The trek through thigh-high powder had not been fun. Even with her knee-high, waterproof North Face boots that were rated to withstand temperatures down to minus twenty degrees, Savannah had lost feeling in her feet.

They’d been walking for about an hour. Twenty minutes through powder and forty minutes on this road with only two vehicle sightings—both cops. The rescue search had continued past sunset, hampering Ian and Savannah’s escape.

The trek raised her body temperature and her feet had regained some feeling, but Ian’s limp had worsened and his pace had slowed. He claimed to be fine and remained determined to keep going, but Savannah was worried.

“How far have we walked?” she asked. “And don’t say ‘ten minutes farther than the last time you asked,’ smart-ass.”

“I love how you retain your sense of humor under the worst conditions.”

“I’m trying to figure out if we passed the campground,” she told him. “I thought there was a caretaker that lived there year-round to keep up the property, but if they shut the place down, the road leading to the property would be snowed over. Did you have a plan B in mind?”

He stopped walking, and Savannah came up beside him. “We don’t need one, baby.” He angled his flashlight across the road. “Look.”

A wooden sign had been carved with: Welcome to Koocanusa Camp.

Her knees went weak with relief, and she grabbed a handful of his jacket to stay upright. “And the road’s plowed.”

“Things are looking up.”

She pulled her phone from her jacket. “Still no service.”

“Maybe up by the cabins.”

She nodded and headed up the dark road, praying they could find a place to rest and get warm. Fifteen minutes later, they’d passed a tiny booth at the entrance to the campground and came to a cluster of small, freestanding cabins.

“Oh my God,” Savannah breathed. “I was beginning to believe I’d imagined them.”

Ian swept the buildings with his flashlight and walked behind one to look down the row. “They’re all the same.” He pointed to the third in a row on the opposite side of the road. It was set a little farther back against the trees. “This one.”

He circled the building, checking the front door, then the windows—all locked. A rustle and a minute later, he appeared at the front door, opening it from the inside.

Relief tingled through her belly “How’d you do that?”

“Jimmied a window.”

“What about your bad knee?”

He shrugged. “I have another one.”

When she stepped into the small space, Ian closed the door behind her. The flashlight illuminated the space. “Not bad for an impromptu visit.”

“Not bad for a planned visit.”

There was one big bed against the back wall, positioned under the window Ian had come in if the screen on the floor was any indication. And it was made up with blankets and pillows. The front of the cabin had been set up like a living room with a love seat and a lounger. A two-person table sat next to a tiny kitchen area.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” he asked her.

“Bad news?” Her shoulders slumped. “I can’t take any more bad news.”

“Then let’s just get it out of the way,” he said. “There’s no electricity.”

She exhaled in relief and eased to a seat on the sofa. “Hardly the worst thing I’ve heard today. What’s the good news?”

“It’s got an older water heater that doesn’t need electricity to operate.” He grinned. “And the propane tank used to heat it is full.”

Excitement burst at the center of her body. “We’ll have hot water? Are you serious?”

“In about twenty minutes.”

“That’s downright civilized.” She pulled out her phone, checking for a signal. “But…still no service.”

“Me either,” he said. “I tossed my watch onto the roof. If it’s working, if it can pick up a signal, my team will find us.”

“If, if, if…” She sighed. “I guess I’ll take them. Better than a definite no.” She patted the sofa. “Come sit. Let me look at your head and your knee.”

He pressed his hand to the arm of the couch, put his weight on the other leg, and eased onto a seat next to her. Turning the flashlight upside down, he set it on the floor. The beam hit the ceiling and dispersed, filling the cabin with soft light.

The relief of having a safe, comfortable place to rest sank deep into her bones. She cupped his face, tilted his head down, and fingered away the hair around his injuries. “What do you think Sam’s got Jamison doing now?”

“Hmmm. My guess? Jumping on the bed of the closest motel, face covered in camo grease.”

She smiled at the image his words created. “Your team would go to a hotel?”

“No, just Sam. They’d want Jamison to get some sleep.”

