The sun wouldn’t make an appearance for a while yet, so Noah shoved a headlamp over his ball cap. The beam caught chunks of ice crystals in the frosted grass, making them sparkle like someone had scattered diamonds across the field.
It was like a fairy world. Perfect.
Jacob’s unsolicited, unwelcome and one hundred percent not wrong advice had been pinballing around in his chest, looking for a place to land since the NPS office ambush the other day. It was times like these—when he wanted to believe that something mystical and maybe a little implausible might happen—that he wished he could push everything his brother had said out of his brain.
But then he remembered the string of women he’d dated over the years, all of whom had run screaming for the hills when he laid it on too thick. He was a romantic. Why did everyone have a problem with that?
Well, Sabrina hadn’t proven to be one of them. Not yet. And he needed to spend time with her to find out if they were on the same page.
He wanted to spend time with her. So it all worked out in the end.
Dancer sat at perfect heel position while Noah laid out basic equipment—long leads, training bumpers, scent articles. This would be the first test of Sabrina and Ripley’s partnership. And his skill in matching them.
They’d all pass. He had no doubt.
Headlights swept across the field and his pulse kicked into overdrive as Sabrina’s USFS vehicle pulled in five minutes early. Looked like someone else had been eager to get here too.
She emerged in black workout leggings and a purple fleece jacket that hugged her athletic body. The blue dress had been his favorite look on her until now. The sun chose that exact moment to peek over the mountain ridge behind her, creating a halo effect that belonged in one of those Renaissance paintings of angels.
It was a sign. This thing between them had the blessings of the heavens. Who was he to ignorethat?
“Officer West, I hardly recognized you in your civilian clothes,” he joked as she jogged over, Ripley bounding at her heels with enough enthusiasm to power a small city. “Ready to start your SAR journey?”
“Oh, I already started. I’ve been up since four.” Her smile took on a glittering edge. “Fair warning. I studied everything. Stand back for the best trainee you’ve ever seen. Ripley and I are gonna tear the place up.”
She bounced on her feet like a prizefighter, throwing fake punches, and it would not surprise him at all if she did sock him in the gut.
“Whoa, there. Let’s leave the violence to the professionals,” he said, throwing up his hands in mock surrender. “There’s no first day test. This is just a warm-up until you get accepted into the SAR program.”
She slanted him a look. “Are you telling me to reel it back in?” She said it like she’d spit out the nastiest phrase on the planet.
All at once, he felt precarious, as if he’d wound up on the edge of an abyss, only to realize at the last second that he’d almost stepped out into nothingness. “I would never say that to you.”
“It sounded a lot like you were.” A fine thread of indictment ran through her tone.
Mayday!He needed to wave a white flag, pronto, but with style and enough sincerity that they didn’t have to go through this again.
“Hey,” he murmured softly and held out his hand. “Come here.”
She eyed his outstretched hand. And then eyed him, giving him serious vibes as if she might leave him hanging. But then she rolled her shoulders and slid her hand into his, fingers tangling.
Pulling her close was easy. She fit up against him, even as bristly as she was, which needed to go, like yesterday. Noah brushed a thumb across her cheek, his other arm firm in place at her waist, letting his smile communicate exactly how much he’d been looking forward to getting her in exactly this place, her heat warming him nicely on this frosty morning.
“This is me,” he told her. “You want to ace this course your first time out? Do it. You want to beat every time me and Dancer have ever put up? I’ll hold the stop watch.”
Her gaze still snapped with challenge. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t look away. And wouldn’t, no matter how hard she tried to freeze him out with her icy blue eyes.
It was important to him that she knew he could take it.
“Because it sounded like you were saying the opposite.”
“Rookie mistake,” he countered easily. “It was meant to relax you so that you didn’t put so much pressure on yourself. Ripley is new. She might be a disaster the first time and that’s not a reflection on you.”
Slowly, her spine had started to relax and the ice in her vibe got a little less arctic. “Isn’t it? You picked her for me. She’s already got the seal of approval. I’m the untried one here.”
Was that what this was about? He resisted the urge to kiss away the slight downturn to her lips. Though he knew he could if she’d let him, she needed to hear his words, not be distracted.
