human voice other than my own.”

  Dean had already hugged Dylan when they first got to their feet after he rescued them from the pit, but now he reached over and grabbed him to his chest and let his tears flow. “Dammit. I was so afraid I’d lost you too.”

  Dylan hugged him back, also crying. “I wasn’t gonna do that to you. I couldn’t. Not after you lost Violet.” Then Dylan reached out and pulled Fiona into their hug. “C’mon, Fi. It’s awkward if you just watch.”

  She let out a teary laugh. “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Nah. You’re part of the family now. After what you’ve been through.”

  Dean placed a hand on Fiona’s back, closing the triangular hug, but it felt weird touching her now, even though he’d held her so many times in the last few days. He needed to let the fantasy of her go.

  She must’ve sensed his awkwardness, because she pulled away. “Why don’t you two talk while I find the latrine. Then I’ll make dinner.”

  “I’ve been using one end of the Quonset hut as a latrine and the other end as a makeshift shower. Set up a fire pit for heating water by the barrels that collect rainwater through the leaky roof.”

  “Got it. I’ll be back. You guys talk.”

  She disappeared through the round opening—yet another tunnel, albeit this one very short—leaving them alone.

  “Isn’t she great?” Dylan asked. “I knew you guys would hit it off.”

  “She’s amazing,” was all Dean could say, his belly churning. Dylan had seen them kissing. He must be cut up inside but was putting on a good face because he was happy to be found.

  “How did you two end up together? How did you get here at all? Chiksook is impossible to get to unless you’re Unangax̂.”

  Dean let out a bitter-sounding laugh. “Yeah. I know.”

  “So how’d you do it?”

  “Pollux put out a call for an ornithologist. They needed one in the field ASAP; someone reported seeing gray buntings. So I became Bill Lowell—remember him?”

  “Oh, wow. Yeah. You first met him in South America, right?”

  “Central. Costa Rica.” Bill had met Dylan when the ornithologist visited LA several months later, and the two had hit it off. “Anyway, I called in some favors and got a fake ID and ended up on the flight from Whidbey with your girlfriend.”

  “Oh, man. My girlfriend. Shit! I forgot. She’s, uh, not my girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, when she denied it, I figured it was wishful thinking. I get it. She’s amazing. And, man, I’m so sorry about what you saw; that was the only—”

  Dylan let out a sharp laugh. “What? What’s to apologize for? She’s great, and I knew you two would be great together.”

  Now Dean had to figure the whiskey had gone to his head. Or rather Dylan’s, because, come to think of it, he hadn’t had any tonight. He reached for the bottle and unscrewed the cap. “Man, you are not making sense.”

  The whiskey burned his throat, washing away the taste of Fiona’s kiss. It didn’t matter. He had Dylan back. That was the only thing in the world that mattered now.

  “I knew you’d like her. From the moment I met her, I just felt this zing.”

  “Yeah. I get it,” he said, not wanting to hear the finer details of Dylan’s infatuation.

  “I don’t think you do. But you k
now what, I’m gonna wait until Fiona gets back, because I have a feeling she needs to hear this too.”

  “Please don’t. I won’t interfere. I want you to have her.”

  Naturally, that was the moment Fiona came crawling back into the bunker. “I’d apologize for barging in sooner than expected, but . . . given what I just heard, I’m glad my flashlight busted in the fall so I came back. Now, which one of you is going to explain how I’m an object that can be given away?”

  Fiona was, in a word, furious. Did Dean Slater really think he got to decide who she’d be with? Aside from the fact that Dylan wasn’t interested in her, it was galling Dean didn’t respect her autonomy.

  She crossed her arms. Her bladder could wait—it had only been an excuse to leave the brothers alone for a bit, and once she realized she didn’t have a decent light, she’d dithered outside in the wind, trying to decide what to do. Clearly, crawling back inside had been the right choice.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “You fucked up, man.” This was from Dylan, and she couldn’t help but laugh. He got a pass. It was Dean who’d offered to hand her off like a trophy.