“Why Sam, not Everly?”

“Sam’s naturally better with kids.”

“Your lump has gone down, and your cut isn’t bleeding anymore, but I think you’re going to need stitches.”

He winced. “Can’t wait.”

“I was definitely the luckier one today.”

He lifted his head and met her eyes. He slid his knuckles across her cheek. “That’s arguable. I’ve gotten pretty damn lucky with you.”

She gave his hand a squeeze, then leaned sideways against the back of the sofa. “I guess we have a lot to talk about.” She pushed her boots off and curled her feet beneath her, searching for warmth. “Do you really think Misty was counterfeiting for Hank?”

“I’m sorry, baby. I really do.”

Her heart grew heavy with sadness, regret, disillusionment. “Nobody is what they seem, are they?”

“You’re the first exception I’ve ever met.”

She shrugged. Savannah’s history had forced her to appreciate the simple things. She had simple needs. Simple wants. But even those had proved too complicated to attain.

“Do you have enough evidence to put Hank and Lyle away?” she asked him, watching his expression for deception. “Really put them away?”

“They’re going down. That is for sure.”

She searched his expression and realized she couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. But she admittedly sucked as a lie detector. Still, she relished the thought of not fighting them anymore.

“How did this all start, anyway?”

“Mason’s death,” he told her. “He was undercover for a joint task force run out of the State Department. He’d been assigned here because they tracked counterfeit passports back to Bishop Mining. Some were being used by terrorists.”

Disbelief and fear flared. “You’re not telling me Misty’s selling passports to terrorists, are you? Because there is no way she would be part of that. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know. She’d never want to do anything to deliberately hurt someone else.”

“We don’t think so. In fact, I think Hank was blackmailing her to create the passports. But they were used in some horrific terrorist attacks.”

“Oh my God.” When Misty heard this, she’d be heartbroken. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“They’ll arrest her, try to get information about what she’s doing and why. But no matter what deal authorities might be willing to make with her, I imagine she’ll go to prison for some length of time. All that will depend on how she cooperates and what they can prove.”

Savannah’s heart broke for Misty. “This is going to crush Jamison. He loves her. She’s been like an aunt to him. And a sister to me.”

“I know. It’s going to be hard on both of you.” He picked up her hand and threaded their fingers. The gesture was so simple, yet so sweet. “Are you going to stay in Hazard after Hank and Lyle are gone?”

“Hell no.” Her immediate and emphatic answer made Ian smile. And man, what a smile. Even amid the dried blood and dirt, the man was heart melting.

“Where will you go?”

She shrugged, smiled. “I have no idea. Just the thought of taking that next step exhausts me right now.”

He leaned forward and took her hands in his. Then he met her eyes. “I didn’t sleep with you to trick you. I slept with you because I wanted to. Because you’re beautiful and sweet and damned amazing. I admit, from a professional perspective, Roman’s right, I shouldn’t have. And while I am sorry I lied to you, I’m not sorry I slept with you.”

She pulled in a breath. “No more lies?”

He smiled a little. “No more lies.”

She nodded and let it go. After everything she’d been through, she wasn’t going to hold it against him. “Tell me about your team. About the company.”

“Misty told you about the military version of the team?”

Savannah nodded. “Said you were called the American Taliban because you swept in, killed, and bailed.”

He shook his head on a long exhale. “The thing is, we didn’t do anything different from SEAL Team Six. They get movie deals and accolades. We get labeled Taliban.”

“So, you’ve killed people.”

“I have.” He answered without hesitation and without apology. “Every kill I’ve ever made was directly related to the country’s safety.”

She could respect that. “And Roman’s team?”

“Is totally different. We’re civilians. We’re sent where we’re needed for non-military-related issues that need a quick and permanent solution to a problem the government and few security teams will take on. But we are not dispatched to neutralize.”

Neutralize. Such bizarre language. Language she was sure felt like second nature to Ian. She had so much to learn about this man. She wondered if she’d get the chance. Or if she even wanted that chance.

