Chapter 18 #3
“Nothing. I told them we were starting too far east, but they wouldn’t listen. I mean what the hell would I know, right?” He gave a deep chuckle. “Anyway, I persuaded that Novak fellow we should merge the teams. This cabin is by far the best shelter to overnight in.”
Ah. Max didn’t like the cold.
He moved to the fire that was burning in the wood stove. Held out his hands then added another log from the pile someone had stacked inside.
Her mind went back to the snow cave Sebastian had painstakingly built for them last night, the fires. The look in his eyes when he’d dragged her out of that frozen river. The look in his eyes when he’d been inside her…
“How confident are you it was Summer Eastman who Chance scented?”
She jolted at the question. Slipped out of her jacket to stall. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that your dog doesn’t usually work on the leash.”
“We’ve done on-leash training.”
“But it’s not his expertise. Nor yours. And the conditions out there…”
She had never claimed it was her expertise, and she may not have been doing this for as long as Max had, but she was certified and had worked on many successful missing persons cases. “The conditions were poor, but he has a good nose.”
She caught Max’s look of skepticism before he turned away. “He didn’t indicate anything until we were close to the mine, then he caught her scent and led us there and beyond.”
That look again. Like he didn’t truly believe her.
“What?” she said impatiently. “You think he pretended to follow a trail?”
“He could have been confused or excited. You could have unintentionally driven him in a specific direction.”
She knew Max wasn’t actually doubting her. He was asking the sort of questions SAR personnel needed to ask themselves regularly when they looked for someone who was missing. “He gave me clear alert signals as we approached the mines where Sebastian and I were headed.”
Max’s blue eyes widened at the use of the operator’s first name.
“And then Chance found a hair tie in the mine entrance. Incident Command confirmed it’s similar to the one Summer was seen wearing at school that day.”
“Well, shit, you should have led with that.”
Her lip curled. “I wasn’t aware of your ignorance, and now I’m unsure of whether or not law enforcement will release that information. I hope I don’t need to remind you to keep that to yourself.” She kept her smile flat. Cop mode. Not SAR volunteer. Not former lover. Not friend.
She would not be the person to jeopardize this investigation.
“I won’t tell anyone you told me.” He walked toward her, and she realized he really did not get it.
“You won’t tell anyone, period.” Her voice was firm.
He pulled a face. “Who am I going to tell?”
“No one. That’s the fucking point.”
He rolled his eyes. “Jesus. Fine. I pinky swear I won’t tell anyone Chance found a hair bobble that may have belonged to the missing kid.”
She turned away and dumped her pack on top of her sled of gear. The way he said “missing kid” told her Summer was just another case to him. Just another mission. Another search. The outcome wasn’t personal.
She swallowed back her resentment. She knew she should disconnect, disassociate the mission from the child, but that was always a struggle for her.
She understood it was bad for her own health to be so invested when they couldn’t save everyone, but she couldn’t help it.
Especially not for a little girl who looked so like she had when she’d been taken.
Max pressed his hand to her back and a shiver of revulsion snaked its way over her flesh. She shrugged him off.
“What’s the matter?” His tone was impatient.
She straightened so they were eye-to-eye. “Honestly? I don’t like the way you touch me without permission, especially in a professional setting.”
“What?” His eyebrows climbed beneath that shaggy fringe of flaxen hair. “I don’t touch you without permission.”
She gritted her teeth. “You just did.”
His lips pulled back. “So that’s inappropriate now? Offering a little support and comfort to a friend?”
“In this setting, yes.” She was numb from her own shitshow of a day but wasn’t deliberately trying to hurt his feelings.
“Look, I know we shared a night together and that you’re a touchy-feely kind of guy, but I told you that wouldn’t happen again.
Every time you touch me, I feel like I need to remind you of that fact, even though I shouldn’t need to. ”
His lips compressed. “Jesus, Nora, I touch everyone that way.”
That isn’t a defense.
“You don’t do it to Rob or Jeff.” He opened his mouth probably to defend his masculinity. “On top of that, I’m straddling my role as NPS law enforcement ranger and SAR volunteer on this mission, and you need to respect that the ranger comes first.”
Resentment heated his eyes.
“When you put your arm around my shoulders in a public arena, you diminish my ability to act with authority.”
“Authority?”
She gritted her teeth and pointed to the gold badge on her belt. “Authority. The authority I have to arrest people who break the law. I don’t want the FBI to see me as the weak link in this operation.”
