Rogue Soldier
Dana Marton
FIRE AND ICE WERE ALWAYS A DEADLY COMBINATIONSavvy and headstrong, former special agent Tessa Nielsen could handle whatever the Alaskan wilderness threw at her: extreme cold, polar bears, even her arms-dealer captors. But what she couldn't handle was being so close to the man who'd returned to "rescue" her. Three years earlier, Mike McNair had taken her innocence, then terminated her from Special Forces. But his gallant reappearance made one thing Alaska-air clear–the heat between them was still scorching. Now, without CIA sanction, Tessa and Mike alone had to brave frigid environs to stop a shipment of nuclear warheads from leaving the country…using only their wits–and their warm bodies–to stay alive.
He was the devil’s own—but she was glad he’d come.
Tessa pulled back the gun and licked her lips to make the tingling go away. The past had slammed into her, knocking the breath out of her the moment she’d seen him. The power he had over her scared her spitless, so she’d gone on the offensive and attacked him. The only other choice she had was to collapse into his arms, and she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t give him a toehold—nothing. If she did, he would take everything and leave her empty again.
They were so close, she could smell his tangy scent, feel his breath feather her cheek. She crossed her arms tightly so she wouldn’t reach out to him in the darkness….
Rogue Soldier
Dana Marton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to Allison Lyons
for all her wonderful help.
With many thanks to Anita Staley and Jenel Looney
for their help and support. And with much appreciation to
Carmen Bydalek, Carla Gingrich, Jean Fassler and Rose Notti
of Alaska for setting me straight on a number of details. Many
thanks as well to the Nome Public Library.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dana Marton lives near Wilmington, Delaware. She has been an avid reader since childhood and has a master’s degree in writing popular fiction. When not writing, she can be found either in her garden or her home library. For more information on the author and her other novels, please visit her Web site at www.danamarton.com.
She would love to hear from her readers via e-mail: DanaMarton@yahoo.com.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Mike McNair—Member of SDDU, a top-secret military group. When he finds out that the only woman he’s ever loved is kidnapped, he goes AWOL to rush to Alaska and rescue her.
Tessa Nielsen—Tessa does not appreciate Mike’s return. But as they fight for their lives, she begins to wonder just how much he’s changed over the last few years.
SDDU—Special Designation Defense Unit. A top secret military team established to fight terrorism. Its existence is known only by a select few. Members are recruited from the best of the best, SEALs, FBI and CIA agents, elite military groups.
Brady Marshall—Mike’s old nemesis at the CIA. But what does he have to do with Tessa’s kidnapping?
Tommy Cattaro—A.K.A. Shorty. He used to be one of Mike’s best friends and is now the only person who can help Mike and Tessa out of this mess.
Tsernyakov—An elusive arms dealer, wanted on three continents. Although results of his work are well known to the authorities, his identity isn’t.
Colonel Wilson—Mike’s boss. He’s the leader of the SDDU, reporting straight to the Homeland Security Secretary.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Chapter One
Of all the stupid things he’d done in his life, this might take the cake. He didn’t even know for sure that she was still alive. All he had to go by was a partial sentence in a two-page report he wasn’t supposed to have seen: “team was unable to recover the second body.” Not exactly a beacon of hope, considering that the other researcher had been found half-eaten by bears.
Mike McNair crept across the snow, each step placed with care. He didn’t want to crunch the icy mess underfoot. The sled dogs were upwind so they couldn’t smell him. He had to make sure they didn’t hear him, either, now that the squalls had died down and the afternoon was shrouded in the absolute silence that existed only in the farthest reaches of the world.
The enemy was inside, all six of the men. He hoped Tessa was with them.
A gun would have come in handy under the circumstances, but his rifle lay in the snow on the bottom of an inaccessible ravine, next to his backpack of supplies. It could have been worse—he could have been killed when the ledge gave way under him.
He hadn’t been. He’d made it, and he would get Tessa back, no matter what it took. Then he would do the best damn fast-talking he’d ever done in his life and convince the Colonel to overlook this little adventure.
Fat chance of that. Wake up, buddy, and smell the court-martial.
People didn’t go AWOL from the SDDU every day. The Special Designation Defense Unit, a top-secret military team founded only five years ago, consisted of elite soldiers, the best of the best.
Mike moved forward in a crouch, inch by inch until he reached the silvery white, steel-reinforced mobile research vehicle that was designed to house two scientists and their lab equipment and was strong enough to withstand a polar bear attack. Snow partially obscured the CRREL logo on the side—Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.
The bitter cold made his eyes water. Couldn’t be more than twenty degrees this morning. The pilot who had dropped him in three days ago told him it was the best weather they’d seen at this time of the year in a long time. He hoped Tessa and he would be out of here before the temperature dropped.
He blinked as he turned and walked back to the edge of the Alaskan alders where he’d trampled the snow into an unrecognizable array of tracks earlier. Careful to place his boots exactly in the first set of prints that led to the vehicle, he returned to it and looked back to examine his handiwork—footwork, really. It looked good.
To anyone but the most trained observer, the two sets of tracks looked like someone had come over to the trailer, then gone back to the woods. He counted on the element of surprise, that the men would focus on finding out who was out there spying on them, and wouldn’t notice that the tracks leading to the vehicle were a millimeter or two deeper than the ones leading away.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the greasy paper he had collected that afternoon, along with a handful of other garbage the wind had blown from the trailer into the grove of trees. He rolled everything together then lit the end with one of his few remaining waterproof matches and held the smoking mess up to the vent hole.
No sound came from inside.
If Tessa was alive and unharmed, he would be content to take her and leave the men to the CIA. If she’d been hurt in any way, all bets were off.
A couple of minutes passed before he heard the door slam open on the other side. Play time. He leaped around the corner and dove under the vehicle, rolled to the middle. Four pairs of legs came around in fur boots.
“Where’s the fire?”
“Ja nye znau.” The response came in Russian. I don’t know.
The boots stopped at his tracks.
“What the hell is this?”
The Russian called something back to the men in the trailer, then the four headed off toward the woods.
Mike ducked out on the other side, pulled his white parka over as much of his face as he could and banged on the door.
“Pahchemu tu—”
The door opened, and his mind registered the two men inside, Tessa tied up on the floor in the corner. She had a dark bruise on her face. And just like that, his plan of not doing more damage than necessary to her captors was forgotten.
The man standing in the doorway didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence.
Mike crushed the guy’s windpipe with one well-aimed strike a split second before the other man went for his gun and he had to jump him. He brought the guy down, shoved his index finger behind the trigger to make sure the weapon couldn’t be discharged. He didn’t want the others coming back in a hurry.
“Who the hell are you?” The man was gasping for air, his voice hoarse but recognizably American.
At least one of the four outside was a local boy, too. A joint operation? None of it made any sense. The man pulled a knife from somewhere with his free hand, but Mike finally got a good grip on the guy’s head and heaved. The neck broke with a small pop, like cracking knuckles.
