Butterfly Ops

by Jen Doyle

  Sprague said, “I thought the bodies and disappearances all happened in other areas?”

  Ian nodded. “There’s no reason she can find to explain why this part would be off-limits; our data backs that up. And yet the guides won’t go there. Now some of the rangers are starting to get spooked. It’s also worth noting that the first few bodies were found just north of that area.”

  “How long will it take for us to get there?” Lyndsey asked.

  It came across a little too eagerly, she had to admit. That was partly due to her wanting not to hear any more about his afternoon with Julianna Langdon, but also partly due to her wanting to be out there doing something.

  And now it was Ian trying not to smile. She hoped it was because he wanted to get out there with her—figured that if she had to accept the point about him going out info the field then she should also get to reap the benefits.

  God, how she hoped she hadn’t destroyed that possibility.

  “We save that for the last week,” Ian said. “I want to hit the crime scenes first. Then we can take a look.”

  “If the fires are out by then,” Matt added. “Turns out there are several large forest fires to the east of that area, as we learned this afternoon. That may limit our access; we’ll have to play it by ear.” He looked around. “Any other questions?”

  “Yeah,” Brady said. “You entering the limbo contest?”

  “The… what?” Matt said, obviously thrown by the change of subject. Or maybe just by the subject itself.

  As Brady stood up, he pulled Ana into his arms and spun her around. “There’s a limbo contest tonight at the local bar. I’m told the whole town will be there.”

  Laughing, Ian shook his head. “Should’ve known you’d spend your afternoon doing something constructive.”

  “I won two hundred dollars in the Bingo game and got myself a date for tonight. I think that’s plenty constructive.” Brady looked around the room. “So? Any takers?”

  Clearly, Lyndsey should have found her way to Brady. Bingo was so much better than self-blame. Plus, trolls. Of the ugly plastic doll variety of course, rather than the ugly flesh and blood type. Still, a thousand times better than push-ups.

  “Lyndsey,” Brady said. She’d clearly been a little too obvious about her interest. “You in?”

  “Sounds like it could be fun,” she said, guarded. It took everything she had not to glance over at Ian.

  “Would be even more fun if someone could convince these two to come,” Brady answered, nodding his head at Ian and Matt.

  “Maybe,” Matt answered. “But first things first.” He picked up a crate and handed it to Brady. “Get this stuff to your team. We’ll see about tonight.”

  As Brady headed out the door he mouthed to Lyndsey, Starts at nine.

  She smiled and turned back to the others, watching as Ana and Sprague got their stuff. Once they left, she stood. “So how does the dinner thing work?”

  “I think Rodrigues and Sprague found a place,” Matt said as he looked at his watch. “Everyone’s meeting there in about twenty minutes.”

  “Oh,” Lyndsey said, unable to hide her disappointment. Yay. A nice, quiet dinner with Ian, Matt and a whole bunch of Army guys. And girl, of course.

  Woman.

  Not that Lyndsey didn’t enjoy their company; she was just getting a little worried she’d never get to the point where she could fix the mess she’d made. The recent one, at least. She wasn’t at all happy leaving things the way they’d been left this morning. But with Ian mostly avoiding even looking at her…

  “I need to check in with Brooks and Malek,” he said, bending down to pick up a crate. Malek, being the other guy who made up their group of four, and who Lyndsey still couldn’t for the life of her pick out of the crowd.

  Lyndsey picked up the earpiece Matt had given her. She’d be relying on her own weapons, so she didn’t need anything along those lines. She followed Ian out of Matt’s room.

  Of course, now that they had a few actual minutes alone, she had no idea what to say. “Ian…”

  As she put her hand on his arm to slow him down, she became even more reluctant. He flinched—actually flinched—when she touched him. She pulled back and looked away.

  “Lyn…” he said, with more emotion in his voice than she expected given his reaction to her touch. “I...”

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, looking away. Damn it, Lyndsey. No way in hell were those threatening tears going to fall. “I have terrible timing.”

