Under the Microscope by Jessica Andersen Page A

Nothing was shifting, and it seemed like the building was structurally okay.
    For now.
    “Take that side—” Max’s voice broke and he coughed out a lungful of dust and grit before saying, “If they’re mobile, get them out. If they’re too wounded to move, mark their positions for the professionals. Got it?”
    The others nodded and headed deeper into the office, which had gone from tasteful to rubble in the blink of an eye.
    Raine brushed his shoulder in passing. “Thank you.”
    He wasn’t sure if she was thanking him for pushing her to safety during the first fury of the blast or for not arguing harder against her help. Either way, her touch poked at a raw, sore spot inside. He bared his teeth. “Don’t thank me yet. You were one of the last people in that office.”
    She glanced up at the gaping hole where her space had been. “I know. I could’ve been—” She broke off and looked at him, eyes narrowing. “What are you suggesting, that I blew up my own office with Jeff and two computer techs in it?” Her voice rose as she spoke, until it cracked with airborne dust and stress, or maybe with fear. “Listen, you—” She pressed her lips together and tears made her eyesshimmer with sincerity, or maybe pure rage. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t have.” She looked down at the shattered mobile. A tear broke free and tracked through the dust on her cheek. “Never.”
    It clicked in his brain then. The reason he knew she was telling the truth.
    Only it wasn’t pretty.
    “I believe you,” he said, damning the ache in his chest when she looked up and hope flickered in her eyes. “I believe that you didn’t set the bomb. And do you want to know why?”
    Another tear joined the first. “Why?”
    The ache snapped in his chest and died, and he heard himself say the words as though they’d come from someone else, someone standing far away.
    “Because if you couldn’t bring yourself to have an abortion when you so clearly didn’t want your ex-husband’s child, I can’t see you killing people just to get what you want.” He straightened as he rose to tower over her. He hated that it gave him some measure of pleasure to say, “Even you aren’t that selfish, Raine.”
    Then he turned and walked away, feeling like hell.
     
     

 
    Chapter Six
     
    Raine told herself the wetness on her cheeks was spray from a broken pipe nearby as she tugged on a pile of debris, trying to free part of a cube wall without sending the rest crashing down on a middle-aged guy wearing the dark suit of an FDA agent and the scared expression of a man who’d seen his own life nearly end.
    “Careful,” he said for the tenth time. “Careful there.” He tugged at his leg, which was pinned beneath the lower edge of the wall.
    “I’ve got it.” Raine sniffed against more tears. Concentrate. She had to concentrate on what needed to be done right now.
    There would be time for tears later. In private.
    The wall gave suddenly, sending her staggering back, where she collided with an immovable male body.
    She didn’t need to turn to know instantly who it was. Her senses were attuned to Max, damn them.
    Damn him.
    “Leave it,” he ordered with enough bite in his tone to have her bristling in return.
    “I can do it.” She turned her back on him, hoping he’d go away. Far away. The sting of his logic was too fresh for her to deal with. Too true to brush off.
    She hadn’t wanted Rory’s child, hadn’t wanted the responsibility of single motherhood. She’d even considered the alternative before deciding it wasn’t the right choice for her, practicalities aside. But what Max didn’t know, or chose not to remember, was that in those last few days before her miscarriage, in the days he’d been watching over her, her growing child had gone from being “the pregnancy” in her mind to being “the baby.” Her baby.
    Damn him for not remembering that, and for using what had happened against her.
    Now, he gripped her upper arms and