Cover Me

chapter 16



Hot springs bubbling around her, Sunny straddled Wade’s lap as he sat on a submerged rock step. Only their shoulders and faces peeked above the lapping water. The springs refilled from the geyser in the middle, heated naturally from the mountain’s volcanic core.

The ultimate place to make love.

Aftershocks from her release pulsed through her, steam wafting upward with a slight tinge of healing sulfur. She let the essence of it sink into her pores as she gave over control to pure, undiluted sensation. Sulfur was necessary for all living cells and she could swear she felt those revitalizing qualities now.

Her limbs went boneless and she almost melted against Wade, but remembered his injured shoulder at the last second. She flung her head back and let the tide tug her. She floated toward the geyser in the pool’s center, her body barely submerged. Warm bubbles caressed her back while cool air sketched across her front. The swirling water played peekaboo, revealing patches of her skin.

Above her, northern lights painted the sky with green streaks and bursts of red. God, she never got tired of watching the aurora borealis, named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind. This place was the closest thing to paradise that she could imagine.

The fact that she had a business here that also kept her fed was just an added bonus. She eyed the outdoor haven with pride, the planked fence her brother had helped her build, the small dressing corner stocked with dry, warm towels and robes.

She chased thoughts of her brother from her mind. Not ready to go there yet in any way.

Being with Wade offered a temporary escape from the fast-encroaching reality. Here in her fenced Alaskan oasis, she had a stolen pocket of time before her town self-destructed when everyone woke up and news of the murders spread.

The water swirled faster around her, giving her a second’s warning that Wade approached.

“This is not what I expected.” He stopped beside her.

Underwater, his fingers stroked her spine, caressing with the bubbles until she almost couldn’t separate his touch from the rippling rush. He moved down her back, over her bottom, and along the outsides of her legs.

She sighed with pleasure. “This is probably my favorite place in the whole world. Now I have all the more reason to love it.”

A whisper of worry trickled through her brain like melting water down an icicle. What would happen to her little business, to her haven, to her way of life? It wasn’t as if she could just put a survival school based in a log cabin on the market and folks would come streaming in with big-money offers.

Her feet started to sink and his hands closed around her toes, his thumbs massaging the arches. His artful touch chased away concerns and her eyes slid closed. The feel of his hands on her flesh sent a rush of aurora borealis behind her lids.

“Keep talking,” he said, moving up her body again, between her legs.

Her throat closed up and she worked to push words past. “When I was a teenager, I dreamed of building a place around this spring.”

“Why is that?” He massaged her thighs, higher inch by inch.

“I, uh, missed our gym back in Iowa, and it seemed like having at least a small workout space here would be the perfect way to stay in shape and burn off energy during those dark winter months.” Right now, she was burning off more than energy. Her whole body was on fire from the subtle pleasure of his caress up her thighs.

“Talk,” he commanded, “or I stop.”

She flicked water on him, while clamping her legs around his waist. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Laughter rumbling, he moved closer, his thumbs at the juncture of her thighs, then…

He pressed against the oversensitive bundle of nerves that already ached for him all over again.

“Wade?”

“Let go, just float. I have you.”

And he did. Her arms splayed out and she felt the waters tug her hair out into a fan around her. Her breasts peeked from the water, her nipples pulling painfully tight from the cold and desire. She tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come.

Increasing the pressure ever so precisely, his fingers circled, plucked, teased. “All this heat with no electric bill.” He stroked along her cleft, already moist from increasing arousal. “As long as the thing doesn’t erupt underneath us.”

She laughed softly, then gasped as his mouth closed over her, lapping, laving, until the aurora borealis wasn’t just behind her eyes, it was exploding inside her. Wade braced her back and urged her farther, higher, milking every last sensation from her completion. Finally, seconds—minutes, hours, she lost track of time—later, her legs slid down him and she slowly righted again.

