Jessica Andersen - Bear Claw Conspiracy

So as they crossed the parking lot toward her borrowed SUV, she went with a second, equally honest answer. “I’m not going to be here for much longer, which would make any sort of hookup, for entertaining sex or otherwise, casual by definition. No offense, but when the call comes, I’m out of here.”

The Denver P.D. was piloting an accelerated SWAT/critical response training program that would leapfrog a few select forensic analysts straight into existing hazardous response teams—HRTs—where they would act as both technical support and boots on the ground. Although the TV shows made it seem like every CSI was a badge-wearing, gun-carrying cop, that was far from the case in most jurisdictions, where the cops were cops and the lab rats were … well, lab rats.

Going from the lab straight to hazardous response was a heck of a leap, but the members of Gigi’s family were anything but conventional when it came to their ambitions. Whatever the Lynds did, they did it full throttle.

Alyssa glanced away. “I know you’ve only been here a few months, and we’re just really getting to know each other. And it’s not like I don’t have other friends. Good friends. But … I like how you bring a new perspective to things around here. I wish—selfishly, I admit—that I had the budget to hire you away from Denver and keep you here in the lab. Thanks to Mayor Tightwad, I don’t, so I have to think outside the box. If that means hunting down a few eligible bachelors …”

“Aw.” Throat tightening, Gigi nudged the other woman gently with an elbow. “Thanks. But let’s be realistic—I’m focusing on my career, which means you can’t tempt me with a guy.” The members of her family paired off in their mid-thirties, once they had a degree or two and a tenure track. She might not have inherited the Lynds’ love of academia, but she had gotten their ambition in spades. “Besides it’s not like I’m going to Mars or Timbuktu or something. I’ll visit.”

Alyssa shot her an “it won’t be the same” look. “Are you sure—” Her phone rang with the plain digital ringtone that said it was official business. Immediately straightening away from Gigi’s SUV, Alyssa pulled the phone and answered with a clipped, professional “McDermott, Forensics.” But then her face softened. “Hello, McDermott, Homicide. What’s up?”

Gigi started to wander off and give Alyssa privacy to talk to her husband. Baby McDermott’s arrival was so imminent that most of the couple’s business conversations inevitably turned personal, which made Gigi … Well, better to give them privacy.

“Station Fourteen?” Alyssa said, voice going worried. “Matt’s station?”

The name stopped Gigi in her tracks.

Matt. As in Matt Blackthorn, head ranger of the state park’s most remote outpost. The one guy she had noticed in Bear Claw, and not necessarily in a good way.

Her first impression had been positive—how could it not be? Blackthorn looked like one of the guys on the glossy brochures put out by the tourism bureau—edgy and gorgeous, with subtle bronzing and hard, commanding features that fit with his rumored Cherokee heritage. But unlike the professional models in the brochures, Blackthorn carried a rugged, purposeful energy and seemed to bring the mountain air down to the city with him—not the tame air of the ski slopes, but that of the wilderness, uncivilized and predatory.

The first moment she’d laid eyes on the big ranger, she had actually caught her breath.

They’d both been in the hallway outside of Tucker’s office, her coming in, Blackthorn going out. And for a moment, something had sparked between them. At first, she had thought it was mutual attraction—the heated flash in the depths of his dark green eyes had resonated with the “hell, yeah” her hormones had been chorusing.

Then his gaze had shifted as he took in the rest of her, and his expression had tightened, killing the light of interest. Zap. Gone.

She didn’t know what he had or hadn’t seen in her, or what it had meant to him. She only knew that he’d touched the brim of the black felt hat he wore over his dark hair, and kept going. And the next time they’d crossed paths, when she’d done a briefing on a rash of parking-lot break-ins at several trailheads leading to the backcountry, Blackthorn had cut the conversation short enough to earn them a couple of raised eyebrows from the other cops and rangers involved in the meeting.

After that, she had avoided him. Not because he made her uncomfortable—she didn’t give anyone that power—but because it didn’t matter whether or not the head ranger of Station Fourteen liked her. She was there to work evidence for the Bear Claw City P.D. and prove to her bosses back home that she could fit herself seamlessly into an existing team like the BCCPD’s crime lab. Blackthorn wasn’t part of that world.

Unless there was a crime scene up at Station Fourteen. Then he was very much a part of her world—at least for the duration of the case.

Alyssa frowned. “Cassie’s going to be tied up for the next few hours and there’s no way I’m driving up to the middle of nowhere, never mind hiking to the site. Gigi can—” She broke off and glanced in Gigi’s direction. “Okay. I can switch some stuff around and send Cassie, I guess. Tell him she’ll be coming in behind the officers, and will need really good directions or a lead-in. We’re shorthanded as it is. It won’t do us any good to lose an analyst to the Forgotten.”

Gigi barely heard the last part. She was too busy seething at the realization that Blackthorn had told Tucker—a former member of the Denver P.D. who had a direct pipeline to her bosses—that he didn’t want her on the case.

“That backstabbing—” She bit off the snarl as Alyssa clicked her phone shut and regarded her curiously.

“What on earth is the problem between you and Matt?”

Taking a deep breath, Gigi slapped a layer of professionalism over her other emotions. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no problem. We met a couple of times, I was pleasant, he wasn’t. End of story.” At least it had been. Now she wanted a piece of him for trying to torpedo her. What had she ever done to him?

Nothing, that was what. Judgmental idiot.

“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Alyssa said. “It’s not like him to be a jerk to anyone, especially a woman, never mind leaning on Tucker for something like this.”

Gigi said through her teeth, “I’ve barely spoken to the man. If he took one look at me and decided he didn’t like what he saw, that’s his problem.”

Alyssa’s look went speculative, but she said only, “He told Tucker he didn’t think you could handle the backcountry, that he’d rather wait for someone he didn’t have to babysit.”

“He …” Gigi counted to ten and reminded herself that it didn’t matter what Blackthorn thought of her. Tucker was a fair guy and a top-notch cop, which meant he cared about results. “Fine, let’s give Ranger Surly what he wants. I’ll take over for Cassie and she can deal with his parking lot smash-and-grab.”

But Alyssa shook her head, expression clouding. “It’s way more than that. A few hours ago, two men attacked and injured one of his rangers—a woman named Tanya Dawes. They just airlifted her out.”

“Oh.” Oh, damn. Gigi exhaled in a rush, knowing full well that aggravated assault trumped any personal issues that might or might not exist between her and Blackthorn. “Is she going to be okay?”

“It looks like she took a serious blow to the head and may have some internal injuries. I guess she came around just long enough to tell Matt that two men had ambushed her.”

“Sexual assault?”

“No sign of it, which is good. But the head injury … that’s not good.”