When he pulled away, she swallowed, shock on her beautiful face.
He gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry, but I couldn’t help it. Forgive me.”
She searched his eyes, her face now cresting into a frown. “Forgive you? Oh, Mac, forgive me. Forgive me for Brody and for lying. . . .”
He cupped her cheek, running his thumb over it. “I forgive you.” Then he kissed her on the forehead.
Her eyes glistened.
He heard crashing sounds in the woods, and for a moment he stiffened, afraid the bear might return. Then he heard Phillips and Nina calling, “Andee? Mac?”
Andee disentangled herself from Mac, her hands on his chest, staring at him with the slightest of smiles.
He met that smile and heard in it questions. What next? Was she in his arms because she wanted to be or because she’d been afraid? Did she really want someone in her life like Mac? What kind of future did he have to offer her?
The answers burned his throat.
“Andee!” Phillips burst through the forest wall. “Mac?”
Andee took a deep breath and looked away from Mac toward Phillips. “Here,” she said, but her voice sounded fractured.
“Are you okay?” Phillips ran over to them, breathing hard, Nina close at his heels. He stared at Mac, then at Andee. “We heard gunshots.”
“Bear,” Andee said.
“She saw a grizzly. It would have mauled her if she hadn’t shot at it. Scared it away,” Mac said.
“You have a gun?” Nina said, her gaze resting on the Glock that now lay in the grass.
Andee glanced at it, as if just realizing she’d used it, and nodded at Nina.
“Okay, let’s get Annie Oakley back to camp. With the blueberries,” Phillips said.
Mac let the flint of jealousy pass. Because, as Phillips picked up the bucket only half full of blueberries and Nina took Andee’s arm, Mac met Andee’s eyes. For the slightest hiccup in time, she gave him a real make-the-world-stop smile.
A thousand explosions rocketed through him. It felt so good that for a crazy second he thought he might tear up. He watched her walk away with Nina steadying her. By the time they reached the edge of the meadow, she’d freed herself from Nina, and he could tell from her gestures that she was relating the story.
“Help me gather more blueberries?” Phillips asked.
“Aye,” Mac said.
“That was a close call,” Phillips said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what we’d do without Andee.”
Me either, he thought.
Chapter 15
“THE GPS LOCATOR has them heading east.” Constantine Rubinov watched the blip over the grid, locating it on the map spread out over Gerard’s table.
Late last night Gerard had watched Constantine and Juan jump like a couple of third graders when they heard static, then a voice come over the line. But before Juan could respond, Constantine had yanked the two-way from his grip.
Gerard hid a smile behind his swollen lips at their sudden confusion. Unless their partner had suddenly morphed into a Scottish-sounding male, their plan had taken a serious detour.
The light barely dented the chill gathering in the cabin, and Gerard’s stomach roared with hunger. Constantine and Juan had eaten the last can of corn in front of him last night, and he’d gone to sleep dreaming of the venison steak he had secreted in the cellar behind the cabin. He only looked like he might be on the edge of starvation.
No, the emptiness came from the worry that turned him nearly inside out. Where are you, Andee? Please, please don’t come here.
He’d taught her to use her head, to stay calm. If she was still alive—and the static on the radio seemed to suggest hope—Andee would eventually head to Disaster like a homing pigeon.
“What do you think happened?” Juan asked, leaning over Constantine. Even from ten feet away, Gerard could smell the man—sweaty and sour.
Constantine glared at Juan over his shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe they landed somewhere. But it looks like they’re on foot, with the speed they’re traveling. I marked the grid last night and today.” He stared at the map, then got up and walked over to Gerard, who braced himself for pain. Instead Constantine grabbed him by his long ponytail and hauled him to his feet. “Where is she going?”
This close, Gerard saw the changes in Constantine—the speckled skin, evidence of alcohol abuse, and a scar that ran the length of his jaw. Gerard wondered if he’d gotten that in jail. “I don’t know.”
