SMOKY LAKE
Firelight Ridge ~ Book 3
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Excerpt from Smoky Lake
As he jogged up the steep trail behind his brother’s house, Gil McGowan welcomed the burn of pure mountain air pumping through his lungs. It chased away the irritation of being interrogated by a state trooper first thing in the morning. The man hadn’t even had the courtesy to wait until Gil had made coffee.
His brother was already out of the house, checking ground temperature readings on his latest experiment. Good thing, too—Lachlan didn’t handle disruptions well, especially if they wore official uniforms and seemed to imply wrongdoing. He would have been so nervous he might have confessed to murdering Victor, instead of simply being his colleague. That was Gil’s role—shield, protector, handler of the world.
Gil had spent ten minutes smiling pleasantly at the trooper, giving him absolutely no information beyond the basics about Victor. As a member of the Diplomatic Security Service, though currently on leave, his automatic protective impulses had kicked in as soon as Victor’s name came up.
With the state trooper finally out of his hair, Gil had gone for his run. Coffee when he got back, he’d decided. He needed the pounding of his feet against the forest floor, the flutter-whisper of the cottonwood leaves, the pure air pumping in and out of his lungs.
Was Victor in trouble?
When he reached a spot where he could pick up a consistent Wi-Fi signal from a nearby lodge, he called Victor. He was probably back in Fairbanks by now after his summer research stint out at Smoky Lake.
“Why did a state trooper just interrogate me about you, dude?”
“Oh fuck. I knew this was coming. I knew it, I knew it. They’re after me. They’ll do anything to stop me.”
Good lord. Victor sounded as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.
“What are you talking about? Who’s they?”
“Could be anyone…Big Pharma, China, Russia, Timbuktu, the angels, the grasshoppers…”
Gil pulled the phone away from his face and frowned at it. Had he blamed grasshoppers? The man did not sound like himself. Gil had known Victor for a few years now, but he was primarily Lachlan’s friend—both were scientists, both loved big ideas, both preferred nature to people. Gil’s friendship with Victor was built around mountain climbing and cold beers around a campfire, not ethnobotany, which was his field.
“What did you tell them?” Victor was asking.
“Nothing. How could I? I never understand your research anyway.”
“Good. Just don’t. Don’t tell them shit. Please, Gil. Promise me.”
“Don’t worry, he’s already gone.”
“Good, good.” Was that the sound of panting? Was Victor hiking instead of back in his office at the University of Fairbanks?
“Where are you?”
“I can’t say. Hey, need a favor, Gil.”
“You mean, aside from blowing off a state trooper?”
He didn’t laugh, which was odd in itself. Victor usually had a great sense of humor. “There was a woman at the airport, she was going to Firelight Ridge. They might be after her too. Don’t trust anyone. Keep her safe. Promise me. Name’s Annie, something like that. Promise you’ll protect her. Say it.”
He’d never heard Victor talk like this. Why would an ethnobotanist be of interest to a mysterious “they”?
Maybe Victor had had a few too many six-packs at his last campfire and was still under the influence.
That wouldn’t explain the state trooper.
Gil decided he might as well humor Victor. “I’ll keep an eye out for someone named Annie.”
“And protect her. I don’t want her to die because of me.”
“Die? Victor, what the hell…”
At that point, Victor launched onto another rambling tangent that Gil couldn’t make heads or tails of. And then the call dropped, along with the connection.
Breathing fast, Gil lingered at the overlook, hoping Victor might call him back. He tried calling himself, a few times, but only reached his voice mail.
A white-winged crossbill chittered nearby, answered by another one. He gazed down into the unnamed valley cut by an ancient river flowing from the ice fields. The river no longer existed, but the Korch Glacier still did. Around that corner, a few more miles into the wild, was one of his favorite spots in the world—Smoky Lake.
Victor had been staying out at Smoky Lake, at the research institute perched on one of the wooded overlooks. Gil hadn’t been out there yet this summer, but maybe he should go check it out. Maybe Victor had left behind some kind of clue as to why he was being investigated by a state trooper and possibly other mysterious unnamed “theys.”
All those thoughts ran through his mind as he pounded back down the trail toward his brother’s house.