Looping her arms around his neck, she sagged against his chest and let him hold her, support her weight, as her legs probably wouldn’t work yet anyway. “I think… I’m having… a heart attack.”

“And living so deep on a mountain? That would make access to a major medical facility tough.” He grazed her cheek with a kiss. “Lucky for you I’m proficient in CPR.”

His words chilled her from the inside as she thought of her sister and wondered not for the first time if things could have been different for her if she’d gotten sick somewhere else. How could Wade help but think of his mother, cut off from help? No ambulance and ER right around the corner to care for her horrific injuries.

Sunny eased from him, her toes touching rocks along the bottom until she was grounded again, the fantasy dimming. She struggled to think of a way to get it back, her eyes lingering on her lover. Moonlight glinted off his short dark hair, slick with a mix of water and hints of ice, while his chest was flushed from the heated water and great sex. She knew his body so well in some ways, and in others not as much.

Desperate to chase away negative thoughts that threatened to steal this fantasy moment from her, she stroked his shoulder blade. “You have green footprints tattooed here.” A strange color that seemed as out of place on his skin as the lights misting overhead. “What’s the reason behind it? Because if it’s a bar story, I’m betting it’s a good one.”

Laughing, he kissed the inside of her elbow, their legs brushing underwater. “It’s a pararescue thing. Most of us have them somewhere on our body. It dates back to the Vietnam War, when the H-3 Sea King was the helicopter used most often to drop PJs in and pull us back out. The chopper was big and green—thus its nickname, the Jolly Green Giant. PJs started getting green footprint tattoos.”

Her fingertips sketched along the rougher patches of inked flesh, her nerves still on heightened alert from the power of her orgasm… orgasms actually, as he’d brought her to completion three times since they’d entered the pool. “Any other tattoos I should know about ahead of time?”

“That’s it. But you’re welcome to look again.” He kissed up her arm. “And again.”

He pulled her closer until she pressed flush against him. The gush of water from the geyser echoed her speeding pulse in her ears. Her nipples skimmed his chest, his swirls of hair a gentle abrasion. She was definitely too spent to have sex again so soon, and even if she weren’t she knew he was talking about the future. Which wasn’t unreasonable, given the tenuous connection forming in spite of roadblock after roadblock.

He tucked her hair behind her ear, the longer ends floating out around her. “What am I going to do with you, Sunny Foster?”

“Could we just have sex twenty-four/seven?” she whispered against his mouth. “Seems like we communicate best that way.”

He nipped her bottom lip. “Believe me, I would if I could.”

“You mean you’re not a superhero?” She stared at him in mock surprise.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, not meeting her eyes.

Her hands grazed down his back until she cupped his tight, amazing butt. “No comeback, for once? That’s a shocker.”

He shrugged. “I don’t really know how to joke about it. I’ve spent a lot of my life training for this.”

“How long? Spell it out,” she asked, hungry for everything she could learn about him. They had so little time left together, with his impending deployment, her own uncertainty about her future. “I can’t know what you don’t tell me.”

“PJs spend nearly two years training overall. Indoctrination course at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, then on to Airborne School at Fort Benning. Combat Divers School next.” He paused. “Are you bored yet?”

“I’m impressed. Please continue. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.”

“Okay, since you asked… Then Navy Underwater Egress Training at Pensacola Naval Air Station. Survival school up in Washington.” He shivered melodramatically. “Freefall Parachutist School after that.”

Now she was more than impressed, she was awed. “What else could be left to learn?”

“Special Ops Combat Medic Course, then our PJ Recovery Specialist Course, finishing up at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.”

“I knew PJs were a highly specialized group… but, wow, I didn’t have a clue.” She sifted through it all. So much training, so many places. “How do couples manage to stay together during all that time apart?”

He angled his head back, his cocoa-brown eyes meeting hers somberly. “If a couple can’t handle the training, they aren’t going to be able to handle the stress and separations of military life. Our divorce rates are high.”

Her breath hitched in her chest at the shift in the conversation, the seriousness. The possibility behind the warning. “Are you proposing or warning me off?”