He paused to listen for anyone coming from outside, then a second later he was pulling the rags out of Tessa’s mouth. She swallowed, ran her tongue over her dry lips, pushing her bound hands toward him.
“I should have gotten here sooner, honey. Are you all right?” He crushed her to his chest for a heart-stopping moment. She was alive. He hadn’t been too late. She was alive.
He set her away to look at her and free her from the ropes. They had to get out of here fast.
“You bastard,” was the first thing she said to him, her voice as hard as her eyes.
He stared at her for a second, a little hurt by the obvious anger on her face. Hell, she wasn’t still mad at him, was she?
“Good to see you, too, hon. If I get these ropes off, you’re not gonna hit me, are you?” He was cutting as he spoke. They didn’t have any time to waste.
Tessa didn’t seem to realize that. The second her hands were free, she socked him in the jaw with full force.
He teetered back. “Damn. What was that for?”
But she was already collecting the two rifles from the dead men and shrugging into a parka. Then she was out the door.
The woman moved fast.
He rushed after her, scanning the woods, but saw no sign of the men. They were probably searching for him farther in the forest. With a little luck, they’d keep at it for a while.
He caught up with Tessa by the pair of sleds—one metal, one wood—two crates on each. He figured explosives, from what he’d seen in that report. The dogs were harnessed and ready to go, jumping and yipping as they greeted her, but she silenced them quickly. She got on the metal sled, and he went to cut the leather harness on the other.
What the hell?
Her dogs were moving, leaning into the work. The sled broke loose of its snow bed with a jerk then slid forward smoothly. She meant to leave without him.
He had to run to jump on. “Come on, you can’t still be mad at me.” He shoved off one of the crates to make room for himself, and almost tipped the sled, sending the dogs into momentary disarray.
“Haa!” She snapped the whip above the animals’ heads, her ice-blue eyes locked onto his face.
She looked exactly as he’d remembered her—magnificent with her generous lips and all that red hair escaping from her hood. The sight of her was like a sharp elbow in the chest.
Damn, he should have looked her up sooner.
“I went past mad a couple of years back, McNair. I’d just as soon shoot you as look at you.”
She wasn’t kidding. The fierce emotion on her face would have knocked a lesser man on his ass. Where had that come from? He hung on as the dogs picked up speed.
“Could we—” The rapid gunfire coming from the woods cut him off.
She tossed him one of the rifles. “Make yourself useful.”
He did, spraying the edge of the forest. A moment of silence passed before response came.
They were out in the open, no place to take cover, and if he was correct, they were sharing the sled with some serious explosives—a hell of a target. He moved to shove the second crate off, then stopped. They were going pretty fast now. If he tipped the sled, if the dogs got tangled—if they slowed at all—they were as good as dead.
They would only have to make it the next few hundred feet to be out of range. If the men were stupid enough to leave the cover of the woods and come after them, he could pick them off one by one.
“Haa!” Tessa urged the dogs faster, and they gave her everything they had as if sensing the humans’ desperation.
Bullets sprayed the snow around them, sending up powdery puffs of white. Just a little more. He did his best to get the men, but it was hard to take out people he couldn’t see. All he could do was aim in the general direction where he figured the men were hiding behind trees and snowdrifts.
Then he glimpsed one who stepped out too far, and took aim, squeezing off a round at the same time as the man. Mike watched him fold slowly onto the snow as he heard a loud yelp from one of the dogs and the sled jerked sharply, the huskies slowing and tangling the line.
Which dog? He was in the snow on his feet, ignoring the bullets that kept coming. It was the black female husky with the light stripe across her shoulders—red spread on her hind leg, staining the snow.
He grabbed the dog and sliced the leather that bound her to the harness, picked her up and jumped on the sled with her on his lap.
“Haa!” Tessa yelled to the rest, straightening the line.
The dogs listened to her and picked up speed again.
“That’s Sasha. How’s she doing?”
The dog yipped at him as he probed around the wound. “Easy, girl. I’m going to take care of you. Nothing to worry about.” He talked to her in a soothing voice, petting her, allowing her time to get used to his scent. “Went clear through,” he said to Tessa. At least they didn’t have to worry about the bullet.
He let the dog lick the wound for a few seconds before he pushed her head away and slid his scarf off his neck to use as a bandage. He barely got it tied when the dog bent to pull it off.
“Sasha.” Tessa’s voice was firm.
The dog stopped pulling at the scarf, but was now trying to squirm out of his hold and get off the sled.
“Stay,” Tessa said.
And Sasha finally lay her head on his lap with a pitiful whine of protest. Man, he felt bad for her. That bullet had been meant for him.
“Take it easy, girl. You’ll be fine.” He scratched her behind the ear.
The sled flew over the snow. They were out of firing range, but the men were still shooting, wasting bullets. He pressed his palm against Sasha’s wound, hoping the pressure would stop the bleeding.
“How bad?” Tessa asked.
“She’ll live if we don’t run into any more trouble and can get help soon.”
Tessa nodded and kept a good pace, calling to the dogs to spur them on, ignoring him for the next couple of miles.
“Where is your base camp?” She switched to a lower pace once the huskies tired.
“I don’t have one.”
“Your supplies?”
He shook his head, annoyed that he was embarrassed. He had tracked her down in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, rescued her from a group of terrorists. How in hell did she manage to make him feel as if that were insufficient?
“So you came to get me because you didn’t want to starve and freeze alone?” She flashed him a look of contempt as only Tessa could.
God, she was gorgeous.
“They would have killed you.” He rubbed Sasha behind the ears.
“Did it occur to you that I might have had a plan?”
No it hadn’t. He’d heard that her research station had been attacked by some nutcases who were planning to blow up a chunk of the Alaskan pipeline, and he’d rushed after her against explicit orders that the SDDU was to stay out of this one since the CIA was handling the case.
He’d been lucky to dig up as much information as he had. He’d never seen a case more hushed up. The Colonel about had a stroke when Mike had asked to be allowed to get involved whether the CIA wanted him or not. Apparently, the agency’s director had been making a bid to bring the SDDU under his supervision. One wrong move from anyone in the Special Designation Defense Unit, and the whole group could cease to exist as they knew it.
A fat snowflake floated onto his nose, then more and more came, chasing each other down from the endless gray sky. For once he didn’t mind. Snow would cover their tracks.
“So what was your plan?” He pulled his hood closer to his stinging cheeks, as the wind picked up and the clouds began dumping their loads in earnest, reducing visibility to a few yards. He shifted to shield Sasha from the elements as much as he could.
“Have them drive around in circles until fuel ran out, then take the dog teams and leave them stranded,” she said.
“Could have worked.”
“Whoa!” She pulled on the reins and brought the team to a slow halt. “Let’s give them a little rest.” She stepped off the back runners and came straight to Sasha, knelt in the snow and buried her face in the dog’s fur, murmuring words of reassurance he couldn’t understand.
“Come on, let me see you,” she said as she lifted the dog off his lap and took her into her arms. “You’re such a good dog.”
She checked the bandage, and he was happy to see no fresh blood gush forth when she pulled up the edge.
