Beside her, Rome continued staring into the mirror. His expression hadn’t changed. If anything, he’d gone even stiller.
That worried her.
Because if a man like Rome wasn’t relaxing yet, maybe the danger hadn’t turned away from the gate.
Maybe it had just found a different way inside.
FOUR
By the time the helicopter touched down at Sierra base, Rome decided the blackout hood was a mistake.
Necessary. But still a mistake.
From the moment he pulled it out and told Stina to put it over her head for security reasons, she argued. In fact, she spent the entire chopper ride informing him exactly what she thought about putting a hood over her head.
Didn’t he know her curls weren’t meant to be confined? That they’d frizz?
When he yanked it over her head anyway, she threatened him in three different tones, two languages and one creative impersonation of a rabid raccoon.
The woman made her feelings known with long fingernails, elbows, knees and one nearly successful attempt to bite his wrist.
Now she sat beside him in a furious silence, her curls sticking wildly out of the bottom of the black hood and her hands clasped in her lap so tight her knuckles were white.
Still, he wasn’t taking it off. Blackout protocol existed for a reason, and Stina wasn’t the only person to hate the hood.
He couldn’t blame her, but he had to follow the rules.
The chopper touched down, and Stina rocked in her seat. “Can I take it off now?” Her voice came out muffled enough that he took the moment as the only peace he’d get until they entered base.
“Not yet.”
She crossed her arms with enough anger that he could feel it simmering off her in waves. “What’s the plan? Death by hood?”
The pilot twisted and shot Rome a grin. He returned it and opened the door. Fresh mountain air swept into the aircraft, and Stina let out a little noise.
“Where are we? The North Pole?”
“I’m going to take your elbow and guide you out.”
She didn’t respond—which made another three whole seconds she wasn’t bitching.
He touched her arm, and she flinched but allowed him to guide her feet to the ground. But when he flattened his hand on her head to help her duck under the propellers, she jerked like one struck her.
“A few steps,” he called to her over the noise.
The entrance to the tunnel connecting the helipad to the base wasn’t far, but Stina tore out of his grip and tried to kick him in the shin. He managed to avoid her foot, and maybe he imagined it, but he swore he could hear the pilot’s bark of laughter over the noise.
She muttered threats and curses. By the time they reached the tunnel entrance, he’d been compared to a kidnapper, a dictator and a zoo employee. In particular, the one who scooped the shit.
Guiding her to the heavy steel door of the tunnel, he brought her to a halt. “Don’t fight me again. We’re going inside.”
“Inside what? A space ship?”
“What is it with you women and alien conspiracies?” Monk told him how Jolie asked him more than once about aliens being hidden in their underground base.
After he led Stina inside, he reached up, hand hovering over the bottom of the hood. Black curls rioted around her neck.
On impulse, he stroked a fingertip over one.
