He waved that aside. “I know. Always the team, but Ryan told me how upset you were when you dug up your pack.”
She nodded.
“You kept going.”
“Everyone did. Ryan pushed himself beyond healthy limits digging for you. Thomas was like a backhoe with the shovel. None of these guys were going to stop until we’d found you. Neither was I.” Her tone was fierce as she felt the terrified determination flow through her bones again. Just like when she was digging.
“Ryan said he nearly gave up a dozen times, but seeing you attack the snow inspired him.”
She glanced at the sleeping man. “I felt the same way watching him. All three of those guys. We’d still be out there digging if we hadn’t found you.” She pressed her lips and felt her eyes sting. Alex would be dead, long dead.
“Still. I’d like to think…” He reached out a hand as if to touch her cheek. She couldn’t move away; she wanted to feel his touch. Her lips opened slightly, and she inhaled softly. He’d touched her before on the trail, helping each other along, but they’d both worn gloves. Now his fingers hesitated an inch from her jawline, and he held her eyes with his as she kneeled beside him. Her hands tried to strangle the protein bar. He was so close she could feel the heat from his fingertips on her skin. His gaze dropped to her mouth as his hand touched her. The energy from his palm made her lips open, and he shifted closer.
“When I was buried I thought I saw…”
Pounding rattled the door before it flew open. Jim and Thomas tromped in, brushing the snow off their jackets. In a single fluid movement, Alex pulled back, his hands at his sides, and the sudden cold stung her face.
“Ahhh.” Jim breathed out in pleasure, throwing back his hood. “It’s got to be twenty degrees warmer in here. Nearly a sauna.” His grin was contagious.
Thomas pulled off his gloves and sat heavily in a seat to work off the snowshoes. “No packs.”
“That’s all right. I think we’ll be just fine,” Brynn stated quietly. She stood, feeling her legs tremble slightly as she handed Alex his squished protein bar and his hand brushed her fingers. His gaze met hers again, something stirring in the depths, promising her they weren’t done. The intense look on his face had vanished at the sight of the two men. But its aftereffects lingered in her blood, tingling, warming.
“I owe you my life,” Alex said to the men.
“That’s right,” Jim quipped. “I expect five years of free car washes and I like my lawn mowed twice a week.” His grin didn’t fade as he stepped forward and slapped Alex’s shoulder.
“Done,” Alex said.
Jim’s grin faded. “I was joking.”
“I’m not.” Alex’s lips twitched. “But I’m not doing any manual labor for you. Would you settle for car wash tickets and a yard service?”
Jim’s hand lay still on Alex’s shoulder as he blinked. Brynn had never seen Jim speechless before.
“If Jim doesn’t want ‘em, I’ll take ’em.” Ryan stretched and yawned. Brynn jerked her head in his direction. How long had Ryan been awake?
“Except I don’t need a yard service. How about a subscription to a Beer of the Month Club?”
Alex nodded. “Thomas?” He turned toward the quiet man who’d been closely following the conversation.
Thomas shook his head. “Don’t need anything. Didn’t do it for a reward.”
“I know that, but it’ll make me feel rotten if…”
Thomas grinned. “Perfect. If it bothers you then I’m happy.”
Alex stared then laughed. “There’s a sick sense of logic there.”
“What about Brynn? What are you gonna give her?” Ryan smiled and turned innocent eyes on Brynn. She felt her cheeks flush.
“I don’t…”
“Don’t tell me you want me to be miserable like Thomas does,” Alex prodded.
“No, of course not, but…”
“Aw, come on, Brynn. Give the guy some slack. Tell him you’ll settle for a big ol’ diamond and he’ll be happy.” Pure devilry shone out of Ryan’s eyes.
Now she knew he’d been awake as she kneeled near Alex.
“No diamonds. No car washes.” She threw a protein bar at Ryan’s head, which he handily snatched just before it nailed him in the mouth.
“Come on, you can think of something. He’s not going to give up until you name something. You don’t want him stalking you, do ya?” Ryan caught his breath as his face fell. “Shit.”
Brynn’s mouth dried up.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
Silence filled the broken plane.
Alex looked at each teammate, but the men were all looking at the ground and Brynn was trying to get her lungs to work properly.
“Did I miss something?” Alex asked.
Brynn’s heart felt as heavy as the plane as she turned to Alex. Curious concern shone from his eyes.
Jim spoke first. “Brynn had a stalker last year. This dipshit let his mouth flap without thinking.” He whacked Ryan’s head with a glove.
