Butterfly Ops

by Jen Doyle

  It had been close this time; too close.

  She closed her eyes and made sure the moment had passed before opening them again and looking up. Ignoring the concern on Ian’s face, she shook her head as she realized what he was actually asking. “Joe had nothing to do with this.” She knew that much. “He…” Damn it; there was that lump again. But she couldn’t let them think that of him for even a minute more. “I… I was pinned under the bear. I think I probably would have bled out if Joe hadn’t come along and pulled me out from under it.”

  “He pulled you out?” Ian asked sharply. “From under the bear?”

  She nodded slowly, not sure what he was getting at.

  Ian sat back a little, his arms loosely around his knees. “I’d say that bear weighed about half a ton. He couldn’t have…” Ian’s voice trailed off as a look of suspicion came over his face. But he seemed thoughtful, too, as if he were remembering something himself.

  “So maybe that was the Maymaygwayshi,” Brady said.

  “Maymayg-huh?” Lyndsey asked, not sure if she had heard him right.

  Brady answered, “They’re like fairies—”

  “Leprechauns is what Zach said,” Ian corrected. “And he was talking about Nanabozho, not the Maymaygwayshi.”

  Wait. “Who?”

  “It was a bit unclear,” Ian said. “Could be a god, could be a trickster.”

  “Making mischief, and all that,” Brady added.

  “Mischief?” she snapped. This was mischief? And again with the indignant glare, this time directed at Brady’s comm. “Zachary said that?”

  She hadn’t meant to sound quite so outraged, especially because Ian’s grin made it clear he’d responded in the same way. She had no intention of playing the two men off each other. Sighing, she said, “Maybe Dominic was right. Maybe it was bad luck for me to be recording the pictographs.”

  “That’s what Catalano said,” Ian said, looking at her thoughtfully.

  “So maybe…” Brooks shook his head. “No. Never mind.”

  “Maybe what?” Ian asked.

  Brooks looked up. “Maybe we’re actually getting close to something. Maybe this was supposed to warn us off.”

  “But we haven’t found anything,” Brady said, exasperated. “Why would anyone care, much less a god of the trickster variety?”

  The only common thread Lyndsey could think of was whatever was picking off six foot tall, two hundred pound hikers. And maybe whatever—or whoever—was doing this was looking to pick off anyone who might get in the way. Because that bear had certainly come at her. More so than you’d expect from an animal, even if it had just been protecting its territory. Or rooting out gum, which, thank you very much, she most definitely did not have. So, well…

  She looked at Ian. He’d be absolutely furious at her for even thinking this, let alone for actually saying it out loud. Not that she even needed to say it; he knew what she was thinking.

  Sure enough, he protested, “Don’t even—”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Lyndsey said. “If you’re the target…”

  Ian ran his hands through his hair, letting them rest behind his head for a minute before turning and reaching into the tent. Lyndsey wasn’t surprised he had two comms in his hand when he turned back around. Someone must have brought her pack down from where she’d left it the day before.

  She took the one he handed her and put it on in time to hear Matt say, “Yeah, we got all that.” He sounded a bit perturbed when he added, “Thanks to Brooks and Brady who actually follow the rules and have their comms on at all times.”

  Ian grinned and, completely ignoring Matt’s irritation, said, “Can you get Rodrigues and Sprague on the line, too? I’m assuming Catalano and Zachary are still here.”

  Lyndsey bit her lip. Zachary probably hadn’t slept since the thing with the bear happened, although he would never actually come out and say he was worried. And how had she rewarded him? The fact that it wasn’t her fault that Brooks—and his comm—had walked in on her and Ian uninvited didn’t make things any better.

  “Okay,” Matt said, interrupting Lyndsey’s thoughts. “Talk to us.”

  Lyndsey listened to Ian bring everyone up to speed, starting from the beginning since it seemed Ana and Sprague—and maybe Brady—hadn’t known much beyond the fact that Lyndsey had been in a fight with a bear and had narrowly survived.

