An Alpha's Tempest (Water Bear Shifters 4) (5 page)

Sawyer had started speaking again, and Ben forced himself to pay attention.

“I’d like to stay in touch with all of you, if possible. This scourge on our existence has gone on long enough, and these men need to be stopped before more innocent shifters die,” Sawyer said.

Ben nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. We’ve been working on this for quite some time, actually, and we could use all the help we can get. In fact, I’m trying to put together a network of bear shifters right now, so that we have eyes and ears everywhere. And the more men we have ready to fight, the better. I have a feeling these bastards aren’t going to go quietly.

Sawyer looked around the group with a grave face. “Call me at the air tour office when you get back home,” he said. “It’s the best number to reach me. My clan will be standing by to assist in whatever way we can.”

The panda shifters all nodded, and Sawyer looked wearily toward his plane. “Alright, I’m going to get Evan home. We’ll talk soon.”

“Wait,” Rhythm said. “Let me say goodbye to Evan. I’ll be quick.”

Sawyer nodded. “Of course, young lady. Go ahead.”

Rhythm hopped into the Twin Otter, making her way to say goodbye to her new friend for the last time. Ben watched sorrowfully, thinking of all of the senseless, unnecessary deaths the scientists had caused. A minute later, Rhythm came wordlessly back to stand with the group, her eyes wet with tears. Ben’s heart ached for her, and, suddenly, he didn’t care who saw him or what his fellow crew members thought. He reached over and put his arm around Rhythm’s shoulders, holding her close and offering her comfort the best he could.

Sawyer nodded at the group again, and then turned to climb into his airplane.

“Wait,” Ace called after him suddenly, and Sawyer paused in the doorway to the plane to look back. “I didn’t catch what clan you said you were from?”

“I didn’t,” Sawyer said, and then his voice took on a note of deep pride. “But I serve as alpha of the Frost Peak Grizzlies clan. My bears are all at your service. Just say the word, and we will be there to fight with you.”

With that Sawyer gave the group a small salute, and then shut the plane door. Ben and the others watched him taxi out to the runway and then take off, his engine roaring as the plane accelerated past them. For several minutes they all watched the plane as it grew to be a smaller and smaller speck in the cloudy sky. As they watched, rain started falling again. Another storm was rolling through.

“Come on, guys,” Ace finally said, wiping the rainwater off of his face with his sleeve. “Let’s get going. We have a lot of work to do.”

Rhythm sat in her hospital room the next morning, feeling sick to her stomach as the full force of how her life had changed over the last few days began to hit her.

Lance and Brett had explained to her that protocol was for her to head to the hospital for evaluation after the rescue helicopter arrived back at the Coast Guard Air Station. They had begged her not to say anything about meeting a bear shifter, and she had gladly agreed. Who would she tell, anyway? She had no idea who to trust right now, and she sure as hell didn’t want to go to someone in the Coast Guard and start telling them stories about meeting a man who could change into a grizzly bear. They would probably think her time out in the water had made her delirious, and recommend that she visit a shrink, or something.

So, when the helicopter landed, Rhythm had quietly taken the offered ride to the hospital, where she had been treated for mild hypothermia and severe dehydration. The staff had wanted to keep her overnight, which had been fine by her. She had no idea what her next step was, and having the night to think about it in the relative safety of a hospital room seemed like as good a plan as any to her. She had gone from having a comfortable life with her own little apartment and car to being unemployed, and unsure of whether she should be fearing for her life right now. The scientists she had worked with must be pretty pissed off at her right now. She had discovered their secret program, and helped one of their test subjects escape. Given the fact that they had gladly shot several rounds at her when she stole their boat, she felt pretty sure that they would have no qualms about killing her if they found her. Rhythm wasn’t sure whether they were actively searching for her, or whether they thought she had died when the boat sank. She wasn’t taking any chances, though. She had checked into the hospital under a made-up name, which had been much easier to do than she had thought it would be. But what wouldn’t be easy was going back to her apartment to get her stuff. She worried that the place was being watched, and the last thing she wanted to do right now was cross paths with anyone affiliated with her old place of employment.

The only real solution she saw was to move back to California. She would be back to making no money, assuming she could even get a job there again. But at least she’d be far away from the crazy scientists up here.

Rhythm sighed and leaned her head back against the lumpy hospital pillow. She didn’t really want to leave Alaska. She hadn’t realized, until faced with the possibility of moving back home, how much this area had wrapped itself around her heart. She loved it here—the beautiful wilderness, the kind people, the native culture. She wanted to stay, and to continue to soak it up. But she had no job anymore, and she definitely couldn’t get a reference from her last employer. She had to face the harsh truth. Her time here was done, and, for her own safety, she needed to get far away from this place.

