AJ had forgotten how good it felt to wake up next to someone he cared for after a long night of lovemaking. There were few feelings in the world that could compare to the utter, blissful exhaustion that came with melding souls. That was the only way he could adequately describe what they had done.
She was his and he was hers.
There wasn’t much that he could pull together for breakfast, but he had made sure to make her some fresh coffee and just about when the coffeepot was full, he made out the sound of her getting dressed from inside their room.
Their room. He smiled at the thought.
It may have been a little premature, but after what had happened between them last night, it seemed like they were both finally on the same page in really giving this relationship a chance. He loved the idea as much as he cared about Amber. While he wasn’t in a hurry to take things too fast or jump into marriage, he was glad that they could finally start acting naturally on their feelings and see where they would go together.
He hummed as he poured a to-go mug for her, making sure to add a little bit of powdered creamer and some sugar. He wasn’t sure exactly how she took her coffee, but just like everything else about her, he couldn’t wait to learn.
Tapping on the door, he said, “I come bearing gifts.”
She opened the bedroom door and gave him a kiss on the cheek as he handed her the coffee. “Thank you, honey,” she said, and it was so natural that it was like they did this kind of thing every day.
He slapped her ass as she sauntered by him, ready and dressed for the day.
“So...” she said, taking a sip of her coffee and looking over the rim at him.
Damn. I am the luckiest man alive.
“So?” he asked.
“Should we talk about what happened?”
He wouldn’t have been more surprised if he’d woken up in another country. He knew he shouldn’t compare Amber to anyone in his past, but he’d never been with a woman who was just nonchalant about their sex life, or wanted to just casually talk about what did or didn’t happen behind closed doors.
He had a feeling that maybe he was a little behind the times, or maybe it was just that he was inexperienced when it came to that kind of thing, but he liked that this would be how it was going to be between them. He liked candor and openness when it came to someone he trusted and brought into his life. That kind of honesty would be what would make their lives together.
“I’m just grateful. I have wanted to have you in my bed almost from the moment I set eyes on you. I’m honored that you would share your body with me.” He leaned in and gave her a kiss on her head.
She looked up at him and took another drink of her coffee, taking in what he had said. “Babe, I knew you were an incredible man, but every second I spend with you it becomes more and more obvious that you are out of my league.” She giggled.
“More like the other way around,” he said, pouring himself a coffee and turning back to her. “You know, though, what may make our relationship strong is the fact that we both think we are getting someone outside our coverage area.”
She snorted so hard that a little dribble of coffee dripped from her nose and she hurried to wipe it away. “What was that?” she asked between choking laughs.
“It’s dumb, just a football reference. I was just trying to say that I love that we both think the other is too good for us. It means we are a perfect fit.”
“Just as long as you don’t expect me to be perfect, we will do fine.” She smiled.
“I don’t want a perfect person—it would be entirely too much pressure to keep pace with.” He paused. “Plus, I’ve learned that the greatest times in life and in relationships come in moments when everything goes wrong. Those are the moments when you get to see a person for who they really are, not the version they want you to see.”
“Yes,” she said, pointing at him in agreement. “You get to see the authentic self.”
“You have definitely seen me at my worst over the last few days, and for that I’m sorry. I wish you could see me at the top of my game.”
She shook her head. “If this is your worst, then I think I would have been far too nervous to talk to you at the top of your game. You’re the hottest man I’ve ever dated.”
“We are dating?” He sent her a cute side-glance. “Does that mean I can start calling you my girlfriend?”
She beckoned him over to her with the wiggle of her finger. He did as she ordered, but then she motioned to have him come even closer so she could whisper in his ear. “You are mine.”
“Then girlfriend it is, or would you prefer mistress?” He gave her a playful kiss as her fingernails pressed into the skin on his chest.
Her phone buzzed on the counter next to them, pulling him from his reverie of all that was Amber. She picked it up with a sigh, like she hated that she had to give up this moment just as much as he did.
