by M. S. Parker
Roman
I did it just to see how she reacted. Although her eyes flashed at me, she gave me a bright smile that once more had me shoving down the instinctive, immediate attraction I’d felt for her.
She cut around me as I settled my headlamp into place.
She was already halfway across the road by the time I had it how I wanted. I flipped it on as I crossed the road, shooting a quick look up at the sky. I couldn’t make out much with the snow, but from what I could tell, the weather wasn’t getting any worse.
I hoped the luck would hold, although nothing short of a blizzard would keep me from looking for Cass.
I should have made her wait a few days until a seat opened on one of the bigger airlines. It would have been safer for her.
Guilt swamped me and tried to take over, but I wrestled it under control. I couldn’t afford any distractions.
The cute blonde in front of me was already distraction enough. We’d had to go to single file as the unmarked, less traveled trail narrowed. We were already starting to climb upward, and she moved with an easy, casual grace.
We moved in silence, and although she wasn’t moving as fast as I’d like, I knew the pace she’d set for us was both safe and effective.
She paused from time to time to consult the handheld GPS she carried, and impatience gnawed at me, although I understood her caution. I was sort of wishing I’d just headed straight to the trail without bothering to check with anybody else. It wasn’t the most practical of ideas, and I knew we were making good time despite the crappy weather, but impatience nagged at me, making me wish I was on my own, so I could move faster.
When she stopped for the third time in under thirty minutes, my temper snapped, and I moved up until I was crowding the small space of the trail. “What’s the matter, princess?” I snapped. “Lost in the woods already?”
She gave me a pithy look. “Please.”
That was all she said before she looked back at the GPS, a scowl puckering her brow.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said coolly, unaffected by the sharp tone of my voice. “I’m debating options.”
I craned my head around, trying to see the screen better.
She angled it my way, and I studied the display until I saw the mark pinpointing our location. “I’m trying to figure out the best route. This one…” she tapped the screen with her pinkie finger, indicating the trail I’d planned to take, “goes almost straight up. It’s a shorter distance, but a hard climb and the weather will have made it worse.”
“Don’t think you can handle it?”
She once more lifted her gaze to mine, and the soft gray of her eyes shone with confidence. “I’m more worried about you,” she said with a smug grin.
I ignored the jab and focused back on the terrain mapped out on the GPS. “Where are the other teams?”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen, using the tip to indicate a couple of spots on the map.
“It looks to me like the other trail will be pretty close to the next group. We won’t be covering as much territory if we take that route.”
She blew out a rough breath, then looked back at me. She angled her head so that the headlamp she wore wasn’t shining directly in my face. I’d automatically tilted my headlamp to keep from blinding her with the bright light, but there was enough ambient light from the combined lamps that I could see her face easily.
“I’m not kidding. That trail is rough. Are you sure you can handle it?”
“I’m not the one who keeps stopping to take breathers,” I drawled, although she hadn’t once shown any sign of exertion. The pack she carried was packed full, and if her attitude was anything to go by, she had the smarts to know what was necessary. If she was carrying the typical gear for a search and rescue, her pack probably weighed about thirty pounds, but she didn’t act like it encumbered her at all.
Still, I couldn’t resist needling her.
She didn’t rise to the bait though. She gave her bag one shift, then turned away, once more facing the trails. “Let’s go.”
One problem with the headlamp – it illuminated the excellent curve of her butt as she slowly made her way up the trail. Even those ugly uniform pants she wore couldn’t hide the sheer perfection of her ass.
We’d been ascending at a steady pace for the past thirty minutes, and I was just now starting to breathe heavy. When she stopped on one of her GPS checks, I could see that her respirations were a little accelerated, and a light sweat glinted on her brow, but overall, she looked like she was taking a leisurely walk.
She pulled something from one of the webbed pockets, and I watched as she pulled out a canteen, taking a sip from it. “Did you bring water?” she asked.
In response, I lifted the tube connected to the bladder of water inside my pack. Staring at her, I took a quick swig and said, “You probably aren’t drinking enough. If you do enough of these, you should get a CamelBak pack like this one.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” she replied in a snide tone.
As she turned away, I found myself grinning at her back. I wiped the expression off my face as soon as I noticed, giving myself a mental slap. I didn’t need to be appreciating how cheeky she was, or how little I seemed to intimidate her. I was used to intimidating people. It wasn’t just my height or physique either. I had a few scars left by shrapnel and one long thin one on my face that seemed to catch the attention of everybody I met.
Her ranger buddy back at the park had certainly noticed it. What had she called him? Stilwell. What the hell kind of name was Stilwell? One that fit the annoying prick, that was for certain.
Lexi didn’t even seem to notice the scar though. I hadn’t once caught her staring at it.
I frowned at her back, annoyed by how much she was preoccupying my thoughts. I needed to be focused on the search, on finding Cass, not admiring the curve of her ass or enjoying her acerbic humor.