“A stalker?” Unease replaced the concern in Alex’s eyes, and he frowned at her.
Brynn wanted to tell him, but didn’t know why. She hadn’t spoken of the incident in months because it’d seriously freaked her at the time.
“Awhile back…”
“You don’t have to say anything.” Alex popped three ibuprofen in his mouth and swallowed them dry. “Forget it.”
“No. I don’t mind talking about it. Really.” And she didn’t. She forced her stomach to relax as she sat back in one of the cushy chairs and tried to figure out where to start.
“Last year I was called to a suspicious death of a teenager. It was plainly suicide. The boy had locked himself in his room, left a long, rambling good-bye note, and shot himself in the mouth. He’d attempted suicide twice before, he’d been treated for depression, and there wasn’t a shred of evidence that anyone else could’ve been in the room.”
“Window?” Alex was following her story closely, his eyes intense.
“No window. And the door was locked with a bolt from the inside. His mother heard the shot and was at that door within seconds. No one else could have gone in or out of that room.”
“So what was the problem?” Alex raised a brow.
“The problem was the dad. He lived in Tennessee and believed his son had been murdered,” Brynn explained.
“Stupid asshole,” Thomas swore. He chomped into a protein bar.
“The father stalked you?” Lines creased Alex’s forehead. “From Tennessee?”
Brynn nodded. Her lungs were working normally now, and she breathed steadily. The father had been a big man—a big, determined man. And he’d scared the crap out of her.
“He harassed me by phone for a week. Swearing, cursing, calling me every name in the book, and threatening to get my license taken away. He threatened to shoot me and see if some idiot death investigator thought it looked like a suicide. The medical examiner and I had determined an autopsy wasn’t needed in this case, and the father was livid. He wouldn’t accept that his son had committed suicide. He had my cell number and wouldn’t stop calling.”
Alex’s brows shot together; he looked furious. “How’d he get your cell number?”
“I don’t know.” She suspected someone at the ME’s office had given it out, but no one had ever admitted it. “Then he showed up at the office. He’d flown across the damned country to yell at me in person. I’m not at the office that much because I’m usually out in the field. The secretary told him that and he left. My boss called me at home to warn me, and I got Jim to park his squad car in my driveway and sleep on my couch.”
“Liam was out of town,” Jim added.
“Did he come to your home?” Alex’s voice was tight. He looked ready to kick the man’s ass. Brynn tried not to smile at the sight.
“No. I don’t think he was able to figure out where I lived.”
“If someone had given out your home number, he could’ve easily found you.”
Brynn nodded. That fact had haunted her. “I persuaded the examiner to do a partial autopsy a week after the death and all his findings supported suicide. The dad went back to Tennessee, and I got a new cell number.” And she removed her home number from every source at the ME’s office except her boss’s phone contacts.
“I was just waiting for that guy to show up. I wished he had.” Jim automatically moved his right hand to his waist where he usually kept his service semiautomatic.
“Sorry, Brynn,” Ryan muttered again. She met his gaze and smiled to let him know he was forgiven. Sometimes she felt twenty years older than him instead of two.
“You carry enough weight to say when an autopsy should be done?” Alex was still watching her intently.
“I can make recommendations. The final decision is up to the ME.”
“You don’t do the autopsies though.”
She shook her head. “I try to go and watch if it’s my case.”
“I’ve seen enough of them.” Jim’s nostrils widened a fraction as if he smelled something bad.
Both Thomas and Ryan agreed. Brynn knew the two younger men hadn’t been to more than a few. It wasn’t for everyone.
“Attended any?” Ryan asked Alex.
“Just one. I left. Couldn’t make it through.” Alex’s face was suddenly strangely blank, like he’d exited his body and left a shell.
“After the first one I saw, I was off mac and cheese for months. It looks just like adipose tissue.” Brynn watched the men react to her comment. Ryan looked ready to vomit again, and Thomas had developed the same blank look as Alex.
“Exactly like mac and cheese,” Jim chortled.
“Stop it, Jim. Ryan’s gonna lose the tiny piece of protein bar he finally ate.” Brynn bit her lip.
“How can you eat after watching something like that?” Alex muttered.
She shrugged. “I don’t. I always seemed to lose a pound or two after each autopsy. I usually don’t feel like eating for a while.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Ryan pleaded.
Brynn glanced at the windows of the plane. It was full dark outside. The plane was downright cozy with the hot bodies of the four men and Kiana.
Her heart sank as she remembered the cold corpses in the cockpit. “Should we…I don’t know. Take the men out of the cockpit or take in some snow to pack around them? Are they going to attract animals?”
