Could she have handled that terror? She’d been aboveground during the avalanche and was going to have nightmares for weeks. She snorted. Alex would have nightmares for the rest of his life. What if they hadn’t found…She firmly placed the thought out of her head.
Kiana’s frustrated barking startled her, and she glanced around for her dog. Out of sight. Probably spotted some small prey that’d darted up a tree and out of reach. As the dog had dug beside her on that first hole of Jim’s, Brynn had been so certain Kiana believed there was a person below the snow. She’d never done any formal rescue training with the dog. Maybe she should. Maybe they would’ve found Alex sooner.
Thank God he was OK.
A rush of confusion and relief swamped her. The same feelings that overpowered her every time she thought about him. She twisted her lips and glanced up the hill at the piece of plane that still sounded with bellows of male laughter at odd intervals. A sort of zing had rattled through her nerves when Alex had made eye contact for the first time at base camp. A warmth had started in her stomach.
He’d been so silent, so serious during the first part of their trip, but she’d felt his eyes on her. And she was more aware of him than she should have been. She’d noticed when he’d start to limp then fight to hide it. She’d noticed his eyes light up as Kiana would tear off in pursuit of something only she could hear.
The other men didn’t pull her attention like that.
And when he’d looked at her after they’d pulled him out of the snow…Brynn stopped and closed her eyes, breathing deep. She’d never felt better in her life than she had at that moment. It wasn’t just the adrenaline from the save. It was the person. If they’d never found him it would have been like part of her had lost something precious, but something unknown. Like losing the sparkling center diamond from a ring before she’d ever put it on her finger.
She shook herself and continued her steps.
Alex made her palms sweat when he turned that serious gray gaze on her. He made her wish she wasn’t in the forest with three other men around. That she could sit across from him at dinner and huddle together in front of the TV. Simply talk and…
Shit. She stopped her pattern and stared at nothing, blinking rapidly.
She and Liam had been together for years, but it hadn’t started with an instant rush of attraction and curiosity. They’d been together because they were so similar; they liked the same things. They were an outdoorsy couple with mountain bikes and a dog. But when was the last time they’d biked together? Liam had changed. Over the past year he’d grown increasingly paranoid and protective of her.
He made her feel like she couldn’t breathe.
They’d had the latest version of an old argument the night before this rescue. He’d wanted her home, not in the woods. Why didn’t she find a regular job in a hospital? Why did she work at a job that took her to bloody car accidents in the middle of the night? Why did she insist on doing search and rescue when she could get hurt?
These questions from the pilot who flew a helicopter for his country into unknown situations on a moment’s notice.
She kicked at another shadow in the snow. Another stick. She sighed and moved on. The snowfall was picking up again. The entire day had alternated between showers of heavy snow and light icy pellets.
Brynn frowned as she scanned the ground. Until that rockslide last year she’d never been injured while out on a SAR mission. She’d always felt in control when out in the wilderness, but that time she’d ended up with a broken collarbone and concussion. At the emergency room, Liam had been furious. He’d stated the first ultimatum then.
Give up search and rescue or give up him.
She didn’t care for ultimatums.
Their argument had echoed through the emergency room. A doctor had interrupted, glaring from Liam to Brynn, asking if she needed to call the police. Brynn had shaken her head, and Liam had stomped out of the hospital. Later the same doctor had a well-intentioned but misguided talk with Brynn about abusive men.
Liam would never lay a hand on her. If he did he’d be the one in the emergency room and he knew it.
She’d ignored his ultimatum and he’d kept his mouth shut for a while.
The next one had come a few months later. He wanted kids and he wanted marriage.
Brynn had wanted to panic.
Not learning his lesson from the first provocation, Liam had begged her to agree to an engagement or he’d move out.
He rescinded his words the next day.
But it was too late. Tension had ratcheted between them, and Liam started sleeping on the couch. Then she’d asked him to move out. He’d moved in with his brother and waited a week before speaking to her again. Over the last two months they’d slowly talked about what each of them wanted from the other.
Their needs didn’t match. They were both utterly stubborn. She wouldn’t change, and he wouldn’t listen to her refusals to change. They were so over. And now she was attracted to another man.
Where is the team?
Liam Gentry’s eyes burned from staring into the blinding white stuff for hours. And that was with his protective eyewear. His brother, Tyrone, hadn’t said a word in over thirty minutes. Liam knew Tyrone wanted to head back. The winds were rattling the copter like crazy, and visual range was incredibly short. He glanced at Tyrone, who bounced his gaze from the window to his controls every three seconds. The muscle twitching at his jaw told Liam he’d pushed his brother’s limits. They were both stupid.
Liam’s commander would ground him for six months if he knew he’d convinced his brother to take him out in such
high-risk weather. Liam wouldn’t survive the grounding; he had to fly.
He had the job of his dreams, flying million-dollar equipment bought on someone else’s dime, and he had the perfect woman.
Now he just had to convince Brynn to marry him and have some kids. He wanted the rest of his dream. The 2.3 kids, the picket fence, the smiling wife at the door as he came home from work. But Brynn didn’t see it that way.
Would being married to him be so awful? Liam grabbed at the handle above his door as the copter jumped in the wind.
