Chilled (Bone Secrets, #2)(15)

“Then Brynn should’ve been crossing alone. Not with you. That’s a double standard. You bend the rules to suit yourself.” Alex took a step toward Jim.

Jim was silent for a second. “Yeah, for her I do.”

Brynn stared at Jim.

Steady eyes turned to meet hers. “You’re like a sister to Anna. It’d kill me and her if something happened to you.”

The roar of the rushing water whirled in her ears, and the rage in the air evaporated.

She swallowed, her throat still tight. “That’s not how it works out here, Jim. You know that. No heroes.” She paused. “But thank you. And you too, Alex.” Alex nodded shortly, his angry gaze on the water behind her.

Thomas spoke evenly, “We can’t have a liability like this. Brynn crosses alone from now on.” Ryan and Jim started to protest, but Thomas held up a hand. “You know I’m right.” He eyed the water covering the footbridge. “When we leave we’re going to have to go out a different way. Isn’t there a railroad crossing a few miles downriver? Is that the closest crossing?”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, that’s the only other way out. Gonna take longer though.”

Brynn studied Alex out of the corner of her eye. He’d stayed silent during Thomas’s statement, not protesting like Ryan and Jim. Alex probably had no issues with her crossing alone. She stepped away from Jim, pushing off his arm and taking a deep breath. “We’re wasting time. This is where we leave the trail, right? Which way do we go?” It took a Herculean effort to keep her voice from shaking as four sets of male eyes blinked at her.

Could they tell her knees were about to give out?

Ryan gave a grim smile, slowly shaking his head. “I don’t know how you do it, Brynn.” He blew out a tense sigh and dug his GPS out of his pocket.

Alex had been quiet since the river, but Brynn had caught him staring at her a few times. Sometimes with confusion, sometimes with anger. Understandable after what she’d put her team through. She was still vacillating between terror and disgust herself.

But his confusion told her Alex wasn’t the unfeeling, silent soldier who’d first joined their team. His emotions had been thrust out in the open along with everyone else’s.

He’d acted without thinking of his own life.

She briefly closed her eyes and saw his determined, furious expression as he yanked at her jacket on the bridge. He’d literally shocked her into moving. She’d already accepted that she was headed for the water. Why had he risked so much for two people he barely knew?

And he’d demonstrated no aftershocks. No unsteady legs or breathlessness from adrenaline. An untypical reaction to nearly dying. Was it his marshal’s training? Or didn’t he care that he’d nearly become a Popsicle? He’d been more upset that she’d turned into a statue.

Alex’s hair was black and his skin was a light tan color that came from genes, not the sun. Under his jacket and layers of pants, she couldn’t get a look at his body, but something told her the physique was rock solid. She’d heard marshals had to work out daily and meet rigorous physical requirements. She watched the lean muscle flex in his neck and jaw as he turned his head toward her and guessed he was older than her twentyeight years. Ten, maybe even fifteen years older. About the same as Jim.

“I still don’t get why anyone volunteers for this shit.”

Brynn didn’t think Alex meant anyone to hear him as they trudged through the trees.

She dug deep for a lighthearted tone to answer his rhetorical question.

“For the fun and games.”

He looked over his shoulder and gave her a pointed look. “No, really. What keeps you going out time after time?” His eyes were a cool gray that made her cheeks heat oddly as he looked at her. He’d rattled her during their introduction that morning. The pleasant rush of blood in her head during his stare had surprised her. In a good way. The other men had fumed at the length of Alex’s look, and she’d rolled her eyes at their protective testosterone. They had done a dozen rescue trips together, and now her team had become surrogate fathers.

She let her thoughts wander over the rescues she’d done, grateful for the distraction. Nothing glorious. Nothing newsworthy. Not like those two men who found the seventyyear-old grandmother who’d been lost in the wilderness for ten days. Everyone had assumed she was dead. But the men had wanted to look one more time. On their own time. And found her.

But that incident reflected the heart of her own motivation.

She could make a difference in an impossible situation.

Convincing Alex Kinton that she liked what she did wasn’t going to be easy. Contempt for the outdoors oozed from him. He’d been keeping his mouth shut about the weather and woods, but everyone could read it in his eyes.

“People need help. I like to do it, and I believe I do it well. I might be the reason somebody survives. That is incentive enough for me to put up with any weather or discomfort. And sometimes we have a lot of fun.”

“Like today?” More sarcasm.

“It hasn’t been so bad.”

His stunned gaze shot to her eyes, the water incident clearly in his mind.

She ignored him and continued, “There’s something about being out here with these guys. There’s an adrenaline rush and camaraderie that you can’t find anywhere else. Getting tired just makes us goofy. We rely on each other to stay sane and that leads to ridiculous games, stories, and challenges. Trying to keep each other from total boredom and worry is a challenge. What do you do for fun?”