Chapter 8

The mere thought of facing Khaki after walking in on her in the shower was enough to make Xander almost call in sick the next morning. There was only one problem—werewolves didn’t get sick.

Last night had been tough on him. Khaki’s scent was still just as strong in his apartment as it had been the previous night, only now he had a visual to go along with that scent. He’d lain in bed the whole night, staring up at the ceiling and dreaming about that shower scene he’d walked in on. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought she was toying with him, trying to drive him crazy. Of course she hadn’t been. That was just wishful thinking on his part. But still, the look on her face, the way she had that towel wrapped around her body, the way she’d laughed—it was seared into his mind forever.

He hated having these kinds of thoughts about Khaki. She was one of his team members. It was flat-out wrong. But it seemed the harder he fought against his feelings, the stronger they became.

When Xander finally rolled in for PT, the guys were still talking about the shoot-out with the bank robbery suspects the day before, especially how Khaki had come down off the roof and saved those kids—and how she’d torn into the FBI agent. The story was already getting exaggerated. They practically had Khaki tearing poor Thompson to pieces. Max swore he saw the guy crying by the time Khaki was done.

Xander didn’t mind his squad exaggerating Khaki’s exploits. That meant she was becoming one of them and they wanted to brag about her like they would have done with any other member of the squad. Of course, Khaki wasn’t any other member of the squad. That became blatantly obvious about ten minutes later when she showed up wearing a pair of tight yoga pants with flared bottoms and carrying a whole box full of rolled-up rubber mats, then led them outside for PT.

“Cooper pulled a hamstring running yesterday during the bank robbery, so he asked me to fill in as PT instructor today,” she said as she handed out the mats. “Pulling a muscle like that is a perfect example of why we need to start working flexibility into our fitness program. And the absolute best way to do that is yoga.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Jayden muttered to no one in particular. “I’m a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound werewolf. I don’t do yoga.”

Cooper gave Jayden a sidelong glance. “Today you’re doing yoga. Your hamstrings will thank you.”

“Thank you, Cooper,” Khaki said sweetly. “Now, if everyone will unroll their mats and stand with their feet shoulder-width apart with their hands in a prayer position like so, I’ll show you how to breathe properly. And, Cooper, take it easy on that hamstring, okay?”

Xander rolled his eyes. Pulled hamstring his ass. Werewolves pulled muscles just like anybody else, but even a serious tear would heal in an hour or so. No, if Xander had to guess, Cooper was doing someone in the squad a favor. And judging by the appreciative look Becker was giving Cooper, Xander knew exactly who it was.

Xander shook his head as he put his hands together in the prayer position, palms together and fingers pointing up. Becker’s plan wasn’t a bad one. Khaki looked really hot in those pants. And if there was one person who could get these guys to work on their flexibility, it’d be Khaki. If any of the guys had tried to come in here and pull this off, they would have been dog-piled by now.

Even so, most of the guys were eyeing Khaki dubiously as they mirrored her position. This was going to be…different. Some relaxing stretching would be a nice break from the ordinary.

Xander had to admit, watching Khaki bend and twist in those tight pants as she led them through various poses definitely made the wasted PT session worth it. He could finally see why Becker thought so much of those yoga pants. Though if Becker didn’t stop staring, Xander was going to walk over and punch him in the mouth.

Xander pushed the thought aside with a barely suppressed growl. As long as he didn’t leer or act like an ass, Becker had just as much right to look as he did. That didn’t quell the jealousy surging though him though.

After a few minutes of the gentle stretching, Khaki put them into positions that weren’t quite as relaxing. That’s when Xander really started to feel the workout. Damn, some of these things were hard.

“Get a little deeper in bound side angle, Alex,” Khaki called out. “Really reach under your leg and grab the other wrist.”

“Shit, I’ve got too many muscles to be bending this way,” Jayden grumbled. “I’m going to damage something important down here.”

Max snorted. “You don’t use it anyway.”

The other guys laughed, including Xander. But if they were like him, it was probably more to cover up the fact that they were having problems with bound warrior. It was like being a pretzel. The next pose was even worse. Something about a crow or a chicken. Either way, yoga was tougher than he’d thought. Props to whoever did it regularly because he was sweating like crazy.

He wasn’t the only one. Every guy on the team was grunting and swearing as Khaki led them through moves that stretched parts most of them hadn’t even known existed. Even she was sweating.