“Why don’t you set that up?” She nodded toward the jumble of furs he’d been sitting on.
“They’ll catch up with us.”
“Not yet. You cut the harness on the other sled. None of them can mush dogs worth anything, anyway. The weather is turning for the worse. We’re better off letting the huskies rest now so they’ll be ready to cover serious ground when the snow clears out.”
She made sense. He yanked at the furs. They were all connected, a patchwork that made a good-size cover, at least ten by ten or so, the large polar bear fur in the middle surrounded by wolf pelts. He spread it and crawled under it, held up one end to let her in when she came back with the dogs. The shelter was pretty low, supported by their heads as they sat on the sled, uncomfortable.
He took one of the rifles and jammed it upright into the front of the sled, using it as makeshift tent pole. One of the dogs growled at him when he stepped too close.
“They’ll get used to you,” she said.
He couldn’t resist needling her. “Scared to be alone with me? I thought these puppies could handle the cold.”
“They can. They’re here to keep us warm.” She didn’t rise to the bait.
Well, what do you know? She had matured.
Man, things had changed. For one, three years ago they sure hadn’t needed a dog team for heat. Their wild and crazy escapades had been plenty hot.
Obviously, she didn’t feel that way about him anymore. Walking out on him with the parting words “Drop dead” should have given him a clue.
He’d been hoping for a warmer reunion, had entertained some fantasies while sleeping in the snow on the way to her—about Tessa Nielsen jumping into his arms in gratitude. Of course, the woman never could appreciate a good rescue. He should have remembered that.
Sasha slid from between them, abandoning the humans for her canine family. Thank God her injury wasn’t worse.
“Reminds me of one of Grandpa Fergus’s stories about a whole winter he spent in a cave in the highlands,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
She was mad all right. She used to love his Grandpa Fergus stories.
They huddled in the dark silence of the tent. He assessed their situation and tried to come up with a workable plan, but it wasn’t easy with Tessa right next to him.
He could have recognized her by scent alone. She’d never been one for perfumes, but she had her own unique feminine essence that made him think of soft warm places and the way she would taste if he pressed his lips against her neck just below her ear. The way her eyes would glaze over if he dragged his day-old stubble over that sensitive patch of skin.
“So you and this Dr. Lippman, living out on the snowfields for months at a time, were…” He voiced the question that had been bugging him for days.
Two dogs snapped at each other, and she recognized them from sound, called them by name and calmed them down before returning her attention to him.
“Lovers? Is that what you want to know?”
The idea hurt. Man, he was an idiot. What had he expected? A woman like Tessa had probably had a dozen lovers in the past three years. Hell, she could get anyone. “Never mind.”
“We tried, but it didn’t work. We were much better at being colleagues than being a couple.”
Some of the tension seeped out of his shoulders. He held back the need to ask what exactly “tried” meant. He wished he could see her face, but it was pitch-dark, their makeshift tent smelling like eau-de-wet-dog.
He moved closer in the direction of her voice, and they bumped knees. She pulled away.
She didn’t fool him, though. No way had she forgotten what they’d once had between them. She was probably hurt that he hadn’t come after her before this. Hell, he would have, but he’d been on one overseas assignment after another.
He remembered every damn night they’d ever spent together—in detail. No time like the present to refresh her memory. He reached out and found her, cupped her face.
“I missed you,” he whispered before lowering his mouth to hers.
Her lips were soft and warm, and he sank into the sensation awakening his body from head to toe. He tasted the corners, not wanting to push, even as he burned for the rest of her. Then he felt the barrel of a gun press against the soft spot under his chin.
“Get away from me, McNair,” she said, her voice as cold as the gunmetal.
SHE HATED THE WAY her body responded to him still, like a dog to the voice of his master, panting and jumping with excitement. Mike McNair did not control her. Not anymore. She’d worked hard to exile his memory and the emotions tangled up with it.
Tessa pulled back the gun and licked her lips to make the tingling go away. He was the devil’s own. God, she was glad he’d come. Just this once. Even if she would never admit it out loud.
The past had slammed into her, knocking the breath out of her the moment she’d seen him. The power he had over her scared her spitless, so she’d gone on the offensive and attacked him. The only other choice she had was to collapse into his arms, and she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t give him a toehold. If she did, he would take everything and leave her empty again.
They were so close she could smell his tangy scent, feel his breath feather her cheek. She tucked her hands under her armpits so she wouldn’t reach out to him in the darkness.
This was the man who took her virginity, ruined her career and broke her heart. In that order. Mike McNair was nothing if not thorough.
“Remember Captain Tchaikovsky?”
Of course she did. She grinned at the memory, glad it was dark and he couldn’t see her. Captain Tassky had been one mean SOB, called Tchaikovsky because he was considered a regular nutcracker. He was also the man who had sent Mike and Tessa into the woods with nothing but a pup tent and one knife between them for a two-week survival exercise. Which was exactly what Mike wanted her to remember.
“I haven’t thought about Special Forces in ages,” she lied.
“I thought about you every day,” he said in a quiet voice.
Damn it. Why did he have to be like that?
His uncanny ability to unsettle her without half trying drove her mad.
“Remember how it used to be?”
Right. Sex. That’s what he was all about. “Not really,” she lied again, hating that she had to. It should have been true. She should have forgotten it, him, long ago. There had been other men in her life, in her bed, whom she did barely remember, but she still recalled Mike’s touch with sharp clarity.
No way were they going to discuss sex. “They won’t all come after us. Maybe two. At least one will stay with the other three crates at the research vehicle. They’ll be faster than us. It won’t take them much to fix the other sled. We’ll be slowed by the weight of the crate we got.”
“How long do the dogs need to rest?”
They’d done a brief stint of Arctic training, but it hadn’t involved dogs. In that, at least, he would have to defer to her. “An hour would be fine, we haven’t come that far, but we can’t go out there until visibility improves. I don’t want to run them onto sharp ice or into a ravine or a creek.”
She fell silent for a moment. “I hate leaving the other team behind.”
“Why didn’t you bring them?”
“We’ll be lucky if we can feed the ones we’ve got. The rest are better off at the trailer. It’s stocked for them.”
“Makes sense.” He looked up as the wind shook their cover. “Did I mention I spent last winter in Siberia?”
“Doing what? The Russian Army has exchange students now?”
“Not exactly.”
Damn him. He’d been on some secret mission. She should have been going on secret missions instead of stuck in research for the past eight months. She hoped he had frozen his ass off. No, no, she wasn’t going to think about him in terms of body parts. That would take her down the slippery slope as fast as an avalanche.
“We have a good sled and good dogs,” he said. “We’re dressed for the weather. While we’re trapped here, we can get some rest, inventory our resources and figure out a plan.”
Not bad. He had gotten in all three points under “eliminating fear and increasing your chances for survival” within two minutes flat: have confidence in your superior—which he apparently considered himself—have confidence in your equipment, focus on the task at hand. Captain Tchaikovsky would have been proud.
