“I never considered you might be a SEAL,” she said. “I was too busy stewing over the fact that you’d lied when you said you worked in security. You never mentioned the Navy. That seemed like a big omission. Especially considering I asked about your job.”
There wasn’t much he could say to that. He’d lied, plain and simple. He wasn’t proud of it, and she had every right to be angry.
She set out for the trail. He grabbed her arm. “I lead.”
“This is my park. I think I can handle this.”
“This is America’s park and I’m a Navy CW5—Chief Warrant Officer 5. During this op, it’s my job to protect this park and people in it. Your job is to dig up old garbage.” He probably shouldn’t have said the last part in such a condescending tone—he knew what her job meant to her, how seriously she took her role in protecting cultural resources. But she’d never understand how in this instance, national security trumped old bones and tools.
That had been the underlying truth that had gotten them here in the first place.
Still, saying it like that proved he really was a first-class prick. It made his skin itch, like he’d rolled in poison oak. He couldn’t escape his entirely deserved case of karmic eczema.
She rolled her eyes. “By all means, Chief Warrant Officer Rivera, lead the way and protect poor little me from the big bad coyote. Forget that I spend about three hundred days a year in this park. I know these trails better than you know a woman’s body.”
Ouch. Still, he was glad she was getting her digs in. “That’s not what you said in November.”
“I was faking,” she said in a singsong voice.
He chuckled. They both knew which one of them was lying now.
As they walked upslope in silence, he felt her behind him as much as heard her. Smelled her. It was strange to think he’d been inside her. He knew the taste and texture of every curve and slope. They’d shared a night that had been wild. Special.
He hadn’t been scheming when he’d taken Audrey to his room. He’d just reacted to an intense, primal attraction that grabbed him from the moment they met. It didn’t help that Jae had introduced them. He’d known Jae since childhood. They’d fought with lightsabers and dreamed of being Jedi. She knew Jae as a coworker and friend. They both trusted the park ranger without hesitation.
Before the introduction, Jae had warned Xavier that Dr. Audrey Kendrick would likely be the deciding factor in the environmental approval process. Knowing that, he should have kept his hands to himself, but the wrong head had been doing all his thinking.
Later, any hope he’d harbored for a repeat encounter once the project was approved had been crushed under her worn hiking boots. Sure, she’d just been doing her job, but he, in turn, had to do his.
He glanced at his watch as they climbed the slippery, steep slope. Darkness was crowding in. The platoon was in the air now. He needed to get this boondoggle over with so he could get her back on the road before she screwed up the training. He should be in the control room with Cohen this very minute.
The first phase of this training was a hostage rescue scenario focusing on the lodge. The conditions were just right, coming in under the cover of a storm. Ideally, the team would arrive later in the night, but the storm was hitting early, so they’d moved up the timeline by two hours.
They’d have to work with the weather when the real mission was a go, so this abrupt change in timing was also excellent practice for everyone.
In the coming days, the platoon would run multiple rescue missions on the lodge, refining the plan once the SEALs knew the details, but the first run would be cold—the team knew very little about what to expect.
“To the right,” Audrey said when the path forked.
He took the high trail and continued upward. The path was wide with a low grade that required several switchbacks through the woods. If they could go straight up, they’d reach the flat in less than half the time. “Why run a power line from the blacksmith shop? That couldn’t have been easy when you could use satellite links with solar panels to power the cameras.”
“No budget and no time. The burials were looted in November. We needed a quick fix. I put in a request for solar and satellite, but that would take months—possibly years—to get approved. As it was, I spent days laying and burying PVC pipe so I could run power and Cat 5 cables for the video feed.”
That would have been just a week or two after they’d met. It must have been difficult, digging a trench up the hillside in the November rain. He rolled his shoulder, thinking of the work involved as he stretched injured muscles that stiffened with the cold rain. A year and eight months ago, he’d been shot during what became his final op. That injury was why he was here and not with the SEALs in the jet heading their way.
Recovery had been a bitch. He’d been gutted at the prospect of no longer being an active member of the teams. He no longer had full range of motion in his left rotator cuff, and never would. But after several surgeries and physical therapy, he’d finally been able to return to work, this time as a trainer. This job had saved him. Gave him purpose again. He didn’t even know who he was without his SEAL identity. He’d thought it had been lost forever. But as a trainer, he was still connected to the teams.
Rainforest shadows deepened as they ascended the hill. Finally, the ground leveled out beneath their feet, and they faced a wide, open meadow as it caught the last light of the gray day. It was overcast and dreary even without the shadows of the trees.
The Pacific Northwest in January. How did Audrey and Jae deal with the dark, gray winters?
“Where’s the site—a village, you said?” All he saw was an open marshy meadow bordered by trees all around. The rush of flowing water carried across the flat, hinting at the presence of a large stream that poured down the rocky hillside above the meadow. The stream, he knew, cut a shallow swath across a corner of the meadow, then disappeared again into the rainforest, winding another half mile before it would reach the cliffs above the lake. The heavy flow cascaded from there, dropping forty feet into the large, glacier-carved lake bed, filling the basin with crisp, fresh water that flowed from high on the slopes of Mt. Olympus.
Kaxo Falls was one of the most photographed features of Lake Olympus, usually captured from boats on the lake in the summer, but there was a cliffside trail for the adventurous hiker eager to stand at the top of the falls. From reading up on the history and prehistory of the area in preparing the Environmental Assessment, he knew that “kaxo” meant dog in the local dialect of the Coast Salish language. But he didn’t know much beyond that.
His gaze returned to the immediate area. He knew prehistoric sites were in the ground, but still, he was disappointed there weren’t any structures that proclaimed “Prehistoric Native American Village Site.” No ancient longhouse. No totem pole. He figured totem poles must be in the Pacific Northwest because the lodge was decorated with a large one as part of the front façade.
Audrey spread her arms to indicate the wide meadow. “The site is all around us, with the most notable concentrations by the creek on the far edge. The area that’s been looted—where the burials are—is in the woods not far from here.” She nodded toward the forest they stood on the edge of, but then shifted her focus and pointed north to a footbridge that crossed Kaxo Creek. “The fastest route to George’s cabin is that way. It’s deep in the woods on the other side of the creek. After we check on the cameras, I’m going to check on him.”