  She could see Ian’s tension as he answered everyone’s questions, could see it in the way his muscles tightened as he spoke. How awful it must have been. Not his worst nightmare, of course. He had already lived through that. This couldn’t have been much better, though; plus there was the added benefit of reliving everything that had happened with Abby.

  Without even thinking she reached out for him and put her hand on his knee. He stopped talking and looked at her. For a second she thought he was angry at the intimacy of the gesture here in this setting, amidst his men. Instead, he took her hand and brushed it with his lips before letting their hands fall to his leg, his resting on top of hers. She smiled as he continued talking, completely unconcerned about the whole PDA thing. If she had known all it would take was a morning of fantastic sex and then a near-death experience, she would have done it much sooner.

  He wrapped everything up, finishing with the princess/trader legend and a brief accounting of the theories that had been raised the night before with Zachary, Tom and Matt, and then just now, with Brady, Brooks and Lyndsey.

  “It’s unlikely any of you will be affected,” Ian said to the other team leaders, “but be careful. I’m not even sure what to tell you to look out for. If this is magic of some kind, there’s not really much we can do at this stage.” His eyes went from Brooks to Brady to Lyndsey. “Now would be a good time for someone to offer a brilliant idea.”

  He waited to see if anyone would respond. No one did. “Okay, then. Trust your gut and stay alert.”

  Matt added, “And as ridiculous as this sounds, if you see a ton of butterflies, do not charge in. Call it in immediately. I’ll want to know what they look like, how many there are, what direction they’re coming from, going to, and whatever else we can think of.”

  “And if there are any civilians?” Ana asked.

  “Evacuate them,” Matt said. “Get them out of the area as quickly as possible. Do anything short of showing weapons. Oh, and if you see a six foot tall guy who seems really sad and lonely, don’t leave his side until the butterflies are gone.” He paused to allow for questions, Lyndsey assumed, and then continued, “Okay. Ian, Lyndsey, and Zachary, stay with TomCat and me. Everyone else, happy trails.”

  The moment the others had signed off, Zachary said, “Lyndsey…”

  “I’m fine, Zachary.” She watched Brooks and Brady walk away. “Really. I’ll be fine.” She suddenly realized Ian had pulled his hand away. Which irritated her, for a lot of reasons, but the prime one being that it felt like some kind of power play between Ian and Zachary. A play involving her, and she wanted no part in it. “So what’s up, Matt?” she asked, maybe a little too sharply.

  There was a pause before. Matt said, “I thought we should talk about the future of this mission.”

  Um, hello? “Do we need to review?” If it hadn’t been clear how annoyed she was before, her tone left no question of it now. “I’m Sekhmet. I’ve been doing this for twenty years: two, zero. Longer than any of you. Yes,” she said, as Zachary started to protest, “even you. Sitting in the background for hundreds of years isn’t the same as fighting demons. Although, um… Sorry, Tommy…”

  The same smile in his voice as always, he easily said, “No worries.”

  “Thank you,” she snapped, moving beyond annoyed and right on to angry. Yes, granted, they had all been worried. Granted, the bear had torn her apart. But only one of them had walked away from that fight…

  Well, been carried, if you wanted to get technical.

  However only one of them had survived yesterday, and it wasn’t the big, brown
, hairy guy. Besides, there was a reason she was sitting here in the middle of the woods and, as far as she could tell, the goal had not yet been achieved. And no matter how worried she was about Ian, or he about her, they had a job to do and it would get them nowhere to start second-guessing each other now.

  She fixed her eyes on Ian, the only one who had the misfortune to be within her sight at the moment. “I’m really good at this. You can talk all you want about shutting this thing down, but I’m not leaving this place until I’ve found something. If I have to do it alone, I will.”

  She took off the comm and threw it on the ground, standing up and having every intention of stalking off to where Brooks and Brady had joined the other men down by the water. She sat back down quickly as she was overtaken by a wave of dizziness and nausea.

  Right. There was a reason Brooks had made her stand up slowly before when she’d come out of the tent.