“This is my first mission with them. After my mom died, I tried to go back. Everything I told you about that is true.”

“Are you going to stay with the team?”

“I don’t know. I think it depends on how pissed Roman is about me stepping over the line with you.”

She had so many questions. They rose in her mind like bubbles, but fatigue popped them before she could ask them. She had to focus hard as the exhaustion dragged at her.

“Have you been married?”

“Never.”

She nodded, and he waited, focused and determined. But Savannah was too tired to talk. “Pull up your pant leg. Let me see your knee.”

“Can’t. Too swollen.”

She sighed and rested her head against the sofa. “God, what a mess.”

Ian wrapped his arms around her and dragged her close. “As long as you come out of this okay, I don’t care what else happens.”

She put a hand against his chest and looked up at him. “Don’t say that. You scared the shit out of me today.”

He sighed and stroked her jaw with his knuckles. His gaze was so warm, so loving. When he looked at her like this, Savannah felt showered in affection.

“I know you’re worried about Jamison,” he said, “and we still have to get out of this, but when this is settled, I want to sit down with you before you make your next big life move. If you’ll let me, I want to be part of that move.”

She couldn’t quite believe he still wanted her after he’d seen all her flaws, all her weaknesses, all her mistakes. And they had some hard talks ahead to hash out his lies. But she agreed those talks were best saved for later.

She eased up and kissed him. “I can agree to that.”

She loved the feel of him sinking into the kiss. Loved the low groan in his throat, the pressure of his lips, the slide of his tongue. She kissed him until she couldn’t breathe.

She pulled back. “Think the water’s warm yet?”

“Shower by flashlight?” he asked with a grin.

“Together. Definitely.” Then she remembered his watch. “What if the team finds us?”

He smiled. “They can wait.”

She stood and offered her hand to help him up. Ian turned on the shower, and Savannah found towels in a bathroom cabinet. She tossed them onto the shower enclosure. Ian leaned against the sink and pulled her between his legs. “You know this isn’t going to feel as good as you think, right? Hot water on open wounds isn’t fun.”

She nodded, snuggled close, and laid her head against his chest. The ache in her heart over Misty’s involvement with Hank and the passports snuck in. Then her worry over Jamison.

Even though she knew she had to be driving Ian crazy asking about Jamison, she couldn’t keep herself from saying, “What do you think Sam has Jamison doing now?”

“I think Sam’s passed out and Jamison’s watching cartoons, eating everything in the mini fridge and calling room service.”

She laughed. Fatigue made her punch drunk, and the image she created in her mind of Jamison and Sam kept her giggling. Savannah welcomed the moment of relief.

“He’s probably making swans out of towels by now,” Ian continued. “Reading the Bible. Ordering movies. Hell, I hope he didn’t find the porn.”

Savannah laughed so hard, tears burned her eyes. When she caught her breath, she exhaled, “I love you.”

As soon as she heard the words, she froze. Shit. She hadn’t meant to say that. Had she? A quick check of her emotions and, yes, she loved him. But…

She lifted her head and looked at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

He pressed his fingers against her lips. “I love you too. I kept hoping we survived long enough for me to tell you. You can trust me with your heart, Savannah. I’m going to prove it to you.”

She searched his eyes and found honesty and affection. He lifted his fingers and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was tender, emotional, but quickly turned hungry.

When Ian finally lifted his head, Savannah was dizzy with lust and the bathroom was filled with steam.

Ian smiled. “I think the water’s hot.”

He reached into the shower and adjusted the temperature. The warmth in the room felt so good, Savannah moaned. “Can we leave the water running and sleep in here? It’s so warm.”

“We can do anything you want,” Ian told her. “But first, shower.”

Undressing proved more painful and problematic than either of them had realized. With every piece of clothing finally stripped away, more bruises and injuries appeared, and Ian’s knee was worse than he ever let on.

Savannah winced. “Ouch.”

“I’ve been worse,” he told her. “Are you ready to brave the shower?”

“Definitely. I want warmth like you don’t know.”

“Oh, I know.”