When she’d been in that rockfall, he’d been certain she’d see the danger of her SAR missions and cut back. But it was like she flung herself at them with more enthusiasm, determined to prove him wrong. He was terrified of the day he got the phone call that she’d been killed in a stupid accident. Yesterday morning had been bad enough when he’d read her note. Her very brief note.
Plane down in the Cascades. Gonna be a long one.
B
That was all she wrote.
He’d checked the location and checked the weather and nearly punched his computer screen in frustration. Could the plane have crashed anywhere worse? Brynn knew he’d be pissed about the danger of this particular job. That’s why she’d slipped out of the house without waking him. If he hadn’t crashed on her couch after their three-hour discussion the previous night, he wouldn’t have known for days that she’d gone on a mission.
And top it off with a serial killer on the damned plane.
No one could have survived the crash. The odds were against that. But, shit, why was there a killer on this particular plane? Did Brynn know? And go anyway?
She would go. It wouldn’t make any difference to her who was on the plane.
Liam cursed colorfully. Tyrone glanced at him but stayed silent, his mouth tight.
The little copter bounced, dipped, and jerked roughly in the wind. Liam ignored it. The sensations were so different between this baby bird and the mammoths he flew. Sort of like a Winnebago and a Miata.
“Fuck! Hang on!”
Liam’s gaze flew to his brother’s tense face, and then he read the controls. His heart skipped several beats; sweat instantly covered his forehead. Grabbing his seat, he looked out the window and estimated the distance before they smashed into the trees.
Daylight was fading as Brynn and Kiana entered the plane. Jim had hollered that he and Thomas would be in soon. They weren’t ready to quit searching for the packs yet. Brynn figured the missing packs weren’t going to go anywhere overnight, so she’d search again in the morning. In the light. The three of them hadn’t found a thing and she was ready to drop.
What a day.
Alex opened his eyes from where he’d stretched out on the cargo area floor, his arms tucked under his head. Ryan snored quietly on one of the thickly padded leather seats that looked like they belonged in a CEO’s office. She kept her gaze on Ryan, assessing. He looked comfortable but exhausted. The temperature inside the plane felt heavenly, and Brynn threw back her hood, running a hand over her low ponytail. To be inside an enclosure with hard walls and out of the wind and constant snow felt like she was at the Hilton. It just needed a hot bath. The men had closed in the ripped plane’s front end with packed snow. It looked like the inside of a kid’s snow fort. With luxury seating.
She felt Alex study her closely, his gaze heavy on her back. She finally turned his way and met his eyes. The lines of his face were taut and drawn, but she’d never seen him so relaxed and at peace. Amazing for a man who’d faced death hours ago. She felt her lips curve and her own worries lifted from her shoulders. They’d been very lucky today.
Kiana sniffed at Ryan’s boot and trotted over to Alex. He sat up and rubbed her head, a genuine smile crossing his face. Brynn swore the dog smiled in return. She also noticed Alex’s hand shaking slightly as he petted her dog.
“How do you feel?”
Amusement entered his eyes. “Alive.”
She cocked a brow at him, waiting. “Cold?”
“My toes are cold. That’s good. It means I can feel them. I feel bruised up and down my body like a tanker hit me. I think I reinjured my knee. And I’m hungry.” He smiled again, and she felt her skin heat under her coat.
He didn’t look like he minded the pain or hunger. “What did you do to your knee?”
“Now or originally?”
“I think I know what happened to it today. How about originally?” She kneeled beside him, pushing her dog out of the way and laying her hands on the leg he rubbed.
He froze.
Brynn jerked her hands back, eyes widening. “Did I hurt you?” She squinted in the bad light, checking his leg for blood. It looked OK.
“Ah, no. I think you shocked me.” He shifted on the floor and frowned at his leg. “Old hole from a bullet.”
“You were shot? How long ago?”
“A few years. Nearly destroyed my knee joint.”
“Work related?” she asked.
“Yes. It happens sometimes in my line of work.”
She waited for an explanation but none came. Who’d shot him?
“Do you want me to look at it?”
He met her eyes and grinned as her cheeks painfully flushed. Wrong thing to say.
“There’s no blood. I think I just overstrained a weak area. It’s gonna ache like hell for several days.” His smile stayed strong.
“Everything else OK?” Relief flooded her. Getting Alex out of those pants wasn’t something she could handle at the moment. “Are you cold?”
He raised a brow and shook his head. “Just my toes.”
“That’s right. You said that,” she mumbled, embarrassed she was repeating questions. She retrieved her pack from one of the seats and unzipped a side pocket. “Protein bar?”
“Please.”
“More ibuprofen?”
“Pretty please.”
She snorted but kept her gaze inside her pack. “Charming, aren’t you?”
“When I want to be.”
“And when is that?” Their light banter relaxed her as she continued to dig through her pack, looking for her little bag of drugs.
He didn’t answer.
She glanced at him, her hands buried. He was looking at her, his gaze serious…and something else. She looked closer at his eyes. Had he hit his head? In the plane the light was dim, and his pupils were dilated, nearly filled his irises, making his gaze dark and heavy. Warm.
His eyes weren’t dilated from a head injury.
She drew a fast breath, unable to pull away. It felt like he’d buried her in warm honey.
“Brynn. I really owe you for today.” His voice was low, those eyes locked with hers.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Bullshit.”
“It was a team effort.” Her heart thudded in her chest.