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“About twenty minutes until I was put on clean-up duty for the next week. Ironically, cleaning up after a whole camp was less disgusting than finding a twenty-pound turd in the ground.”

Sean groaned, pushing ahead of the others. “Thank you so much for that imagery, Aidan.”

“That thing still haunts my dreams.”

Matt let out a cackle. “Oh, god, like some nightmare phantom.”

“The poop of campers past,” Nick added.

“Oh, Jesus. Now they’re making poop jokes,” Sean muttered, shooting a glare toward Aidan.

Not wanting to stick around and listen to the juvenile humor, Sean continued his walk around the mountain. The path wasn’t covered in as dense a layer of snow as the forest had been, but Aidan had theorized the worst of the snow cover was on the other side of the mountain. Between the high walls of rock on one side and the thick trees that still managed to grow there, the path they were walking wasn’t as difficult to traverse as the forest floor had been.

It didn’t make it any less treacherous though, a fact Sean was reminded of when his foot came down on a loose rock buried beneath the half-foot of snow. The rock shifted, throwing him off balance and sending him teetering toward the edge of the path. They weren’t up terribly high yet, but Sean tried to jerk away from the edge, heart leaping with a burst of adrenaline.

A hand clamped on his wrist and yanked him back from the edge. Sean stumbled back onto the path and looked up at Aidan’s concerned frown.

“Might want to take it slow around here. The mountains have less snow cover, but they’ve got their own danger,” Aidan said, glancing toward the edge.

“Yeah, I see that,” Sean said, heart still pounding.

“You good?” Aidan asked.

Sean glanced at Aidan’s hand, still around his wrist. “Yeah, just...yeah, I’m good.”

Aidan hesitated before finally letting go of Sean’s wrist. They were still wearing heavy gear, including gloves, but Sean could swear he could feel the warm imprint of Aidan’s hand on his arm. Before the image of Aidan’s heated skin pressed between the wall and Sean’s body could rise too high, he shoved it away.

“We’ll get ourselves to a better spot and make camp,” Sean said, grasping for control.

Aidan nodded, eyes not having left Sean’s face. “Alright. There should be places along the way that will work. We should be able to descend the other side tomorrow.”

Sean nodded his understanding, turning away before he became too distracted by Aidan’s gaze.

Sean closed his eyes,listening to the fire crackling and the wind whistling over the mountain peak above them. They had stopped halfway between the base and the top of the mountain. While the rest of them made camp, Aidan had gone ahead to see if their path was still clear and upon his return, swore they would be good to go when morning came.

After settling in, the rest of the team didn't take long to hunker down for the night and fall asleep. Sean had taken the first watch, keeping an eye on the camp and his sleeping teammates. They’d found a small alcove in the side of the mountain, which had given them a great deal of cover from the elements. And with the fire flickering away happily in the middle of the almost totally enclosed space, it was even pretty warm and cozy.

Sean looked down at his sleeping teammates, eyes drifting slowly to Aidan. He would have been lying if he said he hadn’t been more than a little impressed by Aidan’s work so far. Despite not knowing much about the environment, he’d managed to work out a halfway decent path to the assigned rendezvous point, and with Ricardo’s help, they had managed to keep themselves in one piece.

His team’s joking and laughter earlier echoed in Sean’s head. The truth was, even when Sean couldn’t stand the sight of Aidan, the rest of the team had been warming up to him. Where Sean had seen insubordination and attitude, the rest of Team Maelstrom had seen someone worth knowing and laughing with.

What had he been missing?

Aidan rolled over, peering up at Sean in the light of the fire. “Doing alright?”

Sean jerked. “Jesus, Aidan, I thought you were asleep.”

Aidan sat up, chuckling softly. “No. I’m still having a hard time sleeping well nowadays.”

“Dreams?” Sean asked, knowing all about those.

Aidan shook his head, pushing up to his feet. “No. Just hard to come down from being on alert all the time. Spent weeks on my last assignment, and I was on another one before that.”

Sean looked at the tree trunk they’d dragged into the alcove, slid to one end, and motioned for Aidan to sit. “Never stayed too long then.”

“Didn’t read my file?” Aidan asked as he sat down.

Sean had, but he knew better than to tell Aidan his life story for him. He didn’t come to lead a company of trained men without knowing at least something about how to handle people and connect with them. It wasn’t like he’d given Aidan the chance to define himself.