Once An Alpha (The S Files: Paranormal Investigation Agency – Book 1) (3 page)

It seemed like such a petty thing to still be mad at Lyndon about now that I was in my late twenties, but I couldn’t help it. Guys I met just never seemed interested in the smart girls, only the skinny airheaded bimbos, and the reminder of Lyndon’s advances and subsequent blow-off really stung. And it wasn’t just that. Recalling the event just brought back even more bad memories from earlier in my life, like in high school where I’d always been mocked for being the geeky Girl Scout with glasses and braces.

Since then, I’d long given up on the idea of finding the right guy. Instead of focusing on finding Mr. Right, I’d focused on my career and only worried about finding a possible Mr. Right Now. That hadn’t worked out so well either, and after two failed relationships where the sex hadn’t exactly been stellar, I’d totally given up. 

The first guy had refused to ever go down on me, claiming he thought it was dirty despite demanding round-the-clock blowjobs from me even if he hadn’t showered and was all sweaty from work. And the second guy had been unable to perform long enough to satisfy me, and then tried to play it off like it was some sort of huge compliment to me. Something like,
oh baby, you’re just so hot and tight that I can’t last more than twenty seconds.
Um, no thanks.

Screw it. I was better than that, and I wasn’t going to waste my time on men again unless I knew they were worth it.

It was a nice concept, but damn, the horniness drove me crazy sometimes. Oh well. That was life, I guess.

***

A couple of hours later, Lyndon stretched out and patted his stomach as he yawned. “Fuck, that was a good steak,” he said, and then prodded at his rock hard abs. “I probably just gained five pounds from all that slaw they gave me with it.”

“Sure you did,” I said sarcastically.

He peered across the table at me with a small hint of what appeared to be lust in his eyes. “Y’know, for someone who’s been on the road all day, I gotta say you look damn good.”

“Would you like some fries with your sleaziness?” I asked, stabbing a large fry with my fork and offering it to him. He laughed.

“Nah, I’m done.”

I nodded, poking at the remainder of my meal before sighing. “I think I’m done eating too. Call it a night?”

“Sure,” he grinned.

We headed off, knowing that we needed to be up at the crack of dawn. First thing tomorrow we needed to head into town and meet the local police department, and then we needed to jump right into work. Lyndon had suggested we follow the trail of the hikers who had vanished just a few days ago to see if we could spot anything the search and rescue teams and local cops had missed.

He walked me to my room, and I couldn’t help the butterflies from fluttering around my insides as I slid the key into the lock. Wouldn’t it be nice if I was that lock, and the key was Lyndon’s…. oh god, I was doing it again.

“Hey, whatever happened to those glasses of yours?” he asked as I pushed the door open and turned to say goodnight.

“I got laser eye surgery a couple of years ago,” I replied. “Way more convenient than having to deal with glasses or contacts.”

“Oh,” he replied. “You know, I kinda miss the glasses. Night, Myla.”

With a grin he sauntered off to his own room, and I stood in my motel doorway for a full minute before shaking my head and turning around. I definitely needed a cold shower to calm my raging loins, and I stepped into the bathroom and turned on the tap.

As I tried to calm my whirling mind and get to sleep half an hour later, I realized it was too late. No matter what I did, Lyndon was always going to be the one guy that could get to me. To make matters worse, I was going to be stuck out here with him for at least a couple of weeks…and then again for however long I was assigned to the S Files. Fan-fucking-tastic…

Chapter Three

The next morning was hectic. We were up at six for breakfast and coffee at a local diner, and then after heading downtown and meeting the members of the local police department, including a seasoned, portly old man who introduced himself as Sheriff Mills, we were given a small downstairs office to the side of the building.

A tall blond Deputy with bright blue eyes who’d introduced himself as Theodore Adams led us to the office and opened the door with a grin. “Here you go,” he said. “All the files we have related to the missing persons cases are stacked up over there, and there’s a computer in here with a pretty solid internet connection. Phone’s over there.”

He pointed across the room, and then turned to us. More specifically, to me. “You need anything else, just come find me. If I’m not here and Mills also isn’t around for whatever reason, one of the other boys will be glad to help. By the way, everyone around here just calls me Ted or Teddy.”

I couldn’t help but notice that he was only looking at me, and completely ignoring Lyndon. My cheeks grew hot, and I nodded and thanked him before having a look around the files. Ted lingered in the doorway, soppy smile still plastered on his face as he watched me, and Lyndon shot him a cool glance.

