her crossed arms. Sensing Wade standing, she heard the rocking chair thunk against the wall. The rustle of clothes told her he was dressing and then the door closed as he left to make his call.
And she wouldn’t even get to hear his part of the conversation.
***
Misty scrubbed the travel grime off her and wished her pain was as easy to wash away. To hell with years of training to conserve water and power; she cranked the water hotter until her toes turned pink as she stood in the old-fashioned claw-footed tub. A blue plastic shower curtain hung from the ceiling, circling completely around and filling with steam.
She turned her face into the warm spray, a touch of sulfur smell seeping from the water and hinting it may have come in part from a volcanic spring. She bit back the urge to cry harder, louder. The thought that Flynn might hear her pain had her gasping for air.
She couldn’t believe she’d actually let him kiss her. What’s more, she’d enjoyed the hell out of that kiss. Only by running like a scared rabbit to the shower had she kept herself from hauling him into bed with her. But if she did—and God, did she ever want to—then he would know her secret. He would know she was still a virgin.
Either he would pity her, which she couldn’t bear, or even worse, he would realize she’d never wanted anyone even close to as much as she wanted him.
And what about Brett?
Would he move her as much as Flynn? Could she really bare her body, much less her heart, to a man she’d never even met face-to-face? Suddenly she felt so very foolish.
She needed someone to talk to and there was nobody to turn to other than Flynn. She wanted a computer, not just to reassure herself Brett was real, but to find her sister. For the past four years she’d been so focused on hating Flynn, convinced she’d numbed herself to what she once felt for him. With one kiss, he’d blown that out of the water.
A chilly burst of air cut through her steamy haven. Someone had opened the door. Squealing, she yanked the shower curtain to her naked body, peering around.
Flynn closed the door again, his hands behind his back. “You forgot a towel.”
Chapter 13
Shower curtain clutched to her chilly body, Misty resisted the urge to smack the smirk off his face. If she ordered him to leave, she wouldn’t get a towel. If she took one from the stack, she would have to step out of the claw-footed tub.
Anger spiked inside her, fueled, no doubt, by a hefty dose of sexual frustration. “If you think you can just waltz back into my life and pick up where you left off simply because of one silly”—amazing—“kiss, then you’ve been smoking some of that crap your brother grows in the attic.”
“You know about that?” His eyebrows shot up into the hank of blond hair hanging over his forehead.
“Everybody knows.” She snorted dismissively. “Stand underneath Ryker’s open window and you can almost get high off the smoke.”
Or maybe it was because her sense of smell was so much stronger these days. Regardless, she was so angry and confused, she couldn’t even focus.
“Ryker will be crushed.” Flynn leaned a hip against the sink, towels tucked against his chest. “He likes to think he’s a badass.”
“Flynn?”
“Yes, beautiful?” he answered, without taking his eyes off her for even a second.
“Put the towels down and leave.”
“Right.” He dropped them on the sink before reaching for the doorknob.
“And turning your head away may keep me from understanding what you say, but I know you can hear me. You shouldn’t have come in here.”
He glanced over his shoulder, his smile cranking back up to killer wattage. “So you want me to look at you?”
Squealing, she yanked the shower curtain in front of her again. “That’s not fair. Now go.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned to leave, his hands behind him, twitching.
Signing.
“I have missed you.”
***
With the first rays of sunrise spoking in the distance, Wade strapped the backpacks into place on the snowmobiles—or as Sunny and other Alaska natives called the vehicles, snow machines.
His calls to McCabe and the OSI last night had netted nothing new that would be pertinent to them. McCabe had said the murders were actually being shuffled over to civilian police as the base went on high alert on another security matter altogether. He hadn’t been able to go into detail over the phone, but Wade