by Megan Crane
Blue kept his phone out as he went and stood at the counter where Everly had spent the morning with her laptop, a bottomless cup of coffee, and Caradine.
Griffin stayed where he was next to Mariah, shifting so he could look directly at her. Which shouldn’t have felt significant in any way, especially when another situation had shifted from a mere possibility to potentially active.
“So now what?” she asked, still sitting in the same unnaturally rigid position. “Do you all ride off into battle in Atlanta? Or start a blistering media campaign to expose David? I don’t actually know how you do what you do.”
“The first thing we do is identify and isolate the threat,” Griffin said. Maybe in a gruffer tone than necessary, but he felt like he was fighting when all he was doing was sitting next to this woman. And he was maybe too aware of the scent of the soap she’d used in her morning shower when he should have been pressing for details about the deranged preacher on the loose. “Your food was tampered with in Atlanta. But since you left, there have been no attempts on your life. It’s possible that means the threat is localized. That your life is only in danger in Atlanta, not outside it. And if it is, our approach will be different than it would be if this was an active-pursuit situation.”
“I thought there was somebody at my door last night.”
Everything in Griffin sharpened. “When?”
“I woke up sometime after three thirty. I was . . . not well.” She made a face that was probably the most honest she’d been about last night so far, not that he could enjoy it. “And I don’t know if it was real. I’ve been having the same nightmare all week long. Every time I’m in a new hotel, I wake up in the middle of the night halfway into a panic attack thinking someone’s trying to break into my room.”
One elegant hand crept up to her delicate throat and rested there.
“Is the nightmare always the same?” Griffin asked.
“No. One time I dreamed David was standing by my bed. Another time he broke in through the window, leaving glass everywhere. Once he kicked and kicked the door until it caved in. Last night wasn’t like that. It was just the doorknob rattling and no David. Floorboards creaking outside in the hall. Someone breathing out there. Listening.” She lifted her shoulder, then dropped it. “Maybe.”
If the nightmare had been the same as every other night, or a repeat, Griffin would have dismissed it as stress. But he didn’t like that it was different from the others. She couldn’t wake up in the morning and dismiss it the moment she saw that her door wasn’t broken in, her window was intact, and, most of all, she was fine.
“Why didn’t you tell me this the minute you came downstairs this morning?”
“I still don’t know if I dreamed it. There’s no proof I didn’t. It’s entirely possible I’m just being paranoid.”
“You almost died. Twice. In a short period of time and following a very distinct threat on your life from your ex-husband. It would be weird if you weren’t paranoid. My issue with you yesterday was that I didn’t think you were paranoid enough.”
“I don’t want to overreact.”
“Mariah.” He had leaned closer than he’d meant to, but when he noticed it, he didn’t put any extra distance between them. He kept his gaze on hers. “You’ve hired one of the most elite bands of ex-military operatives in the world. We don’t vote to handle overreactions.”
“I can’t be sure anything happened. I was still drunk, and it was the middle of the night in a strange place.” She pulled in a breath. “Just like when I first went into the room. I looked out across the street and thought I saw . . . something. But it was a few shadows between the buildings, that was all. There was nothing there.”
Maybe it was nothing. She could be jumping at shadows, sure. It was also possible that someone had followed her back from the Fairweather last night. Just as it was possible that her troubles from Atlanta had followed her here.
“You don’t have to be the judge of whether or not something is happening,” Griffin told her, flipping through possibilities in his head. “That’s my job.”
“But—”
“Is this what you did in the hospital?” She blinked, making him feel like he’d slapped her. But he didn’t take it back. Or change course. “Did you lie there with your airway constricted, falling all over yourself trying to find a reason why you ate a stray shrimp for the first time in your life? And then did it again a couple of weeks later?”
Mariah’s mouth curved. Her expression was wry. “Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“I can’t promise you that you’re not delusional, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I wasn’t worried about it, actually. But I think I am now.”
“What I can promise you is that I’ll take you seriously. I take this seriously. Whatever is or isn’t happening, I will get to the bottom of it. I promise you.”
He could see he wasn’t the only one aware of how things shifted then. There, at the farthest, most tucked-away table in Caradine’s restaurant. The table Alaska Force always used for client meetings because it offered the illusion of transparency by being out in the open, but with more privacy.
And here he was making vows.
Mariah didn’t let out a laugh, hollow or otherwise. And her mouth shifted to something more solemn. It was reflected in the blue of her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said.
That was all.
And Griffin felt as if he’d been running again, straight up and all out, when he stood up. He stared down at Mariah like that could make sense of her, or of him—but it didn’t. He couldn’t.
No matter how much his chest ached.
And then, worse, when he walked away, his limbs felt jerky and stiff, like they weren’t his.
Not like a machine at all.
“All good?” Blue asked, his expression mild and his voice scrubbed free of any inflection—as long as Griffin ignored that speculative gleam in his eyes.
