18. The Land
The Land
Kai
The seven women from North Star are safe at MacLeod’s Boat Harbor in Vancouver, where they have medical care, security and time to recover.
Honor is staying in Manitoba. Rose, her community and the investigation are all here, and she has no intention of leaving any of them behind.
Good.
I’ve been away from my kennel too long, though. One of my neighbors has been feeding the dogs I left behind, but I need to get home.
And I want some time alone with Honor.
Maskwa’s ears shift before I hear the engines.
We’re crossing an old forestry route when the sound reaches us from behind. Two snowmobiles, maybe three.
Honor turns on the sled. “Lockhart?”
“Most of their operation won’t even know what’s coming yet. And the men who chased us out of North Star have plenty of reasons not to wait around for the police.”
The engines get louder.
“Looks like a couple of them still think finishing the job might save them.”
I glance back and catch two machines coming through the trees.
“Hold on.”
I call to Maskwa and turn the team north, away from any route leading toward my place.
The snowmobiles are faster, but they need room to move.
My dogs don’t.
Maskwa takes us onto an old trail winding through dense spruce as the snow begins falling harder. I know this country from years of mushing, racing and searching for people who disappeared into it. Lockhart’s men know roads and mine sites.
Out here, that won’t help them much.
The whiteout arrives minutes later.
Snow drives between the trees, visibility collapsing until the forest behind us disappears. Our tracks begin vanishing almost as quickly as we make them.
Perfect.
I take the team across a frozen creek, loop through thicker timber and double back onto another old trail.
The engines fade. Then disappear.
Honor leans closer. “Did we lose them?”
“Yep.”
“You sound very pleased with yourself.”
“Maskwa did most of the work.”
His ears flick back at his name.
An hour later, my cabin and kennel buildings appear through the trees.
Honor looks around. “This is where you live?”
“Yeah.”
Barking erupts from the kennels as we enter the yard.
I stop the sled and check the team before heading through the kennels. The dogs I left behind have been cared for exactly as arranged, and every one of them looks healthy.
When I return, Honor is beside Maskwa.
“He found me,” she says.
“So did I.”
Her eyes meet mine.
“I saw you before you saw me. At North Star.”
“I know.”
“I watched you organizing the women. You knew who needed help, who was frightened, who was struggling. They looked to you whenever something happened.”
“They needed someone.”
“You became that someone. You’re a natural leader, Honor.”
She studies me.
“I was proud of you.”
That surprises her.
I smile. “I hadn’t even spoken to you yet, and I was sitting out there in the trees proud of you.”
Her expression softens. “I knew you were there eventually.”
“When you answered my call.”
Her smile grows. “My grandmother taught me that call when I was a child. Hearing it out there…” She shakes her head. “I knew someone was coming.”
“You didn’t know it was me.”
“No.” Her eyes hold mine. “But I hoped whoever it was knew what he was doing.”
I smile. “Lucky for both of us.”
For five years, I’ve searched for missing people and protected anyone who needed it. Somewhere along the way, I stopped considering what it might be like to have someone looking out for me too.
Honor glances toward my cabin.
“Anyone else live here?”
“No.”
Her eyes return to mine, and the look in them makes the cold considerably less interesting.
“Then are you going to invite me inside?”
I smile.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
Kai’s Home, Northern Manitoba, Canada. 0930 hours.
By the time we’re inside, the storm has moved farther east and the world outside my windows has gone quiet.
The dogs are fed and settled after the run. Through the window, I can see several stretched out in the pale winter light, asleep as if losing men in pursuit in a whiteout was nothing worth staying awake over.
Honor sits beside me on the couch, warm again after the trail, one leg tucked beneath her.
There are things waiting for us beyond this place. Lockhart. The women still missing. The graves we found. Families who deserve answers.
But none of them can be dealt with in the next hour.
Honor reaches for my hand.
“You know you’re allowed to stop sometimes.”
“I stop.”
“Sleeping doesn’t count.”
“Eating?”
“Also necessary for survival.”
I smile. “You’ve known me how long?”
“Long enough.”
Her fingers lace through mine.
