by Meg Ripley
Every now and then, Ash would pull in a deep breath and pause, like he was about to say something, but then he’d let it go without a word passing his lips. Each time, Lane felt her muscles harden and her breath stopped as she waited for what was about to come. When it didn’t, she found that she didn’t feel any better about it.
That night as they lay in bed, Ash fell asleep quickly. Lane listened to the sound of his breathing, measuring it against her own. They were so compatible in so many ways. They’d each felt that deep and burning urge for one another; that magnetism that the universe had conferred on them. They may have been a bear and dragon, but they were both animals and people who needed each other in the deepest and most primal ways possible. She’d felt her body and soul react to him, and she’d known that he felt the same.
But was it possible that they’d only tricked themselves into believing that because of the extenuating circumstances? Could it be that when she knew she was in danger and he believed he could save her, they’d created a relationship out of that instead of the truth? It wasn’t unheard of. If that were the case, Lane wasn’t sure they’d make it in Dallas.
Slowly, she sat up in bed and looked down at her mate. She’d disappointed him. Lane had seen that written all over his face when they’d left the restaurant. He was trying so hard to make this happen. Ash enjoyed this life in Dallas. He had a purpose in his job with the Force. He left the house smiling and returned the same way. This was the life he wanted.
Lane knew she was dragging him down. She didn’t want to hold him back. He was a good and talented man, and he deserved so much more than some sobbing, miserable woman who couldn’t handle being around other people in the middle of a city of over a million people.
Slipping carefully from the bed, Lane found a duffel bag in the closet. She hadn’t had the chance to take her few possessions with her from the cavern, and she hadn’t accumulated very many since she’d arrived in Dallas. Her clothes and hairbrush easily fit in the bag, and she waited to zip it until she’d left the bedroom, lest she wake him.
Lane didn’t know exactly where she was going. She simply knew she had to get out of there. Making her way quietly out of the building, she tensed her shoulders against the night and didn’t look back.
10
Ash’s mind was working before he was even completely awake. His mind had been heavy ever since Lane had reacted that way at dinner the night before. He’d been watching those uneasy feelings build inside her ever since they’d gone back to Dallas. He’d told himself that it wasn’t that bad and she’d be fine once she had a chance to get used to it.
But as evidenced last night, it wasn’t getting any better. Numerous times, he’d thought about asking her. He wanted her to open up to him and let him know what she was actually feeling. But if Lane wasn’t ready for that, he didn’t want to push her. She’d already been through so much.
And that made his mind immediately throw back to everything that had happened in Antarctica. There, Lane had been strong and tough and stubborn. She’d told Ash just what she thought about him, and she didn’t hesitate to exact her own very personal revenge on the man who’d been so terrible to her and her flight. Ash was proud of her for that, and it was one of many things that had made him fall all the more in love with her.
She was a different person in Dallas; he could live with that. Ash knew he’d love her, no matter what. But she wasn’t happy, and he wanted to change that. It was time to finally tell her what he’d been thinking about for the last several days. He rolled over to wake her.
But Lane was already gone. The blankets on her side of the bed were pulled up and carefully straightened, just as she always left them. He swung his legs off the side of the mattress and poked his head out into the living room, expecting to find her sitting there with a mug of coffee as she usually was. Lane hadn’t been sleeping well and she was almost always out of bed before him.
But the living room was dark. The coffee pot was cold and empty, as though it hadn’t been used at all that day. Panic spread through his chest as he pulled on his clothes, his mind running through numerous scenarios. Ash had made a lot of enemies in his days with Delta Force. Had some terrorist organization managed to track him down, deciding to exact revenge on him by kidnapping Lane? Or did Dr. Blake get a hold of someone in the Pentagon before his ultimate takedown and find a way to get his retribution from beyond the grave?
His phone rang and he looked at it hopefully, sure that it would be Lane. But it was Drake. “Hey.”
“Hey, I know it’s early, and I know I said I wanted you to go through another week of training, but I’ve got a mission for you that simply can’t wait.”
“It’s going to have to,” Ash interrupted before he could say any more. “Lane’s missing.”
The other end of the line was quiet for a second. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Ash had just discovered the missing duffel bag and the empty drawers where her clothing had been. “I’m sure. She packed up and left.”
“Did you two have a fight or something?”
“No.” Things had been tense, but they didn’t argue. “This means she must’ve left of her own will, but I still don’t like it. She doesn’t know much about modern living, Drake. She could really get herself in trouble.”
“I’m already on my way to headquarters. I’ll be there in a few minutes. We’ll get the others and we’ll find her, Ash. I can promise you that.”
“Appreciate your help.” He couldn’t get to the conference room fast enough. Ash knew he was working with a team of experienced and talented people, but he still felt the rush of alarm that they may not be able to find her. Lane didn’t have a cell phone yet, even though he’d offered her one. She had no credit or debit cards, considering those weren’t exactly necessary when living in an icy wilderness on the bottom of the world. She didn’t have any of the modern conveniences that would help them track her down.