“We have the dogs, the sled, the furs and some extra wood.” She rapped on the crate. “Two good rifles.”
“A good knife, waterproof matches and a small survivor kit,” he added.
She went through the pockets of the parka she’d taken. Her left hand came out with a bottle, the right with a cell phone. “Check this out.” She handed them to him, pulling back too fast when their fingers touched.
“Well now, what’s the challenge in this? We’re as good as out of here.” The bottle cap squeaked as he unscrewed it, the air immediately filling with the smell of cheap booze.
“You still go out with the boys?”
“I lost touch for the most part. I’m not in the army anymore.” He screwed the cap back on.
She’d figured that from his comment about Siberia. As friendly as things were between the U.S. and Russia now, they weren’t doing sleepovers just yet. “CIA?” He used to talk about giving that a try back in the old days.
“For a while.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m here.”
Fine. “Are you going to make that call?”
He was some kind of special commando, while she was in the U.S.A.C.E., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Hands down he had to have better connections.
He was dialing already. “No signal.” He closed the flap with a click.
“We can try again once the storm passes.”
“You could debrief me in the meanwhile. What happened with those men?”
She closed her eyes. Oh, damn. She didn’t want to think about that now. Guilt was eating at her still, and anger for letting them take her so easily. She took a deep breath as Mike waited. Might as well get it over with.
“They came in the middle of the night. Roger opened the door. They shot him right away.” She swallowed. “I don’t suppose they viewed me as much of a threat. They didn’t look like they knew what the hell they were doing, so I convinced them I could help. Told them I was an Arctic survival expert.”
“You always thought quick on your feet.”
The small compliment, the acknowledgment of her abilities, felt ridiculously good. Especially since she’d been beating herself into the ground over what she had and hadn’t done, for not being able to save Roger.
Mike was moving around, but she couldn’t see what he was doing. Probably just settling in.
“Did they hurt you?” His fingers brushed against her bruised cheek, but withdrew almost immediately.
“I tried to get away and fell down the steps, banged my head against the side of the trailer. My feet were bound,” she told him, hating to admit her failure.
He said nothing for a while, until she thought he might have fallen asleep.
“They were coming from the direction of the pipeline instead of going toward it,” he spoke up suddenly. “But they still had the explosives. Doesn’t make any sense.”
“Pipeline? We weren’t anywhere near the pipeline.”
“Exactly.” He paused. “I came across some classified information. Supposedly, those men are in some radical environmentalist group. A few miles of the pipeline are shut down for repair. They were looking to blow it up.”
“Nothing was said about that. They were definitely heading home. They sounded pretty happy about their mission. The only glitch was, the plane that was supposed to pick them up went down in the mountains in that storm five days ago.”
“Odd. Lift up a corner of this cover for a second, would you?”
She slid over and did so on the opposite side from where the wind was blowing, letting in some light. Mike already had his knife in hand, going at the crate. She propped the opening with a rifle and went to help him. “TNT?”
“That’s my best guess.”
The wood protested loudly, but after a few seconds the lid popped off. Mike picked through layers of padding before the smooth sheen of metal became visible. His hands stilled.
She didn’t have to have the symbol of yellow triangles explained to her.
Far more disturbing than a pile of explosives, the crate they cradled between them housed a small nuclear warhead.
Chapter Two
“Something tells me those guys are not ticked-off environmentalists.” Mike swore as he put the crate’s lid back on. This changed everything.
Snow swirled into the tent, but he barely saw it. Did the CIA know about this? A number of things made perfect sense suddenly. Did the Colonel know?
“Weapons dealers?” Tessa went to check on Sasha.
Apparently satisfied with the dog’s condition, she removed the propped rifle and let the cover drop, shrouding them in darkness once again, closing off the cold that had been pouring in.
“It’s ours.” He stared in the direction of the warhead, although he could no longer see the crate. “I’m guessing the American half of the group was selling it to the Russians, then the plane crashed and they got stuck here. How did they get to you?”
“Snowmobiles. They were just about out of gas.”
“What I want to know is, where the hell did they get the warheads?”
The wind whistled down the plain, shaking their flimsy shelter, but enough snow had fallen to have buried the edges and keep them frozen in place. He bounced the furs on top to shake off accumulation, to avoid the “roof” collapsing on them. A few tears here and there in the stitching allowed for air. They wouldn’t suffocate as long as they didn’t let the snow completely bury them.
“Where did you get this old thing?” He ran his fingers over the coarse fur.
“From the Inupiat.”
“Close by?”
“About fifty miles west. But they’ve already gone to their winter camp.”
“What were you two still doing here?”
“We had a plane pick up scheduled for…” She thought for a moment. “Yesterday. Since we were planning on flying out, we didn’t have to worry about an early snowfall closing Black Horse Pass.”
“As best as I can remember the map, the nearest town should be about a hundred miles south?”
“On the other side of the foothills. We couldn’t take the sled.”
“How are your dogs at hunting?”
“That’s not what they were trained for, but I suppose once they get hungry enough their instincts will kick in.”
“I can carry Sasha, maybe make her a travois.” The dog should be able to walk some, the wound wasn’t that bad, but there was no way she could keep up with the others over long distances.
“There’s a permanent Inupiat village about sixty miles northwest. We can make it there on the sled and wait for the rescue team. They’ll have an easier time finding that than spotting us among the snowdrifts or in the woods.”
Sixty miles. A hell of a lot closer than the town to the south. Still. “I hate the thought of going farther north. Any polar bears around here?”
“They’d be closer to the coast. If we come across any surprises, we have good guns.”
She sounded calm and confident, reminding him of the jams they had fought themselves out of together. And that, of course, reminded him of the steamy nights they’d spent in each other’s arms.
“So what are the chances of us picking up where we left off?”
He heard her swallow.
“We left off with you drunk and a half-naked woman in your hotel room.”
“Before that?”
“You mean when you got me kicked out of Special Forces training and destroyed my dreams?”
“I’m not going to apologize for saving your life.”
She was too stubborn to admit that she would not have made it through the obstacle course in the Florida Everglades, but he remembered the day in crystal-clear detail. He could be stubborn, too. Was he not a Scotsman by blood? She had scared ten years off his life.
She’d been sick with fever and weak from bleeding, hanging on to life by a thread after she’d fought off an alligator. She’d lain half under the beast without moving when he’d found her, and he had thought for a moment that she was dead. Turned out she’d just been collecting her strength to push off the gator. She’d had a badly broken collarbone, her body covered in bruises and cuts, some of which looked infected.
The sight of her had made him forget the test, the only thought in his mind to get her to medical help, to get her to safety. At the end, he’d gotten a special commendation for saving a teammate, while she’d gotten the boot. She had failed the course and lost her chance with Special Forces. When she’d been released from the hospital four days later, still steamed at him, he had made things worse by being drunk.
She had left, and obviously she had moved on.
He sure as hell hadn’t pictured that during the lonely nights he’d spent thinking about her. He’d pictured her waiting, regretting her rash actions. Mostly, he’d pictured their reunion in detail. It hadn’t looked anything like this.