“You find people, Kai. You protect them. You bring them home. Then you go looking for the next person.”
“Someone has to.”
“Yes.” She shifts closer. “But who looks after you?”
I don’t answer. She already knows.
Honor draws me toward her until my head rests against her shoulder and her arms close around me.
At first, I don’t know what to do with that.
I’m used to being the one offering this. The arms around someone who survived. The steady voice telling them they’re safe. The person who stays awake while everyone else sleeps.
Honor strokes a hand slowly over my hair.
“You don’t always have to be the strong one.”
“I’m not sure I know how not to be.”
“Then learn.”
I smile against her.
“Bossy.”
“Natural leader, remember?”
I laugh and wrap an arm around her. Maybe she’s right.
The man who spends his life finding people who are lost doesn’t have to remain lost himself.
We stay there until a sharp little bark comes from outside.
Honor lifts her head. “What was that?”
I know exactly what it was.
“Trouble.”
I pull on my boots and disappear into the kennel, returning a minute later with a Siberian husky pup wriggling in my arms.
Honor’s face lights up.
“Oh, look at you.”
I hand him over, and he immediately plants both front paws against her and tries to lick her chin. His eyes are bright blue, which somehow makes his ridiculous little face even more expressive.
She laughs, catching him before he climbs any higher.
“What’s his name?”
“I haven’t named him yet.”
She looks at me. “You haven’t?”
“Nothing’s suited him.”
The pup attacks the end of her braid.
Honor rescues it, laughing again. “Can I name him?”
“Sure, if you want.”
She studies the little husky as though the decision requires serious consideration.
“Pipsqua.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Pipsqua?”
“Short for pipsqueak.”
She laughs as the pup wriggles onto his back in her lap.
I look at his oversized paws.
“Oh, wait until he grows. I doubt he’ll be small.”
“Then he’ll be a very large Pipsqua.”
I laugh and settle back beside her.
Outside, the dogs sleep beneath the winter sky. Inside, Pipsqua curls against Honor as though he’s already decided she belongs here.
Looking at the two of them, I’m beginning to think he might be right.
Kai’s Home, Northern Manitoba, Canada. 1100 hours.
Steve calls while Honor and I are outside with the dogs.
I answer before the second ring. “Tell me.”
“Perry’s been detained.”
I stop walking. Honor looks across at me.
“Detained by who?”
“RCMP officers from outside his detachment. Victor pushed everything Felicity and Faith found through people who couldn’t bury it locally. They moved on him this morning.”
I look across the kennel yard at the dogs running through fresh snow.
Inspector Gavin Perry. Seventeen years stationed in this region. Seventeen years of missing women, downgraded reports and searches that ended before they had any chance of finding anyone.
“What did they give them?”
“Enough. Felicity traced more than three-point-four million Canadian dollars connected to Lockhart interests through his wife’s consulting company, property deals, trusts and a mortgage paid off by a numbered corporation.
Faith found the payments increased around disappearances and complaints against Lockhart. ”
I close my eyes briefly. They paid him by the problem.
We suspected it before the extraction. Now somebody with a badge is finally treating it like evidence.
“Charges?”
“Not yet. Detained and being questioned. Financial investigators are tearing through the rest.”
“Douglas Lockhart?”
“We’re coming for him too, mate.” Steve pauses. “By the way, great job getting those women out, Kai.”
“Thanks.”
“Eight women alive because of you and your dog team. Don’t forget that.”
I look across at Maskwa, currently trying to bury his nose in a snowbank.
“They did most of the work.”
Steve laughs. “Yeah, figured you’d say that.”
The call ends a minute later.
Honor is waiting.
“Perry?”
I nod. “Detained.”
Her face changes.
I tell her what Felicity and Faith uncovered. The money. The property. The trusts. Seventeen years of Lockhart finding ways to reward the RCMP inspector who helped make inconvenient women disappear on paper.
“More than three million dollars,” she says.
“Three-point-four they could trace.”
Her eyes move toward the trees.
“All those families.”
“I know.”
Five years ago, my sister disappeared and I watched the system close around her absence. I left the RCMP because I stopped believing the institution would ever turn on men like Perry.