We walked another twenty or thirty minutes before she reached into the webbed pocket of her backpack, slowing to a stop as she took another drink of water.
“That guy back at the ranger station,” I said, waiting for her eyes to meet mine.
“There were a lot of guys at the station,” she pointed out. “You’re a guy. You were there.”
“Smart ass.” I braced my hands on my hips. “The one who called you Alex. What’s his deal?”
“He’s an asshole,” she replied simply. “That might explain why you keep calling me princess.”
She delivered that last comment with a dazzling smile, and I found myself laughing.
Her eyes widened in surprise.
The laughter broke off, and I cleared my throat. “I call you princess because you act like one,” I replied. “All prim and proper. That’s not why he calls you Alex.”
“He does it to annoy me,” she said, shaking her head. She looked away but not before I caught a flicker of something in her eyes.
Something sad.
It bothered me enough that I fell silent as she turned to resume her trek up the mountain.
I’d lost track of how long we’d been out here and tugged up the sleeve of my coat to check my watch. In the span it took me to check the time, the snowfall intensified, and I glanced up just in time to catch a face full of flakes.
“Shit,” Lexi muttered, looking up just as I did. I caught sight of her face in profile as she looked around and her expression was acutely annoyed. “This is going to make things so much more fun.”
I grunted in agreement and nodded to the trail. “We should get moving.”
Nine
Lexi
I was glad I’d added my gaiter. It kept snow from sneaking in the scant space between my coat’s collar and my neck. If this kept up, my outer layer would be wet pretty quickly, but both my coat and the trousers I wore were water repellant, and my base layer should do the job of keeping me warm enough.
That didn’t mean I w
as warm. I just wasn’t going to be in any danger of frostbite.
I gave a brief thought to Roman and whether he was wearing a base layer but brushed the concern aside.
If he was as experienced as he’d led me to believe, he wouldn’t be so stupid to be out here in just jeans and a battered leather coat. Of course, I couldn’t be too critical. I’d ended up going with him instead of my team, something that could end up causing me problems with both my boss and the various SAR volunteers who’d come out to help.
Stilwell, that asshole, would probably start cackling with glee when he realized what I’d done.
Fuck, I’d been so stupid agreeing to come out here with Roman.
But at the same time, I tried to figure out what the other options were. Going out solo on a night like this here in the mountains was like the height of stupidity, and if something happened to Roman on his dogged search for the downed plane, then we’d be looking at not one rescue op, but two.
It was enough to give me a headache, and the man’s arrogance was pushing my already frayed temper to the limits.
The trail we were following had a bifurcation coming up, and I pulled out my GPS to give it another check, coming to a halt as I did so. My thighs were burning already from the steady upward climb we’d been making, but I tuned it out of my mind. If we kept in the general direction, it was only going to get worse.
As I debated on the right path to take, I pulled my canteen from the pocket on my bag and took a drink. It was almost empty. I had several more bottles of water stowed in my pack, enough to get me through a day out here in the mountains, easy, even with all the physical exertion. Even when the bottled water ran out, I had both a small personal water filter and purification tablets, and there was an abundance of water coming down around us in the form of snowflakes. But the fact that I was almost on empty with the canteen was proof of how long we’d been out here.
I didn’t check the time.
There wasn’t much point.
I had my radio on and was listening to the low hum of chatter, but as of yet, they hadn’t found the crash site or any survivors. Time was crucial at this point, so we’d be out here for as long as it took to find the survivors or until the weather completely shut us down.
Brooding, I studied the GPS and the two alternative routes as Roman stood next to me. From the corner of my eye, I could see him moving the tube into place, so he could take a drink from the CamelBak water pack. His backpack was a rugged, camouflaged piece of work, one designed for military use. I’d recognized the style once I had a chance to look at it and decided I needed to get one. I’d seen the CamelBak packs before, but this was the first chance I’d had to witness just how ingenious the design was.
“What’s the holdup?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
I didn’t even look up at him. He’d moved close enough that he could see the map on the handheld GPS easily, and I suspected he was already aware that we needed to pick a direction in the next few hundred yards. “Trying to weigh options,” I said shortly.
He tapped the map and said, “We need to keep going north.”
I made a face. North meant leaving the measly trail for one that was used even less.
I didn’t like the idea.
“It makes just as much sense to shift toward the northwest,” I said, uneasy about the idea of taking the less-traveled game trail. It went on for several miles before joining up with yet another trail that was close to one of the less-used ranger stations, but those few miles would be rough, and the snowy terrain would make everything more difficult than it already was.
“We go north,” Roman said, tone implacable.
I was about to tell him off when he cut around me. The trail fork was just a couple hundred feet ahead according to my GPS, and as I hit the button to put the screen to sleep, I could see him striding on. I had no doubt he was heading in the exact direction I didn’t want to go. Which meant I’d have to follow him.
