On Thin Ice

by Debra Lee Brown

  She arched a brow at him as he turned into Kachelik’s main street and headed for his house. “You can if you’re Jack Salvio and Paddy O’Connor, and if you have enough cash backing you.”

  “Even so, the hole they drilled is probably still there, intact. If it’s there, the Feds will find it. The sample’s not important.”

  She shot him a look of astonishment. “You don’t get it, do you? No one, not even the FBI, will be allowed back in that hole. There’d be lawsuits, injunctions. You can’t imagine the legal ramifications of something like this. The sample is everything.”

  Before he could stop her, even before he had the damned ignition switched off in his driveway, she leaped out of the Jeep and dashed around the back of the house toward the kitchen.

  Seth was right behind her, swearing. He slammed the door behind him and she jumped, nearly dropping the receiver of the yellow wall phone next to the fridge.

  “Hang up,” he said. She ignored him and dialed 411. Directory assistance. “You’re not going back there, Lauren. I won’t let you.”

  “Why not?” She twisted around to look at him while the call connected.

  “It’s too dangerous.” He snatched the receiver from her hand and slammed it down on the hook.

  “But I’ve got to.”

  He kissed her. Hard.

  “Seth, please.”

  He kissed her again, backing her out of the kitchen into the hallway. He couldn’t stop himself.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The bedroom,” he whispered against her lips.

  This time she kissed him.

  Chapter 18

  A nimal lust.

  That’s what it was. But not all it was, she told herself, as Seth scooped her into his arms and carried her down the shadowed hallway into his bedroom.

  Their emotions had been ratcheted into high gear, and the thrill of at last unraveling the Caribou Island mystery fueled their ardor. Not that it needed fueling. Their desire for each other had crouched between them from the first day like a predator waiting to strike.

  She didn’t care any more. She simply gave in to it, allowed herself to be consumed.

  Light bled from the kitchen, just enough so they could see each other as he stripped off his jacket, then hers, then picked her up again, this time cupping her bottom. He lifted her off her feet and kissed her with a voracity that shocked her.

  She reciprocated. Her legs wound tightly around his hips, trapping him, as he pressed her into him and backed her toward the bed.

  She told herself not to get carried away by her emotions this time, to simply enjoy the sex. Forget Caribou Island, her career, her confused feelings about Crocker.

  Forget everything except him. His hard body grinding against hers, hands tearing at her clothes, the weight of him as he toppled her onto the bed, his tongue like hot glass searing hers.

  His anger at her, his obvious frustration, a maelstrom of muddled emotions tangled with raw lust—all of it was unleashed on her at once. She reveled in it, kissing him wildly, clawing at his buttocks and back.

  Together they broke the speed record for undressing.

  Boots hit the floor. His belt, her jeans. She barely got her sweater off without losing all the buttons. He was hard as rock. She was challenged to unzip his jeans and get them off him.

  Her bra gave him trouble. He all but ripped it off her. Panties and boxer shorts fared no better. Once they were naked they came together in a tangle of limbs, shallow breaths, and unchecked groans voiced between violent kisses.

  She drowned herself in sensation—the taste of his skin, his smell, the stubble of beard raking the soft skin of her breasts as he moved his mouth across her body.

  “Seth,” she breathed, begging him to take her, using words she’d never uttered with any man in her life.

  She spread her legs and he thrust inside her, his fingers slipping between their bodies to stoke her heat. She climaxed almost at once. Then again, along with him.

  Later, as they lay there entwined, silent, stroking each other, she remembered what she’d felt at the school when her gaze had collided with his.

  She’d felt the same on those nights in the lab when they’d talked until late, again in the Rolligon, and when they’d made love in the hunting lodge and he’d said the words she feared believing.

  Maybe she could have a new life, the life she’d always wanted. A new man to share it with.

  A man like Seth.

  Stretching, Seth rolled over, feeling the empty expanse of sheets. The bed was still warm where Lauren had slept, curled in his embrace, after they’d made love.

  He didn’t know what had come over him. He’d acted like a wild animal. So had she, he recalled, allowing a smile to break across his lips.

  He sat up in bed and checked the clock on the nightstand. Five o’clock. In the morning? No way. It had to be afternoon. Wednesday afternoon. He tilted the blinds on the window and peered out into darkness. A lot of good that did.

  His watch kept military time. Switching on the bedside lamp he squinted against the light and fixed on the time. Seventeen hundred. Good. He hadn’t slept around the clock, as he’d feared.

  But where was Lauren?

  Swiveling out of bed, he stepped into his shorts and surveyed the clothes scattered across the room. All of them were his.

  “Lauren?”

  Her voice, low and urgent, drifted toward him as he padded down the hallway toward the light shining from the kitchen.

  “Fine. Seven o’clock tonight then.” She turned as he came into the room. She was dressed, her jacket looped over a chair by the door, ready to go.

  He saw the tiny Kachelik phone directory open on the table to Air Charter Services. His stomach clenched.

  “At the airport. I’ll be there.” She started to hang the phone up, but he snatched it from her hand.