Rhythm reached for her mobile phone, which was resting on the bedside table next to her. She started searching for flights back to California, and mentally calculating how much money she would need to put down a deposit on a new apartment and car to restart her life back home. She hoped she had enough in savings to cover the move. She had only recently started saving, since before the job here she had barely been making ends meet. All of her savings were about to get drained away again, but Rhythm didn’t actually mind. She didn’t want money from the scientists sitting in her bank account, anyway. Every time she saw her savings account and knew that the money had been put there by people running inhumane experiments, she would feel outraged and disgusted. True, she hadn’t known what was going on, so she shouldn’t feel guilty. But she couldn’t keep herself from feeling somewhat responsible for what was going on there, since she had worked for them and taken their money.

The phone by Rhythm’s bedside rang, and Rhythm set down her mobile phone to pick up the hospital phone.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Hello, Rachel Evans?” the voice on the other end said, using the fake name Rhythm had checked in with. The Evans part was a small tribute to Evan, who in all likelihood had passed away by now.

“Yes, that’s me,” Rhythm said, feeling a little unsettled. She wasn’t used to sneaking around and using fake names. She had always been a model citizen, completely honest and upright about everything. Using a pseudonym felt so wrong to her.

“This is the front desk,” the caller said. “You have a visitor. His name is Ben Harrington. Someone you know? Should I send him up?”

“Oh, yes, he’s a friend of mine. Go ahead and send him up,” Rhythm said. The caller grunted in approval and then hung up the phone.

Rhythm’s heart started beating faster as she replaced the receiver from the hospital phone. She had given the Coast Guard crew her pseudonym, in case they needed to get in touch with her about anything. But she had never expected one of them to actually show up at her hospital room. She especially hadn’t expected Ben, the most handsome one of the group by far, to show up. Yesterday, when she’d met him, she’d felt her stomach filling with butterflies at the sight of his dove gray eyes and dark brown hair. He’d looked at her with such concern, that she’d been tempted to read into it that he was interested in her. But then she’d told herself to stop being ridiculous. Of course he was concerned. He was part of a rescue team. It was his
job
to be concerned. She had managed to quiet down her silly little crush, but now that she knew he was on his way up to her room, she felt those same butterflies again.

She smoothed her hair back, and hoped that she looked okay. She didn’t have any makeup with her to put on, but at least she had gotten out of bed this morning to wash her face. Rhythm rolled her eyes at herself as she realized how ridiculous her thoughts sounded. Here she was, in a hospital bed after almost dying the day before, and she was hoping that she looked pretty. Rhythm generally felt that she was a decent-looking person, but no one was at their finest sitting in a hospital bed with no makeup on. Besides, odds were pretty much one hundred percent that Ben wasn’t coming here to ask her out on a date. He probably wanted to ask her another question about the scientists, since his crew was trying to stop their operation. Rhythm wished she knew more, but her knowledge was pretty limited. Still, she’d help in whatever way she could. Those jerks needed to be stopped.

A knock sounded at the door, and Rhythm took one last deep, steadying breath.

“Come in,” she called out.

The door opened slowly, and Ben stepped inside. She’d thought he looked handsome yesterday, standing out in the drizzly weather, but she’d been totally unprepared to see him in a crisp, unwrinkled Coast Guard pilot uniform. She’d been so busy noticing his eyes yesterday that she hadn’t even realized just how tall and muscular his body was. Even through the fabric of his uniform, she could tell that every muscle on his body was sculpted and toned. His posture was impeccable, and his eyes had that same concerned look that had set her to swooning the day before. Rhythm suddenly wished that she had at least gotten up to make sure her hair wasn’t a total mess before he made it up to the room. Too late now. She put on her brightest smile, and hoped she didn’t have total bedhead.

“Hey,” he said softly. He had a deep voice, with a soothing quality to it. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” Rhythm said. “I still feel tired, but other than that I’m fine. I’m mostly just worried about what to do next. I can’t go home now. The scientists know where I live, and I’m sure they’re watching the place.”

Ben sat down in the stiff armchair next to Rhythm’s hospital bed. “That’s one of the things I came to talk to you about. We were hoping that you might be willing to stay in Kodiak for a while, and help us out with our efforts to find and stop the scientists. We don’t have a lot of leads, and you’re the first person we’ve met who has actually worked for them.”

Rhythm looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap, and tried to decide how to answer Ben. “I do want to help you,” she said, still not looking up. “But the logistics of staying in Kodiak won’t be easy to figure out. I don’t have a job, and I don’t have a lot of savings. Where would I stay? How would I eat? I’m not sure there’s much work in my field here in Kodiak, so I don’t even think that I could get a job.”