And then things got even stranger. He nearly stumbled over a root when he caught sight of a woman standing on his brother’s porch, next to the snow grate, peering in the front picture window.
No one ever came all the way out here into the woods uninvited—especially not two people in one morning. The state trooper, now this woman he’d never seen before.
Red alarms all over the place.
“Hey,” he called as he jogged the last few yards. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The woman turned and a shock of disbelief traveled through him like an electrical current, blazing and unstoppable. She was stunningly beautiful, and even that seemed like an understatement. Her lush dark hair flowed in abundant waves around her shoulders. It might have looked black in other lighting, but the morning sunshine picked out notes of mahogany and copper. Her skin was like clover honey, her eyes just as dark as her hair, set wide apart under arched eyebrows.
She was a goddess in blue jeans and a suede jacket. But she looked a little…sad, maybe?
He wanted to throw himself at her feet. He wanted to beg her to smile. He wanted to run his hands through her hair and breathe deep.
What the hell?
Gil McGowan was an experienced, tested agent in the Diplomatic Security Service who’d been sent to various international postings during his career. He’d met, gotten to know, and slept with women of various ages, ethnicities, professions, races, and personalities. But none of them had affected him like this.
Out of all the possible ways to react to a beautiful woman showing up on your doorstep, surely a frown and a hostile question were the worst. Hey, what are you doing here? But he couldn’t seem to come up with anything else.
“This is private property.”
Yeah, that wasn’t any better.
She stepped down from the porch. Great, now he’d chased away this goddess before he even knew her name or what she was doing here.
“Are you Gil McGowan?”
His very ordinary name sounded sumptuous when spoken by those full lips.
“Yeah.” God, this was pathetic. Get ahold of yourself. “Who’s asking?”
Her eyebrows drew together in perplexed confusion.
He hadn’t had his coffee yet, that was the problem. “Want some coffee?”
His abrupt change of tone didn’t seem to faze her. “I would absolutely love some coffee, so long as you aren’t planning to slip poison in it to get me off your property.”
He blinked at her, saw she was joking, and laughed. An awkward laugh, no doubt, but better than most of the other sounds he’d made so far. “Sorry, it’s been a strange morning and you caught me by surprise. Please excuse my pre-coffee rudeness.”
She threw up a hand. “Say no more. I completely understand. Pop-ins are never comfortable, are they? I would have asked if it was okay to swing by, but Sam didn’t know your phone number.”
“Sam?”
“Sam Coburn, the pilot. He told me how to find you, I hope that’s okay.”
He might have to buy Sam several rounds at The Fang after this. “Come in. Watch your step, that threshold is loose. My brother’s been after me to fix it. If you’ll hang on a minute—”
“No need for that,” she assured him as she stepped gracefully over the threshold. “How about that coffee instead?”
It wasn’t until she walked across the living room toward the kitchen island where the coffee maker sat, that he noticed her fairly pronounced limp.
Somehow it only made her more graceful.
She caught his glance. “No, it wasn’t from your loose threshold,” she said dryly. “It’s from years ago.”
He pulled two mugs from the cupboard and filled them with coffee. His brother liked to collect mugs from the nearest public radio station during their pledge drives.
“KRTL,” she read aloud. “Are you a listener?”
“I don’t have much time for the radio.”
She stood up straighter, as if he’d prodded her to attention. “Right. You must be very busy. I don’t need to take up much of your time.”
“No no, it’s fine.” He silently cursed himself. At some point, surely, he’d stop putting his foot in his mouth with this woman. “Gotta drink coffee anyway.”
As he heard his own words, his eyes closed in resigned dismay. Definitely still doomed to the foot-in-mouth thing.
“Perfect timing, then,” she said in a matter-of-fact way that relieved his embarrassment immediately. “Do you happen to have any milk and sugar?”
Silently, he retrieved a carton of milk from the refrigerator and prayed it hadn’t gone bad since the last time he’d used it—to pour a saucer of milk for a stray tabby cat that liked to come around. Lachlan tended to forget about things like groceries, so Gil usually stocked up when he was visiting.
“So you’re probably wondering why a strange woman showed up on your doorstep,” she said as she stirred her coffee. “My name is Ani Devi.”
Ani. Ani.
Jesus. This was the woman Victor wanted him to watch out for.