  The silence stretched out. Dean, the not-very-smooth operator, was at a loss for words. Finally, he broke the silence. “If Dylan is in love with you, I refuse to stand in his way. My feelings don’t matter.”

  Dylan let out an audible wince. “Ohhh. Wrong way to go, bro.”

  “So you’re saying my feelings don’t matter either?” At least Dylan understood.

  “Of course they do!” Dean said. “But if there is any chance you have feelings for Dylan . . . I just . . . I can’t get in the way.”

  “Dylan, are you in love with me?”

  “Nope.”

  She fixed her gaze on the impossibly handsome, incredibly infuriating photographer who was definitely not an ornithologist or even a halfway adept ladies’ man, if the current situation was anything to judge by.

  “Of course he says that when asked point-blank!”

  Now Dylan was laughing, and Fiona sort of wanted to laugh too. But mostly she was irritated.

  “Dylan, why did you tell your brother we were dating? Was it because of deep-seated infatuation or because you were trying to get him off your back about dating his model friend?”

  “The second one.”

  “What?” Dean said, more than a little outrage in his voice. “You said you were head over heels for her. She was the one.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes, and this time Fiona did laugh. Was there anything more absurd than hiding out in a WWII magazine on an Aleutian island with two hot fraternal-twin brothers after escaping a volcano and finding out about the possible existence of a billion-dollar meteorite and a scheme to harvest the rare earth metals for gamma ray weapons, then having the brothers argue over which one of them had the right to date her?

  “I was really, really tired of you trying to fix me up with your model friends. I didn’t want to hook up on my vacation. That’s not my speed. Never has been. I just wanted to hang out with you, so I lied to get you to drop it.”

  “But you named Fiona because you like her.”

  “Yeah. Like being the operative word.” He flashed a grin in her direction. “I think you’re great, Fi. And the moment I met you, I . . . I don’t know, I just wanted Dean to meet you. He’d been doing the no-emotion, no-commitment thing for so long, I just thought you’d be . . . I don’t know. Different. Right somehow. So when I had to come up with a name, yours popped into my head. I ran with it, thinking that when I told him the truth during our visit, I’d tell him I wanted you two to meet the next time he came up to Seattle. No pressure or anything. We could go out for drinks or catch some live music. I just wanted you two to meet.”

  She smiled at Dylan, her heart filling as she felt the genuine warmth of what had been a budding friendship blossom into something so much deeper after this bizarre, intertwining adventure. He’d been innocent of the assault on Sylvia and didn’t have any weird, unfounded obsession with her. He was just Dylan, a good man, who’d wanted to catch Pollux in their scheme. And after everything that had happened, as he’d said earlier, in an odd sort of way, she was family now. A Carver branch on the Slater tree.

  She met Dean’s gaze. He looked . . . well, deer in the headlights might be apt. “So do you believe me now when I say there’s nothing between Dylan and me?”

  Dylan’s gaze bounced between Dean and Fiona, and he said, “I think I’m going to visit the latrine. And I won’t be back for a while. At least, not without announcing myself. Loudly.” And then Dean’s brother stood with the aid of his driftwood crutches and hobbled to the opening before expertly crawling out, dragging his broken leg and pushing the crutches in front of him.

  “I still want to know how he escaped and got all the way down here with a broken femur,” Fiona murmured, saying exactly what Dean had been thinking.

  “I think my brother is pretty badass.”

  “Agreed.”

  She looked at him askance, and he saw the hurt in her eyes. He really had fucked up. Reduced her to an object. Like that dickhead who’d figured a fancy dinner at an expensive restaurant should result in a sexual transaction.

  Fiona deserved so much better than him. So much more than a guy who no longer knew how to feel. How to open up.

  She’d seen him at his most vulnerable, but even then, he hadn’t been putting his heart on the line. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to do that again. He’d given his heart to Violet, and she’d taken it to the grave.

  “And I think you’re amazing, Fi.”

  She smiled and waited.

