LITMIR.BIZ

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water. With the late October dry heat and three thousand feet of altitude in the stark, majestic White Tank Mountains of the Arizona desert, she knew better than to short herself on water.

      One of her first lessons at Athena Academy, as it happened.

      If she turned south to Black Canyon, she could close her eyes and imagine the terrain beyond, all the way to the five-hundred-acre tract of private land where the academy tucked in against the base of the White Tanks. The stables snugged up closest to the stark, scrubby wilderness, a place of majestic saguaro cactus and startlingly beautiful flowers, with stunted, scattered paloverde and ironwood the closest things to trees that the area could offer. The saddle of land held more than its share of them, giving shade to students who habitually pushed themselves hard both physically and mentally. Science labs, survival hikes, group bonding exercises, rock climbing, endurance swimming… Athena knew how to turn out a well-rounded young woman. Young women such as Selena, who had started her prelaw work long before she actually hit college, or such as her fellow Pandora group member Kim Valenti, code-breaker extraordinaire before she found her niche with the National Security Agency.

      Yep, she could just about see it from here, even if only in her mind’s eye. In fact, if she really wanted, she could easily cut through the rugged terrain and approach Athena from behind.

      But today she stayed to the public trail, honoring park rules and moving fast and light for her morning workout—a quick jog along Goat Camp where the terrain allowed, confident climbing where it didn’t. On to Mesquite Canyon, where the steep ground offered up plenty of loose rock to send the unwary tumbling down…no thank you. She’d gotten her quota of cholla spines within her first year at Athena. Not to mention prickly pear, creosote bush and that close call with a bark scorpion. Everything living in this alienesque landscape seemed to sting or stab or prickle.

      And yet she loved it here.

      Not so surprising she’d heard the call of it even from across the country at the Farm.

      Especially not surprising with the conflict now constantly roiling through her head and through her heart. She’d hoped to calm her mind, to let her strong early foundation reemerge, eliminating the self-doubt that had grown since she’d accidentally pulled a man’s arm out of joint.

      Accidentally.

      “Who does that?” she asked herself out loud, muttering through a nearly closed mouth to keep the sandy grit out of her teeth when a sudden gust of wind hit her hard enough to flap her shirt.

      It hadn’t been too bad until Cole had been whisked off to do whatever it was the agency thought only he could do, even after they’d washed their hands of him in Berzhaan. Then she’d had more time to think—more time than she could fill with workouts in the gym and on the running path. More time to worry about what this separation would do to them, and why Cole had agreed to go in the first place. They hadn’t had time to talk before they snatched him away; nothing but a quick good bye kiss and separation right there at the Farm training exercise, the Russian princess left on her own. But she’d made it through the end of the training session and then she’d known just what to do. She’d come here.

      She picked up the pace, anticipating the slowdown on the Mesquite Canyon trail. No good came of taking such footing for granted, and she didn’t. Once she hit the ramada at the end of the trail she picked up a jog, finishing off the ten miles when she reached the borrowed bike parked at the Goat Camp trail head.

      Four miles back to Athena…long enough for her trail-cleared mind to clutter up again. Full of self-doubt, full of concern. Pedaling was no distraction at all.

      When Cole was here, she’d turned to him for her strength. He believed that she’d be able to leave her Berzhaani demons behind, and for a while that made a difference. Several precious months of being in the same house, in the same country, and now he was gone again. They hadn’t started their family; they hadn’t resolved their future.

      They’d damned well convinced each other that they had their now. That their now was good.

      Selena heard her own harsh breathing and realized she was doing it again. Her legs burned as she sped along the closest thing to a main road in the area and she forced herself to straighten on the bike, one hand lightly keeping it on course as she swooped around a turn, coasting. Even in this dry air she’d worked up a sweat, and she pulled her water bottle free of its clip and squeezed lukewarm water into her mouth.

      By the time she reached the school, cruising past the dorms to reach the paved circle through the staff housing, her flushed face was dry of sweat, but her hair under the helmet was still soaked. Selena parked the bike at the little bungalow that principal Christine Evans had offered for the visit. She went straight inside for a shower, then grabbed a protein bar as she combed out her hair, squinting at the length and contemplating a cut. Done, she glared at herself, giving her flat lower belly a resentful poke. Selena was long and lean from head to toe, and it seemed nothing so curvy as pregnancy would ever even temporarily alter that theme.

      She wondered if Cole had truly considered that possibility.

      She pulled a wide-toothed comb through shoulder-length hair to tame it into order, and clipped it carelessly at the back of her head, up off her long neck. It was a severe look for the strong bones of her face—long and lean like the rest of her—so she pulled a few tendrils loose to soften her jawline and take attention away from the little cleft in her chin.

      Cole liked that cleft. But Cole wasn’t here.

      Selena straightened the shower curtain and hung the bath towel and went out to the little kitchenette to grab some more ice water. Handy thing, this bungalow. Small but complete. Trust Athena to have extra housing on hand for alumni visits. Trust Christine Evans to understand how visiting the school could provide the grounding needed by its graduates, so many of whom had gone on to excel in the high-stress, high-risk jobs for which Athena had so ably prepared them.

      Trust Christine to be waiting outside her door with a handful of letters and an invitation to walk around the campus. “Slowly,” she added. “You’ve already had your workout for the day, if I don’t miss my guess.”

      Selena accepted, slipping on a pair of leather Teva sandals and slipping out the screen door. When Selena had attended school here, Christine had been mentor and supervisor; in the intervening years, her visits had allowed that relationship to mature into mutual respect and affection. They weren’t close—but then, Selena had very few people she would call close. Not her divorce-scattered and complicated family, not the fellow students at college who’d been intimidated by her acumen with law and language, and not her coworkers from her years of traveling overseas as an FBI legate. Trust, yes— that had been necessary to function in her role of building counterterrorism relationships in the tumultuous regions in which she worked. But not true, deep friendship.

      Only Cole.

      Now for the first time she looked at Christine with a friend’s eyes and realized that the older woman actually looked her sixty-plus years. Though her shoulders were as straight as ever, reflecting her army officer’s training, her short gray hair had gone almost entirely white. Her stride didn’t hold quite the assurance it had just over a year earlier.

      Of course, getting shot in the abdomen would do that to a person.

      “Are you well?” Selena asked, and they both knew the deeper question behind it.

      “You should ask the students,” Christine said, raising one wry eyebrow.

      Selena laughed. “They wouldn’t dare suggest otherwise.”

      “Then there’s your answer.” Christine held out the letters. “From some of your classmates. I have permission to share them, of course. It’s one way we can all keep abreast of one another’s lives.”

      Selena felt a stab of guilt. When was the last time she’d written such a letter?

      Christine might well have seen it on her face, for she waved away the moment. “You were a Pandora, Selena Shaw. None of you turned into letter writers. Holiday cards will suffice.”

      Selena

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