Constantine looked away, then struck Gerard across the jaw.
Gerard fell to his knees, his face exploding in pain.
“Here’s the deal, MacLeod. You map this out for us and I’ll let your daughter live. You know we’ll find her. But if we have to do it the hard way, well—” he grabbed Gerard’s hair again, made him meet his gaze—“all those things that happened to my brother Leo, I’ll gladly revisit on her. You know, being in prison teaches a man a few things.” He went quiet, letting images sink into Gerard’s brain. “When Leo died you could hear his screams echo through the entire cell block.”
Constantine’s voice went low and tight. “Do you know what it feels like to listen to someone you care about die? listen to their screams for help? listen to them beg for their life? Do you have any idea what that is like, MacLeod?”
He didn’t blink, didn’t move.
Constantine smiled. “You will.” He stood and looked at the map again. “I know you hope your daughter is tough like you . . . but I think that you might be disappointed.”
“Don’t you touch my daughter,” Gerard muttered, hating how Constantine had gotten a rise out of him. But the idea of Constantine’s hands on Andee—he thought he might wretch. He lowered his voice to a growl. “I promise you, I’m not the only one you’ll have to worry about if you hurt her.”
Andee had friends; Gerard knew that. She did SAR work with a couple of ex-military guys who acted like the big brothers she never had.
“Really? Because according to my information, your wife left you, and you have no other kids. So, unless she’s hiding a bunch of big brothers in her flight pack, I don’t think I’ll have to look over my shoulder.”
Gerard refused a smile. “She has nothing to do with this.”
Constantine leaned close, his mouth near Gerard’s, and whispered, “Oh yes she does, MacLeod. Yes, she does.”
Gerard turned away. Why had he ever thought he could protect Andee, keep her safe from people like Constantine who wanted payback? His plan might have worked had Andee not tracked him down and burst into his life like sunshine after the dark solstice of winter. He ached with how much he’d missed her, despite the updates and pictures Mary sent to him.
For a blinding moment as they’d stood on that wet and windy tarmac, he’d considered rewriting his choices. Giving up his life in the bush, moving south, and starting a new one with Mary. He and Mary had even talked about it, and then in a blinding moment of pain, she’d demanded that he choose between the two lives he lived. But he knew that if Rubinov found him, he’d also find Gerard’s family. So standing on that tarmac staring at his beautiful wife and his amazing daughter, Gerard knew he couldn’t live with himself if they died because of him.
Kind of like how he felt right now. Something hard and cold had solidified in Gerard’s gut over the past thirty-six hours. If he lost Andee, he felt pretty sure the cold would take over his entire body.
Constantine stalked away from Gerard. “I’m guessing that they’d travel this way along the Granite River.” He traced his finger over the route. “And then over to Disaster. Right here, in fact, running to dear old dad for help.”
“My daughter won’t come here. She doesn’t need me to take care of her.”
Constantine cocked his head. “All little girls need their daddies. Don’t you know that? Can’t you see that’s why she comes back? After all these years, she comes back to daddy. How do you think I found you?”
Gerard forced himself to stay calm. “An
dee is a bush pilot in her heart not because I want her to be. And she won’t come here.” Please, please, Andee.
Constantine smiled, because even Gerard heard the quiver of doubt in his own voice.
The cold front had rolled down over the North Slope and followed the group through the river valley, turning the sky to chalky gray and blotting out the sun. Andee worked without pause to erect their shelters. Sarah complained that she could help, that she felt able, and Andee had to threaten to tie her to a tree. It helped that Sarah was still secured to the pack frame. In the end, her head still throbbed, crossing her eyes with pain at times.
They’d made it as far as the junction between the Granite River and Disaster Creek, where the two bodies of water flowed together in a roar. The water spilled over rocks and furrowed out the rocky canyon to the south. Andee had camped at these headwaters before and could find her way to her father’s cabin and Disaster in her sleep.