  He took a step towards her, close enough that she got the sense he was about to be the one reaching out. But once again they were interrupted.

  From behind her, she heard someone approaching. Turning, she saw Brooks and, oh, that was Malek, behind her. Brooks pulled out a key and reached to open the door she was standing next to. Though he seemed curious about the conversation they’d just interrupted, he didn’t ask about it. Just said, “Waiting for us?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Ian said. Although Lyndsey wasn’t looking at him, it wasn’t hard to tell how relieved he was.

  And, well, she needed a moment. She turned away from all of them as they passed, then held back, standing in the doorway as Ian told Brooks and Malek everything from the briefing in Matt’s room.

  Lyndsey squeezed her eyes shut, cursing herself for—once again—handling this situation so badly. All because of one question. One stupid, insecure question that should no longer be an issue for her thirty-seven-year-old, self-assured psyche, but a question had been on the tip of her tongue all week, lurking in her consciousness for the last fifteen years: why Abby? Or, more specifically, why not her?

  Why could she not just get past that?

  She jumped and turned when she heard her name called.

  “You coming to dinner?” Sprague asked as he and Ana approached.

  “It’s tradition,” Ana added, not giving Lyndsey a chance to answer. “The Last Supper. Everyone goes. Put that stuff in your cabin.” She pointed to the earpiece and map in Lyndsey’s hand, then nodded towards Ian, who was still going over the packets with Brooks and Malek. “They’ll be ready in a minute or two.”

  “Yeah,” Lyndsey said reluctantly, glancing at Ian. “Okay.” A minute or two. That’s all it would take her.

  She walked quickly to her cabin, starting to wonder now if this was, actually, something that could be fixed—in both little and big picture terms. She had to admit, she was feeling less optimistic as the day went on.

  Had he loved Abby so much that even the thought of being with Lyndsey was too much? He’d married her after six months, after all, whereas he’d spent a year with Lyndsey deciding he just hadn’t felt the same way. And even if he had cared about Lyndsey once upon a time, his life was different now; there wasn’t really a place for her. Maybe he just didn’t know how to let her down easy.

  Lyndsey thrust her key in the lock and threw open the door. She wanted more than anything to go into full hissy fit mode. She’d already let things get way too personal today, though, and she needed to pull herself together. So, after allowing two full minutes of angrily storming about the room with, yes, maybe some loud, messy crying involved, she splashed her face with ice cold water, put on some lip gloss, and went back out the door. She wasn’t going to let it be that easy for him, damn it. She was going to show him she really had loved him—that she did love him. That she understood things were more complicated now and was up for the challenge.

  And if that didn’t work, well, she didn’t know what she’d do next. But she wasn’t giving him up again; not without a fight.

  13

  By the time Lyndsey got back to where Ana and Sprague were standing, three other guys had joined them, Matt was heading their way, and Brooks was just locking the door to his room. Ian, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  “Ian said he had to make a few phone calls,” Sprague said. “He’ll catch up to us.”

  Lyndsey just nodded, annoyed at herself for not finding out Ian’s room numb
er ahead of time. And she wasn’t about to ask Matt or be rude and text Ian in front of all these people. Because even though she knew this conversation wasn’t going to end well, she still needed to have it. Preferably before they went into the woods.

  The dinner place Ana and Sprague had discovered was barely big enough to hold everyone, and Lyndsey found herself squeezed into a corner between Brady and Brooks. Brady, who had given her nothing but trouble the first full day of training, had actually been incredibly friendly once he realized she could pull her own weight. Tonight he was downright chatty, asking questions about her background, how she knew Ian and Matt... All sorts of fun Hell-no-I’m-not-going-there type topics. She answered as vaguely as possible, not entirely trusting anyone who talked as much as he did.