That was when he noticed something that almost knocked him out of his twisted triangle pose—a scent so strong he had to bite down on his tongue to keep from growling. What the hell?

Xander took a deep breath, trying to identify where it was coming from. When he did, he almost howled. That delectable scent hitting him so hard was coming from none other than Khaki’s glistening, sweat-slicked body. He was downwind of her, so as she led them from twisted triangle into a straight-legged hamstring stretch, the aroma kept getting stronger and stronger. She always smelled good, but for some reason, today her scent was even more powerful than normal.

Stopping his hard-on from uncomfortably filling his shorts wasn’t even an option. But this was more than simply an arousing scent. It was as if he’d been struck by lightning. Every cell in his body was tingling and alive. If his heart had stopped beating right at that moment, he wouldn’t have been surprised. But as agonizing as it was to stand there and inhale Khaki’s pheromones without pouncing on her, the thought of walking away was too painful to even consider.

He tore his gaze from Khaki and looked around, trying to see how everyone else was dealing with this mind-numbing sensory assault. But other than some swearing and complaining about how long Khaki was keeping them in this last pose, it didn’t seem like any of the guys noticed the scent rolling off her like a tidal wave.

How was that possible? It was the most amazing thing he’d ever smelled in his life. There was no way the other guys couldn’t smell it.

But obviously they didn’t or they’d have gone nuts. What the hell was happening to him?

Then, as he knelt there trying hard to breathe through his mouth and not his nose, the answer came to him. There could be only one reason he was affected by Khaki’s scent like this. And that one reason scared the hell out of him.

Khaki Blake must be The One—capital T, capital O—for him. If Xander hadn’t been kneeling right then, he would have fallen over.

As he watched Khaki flexing and twisting in mind-boggling grace, he realized that every single legend about The One was true. He may have found his soul mate.

But then a far more painful truth hit him. While he might have found his soul mate, she was one of his squad members. She’d also just gotten out of a crappy workplace romance that had blown up in her face and driven her out of her last job.

He wasn’t too intoxicated by her pheromones to know what both of those things meant. Khaki, and all that could be, was out of his reach.

Suddenly, that amazing scent of hers didn’t seem so sweet. In fact, it seemed more like a kick in the balls.

* * *

Khaki had no idea what she’d done during PT to piss off Xander, but when the rest of the squad headed downrange to get in some target practice, he’d announced he was staying in the admin office to write some reports. But from the way he’d avoided her gaze as he said it, she knew he was lying. Clearly, he didn’t want to be around her any more than he had to be.

She tried to forget about Xander and his issues as she walked down to the shooting range with the guys. She laughed with them, even when they called her “yoga wolf” and ribbed her about this morning’s PT session. She knew their teasing was just good-natured fun. She was part of the Pack now. The change from the previous day was subtle, but she could feel it. Between yesterday and today, they had become a family. It was nice to be part of something so special.

But no matter how much she laughed and joked with her teammates or how secure she felt with her new place within the Pack, she still wrestled with her relationship with Xander. The sense of disappointment welling up inside her when he stayed in the admin building instead of joining them was overwhelming. The worst part was she didn’t even understand why it bothered her so much. She’d known she wasn’t Xander’s favorite person since day one. Heck, she’d said as much to Mac last night. But after how well her werewolf lesson at his place had gone, not to mention the way she’d handled herself yesterday during the bank robbery, she’d thought she and Xander were in a good place.

Obviously, she’d been wrong.

She knew it was juvenile to get caught up in trying to understand Xander and whatever problem he had with her, but it was hard to pretend it didn’t matter when he acted like he’d rather be flossing his teeth with barbwire than spend even five minutes in her company. It physically made her chest hurt if she thought about it too much. It was like she’d lost something she’d never even had.

Khaki wished she could talk to another female werewolf about it. Mac was great, but there was stuff going on that Mac couldn’t understand or explain. Khaki knew in her gut that her werewolf nature had something to do with these feelings she was having. This wasn’t just a matter of being attracted to Xander. She’d been attracted to men before enough to know that what she felt now wasn’t normal. No man had ever taken hold of her soul the way Xander had. Even now as she was busy loading magazines for her M4, her head was somewhere else—like remembering how good Xander had smelled this morning during PT. The urge to walk over in the middle of the workout and rub her body up against his had been almost impossible to resist. If the other guys hadn’t been there, she probably would have done it—then thrown him down on his yoga mat and jumped him.