He had deluded himself into thinking their breakup was temporary, that she would come back or that, if she didn’t, he would go after her and charm her back to him. But he’d barely been in the country in the past few years. The odd week here and there he’d spent tracking her down as she’d moved around, and by the time he’d found her, it was time to leave again, without a chance to actually contact her.
He had never for a moment figured that by the time they hooked up again, it would be too late.
“Listen, about the women… They were there for Shorty.” And he’d trounced Shorty good afterward for his role in the breakup, before he realized it wasn’t Shorty’s fault. He had the right to whatever entertainment he chose. Mike was the stupid idiot who’d thought his worries for Tessa would be best drowned on the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
“I swear to God,” he said. “We went out with the guys and I drank a little too much. I was worried about you. I went back to the room and passed out. I woke up five seconds before you came in. Shorty must have brought the girls back. Can you believe he’s married now?” He tried to change the subject. “Caught in the net. Never thought I’d see that happen.”
She didn’t look amused.
“I’m telling you the truth. I’ve been telling you the truth from the beginning.”
“I didn’t believe you then, and I don’t believe you now.” The steel in her voice told him she had made up her mind a long time ago.
Frustration pumped up his volume. “That’s your problem, babe. Maybe if you trusted me more we would have lasted.”
HIS WORDS HUNG in the musky air of the tent. Tessa wrapped her arms around herself. This couldn’t be real.
He couldn’t be here. She was dreaming. The pain she had gone through after she’d left Mike three years ago, the long months she’d spent miserable without him, on the verge of going back and forgiving everything against all reason—she couldn’t have made it through all that for nothing. She couldn’t go back there. She had enough need for self-preservation to save herself, didn’t she?
“If the weather doesn’t hold us up too long, we can be a third of the way to the village by tonight. Starting out at first light, we’ll definitely make it by noon tomorrow, the latest,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice, glad for the darkness that hid her face.
“That eager to get rid of me, huh?”
He didn’t know the half of it. Because as much as she had convinced herself over the past couple of years that she was over him, his reappearance in her life made one thing Alaskan-air clear: she wasn’t even close.
“We weren’t good together then, we wouldn’t be good together now. Nothing’s changed.”
The wind picked up and roared like a grizzly bear. Winter was coming. The faster they were out of here, the better—for a multitude of reasons.
“How can you say that?” Anger laced his voice. “We were great together. You left me the first time everything didn’t come off perfect.”
The accusation hurt.
Everything about Mike McNair hurt. It wasn’t right. Love shouldn’t be this painful. And she wasn’t even in love with him anymore; the part of her heart that had held him once had been beaten numb.
They sat in silence until the wind stopped outside. She pulled up a corner of their cover, struggling with the weight of the fallen snow. “Better get moving.” She looked out, holding her breath against the biting cold that met her. It wasn’t snowing anymore, the wind had pushed the clouds to the east. The sun was low on the horizon, as always this time of the year, even at noon. They had about two hours of daylight left—still enough time to make some progress before they hunkered down for the night.
She propped up the opening and moved over to the dogs. “How are you doing, Sasha?” She scratched behind the dog’s ears and under her chin, smiling when Sasha licked her hands.
The rest of the huskies got up and came for their share. “All right Blackie. No need to be jealous.”
She took a minute or two to make sure each got some attention. She would be requiring a lot from them, with no guarantee for their safety or even dinner when they stopped for the night.
“Ready?” She glanced at Mike, who was doing his best to bond with the few curious huskies that went to check him out.
She trudged outside into snow that was a foot higher—three feet on the wind side where it was piled up against their shelter in a snowdrift. The dogs followed her without having to be told, jumping in the freshly fallen snow that would make sledding difficult until it froze hard enough to go on top of it instead of having to struggle through the loose mess. Snowshoes would have worked better on something like this. But even if they had them, they couldn’t leave the dogs and the crate behind.
She harnessed the huskies while Mike wrestled the fur cover from the snow and put it back on the sled. He made a bed from it for Sasha and put her in the middle. Sasha protested halfheartedly, wanting to jump off, but in the end, decided to obey his command.
“I’ll walk for a while,” he said.
“Haa!” She set the dogs into motion without getting on the back runners, giving them a break.
She ran alongside the sled, behind Mike. They couldn’t keep it up for long, but every little bit counted. The easier they were on the dogs, the longer they would be able to pull. Now that Sasha was out, the rest had to compensate.
The silence was like a wall around them, a solid presence, broken by nothing but the sounds of the sled, their feet on the snow, their breath that came harsher as they went on. Alders and spruce covered the gently elevating hillsides to the south of them, open snowfields as flat as an ice rink ahead to the northwest, the way they were headed.
The beauty of the untouched landscape was overwhelming, humbling. It calmed her, helped her to center herself, to focus, the edginess of the close quarters of the shelter leaving her, her lungs filling with fresh air.
A wolf howled in the forest behind them, and the dogs picked up their heads. Blackie, the lead husky, pointed his nose to the sky and answered.
The snow came to the dogs’ bellies, and they were struggling, their progress slow. They covered miles that way before the going got easier and she finally got up on the back runners. Mike squeezed on the sled next to Sasha, facing the dog team. She didn’t realize that he was on the phone again until she heard him talking.
“Mike McDonald here. I’m ready to be picked up. I’m heading to an Inupiat village about two hundred miles northeast from where you dropped me off.”
“Povongjuag,” she said, and he repeated it.
“Whatever the price, man. Name it.” He listened for a while before swearing and closing the phone.
He turned to her with a dark expression. “The pilot who dropped me off can’t pick us up. This whole area has been declared restricted airspace.”
Considering the nuclear warheads, that didn’t seem unreasonable. Except— “Aren’t you working for whomever declared the restriction? Why wouldn’t they send a chopper for you?”
He swore again. “I chartered a private plane.”
“You’re here without authorization, aren’t you?” God, she was stupid for not having figured it out before. But there had been too much other stuff to think about. His being alone made sense now. She had expected more of a SWAT style rescue if anyone came for her, but being saved suddenly and seeing Mike of all people had thrown her for a loop and she’d forgotten to question the odd details.
“Authorization or not, they’ll still come and get you if you ask for it.”
“The Colonel is going to fry my ass for this one.” He dialed again. “McNair.”
He was silent for a long time, his face closed. Apparently, his colonel had a lot to say to him. Judging by his expression, none of it was good.
“I would appreciate some help on this one, Colonel.” Another pause.
“There is one man I trust over there, an old buddy of mine. Tommy Cattaro. If you can get in touch with him—”
Another long silence.
“Yes, Colonel. Povongjuag. It’s an Inupiat village. We should be there sometime tomorrow. I could use a secure phone. There are a couple of things I need to debrief you on.”
He listened again. “No, Colonel.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“That was not my intention, sir.”
“Is there an official rescue team?” she asked when he hung up.
“Somewhere, I suppose. The CIA is handling the case.”
