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JASON SQUINTED UP at the blinding orange ball of the midday sun, thinking conditions couldn’t possibly be worse.
“Things could always be worse,” Megan said next to him. “There could be a hurricane heading this way.”
He stared at her. “Is there?”
“Nah.”
“Thank God for small favors.”
He blew out a long breath from between his teeth, staring at the clearing around them. Five minutes ago they’d both emerged to find the nonstop rain they’d woken up to this morning was being replaced by the scorching sun. It didn’t feel like a sauna—it felt worse.
Megan plucked the material of her T-shirt away from where it clung, soaked, to her stomach. He tried not to watch, but couldn’t help himself.
Another team member emerged from across the fifty-yard clearing in the middle of the forest.
“Anything?” Megan called.
The agent indicated in the negative and then backed up until he was once again protected by the tree line.
Good idea.
Jason did the same and Megan followed suit. He glanced at his watch. They’d been at it since early this morning. That meant five hours of slogging through the trees with only a minimum of breaks, a protein bar and water bottle the only sustenance.
Megan leaned against the trunk of a tall pine and drank sparingly from her own canteen, dragging the back of her hand across her mouth afterward as she considered the clearing.
“Not a scrap of fabric, no sign of tracks…nothing.”
Jason grimaced. “Same here.”
Of course, had any of them found anything, they would have contacted the others via the radios they each carried.
Jason picked up his radio and told the rest of the team about the clearing, then advised they take at least a twenty-minute break and eat something before continuing.
Megan edged down slightly, propping her back against the tree in a semiseated position without actually sitting down. The ground was so sodden, she was denied that luxury.
“Christ, it’s hot,” she said.
“Tell me about it. I’d take a hundred and twenty degrees in the desert heat of Afghanistan over this any day.”
She looked at him. “Me, too.”
They fell silent. Jason quietly cursed himself. He hadn’t meant to inspire thoughts of Dari, but he was sure that’s where her mind had wandered. If he had any doubt, all he had to do was watch her take out her cell and check it before frowning and putting it back in her pocket.
They’d all been supplied with lunch rations, modified MRE—meals ready-to-eat—that were fresher and a little more appetizing, but just as safe and portable. He took his out and offered it to Megan. She stared up at him.
“Thanks, but I have my own.”
Her curious gaze made him look the other way, even as he tore open the package. Of course she had her own. What the hell was he thinking, offering her his?
He wasn’t sure what was happening here, but he’d better snap out of it before Megan started thinking something was up.
Problem was, something was up. Big-time. Last night he’d woken up in the middle of the night with a massive hard-on…and it had Megan’s name written all over it.
He was relieved when Dominic popped up some twenty yards to his right and headed in their direction.
“Hey,” he said, leaning against a tree on the other side of Jason.
They answered in kind and all three ate in relative silence.
“There’s still so much ground we’re missing,” Megan said quietly, tucking away the wrapper from a piece of cheddar.
Dominic said, “We could have organized the volunteers lined up outside the sheriff’s office.”
“In this weather? We would have ended up searching for half of them.” Jason shook his head. “It was just as well the sheriff sent them to the mall and other public venues where they could keep an eye out but stay out of the elements.”
“Besides,” Megan added, “in cases like these, untrained individuals haven’t a clue what they’re looking for. Shortly into a search of this nature, they generally stop paying attention and are more at risk of accidentally trampling evidence than finding any.”
“Which is why we’re here.”
Dominic took a deep breath. “We getting paid for this?”
Megan and Jason shared a look.
“You are,” Megan said.
“And the company will if we deliver results.”
Essentially that was the deal they’d struck with the sheriff’s office. From what Jason understood, they had a matching guarantee from the federal government by way of Lincoln’s FBI friend…all on the down low, of course.
Of course, that actually depended on whether or not they found the girl.
Megan pushed up off the tree and stashed her wrappers in her pockets.
“I’m heading back out. See you on the other side…”
5
Eight days and no results…
MEGAN STOOD AT the sink in her motel bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror, the light slanting through the doorway only slightly breaking the darkness. The cold water she’d doused her face with dripped down over her chin, spots dotting her black T-shirt. Over a week of grueling days spent scouring thick thatches of dark woods, hampered by rain and heat. A sensation of sheer exhaustion combined with growing fear that they may not find little Finley Szymanski created a dark cloud that pressed from within as well as without.
She listlessly reached for a coarse towel and patted her chin and throat dry. It didn’t help that she had yet to hear from Dari. Every moment that ticked by inched up the worry quotient and made her itch in places she couldn’t possibly scratch on her own. Areas she tried to ignore, ones that transcended the mere physical.