He slipped his arm around her waist and held her steady as she stepped over the side of the tub, then joined her.

With more extensive injuries, Ian suffered the most in the first few minutes. As the water ran over the cut on his head, he growled and swore. Once their injuries had become desensitized and their bodies adjusted to the heat, the shower became luxurious. They lingered under the hot water, skin on skin, lips against lips.

Water slicked his hair off his handsome face and clumped his long lashes. The sight of rivulets coursing down his muscled body sparked her desire. The pressure of his erection low against her belly primed her bloodstream with lust. He was so strong, so primitively male, yet so tender with her. The contrast turned her inside out with want.

She slid her hand between their bodies and over his erection. Ian groaned and kissed her harder, deeper. The same way she wanted to feel him inside her.

He broke the kiss, pushed the shower curtain aside, and leaned out to search his wallet. With the condom’s foil packet between his teeth, he ripped it open. Savannah took the condom and rolled it on, quickly, efficiently. Her hands worked much better when they weren’t frozen.

Ian wrapped a strong arm around her waist and lifted her.

She grabbed his shoulders for balance. “Ian, no, your knee.”

He pressed her back against the wall and pulled her thigh to his hip. “I’ve got another one.”

Her laughter melted in another searing kiss. He gripped her ass with both hands, lifting and supporting her. She wrapped both legs around his waist, and Ian expertly guided himself inside her.

“Oh God…” She drew out the words in a groan of pleasure. She’d never felt anything as good as this man filling her. Then he moved, proving her wrong. Driving pleasure through her with every thrust. He swallowed her sounds of ecstasy with his kiss and methodically, rhythmically urged her toward bliss.

Ian dropped his forehead to her shoulder. “Baby, you feel…so good.”

Emotions swamped her. Too many and too mixed to sort anything out. She held him tight and rode his every thrust, pushing off the shower wall to meet him.

Her orgasm rose in a sharp wave of pleasure and crashed with a fury that tensed every exhausted muscle in her body. Ian’s growl of approval shivered through her, followed by his own climax, so intense, it stole Savannah’s breath.

His body relaxed, leaning into hers and pressing her against the shower wall while their breathing returned to normal. He lifted his head from her shoulder, his eyes heavy-lidded with satisfaction, and Savannah kissed him with all the affection and gratitude and love spiraling through her chest. He returned her kiss with a tenderness and reverence and sweetness that filled every hole in her heart.

He eased from her body and set her on her feet. When she turned toward the spray, rinsing one more time, Ian wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her neck. “We’ll have to sleep in shifts.”

“Why?”

“We may both have concussions. One of us needs to stay awake to prod the other every half hour or so.”

“I’ll take the first shift.” She turned off the water and pulled a towel from the shower enclosure, handing it to Ian before she pulled her own down. “I won’t be able to sleep worrying about Jamison anyway.”

* * *

Everly set a deliberate path through the snow with Roman on one side of her, Liam on the other. Flakes continued to fall, erasing any sign of footsteps Ian and Savannah might have left.

Snowshoes kept them on top of the powder as they picked up the search the rescue team had abandoned after dark. But unlike the search party, instead of looking for signs of death, they were looking for signs of life. Signs that Ian and Savannah had escaped the avalanche or were still alive beneath the snow.

With half the area already scoured by the search effort, they only needed to cover the other half. Everly was sick over this. And the more ground they covered without any sign of Ian and Savannah, the heavier the rock in the pit of her stomach became.

Because cops had been stationed around the avalanche site, the team couldn’t use flashlights to search the snow’s surface. They’d donned their night vision to get an enhanced look at the snow surface to spot irregularities. But for the last hour, all they saw were miles of pristine snow cover.

Everly’s phone vibrated in her pocket, shocking her to a stop.

“What?” Roman asked, looking back at her over his shoulder.

“My phone.” She pulled it out and looked at the screen. “It’s Sam. We have signal.”

Roman ripped his phone from his pocket, and Everly answered Sam’s FaceTime video while she looked over Roman’s shoulder at the GPS app. “Hold on,” she told Sam.