His fingertips found the place on his chest where she had marked him, almost in exactly the same spot she had just a few hours ago, when they had been in bed together. He loved the idea of being marked by her—he really was hers.
He walked into the bedroom then tidied up and made the bed while she handled whomever it was that was on the other end of the phone. After ten minutes or so, he came out, and she was thumbing the edge of her coffee mug, staring at what little was left in the cup.
“Yes. Got it. Thanks for calling,” she said, but then set the phone back down. Her face was impassive as she looked up at him.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“That was the lab. The DNA tests came back. The bear we had in our trap was the same that had crossed your fence.”
“Good, that’s at least one less thing we have to worry about. We didn’t need a multitude of predatory animals rolling through the ranch.”
Her face tightened. “They also got the arsenic results—they came back positive. They said the animal had most likely been ingesting the toxin for a long period of time because it was also found in the hair as well as the stomach contents.”
“Was that all they found, you know...in the stomach?”
She tapped the coffee cup like she was answering him in Morse code. “The animal had ingested human remains. It will be another day to see if they can get adequate DNA from the samples they took, but they believe it is likely Tammy.”
He sat down on the chair next to her. He wasn’t exactly surprised, but the news still wasn’t easy to hear. There was no longer any doubt about this being Tammy. He had shared so much of his life with her, so many memories, and a renewed sense of grief washed over him.
For a moment, he wondered if there was anything he could have done to change the outcome, or prevent her death. If only he had called her, or reached out. Yet, there was no way that he could have known what was going to happen to her or her life. “Was there any evidence as to how she died in the contents?”
She shook her head. “It will take a bit to get that info, but I did get enough information to know that my feeling was right—there was no evidence of the bear having eaten a child. The bones ingested were that of a full-grown adult.”
It felt strange to be relieved over the results of the stomach contents of a bear, but nonetheless he was, as the odds of Charlie being alive had just gotten significantly higher. Now he just had to find him.
He was filled with a renewed energy. Charlie was out there somewhere, alive. The one thing he was damn good at was locating those who were nearly impossible to track down.
“Can you please let Zoey know about the findings?” he asked, pointing toward her phone.
She nodded, then picked up her phone and sent off a series of texts and emails.
It was great having Amber around. He could get used to this. In fact, if he had his way, he would. However, Charlie first.
“AJ, come over here.” She was staring intently at her phone. “I don’t know if it will lead to anything, but I just did some digging and found out that there’s a mine shaft near the homesteader’s cabin. It connects in with a ton of other shafts, but according to the data I got, the shafts collapsed sometime in the past.”
He walked over and looked at the screen with her. She’d pulled up the maps on her phone of the geological data of the area.
According to it, the mine shaft had once connected in with a trail of other shafts, one of which originated on forest service land a few miles up from the ranch. Amber pulled up the coordinates—coordinates that were strikingly close to those Zoey had given them. Either Tammy’s remains had to have been brought by the bear onto the ranch, or she had to have gotten in another way...or someone had dumped her body.
Yet, if someone had disposed of her body, they wouldn’t have done it on the ranch unless they wanted to set up the Spades and Martins to get in trouble for the murder.
Then again, if someone had stepped foot onto the ranch, everyone would have had to have known. Plus, it didn’t explain everything. There were so many facets to this, making it as intriguing as it was infuriating.
He frowned—they needed to start by confirming the most likely connections. “So, you think those were the shafts where the bear and Tammy might have gotten into the arsenic?”
“Oh, yeah, totally. Short of a bear eating loads of bait with ant poison...it seems like the likely choice. I mean, if there is a water source down there, the bear might have been drinking from it daily. Thus, why it would be losing weight and having all the health issues it was—all added to the fact it was getting up there in age.”
“That doesn’t explain Tammy being there, though.”
“I already thought about that. If Tammy was trying to get onto the ranch, it would be damned hard to get in and out without being noticed. Best alternative would be these tunnels.”
She had a point, but he was still struggling to make sense of everything. “Why would she want to be on the ranch, though?”
