Off the Map (Winter Rescue #2) (8 page)

“Carrie, stop. You can’t do this right now.”

“I beg your pardon. I’m not doing anything.” She straightened and tried to yank her arms away, but he held them firm. His forearms flexed with the effort of keeping her in place, and she was just foolish enough to feel a shiver of delight at how easily he could ravage her, should he feel so inclined.

He frowned, decidedly
not
inclined. “You kissed me,” he said.

“Um, did you miss a step? I was kissing you back. You started it.”

“You wanted me to.”

She couldn’t deny it. She really, really wanted him to—so much that she’d sat alone in her apartment and culled the power of the voodoo to make it happen. But what Scott didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “I don’t recall asking you to do anything of the sort.”

“You don’t have to ask, Carrie. I can tell when you want me.”

What?
No. Impossible. “How?”

“It’s easy,” he said, and brought his lips to hers for the barest whisper of a kiss. Even though she implored every nerve ending in her body not to do it, not to give in, she whimpered and strained against his tight hold, wanting to press herself closer, to feel more than this sliver of everything they’d shared. “The answer is always. You’ve never been able to resist me.”

She held her breath as she waited for the rest…
Just like I’ve never been able to resist you.

But of course it didn’t come. She could stand there until her lungs gave out, and he’d never admit to anything more than physical desire and the occasional urge to throw her out a window.

And the worst part was, he was right. She
couldn’t
resist him. Even after all he’d done to hurt her, all the pain he’d caused, she still wanted him to wrap her in his arms and tell her how much he cared. How pathetic was that? She was a grown woman. She was reasonably attractive. She possessed the ability to control one of the most complicated pieces of machinery known to mankind. Somewhere, somehow, that had to count for something.

Unfortunately, this was neither that time nor that place. And Scott Richardson was not that man.

She relaxed her arms. It was one of the only things her father had taught her—self-defense and how to fly were the most she’d managed to glean from the virtual stranger who’d dragged her all over the world in his lieutenant colonel wake—and she knew that if she wanted to catch her captor off guard, she needed to adopt a sudden slackness, to yield completely.

It worked, of course. Scott was only prepared for battle, never for anything more. He released her at once.

“I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are eminently resistible.” She crossed her arms and tried not to notice the way the sudden loss of his touch affected her, making her feel bereft and lonelier than before. “So, what now? You came, you apologized, you got one last taste of everything you threw away. This was fun. We should do it again sometime.”

“Like hell we should,” he said darkly. Then, as if realizing the precariousness of his situation—he’d come to
her
, apologies on his lips and erections in his pockets—he sobered. “Can we sit down and talk? I need a favor.”

And there it was—the real reason he’d stopped by.

This was no act of voodoo magic. No passion of the moment. No undeniable bond between them that not even his stubborn will could break. He needed something from her, and would only come crawling back because he wasn’t done trampling on what was left of her self-respect.

“No.”

He started. “You haven’t heard what the favor is yet.”

“The answer is still no.”

“Carrie—”

She had to close her eyes against the supplication she saw in his face, the way his entire being turned soft, urging her to do the same. She didn’t want to be soft around this man. She wanted to be hard and unfeeling, to treat him with the same callous indifference he showed her.

“—it’s about Mara.”

Her eyes flew open again to find that the veneer of gruff, irritated, exasperated Scott had melted away to leave only the man behind. He was boyish and unsure, in agony over the loss of his dog, and he was reaching for her as though she were the only thing in the world that mattered.

This
was the man who’d sliced his way into her heart, the man who tried so hard to pretend he didn’t exist. Her throat constricted painfully.

“I know I have no right to ask this of you, and I know I’ve done so many things wrong in our relationship, but I need you, Carrie. I can’t do this without you.”

She was done for. Without questioning the wisdom of her actions, she pulled him into her arms and held on tight, the pain of the past few weeks slipping away around them. All the other stuff—the vest and the bad luck, the crash and the banishment from her job, the feeling that in losing Scott she was losing everything—disappeared. He needed her. He wanted her.