Please let Dad be home. Or rather let his Cessna 185 be home. She had long ago learned not to expect anything from Gerard—he’d be just as likely to be out hunting as at the homestead. Or maybe he’d have taken the dogs or the four-wheeler into Disaster for supplies. Or he could be transporting—Gerard made a point of being one of the few guides who served the northern Brooks Range this late in the season. Days like this were one of the reasons pilots refused to leave hunters in the wilderness. Who knew when they’d get socked in by a storm and stranded or forced to walk out because of limited supplies before a pilot could return to retrieve them.
If Gerard had left his plane, she’d call in the distress signal while flying Sarah into Fairbanks. If he’d taken the plane, she’d use her father’s HAM radio to call for help.
Either way, they’d be warm and safe by tomorrow. Flint would head home without his trophy but with a whopper of a story. Nina would be reunited with her husband and children in Prudhoe Bay. Phillips would go north to his mission work. Ishbane would return to Canada. And Mac . . . ?
Andee banked the fire, building a wind stop toward the north, protecting the flames as they chewed up the willow she’d gathered. Flint sat on the water’s edge, hoping for a grayling or a trout, and Nina cleaned the blueberries they’d gathered en route.
It felt like a family of sorts.
Mac crouched beside her, holding his hands before the flame. “You really know how to start a fire.” A smile formed at his words.
She glanced at him. As do you. “Thanks.”
He met her gaze with eyes that made her feel safe, as if the world might spin out of control around her, but as long as he looked at her like that everything would be okay.
She must be beyond exhausted, her mind turning to blubber, because not only had she let Mac kiss her, but she’d kissed him back. And now she smiled at him like a love-struck prom queen. She needed a serious dose of reality because even she knew they had zero chance at a future together. FBI agent. That fact right there should stop her dead in her tracks. She knew what that entailed, so no thanks.
Worry, more worry, and heartbreak.
Not only that, but according to her logbook she was supposed to head south in two days and start her fall shifts as an EMT at Des Moines Mercy Hospital.
Maybe she should check herself in and have her head examined. Because she couldn’t remember ever feeling this out of sorts and confused. Or happy.
Mac broke into her thoughts. “I have a surprise for you. Will you come with me?”
She frowned at Mac, then glanced at Nina and Flint. In the graying light, they seemed okay, sitting onshore, Flint playing with his fishing line. She had just checked on Sarah, given her a drink, fed her some berries. “Where are we going?”
He held out his hand, and like magic, hers slipped into his grip. She stared at it for a second, thinking maybe it had a mind of its own. Her feet also seemed to succumb to his powers as they took her down shore, away from the group, up a fall of rock and onto a sheep path to an outcropping overlooking the river. Although hazy, she could still make out the lip over which the Granite, now combined with Disaster Creek, fell into a thunder of falls. To the east, she could follow the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System—the snake of piping that dissected the Brooks Range—to surge north.
“This is quite a view,” she said, trying to be polite. But she’d seen this before, and as much as she enjoyed just being around him, this kind of activity wouldn’t help at all when she had to tell him good-bye in twenty-four hours.
As it was, she’d be reliving that kiss for the next decade. Or two. Wow. Sweet and soft. She’d remember how good it felt to be in his arms. As if he’d needed to hold her as much as she’d needed to be held.
Mac still had her hand. He stopped, turned, and with gentle pressure made her sit on a boulder behind her. “Just . . . stay here, aye?”
She watched him as he traversed the path, then crouched to retrieve something. She couldn’t help but notice his broad shoulders and the way the wind returned his scent to her. He smelled again of the biodegradable Ivory soap they’d used to wash in the river. Clean but enough Mac for her to smell the campfire smoke and his masculine scent. His stubble flecked red, especially when the light of the fire blazed against it. She had the errant urge to run her fingers through it, bristly and harsh, yet surrendering to her touch.
He turned, smiling, and his expression glowed in the light of a singular emergency candle she’d had in her pack. In a Sierra cup, he’d melted the candle into its wax and banked around it the pieces of a Hershey bar—she hated to know how long that had been in his pocket—and blueberries. “Happy birthday, Andee.”