  He cleared his throat. “And I want you. So much, it killed me thinking I needed to let Dylan have you.”

  “And that’s where you messed up. You don’t get to decide who I screw.”

  He flinched. It wasn’t the word she chose; he was a huge fan of mindless sex—it was one of his favorite things. It was the way she said it. The emotionlessness, which he never wanted to hear from such a passionate woman.

  One thing he knew about her was that if he did get her into his bed, the last thing it would be was a screw. It would be hot. Wild. A night to end all nights. A fling, but not a screw. Because Fiona didn’t do anything without passion.

  He rose from his seat by the flickering fire and approached her, his intentions—in his mind, at least—finally clear.

  He pushed her back to the cold steel wall, his body blocking her in. “I don’t want to screw you, Fiona. I’ve never wanted anything so pedestrian. I want to possess you. To make your body quiver at my touch. To make you beg for more. For my touch. For my mouth. For my cock. I want you so wild with need, you forget everything and let me fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.”

  Her beautiful green eyes widened with each word that fell from his lips as he hovered above her, pressing her to the wall.

  “Have you ever been utterly possessed, Fiona? Ever been reduced to nothing but nerve endings demanding more, more, now?”

  She shook her head. Her voice came out breathy. “No. I’ve never lost control like that, ever.”

  “Well, now I have a new goal.”

  Her nostrils flared. “You think you can just snap your fingers and I’ll beg? After everything that’s happened?”

  “Oh, no. That’s what makes this special. I am everything you think you don’t want. But still, you want me.”

  He saw his moment, and his mouth descended on hers. He hadn’t mistimed it. She was all in, right there with him. Heated up with nowhere to direct the passion until his tongue was stroking hers in a deep, carnal kiss that made all sorts of promises he couldn’t wait to deliver.

  He might not get to keep Fiona, but he would have her. And it would be glorious.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Dean’s kiss was, quite simply, raw perfection. It was fire and passion and joy and celebration and chocolate and vanilla and strawberries topped with fudge. His tongue stroked hers, and her knees turned to jell
y. But thankfully, his arm snaked around her waist, and he kept her upright so she didn’t miss a second of this sweet escape.

  She didn’t do field flings, but maybe this didn’t qualify as a fling. It was a reward. One she’d earned through quite literal sweat and tears, with a little bloodshed along the way.

  “Glad to see you two made up.”

  Dean tore his mouth from hers and sprang back from the wall. She might’ve collapsed without his support, but she locked her knees. No point in giving him that satisfaction.

  “I’m still deliberating,” she said to Dylan.

  “Looked to me like you were all in.”

  She shrugged. “He’s a good kisser; what can I say?”

  Dylan laughed while Dean gave her a look that promised delicious retribution.

  “I thought you were going to give us a heads-up when you returned,” Dean said.

  “Uh. I did. Like, repeatedly.”

  She was pretty sure Dylan was lying, but she loved him for messing with his brother that way. She pressed her fingers to her lips and blew him a kiss. She totally got Dylan. And he was the best.

  “All right, boys, I think we’ve earned a fancy dinner. We’ve got a few more thawed pieces of meat before we’re down to MREs. Dylan, as our host, you choose: chicken or beef? We finished off the salmon last night.”

  “I’m tired of fish anyway. We should probably eat the chicken before it goes bad, but frankly, I’d prefer steak if you have it.”

  “We have three strips of top sirloin,” Dean said.

  Dylan let out a soft groan. “That. Please.”

  Fiona could totally relate to his calculus. Life was short. Eat steak first. She glanced at Dean. Or have ice cream before you die.

  And that was the thought that gutted her. The realization of the truth he’d uttered before he kissed her the first time. Her anger evaporated; her ego slipped away.

  He cared about her. More than he wanted to. More, even, than he knew how to care, because he’d cut off that part of himself when he buried Violet.

  But she couldn’t get herself wrapped up in the idea that he’d give her more than a one-night stand. He wasn’t capable of more, and she really couldn’t blame him.