  Glaring at Ian as he tried desperately not to laugh, she reached down for her water and brought it up to her mouth slowly, concentrating very hard on making it connect with her mouth. It turned out that hand-eye coordination wasn’t exactly the easiest thing at the moment, either.

  “I think we’re good,” Ian said to the others. “I’ll check in soon.”

  She was grateful he turned off the comm when he did because her second attempt at drinking didn’t work out quite so well as the first—which, by the way, hadn’t exactly gone swimmingly, no pun intended—and she couldn’t really blame Ian for losing the battle he was fighting with composure. At least he managed to turn away after she very indelicately snarfed her water when she began to laugh as well.

  Coughing a few times, she took the bandanna he offered her and used it to wipe her eyes. Fine. Her nose, too. “If you tell anyone I did that, I swear I’ll kill you.”

  He held up his hands in surrender, grinning as he said, “Truce?”

  She nodded. “Truce.”

  He leaned forward and looked down at the ground, the laughter suddenly gone from his voice. “So, here’s the thing…”

  “There’s a thing?” she asked warily, her blood suddenly running cold. The look on his face didn’t signal anything good.

  His eyes still on the ground, he said, “I know what your life is like; what you’re like. I know you don’t need looking out for, and that no matter what, there are going to be things we just can’t fight.”

  She was getting the feeling she was seriously not going to like this conversation. Really seriously—in the way you knew the words ‘we need to talk’ were never a good sign. She looked at him, or, to be more specific, looked at him deliberately not looking at her as he continued, “I won’t ask you to stop doing what you do, and I promise I will never get in your way.”

  This had nothing to do with her, Lyndsey told herself, hearing the message in his voice before he even got to the words. He couldn’t really be doing this. It was all about the shock, all about how what had happened reminded him of Abby. He wouldn’t be talking like this otherwise. It made absolutely no sense. Playing for keeps, he’d told her not very long ago. That he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

  Except now he was saying, “Yesterday… When you…” His voice trailed off and there were a few moments of silence before he finally looked up at her. “I can’t…”

  She knew this was coming from a different place, that yesterday must have been beyond brutal for him; that there was a reason he hadn’t been with anyone else in the years since Abby died. As flattering as it was to think she was the only other woman in the world who could mean something to him, it was more likely that the shock of seeing her on that sidewalk had brought him out of his shell just long enough for her to capitalize. She was a fighter, after all; she knew how to size up a situation and make it work to her advantage, to make it come out the way she wanted. And, sure, sometimes what she wanted wasn’t clear, even to her.

  This, however, was not one of those times; not when he was obviously being delusional.

  “No,” she said, before he could get any further down the road he was heading.

  He was clearly unprepared for her response. “No?”

  “I’m sorry, Ian; I truly am,” she said, though she knew her tone indicated she wasn’t. She moved closer to him, so that she was kneeling beside him. “I know how bad it was and I know that what you went through with Abby was beyond awful. But if you’re trying to break up with me right now? I don’t think so.”

  Was that surprise in his eyes? Did he actually think she’d just allow him to walk out of her life again? Unh-uh. Not this time. No way in hell after a morning like yesterday’s.

  “I don’t think you…” he began to say but stopped when she turned and swung her leg over his, completely ignoring the aggravation on his face. Nor, for that matter, did she give a damn about what Brooks or what Brady or what any one of those other men right down there on the beach might be thinking of all this.

  She forced him to look her in the eye. “We deserve this. We’ve fought too hard not to get our reward. And, I don’t know about you, but three weeks isn’t enough.” Tilting his head up, she threw herself into the most passionate, most incendiary, most mind-blowing kiss she could manage in her recovering state. Judging by the catcalls from further down the beach, it appeared she’d managed just fine.

  Ian hadn’t responded, though, at least not in a way that counted given the circumstances—she was going for a lot more than just a physical reaction.