When Ian’s signal didn’t light up the screen, Everly’s hope extinguished. “Useless. You should get your money back on that app.”

“That app found you when you wandered off course in Mogadishu,” Roman told her.

“I didn’t wander off course. It’s called wind. Wind catches parachutes. It’s not like the damn things have handlebars.”

Sam piped up. “How come that wind didn’t catch everyone else’s parachutes?”

She glared at him over FaceTime. “Because you’re all twice my size, so I’m easier to blow around. It’s called physics.”

On the screen behind Sam, Jamison climbed onto a bed and started jumping, singing another nonsensical kid’s song.

“Oh my God,” Sam looked over his shoulder. “Not again.”

“What the hell, Sam?” She would have yelled if sound didn’t travel so far in the open.

“Help,” he said. “How do I get him to sleep?”

“Try not feeding him sugar,” Liam offered.

“Too late,” Sam replied.

“I figured,” Liam said with a smirk.

“Dammit, Sam, handle it. I promised Savannah I’d keep him safe.”

His brows shot up, and a truly shocked, confused look broke out over his face. “You?”

“Shut up. I may be the least parental of this group, but I know enough not to let a five-year-old jump on the bed. I swear to God, if you break him, you buy him.”

“Any sign of Ian and Savannah?” Sam asked.

“No,” Everly said, “which makes keeping that kid safe all the more important. I will pluck your short hairs out by the root if he hurts himself.”

“Harsh,” Sam said. “You’re so bitchy when you’re worried.”

Everly growled and hung up on him. “For all his brilliance, I swear…”

“He’s right,” Roman said. “You do get bitchy when you’re stressed.”

“The fact that we have cell service but no GPS location is something to be stressed about.” Everly started walking again, headed toward some ruffled snow that would most likely turn out to be an animal’s dinner spot. “I should never have brought Ian on board. Should have told him to take that bodyguard job so his brain could turn to mush.”

“He’s a big boy,” Roman said. “He can make his own decisions. And he’s been in situations way worse than this and survived.”

“You’d better not ream him for sleeping with Savannah if we find them alive,” she told Roman. “You live in a glass house, buddy.”

“Excuse me?”

His irritated tone only added fuel to Everly’s frustration. She stopped hiking, flipped her night vision up, and pinned Roman with a look. “Gianna?”

He hesitated a split second too long, and Everly knew the rumor was true.

He lifted his own night vision. “What about Gianna?”

“Like I said, glass houses.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “And you’d better not spread rumors—”

She laughed. “No need. Everyone already knows.”

Everly looked at Liam, and Roman cut a glance at the other man.

Liam shrugged. “I didn’t hear any rumor, but I figured…”

“Why?” Roman demanded. “Why would anyone figure something like that?”

“Because the attraction between you two is palpable.” Everly flipped her night vision down and continued toward the disturbed snow. “Don’t punish Ian for doing something you’re too chicken to go for.”

“You’re fired.” Roman pulled his night vision into place and continued searching the snow with an irritated “As soon as we find them.”

“Right. Like the last twenty times you’ve fired me.” Everly neared the uneven patch of snow that turned out to be more of a depression. Her intuition pulsed, shooting tingles down her neck. She picked up her pace. “Got something here.”

It was a hole in the snow. A big hole. Way too big for any of the small animals in the area to make. She tipped the night vision out of the way and shone a flashlight down the hole. The sight of black metal made her heart skip. Her spirits soared.

“This is it. They dug out.” Everly was breathless with relief. If Ian had gotten Savannah out of this, he surely would have found shelter, even if he had to build a damn igloo.

She turned off the light and unsnapped her snowshoes, then she shuffled down the hole. Scanning the interior, she could see signs of what had occurred. “They’re hurt—there’s blood on the seats and windows. They found supplies in the back. They took blankets, flashlights, and weapons.”

Though there was no sign of where they might have headed.

By the time Everly made her way to the surface again, Roman had already pinpointed the closest campground, one that also had cabins. “Let’s go.”