That sent a dizzying wave of sparklers through his chest. “Then I’m going to kiss you and you better like it.”
She met his mouth without hesitation, but everything was different. Noah had never kissed Sabrina with the knowledge that he was in love with her shimmering between them. Sure,he’dknown, almost from the very beginning, but she hadn’t.
Now that she did, it changed things. Softened them. Everything felt more wondrous, exploratory. As if she might be using this very moment to work through what it might be like if she let herself fall.
The beauty of it, of her, stole his breath.
Obviously, he hadn’t needed to hold back. So he poured all of his feelings into the kiss, telling her without any words how much he admired her, how he loved the snap, crackle and pop she always brought into the room.
Or onto the mesa, rather. A cold wind whipped across his ungloved hands as he spread them across her back, wishing he could pick her up and deposit her in the front seat of his truck so they could find a dozen ways to warm each other up.
But he didn’t. He stepped back because they were here for a reason. Annie Ross.
“That was a pretty good greeting, Colton.” Mischief crept into her expression. “But I suspect you can do better. We’ll test it next time.”
In the meantime, she was going to kill him. “I could do better now, but I was distracted by the fact that we’re outside in January and not here to let me show you how much I missed you.”
Her brows lifted. “Now you have me intrigued as to what you would have shown me. So probably you should switch gears to why we are here.”
Noah outlined what he’d inferred from Jacob’s text, which was nothing concrete, but enough weird reports to justify some creative location scouting disguised as SAR training.
“We can only assume it somehow connects to Annie Ross,” he said. “Or at least that’s the hope.”
“Let’s hope it’snotlike Annie Ross.” She nodded toward where Ripley and Dancer waited at perfect attention. “I’d rather the dogs find someone alive. Basic search pattern to start?”
They fell into an easy rhythm, working the dogs through increasingly complex sequences. Noah found himself watching Sabrina more than the actual training. She’d taken to SAR work like she’d been born for it, her competitive streak melting into genuine passion for the work.
He could relate. Some things just got into your blood.
Like the way she moved with such fluid grace, anticipating Ripley’s needs before the dog even shifted position. Or how her whole face lit up when they nailed a particularly tricky sequence. The woman had intensity programmed into her DNA, same as he did.
They were a match. He could feel it in his bones. Did she?
“Earth to Noah.” Her voice snapped him back. “You’re supposed to be watching Dancer’s nose work.”
He grinned at her eye-roll. “Don’t need to. Your form is perfect. Unless you’d prefer an unbiased opinion. You’re welcome to go show it to Nathan Bradley.”
“You’re not letting that go, are you?”
“Not a chance.”
But before he could really get going with the Nathan-related teasing, Dancer’s posture shifted. Just a tiny change that most people wouldn’t notice. But Noah knew that particular realignment of muscle and bone, the way his partner’s entire body switched from training mode to something else entirely.
“Dancer?” The lab’s head came up sharply, nose working the air in that precise pattern that meant business. Real business. “What’ve you got, boy?”
Ripley picked up on Dancer’s change instantly, her own stance morphing to mirror his intensity. Noah’s pulse picked up. Two dogs alerting like this? Not a coincidence.
“Is Ripley copying him, or did she pick up something too?” Sabrina asked.
Noah kept his eye on the dogs, his old instincts hummed to life, the ones that used to keep him alive in much more dangerous places than Dark Canyon. “I think door number two. Dancer, show me.”
The lab moved with deliberate purpose, each step calculated as he led them deeper into the scrubby vegetation, Ripley a quarter of a length behind him. Dawn had barely started making an appearance, which meant visibility was low. Perfect time for someone to think they wouldn’t be spotted.
Sabrina fell into step beside him, her voice pitched low. “What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know.” He kept his own voice down, letting the dogs work. “But if Jacob’s tip is right, we might be about to discover what the definition of ‘suspicious activity’ is. Dancer doesn’t get worked up over nothing.”
They pushed forward in silence, following the dogs’ lead. The terrain out here near the Navajo lands wasn’t mountainous, but it had its own dangers: washed out gullies hidden by brush, loose rock and the occasional predator.