“Is that where Shorty is now?” Tommy Cattaro, aka Shorty, wasn’t on the top of her favorites list, but if he could get them out of here, she’d make nice with him.
“We went over from Special Forces together. We worked a few cases on the same team before I got recruited to—someplace else,” he said. “Nobody but the agency is allowed in on this one. That’s why I had to go AWOL from my own unit. What would you have wanted me to do? I couldn’t sit around waiting for—”
“AWOL? Are you crazy?” She stared at him.
He looked her in the eye. “You know how you used to blame me for not making it into Special Forces?” He blinked. “Consider us even.”
She had trouble digesting the information. He had put everything on the line for her. She didn’t know what to do with that thought, where to fit that knowledge. If he still cared that much for her— No. She wasn’t going down that road ever again.
“So where did you go AWOL from?” The best way to stop him from getting to her was to keep him on his toes about his own business.
“We’re going to have to go around that.” He pointed at the forest of alders and spruce in front of them that reached like a finger into the frozen landscape to the north.
He was ignoring her question. She’d pretty much expected him to do just that. There was nothing she could do to make the man talk, if he didn’t want to.
“Gee!” She turned the dogs to the right when they were still a good fifty yards from the trees, taking advantage of both the flat terrain and the windbreak the woods provided.
Ten minutes passed, then half an hour. She was thirsty, but not enough to stop and melt snow. Night would fall soon; darkness came by 3:00 p.m. this time of the year. They would have to stop and make camp, anyway. Had the cloud cover not built back up, the snow would have reflected enough moonlight to go by, but that was not the case.
Mike pushed off his hood and turned his head to the sky.
She did the same and heard the helicopter, slowed the dogs, fired her gun and waited. Sound carried incredible distances in the silence of the snowfields. The rumbling of the chopper weakened. Damn. The rescue team was heading away from them. Then the sound picked up again. The helicopter came over the top of the trees in a couple of minutes.
Mike was already on his feet, waving.
The Apache—CIA logo on the side—lowered between them and the trees, the noise scaring the dogs. She brought the sled to a complete halt and got off, followed Mike who was already running forward. She would have to ask the pilot to turn off the rotors or she’d never get the huskies on.
The chopper hovered in place. Mike was slowing in front of her, held up his hand as if in warning. She knew how to approach a landing helicopter, for heaven’s sake. The training they’d received together hadn’t been that long ago. She ignored him.
Snow swirled around them as the chopper’s blades stirred up the air. She put her head down and stopped, waiting for the bird to set down. The bullets that hit around her took her by surprise.
What on earth? She threw herself to the snow and looked around. Did the gun smugglers catch up? She glanced up, expecting to see the chopper covering them, but instead, the man she spotted in the open door was aiming at Mike.
Nobody else on the ground, but them. No smugglers. She scanned the area behind her. They were clearly the ones under attack from the CIA chopper.
It didn’t make any sense. This was supposed to be the rescue team. Mike had called in their location.
He seemed to have recovered from his surprise before she did and was shooting back, making the bird pull up sharply and bank to the right. Then her training and instincts finally kicked in and she sprinted for the woods.
She stopped halfway there, hesitated, looked back to the dogs. She’d left her rifle on the sled. If she could get that and the huskies… Mike was running, too, twisting now and then to squeeze off another shot, jumping over piles of snow as he went.
“Come on!” he shouted as he passed her.
They were close to the woods, twenty yards, ten, there. They didn’t stop for a while, spurred on by bullets hitting the trees behind them.
After a minute or two, the shooting stopped.
“We have to go back and get the dogs.” She was breathing so hard, she had to bend over. Sitting in a research trailer month after month, doing nothing but data analysis, had softened her.
“They’re not interested in the dogs. They made it plenty clear that they want us.”
“What’s going on?”
“Damned if I know.” Mike ducked behind a boulder and leaned against it, making room for her. He pulled the phone from his pocket, but it rang before he could dial.
“We’re under attack.”
He listened and swore alternatively, then after a couple of minutes held the cell phone away from his ear and shook it, pushed some buttons, listened again, slammed it into the snow. “Battery is dead.”
“Extreme cold will do that. What did you find out?”
“It’s classified.”
“Like hell it is.” She wanted to shake him. “Tell that to someone whose ass is not getting shot up by our own government. I already saw the warhead, Mike.”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Give me what you have.”
He still had the gall to think about it before he finally nodded. “Apparently, a cache of warheads near where your research station was parked was broken into.”
“There are no military installations anywhere around here. Roger and I have been through the area a hundred times.” She tried to think of anything that looked even remotely suspicious, but there had been no manmade structures at all, just open snowfields.
“Underground bunkers most likely. Apparently the U.S. warheads were supposed to be destroyed under the disarmament agreement after the cold war, but they somehow disappeared from the list and were forgotten.” His words were underscored with a thick tone of irony.
“How does that have anything to do with us?”
“Some gun dealer got wind of it, and a few warheads were stolen. The whole environmentalist-extremists slash Alaska-pipeline tale was a cover so the CIA could close the area for a massive manhunt.”
She stared at him as understanding dawned on her. “It would look bad for the U.S. Government if it turned out we’re hiding stockpiles of nuclear weapons that violate international agreements.”
“Right.”
“But why are they after us? You and I didn’t steal anything.”
“Looks like that’s not how the CIA interpreted things. You left with the weapons dealers. At one point your research station was almost on top of the bunkers. And I’m here against orders. They figured out that we knew each other in the past.”
Wait a minute— “Go back to the bunkers part.”
“The Colonel said—”
“That’s what the readings were about,” she blurted, interrupting him.
“What readings?”
“We were doing all kinds of experiments, taking dozens of readings on air, dirt and melted snow every day. We would settle into a spot, work for a week or two. When we were done with our work, we would move fifty miles to the next observation point and start over.” They drove the trailer on the tracks for the big moves, but for everyday stuff they used the sleds to get around. “Then all of a sudden, a couple of weeks ago an order came in to do a reading for radiation.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Roger thought maybe they had some intel on nuclear testing in Russia and worried about the winds. We had very strong winds out of the west at the time. The strange thing was, we were told not to put the reading in the observation log, and that there was no need to repeat it again.”
“So whoever is selling the warheads is in a high enough position to ask a favor of the U.S.A.C.E. He wanted to make sure there was no radiation leak before he sent his men in there.”
“Somebody in the army?”
He shrugged.
“And the CIA suspects us. It’s ridiculous. We can explain.”
The expression on his face was hard, the thin set of his mouth making her uneasy. “We are not going to get a chance to make explanations, Tessa,” he said. “I know the guy in charge of the operation, Brady Marshall. He’s a cleanup expert if I’ve ever seen one. He’s heavily into leaving no witnesses.”
His brown eyes burned into hers as he shook his head.
“There’s more,” she said instead of asking.
He exhaled, his breath forming a small cloud in the frozen air. “We had some disagreements when I was working for the agency. He hates my guts. I came across information that implicated him in some serious stuff. I didn’t blow the whistle, but—”
“But if he takes you out, he can stop worrying that someday you will.”