  “Who’s this?” he said into the receiver.

  Lauren protested, but he ignored her.

  “Al. Yeah, hi. Seth Adams here.” After some small talk, he said, “About that charter. Forget it. It was a mistake.”

  “It’s not a mistake! I told you, I—”

  He turned away and finished his conversation with the bush pilot, assuring him that Lauren’s call had been an error, and that she didn’t need his services after all. When he hung up the phone and faced her, she launched at him.

  “We’ve been through this, Seth.”

  “That’s right, we have. You’re not going back there.”

  “I am. I have to.”

  “Why?”

  She spun toward the counter, gripped it, emitting a strangled sound of frustration. He wasn’t backing down. Not on this. No matter what.

  “You know why. That sample could prove oil exists in the wildlife refuge.”

  “You’ve already looked at it. Does it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Well, does it?”

  “I have looked at it, yes. But it’s just one sample. I…can’t be sure.”

  She was lying. He could tell by the way her shoulders bunched up, the way she drummed her nails on the tiled countertop.

  “So that’s it.”

  “What?” She turned to face him.

  He shook his head and softly laughed. “And all this time, after everything, after what happened at the lodge and in there—” he jerked his head toward the bedroom “—it’s still about Tiger, about your career. Isn’t it? You’re obsessed.”

  “No. Yes.” She exhaled in what he recognized as frustration, for he felt the same damned way right now. “I don’t know what it’s about. All I know is, it’s my obligation to get that sample. For Tiger.”

  “For Tiger or for you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She knew exactly what he meant. Or maybe she didn’t, he thought, as he searched her face.

  “Think about it, Lauren. What if you were to prove the existence of a new Alaskan oil field with that sample. Think what that would do
for your career. You’d be the most sought-after geologist in the industry.”

  The truth of it dawned on her. He saw the change in her expression as she thought it through.

  “I didn’t really consider that. I was just thinking about what was the right thing to do.”

  “The right thing for Tiger? The right thing for you? The right thing for the wildlife refuge and this village?”

  Her brow furrowed. “What has any of this got to do with the village?”

  “Come on, get real. If that wildlife refuge has got oil under it, this whole place’ll turn into a circus. You know it will. You also know that nobody in Kachelik will get a red cent from the oil royalties coming off that refuge—if there is oil.”

  She shot him a quick glance, but her face was unreadable.

  “The refuge is owned by the government. They’ll make a bundle. So will the oil companies. But this place will never be the same again.”

  “Speaking of obsessed, what about you? What about this—” she waved her arms in the air “—this FBI stuff? The case against Salvio and Walters?”

  “I’m not so sure it is Walters.”

  “I thought we’d decided that it was.”

  “I haven’t decided anything. That’s why I haven’t called in the Bureau. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that piece of paper with his number on it means squat.”

  “But Walters knew when I called him that I wasn’t on the island. If he wasn’t involved, how would he have known?”

  “Caller ID.” Seth shrugged. “You said it yourself. There’s a new phone system at Tiger. They probably have all kinds of new stuff.”

  She went stock-still on him. “So, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I’m rethinking the Bureau’s short list of suspects. And right now your fiancé’s name is coming out on top.”

  Her eyes widened. She stood there, fists clenched at her sides, staring at him, that sexy mouth of hers stretched in a tight line.

  A handful of hours ago he’d had the best sex of his life with her, and now she was standing an arm’s length away, glaring at him with a mixture of contempt and disbelief.

  “You said it before, yourself. Walters isn’t the type. He’s not cut out for it, doesn’t have that killer instinct you need in order to pull off something as big as this Caribou Island thing.”

  “Crocker is innocent. I’m telling you. Besides, you’re just changing the subject again.”

  “From what?”

  “From the point I was getting to. That you’re the one obsessed, not me. I’m just doing my job.”

  “So am I.”

  She shook her head. “It’s more than that with you, Seth. I know, your mother told me.”

  “What the hell does my mother have to do with—?”

  “She was here, this morning. We talked.”

  He let out a breath, stunned. “About what?” Christ, he could just imagine.

  “Things. Your life, your father, your…I don’t know…quest to prove you’re worthy of his love.”

  He felt blood rush to his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “This FBI thing. The case. If you catch the bad guys you get your job back, right?”

  “Who told you that?” He didn’t have to ask, and she didn’t answer. Unable to control himself, he swore. His mother, God love her, and he were going to have a serious talk about his privacy.

  “Maybe you’re doing it to win your father’s love. Maybe mine, too, I don’t know.”

  He covered the short distance between them and grabbed her. She had him so wound up he couldn’t speak. He just stood there, looking down at her, breathing hard, his heart beating out of control in his chest.

  “All those things you said about Crocker, about his money and what a big wheel he is in the oil business, how he probably even knows your father—which, by the way, he does—”

  He started to tell her to shut up, but she interrupted.

