Page 20 of Smoky Lake

“He’s so beautiful.” The wonder in her voice did something to his heart. He’d seen more bears than he could count, and maybe he’d gotten a little jaded. But watching Ani’s reaction made him look at the bear with new eyes.

They all gazed at each other, two humans and a bear, separated by only a few yards of lake water. Even though they were no longer paddling, the boat drifted slowly in the bear’s direction. No one moved. It felt as if they were all bound together by a spell. Man. Woman. Bear.

He realized that Ani was holding his hand. Magic.

It felt like one of those wilderness moments when time loses all its force, and the boundaries between species dissolve in an almost mystical way.

Then an unfamiliar noise snapped all of them out of their trance. A whistling hiss sounded overhead. Gil looked up to see something streaking through the sky. His first thought was that it was a bird about to dive-bomb them. But no bird could fly that fast, and it wasn’t headed toward them. It was headed past them.

Toward the Institute.

The explosion hit with a force that sent a tremor through the air, the boat, his body. He threw himself over Ani, his first thought being to protect her from anything, whatever it might be. He caught a glimpse of the bear fleeing into the woods at a fast lope. His ears rang with the echo of the detonation. Was it still going on? He wasn’t even sure what was happening anymore. Dizzy. Disoriented.

After some unknown amount of time, Ani squirmed out from under him and kneeled to face him. Her dark eyes scanned him in a medical professional way. “Can you hear me?”

He nodded, even though her voice sounded far away. She moved a finger back and forth. He tracked it as she watched. Why was he more affected than she was?

Oh right. He’d shielded her with his body. He’d also messed up her hair, leaving it in lush disarray. When he reached out to straighten her hair, she gripped his wrist.

“Gil. You have to focus. The Institute building is on fire. Should we do something?”

That snapped him back to attention. He scrambled onto his knees and gazed back at the blazing remains of the Smoky Lake Research Institute. A column of smoke rose into the air. There would be no firefighters to the rescue out here. Even if the fire triggered a forest fire, there weren’t enough homes at risk to justify sending a helicopter. Most wildfires in Alaska simply burned themselves out, or were put out by rain. Only in the most serious situations, when communities were threatened, did wildfire crews take action.

And judging by the damage, there wasn’t much he could do at this point for the building.

“They’re good about keeping the brush cleared away.” His voice sounded like sandpaper. “It’s unlikely to spread. The fog. Moisture in the air. It’ll stay confined to the,” his voice broke, “the structure.”

Good God. He was actually getting emotional. He’d spent many happy times in that building. His brother loved it. So did Victor. It was a place of science. Of knowledge. Of peaceful exploration. Of all the good things he tried to protect.

And someone had deliberately destroyed it.

Gentle arms came around him. Ani. Ani was embracing him. Part of him wanted to lose himself in the comfort of her touch. Revel in her scent. But hot anger tightened his throat, threatened to tear out of him. He couldn’t have that. They needed to find a safe place. They needed to find out what the ever-loving fuck was going on here.

He shook her off.

“Let’s go,” he said curtly, and dug his paddle into the water.

10

Ani scolded herself for treating a grown man—a real-life protective detail—like a child with a scraped knee. Once a pediatrician, always a pediatrician, apparently.

Silently, she picked up her oar and joined the rhythm of his strokes. Behind them, she heard the crackle of flames eating at live wood. If they’d stayed in the Institute facility just a little longer, they would have been inside when that … whatever it was … hit. A bottle rocket? A missile?

A missile?

Her hands shook and her breath rattled in her chest. “They…they…” she gasped. All of a sudden she pictured men with shoulder-mounted missiles filling the forest, just waiting until they could get a shot at them. “Do you think they were…” Aiming at us? She couldn’t complete the sentence.

“No.” A firm hand gripped her shoulder. A brief touch, but enough to bring her out of her panic. “I don’t think they’re after us. I think this has to do with Victor, and they’re trying to destroy his research. That’s what I think.”

“Okay. Okay. That makes sense.” It did, right? In a surreal kind of way, a different world kind of way. “They haven’t fired again.”

“Exactly. They hit the building, and that’s all they wanted.”

“Who’s they?”

“The hell if I know.” He ducked his head as they glided under the branches of a cottonwood tree whose roots were clinging to eroding soil, its trunk tilted precariously over the lake. “But maybe those military guys make sense now.”

She gasped. “You don’t think…?”

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