CHAPTER ONE
Abrutal sun cut across the icy Alaskan landscape with a defiant glare, brightening instead of warming the frozen runway outside. Mountains rose all around, their jagged peaks rocky through the barren snow, an invitation from Mother Nature to challenge her and lose.
FBI Special Agent Ophelia Spilazi rubbed her arms through her leather jacket, safely ensconced in the warming hut. The silent, empty, lonely warming hut that truly didn’t provide warmth. A wooden bench ran alongside one wall, the only furniture in the rickety structure. Icicles hung from the eaves outside, several long enough to touch the ground, while the meager sun warmed them, making the ice sparkle like diamonds.
The sheer isolation of the area was both intriguing and ominous.
A low hum pierced the thundering silence outside, and her breath quickened in natural response. She craned her neck to see out the frozen, crud-covered window to the unreal blue sky, her shoulders tensing even more as a dot of a plane dipped over the nearest mountain and dropped fast to land.
She blinked.
The small plane hit hard, bounced several times, and skidded back and forth before lurching to a drunken halt to the right of the so-called runway.
The plane shuddered and the engine silenced, the machine looking miniature against the wild mountains that served as a backdrop. Her stomach lurched. She wanted to take another Valium, but she had to at least appear professional to these nomads who chose to live in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
The pilot jumped out, and she stopped breathing at her first sight of him. Wavy black hair framed a hard-cut face, scruff covered his rugged jaw, and aviator glasses shielded his eyes. His ancestry was difficult to gauge, but his features were native and strong. Possibly some Inuit or Indigenous American heritage. He had to be well over six feet tall, muscular and oddly graceful—even with a slight limp.
She zeroed in on his left leg. He favored it slightly but didn’t allow it to shorten his stride.
Interesting.
He wore a heavy leather jacket, jeans, and dark boots, his shielded gaze having a punch of power, even through the dingy window.
She swallowed, grateful that sunglasses hid her eyes, which had to be wide and full of doubt after witnessing that excruciating landing on the ice. The man approaching her wasn’t anything close to the old, grizzly, and bearded pilot who’d brought her from Anchorage, the one who had said—repeatedly—that she was nuts to keep going west with a late but devastating winter coming. She’d imagined someone similar picking her up today.
This guy was beyond imagination.
He pulled open the door and paused, instant heat rippling from him. “Special Agent Spilazi?” That voice. A slow, deep roll that contrasted with the stark beauty around them.
“Call me Ophelia.” She held out a hand, still feeling off-balance. She was tall for a woman, very, but he towered over her.
His dark eyebrows rose, and he shook with her after a brief pause that almost went on too long. His hand was warm, big, and gentle, the shake to the point. “Your title suits you better.”
Electricity zipped along her wrist from the contact. It took her a moment to digest his comment and then hide her surprise, again glad she wore the sunglasses to protect her eyes and expression. Nobody in DC would’ve been so forward upon meeting her.
“You don’t know me,” she countered.
His grunt was neither assent nor denial. He released her and grabbed the two overlarge suitcases, hefting them easily, turning back toward the waiting plane.
Her mouth opened and closed. She scrambled to follow him into the frigid air. “Do you need me to take one of those?” Both had been over the weight limit on her commercial flights and a pain to lug through the Anchorage airport.
“No.” His stride didn’t shorten.
Well, all right. If he wanted to put out his back, it was fine by her. Although, he didn’t seem to be struggling much. In the slightest. The guy looked to be in great shape, no doubt about it. He opened the plane’s cargo door and roughly plunked the suitcases inside, partially turning. “Backpack here or up with you?”
She’d forgotten her pack and couldn’t help the sigh that escaped when she shrugged it off to hand over. The meager case files she held had been heavier than expected after a long trek. While she didn’t like having her gun out of reach, she wouldn’t need it in the air. Shooting her pilot would be a disaster. “Back here is fine.”
He secured the pack with the luggage and gestured around the other side of the plane.
She faltered and then preceded him, carefully picking her way across the ice in her new boots. Once on the other side, she waited for him to open the door to the co-pilot’s seat. Her knees trembled.
Only one eyebrow went up this time. “Afraid to fly?” He leaned against the side of the craft, his stance casual in the freezing cold as if he had all day for a conversation.
The guy didn’t like complete sentences, did he? She nodded. Before he could launch into the usual lecture, she held up a hand. “I understand flying is safer than driving, and there are all sorts of measures to keep airplanes accident-free. I also know you could land this on any flat surface and get us to safety.” None of that mattered when anxiety rose.
“Honey, I could barely land this thing here with plenty of room. If anything goes wrong, we’re dead.” He pushed the sunglasses up on his head, revealing eyes greener than the sharpest emerald.
A vise gripped her throat, an invisible one, and she breathed deeply to calm herself. “You’re not a pilot?”