He nodded. “Sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“You might have been better off taking your chances with the smugglers and working your plan.” He sounded miserable.
She took a deep breath.
“Okay, I’m only going to say this once, and first I want to emphasize how much I don’t want you to try anything like this in the future.” She held his gaze. “I’m glad that you came and got me.”
He blinked. “What? Have I gone mad from exposure already? Am I hallucinating?”
She couldn’t help cracking a smile as she punched him in the shoulder.
The sound of the chopper taking off reached them. It was coming closer. She stumbled and fell headfirst into snow when Mike shoved her under a large hemlock and dived after her.
“A small warning would have been nice.” She cleaned the snow from her face as they lay side by side without moving.
The chopper hovered for a minute or two then began circling, and after a while they heard the noise of its motor fade into the distance.
“It might be better if we stay out of the open for now.” He crawled out first.
She ignored the hand he extended to help her. “I’m not leaving the dogs,” she said, and as soon as she was on her feet, she started back the way they had come.
“That’s not what I meant.” He followed.
She slowed when they were close enough to see the edge of the woods. An ambush could be waiting for them out there. She moved with care, expecting at any moment a hail of bullets. Mike was as vigilant as she, communicating with hand signals. They passed the last couple of yards in a crouch, creeping from tree to tree.
They shouldn’t have bothered. The chopper had left no men behind. There was nothing in front of them at all—the crate, sled and dogs gone. A single flare stood stuck in the snow, bleeding red smoke toward the sky.
“They’ll be coming back for us.” Mike kicked it over and buried it. “We’re not going to make it to the village over open land.”
“They took my dogs,” she said, stunned, fury filling her.
“They’re not going to hurt the dogs. They only took them to make things harder for us.” He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off. He shrugged. “What do you know about this area?”
The bastards took her dogs. A couple of seconds passed before she could focus on Mike’s question.
“There are a few families who live this far up. Trappers. Most of them go into the towns for winter. A couple of them stopped by the research station over the summer. These people cover ground like you wouldn’t believe.”
“We’ll go over the hills then. We’ll either run into someone or reach a town sooner or later.”
“Let’s go.” Determination filled her, anger giving her strength.
They were in the Alaskan wilderness without shelter and supplies, winter quickly approaching; the CIA was on a search-and-destroy mission to round them up; and for all they knew, the gun dealers were still after them, too, wanting back the warhead.
Nobody could ever say life was boring with Mike McNair around.
WHEN HE CLOSED HIS EYES, he could see the gently swaying palm trees on the hillside in Belize, where he had put money down on a house. South America seemed like an excellent place to disappear to—great climate, plenty of English-speaking people, and yet far enough from anyone who might figure out his role in the weapons heist.
“The Boss,” his codename for the mission, leaned back in his chair. The warheads had reached port. It wouldn’t be long now before they crossed the Bering Strait and arrived at the next station before their final destination. Once the crates were in Siberia, he would breathe easier.
There had been some minor glitches along the way, but nothing they couldn’t overcome. It would be no more than two or three days until delivery, and when Tsernyakov got his warheads, he would release payment.
Belize: sunshine and long-limbed women with soft, tanned skin, and the money to afford them. And why not? Hadn’t he sacrificed enough to deserve that?
He would have to fake his death, though, before he left. It wouldn’t do for the law, or his “business” partners, to come looking for him. A fire perhaps—a body wouldn’t be too hard to arrange. Or he could go out on a boat and pretend to be washed overboard. He put his feet up on the edge of the hotel room table and went over the list of possibilities.
The wife would get his life insurance and was welcome to it. She could go nag someone else for all he cared. The kids, both from her first marriage, had barely tolerated him anyway. He was nothing but the man who held the wallet, someone to go to for new shoes and tuition for soccer camp.
He closed his eyes and pictured an azure-blue sky above, could almost feel the soft, warm breeze on his face. The house had a veranda overlooking the pool. There were people around the pool in his fantasy—he would have plenty of friends. A tall girl of about twenty came up the veranda stairs with a martini.
“You need company?” she asked, her full lips turning into a suggestive smile. Her long hair spilled down her naked back, a few strands escaping to the front to curl around magnificent breasts that were left exposed for his hungry gaze.
He nodded as he took the glass, watched her push his legs apart and get ready to satisfy him. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back.
Chapter Three
Crunch, swish, crunch, swish. He would have given just about anything for a pair of snowshoes. Mike ignored the cold slush that had gotten into his boots. His gaze strayed to the low ridge ahead of them. They had been walking toward it for hours, yet it still seemed the same distance away, their progress hampered by the difficult terrain. He glanced back at Tessa who kept up without complaint. She walked with her head down, focusing on where she put her feet.
They pushed on, searching for shelter, a suitable spot to sit out the night.
“Here,” he said finally, just as the last of the grayish light slid off the sky.
They were in front of a “wall” created by the root mass of a fallen tree. He cleared as much snow as he could out of the hollow the roots had left behind in the ground, and lined it with hemlock branches, the result looking like a giant dinosaur nest.
“Welcome to the Fresh Air Hotel.” He grinned at Tessa, wanting to lighten the mood.
“What, you didn’t reserve a room with a hot tub?” She was already picking up wood for their fire.
He went to help her. “The place is booked solid. We were lucky to get any room at all.”
“Hmm.” She gave him a fake grumble. “Remind me not to let you plan any more vacations for us in the future.”
As hard as they tried, their jokingly spoken words didn’t quite cover their unease. He was alert to the slightest noise around them, and from the way she stopped every few seconds to survey their surroundings, he knew Tessa was, as well. There were wolves out there. And possibly bears, too; winter had barely started. Nature had its own stragglers.
He dumped an armload of branches and went back for more.
Once they had enough wood, it didn’t take much to get a good fire started. Although the kindling hadn’t been as dry as he would have preferred, the alcohol acted as a decent accelerant. Their spot was sheltered from the wind, and they sat between the tree and the fire, the root wall behind them reflecting the heat back, so they were warm on both sides— as comfortable an arrangement as anyone could hope for under the circumstances.
He dumped the contents of his tin emergency kit at his feet, careful not to lose anything, then filled the tin with snow and melted it over the fire, giving Tessa the water. He melted another batch and drank next. They had to take turns, each getting a few swallows at a time.
After they rested a little, they collected more wood, enough to keep the fire going for the night.
“Wish we had that fur cover,” she said, dislodging the snow that had caked on to the bottom of her boots.
He wished for a number of things, none of which he cared to share, pretty sure she wouldn’t appreciate them. Instead he moved over to a tall pine and dug in the snow under it until he found a good handful of cones. Tessa helped him defrost them over the fire. They ate pine nuts, not enough to fill them, but sufficient so they wouldn’t have to go to sleep with that gnawing feeling of hunger inside.
He sat cross-legged and patted his thigh. “Come over here. You can use me for a pillow. I’ll take first watch.”