Her mouth dropped open, and for a glorious second, she couldn’t speak. Her birthday. He remembered my birthday.
Mac knelt before her, grinning, his blue eyes alight. “Make a wish and blow out the candle.”
Make a wish? She could hardly breathe let alone think. She took a breath, then shook her head. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Just make a wish and blow out your candle.”
She watched the candlelight as it bent and flickered in the breeze against the pane of night. “I don’t want to, because if I do, I won’t be able to see you. The night will close in, and it’ll be dark.”
Mac’s smile turned wry. “Okay.” He set the cup down and sat opposite her, his knees drawn up, his arms over his knees. “I wish I had a cake or something—”
“A cookie.”
“A cookie?” he asked.
Andee picked out one of the blueberries. “Sarah always sends us cookies. Big ones, the size of a pizza.”
Mac took a piece of chocolate. “My ma sends me a black bun every year, even though my birthday is in March. Wraps it up and sends it to Fairbanks or Anchorage or even out to Virginia one year.”
“What’s that?”
“Your mother never made you a black bun? Where is her Scottish heart?”
“My mother isn’t Scottish. She’s Nunamiut Indian and French.”
Mac shook his head. “I’m sorry for you. Black bun is a New Year’s cake made with raisins, currants, almonds, and spices. It makes a man want to go home.”
“Your family sounds incredible.”
“They are. My da is loud and raucous. Ma keeps him and the rest of us safe and healthy. No matter where I go, a part of me will always be in our kitchen, watching my mother make bannocks or stovies.”
Andee laughed. “Typical that you’d associate memories with food.”
“Don’t you?”
“No. I . . . ah . . .” She frowned. She associated memories of her father with flying and the woods, and her mother with late nights hovered around their rummage-sale kitchen table in their one-bedroom apartment. Later her mother’s lab coat and the stiff smiles of her colleagues as she fought for a toehold in the medical community. She saw her mother wearing her mortarboard, their pictures side by side as college graduates. She looked at the candle. “Hard work, I guess. I remember a lot of lonely meals.”
Mac’s smile dimmed. He touched her hand when she reached out for a piece of chocolate. “I was thinking that maybe you could . . . uh, come to Deadhorse with me. After all this. Meet my family.”
Andee stared at him, her breath tangled inside. “I . . . I don’t know. I—” she shook her head—“Mac, don’t you think maybe it’s all just . . . being out here? I was afraid, and you were there.”
She saw him look away and was suddenly afraid of the feelings she let accumulate, of those fairy-tale endings that had filled her childhood dreams. But Mac wasn’t a knight in shining armor, and she’d never been a damsel in distress. Until now maybe. Her voice wavered. “Why did you kiss me?”
“Forget it.” He stood.
“No.” She grabbed his wrist, everything inside her aching to be back there in that moment when he’d held her and she’d been charmed by his wonderful smile. “Ever since I met you, I feel like I’m in knots. One second you’re arguing with me, the next you’re helping me carry Sarah, the next you’re saving Flint’s life, and then you’re accusing me of being a terrorist. And then . . . then you find out I was the one who didn’t save your brother.” She saw him flinch. Her voice fell. “Then you’re kissing me like no one has ever kissed me before.” She dropped her grip on his wrist. “I don’t understand.”
He remained still, the wind blowing against him, flickering the candle, snuffing it out until only a wisp of smoke spiraled and dissipated into the night. “The truth is, Andee, I don’t understand either.”
Mac couldn’t leave Andee sitting in the dark, although every instinct told him to run—far and fast. He wanted to bury this moment in his fleeting memories. Then he’d never have to remember that for a minute he’d thought he could have this woman who’d gotten so far under his skin that he might be ripped in half if he tried to pry her out.
He didn’t understand why he needed her in his life.
But more than that, he didn’t understand why she couldn’t need him back.
Expect the Sunrise Page 19