The image made her fingers tingle and her gums throb. She knew from last night what that meant and she quickly glanced at her fingertips to see if her claws were out. They weren’t, which meant her fangs weren’t either. But she carefully ran her tongue over her teeth just to check. How the hell would she have explained that, by saying loading 5.56 mm magazines got her excited?

What was wrong with her? How could thinking about Xander make her want to shift when she didn’t even know how to do it yet?

* * *

Khaki was on her fourth magazine when Trevor’s cell phone rang. Just when she’d finally gotten Xander out of her head and was able to think about something other than her squad leader.

Trevor had been putting them through a wounded-dominant-arm scenario with their M4s, making them go through the process of shooting, clearing a jammed weapon, and reloading—all with their nonshooting hand. Doing those things with an M4 was tough enough with both hands. With just her left, it was challenging as hell. Which was why it had required all her attention.

“We’ve got an incident,” Trevor said as he hung up.

Khaki grabbed her M4 and followed the guys, jogging to keep up with their long strides. She got to the admin building just in time to hear Xander asking if Gage was sure he wanted to do this.

“After how she handled herself during the bank situation and what you’ve been telling me about her training, I think she’s ready,” Gage said. “Don’t you?”

Khaki held her breath. She didn’t know exactly what they were talking about, but she’d come to expect the worst.

Xander didn’t even hesitate. “She’s more than ready.”

She hadn’t expected that. Just another indication that she didn’t have a clue what went on in Xander’s head. Then again, what woman could understand men anyway? Their logic rarely made sense to anyone but themselves.

Khaki quickly put on her tactical gear and pulled the straps snug, then climbed into the SUV with Cooper, Becker, and Alex. All they knew was that a little girl had been kidnapped and the DPD wanted their help with the rescue.

The on-scene commander, an older lieutenant named Matthews, filled them in as soon as they got to the subdivision.

“The girl’s name is Melissa Kincaide. She was taken a little over an hour and a half ago,” he said as they all gathered around the back of the SWAT operations vehicle.

Well, not all of them. Trevor was in the operations vehicle with one of the city’s civilian negotiators, trying to establish communications with the man who owned the house they were parked down the street from.

“The mother and two other neighbors were with their children waiting for the bus to take them to school this morning,” Matthews continued. “As they were getting on the bus, the suspect drove up and grabbed Melissa, then sped away.”

“Any chance they misidentified the suspect?” Xander asked.

The lieutenant shook his head. “No. All three of the adults and half the kids recognized Clete Reynolds. They’ve seen him around the neighborhood.”

Khaki didn’t miss the worried looks that passed between her teammates. She hadn’t dealt with a lot of hostage situations, but it couldn’t be good that the man hadn’t even tried to hide his face during the abduction, hadn’t cared if someone recognized him.

“And before you even ask, there isn’t any family connection between the little girl and Reynolds,” the lieutenant added. “It’s as if he simply wanted to grab one of the kids at the bus stop and Melissa was the one he ended up with. When a patrol car showed up, he shot at them. My guys pulled back and set up the barricades, then got the nearby houses evacuated. One of the officers slipped around the back of the place and peeked in a few windows. He never saw the girl, but the suspect is in there with an arsenal of weapons.”

Xander continued talking to the on-scene commander while she and the guys got their weapons. Even though Khaki was new to all this, she had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well.

Trevor came out of the operations vehicle as Khaki was double-checking her M4, worry etching his brow.

“We’ve been trying to talk Reynolds into coming out, or at least letting the girl go, but the guy isn’t exactly rational,” he said. “I can’t even confirm the man has the girl, much less where he’s holding her. One second he’s telling me he hasn’t done anything wrong, and the next he’s shouting that he’ll die before he lets us take away what’s his. I’ll keep trying, but this guy has a hair trigger. He could snap at any second.”

Xander nodded, then turned to her and the rest of the guys. “We don’t have time for a detailed plan, so we’ll just keep it simple. We have a one-floor ranch with a basement. Since the patrol officer didn’t see the girl when he looked in the windows, there’s a good chance she’s in the basement. Max and Hale, I want you two on the back, right side. Alex and Khaki, you have the back side left. Max, the power box is on your corner, so you’ll kill the power on my word.”