“You can stay with one of us, and we’ll provide you with food. If you need money for anything, just ask. When this whole ordeal is over, which we really hope will be sooner rather than later, we’ll buy you a plane ticket to wherever you want to go. Just, please, consider helping us. We’ve reached a lot of dead ends, and these men need to be stopped. You saw what they did to Evan. He isn’t the only one who has suffered that fate.”

Rhythm finally looked up at Ben. “If I stay in Alaska, though, won’t I be in danger? These men sound really dangerous, and I’m sure they’re less than pleased that I escaped with one of their test subjects and lost one of their boats.”

Ben leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. The lazy way he spread his legs out on the seat of the chair drew Rhythm’s attention to his groin area, and she forced herself to look up at his face. His brow was furrowed, and he had a faraway look in his eyes.

“I wish I could tell you that you’d be perfectly safe here,” he said. “But the truth is that you’re right—these guys are dangerous. They will likely be coming after you. But I swear to you, my crew and I will put our lives on the line to protect you. We can’t be around one hundred percent of the time, but we’ll be there as often as we can. And the other guys all have amazing women. Aubrey, Jade and Caroline. You’ll love them. They can keep you company, and you’ll feel safer just having other people around. And they’ll help protect you, too. They’ve all learned how to use guns for their own protection. They can teach you, too, if you want to learn.”

Rhythm noticed that Ben hadn’t listed a woman for himself. Was it possible that this hunk of a man was actually single? Maybe she should stay, and get to know him better. As soon as the thought crossed Rhythm’s mind, she pushed it away. He wasn’t asking her to stay because he wanted a girlfriend. He was asking her to stay because he needed help outsmarting the scientists. She didn’t have a lot of information, but maybe what she did know could help them. She wasn’t sure if she could ever shoot a gun, but, then again, she’d never had her life threatened before. She might feel differently once she was facing down someone who wanted her dead.

Rhythm took a deep breath and looked over at Ben. “Okay. I’ll stay for a while. But I’m not kidding. I really do need food and a place to stay. I have nothing. The only possessions to my name right now are the clothes I was wearing under the survival suit when you guys plucked me out of the water.”

Ben gave Rhythm a relieved smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. One of the girls probably has stuff in your size, and we can take you to get some new clothes of your own, too. And you’re welcome at any of our houses. We all have extra room. I’ve got a complete guest suite with its own bedroom and bathroom, even.”

“That sounds great,” Rhythm said. “I’d love to take a hot bath right about now.”

Ben grinned. “It’s settled then. Stay in my guest room. The bathroom has a large garden tub, perfect for a relaxing bath.”

Rhythm felt her heart skipping a beat as Ben grinned over at her. Despite her efforts to push away any romantic thoughts of Ben, she couldn’t help but feel excited at the thought of sharing a home with him, even if it was just on a temporary basis.

Ben’s face turned quickly somber, though, as he started talking again. “The other thing I came here to talk to you about is Evan,” Ben said.

Rhythm felt her heart tightening in her chest. “How is he?” she asked, even though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

“He passed away last night,” Ben said. “I’m sorry to have to give you that kind of news.”

Rhythm nodded and looked down at her hands again as tears welled up in her eyes. Despite her efforts to keep them at bay, several salty drops spilled over and ran down her face. Evan’s fate had been so unfair, and so unnecessary. Rhythm felt ashamed once again that she had been part of the scientists’ operation. She wished with everything in her that she had found Evan sooner, when there might have still been time to really help him.

“Sawyer wanted me to let you know that Evan passed away in his own bed, surrounded by his family and closest friends. He died at peace, and with dignity, thanks to your heroic efforts.”

“I wasn’t a hero,” Rhythm said. “I was just doing what any decent person would have done in that situation. And it didn’t matter. I wasn’t able to save him.”

“You did a very brave thing, Rhythm,” Ben said, his voice growing sharp. “You risked your life for Evan. Don’t belittle that. And you gave him his last wish, at least. He got to see his family again. It’s not your fault it was too late to save him.”

Rhythm nodded. “I know. You’re right. It’s just so hard to watch someone suffer like that. I wish there was something more I could have done.”

“Well, there is something you can do for the bear shifters still here with us,” Ben said. “Any information you give us on the scientists will be a huge step forward for us. My whole crew appreciates your staying to help. As do all the bear shifters in Alaska, I’m sure.”

Rhythm shrugged. “Happy to help,” she said. She felt a little uncomfortable with the praise Ben was heaping on her, although she had to admit that it felt good to have him compliment her.