  Watching as he pulled away, she wasn’t sure what he’d say. That was okay. She was prepared to go another round or two if she had to. But although he didn’t seem particularly concerned about PDA, not even so much as glancing down towards the beach, he also didn’t quite give her the answer she wanted. “I think this is maybe something we need to talk more about when we get home.”

  Then again, his hands were running down her legs. And his hand did go to the back of her neck as he drew her closer, almost as if he couldn’t stop touching her no matter what ridiculousness was running through his head. Seriously—she had half a mind to blame that Nanabozho guy again.

  “We can talk as much as you want,” she said, “But I’m not going anywhere. Not this time.”

  Although he didn’t reply other than to give a slight frown, he also didn’t pull away when she leaned forward to kiss him.

  Oh, except there was one more thing… “But I still have the right to be snitty if you get all concerned.”

  Laughing, he said, “Agreed. Works both ways, you know.”

  She nodded and grabbed hold of his shirt, pulling him close.

  24

  The tents were stowed away and Joe and Malek were loading the packs into the canoes down on the beach. Brooks was kneeling, examining Lyndsey as she sat on a rock while Ian stood behind him, thinking that no one who saw Lyndsey right now would believe she’d been in a death match with a bear three days before, especially given the cheeriness with which she was saying, “So, Doc, what’s the prognosis?”

  Brooks finished looking at her shoulder. “You’re sure it doesn’t hurt too much.” The statement was uttered with a tinge of disbelief.

  “Brooks,” Ian said. “You saw it yourself. It’s a little raw, but other than that…”

  Brooks shook his head. “You realize this isn’t possible, don’t you? Three days ago, there was barely anything to salvage.” He put his hand on Lyndsey’s shoulder and felt how it moved as she rotated her arm. “How do you feel otherwise?”

  Lyndsey put her hand to her chest, where one of the deeper cuts had been. “This is still a little sore. That’s it though.”

  Brooks took her wrist. “Are you still feeling jumpy? Is there anything at all out of the ordinary?”

  With a quick glance at Ian, Lyndsey mumbled something about rarin’ to go.

  Ian grinned and looked away, unable to meet Lyndsey’s eye. Messing with her blood tends to energize her, Zachary had said. It’s a hell of a ride.

  Ian wasn’t sure he wa
nted to know how exactly she’d worked it out of her system in the past with Zachary, but he had absolutely no complaints about letting his body be used in that way. Those ways. She’d been nearly insatiable for the last day and a half, and Ian was pretty sure he knew every possible clearing within a five mile radius of here. Thankfully Brooks’s prescription for Lyndsey’s recovery had basically just been to get up and move as much as possible and rest whenever she felt tired. Otherwise, the fact that they’d spent the better part of two days ‘hiking,’ would most definitely have raised a lot more suspicion. Plus there was the whole thing where she seemed to be making it her business to spell out to him that, despite the drawbacks, there were distinct physical advantages to having a girlfriend with Sekhmet blood running through her; seemed to be ensuring the conversation from two days before would never be repeated.

  Which, by the way, Ian could pretty much guarantee it wouldn’t be. Because—honestly? He had no idea where that had come from.

  The day on the tarmac—the day they’d left for Quetico, when he was so sure she wanted this to be over… There were reasons for that; even after the past few weeks—after she’d made it entirely clear she’d forgiven him completely for what had happened in Sausalito—there were still moments he couldn’t quite believe it.

  Two days ago, though? It was as if he’d opened his mouth and someone else said the words for him. Or almost said the word; she’d stopped him before he took it to, yes, where she’d clearly suspected he was going—where he had no intention of going.

  He wanted her in his life. He wanted to try to make this work. He had no idea how he’d gotten from almost losing her to actually attempting to push her away himself.

  Of course he had thought about it; of course he’d wondered if it was possible to hit that low again and still manage to make it out. Even in the time they’d been back together it had certainly occurred to Ian that at some point in time—very possibly at some point in the not too distant future, in fact—Lyndsey might not be around.

  But, no, he couldn’t imagine letting her go again, not by choice. Nothing short of death, and all that.