“I’m just telling you the facts so you have all the information.”

A nonanswer if she’d ever heard one. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to push for more, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Your parents stayed together, in spite of everything life has thrown their way.”

He stared up toward the northern lights, his eyes taking on a distant look. “Maybe I should bring my mother to one of the other, more accessible hot springs in Alaska, let her experience the hot springs, the healing waters.” He glanced back down at her with a half-embarrassed grin. “I suffer no delusions that it’ll fix everything for her, but at least I could give her something.”

“That’s a lovely thought.” She cupped his neck, stroking along the shaved hairs at his nape, bristly crisp with freezing water. How ironic that she’d brought him out here for the soothing power of the healing waters without realizing how it might touch a deeper hurt than a couple of stitches in his shoulder.

His shoulder.

Just that fast, the levity evaporated faster than the steam dispersed by the cold Alaska air. How could she have forgotten even for a second that just earlier that week, Deputy Smith had shot wildly at them, trying to crush them with an avalanche?

Something tugged at the back of her brain, some detail, some sense that she was missing something. She searched though everything that had been said—tougher and tougher to do with Wade’s hands making tantalizing forays over her breasts, his thigh working gentle, arousing pressure between her legs.

Her body warmed from the inside out, coming back to life as it always did with Wade, and she struggled to follow the elusive whisper of logic tap, tap, tapping. God, following it was as futile as kicking through an ice wall with bare feet. She needed serious firepower to let loose the avalanche.

She slid off Wade’s leg and nearly slipped under the surface. Spluttering water, she resurfaced.

Wade braced her with his hands clamped to her waist. “What’s wrong?”

“All this time we’ve been wondering if Deputy Smith was a serial killer who acted alone.”

“Um, right, but what made you start thinking about that, right now?”

“Your injury reminded me of that day, when Deputy Smith was waiting for us, to shoot us.”

“I remember it too damn well.” His grip tightened around her.

“Serial killers have an MO, right? All the old cop shows stress that.”

“Because it’s true.”

“So if Deputy Smith killed all those other people with a knife because he was a serial killer, doesn’t it make sense that he would follow that same pattern in trying to take us down?”

Wade went still. Very still. The gush of water filled the silence between them as she could all but see the wheels turning in his mind.

Sunny continued. “Maybe he was just desperate, but it’s worth considering alternatives to the serial killer scenario. According to every true-crime show I’ve watched, serial killers have their rules, their patterns—a particular method. They have to stick to the ritual to get the thrill. Rand Smith killed my friends by slashing their throats. If he’s a serial killer, it stands to reason he would have used the knife on us instead of the gun. We have to seriously consider the possibility that he’s an assassin, hired by someone higher up the chain.”

Wade cursed low under his breath, his face hardening back into warrior mode. Her tender lover had faded away.

A noise cut the night, a door opening. He tensed, tucking her to his chest before she could say so much as “I can take care of myself.” Although given that they were both naked, outside in Alaska, that made them both plenty vulnerable.

She looked to the entrance leading back inside. The brown door opened wide, the two figures backlit, faces indistinguishable.

They stepped forward as one, a man and a woman. The female eased forward and Misty’s face came into focus. Sunny sagged with relief. Her sister stood with Flynn Everett, who apparently hadn’t gone home for the night after all. Wade’s uniform and Sunny’s clothes littered the ground around their feet.

Now that the initial freaked-out fear had gone, awkwardness crept over her. She was in the middle of the hot springs, naked with a guy.

“Um, would you mind turning your backs for a second so we can get some towels and our clothes?”

“Of course,” Misty said quickly, spinning around and pushing at Flynn’s shoulders for him to follow. “Could you hurry? It’s really important.”

“Right…” She half swam, half walked across the small pondlike springs until she reached the steps, feeling Wade’s bulk behind her.