She put the towel down and went back into the other room where the television droned on, broadcasting the late local news, which was dominated by the continuing search for the missing girl. The team’s final briefing of the day had broken up a short while ago, each member returning to his room, all of them experiencing discouragement to some degree, but vowing that tomorrow was another day.
Megan sat down on the edge of the made bed and checked her cell where it lay on the nightstand before grabbing the remote and flicking through the stations.
“Don’t bother. News and more news,” Jason said from the open doorway.
Deciding she was tired of the endless rattle of the air conditioner, not to mention the soggy, barely cold air it coughed out, she’d asked the front office for a fan and more often than not, she also left the door open until it was time to sleep.
She tossed the remote to the bed. “You’re right.”
He pushed from the jamb and came inside. “I’m always right.”
She smiled. “I’d laugh if I didn’t think you believed that.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, near but not touching. “Have I not proven myself and then some yet?”
Strangely, he had. But he was the last one she’d let know that.
She fingered the cell phone again, tilting it to look at the blank display.
When she turned back, she caught Jason watching her, wearing an expression with which she’d become familiar in recent days…and found somewhat disconcerting. If only because it touched some of those itchy places.
“What?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking that it must be hard. You know, to be in the middle of this and having Dari so far away and out of contact.”
She looked forward and nodded. “Yeah.”
They sat silently for a few minutes.
The nightly visits had become a ritual of sorts, with one or the other of them showing up at the other’s room for a few minutes of conversation, something to help them relax a bit after official business was taken care of. Megan realized she’d come to look forward to them.
Maybe a little too much.
She slanted him a look. “You know, you don’t have to do this…”
“Do what?”
“Take care of me.”
“Who says I’m doing this for you?”
She laughed. “Right. Isn’t there a barmaid or waitress somewhere you should be chatting up?”
He rubbed his chin and averted his gaze, his self-conscious expression making her throat tighten in awareness.
Uh-oh…
JASON CONSIDERED HER QUESTION and what he’d almost said in response—that lately he wanted no one but her.
He ran his fingers through his hair several times and pushed from the bed. This wasn’t happening. There was no way he was gunning for his best friend’s girl.
Why, then, wasn’t he with the waitress he’d met the other night? She’d slipped him her number with his beer and she’d certainly been a stunner. Just his type with golden-blond hair, lush curves and a smile designed to make any guy think of getting her between the sheets.
But whenever he imagined taking a woman to bed, the only woman he was thinking about was Megan.
Which was crazy. He wasn’t that guy. The one who slept with his best friend’s girl.
He turned around and bumped straight into her, not realizing she’d also gotten up and stood behind him.
She was close. Too close. Their noses were nearly touching.
The first thing he registered was the clean scent of her skin. Just the soft smell of motel soap, no perfume, no flowery lotion.
The next thing he saw was the way she licked her lips anxiously.
Jason groaned deep in his throat.
This…was…not…happening…
“Um, I think I better go,” he managed to grind out, trying not to notice the way the hard tips of her breasts strained against her tank top, skimming the wall of his chest with every shallow breath she took.
“Yeah. That, would, um, be a good idea.”
Neither one of them moved.
Truth was, Jason was afraid to. He was afraid that if he twitched a muscle, it would be to back her up against that bed and down on top of it.
No, she would have to be the one to move first.
Hopefully away from him.
Instead, she stepped in closer.
Christ…
MEGAN CAUGHT HER BREATH. To say she hadn’t known this might happen would make her a liar. She and Jason had been working too closely together over the past ten days for some attraction not to develop.
They probably should have been a little more careful, though.
Of course, she had no way of knowing her power to deny her own fundamental needs would hover somewhere around zero when the moment did occur.
Or accept the possibility that Jason’s would, too…
She swallowed hard, watching his eyes sharpen, much like a black panther that had just caught sight of his mate. His nostrils flared slightly as he tried to drag in air that suddenly seemed scarce in the too-hot room. She could smell his sweat…and, yes, his sex.
She was caught between needing to step away, yet yearning to move closer.
Without realizing that’s what she was going to do, she leaned ever so slightly forward, pressing her open mouth against his in the lightest of kisses. She didn’t expect him to respond. But the instant their lips made contact, she felt a fire ignite in her veins, burning her from the inside out. She wanted him to respond.
Oh, God…
He groaned somewhere deep in his chest and she felt his hands on her upper arms, as if poised to push her away. Instead, he hauled her closer.
Megan caught her breath, unprepared to have him crush his mouth down on hers…or for her welcome of the thought-robbing action.