“Roger that,” Max said.

“Cooper, Becker, and I will be at the front of the house,” Xander continued. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to lure Reynolds there while the rest of you find the girl and get her out. We’ll try to take Reynolds alive, but Melissa Kincaide is our first priority. Everyone stay alert. We go in on my command.”

Khaki’s heart raced as she and the guys approached the house. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the terrified people lining the police barricades at the end of the street. Lieutenant Matthews was standing off to one side trying to comfort a woman who was probably Melissa’s mother. The woman was holding on to a little girl’s Hello Kitty book bag and a pretty pink cardigan sweater for dear life. The moment the woman saw them moving toward the house, she broke loose from the lieutenant’s hold and dashed around the barricade, running straight to Khaki.

“He took my little girl,” the woman sobbed, clutching Khaki’s arm. “You have to bring her back to me. Please.”

Khaki opened her mouth to reassure her, but the woman didn’t give Khaki a chance.

“Take this,” she beseeched, shoving the little pink sweater into Khaki’s hand. “Lissa dropped it. She’s going to need it when you find her. She gets cold so easily.”

Tears misted Khaki’s eyes and she blinked them away as she gently put the sweater back in the woman’s hands. “We’re going to bring your little girl out of there safe and sound, and when we do, you can give Melissa her sweater, okay?”

The woman nodded, fresh sobs racking her body as she clutched the sweater to her chest. Then Matthews was there, securing the woman in a firm but gentle grip. The lieutenant gave Khaki a nod before leading the woman back toward the barricade.

Khaki turned to catch up to the team to find them waiting for her.

“You ready for this?” Xander asked in that same soft voice he’d used when he taught her how to shift enough to see in the dark.

She nodded. “I’m ready.”

“Good.” The corner of his mouth edged up. “Be careful, huh?”

“You too.”

She and Alex used the neighborhood houses as cover as they moved around to the back of the suspect’s house. In broad daylight like this, it would be hard to sneak up on this guy, but they had to try.

As they got into position, she heard Trevor giving status updates to Xander in her earpiece. It didn’t sound like it was going very well. According to Trevor, the kidnapper was starting to lose it.

Khaki dropped to one knee near the window closest to her and peeked through the blinds into the bedroom. Alex motioned with his hand, pointing at himself, then the window, then her. He’d go through the window first while she covered him. She nodded.

Her hand tightened around her M4 as she waited for Xander to give the order to move in. This was her first real SWAT mission. She didn’t count the bank job because that hadn’t been a planned situation and there hadn’t been a hostage. This was different. There was a little girl in there who would likely die if they screwed up.

Khaki took a breath and let it out slowly, forcing herself to relax. If they ended up in the basement, she had to be ready to let her eyes shift. She replayed Xander’s words from their lesson.

Picture yourself running barefoot through the forest. Now imagine yourself opening your eyes wider, letting every flicker of light in to fill the darkness.

Khaki felt her eyes start to shift when she heard a man yelling from inside the house quickly followed by gunshots, breaking glass, and the clank of bullets hitting the cars along the street. Her first thought was of Xander and the guys who’d been heading through the front, and she sagged with relief when she heard him give the order to kill the power and enter the house.

Alex launched himself through the window, taking out the glass, most of the framework, and the curtains on the other side. Khaki leaped in after him, covering him as he got to his feet and tossed the curtains aside.

Khaki heard other windows breaking as she and Alex headed out of the bedroom and down a long hallway toward the center of the house. The other members of the squad would be moving in the same direction soon enough.

They’d just reached the end of the hallway when a middle-aged man with a beard and a shotgun came running. He glanced at her and Alex, eyes wide and crazy as he pivoted and headed down another hallway. No wonder Trevor thought Reynolds was losing it. The guy didn’t only sound insane; he looked it.

She gave chase, putting on speed when she realized he was heading for the basement. Dammit!

“He’s going to the basement,” she yelled, following Reynolds down the stairs.

Khaki let her nose lead her until she felt her eyes shift. The sound of a trigger being squeezed made her slam on the brakes, and she threw herself backward as the roar of a shotgun filled the tight stairwell.

Behind her, Alex must have sensed what she was about to do because he jumped back at the same time. The shotgun blew a ragged hole about the size of her head in the sheetrock wall beside her. Luckily, Reynolds missed her by a figurative mile. The debris from the sheetrock hadn’t even hit the floor before she was on her feet and running again, Alex right behind her.