  He didn’t seem to mind, good-naturedly keeping the chatter going through the first ten minutes. Then he got caught up in the conversation on the other side of him, leaving Lyndsey to her own devices, sipping her drink as she watched everyone around her. Incredibly nice looking people, by the way, down to the last one of them. If she were going to be forced to pass the time, this wasn’t the worst way to do it. Still, she wasn’t at all sorry when Brooks started making conversation. She’d been working herself up to it. Just couldn’t figure out which of the many possible avenues to pursue.

  He had no such problem. He turned to her. “So, how exactly do you know Ian and Matt?”

  Since she had just specifically not answered that question, she raised her glass to drink as she decided how to respond. She took too long, apparently, because Brooks leaned in and said, “That lemonade’s looking like it tastes mighty good.”

  Lyndsey looked at him over the rim of the glass. Set it down. “It does actually. Might need to have another.”

  With a grin, Brooks raised his hand for the waitress. As he ordered a lemonade for her and a Bass for him, Lyndsey thought about his history with Abby. About how he might be in a position to uniquely understand her perspective. And possibly provide a little of his own. So she took a deep breath and went all in. “Ian and I dated in college. Right before he left California.”

  The comprehension washed over Brooks as he sat back in his chair. “That’s you?”

  Not so sure she was loving the emphasis, but, well... “That’s what Sprague said, too.” She smiled. “Just so I know where you’re coming from—did you find out about me from Ian, or from Matt?”

  He laughed. “Yeah—Matt wasn’t too fond of you back then, was he?”

  Didn’t need the reminding, but, “No, he really wasn’t.”

  “I’m sure the feeling was mutual,” Brooks answered. “If I were you, I probably wouldn’t have been too happy with any of us.”

  That was...surprising. Just guessing or did he really know the full story? Playing innocent, she smiled again. “And you say that because…?”

  So we’re playing it that way, was what Brooks’s eyes were saying. What he actually said, however, was, “Abby may have mentioned a thing or two.”

  “About me?” It had never occurred to her that Abby might have had even a fraction of the preoccupation with Lyndsey as Lyndsey did with her. “What did she say?”

  He grinned. “She wasn’t your biggest fan, either, I’m sorry to say.”

  No, Lyndsey couldn’t imagine she would have been. Still, Lyndsey was curious about what Abby had thought. “Isn’t there even a little bone you could throw me?”

  Brooks looked at Lyndsey appraisingly before taking a swig of beer. Then he apparently decided she could take it. “She said you were a lot smaller than she expected, considering.”

  Lyndsey’s first reaction to that was a defensive ‘considering what?’ which demonstrated exactly how much the whole Abby thing threw her. Because she was, in fact, small. She used it to her advantage on a regular basis. Luckily, she was also mature enough not to respond immediately but instead to go with her second reaction, which was a much more reserved, “And Abby knew this how?”

  Um, okay. So maybe not entirely mature.

  This time, though, Brooks was the one caught off guard. “Uh, because she met you?”

  Shaking her head, Lyndsey said, “Abby and I never met.” Unless Matt had drugged Lyndsey, dragged her into the middle of the Ian/Abby make out session and done an intro there. Since Lyndsey was quite sure that scenario had never happened despite the government’s questionable tactics, she just waited for Brooks to respond.

  Putting his bottle back on the table, Brooks looked at Lyndsey like she was a crazy lady. “They were only there for that one day, right?”

  As far as Lyndsey knew, yes. Still, she shrugged. “You’d know that better than I would.”

  Brooks ignored that part and, looking a bit confused, said, “I could have sworn she said something about meeting you. After the hearings?” Brooks raised his eyebrows, obviously seeking confirmation. “Out at Zachary’s place?” He grinned again, although more self-consciously this time. “I gather you and Zachary put on a bit of a show?”

  A show?

  Seriously?

  After what Lyndsey had been exposed to in that interrogation room—where Abby had clearly been choosing to make a statement to anyone who was watching— the woman had no right to say that what Lyndsey and Zachary had done could be called a ‘show.’ Especially because Zachary’s house—not the apartment in town that Ian had come to find Lyndsey at that night but Zachary’s actual estate outside of the city—was in the middle of nowhere. Expectation of privacy, and all that.

