“Nothing yet,” he told her as he helped her pull the door more fully open. The lights were blazing in the shelter’s main room.
“I figured,” she said as he locked the door behind him and set down the rifle, “or you’d’ve been back much sooner.”
“Yeah, sorry it’s so late.” He yanked off the fleece poncho that they’d made from a dark blue blanket with a pair of scissors Tash had found in a kitchen drawer. Now that he was out of the freezing cold, he was desperate to pull his raincoat hood off his head, unfasten the damn thing’s front zipper, and peel the sleeves from his arms. The unbreathable fabric was giving him insta-sweat.
Tasha had anticipated that. As soon as he wrestled the jacket off, she handed him a towel, and held out a bottle of water.
“Thanks.” He could drink while he dried himself, so he did just that, noting, too, that she’d draped his pink sweatshirt over the back of a nearby chair, ready for him to pull on if and when he needed it. He purposely hadn’t worn it under the raincoat again because it would’ve become a hot, sweaty mess, and then he would’ve been walking around shirtless for all of the hours that it soaked and then endlessly dried. And although his being half-naked didn’t seem to bother Tasha, it made him uncomfortable. “It’s late. You should’ve gone to sleep. I would’ve been okay in the stairwell.”
It was warm enough that far underground, so he’d left out a blanket and a pillow and had thought he’d convinced her that he was ready to camp there for the rest of the night, in the event that she didn’t see the lights or hear him knock when he returned.
“Yeah, well, I got caught up in a good book,” Tasha said as she picked up his discarded raincoat and poncho and carried them to their hooks in the utility room to dry.
Yes, therewasa romance novel, spine-up on the coffee table. And she was clearly close to done. But he could read the real story in the relief that lingered in her eyes as she came back into the living room.
Relief and happiness and burning curiosity.
He should’ve known better than to think she’d sleep while he was gone. And the weird thing was, he was happy to be back here, too.
“The message I’d left earlier at the extraction point was untouched,” he told her, clarifying hisNothing yet, as he looped the towel around his neck and sat down on the sofa, keeping to the edge of his seat because he was going to continue to sweat for a while. And although there was deodorant in Ted’s guest-packs of toiletries, it wasn’t quite Navy SEAL strength. After he cooled down, he’d shower and use it, although it was weird to smell like someone else, probably Ted, which was vaguely unsettling.
Tasha had curled up in her usual place on the other section of the sofa’s L and was watching him, clearly waiting for him to continue. He realized then that along with losing the towel-hat, she was down to just one blanket and one bathrobe over her shirt and jeans. Her red hair cascaded down the white blanket that she wore like a cape as she watched him—Tasha’s eyes in this beautiful woman’s face. A woman who was no longer a stranger.
Thomas cleared his throat, feeling self-conscious about his lack of a shirt, so he spread his towel out across his shoulders. “So I left a second. Message. But no one’s been in the area at all. I still have... high hopes for tomorrow morning.”
“Seriously, Pollyanna?” she said, her eyes dancing with laughter. “Are they alsoapple-pie-in-the-sky hopes?”
It was hard not to laugh with her. “I’m being honest with you here, and you’re mocking me?”
“Damn straight,” she said. “Where do yourhigh hopesfall on the scale fromWe’re definitely going home tomorrowtoIt’s time to start hunting bunny-wabbits?”
“Pretty close to the center,” he said.
“So, fifty/fifty?” she asked.
No. The fact that no one had shown up by now meant that something was seriously wrong. “Sure. Let’s call it that.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she continued to gaze at him. “So a fifty percent chance that no one will rescue us tomorrow means your hopes arehigh. Interesting.”
“I’m a SEAL,” Thomas reminded her. “My job is to expect the worst, so yeah, I’d agree that a fifty percent chance that something might actually go right means I’m very hopeful.”
“When did you become such a shitty liar?” she asked, surprising him. Again.
“I think I’ve always been a shitty liar,” he admitted, “but you were too young to know it.”
Tash was quiet for a moment, just watching him as he finished the bottle of water. But then she said, “Well, it’s nice to meet the real, grown-up you. What doespretty close to the centerreally mean?”
“That I think we might be here for a while,” Thomas hedged.
“We,” she said. “Not just me? Because that whole Plan B where you leave me here and hike back to the airfield? I absolutely veto that.”
Thomas knew his best response wasn’t to argue—he was in charge, so her so-calledvetomeant nothing. Instead, he simply continued his sit-rep. “After I left that second message, I went back to the lodge, to see if anyone had been there since I was there last, and yeah, there were fresh tire tracks. I followed them, although I really didn’t have to. Whoever these guys are, they’re definitely not trying to hide the camp they set up. Big fire. Lots of smoke and light. High-end tents. At least twenty men, all heavily armed. A single vehicle, though—a small SUV.”
“One SUV with all those men?” she asked, picking up on that detail.
Thomas nodded. “Yeah, they’ve definitely got another camp somewhere, with that van and the other vehicle we saw during the roadblock.”
“Maybe the cabin where they brought me...?”