A short time later, everyone who was available from the Force units had crowded into the conference room. Max, Jack, Vance, Drake, and Garrison had joined him, and the sense of urgency filled the room.
Garrison looked concerned. “I’ve sent Maren to check in with the rest of her flight. I didn’t want to alarm them, but that seems like the first place we need to eliminate.”
“And it’s not all that far away,” Vance pointed out. “Most people having domestic problems run back home.”
“We’re not having domestic problems,” Ash growled.
The cowboy put his hands in the air. “Didn’t mean to offend you. I just thought that might be what we’re looking at.”
“It’s sensible, and given how long Lane had been living in Antarctica, I don’t know where else she’d go.” Drake leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “But if we end up ruling that out, I’d like to have our backup plan ready to go.
Flint had joined them on a screen, his cabin in the Colorado mountains serving as a cozy backdrop. “I can help you with tracking, but only if she stayed on the ground. I’ve got a good nose, but I can’t exactly follow her through the sky.”
“Flint has a good point,” Garrison acknowledged. “We can assume that if she’s not right here in the city, she must’ve shifted and flown somewhere. It only makes sense for a dragon.”
Ash didn’t like any of this. They were attacking this like any other mission. That was good in a way because he knew they were taking this just as seriously as he was. But it made it feel less personal, and he was too concerned about her to be able to step back and give it the same kind of distance the others were.
“We might not be completely out of luck if she’s flying,” Hudson said. He’d joined them via videophone as well, although the signal always went through private and extremely secure channels which he’d created himself. “A dragon flying through the sky isn’t likely to go unnoticed, especially if she’s going over heavily populated areas. I can use my equipment to check all the police and emergency frequencies t
o see if anything has been reported.”
Ash’s gut twisted. Hudson ran a major communications company, and from what Ash had been told, there was much more going on with it than the general public saw when they went to buy a new cell phone. That made Hudson more than capable of doing exactly what he said he was going to do, but Ash didn’t like the idea of Lane being reported in like some UFO. God only knew what people might try to do to her if they thought she was a monster trying to eat their livestock!
Garrison’s phone buzzed and he checked it. “That’s Maren. She’s with the rest of the dragons and none of them have seen her.”
“Shit.” Ash had been holding on to that hope. Hell, he could’ve gone out to their house himself to figure it out, and he would’ve if Drake hadn’t encouraged him to sit still and let them all use their resources.
Drake noticed the look on his face. “We’ll find her, Ash.”
“Right.”
Even through headphones, the chopper blades thumped in Ash’s ears. He scanned the ground as Max’s helicopter swooped into Arizona, even though he couldn’t see anything. The mountains below looked like a brown wrinkled blanket that someone had thrown down carelessly. “I should’ve known she’d head out here. She mentioned they’d lived this way before they’d moved down to Antarctica.”
“Don’t blame yourself. Women are unpredictable at best,” he grumbled.
Ash gave him a sideways glance. “That sounds like the voice of experience.”
“You could say that. I’ve decided I’m much better off just minding my own business and keeping this chopper in the air. Now then, where exactly did Hudson say she was spotted?”
He’d already consulted the map about a hundred times, wishing for something that sounded familiar. But Lane hadn’t offered up much information about her past. “Someone spotted her over the Fort Apache Reservation, heading west. I highly doubt she’s considering Phoenix, so our best guess is somewhere in Tonto National Forest.”
“Did the rest of her flight tell you where they used to live?”
Ash sighed. “Yeah, but they said a resort cropped up right nearby and that’s when they decided to move. I doubt she’d go anywhere near people, given what Maren told me.” He could kick himself a hundred times over for not realizing just how bad things had been for Lane. Yes, he’d known she wasn’t completely happy. But the miserable portrait Maren painted was heartbreaking. He’d never forgive himself if he’d found his true love once and then let her go.
Max glanced at him. “Don’t keep that depressing look on your face or else she’ll never want to come back,” he cracked.
Ash knew he was joking around, but it was hard to find the humor in anything when Lane was out there somewhere. She might’ve lived in this area before, but it was much more populated than it’d been half a century ago. Plus, she’d had the rest of her family with her. “I’ll work on it,” he groused.
“I’m going to head down lower,” Max informed him. “We should be able to do a decent survey of the area from the chopper, which will be a lot faster than trying to cover all this ground on foot. We can start by looking for any likely place for her to make camp.”
“Probably some sort of cave, based on what Edi told me.” The old woman had agreed to meet with him just before they’d taken off, but even knowing what their flight had done in the past didn’t give them any guarantee that they’d be able to find her again.
They swept through the canyons and gulches, zooming around and over mountains. Ash could feel his eyes getting tired as the sun began to set, and he realized just what a big space they had to sift through in order to find her. It was an impossible task, yet he wasn’t ready to give up.
Max, however, had other plans as he turned away from the mountains and toward the highway. “It’s getting dark and that’s not going to do us any good.”