His arms came up around her back, and he buried his head against her neck, their hearts beating against their ribcages, their bodies twining into one. This was going to be okay.
They
were going to be okay.

“Oh, Scott.” She curled her fingers in the hair at his nape. “Of course I’m here for you. Whatever you need, whatever it takes to get you through this. You know you can count on me.”

His relieved sigh was a warm caress on her skin. “Thank you. I hate to ask this of you so soon after the last time, but I didn’t know where else to turn.”

Her grip on his hair twisted.

“I’ve already asked Steady Pete, and he won’t do it.”

No. No, no, no.
This wasn’t happening. She must have misunderstood, the sexual pulse between them rendering her hearing obsolete. Scott was asking for her help—not because she’d been raised as a pilot instead of a daughter, but because he needed her. As a lover, as a human, as his
friend
. “What do you mean, Steady Pete won’t do it?”

“I just talked to Newman.” His voice broke and his arms constricted around her, taking away even her freedom to breathe. “There’s a chance Mara is still alive, all alone out there and waiting for me. I need you to fly into the storm to go get her.”

# # #

Carrie hadn’t spoken in over ten minutes.

Based on past experience, Scott should have found this unprecedented lapse into silence a welcome change of pace from her normal routine of pushing and prodding and pulling out his entrails to perform a divination ritual. Unfortunately, he knew her much too well for that.

Carrie didn’t like the quiet. In fact, she did everything humanly possible to avoid it—even if it meant picking fights with perfectly complaisant boyfriends or cranking up her music before a man had a chance to drink his morning coffee. It had something to do with the way she’d grown up, military-strict and mostly on her own. She needed constant noise in order to be happy.

She wasn’t happy now.

She wasn’t happy now, and it was his fault.

“The mission isn’t as much of a long shot as it seems,” he explained. Maybe if he kept talking, she’d eventually join him. “Newman’s been in contact with the SAR team in Colville already. One of the rangers who was on the original search is willing to come along and show us the way. Mara’s handler declined, though, which says quite a bit about what went wrong in the first place, if you ask me.”

Nothing. Not even a twitch. He was speaking to nothing more than dead air and Carrie’s back, to the load of dishes she was scrubbing with unwarranted force.

“And I think I can pull together the rest of an emergency team at the meeting Newman called for tonight. You know how willing our guys are to pitch in when things get rough.”

A spray of water and bubbles over the sink was his only response, but he didn’t know what other approach to take. He never thought he’d see the day when he wished for the Carrie he’d walked away from, the Carrie who wasn’t satisfied until every vein he had was open and bleeding.

“It’s a hell of a long shot, I know, and I’m courting disaster by pushing the issue, but I have to do this.” He waited, but still nothing. “Please. I’m begging you. I wouldn’t ask if I had anywhere else to turn, but you’re the only person I know brave enough to make the attempt.”

That finally got her attention. She spun fast enough to send a frisson of fear down his spine, but slow enough that he knew she was in control of herself. Her gaze locked on his, and for what had to be the first time since they’d met, he had no idea what was going on in those oversized brown eyes. There were no hearts. No diamonds. Nothing to indicate she cared about him at all.

The seriousness of what he’d done to cause this hit him in the solar plexus, but he didn’t have time to register the feeling before she spoke.

“You think I’m brave,” she said flatly. “Not crazy?”

“I never said—”

“Not pushy?”

“Carrie, I—”

“Not a walking, talking disaster?”

Dammit.
He knew she’d overheard them last night. He couldn’t remember all the crap he’d said to Ace and Max, but she had to realize he’d been blowing hot air. He’d been a man in pain. A man pining. A man who couldn’t face the thought of being in a room with her without forgetting how to breathe.

“Forgive me if I don’t fall prey to flattery right now,” she said. “It’s funny how all those things you hate about me become virtues when you want something.”

“Of course I don’t hate you,” he said, his throat tight. After that kiss they’d shared in her entryway, was there any room for doubt? “But I understand if you hate me—in fact, at this point, it’s what I expect.”

