Chapter 6
Sabrina in a uniform took his breath away, but Sabrina in that deep blue dress with her eyes sparkling counted as a near religious experience. Because he’d put that expression on her face. Several times, actually.
It wasn’t just that he considered her a knockout, though she was.
Incredibly beautiful with a wild edge that matched the reasons a sunrise over the mountain put an ache in his chest. There was something else about this woman that had hooked him instantly.
Intelligence. Fierceness. A presence that said she never did things halfway.
They were the same.
How baffling to realize this late in his life that the perfect woman for him wasn’t his opposite but his complement.
That might have been something he should have figured out a long time ago. It explained why all of his other relationships had fizzled after a few months. They’d all been, well, boring.
Sabrina, on the other hand, she exhilarated him. Constantly. He’d never been so tempted to back a woman into his truck and see how hot he could make her burn.
Except he hadn’t been kidding when he’d told her he wanted to save something for later. Much later. He did like anticipation as an appetizer.
And judging by the glimmer in her gaze, he wasn’t alone.
“Shockingly, I don’t seem to be ready to call it a night either,” Sabrina admitted, moving closer as they stood on the edge of the half-frozen pond. She shivered, her hand trembling slightly in his.
“Cold?”
She shrugged. “Not enough to break up the team.”
Nearly everything she said made him smile, but that widened his grin to the point of ridiculous. “You feel it too?”
“Sure. I think you finished my sentences a couple of times at dinner. The question is, what are we going to call ourselves? Team Saboah? Nobina?”
She’d combined their names.
Something in his chest twinged, and he nearly put his hand over it until he realized it was his heart. And cluing her in that she’d crawled right inside would not do for a first date.
Maybe the second one.
“Either works.” He cleared his throat. “You choose.”
“I appreciate a man who takes suggestion well.” She actually looked pleased, which did not help whatever was going on inside him. “What will our first order of business be?”
He bit his tongue before he said, Get married and live happily ever after. Definitely not first-date material…or second. He needed to reel it way back before he scared the living daylights out of her.
“The case,” he said instead. Which was what they should be talking about.
What he wanted to talk about.
This was his shot at getting back into the investigative journalism game. He could feel it. None of this had happened randomly. Not meeting Sabrina. Not being called to the site in Peavine Canyon, when the USFS could have tapped a dozen or more SAR teams.
Not this feeling that he was at the edge of something spectacular whenever he locked gazes with this woman.
“I covered a case in Colorado a few years back,” he said, his mind warming up, testing out underused muscles as it started spinning connections. “Young woman found in hiking territory wearing city clothes. It was ruled accidental death, but something never sat right about the scene.”
“Similar to our Jane Doe?” Sabrina’s focus sharpened, and he liked that look on her way too much.
“Too similar, maybe. I started digging, found other cases in Utah and Wyoming with the same pattern.” He ran a hand through his hair as the circumstances rushed back, reminding him why he’d never written that article. “But I had to drop the investigation.”
“You think our Jane’s death could be connected?”
“The staging is similar. Deliberate placement in outdoor recreation areas, victims in street clothes rather than hiking gear.” The pieces were starting to align in his head, and he welcomed the opportunity to move on from why he hadn’t finished the investigation—and the fact that she hadn’t asked.
“I still have my research files. And contacts in law enforcement across three states.”
“While I have access to Forest Service incident reports.” She nodded, clearly following his train of thought. “We could cross-reference similar cases, look for patterns.”
This. This was exactly why he’d broached the subject with her. She would be a fantastic partner; he could already tell. “My journalism background plus your insider knowledge of the area and department resources? We’d make a great investigative team.”
“You were a journalist?” Her confusion cleared instantly. “That’s why you seem so sharp and detail-oriented. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but you don’t miss much.”
Noah had never felt so flattered in his life. “Guilty.”
She snapped her fingers. “That’s why you wanted to team up—to solve this case. So you can write about it.”
“Yeah. In a nutshell. How does that work for you?”
“I’m in. Completely. As long as we keep it quiet.”
It was only after she agreed that he realized how much he’d wanted her to say yes. To everything. Sweet relief eased the tight set of his shoulders.
