Chapter Eight
“Follow me.” Without waiting for a response, Briar turned and raced for the great room.
At a bookshelf along one wall she stopped and pulled out the leather-bound copy of War and Peace, revealing a hidden keypad. She entered the code and a quiet snick sounded as the bookcase swung open. In the wall behind it, she pressed her palm to the biometric scanner and the inner door popped open. “In here.” She ducked inside the room, her breath fogging in colder air as the emergency lighting overhead came on.
“Whoa,” DeLuca—Matt, she reminded herself—breathed as he looked around at the computer hardware and weapons lining the walls.
Ignoring his reaction to the insanely high-tech loadout room, glad Janaia was paranoid enough to insist on building it after the house was finished, she hurried to the opposite wall where the security system’s main computer showed an overhead map of the property. On screen, a single blip blinked in the far southwest corner.
“Looks like just one person, but I can’t tell for sure.” She typed in a command on the keyboard to zoom in as Matt came up behind her.
He peered over her shoulder at the screen, infusing the air with his body heat and clean scent. She shouldn’t even have noticed those things right now, which just went to show how easily he affected her. The dark stubble on his face made him look even more rugged this close up. He’d brought her here, stayed with her, to protect her. She had the overwhelming urge to stroke her palm over his cheek, his jaw, then glide her thumb across his lips. They looked soft.
“Could it just be a neighbor, or even an elk or something?”
“Maybe on the neighbor, no on the elk. The system can differentiate between humans and animals, so that,” she said, pointing to the blip, “is human. And the chances of a neighbor being out in this weather are slim.” She looked over her shoulder at him, secretly caught her breath at the sight of his face so close to hers. Their eyes locked and the sudden leap of heat in his set her heart pounding. Against her will her gaze dropped to his mouth and for one crazy second she allowed herself to imagine what they’d feel like, taste like if she leaned forward and kissed him.
She gave herself a mental shake and jerked her eyes from him, moving a step away from the desk. “Grab whatever you want, then we’ll go get a better look at whoever’s out there.” Because she wasn’t taking any chances.
He straightened, quickly perused the selection of weapons and wound up taking only some ammo. “I’ll use my own.”
Fine. She grabbed a few spare magazines for her pistol, and the M40 bracketed to the wall. With one last check on the monitor to make sure the trespasser hadn’t moved, she led the way out of the secret loadout room, locking everything up tight before rushing to the kitchen where they’d left their bags by the door.
Briar quickly suited up in her knit cap, jacket, gloves and boots. By the time she was done, Matt was ready as well, his own rifle slung muzzle-down across his chest. There was no time to cammy up their faces and she wasn’t going to stay inside and risk a possible attack on the house. Better to be proactive and apprehend the trespasser now.
“I’ll take the west side and you take the east,” she said, handing him a pair of night vision binos. “If whoever’s out there decides to come at the house, cover me while I take them.”
He shook his head, frowning. “If that happens, I’ll take them. You’ve been wounded and—”
“No,” she argued, adamant. “I know the property and surrounding area better than you do, and I’ll feel safer moving around if I know you’ve got my back.” It had been so long since she’d had a teammate, it was a revelation to know he had her six, and to trust him with that responsibility.
The frown disappeared. Reaching out, he set a hand on her shoulder. Strong. Capable. He squeezed and nodded once. “Definitely got your back.”
At another time, his touch might have given her more flutters in her belly. Right now they set off a flutter in her heart instead. “Okay then.” And damn, it was a pretty incredible feeling, to know she had someone with his experience and skill to back her up. He definitely knew what he was doing. If anything went wrong, she didn’t doubt for a second that Matt would do what he could to protect her and take the tango out.
He lowered his hand and she stepped back. “We’ll go out the side entrance.” She opened a door that led down a set of concrete stairs. The temperature dropped with each step they took. By the time they reached the bottom, it was below freezing. The wind chill outside would make it even worse but she’d worked in the cold enough to know how to handle it. If she reached the end of her endurance before they got the trespasser, she’d worry about it then.