“Well, congratulations. Your expectations have been met. You win yet again.”

He winced. “Then we’re agreed. Hate me. Yell at me. Call me all the names I deserve and a few more I’ll probably earn along the way. Do anything you want before and after the rescue mission, but consider what it means if you say no. Mara is—”

He was at a sudden loss for words. An image of the dog flitted through his mind, but it wasn’t Mara’s affectionate exuberance that stood out the most—it was Carrie’s affectionate exuberance that took the forefront.

He’d had a date with Carrie planned a few hours after he’d sent the animal off with her new handler. Even though he’d never once broken his vow not to cry over a dog’s departure, the urge never disappeared, and he’d tried to cancel on Carrie at the last minute. Which hadn’t worked, of course. She came over anyway.

They’d only been seeing each other about a month at the time, but she’d somehow sensed that what he’d needed more than a romantic dinner for two—instead of even a fast, hard fuck—was a friend. He didn’t know
how
she knew that, but he would always be grateful for what came next. She’d stayed at his house all night and taught him how to juggle. They’d used oranges, dog chew toys, even sample-sized bottles of bourbon, which they’d done a good job of emptying as the lesson progressed.

It had been a good day, despite his heartbreak. Somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten those two things could coexist.

“Mara is what?” Carrie asked coldly, jolting him back to the present. “The only woman you’ve ever loved?”

He opened his mouth to agree, to defend his feelings for the husky as the purest form of affection, but he couldn’t form his lips around the words—around the lie.
She’s not the only one, Carrie.

“I don’t think I can let her go without a fight,” he said, no longer sure it was the dog he was talking about. “Not again. I owe her that much.”

He could tell the exact moment he broke through by the way Carrie returned to animation. The shuttered look in her eyes sparked, and her nostrils flared in a way that signaled her oncoming wrath. She was furious. She was furious with
him
.

He was never so happy to see an angry woman in his life.

“This dog means so much to you that you’ll risk your life for a chance at getting her back,” she said, and took a step toward him, her soapy yellow gloves dripping onto the floor.

He held fast. “Yes.”

“This dog—who you willingly sold to a stranger almost a year ago—goes missing in the line of duty a hundred miles north of here, and you think it’s your responsibility to retrieve her.”

This time, she lifted her hands but didn’t take off the rubber gloves, making her appear about as warm and welcoming as a serial killer about to finish the job.

Still, he held. “Yes.”

“This dog is no longer your responsibility in any way, shape, or form, but you want me to risk my entire career for a remote chance at saving her.”

“Yes.”

“Goddammit, Scott.” She stripped off the gloves, and he realized he might actually make it out of this with all his body parts intact. “You do realize I’m not exaggerating, right? I could be permanently grounded for this. I’ve seen the weather reports up there. No one can land in that storm. Ten-to-one we’re going to end up buried in a snowbank somewhere, forced to wear each other’s skin for warmth.”

There was no need for her to spell it out. He’d already imagined the worst. He’d been imagining the worst since he almost lost her the first time. “Believe me, I know. But you’re the only one—”

She held up her hand, silencing him. “I heard you the first time. I’m the only one brave enough. I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I get it. Carrie Morlock is a big ol’ risk, but sometimes, a risk is exactly what you need.”

She was more correct than she knew. She was the biggest risk of all.

“It’s not just that you’re the only one brave enough,” he said. “You’re also the only one good enough.” And kind enough. And strong enough. And willing to keep pushing when everyone else had given up on him.

She swore. “You’re a bastard, you know that? The one time you’re willing to lay out a compliment, and it’s on my flying skills.”

She wanted compliments, did she? “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and I’m having a hard time figuring out how I’m supposed to live without you.”

Even though he spoke the truth, the hard flash of her teeth proved she didn’t believe a word. Not that he could blame her. He wouldn’t believe himself, either. Nothing he’d done or said during their time together would have indicated how near he’d been to following in his father’s footsteps. Head over heels, crash and burn, up in a fiery puff of smoke. Take your pick—every disastrous cliché applied.