She reached the basement only a few steps behind Reynolds. Unable to see as well as they could in the dark, he seemed more interested in not running into anything than in shooting at her and Alex again. That was okay with Khaki.

Unfortunately, she didn’t see the little girl anywhere. But they’d caught Reynolds. It would just be a matter of time before they rescued Melissa.

Khaki reached out to grab Reynolds by the shirt when he simply dropped out of sight. She skidded to a halt just in time to keep from falling into a ragged hole in the concrete floor.

“What the hell?” Alex muttered as he came around from behind her to see why she’d stopped.

She didn’t have an answer. All she knew was that it was so dark she had trouble seeing anything in it—even with her eyes shifted.

Boots echoed on the stairs. A moment later Xander was beside her.

“What have we got?” he asked.

Cooper squatted beside the hole. “We got a tunnel rat, that’s what we got.”

Then, without another word, he hopped into the hole.

Khaki didn’t think. She simply let her eyes open as wide as they would go to let in as much light as possible, and dropped into the blackness after Cooper.

It was a short trip to the bottom. She looked around, trying to get her bearings as she moved away from the hole so the other guys could join them.

“Holy crud,” Becker whispered. “It’s a freaking maze down here.”

Khaki silently agreed. They’d landed in the central hub of a network of tunnels that Reynolds had dug under his house. From where she was standing, she could see five main tunnels running off in different directions with smaller tunnels branching off from the main routes. Sheets of plywood and four-by-four beams shored up the ceiling and walls, and little trickles of dirt drifted from every gap.

“What the hell is that smell?” Max asked, covering his nose with his gloved hand.

Khaki didn’t blame him. Her nose had started to burn the moment she’d hit the ground. She’d never smelled anything like it, which was saying a lot. She’d spent her time in a lot of drug dens and meth labs out in Lakefront, and while the odor down here was similar, it definitely wasn’t the same.

“I don’t know,” Xander said. “But let’s not spend any more time down here than we have to. Spread out in teams of two. We need to find Reynolds before he gets to that little girl.”

Khaki paired up with Cooper, thanking God over and over that Xander had taught her how to shift her eyes. If she had to use her nose in here, she wasn’t sure she could do it. The place reeked.

She and Cooper had only gone about twenty feet when they heard gunfire. She turned and raced back the way they’d come, tracking the sounds of a scuffle down one of the other main tunnels, Cooper on her heels.

They got there along with everyone else, just in time to see Hale pinning Reynolds to the ground, a zip tie already on the man’s wrists, the shotgun lying in the dirt about ten feet away.

When Hale hauled the guy to his feet, Xander flipped on his flashlight and shined it in the man’s face “Where’s the little girl? Is she down here?”

Reynolds squinted against the light, babbling incoherently and shaking his head from side to side. Whether he was freaked out because he’d just gotten his ass kicked by a group of cops with glowing eyes or simply spent too much time down here inhaling these fumes was anyone’s guess. Regardless, they weren’t going to get anything out of him.

“What the hell is this stuff?”

Khaki turned to see Max holding up a mason jar of honey-colored liquid. He angled the jar toward Xander’s light, shaking it as he tried to figure out what it was. Beside him, there were several pallets of the jars, stacked high on top of each other.

“You think he was making moonshine down here?” Max shook the jar again. “If it is, what’re all these sparkly things floating in it?”

Cooper brushed past Khaki. “Stop shaking the jar, Max.”

Max frowned down at the jar in his hand and shook it some more. “Why? What is it?”

“Stop shaking the fucking jar, you moron!” Cooper growled so loudly that a sprinkle of dirt from the roof of the tunnel rained down around them.

“I finally figured out what this smell is,” Cooper said, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of them. “It’s nitric acid. This crazy son of a bitch has been trying to make his own explosives. Those sparkly things are nitric salts. You treat them too rough, and we’re gone. Hell, with all the jars on those pallets, a good portion of the neighborhood is gone with us.”

The tunnel went dead quiet. Even Reynolds stopped babbling.

“What do I do with it?” Max asked softly.

“You put it down,” Cooper advised. “Slowly.”

Outside, Matthews must have heard every word Cooper said through his mic because the lieutenant told them he wanted them out of there ASAP.