It wasn’t like I could force him to take the route I preferred. Somebody a little less arrogant or unsure would be easier to talk into taking the other route, but none of those descriptors applied to Roman.
Jack-ass.
I heaved out a breath and started onward.
We reached the spot where the trail split and Roman paused, looking around us with a gaze that was both assessing and annoyed.
“You’re about to take us on what is little more than a game trail,” I told him. “It’s unmarked, and hardly anybody uses it, not even us rangers.”
He gave me a cutting glance. “What’s the matter? Don’t think you can handle it?”
I flipped him off, the gesture seeming to happen almost on its own, without any input from my consciousness.
To my surprise, the corner of his mouth tugged up in a faint grin.
“Sweetheart,” he drawled. He scanned me from head to toe, and I’d swear I felt every inch as he looked me up and down.
Instinctive heat rushed through me, only to be obliterated as he added, “You only wish.”
“You’re an arrogant piece of work,” I said in a disinterested tone, although my pride had been stung. I wasn’t particularly vain, but I’d never lacked for male interest either. That he could look at me that way was an insult more cutting than I liked. “What makes you think I would wish?”
I cut around him, refusing to continue trailing along at his back like some undesired train.
I could only faintly hear him falling into place behind me, and I had the feeling I’d amused him yet again.
Jack-ass.
He could kiss my overly sore ass.
I can’t say if my irritation was enough to cause my distraction or if I could attribute it to weather, or just the overall surroundings in general. I’d been trying to watch where I stepped while keeping an eye on the terrain around me. At the back of my mind, I knew I needed to keep alert for certain dangers, not all of which were caused by nature. Some of them were directly related to the presence of the man in the rugged mountain landscape.
But I did get distracted, and it happened all too easily despite the fact that I was continually scanning the terrain.
One minute I was moving to traverse a huge limb that was bigger around than my waist. It must have fallen only recently, the fresh wood easy to make out even in the dim light.
I jumped up on it and went to step down, and faster than I could process, I was thrown off balance, pain shooting through my ankle. Instinctively, I threw myself to the side and flung out my left hand in an instinctive movement to break my fall as the snare clamped its jaws closed around my foot.
I cried out as I hit, the impact jolting and not just because almost all my weight was centered on two points of contact, my left wrist and hip, while the trap around my left ankle wrenched in the opposite direction.
Bright, blinding pain tore through me, and another pained cry escaped me as I rolled onto my back, instinctively cradling my injured wrist.
Blood roared in my ears as I stared up at the sky, snowflakes drifting down to land gently on my face. Previously, I’d been too cold to take much notice of the fat, fluffy flakes as they made contact with my skin.
But now my blood was pumping hard enough that I was sweating despite the cold, and each snowflake was a small, icy burn on my flesh.
A shadow fell over me, and it took my shock-flooded mind a few seconds to place just who owned the big, hulking form that came between me and my view of the snowy sky.
Roman said something, and I closed my eyes with a groan, cradling my left forearm. My wrist screamed in agony.
I squirmed around, all but rendered helpless by the heavy pack and the pain in my wrist. With my uninjured hand, I fumbled free of the waist and sternum straps of my pack, but I couldn’t do anything about the shoulder straps in this position except shrug out of them, and the thought of moving my left arm filled me with dread.
Roman said something else, voice sharp and commanding.
I blinked, wheelin
g my head around to focus on his face. My headlamp lit up his rugged features mercilessly. For some odd reason, my brain locked on the beauty of his pale green eyes, and I stared into them as if they alone could keep me grounded.
“Help me sit up,” I said.
He ignored me. “Are you hurt?”
It seemed like a stupid question.
I’d stepped into a hunter’s snare, and my ankle throbbed dully while my wrist hurt more than I’d thought it was even possible to hurt.
My voice was surprisingly steady as I said, “I think I might have broken my wrist.”
Ten
Roman
“We go north.”
Her pretty little mouth tightened, and I could already see an argument forming in her eyes.
I could have presented my case in a logical manner, but that mouth kept distracting me, so instead of explaining my rationale, I just focused my attention on the map displayed on her handheld GPS. It was a make I was familiar with, although handheld GPS units, for the most part, worked about the same.
I wasn’t as familiar with this area, and logic dictated that I use caution, but the longer we were out here without any sign of the plane, or Cass, the more concerned I became.
I could see the skepticism in her eyes, but I already knew it wouldn’t affect me.
Maybe I should feel bad I was all but dragging her along with me. One part of me insisted that she hadn’t had to follow me, but there was another part of me that understood her rationale.
It could be dangerous on these trails, even in daylight with good weather. We were hiking it in the very opposite, a dark, cloudy night as snow fell steadily from the skies. It was already accumulating on the ground, and that would make our going much more treacherous.
“You’re about to take us on what is little more than a game trail,” she said in a hard voice. There was a world of concern in her eyes and her tone.
Maybe I should slow things down and consider what she was telling me. But even as she continued to speak, the worry in my gut swelled yet again.