“We should be fine for now,” he said. I noticed a sharp tinge to his usually calm and casual demeanor, and part of me wondered if he was slightly jealous of the fact that for once I was the one garnering attention from the opposite sex. Then again, if Ted had been a Tina, I’m sure Lyndon wouldn’t have had to worry. He’d be much more in his element, and I would probably have had to mop the floor every five minutes from all the females swooning and melting in his presence.

Ted nodded and told us to have a good day before slipping out into the corridor, and I glanced back at Lyndon. “Should we stay here and catch up on all these documents?” I asked. “Or should we do what you suggested earlier and head out to the mountains?”

“I think we should head out for a hike,” he replied. “The longer we wait, the more likely it is that any evidence left up there will be lost. Winds, scavenging animals…you name it.”

He had a point. Luckily, I was wearing my hiking boots and other paraphernalia already, and after getting directions from Ted, we left the building and drove up the scenic road out of town that led to the main hiking area. Dark green pine trees lined the sides of the road, leading into denser forests, and I wound down my window and inhaled. Mmm. It was wonderful.

“We’re here,” Lyndon announced, taking a sharp turn into a parking lot and almost breaking my neck in the process. So much for me trying to stop and breathe in the cool, refreshing air…

A trail led away the parking lot, and we trudged along it for what felt like forever, occasionally checking the map we’d brought to make sure we were heading the right way.

“How’s it feel to be on the infamous trail of lost souls?” Lyndon asked in a dramatic tone, swatting a fly out of his face as he turned back to look at me.

“Fine, I guess,” I replied, not buying into his jokey nonsense. “Oh, there’s the fork Ted mentioned. If we turn left here, we should hit the first blaze that the hikers left to mark their journey.”

Normally trails were already marked with blazes so that tourists could easily hike their way around the mountains, but the route the hikers had chosen to go along was not a commonly-taken one. They’d apparently left red trail markers along the way after deviating from the main trail, and we were rapidly approaching the first one.

“There it is,” Lyndon called out a moment later. “So we’re on the right track. Good to know.”

We hiked along the smaller trail, our feet navigating the rough terrain with ease as we went along, heading further up into the mountains. I had a lot of outdoors experience from my Girl Scout years as a kid, and Lyndon just seemed to be naturally good at everything he did, so we were both fairly well adapted to the hiking journey. The climb grew steeper and steeper, however, and after another half an hour had passed I stopped in a small clearing and called out to him.

“Let’s take a break,” I said. “The second marker they left should be just up from here, but I need to sit down for a sec.”

We’d been out in the mountains for over an hour now, and while that wasn’t very long for experienced hikers, I was exhausted. It was far too early in the morning to be doing this after the sleepless night I’d had. Don’t get me wrong, I’d wanted to sleep, but imagining Lyndon on the other side of my wall in the room next to me had ensured that my mind couldn’t rest. Barely a wink.

I sat on a conveniently-located fallen log and sipped from my water bottle, and then delved into my backpack for a snack as I breathed in the fresh air again. The sun was beating down on us, but a nice breeze on top of that ensured the perfect temperature in our surrounding environment. All in all, this assignment wasn’t turning out to be half bad, even if I was stuck with Mr. Wrong himself for the whole time.

“Banana chip?” I said, holding the bag up. Lyndon nodded and grabbed a handful, and we sat in silence as we chewed. When I was done, I stood up, wandered over to the east a little and then stretched my tired muscles, bending forward at the waist for a second.

“Beautiful view out here,” Lyndon remarked.

I was about to agree, but then I looked over my shoulder and realized he was staring straight at my ass as I leaned over. I stood up straight, turned around and then glared at him as he threw me a smoldering look.

“Why are you constantly sleazing onto me, Lyndon? Finally run out of other women to trick into bed with you?”

“Oh yeah, that’s definitely it. You’re my last resort, Myla. Save me!” he said, a sarcastic grin spreading across his face as he rolled his eyes towards the heavens. He got up and headed over to me, and something in my tired mind snapped.

“You know, you’re very mouthy for a guy who’s about to get smacked right in the face,” I hissed.

“Yeah, and you’re pretty sassy for a girl who’s about to fall off a cliff,” he replied, casually eyeing me with a smirk as I took a step back and immediately ran into trouble. Holy shit. My foot slid down loose rocks and then hit nothing but air, and my eyes widened as I started to fall backwards. I let out a scream.

“David!”