“We need to get Explosive Ordnance Disposal down there to clear those tunnels before we look for the girl,” Matthews added.

“Lieutenant, as bad as the air is down here, that girl will be dead long before EOD can get through this place,” Xander said into his mic. “It might take days.”

“Dammit,” Matthews swore. “Clear out as many members of your team as you can. I want essential personnel in there only. And find that little girl—fast.”

Khaki expected Xander to say that everyone on his team was essential, but he pointed at her and Cooper. “You two are staying. Everyone else out.”

The guys looked at Xander as if he were crazy. Khaki could imagine what they were thinking. Cooper was former Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal. But what the hell did Khaki bring to the table? She had to admit, she wasn’t sure either.

“Max, Hale, Alex, Becker—out,” Xander ordered. “Now.”

Khaki could tell from the looks on their faces they didn’t like it, but they went, dragging a dazed and confused Reynolds with them.

Xander turned off his radio, then motioned for her and Cooper to do the same. “Khaki, I need you to find that little girl.”

She blinked. “What? How can I do that?”

“You can pick up her scent.”

Of course. Xander thought that with her exceptional sense of smell, she could track the girl despite the reeking, burning chemical odor permeating every inch of the tunnels.

“Maybe,” Khaki agreed. “If I knew what she smelled like, but I don’t.”

Xander’s golden eyes were bright in the dark. “Yes, you do. I know for a fact that you got a whiff of that little girl’s pink sweater when her mom shoved it into your hand. You smell, and remember, everything. You just have to find her scent in that head of yours.”

Cooper’s brows furrowed. “What the hell are you talking about? No werewolf could smell a damn thing in here. We’re wasting time. We need to start searching.”

Xander gave him a hard look. “She can do this. Her nose doesn’t work like ours. It’s better.”

Khaki vaguely remembered picking up a lot of odors when Melissa’s mom had grabbed her. There was the smell of cotton and polyester, laundry detergent, eggs and bacon, some kind of furniture polish, peanut butter cookies, even the salty scent of tears. There were so many scents to shift through. And the horrible chemical smells down here didn’t help.

She shook her head. “Xander, I don’t think I can do it.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “We need to find her now. We don’t have time to wander around down here searching. You can do this. I know you can.”

The confidence in those words almost brought tears to Khaki’s eyes. She thought of Melissa’s mother sobbing and begging Khaki to find her little girl. Then she thought of Melissa. Wherever she was, she was probably terrified.

“I’ll try,” Khaki told Xander.

His mouth curved. “That’s all I can ask.”

Taking a deep breath, Khaki slung her M4 across her back, dropped down to her knees, and closed her eyes. Off to her right, she sensed Cooper move closer. She knew that Xander was keeping him away.

She shut them out and began to sort through the myriad smells down there surrounding her. She forced her nose to dive down under the harsh chemical odor, to ignore it and push it to the back of her mind so she could distinguish other scents.

She smelled dirt, of course. And Xander. Cooper too.

She scrunched up her nose and dug deeper, finding Reynolds’s smell—stale sweat paired with booze and urine. Underneath that, she picked up the faint trace of moles and rats that had long since left the tunnels.

And then, when she was about to give up, she found what she was looking for—the scent of peanut butter cookies and little girl tears.

Khaki jumped to her feet and ran toward the central hub of the tunnels, letting her nose lead the way.

Behind her, Xander ordered Cooper to stick tight to her so she wouldn’t get herself blown to pieces. Cooper obeyed, running so close to her he might as well have been glued to her side as she ran through the tunnels.

Khaki was so focused on the little girl’s scent she didn’t even see the tripwire stretched across the tunnel until she heard it break. The explosion echoed in her ears and thumped her in the chest, squeezing every ounce of air out of her lungs and picking her up to throw her down the tunnel.

Surprisingly, she didn’t pass out—at least, she didn’t think so. When she got her wits back, she was lying on the floor of the tunnel, something heavy pinning her legs. She pushed herself up on an elbow to see what it was and found a muscular arm draped over her. She couldn’t tell whether it was Xander or Cooper because the rest of him was buried under a slide of sandy clay soil. Crap. The tunnel had collapsed. She looked around and saw Cooper pushing himself into a sitting position a little farther up the tunnel.