“What if we buried them several feet deep? Could a cougar or bear smell through that?” Ryan looked to Thomas, the wildlife expert. Thomas lifted a hand in an “I don’t know” gesture and finished his bar.
“I know a good hole,” Alex managed to say before he broke into gasping laughs.
Brynn’s eyebrows shot up as her jaw dropped. Incredulously, she scanned the men. They all had the same shocked expression. Ryan laughed first, breaking the astonishment. Then the other three joined, even Thomas.
A big portion of the stress of the day evaporated with their laughter.
Alex jerked awake, his shoulder immobile and his feet freezing.
For a moment he was back underground and terror rocketed through his nerves. Then he realized the weight on his shoulder was Brynn’s head as she slept next to him on the floor of the cargo area. He blew out a frazzled breath and commanded his limbs to relax. Heat spread from where she touched him, making him feel secure and safe. The plane rumbled with the snores of sleeping men, not the silence of his snowy grave. He closed his eyes and waited for his heart to slow as he enjoyed the sound. The sounds of the living.
He drank in the sight of Brynn in the indirect light from a headlamp. Last he remembered she’d been sitting in one of the comfy chairs talking quietly to Jim. Alex craned his neck and saw that Jim was stretched out on the other side of Brynn.
Thomas and Ryan were sleeping upright in two of the chairs, heads leaning against the walls of the plane.
Alex wished he’d been awake when she moved next to him. Her mouth was open the slightest bit, breath softly puffing. He felt it touch his neck. Her eyelashes lay still against her cheeks. He could see the faintest movement of her eyes behind her lids.
He’d nearly kissed her last night. When she’d first touched his leg it had been a shock. He hadn’t lied. It’d been a shock that raced up his thigh, stunned his groin, and then nailed him in the chest. And all she’d done was lay her hand on him.
In the gold light from the tiny camp stove, with her kneeling beside him, and the unstable, emotional set of his mind, he’d ached to touch her. The light had bronzed the skin on her face, and her pupils had dilated. He’d felt that if he didn’t touch her he’d explode. And he was damned certain she’d felt it too. He’d been about to tell her that she’d spoken to him underground when Thomas and Jim had walked in and the moment had vanished. He’d never gotten it back.
His hand reached over and traced her cheekbone. He wanted to touch the dense lashes or soft lips, but was afraid he’d tickle her and she’d wake. Then his moment would be gone again. He slid two fingers through the hair that’d come loose from her ponytail. Silky. Just like he’d known it would be.
He silently swore and pulled his hand away.
I have no right. He squeezed his eyes shut.
She was living with someone. But she hadn’t pulled away last night, and behind the initial confusion in her eyes when he reached for her he’d seen…something. And it wasn’t rejection. It was warm.
He wanted her. In a bad way.
Maybe he was just overreacting after nearly dying. Seeking the ultimate affirmation of life, wanting to mark it with a female, show that he was alive. And Brynn was simply the closest woman. Showing up in his death dream didn’t mean squat. Simply because he’d felt something in his dreams didn’t mean it existed in real life.
He gazed back at her face and felt his heart speed up.
Who am I trying to fool?
In forty-eight hours he’d fallen head over frozen heels for Brynn. She was smart and strong and feisty. Life radiated from her and had touched the part of him that had felt dead for so long, slowly bringing him back to life. It was like that allergy drug commercial where the scene is fuzzy until the person pops a pill and suddenly everything is crystal clear. She’d shaken something awake inside him. No wonder he’d fallen hard.
Shit. The first woman to catch his eye and his heart, and she was already taken.
Or was she? She hadn’t uttered a single word about her boyfriend. Don’t most women mention them every other sentence? She hadn’t said she couldn’t wait until she got back home, or talked about what the two of them would do, or said she hoped her boyfriend wasn’t worrying about her. If Alex’s girlfriend was out in this hell, he’d be worried. The only mention he’d heard of her boyfriend was from Ryan. And there’d been an odd tone when Ryan talked about—what was his name?—Liam.
Liam. Alex mouthed the name. He didn’t like the feel of it.
Felt foreign on his tongue.
His jaw tightened. There could be an age issue in Brynn’s mind.
Well, maybe for her. He doubted she’d hit thirty yet and he’d passed forty a few years ago. It didn’t bother him, but she might see him in a more…fatherly light. He cringed, his chest tightening. Ugh. She looked at Jim like that. There was true friendship and caring there, but there was also a respect from Brynn that one gave to their elders.
Did she see Alex like that?