“My mom was responsible for teaching us about gardening. About plants and herbs. What was safe to eat and what wasn’t. How to grow year-round,” I said, pulling out my weapon and satellite phone from my pack and then moving in front of Lara. “She always told us that what we watered would grow. Didn’t occur to me she wasn’t talking just about plants until I was having to explain it to Creighton and Colby.”
Crouching, I gently lifted one foot and then the other, examining her handiwork on the bandages around her ankles and toes.Like she wasn’t a doctor.I looked up and found her eyes and started to tip forward. Maybe it was natural the way I wanted her in moments without reason. Natural the way gravity doesn’t give you a choice before pulling you in.
“Calder . . .” She exhaled softly.
And then the sat phone vibrated.
Callum.
Chapter 30
Lara
Guilt pierced my chest over the fact that it took a single, significant second after his phone buzzed for the need to find Rachel to surmount the brutal ache I had for the man in front of me. The one who’d cut a precise path through the mountains, stitched our way through a forest of trees, and led us across a stream with the expertise of a surgeon. All I wanted was to spend time with him, but now, like then, the need to protect my sister surpassed everything.
While Calder went to his phone, I quickly slipped my socks and Colby’s hiking boots back on, ignoring the protest of my aching feet.
“Is it the photos?” I asked and went to stand next to him, my front pressed to his side.
He tilted the Garmin sat phone so I could see the screen and what waited on the ridge above us.
“Here is their main entrance.” Calder pointed to two small squares and a thin line of gate connecting them. Outside the gates were several parked vehicles. Two trucks and two four-wheelers. Panning and zooming to a different spot, he added, “It looks like the whole thing is encircled by a wooden perimeter fence except for this side, where we’re coming from.”Because they thought the access we’d taken would be too involved for anyone to attempt.
Anyone except Calder Stone.
“These are probably living quarters for higher-ranking members. The smallest buildings usually are.” Six square structures lined the un-fenced edge of the compound, one larger than the rest. The camera caught the glare off their solar panels. “The biggest building is usually communal space for meetings, dining, and administrative.” He zoomed in on the building with the largest rectangular footprint, making it easier to see that it was a large A-frame.
“That looks like a greenhouse.” I pointed to the white-capped structure in the corner, and Calder nodded. “Where do you think they’re keeping Rachel?”
“Probably one of these buildings.” He panned over to the farthest side of the compound, where there were two more buildings of medium size. “Once the sun starts to set, he’ll send the drone for a closer sweep.”
I felt the urge to take the lead and insist we should go investigate now. I felt it and I swallowed it, asking instead, “What’s our plan?”
Calder shut off the phone and turned to me, his eyes glittering in the low-hanging sun. “I know you want to storm the gates, Tomb Raider, but I promised I’d find your sister. I promised you I’d get her out of this safely, and that’s what I’m going to do, but we have to do it my way.”
“I know,” I murmured, feeling his knuckles catch under my chin and something even stronger catch in my chest.
Even though my anxious heart wanted something different, I’d always been on Calder’s side of this argument. Calm and careful when it came to my patients. Now I stood on the other side of the proverbial hospital bed. Now I was the loved one who wanted to rashly swoop in like loving my sister was enough to mitigate every risk of acting irrationally.
“The sun starts to set in a little over an hour. We have to be back here before then, so I can get a fire going before dark. Dusk will mask the smoke and not highlight the flame.” He picked up his weapon and clipped it at the small of his back. “We’ll hike up to the edge of the compound and geta lay of the land. What buildings are what. Who is where. Any kind of idea of what happens in the span of a day.” He paused. “Surveillance. Knowing Rachel’s location is only half the battle—a losing half, if we can’t get to her and get her out of there safely.”
Again, I felt the instinct to insist on a plan of my own—to search every building under the cover of night until we found my sister and got her out of there. And the urge softened. Settled.Soothed.
“Do you think they’re ... armed?”
Calder frowned. “Even their wilderness retreat came with armed guards.”
My stomach rolled into a knot.
Even bandaged, my blisters protested for every step. But I’d long ago perfected the art of ignoring my own needs—food, sleep, a bathroom break—when it came to saving someone’s life. A determination that only deepened when that someone was Rachel.
Calder paused on the slope ahead of me, crouching and bringing his head closer to mine. “Stay silent and stay behind me. If I tell you to stay put, you stay. If I tell you to run, you go back to the camp, you grab the sat phone, you find a hiding place beyond the boulder field, and you call Callum. His is the only number saved. Understand?”
Collected, commanding Calder was back.
“Yeah,” I murmured, something twisting tighter in my chest as he looked at me.
And then his arm snaked out and he hauled my mouth to his in a hard kiss. Lips and tongues combusted for a single second, the explosion of a supernova before he yanked away.