Her expression turned thoughtful. “The police won’t appreciate unofficial interference in an active investigation.”
“I’m good at working behind the scenes.” The thrill of the hunt was already humming in his veins. “And you know how to work the system from the inside.”
“We’ll need to be careful though.” She glanced around the moonlit park. “If there really is a pattern, if Jane Doe’s death is connected to other cases—”
“Then we could be dealing with something bigger than either of us expected.” The protective instinct that had been growing all evening surged again. “Are you sure you want to get involved in this?”
The look she gave him could have melted steel. “Try to stop me.”
Her fierceness hit him right in the chest. Noah found himself leaning forward, drinking in every word as she laid out her thoughts about the case.
The way her mind worked, jumping three steps ahead, connecting dots others might miss—it was intoxicating.
When she mentioned being anxious to dig deeper, to find real answers, his whole body hummed with recognition.
He couldn’t have dreamed up a more perfect scenario. Here was this incredible woman who matched him not just in attraction, but in drive and intelligence. The chance to work with her, to combine business with the pleasure of her company, it felt like fate.
“What do you say to taking Dancer out in the morning?” he asked. “We can take a stroll through Peavine Canyon. Maybe find something the recovery team missed.”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “I see that poor woman’s face when I close my eyes. If we can help get her some closure, that would be icing on the cake.”
He could already tell Sabrina was the charge-ahead type, the kind who would push aggressively for answers. It suited his style perfectly.
Watching her eyes light up with plans and possibilities, Noah finally understood why he’d ended up back in Dark Canyon after leaving his globe-trotting journalism career. Why life had steered him here, to this moment.
To Sabrina.
Good grief, she was magnificent. Standing there in the moonlight, fearless, ready to dive into whatever to find the truth. Every cell in his body urged him to pull her close, to show her exactly how he was feeling, she called to him at a basic level.
But she deserved his honesty first.
“I should warn you.” He stepped into her space, drawn by the energy radiating from her.
“I’m kind of a whirlwind. It’s a lot for some people.
I’ve been called Hurricane Noah more than once.
My tendency is to start out at category five and only get more intense.
It feels like that won’t be a problem for you, but I’m going to need your express consent to baptism by fire. ”
She grinned. “Are you trying to scare me off, or is this just the welcome spiel everyone gets?”
“No one else was asked to apply.”
“Good.” She stuck out her hand. “Because I don’t do anything halfway either. And I don’t like sharing.”
The space between them crackled with possibility. He was on the edge of something all right—an opportunity to soar or crash spectacularly. But he’d be doing it right alongside Sabrina.
It felt like fate. Like step one of an amazing journey.
When he finally kissed her, everything shifted, and then it felt like falling. Into what, he couldn’t wait to find out.
* * *
Noah had never been one to sleep late, but after the best first date ever, the bed seemed unnaturally empty despite the fact that he’d slept alone in it every night of the four years he’d lived here. It was far too easy to imagine a certain fierce blonde in the space next to him.
Since she wasn’t here, he got started on the day early. Before dawn.
Sabrina had agreed to meet him at Peavine this morning, and he could think of literally nothing he’d like better than to see her ASAP.
Probably he could have found something to occupy his time besides cooling his heels—literally—out in Dark Canyon Wilderness while he waited on her to arrive, though.
But he found himself headed in that direction anyway, his body still on high alert from both the kiss and from being poised on the threshold of possibly getting his life back.
He hadn’t wanted to think about it too hard. This investigation—it could literally change everything for him. Allow him to reclaim lost pieces of himself, pieces he’d only very briefly acknowledged losing.
It was too difficult to think about otherwise.
So he didn’t. He didn’t regret spending time with his mom before she’d passed and never would.
As the gulf between then and now stretched, he could see shifting his life again.
Drifting away from Dark Canyon gradually as he immersed himself in investigative reporting again.
This Jane Doe mystery could be the beginning, but there certainly weren’t a wide swath of those types of cases thick on the ground around here.
He’d end up traversing the globe again if he had his way and make no apologies about it.