“All good,” Griffin replied, trying to sound like his usual, coolly unbothered self. Mostly for the benefit of Caradine and Everly. He eyed Blue when he failed. “Though there are a couple of things I want to check out.”
Blue nodded, his gaze sharpening.
“You look very serious,” Caradine murmured in the voice she liked to use when she was being her most provocative. She was standing with her arms crossed, her usual friendly way of welcoming in any customers. “I guess last night didn’t go the way it looked like it was going when you left the bar.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Griffin went glacial. “I escorted our client back to her hotel after you encouraged her to get drunk. In a strange place where anyone could be her enemy and, for all you know, planned to target her after you made sure she was even more vulnerable.”
And possibly did.
“I’m going to take that as a no,” Caradine replied in the exact same tone she’d used before, as if Griffin hadn’t said a word.
The restaurant’s phone rang and she answered it in her usual surly manner, leaving Griffin with nothing to do but pretend that the kick of temper rolling through him as he imagined what could have happened—if he wasn’t around, if Mariah hadn’t been dreaming—was a purely professional thing.
Because it couldn’t be anything else.
“I didn’t get her drunk,” Everly said, and Griffin realized he’d slid his glare to her.
Blue laughed, then slapped Griffin on the back. The way all his Alaska Force brothers did, never seeming to get the hint that Griffin didn’t do it in return because he didn’t like it.
Or, now that he considered it, maybe they all did get the hint and did it anyway because he didn’t like it. That was more their style. Jackasses.
“Let me know if you plan to let Caradine get you wasted at the Fairweather,” Blue told Everly.
“Why? So yo
u can try telling me what to do?”
But she grinned, wide and happy, as she said it.
“So I can come watch,” Blue drawled. He leaned in and dropped an easy kiss on Everly’s mouth, the kind of light and simple peck that spoke volumes about their intimacy without having to shout it. “And then make sure I’m the one who takes your drunk ass home.”
Everly laughed against his mouth, but Griffin looked away, his gaze settling on Mariah, there across the restaurant where he’d left her.
She still hadn’t moved. She hadn’t relaxed her ruthlessly straight posture. She hadn’t unlaced her fingers or even changed the angle of her head.
And something about how solitary she was, how alone and yet committed to sitting there so gracefully, made his chest ache more. So much he found himself rubbing at the place where it hurt like it was a tight muscle after a tough workout.
He was nothing short of grateful when Blue clapped him on the shoulder, waved his phone to indicate there were messages waiting, and then headed toward the door. Griffin could follow and concentrate on things like whatever was happening with that lunatic in Juneau, not the phantom pain in his chest.
“Templeton says Oz received reliable intel this idiot stole a boat and has it outfitted with his personal arsenal,” Blue said as they hit the street outside and the crisp, head-clearing air. “And if he did, you know he’s heading our way.”
“Bring it on,” Griffin replied, and meant it.
He could use the focus of real work. And when the preacher was handled, again, he could try to figure out if someone really had been at Mariah’s door in the middle of the night. It was what she’d hired Alaska Force for, and had nothing to do with how blue her eyes were or that crooked smile she pulled out sometimes when she wasn’t pretending.
God help him, but he needed to concentrate on saving her from whoever was after her, so she would go away again. All the way back across the Lower 48, where she could wield that honeyed drawl however she liked and he wouldn’t feel it inside him.
Because after his first tour had torn him up and wrecked him from the inside out, Griffin had spent the rest of his adult life making sure he couldn’t feel much of anything. He had systematically cut himself off from anyone and anything that threatened his ability to do his job. That was how he liked it.
But with every step he took away from her, he had to force himself not to look back.
Nine
“I’m Everly,” the redheaded woman said, smiling. “And Caradine says you’re in some trouble.”
“I would say I was in some trouble, but have recently relocated so that someone else can handle it,” Mariah replied, not sure why this woman—who’d been sitting over at the counter all this time, messing around with images on her laptop—had come to talk to her. “Someone far better equipped for trouble than me.”
“I also heard that you and Caradine went out drinking last night.” Everly snuck a look over her shoulder. Caradine was banging pots around in the tiny kitchen where she worked her magic, all scowl and fury. “She won’t admit it, but I think she’s hung over.”
“It’s all a blur to me,” Mariah said sweetly.
Too sweetly, she realized, when Everly’s gaze swung back to hers.
“I hate when that happens,” Everly murmured.
And they gazed at each other in a moment of perfect communion.
“Such a shame,” Mariah agreed brightly. “I’ve heard all manner of salacious reports on my behavior, but I can’t confirm or deny a thing.”
And this time, when they smiled at each other, it was a lot more real.
“I’m obsessed with the hot springs here,” Everly told her, her grin bringing out the freckles across her nose. Mariah couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen freckles on a woman her own age. Everyone she knew went to obscene lengths to remove them or hide them, as if they were evidence of a crime. “I was going to head over there, if you want to come. I don’t know if you’re supposed to be doing things with the guys.”
“‘The guys’ . . . ?”