They couldn’t both sleep. Somebody had to stay awake to feed the fire. Without it, they’d be frozen by morning. And they needed it for reasons beyond heat, too. The flames would keep away predators.
She hesitated, but seemed to reach a decision at last and curled up next to him with her head on his thigh, facing the burning logs. “Wake me in a couple of hours.”
He looked away from the silky red hair that spilled out of her hood and over him, feeling his pants shrink a size smaller. Offering himself for her pillow seemed a less-than-brilliant idea now. He had thought only of her comfort, that he wanted her near. He hadn’t thought it through to what the sight of her head in his lap would do to him. At least he didn’t have to worry about falling asleep on his watch. He was way too uncomfortable to nod off.
A wolf howled deep in the woods, and another answered. He pulled his gun closer, ready for anything, the memories of his trek across the Siberian tundra rushing over him. For once he welcomed them, glad for a moment of distraction.
He had sworn he would never go near snow again as long as he lived. But then he’d found out about Tessa. He’d been alone in Siberia, but had his full pack with all the survival gear anyone could wish for. Right now, he had nothing but Tessa. All in all, a good trade. The fire lit her face, played on her long eyelashes. He put his left arm over her shoulder in a protective gesture, but she immediately shook it off.
“Keep your hands to yourself, buddy.”
The woman was nothing if not stubborn.
“Come on now, lass. I dinna mean harm. Don’t be scairt. I promise not to eat ye ’less things get real desperate,” he said in his best highland brogue, trying to warm her to him by joking, but she didn’t respond.
He’d let her get the bluster out of her system. She would come around.
Soon her breathing evened, and her face relaxed. She had to be as exhausted as he was. The cold took a lot out of a person, and they hadn’t had enough to eat to replace the lost energy. He would try his best to shoot something tomorrow. He wasn’t picky. A muskrat would do.
He reviewed their situation, planned for the upcoming days as best he could, while listening for any sounds of predators on the ground or choppers in the sky. The dark didn’t mean they were safe from detection from above. Even if he kicked snow over their fire at the first sound of a helicopter, the CIA had plenty of night-vision equipment.
He woke her at midnight, to get his own rest and because she would have had a fit in the morning if he hadn’t.
She blinked slow and long, nodded. She didn’t offer her lap as his pillow.
SUNLIGHT REACHED THEM at about ten in the morning, and even then they did not see the sun, only its gray reflection in the sky. They had been walking for hours by then, catching a lucky break with a bright moon and temporarily cloudless weather. They kept going, hungry, bundled up against the cold, hoping to find a road they could follow to civilization.
Mike shot a snowshoe rabbit a little after noon. They gutted and skinned the animal quickly, before it had a chance to freeze. Neither wanted to waste daylight, but they agreed on stopping long enough to make a fire and roast the meat.
The going was slow over the rough terrain, darkness coming too soon again. They’d been following a semifrozen creek. Tessa stepped out of the woods and stopped at the edge of a clearing, squinted her eyes. Wait a minute—
“Heard something?” Mike came up behind her.
She shook her head and pointed. “Over there.” She moved toward what she had first taken for a giant snow-covered boulder. She could make out some evenly spaced logs, the slope of a low-pitched roof. She felt shaky for a moment, unsure whether from excitement or exhaustion.
“A cabin!” Mike fought his way toward the buried structure, pushing the snow aside.
He cleared a door by the time she caught up with him, grinning from ear to ear when he aimed the gun at the padlock. The shot echoed through the forest.
“I wonder how far that carried.” She glanced at him with a twinge of unease.
He shrugged. “If the CIA is around, they are in a chopper. If they are close enough to hear a shot we’d be able to hear the rotors. I don’t think they have a good enough location on us yet to send in a ground team.”
“People live in these parts. Not everyone goes south for the winter.”
“Good. If one of the neighbors comes over to investigate, he can help us figure out the fastest way to the nearest town.”
He kicked the door in, and a good pile of snow went with it. She stepped forward first, peering into the darkness, moving to the right and staying still until her eyes got used to the dark.
The one-room cabin was small, ten by twelve maybe, with a sleeping loft above the general living area. There was wood stacked in the kitchen next to the iron stove, canned food on the open shelves. She went to light a lamp and turned it up, while Mike cleared the snow from the vinyl-covered plywood floor and closed and barred the door behind them.
He flashed her one of those sexy grins that used to get her every time. “Didn’t I tell you we’d be fine?”
“If I recall correctly, you said you wouldn’t eat me until all other options were exhausted.” She was still not completely immune. She couldn’t help grinning back.
“Well, we’re not out of the woods yet.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows and snapped his teeth.
She threw her glove at him and gave him the iciest glower she could muster, not an easy task with heat spreading through her body at his lighthearted banter and the playful look in his eyes.
He caught the glove and stalked closer. “Let me at least take a look at what I won’t be having. You have to take off those frozen clothes and get your circulation moving. I can help.”
She’d just bet he could. Her body was squealing, “Yes, please!” Fortunately, she was smart enough to ignore it. She put the stove between them.
“It’s not going to work.” She couldn’t count how many times he had charmed her like this, or when all else had failed, tackled her, bringing them both to the ground, tickling her until she let go of whatever she’d been mad about. “We need to start a fire,” she added in a voice of measured reason.
He lifted his hands in capitulation. “I’ll do the fire. Why don’t you scare up something to eat?”
True to his words, he had a fire going by the time she wiped the frost off the cans, figured out what was what and opened two beef stews with a knife, since she couldn’t find the can opener. She dumped the contents into an iron skillet and set it on the stove, stepping around him as he was trying to coax the small flames to grow.
God, it brought back the past, the two of them working together like this. She moved away to put a little distance between them, pushing back the memories that rushed her. They’d had some good times; she couldn’t deny that. But had it been as special as her mind was now making it out to be? Was it only that he was her first real love, her first lover? That was it, she was sure. Every woman must have a special place in her heart for her first. She shouldn’t make too much of the feelings that had risen from the past to confuse her. She made a point of turning her back to Mike and busied herself in the kitchen.
Within minutes it was warm enough to take her parka off, then her mukluks—the sealskin boots that had kept her feet warm and dry. She got up to stir the food but he beat her to it, so she sank back onto the overturned bucket she used for a seat.
He tasted the stew. “Almost.”
He’d undressed, too. He looked good, even with his dark hair all mussed, or maybe especially because of that. It lent a boyish charm to the man whose towering height and wide shoulders would have been intimidating otherwise. His body had grown leaner since she’d last seen him. His impressive muscles were still there, but he had lost a lot of the roundness and softness. He looked harder, edgier, more dangerous—very much like one of those highland heroes on the covers of her mother’s historical romances.
His cinnamon eyes locked with hers as he extended the wooden spoon toward her. “Want a taste?”
She pushed to her feet before she knew what she was doing and walked away. Not that she could go far. She reached the other side of the cabin in a half-dozen steps. “No,” she said. “Thanks.” She grabbed the notched ladder and climbed to the loft, the space so low she couldn’t straighten.
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