Ash understood the logic of his words, but it didn’t stop his inner bear from wanting to roar with rage. He couldn’t just give up on her, not now. “If you need to rest, I understand. Just drop me off somewhere and I’ll keep looking.”
The pilot shook his dark heard. “Trust me, Ash. I’m all about being the Lone Ranger and doing things by myself, but you’ve been through all the same training with the rest of the Force that I have. We might not be on active duty anymore, but we’re still expected to follow certain rules. We have to be smart about this. There’s no point in looking when it’s dark. We’ll miss too much.”
Ash sagged against the seat. “Yeah. And you can probably only fly for so long.”
“Is that a challenge? I can fly this baby from here to the end of the Earth. But once again, it’s not going to do us a damn bit of good if we can’t see anything. I’ll find a place to land and we’ll get some food and rest. Send a message to HQ while I get this bird on the ground.”
Begrudgingly, Ash did as he was told. He waited patiently while Max searched for a safe place to land near a small mountain town, and then he waited even longer while the chopper blades slowed. It was a fast way to travel, but it felt terribly inconvenient at the moment.
They trudged into town. Most of the dusty sidewalks had already been rolled up for the night, but the vintage neon over a small diner proclaimed it to be open all night. The scent of greasy burgers drifted out through the door as a man in a wrinkled suit came through and held it open for the two shifters.
“Thanks,” Max said as he caught the door and led the way inside.
It was too bright in the small space, and the checked floor and red upholstery made Ash’s eyes cross. His stomach lurched with hunger now that the heavy scents from the kitchen reminded him just how long it had been since he’d eaten. He plunked into a booth at the far end of the diner across from Max.
Their waitress was an older woman in a button-up dress that was far too short for her. “What can I get you boys?”
Ash didn’t even have the energy to look at the menu.
“Just some burgers and sodas,” Max answered for him.
“You want the special?”
“Sure. That’s fine.” Max watched as the woman disappeared through the swinging door into the kitchen. “It’ll be all right, Ash. It really will.”
He straightened, knowing he wasn’t behaving like someone who served with the Delta Force. “You know, I’ve been through some hellacious stuff. The movies don’t hold a candle to the things I’ve seen in person. But this bothers me far more than I ever thought it would.”
“We’ll just have to be patient. I know that’s hard, but we’re doing everything we can. So are the rest of the guys. I’m sure as we speak, Hudson and Jack are analyzing the cell phone records of everyone in the state.”
The waitress returned and plunked their food down in front of them. “Just holler if you need anything else!”
Ash ate in silence. He didn’t want to admit it, but the food in this little greasy spoon was actually pretty good. He focused on it in an effort to keep himself from dwelling too much on Lane. It was impossible, though. Ash laughed at himself as he thought about the kind of restaurant he’d tried to take her to versus a place like this. She’d probably have been perfectly at home there. If he ever found her, he’d tell her exactly what he wanted out of life.
The door swung open and admitted a scruffy looking man in khaki shorts and a t-shirt. He carried an olive drab duffle bag that looked reminiscent of something Ash would’ve had in the military, and he let it fall to the floor with a thump as he perched on a stool at the counter.
“Hey, Frank!” the waitress said warmly as she came out from the back. “You want the usual?”
He bobbed his shaggy head, running a hand through his tangled beard. “Sure, but I wish you had something a little harder to go with it.”
The waitress paused as she was about to turn toward the kitchen. “What’s wrong? Cops trying to kick you out of the park again?”
“Naw, that would be easy compared to what I’ve just been through.”
All thoughts of hi
s order set aside for the moment, the waitress leaned down on her side of the counter. Her heavy eyebrows drew together in concern. “That can’t be good.”
Frank swallowed and rubbed his hands nervously on his thighs. “I was looking for a place to bed down for the night. It’s getting harder and harder since they’ve put so many official campsites throughout the national parks these days. Tourists always wanna call the cops on me just ‘cause I’m not using a big ol’ RV or some fancy tent.”
“Right.” She nodded, urging him to continue.
“So I started working my way a little bit further up into the mountains. I thought hell, I oughta just go make my own little campsite all to myself. I even found a nice cave, way off the beaten path, and I knew I wouldn’t need to worry about running into anyone. It was big enough that there weren’t any snakes trying to hang out in there, so I untied my bedroll.”
“And?”
Frank put his head on the counter for a moment before he lifted it again slowly. “I swear to God, Alice. I saw a dragon.”
A prickle of energy spread from the back of Ash’s neck down his back. He couldn’t help but listen to the man’s testimony, given that it was such a small, quiet diner. He shot to his feet and came to sit next to Frank. “What do you mean, you saw a dragon?” He sensed Max right behind him.
Frank looked from one man to the other. “Aw, go on with you. There’s usually nobody here at night but Alice, and the last thing I need is for someone to put me on the internet as some crazy guy. I’m really just trying to live a true life out in what’s left of the great wilderness, you know. No need to make fun of me.”
“We’re not,” Max assured him. “And I promise we’re not putting anything on the internet.”