She snagged a towel and robe, tossing one to Wade. Yanking the terrycloth over her body and half dancing to keep her toes from freezing on the deck, she allowed herself a quick glance at him. He pitched aside the robe in favor of yanking on his camo pants. So quickly his body had become familiar to her, from his taut butt to the green footprint tattoos walking up his shoulder. With the world unraveling around her, he was fast becoming her one constant.

As she rushed to follow her sister and Flynn inside, she saw Wade shrugging into the rest of his uniform, damp splotches mottling the camo pattern from where the fabric had rested on the icy deck. It was almost as if his body was immune to the cold.

The thick wood door eased closed, sealing the four of them in the dimly lit corridor. She started to suggest they go upstairs to her apartment, but Misty grabbed her by the arm.

“I got an email tonight from a woman named Andrea Livingston. She forwarded documents and correspondence that suggest her husband plans to blow up a power plant. And he’s doing so with the help of someone here.”

Wade stepped forward, his face set. “Time to wake up Flynn’s father and use his satellite phone again.”

“Right,” Flynn said. “He’ll need to know the latest development anyway.”

“Wait, Wade.” Sunny clasped his arm, his muscles tensed under her grip. “Who are you calling? The police? Shouldn’t we hear more about the emails to make sure we don’t go off in the wrong direction?”

“I’ve done this your way since we started up the mountain. I’ve respected your boundaries, your way of doing things, your concerns for your family. Now it’s become bigger than us. Bigger than your family. It’s time to do this my way. It’s time to set off my emergency beacon so my people can locate us. We need to call in the reinforcements.”

***



The kitchen wall clock showed four in the morning.

Brett paced his way across the tile floor in the sleeping house. He couldn’t risk going into the bedroom since Andrea might wake up and note what time he’d come in. The sitter slept like a log and didn’t know yet that Andrea intended to fire her, so that wasn’t a problem. The sitter only woke up for the alarm connected to an emergency button in Andrea’s room and one on her chair.

He would stretch out on the sofa in the office. He would simply tell his wife he’d been at the plant late and didn’t want to wake her once he got home, pretty much the truth. A dim glow lit the hall. Every room had night-lights rechargeable by the sun, so no matter what time of day, even in a blackout, Andrea would be able to find her way around the house.

Soon, he would be able to offer her so much more without worrying about the IRS questioning where all his extra capital had come from.

Pushing the office door open very slowly to avoid creaking hinges… he stopped short. Andrea sat at the computer. Awake. Her hair draped in a long red ponytail over one shoulder, a splash of color across her green silk pajamas. She was like a living, breathing aurora borealis for him.

But she was also a creature of habit in some things, like always turning in early. So why wait up for him tonight?

Was she still hung up on the suspicion that he was cheating? He didn’t much care for having his itinerary checked, but he couldn’t afford to cause any ripples now. She would understand more—if not all—soon enough. At least he’d erased all the old correspondence and anything to do with Misty. He would have just bought a whole new computer but he was afraid that would arouse more suspicions.

He tossed his coat on the sofa, one she’d re-covered in fabric bought on safari. “I had to work late. You shouldn’t have waited up, although now that I see you, I’m glad you did.”

“Oh, really,” she said simply, keeping her back to him.

Her mood had been tough to gauge all day when he’d called, working at being an attentive husband.

Stopping beside her, he swiped aside her red hair to kiss his favorite spot on her neck. “Hello, beautiful.”

She reached back, her wrist grazing his cheek, as she always did, even if she didn’t answer. So close. They were so close to leaving this godforsaken patch of earth. So close to living a rich, full life together again.

His eyes opened… and he caught a glimpse of the computer screen. Of an email that began “Dear Misty…”

What the hell?

He straightened slowly as Andrea shifted aside, giving him a clear view. Damn it, he’d erased everything to and from Misty. He was certain. But as he scanned farther, he realized the note wasn’t from him.

The post had been written by Andrea.