His stomach dropped as he thought about what Zoey had told him about the Fellinis trying to recreate Rockwood and the bounty Frank Fellini had out on them. With everything that had happened the last few days, he hadn’t been able to focus much on that threat, but maybe he should’ve been. “Son of a...”
“What?” Amber asked.
“We—STEALTH—have a lot of enemies. Zoey told me there are some high-powered individuals who are on the hunt to take us down.”
“And you think Tammy had something to do with that?”
AJ shrugged. “It’s the only thing I can think of that would make sense here—if she was working for them and trying to get information about us.”
“But what does this have to do with Charlie?”
“Again, we are going to have to do some digging, but I’m going with Occam’s razor here—the simplest answer is probably the right one. And there are a few things that motivate people better than anything else—love, hate and money.” He put his cup in the sink, tipping out the rest of the coffee. “She loved me once, hates me now and had found herself ass-deep in debt.”
“If she was in debt, I’m sure you’re right. She was probably desperate to take care of Charlie. And if she hated you, it definitely makes sense why she wouldn’t call and ask for help.” There was a sadness in Amber’s voice.
“The worst part of all of this, is that she had to have known that I would’ve supported them. All I can think is that she didn’t trust me with Charlie.” His thoughts moved to last night, and sharing his bed with Amber. Would she figure out that he wasn’t a man worth being a father or husband, as well? He wouldn’t blame her if she did. They hadn’t known each other long enough for her to really hate him yet, but maybe that would come.
He couldn’t go through that kind of heartbreak again, and he definitely couldn’t risk losing his heart. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel like it was too late to make different choices. He was in too deep with Amber.
Amber put her hand on his lower back and looked up at him. “I can see you are really upset, and I don’t blame you. We are going to find Charlie. When we do, you’re going to have a chance of being the father you want to be.”
“But what if Tammy was right?” He felt his chest tighten. “I mean, what if I’m not meant to be a father? What if I’m no good at it?”
Amber chuckled. “You do see the irony in this, don’t you?”
He frowned, not following exactly what she was thinking. “What do you mean?”
“Here’s a woman who was afraid of letting you be a father because of who you are and what you do, and yet she was the one who may well have been the biggest threat to your son. I’m sure she was being the best mom she could be, and doing what she had to for them to survive—and for that, she’s commendable. Yet, she was putting him in situations that were probably questionable at best. I mean look, she left him somewhere to go on a hunt for you, and left you no way to find the boy.”
“Maybe she didn’t want me to find him. Or it could have been due to the cognitive impairment because of the arsenic. It’s possible she just wasn’t all there toward the end.” He shrugged.
“AJ, it’s also possible that we were initially right with assuming the marks on her hands were merely frostbite.”
It was just so much easier to hope Tammy had been in an altered state when making her decisions. At least if that was the case, he wouldn’t have to feel so bad about himself, and make assumptions about what she thought of him as a person. However, in the end, it didn’t really matter what she had thought of him. What was done was done.
There was no point in revisiting the pain of the past.
He picked up his phone and texted Zoey, filling her in about their thoughts on Tammy and her motivations, and that he wanted to head down into the mine. He hated that all of this that was happening at the ranch was his doing. He was one hell of an ineffectual leader if he couldn’t even keep his personal life from affecting his entire team.
Thinking about his being a father, if he did find Charlie—no, when he found Charlie—he would need to be the father that the boy deserved. And while his parents had been able to raise him and his siblings in this black ops world, it had definitely left a mark. Not only that, but this work had also cost his parents everything. He couldn’t risk leaving the child an orphan just like his parents had left him and his siblings. Yet he knew of no other world.
Tammy was probably right—he would be a terrible father and she’d had every right to keep the boy from him. Maybe he was wrong even trying to find him. She wouldn’t have left Charlie in a position where he would’ve been compromised, but any number of things could have changed in her life, since he’d last seen her, that would have resulted in her making this kind of decision. Clearly, things had.