“Alaska Force. But every time I say that I feel like I should be in a comic book.”
“I think ‘the guys’ have left me to my own devices,” Mariah said. Carefully, in case this was some kind of trap. “They’re ‘identifying and isolating the threat,’ if I remember right.”
“My suggestion is you let them do that. They’re good at it. You can spend the afternoon soaking with me. And Caradine, too, assuming she’s not pretending she hates hot water this week.”
There was another crashing sound from the kitchen.
“You know I can hear you, right?” came Caradine’s voice a moment later, floating out from behind the wall.
“We’re thinking about an afternoon in the hot springs,” Everly sang out. “Want to come?”
There was a snort from the kitchen. “I would obviously rather die.”
Everly rolled her eyes. “You say that about everything. It’s really losing all its dramatic effect.”
Caradine came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on the black half apron she wore tied around her waist. “I don’t think a bath should be a social occasion. Call me crazy.”
Mariah considered that. “It’s a communal bath?”
“They’re natural hot springs, and they’re glorious,” Everly retorted. “And yes, they’re open to the public, though there are also women-only hours.”
“It’s a bunch of people getting naked, together, and then sitting in their own filth while pretending it’s a privilege,” Caradine said flatly. “Also together.”
Everly shook her head at Mariah this time. “She acts like she’s never been in the hot springs when I can tell you that’s a lie.”
“I go when no one else is there, in a bathing suit like a normal person, and leave the moment anyone else shows up.” Caradine shook her head. “And I don’t like either of you. Certainly not enough to run around and do group activities.”
She wheeled around as if to prove it, barking out a greeting to the old man who shuffled in the door. Meaning she ordered him to sit down. Then she stomped back into her kitchen and started banging pots around again.
“I can’t say for sure,” Everly said over the noise, “but I’m pretty sure that’s her love language.”
Mariah lifted her hands from her lap, only then realizing she’d been clenching them there for what seemed like forever.
“I’m not sure I’m a communal bath sort of person,” she said. The shadow she’d seen out her window could have been anything. Or nothing, more likely. The doorknob twisting had been terrifying because it hadn’t been dramatic or explosive like the rest of her nightmares. And if she hadn’t found that bruise on her thigh this morning, she might have dismissed it as a new take on the same anxiety dream. But she’d pinched herself. So hard it ached when she moved. And it was all well and good to think that Griffin and his friends could help her. Protect her. But what happened when they couldn’t? When, like last night, she was on her own? “Unless there’s some kind of self-defense class along with the bathing. I think I would be up for that.”
“A martial arts bath? Like water aerobics, only with actual front kicks?”
“Maybe just the martial arts part.” Mariah smiled. “It wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to start protecting myself. Trouble being what it is.”
Everly brightened. “Funny you should mention that. Blue’s been teaching me some things, but I’ve been thinking that he should teach them to more people. More women, I mean. This is Alaska. It can get dangerous out here in the last frontier.”
“Sign me up,” Caradine said brusquely as she stalked back out and slapped down two big mugs of coffee on the table between them. It was the very thing Mariah had wanted but hadn’t asked for, since she’d been sitting like she was in rigor mortis for the past few hours. She took hers gratefully.<
br />
Everly squinted at Caradine. “Why am I not surprised that you don’t want to sit in a nice, spring-fed hot pool, but if there’s a possibility that you could learn how to maim someone, you’re all in?”
“I don’t need to soak,” Caradine replied. With great dignity. “I have a private shower upstairs, thank you, because I live in the twenty-first century. But I wouldn’t mind learning how to kill people with my hands.”
Everly shook her head as Caradine stomped away again, then slid into the chair across from Mariah to claim her own mug.
And now that the caffeine was doing its work and Mariah had unclenched from that fierce position she’d learned to hold for hours while David performed one of his devastating critiques or while she was surrounded by the sheep-like wolves at Atlanta’s high-society dinner parties, she could focus more squarely on this overly friendly woman.
Mariah was from the South. The Deep, kudzu-choked South. The sweeter and more friendly the smile, the less she trusted it.
“Why are you doing this? Is this a Grizzly Harbor thing? An Alaska Force thing?”
Everly froze with her mug halfway to her mouth. “Which thing?”
Mariah knew the smile she gave in return down to its last contour. Polite. Nonthreatening. She’d practiced it in the mirror for years. “Is this part of the intake process? They question me officially, then you invite me to get social so you can dig deeper when I’m not expecting it to see if there are discrepancies?”
“Uh. No. None of that. I have nothing to do with what Alaska Force does. I’m with Blue, that’s all.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
Everly started to reach her hand out on the table and then stopped, as if she’d considered touching Mariah but had decided against it. And her gaze was almost uncomfortably bright.
“When I found my way to Grizzly Harbor last summer, I thought—I knew—that I was going to die. Maybe not that day. Maybe not that week. But almost certainly before the end of the summer. I remember what that feels like. I guess I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone.”