  “The whole time you were comparing yourself to him, weren’t you? I know you were. I could hear it in your voice, in the offhand way you mentioned the sports car he bought me or my engagement ring.” She glanced at the rock on her finger. “Once you even compared his salary to that of a borough cop’s. I remember it now. I didn’t think anything about it at the time. It was in the lab one night when—”

  He kissed her with enough unleashed emotion to power every oil rig in Alaska from now until the earth was sucked dry.

  “Stop it,” he whispered against her lips when he, at last, had the presence of mind to let her draw breath. “Just stop it.”

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” She looked up at him, and what he read in her whiskey-brown eyes made his gut clench. “Do you think I care about that? About Crocker’s money?”

  “Don’t you?”

  She extracted herself, carefully, from his grasp and crossed to the other side of the room, putting the kitchen table between them.

  “No. But I do care about other things. My commitment to him, for one. And my responsibilities to Tiger. Right now all I know is I need to get that sample.”

  “So we’re back to that.”

  “Yes, we’re back to that.”

  He ran a hand over the beard stubble on his face, considering the options.

  “I could be in and out in—”

  “No!” he said emphatically.

  “You can’t stop me, Seth.”

  “The hell I can’t.” They stood there for a moment, breathing hard, staring at each other across the table. Then he said, “I’ll go get it, if it’s so goddamned important to you.”

  “It is.”

  “Fine.” He started down the hallway, meaning to get dressed, but she called him back.

  “Where’s the FBI in all this? Why aren’t they here? Why haven’t you called them?” As soon as the words left her lips, a change washed over her expression. “Oh, I get it.”

  He met her gaze and knew that she did.

  If he called Bledsoe now and told him what had happened, that he’d blown his cover on Caribou Island, and that he still wasn’t sure who the Tiger crook was who’d set up the deal with the foreign company and who’d bought Salvio and O’Connor…

  “Tell me something, Seth? What’s wrong with just being you? The town’s chief of police? A nice guy who makes sure people are safe and that schoolkids know what to do in a storm?”

  He honestly didn’t know what to say to that. For the first time in his life he felt disoriented, unsure. He was used to knowing what he wanted without questioning why he wanted it. But now…

  “I…have to go to the station for a few minutes. An hour at most.” He needed to defuse the situation, to get a grip on his emotions. His first instinct was to put physical space between them. Maybe then he could think straight.

  “Okay,” she said, her voice soft, the animation of the past few minutes suddenly gone.

  “Will you be all right here?” What he really wanted to ask her was if could he trust her to stay put.

  She must have read it in his expression. “Don’t worry. I won’t go anywhere.”

  “Good.”

  Her expression brightened, but in a forced sort of way, as if to abruptly distance them from the heated topics of a minute ago. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”

  “Sure,” he said, distracted. “Food sounds good.” He grabbed his jacket and moved toward the door. “There’s stuff in the freezer, or I can bring something back.”

  “I’ll cook something.” She glanced at the freezer, then nodded toward his police department Jeep in the driveway. “Go ahead.”

  “See you, then.”

  She didn’t respond, just turned her back on him and opened the freezer door.

  He ground his teeth as he slid into the icy driver’s seat of the Jeep, and let fly a pack of swear words as he barreled down the street toward the station.

  Two hours later Seth returned home to the smell of stew simmering on the stove. The clock on the
wall read seven. Lauren wasn’t in the kitchen. He checked the living room, but she wasn’t there, either. He didn’t think she’d deliberately sneak away, not after she’d said she wouldn’t, but then again…

  He pushed the door open to the guest room and breathed with relief when soft light from the hallway illuminated her sleeping form. Curled into a ball, she’d drawn a quilt—one that his mother had made him—over herself. Her boots looked so small lined up carefully next to the bed where she could easily step into them when she woke.

  He smiled. In some ways they were exactly alike.

  She was exhausted. She had to be. When they’d argued in the kitchen he’d noticed how pale her skin was, and had seen the dark circles under her eyes. Both of them had been pushed to the limit. And it wasn’t over yet.

  He closed the guest-room door, deciding it was better if she just slept. For a while, anyway. Once he did what he was about to do, and the hours of questioning began, she wouldn’t have much of a chance to sleep.

  Neither would he, but that didn’t matter.

  “Bledsoe,” the drawling voice said on the other end of the line after Seth’s call connected.

  “It’s me. Adams.” He dragged a kitchen chair over to the phone and slumped onto it. “I’ve got news.”

  The faraway whomp of chopper blades woke her. At first Lauren thought she was dreaming, then realized she wasn’t when she squinted against the hallway light framing Seth’s silhouette in the guest-room doorway.

  He didn’t come in and sit on the bed, brush the hair off her face and lean down to kiss her. What did she expect? She’d gone too far with him this time. She wished that she’d never brought up the situation with his father.

  A handful of hours ago she and Seth had made love, but now he simply stood there in the doorway as if they were total strangers, and in a low and serious voice said, “Wake up, Lauren. They’re here.”

  “Who’s they?” she said in a voice thick with sleep.

  Ten minutes later she found out.

  “Doyle Bledsoe, FBI,” the gum-chewing man in the dark suit drawled as he shook her hand and gave her a once-over she found irritating.