Virginia Kantra - Born To Protect

“Hell, no. He just wants me to baby-sit.” Jack wouldn’t give her details that could endanger her, and she wouldn’t ask. They had both grown up with that, too.

“Well, you’re a good baby-sitter,” his little sister said. She added, “He said to tell you he had a package for you. If you wanted it.”

And by leaving word with Janey, the old man had neatly deprived Jack of the chance to turn him down. Smart, Jack acknowledged. “Fine. Tell him to send it. I got a post office box today.” He gave her the number.

“Jack…” Janey’s voice was soft and hesitant. “Are you sure you want to take orders from the major?”

He didn’t resent her asking. She’d witnessed enough battles growing up to know the likelihood of combat. “It beats a desk-puke job, Janey. It beats doing nothing. And the lady I’m assigned to has a body worth guarding.”

“Oh, well, then…” He could almost hear her smile. She was cheered, as he knew she would be, by the thought of her big, bad brother falling for some home-and-hearth skirt. He didn’t disillusion her. “As long as you know what you’re getting into.”

“That’s me,” he said, working hard to keep the bleakness out of his voice. “Always prepared. Now that I’ve washed out of the SEALs, maybe I can become an Eagle Scout.”

The department secretary ripped a sheet off her pink message pad and slapped it onto a stack.

“Dr. Sebastiani isn’t in the lab today,” she said.

Jack knew that. The lab had been empty. He’d come to the biology office to find her.

“Does she have a class?” he asked.

“No.”

“Office hours?”

The secretary, a young woman whose short dark hair and long silver earrings emphasized her Native American features, regarded him impassively. “Not on Tuesdays.”

Okay. Jack was beginning to appreciate Christina’s reliance on her Montana neighbors. As a first line of defense, the biology secretary was remarkably hard to shift. But she was no match for a terrorist with an AK-47. Or a SEAL with a mission.

Abruptly he switched tactics, offering the young woman his hand and his best smile. “Sorry to make such a pest of myself. I’m Jack Dalton,” he said, as if the name would be familiar to her.

She blinked. Blushed. And reached cautiously across her desk to take his hand.

“I still don’t know Chris’s schedule very well,” Jack said sheepishly, giving her hand a little squeeze before releasing it. “But we had kind of a misunderstanding last night, and I was hoping I could catch her. To apologize.”

“Oh.” The young woman’s eyes brightened, as he’d hoped they would, at the prospect of a romance. But she still didn’t roll over completely. “Have you two known each other long?”

“Our families go back forever.” Jack sat on a corner of her desk, broadcasting clean-cut reassurance, glad he’d taken the time to shave that morning. “But you know how it is with these long-distance relationships. The last couple years have been tough. I mean, she’s here, and I’ve been—” he checked himself, as if recalling the need for discretion “—overseas,” he finished with another smile.

This time the secretary smiled back. “I can see how that would be difficult. I’m sorry you missed her.”

Jack shrugged. “That’s okay. Do you know when she’s expected back?”

“It’s hard to say.” The woman adjusted the silver eagle pendant around her neck, showing it and her cleavage off to their best advantage. “Dr. Lyman called in sick today, and Dr. Sebastiani agreed to take her tour down to Bald Head Creek. Those things can go on all day.”

Jack felt a lurch of unwelcome fury, of unfamiliar fear. Christina had chosen to go out in public. Unprotected. A potential kidnapping target, with nothing to defend her but a bunch of scientists and her own snooty attitude.

“Guess I’ll do my groveling later then,” he said easily, and stood. “Thanks for your help.”

“No problem,” the secretary said. She lowered her voice confidingly. “I hope you two can work things out. She’s a really nice lady.”

Jack managed not to snarl. Nice was not a word he was tempted to apply to Princess Tall, Cool and In Control. But he didn’t have to stay and argue. He didn’t have to do anything but find her.

“Oh, we’ll work something out,” he said.

Or he would be forced to tie her up and sit on her while he figured out what to do next.

Bald Head Creek glittered like a promise between banks canopied by cottonwood and lush with long grass. The winding water reflected glimpses of wide, blue Montana sky.

So beautiful, Christina thought, breathing deeply of the damp, cool air. More beautiful than anything but home. Regret brushed her. She ignored it.

“Everyone have their counting trays?” she called cheerfully.

The eighth grade science class from Meriwether Lewis Middle School, assembled on the banks around her, nodded and waved shallow plastic trays in response.

“Let’s go hunting then,” Christina said, and dipped her net into the stream bed.

Water sparkled as she scooped up her load and swung it toward the bank.

A girl in a blue sweater scrambled away from the dripping net of creek muck. “Eeeww!”

Other thirteen-year-olds crowded closer as Christina emptied her catch, mud and pebbles and creepy crawlies, into her collection bucket.

“Cool.”

“Gross.”

“Yuck.”

“What’s that?”

Smiling, she ladled samples into the students’ collection trays, describing what they were likely to see, explaining how to identify and count the tiny aquatic insects and record their finds on their clipboards. Downstream, she had another student team measuring water temperature. Later, they would calculate the creek’s flow using a stopwatch and a stick.

Like Pooh and Piglet, she thought fancifully, racing twigs from the bridge in the Hundred Acre Wood. A.A. Milne’s classic was one of her mother’s favorites. The Queen, a former governess, had always taken the time and care to read to her own children at bedtime. Christina remembered snuggling with her sisters while her brother, Lucas, lounged male and superior in the doorway.

Christina cleared her suddenly constricted throat and focused, as she always focused, on the work. On work and on the bright, interested faces of the students bending toward her as she knelt on the muddy bank.

“All right now.” She plunged her hand into the muck, winning groans and giggles from her audience. “This little fellow here…” Gently, she separated out a caddis worm with her thumb. “Can anyone tell me what he’s called?”

She wasn’t sure at what exact moment she felt the change, like a rise of temperature in the air around her. Like the kiss of a branch on the back of her neck. Like the glide of the sun on her cheek. As the students scattered with their counting trays, she rinsed her hands in the cold stream. Under the splash and calls of the children, she heard the whisper of her own breath.

She stood slowly, her gaze scanning the opposite bank. Nothing.

She paused to correct a clipboard entry and stop the girl in the blue sweater from tipping the contents of her collection tray down a boy’s back.

And when Christina straightened, when she turned to check on the other group of students taking water temperatures downstream, she saw Jack Dalton standing above her on the bank.

For a moment she couldn’t think, move, breathe. She froze like a doe in a hunter’s sights as he stood watching her, lean and tough and out of place in his light T-shirt and leather jacket. His face was hard. His eyes were slate-blue and unreadable.

Her blood drummed in her ears. And then her mother’s training kicked in. Chin up. Eyes straight. She drew a shallow, careful breath. You are a Sebastiani.