Today, it did.
Finally.
It doesn’t bring my sister back. It doesn’t return fifty years to the women buried beneath Lockhart land.
But Perry is detained. And that’s the right result.
The women from North Star are safe.
Honor is standing beside me.
And Douglas Lockhart finally has people coming for him who can’t be bought.
Maybe this fight can actually be won.
Maskwa barrels past us with Niska and Pinto chasing him, spraying snow across my boots. I laugh as they race across the yard. They’ve worked hard enough for me. Today they get to be dogs.
The yard erupts into chaos, running paws, wagging tails and dogs chasing each other through the snow with absolutely no interest in doing anything useful.
Honor laughs as Maskwa charges through fresh powder, wheels around and races back toward me with the others behind him. I crouch as they arrive and immediately regret it when I’m surrounded by fur, paws and enough enthusiasm to knock me backward into the snow.
“Traitors.”
Honor is laughing harder now. I look up at her from the middle of the pack. She snaps a photo.
These dogs have seen every version of me. Tracker. Searcher. Musher. The man who comes home angry because another family didn’t get answers.
They’re also the only ones who knew the man underneath all that was still here.
Honor walks toward us.
When she holds out her hand to pull me up, I take it.
Kai’s Home, Northern Manitoba, Canada. 1230 hours.
We step inside from the snow, the quiet of my cabin wrapping around us as the door clicks shut behind us.
In the gray afternoon light filtering through the window, Honor turns to me, her dark eyes clear and steady. She reaches out, her fingers catching the front of my jacket and drawing me toward her.
For five years, I’ve been the man watching every tree line, measuring every threat and making sure everyone else gets home.
With Honor, I don’t need to watch anything.
I pull her flush against me, my mouth coming down on hers in a deep, passionate kiss that burns away the winter chill.
The heat flares fast between us. We move toward the hearth, shedding heavy winter layers and dropping them onto the floor until we stand bare in the glow of the fire. Honor takes my hand and draws me down into the thick pile of furs spread across the rug.
She moves with unhurried certainty, her touch soft yet commanding. Years of searching, rescuing and protecting have taught me to be the one everyone else relies on. Being wanted like this, being held so completely by a woman who shares the same earth and heritage in her bones, nearly undoes me.
She shows me with her touch and the steady rhythm of her heartbeat that the man who finds the lost is finally allowed to be found.
Honor lowers her head, taking my hard shaft into her mouth. She sucks me deep, her tongue swirling over the tip in a slow, intoxicating rhythm that drags a low groan from me. My fingers tangle in her dark hair as I watch her licking me, her eyes on me with every stroke.
I ride the razor edge of my restraint until I can’t take another second of the sweet torture. I reach down, gently pulling her up.
Honor shifts onto her hands and knees on the furs, looking back at me over her shoulder with an open, inviting smile.
I don’t hesitate.
I drop to my knees behind her, my fingers sliding between her thighs to find her slick, creamy and ready for me. I seat myself flush against her backside, driving inside in one long, unbroken movement that draws a soft gasp from her lips.
Holding firm to the curves of her hips, I begin to rock against her, starting with a gentle, deliberate rhythm.
Her body grips me tight, her soft moans echoing off the timber walls.
I increase the pace, driving into her with heavy, steady power, our breathing mingling with the crackle of the hearth.
As I feel the tight coil of her inner muscles begin to shudder, I reach one hand around her waist, my thumb finding her clit and circling it with firm, steady pressure while thrusting deep into her core.
“Kai...” she cries out, her head bowing as her climax breaks over her.
The contraction of her body around mine snaps my remaining control. I surge deep twice more, letting out a rough groan as I let go spilling into her, holding her pinned to the furs.
Afterward, I draw her down beside me and pull the furs around us.
For five years, I’ve stood watch. Searched. Protected. Kept moving because stopping meant having to feel everything I couldn’t fix.
Now Honor curls against me in the firelight, her fingers tracing lazily over my skin, asking nothing from me except that I stay.
So I do.
For once, I’m not searching for anyone.
I’m not watching the door.
I’m simply lying beside the woman who found me too, letting myself be loved.