Lyndon immediately grabbed me, pulling me to safety where I gasped, dragging clean air into my grateful lungs as I realized he’d probably just saved my life. The air tasted sweeter than it ever had as my heart raced.

“Told you so,” he smirked again, those perfect green eyes traveling up and down my curves as I glared at him. “So suddenly I’m ‘David’ again, huh?”

“Shut up! Why the hell did you let me get so close to the edge?” I demanded, face turning hot with embarrassment. So much for my hiking skills. “I could’ve died!”

“Well, I figured one of the most intelligent agents to come out of the academy in god knows how long would be smart enough to notice the edge of a cliff all on her own,” he said. “You do know we’re hiking in the mountains right? Bound to be edges somewhere along the way.”

His face softened a little as he saw my stricken expression. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have let you fall,” he continued, leaning in close and pulling me further away from where I’d slipped and almost met my demise. I could smell him, all aftershave and masculine sweat, and my heart skipped a beat as I inhaled his scent.

In that moment I had a stark realization. This man would never let me fall. Except maybe to fall in love with him. God dammit, why did he have to be so sexy? Not wanting to face the reality of what my mind and nether regions were screaming at me, I pushed him away and then stomped off in a huff. “Come on. We still haven’t found the second blaze.”

“Yes, sir,” he said with a mock salute.

An hour later, we arrived at the campsite where the hikers had set up their tent to stay in the night that they had disappeared. It was surrounded by police tape just in case any intrepid mountaineers got curious and decided to poke around the scene, and we slipped it over our heads and looked around. It appeared to be relatively undisturbed.

“So what do you think happened?” I asked, noticing the remnants of a small campfire in front of the tent. “Think they wandered off and got lost? Or maybe a bear attacked them?”

Lyndon shrugged as he unzipped the tent and bent down to look inside. This time it was me perving on his tightly-muscled ass, and my cheeks flushed. I could be such a hypocrite sometimes.

“I doubt it,” he finally replied, emerging from the tent and standing up straight. “Only black bears live in this area, and they avoid humans. Not like grizzlies. But like I said, the grizzly bear doesn’t live in Colorado, as far as I know anyway. And as for them getting lost…I don’t know. They were experienced hikers. Not exactly prone to wandering off and getting lost.”

“Anything in the tent?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Clothes, backpacks, shoes, a small GPS tablet and also two cell phones. Whatever happened to them, it happened fast.”

“Hmm.” I turned to the side and glanced around again, trying to spot anything else in the near vicinity that hadn’t already been observed and photographed by the Bakewell Springs police.

Lyndon tilted his head to the side and sniffed the air for a moment, and I stared. He looked just like a sniffer dog trying to catch a scent.

“What the hell are you doing, Lyndon?”

He obviously hadn’t realized I’d been watching him, and he looked over at me, a startled expression crisscrossing his handsome features. “Oh. Nothing. Just…err, just taking in the mountain air. It’s nice.”

It was the first time I’d seen or heard Lyndon being caught off his usually-smooth guard since the day he’d asked me to dinner outside that lecture theatre all those years ago, and I raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“Um, yeah, it’s nice. But we should focus.”

We canvassed the area around the campsite and came up with nothing until I spotted something on a nearby tree trunk. “Hey, Lyndon, take a look at this. Look like dried blood to you?”

He crouched down and squinted thoughtfully at where I was pointing. There were no police markers around it, and there’d been nothing in their report about finding a possible blood spatter.

“Hard to tell. Could just be tree sap. Take a sample and we’ll send it back to the labs in DC,” he replied.

I slid on some latex gloves and then removed a plastic evidence bag from my backpack, being as careful as possible not to contaminate the potential sample. After swabbing the bark with a large cotton tip, I sealed it in a jar and then slipped the jar into the evidence bag. Hopefully, this would be our first lead.

A chilly wind suddenly whipped through my wild curls, and I involuntarily shuddered as I surveyed the scene. There was something so ominous about knowing we were standing right where two people had inexplicably vanished as they tried to sleep. I couldn’t even imagine something like that happening to me; being so frightened and feeling so alone, knowing no one in civilization would be able to hear my screams and pleas for help.

“Come on,” I said, the sudden chill still rattling my bones. “I think we’re done here for now. Let’s head back and tell the local cops to come and bag this all up.”

Whatever had happened to all these missing people over the years, I hoped we would figure it out soon, because I wouldn’t wish that kind of terror upon anyone, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be next.