She stared wide-eyed at the arm sticking out from the dirt. It was Xander. He must have shoved her and Cooper out of the way before the explosion brought the tunnel down.

Khaki scrambled to her knees and frantically clawed at the dirt. A moment later, Cooper was at her side, grabbing Xander’s arm and pulling on it as she dug.

It probably only took thirty seconds, but it was the longest thirty seconds of her life. She couldn’t imagine how someone could be alive under that mess, but as soon as she got enough dirt out of the way, Cooper yanked a coughing, gasping Xander out from underneath.

The urge to throw herself into his arms was hard to resist, and she balled her hands into fists at her side to keep from giving in to the urge.

“Do you still have the girl’s scent?” he asked.

It took only a second to confirm that she still did. “Yeah, but I think we may have lost our only way out.”

He shook his head. “First, find the girl. Then we’ll worry about how to get out of here.”

Khaki looked over her shoulder at the collapsed tunnel behind them, not wanting to think too much about how close she’d come to killing them all, then turned and homed in on Melissa’s scent. On the upside, the collapsed tunnel had cut down on the chemical odor. It made it easier to follow the girl’s scent.

Following her nose got harder when the tunnel dead-ended beside a pile of unused four-by-fours and plywood.

“Oh no,” she breathed.

Fear gripping her, Khaki retraced her steps. Melissa’s scent stopped about ten feet back—in a pile of freshly dug-up earth.

“Oh God.” Tears blurring her vision, she looked at Xander. “The trail ends right here.”

Xander and Cooper both dropped to their knees and began digging. Khaki joined in. A moment later, her fingers scraped against metal. She dug faster, uncovering a metal box the size of a footlocker.

Khaki held her breath as Xander and Cooper dragged it out of the hole, then ripped off the hasp and opened the lid.

Inside, curled up like she was sleeping, was a beautiful, blond-haired girl.

Fresh tears welled in Khaki’s eyes. They were too late.

But then she heard the unmistakable sound of a heartbeat. She exchanged looks with Xander and Cooper, then reached into the box and carefully pulled the girl out, hugging the tiny body to her chest.

Melissa sighed in her sleep and snuggled into Khaki’s neck, her small fingers curling against the straps of the tactical vest she wore. Khaki smoothed the girl’s wavy hair.

“It’s okay, Melissa,” she whispered. “You’re safe now.”

At the sound of Khaki’s voice, the girl lifted her head and looked around in confusion. There probably hadn’t been very much air in the box, so it wasn’t surprising she was disoriented. Plus, as far as the girl was concerned, it was dark as night down here.

“It’s okay,” Khaki said again. “You’re going to be okay. Your mommy sent us to come and get you.”

The girl looked around, her gaze going from Xander to Cooper. Then she turned and looked at Khaki again. “Why are all of your eyes so shiny?”

Khaki couldn’t help but smile as she hugged the girl closer. “Because we eat our carrots. You like carrots, don’t you?”

The girl rested her head on Khaki’s shoulder again. “Not really. They taste yucky. But I’ll eat them if they make my eyes shiny like yours.”

Khaki laughed, her gaze meeting Xander’s over the top of the little girl’s head. The look reflected in his gold eyes made her heart flip.

She cleared her throat. “How do we get out of here?”

Xander looked at that pile of wood farther up the tunnel. “Cooper, get a few of those four-by-fours. We’re digging our way out of here.”

Less than five minutes later, they broke through to the surface and climbed out of the ground to find themselves in the backyard of a house almost three blocks away from Reynolds’s. Khaki carried Melissa down the street to the cheers of onlookers, then carefully put the little girl back into her mother’s arms.

There were a lot of tears, some of them Khaki’s. She was filthy and beyond tired, but when she gave Melissa back to her mother, she’d never been happier in her life. Still smiling, she turned and did something that was probably very un-SWAT-like. She hugged Cooper, then threw her arms around Xander. While the hug she’d given Cooper was all about team and camaraderie and celebrating a job well done, the one she gave Xander was anything but. When that homemade bomb had gone off in the tunnel, he’d saved her life at the risk of his own. He’d believed in her when she hadn’t even believed in herself.

Khaki didn’t expect Xander to return the gesture, so when his strong arms went around her, she almost moaned. She settled for burying her face in his neck instead. Even covered in dirt, he smelled ah-mazing. She wasn’t sure why or how, but something told her things between them had changed.