His upper lip rose. “Since when do you care what the FBI thinks?”
“As a federal agent, I care a great deal.”
“Bullshit.”
“What the fuck?”
“It’s bullshit. You’re here as a SAR volunteer, Nora, not because of your badge.”
Heat burned inside her chest. “I’m here because of both.”
“Whatever.” He narrowed his gaze as he headed for the door. “I’ll see you outside for the SAR debrief in five minutes.”
“I wasn’t aware of a meeting.”
His smile was tight. “I just called it.”
“Funny, I thought Fern was in charge of that now?”
He shot her a look from under his brow. “Is it someone else? Is that why you don’t want a relationship?”
Sebastian’s dark-eyed gaze filled her mind. She shook her head. “Look, it was a fun night, Max. But that’s all it was. Let’s not complicate things.”
“Okay.” He seemed subdued. “I’ll try to remember not to touch you without asking permission in the future.”
She wanted to say “just don’t touch me at all,” but she’d hurt his feelings enough already. He wanted her to take back what she’d said earlier, but she wasn’t going to. Especially not now. “I appreciate that.”
His lips tightened, but he left, letting Bruno run out the door in front of him.
Chance flopped down on his side. She turned back to her gear. Sorted through her rations and Chance’s food supply. She checked the time and fed him again as he’d been burning all the calories and they were unlikely to deploy in the next hour.
She frowned at her single remaining ski. Her effectiveness would be reduced if she couldn’t get a replacement. Dammit. She did not want to slow them down.
The door opened again, and she braced herself before she looked over her shoulder.
“You okay?” Cas Demarco asked softly.
“Sure.” She forced a laugh. “Gotta love those near-death experiences. How’d it go with the poachers yesterday?”
“I handed them over to one of your colleagues despite Muriel offering me some rather inventive sexual favors if I let her go and put the blame solely on Claude.”
She smiled. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I had just earned back the love of a good woman, and I couldn’t betray her that way. Muriel took it like a champ.”
She huffed out a laugh. She couldn’t detect anything in his gaze that suggested he knew about her childhood assault. “Poor Muriel. In another lifetime, huh?”
His smile was sad. “I’m afraid in any lifetime. Delilah has my heart.”
Feelings crowded her all over again. “Wow. That’s nice.”
He barked out a laugh. “Nice? It’s awful, or it was.
Thankfully, I managed to win her back after I seriously fucked up.
” He watched her, and she wondered if he knew that she and Sebastian had had sex.
Had Sebastian told him? But no, Sebastian would never talk about her that way.
Despite the fact he hadn’t been honest with her at the start of this mission, she did trust him—just not enough to forgive him, apparently.
“Delilah is a lucky woman.”
“I’m the lucky one. But I didn’t come in here to wax lyrical about the love of my life. I came to put on a vat of coffee for the team meeting in ten minutes.”
She nodded. “SAR included?”
“Of course, but,” he tilted his head. “You’re not just SAR, Nora, you’re NPS.
And without you and your dog, we’d still have no idea where Summer Eastman was.
The lead in Hastings turned out to be a dad taking his son to visit his ailing mother in Great Falls.
Gave him a hell of a surprise when a SWAT team turned up at his mother’s house. ”
His words restored a little of the confidence Max had eroded. “No one was hurt, I hope?”
“Thankfully not. Want a coffee before the hordes arrive?”
She inhaled steadily. Nodded. She was ready now. “Yeah. Make it a large one.”
“I will. Oh—by the way, the pilot dropped off more equipment this morning, including skis. Sebastian put in the request last night.”
The knot in her throat reformed. Maybe that meant he still valued her input. He planned to allow her to continue the search even though she’d probably pissed him off because she hadn’t immediately forgiven him for his transgressions.
If holding onto resentment and grudges were an Olympic sport, she’d have a gold medal by now. She recognized this was a character flaw but harbored them anyway. It wasn’t shallowness. It was a reflection of the harm done, of lessons learned. Forgiveness was a process, not a right.
She didn’t think Sebastian had meant to hurt her, not deliberately, but the fact he had, so easily, so deeply, was a warning to her warped, delicate soul.
Better that she’d ended it.
Life was safer this way.
She took the coffee from Cas as people started coming inside for the meeting.
She needed to get her act together. Needed to figure out how to put it all aside until they were finished and Summer was safe.
Then she could figure out how to deal with her own truth and how to cope with never seeing Sebastian again.