You need to know that Brett isn’t who he says he is. I hope to God he hasn’t involved you in his dealings because if he has, there’s nothing I can do for you. But you need to know someone in your community is helping him blow up a power plant…



He stopped reading abruptly. Stunned. Appalled.

Scared.

He couldn’t possibly be seeing what he thought. How had she found out? And he prayed to God she hadn’t sent it yet.

“Andrea, what the hell have you done?”

“I should be asking you that, my love.” Finally, she glanced back over her shoulder, steely fury glinting in her emerald green eyes. “But I’m afraid I already know.”

His gut dropped harder than a ride in a g-force elevator.

“I thought we already cleared up this matter about the emails. Nothing is what you think.” He was scrambling for possible explanations. And he had to think fast or she would sense the lie. “Okay, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I’ve been working with local authorities to uncover a plot at the plant.” His story was gaining speed in his mind. “The woman—Misty—is part of an ecoterrorist group that has been trying to blow up the place.”

That sounded good, plausible. Maybe he could pull this off. He watched every nuance of her face as she searched his, waiting for her verdict, already prepping his next words.

She shoved his shoulder weakly, but oh so effectively. Her rejection of him and his story was clear in her upper lip, curled in disgust. “How could you so underestimate me? The accident took away the use of my legs but it didn’t damage by mind. I know you so very well and I knew you were lying. And you should know I’m not the type of woman to let her man steamroll right over her.”

A deeper fear took root. She really had figured out his plan, or part of it anyway. His perfect plan that could actually be coming apart. But then his mind hitched on something she’d said.

She’d called him her man. That was good.

He could salvage this. “I don’t know what you think you’ve figured out, but there are layers to this you don’t understand yet—”

“I don’t ‘think’ I’ve figured out anything. I know,” she hissed, speaking low enough that her aide wouldn’t overhear. “I hacked your work computers. Once it became apparent every word out of your mouth has been a lie for the last year. Maybe longer. And now I know enough to put you in jail for the rest of your life.”

Her voice cracked for the first time. Her pain stabbed clean through him. A fissure opened wide and kept cracking, his world coming apart of the seams. He dropped to his knees in front of her, desperate to make her understand.

“I love you, Andrea. Anything I’ve done I did for you, to get you the best doctors, the most cutting-edge new treatments. I want to take you to Europe.” He rested his hands on her useless legs, which had once climbed mountains and tackled ski slopes with ease. “Even if you never walk again—and I’m praying you do—with the money I’ve made, we can go back to the way things used to be. We can still travel the world, still have adventures.”

Her face creased with… pity? “You may have fooled yourself that you did this for me, Brett, but you did it for yourself. So you don’t have to give up the ‘adventures’ now that I can no longer go with you.”

After all he’d done, all he’d given up for her, this accusation cut the deepest.

“God, Andrea, don’t say that. Do I want you out of that wheelchair? Of course. Do I wish that awful, awful accident had never happened? Every second of every day. But you have to know that I love you.”

“And I love you for what we once shared,” she answered without hesitation. “But I can’t live with someone who would plan something like this, somebody who would risk so many lives. I can’t spend the rest of my life knowing what you’ve done and living off the money you made from the pain, the suffering, the blood of others. And if you knew me at all, you would realize that.”

She was serious. Dead serious.

However much she’d learned of his plans beyond the power plant, she’d figured out enough to put him in jail. She knew enough to connect him to murders. His pulse nearly pounded out through his eyes. Frustration roared through him, rage, years’ worth. He’d been able to survive this frozen-in-time existence because he had a plan to get himself and Andrea out. He wouldn’t be stuck forever working in a f*cking cubicle, told to be grateful because he had a tiny-ass window and two real walls to tack up a picture and some antlers.

Trapped. He felt completely trapped like an animal. He was even panting like a dog. He was losing Andrea. He was losing Europe.

“Andrea”—his voice came out a hoarse croak—“after all I’ve done for you, for our future, you’re going to spit on my devotion to you?”