  And, yes, what Lyndsey and Zachary had done against the wall next to his front door was a hell of a lot more than what Abby and Ian had done in that room—as Lyndsey was sure her very sudden and furious blush was making clear at this very moment. It was an entirely different thing, however. Lyndsey had spent a whole year going without—a year during which, thank you very much, she’d patiently waited for Ian to come back to her while he’d gone off and been with who-knew-how-many vampires plus found himself a wife. Then to have him come back with Abby—to have to watch him very happily allow his wife to pretty much ravage him… Add all that to several years’ worth of pent-up feelings between Lyndsey and Zachary? That was straight out raw, combustible, emotional passion. The only way it would count as a show was if they’d had an audien—

  Lyndsey almost choked on her drink as her outrage gave way to logic and it occurred to her there was no way Abby would have known anything about what went on that night unless she’d actually been there.

  Taking a moment to concentrate on swallowing, she very deliberately placed the glass on the table in front of her. “Why would Abby have been at Zachary’s?”

  Yes, Brooks was definitely looking at her like she was crazy. “Something about Ian wanting to see you.” Looking down at his drink, Brooks was talking as much to himself as to Lyndsey as he appeared to be working at recalling long ago conversations that probably had a lot less meaning for him than they did for her. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was it. The General ordered a whole team to go, I think.” Then he smiled ruefully. “I’m not sure he fully trusted Zachary. Or you, for that matter.”

  Suddenly unable to breathe, Lyndsey closed her eyes. “Ian was at the estate?” Yes, she now knew he’d wanted to talk to her; he’d made that clear on the way home from Matt and Sarah’s the week before. He’d even said something about actually seeing her, but she’d just assumed she’d heard him wrong. Hell, she’d misunderstood pretty much everything else.

  The room started spinning.

  If Ian had seen…that? If he’d seen even just a little bit of it? No wonder he’d spent so much time thinking about her and Zachary; no wonder there was still a part of him holding back.

  “Are you okay?” Brooks said, looking at her a little strangely, no doubt because of her reaction.

  No. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But concentrating on keeping her voice controlled, Lyndsey said, “Sorry. I, um… I’m fine. Thank you.”

  The waitress reappeared just then, thank
God. Lyndsey was grateful for the opportunity to pull herself together. At the same time, she was glad there wasn’t more time to dwell on how things had played out that night. What would Ian’s reaction have been? Jealousy? Relief? She had absolutely no idea.

  By the time a new round of drinks had been distributed, Lyndsey was back on solid ground and more than happy to change the subject. “So you and Abby were really close, right? How can you work so closely with him? I’m not sure I could’ve done that with Abby.”

  Brooks shrugged and took a bite of his roll. “He’s my commanding officer. I don’t have much of a choice.”

  Lyndsey shook her head. “If that’s all it was, Matt wouldn’t have put you on Ian’s team.” Especially on a mission where Matt was clearly worried about Ian’s safety.

  Taking his time in responding, Brooks looked away. “He’s got four kids to remind him of her; all I’ve got is him. Besides,” he said, smiling ruefully. “She’d kill me if anything happened to him.”

  Um... “She’s dead.” Not to be blunt or anything.

  “Trust me. She’d figure out a way.” Brooks took a sip of water, nodding at the door as he did so. “Looks like your boy just walked in.”

  Lyndsey looked up to see Ian. His eyes scanned the room, coming to a rest when he saw her. She wanted to think that the subsequent look passing over his face was disappointment and not relief when he realized there was no way he’d be able to squeeze past the seven large men sitting between him and Lyndsey, much less actually sit next to her. But, with the exception of a fleeting smile at her and a guarded nod at Brooks, he seemed more than happy to sit down in the empty seat at the end of the table where he was immediately sucked into the story Sprague and Matt were telling.

  Brooks watched the silent exchange. “So… Wow. You and Ian—back together again.”

  Or not, as the case may be. “Should I be insulted you sound so surprised?”