His phone buzzed; Zoey had texted. He opened it up. It read: Be careful in the mine, but yeah, see what Tammy was into. Still waiting on video from Baker. Stay close.
He raised his phone for Amber to see. “We have our marching orders.”
Amber nodded. Walking toward the door, he grabbed her jacket and helped her slip it on. He grabbed his keys, motioning toward his truck, then walked her to her door and helped her inside. It was strange, but before Zoey had texted, they had been so talkative with one another, but now... Nothing.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I know this is a lot. I didn’t mean to overwhelm you back there.”
Amber blinked a few times like she was trying to shake off some kind of daze. “Nah, you didn’t overwhelm me, but did I ever tell you how my brother died?”
He shook his head, but he had a sense that today was exceptionally difficult for her. She was such a courageous woman.
“I don’t talk about it much, but the reason I became a game warden was because of him. William and I were best friends growing up. You know that two-kids syndrome, where the kids become besties out of necessity. We were both good students, and he was three years older than me, so when I had problems or issues, he would help me with my homework. We were each other’s everything.”
“Is that why you acted like you did when you found out my team had contacted your parents?” AJ was filled with guilt. Here he had been so wrapped up in his own life and drama that he never stopped to think that everything they were doing was affecting her in a personal way.
She nodded. “My parents will never get over his death. So, I try to bring nothing negative to their life. I want to be the easy child. I never want them to worry about me.”
“I’m sorry, Amber,” he said. He wasn’t sure whether or not he should ask what had happened to her brother, but before he had the chance, she continued.
“When he left to go to college, he went to school in Bozeman. It wasn’t far from where we grew up, but it definitely provided him with some much-needed independence. And one day he was out skiing, and it was a day a lot like today, and he ended up falling in a tree well. They didn’t find him until two months later. There’s nothing worse than not knowing what happened to a loved one. So, I understand how you’re feeling.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he asked.
“You already had enough going on. It happened ten years ago. There’s no going back and changing it. And when you’re going through something like this, the last thing you need, especially when you’re in the thick of it, is someone telling you about a death in their family. He was actually the one that was going to school to be a wildlife biologist. I followed in his footsteps, in his memory.”
He wanted to be mad at her, for keeping this a secret from him. However, he could understand her line of thinking. “That’s amazing that you did that for him and your family.” He paused, thinking about his own crew. “You know, one of my biggest fears is to lose someone I love.”
Her eyes welled with tears, but she rapidly blinked them away. “I can understand why you’d never want to experience anything like it. It has a way of ripping a family apart—it changes everything.”
“That I can believe. The Martins lost a sister. They still talk about her—she died in the line of duty. I know they still struggle.” He reached over, took her hand and gave it a kiss. “I know things will be hard sometimes. Yet, if we’re going to be together, remember—no secrets. Okay?”
She gave him a simple smile. “I’ll try. Just know that today, going into the places that may or may not have been where your ex died, it brings up a lot of weird stuff for me. I thought I’d be fine. And... I will be. Just be patient.”
“I promise to always try and be patient. No matter what is going on.”
He held her hand as Amber pointed him in the right direction of the mine-shaft entrance near the homesteader cabin. Before this week, he hadn’t spent a great deal of time out in the woods on the property, but now that he was, he had to admit it was a beautiful place.
“According to my map,” Amber said, pointing at her phone, “the mine shaft was located about fifty yards from the cabin.” She stepped out of his pickup and started walking to the west of the cabin.
He followed behind her, just trying to catch up. She kicked away the snow on the ground as she moved around the area.
Not far from where he stood, there was an odd shape in the snow. It was probably nothing but he moved closer to check it out. Scratching away the snow, he discovered a large hole. It had to be the entrance to the mine shaft. “Amber,” he called, “I found it.”
He cleared away more of the snow, and she looked at him with an excited smile. “You did it.” She threw her arms around his neck, like they had just found the answer to all their questions. And yet, as she held him, and he held her, he couldn’t help but feel that their search had only just begun.