“Oh God, Brett. You just don’t get it. Because I love you, I’ve arranged it so you have a four-hour window to leave ahead of the police.”

Four hours? It wasn’t much, but maybe he could still pull this off. He sagged with relief. “Then it’s not too late for us to—”

“Oh, no, it’s too late to stop the notifications I’ve sent out to more than one person. I wanted to make damn sure the truth got out. I wasn’t risking the possibility that you may have someone on your payroll that I haven’t uncovered yet.” She touched his hand, her face pulling tight with the first signs of real regret, even tears. “If you turn yourself in to the police, I will stay by your side, without fail. I will support you through the trial, through jail time, and if, Lord willing, you should ever see daylight again, I will be here waiting for you. If you make this right.”

Nothing would ever be right again. He couldn’t even bring himself to speak. He just stared at his wife, absorbing the beauty of her fine features, her ivory complexion, because he would never see her again.

“But if you walk out that door, Brett, if you run, you and I are finished. I will not follow you. And if you are captured, I will not so much as lay eyes on you again.”

He knew without a doubt that she meant every word.

His heart was cleaved in half. She’d offered him two impossible options. Lose her or go to prison. Hell on earth either way. His grief turned to fury over her putting him in this position. Really no choice at all.

He would have to leave. Gamble everything on saving his ass and making it out of the country with what he’d saved. Gamble that maybe time would soothe Andrea’s fury. Because no matter what she said, a strong woman like that would never want a man behind bars. How would she respect him?

Four hours? Once he picked up his stash of cash and thumb drives of data tucked away at the power plant, he would be on a private aircraft out of here in three.

***



The whap, whap, whap of helicopter blades in the distance cut the night.

Standing in the middle of Main Street with the rest of the community, Wade tipped his ear to the wind and listened to the approaching chopper. Yes, an MH-60, just as he expected. And making good time. Less than two hours had passed since Misty and Flynn had rushed out to the hot springs retreat.

Any thoughts of romance and winning Sunny over with tantric sex had been put on hold. Thanks to the senior Everett’s satellite phone, Wade had been able to make contact with his base directly, speaking with both McCabe and their OSI contact who’d first questioned Sunny. Then Misty had forwarded all emails to a secure address via a secure cell phone link provided by the OSI.

The pieces had slid together quickly and neatly.

They were now racing against time to stop an attack on a major power plant on the Alaska Peninsula. Some group in this community was involved in making a statement in a very dangerous manner. Local police had been alerted and a military helicopter would transport them for on-site questioning.

A piercing light from above split through the dark. A searchlight from the approaching helicopter strobed over the crowd of people, some still wearing their pajamas under parkas. The helicopter banked toward the open patch of ground, a park beside the frozen river.

Sunny shivered in spite of the layers of clothes she wore now. She’d twisted her damp hair up in a knot and covered it with her hood, insisting she didn’t want to waste even a second—or be left behind while they made the call.

He slid his arm around her shoulders. “Hang tough. Help is on the way.”

“It’s not that. I know we’ll have the best of the best protection. I understand this is what needs to happen.” She crossed her arms tightly over her chest as the chopper settled into a hover. “I just feel like I’m in the middle of that old movie about aliens, the one called something like Close Encounters. There’s a big scene where the spaceship from another world comes in and everyone is staring up, gawking.”

The roar and wind of the choppers beating blades cut the air louder, louder still, until Wade had to duck his head to her ear in order to be heard.

“Aliens are not going to take over your town.” He held her closer. “This is about keeping people alive and stopping an attack on a major facility.”

“I know this is bigger than my worries about a changing way of life. I just can’t believe I’m in the middle of such a horrible crime.” She shielded her eyes against the searchlight. “I just want life to be good old boring and normal again.”

The military chopper descended, the rotor wash of air stirring a ministorm. Snow swept outward, flakes and flecks of ice biting into his skin.

As Sunny grew paler beside him, he thought it was probably best not to tell her. For him, this was normal.