Chapter Six #3
"Not much to tell. Six of us—Kane, me, Finn, and the twins—plus Eliza, who married Matt Ryder out of the blue and lives at Serenity Cove now with their boy.
We lost Mom last year. Dad's still in the house, still working through it.
He won't leave that house. Won't even rearrange the furniture.
We mostly raised each other before that, and we mostly look after each other now. "
"That must have been hard."
"It was honest. Granddad didn't pretend things were easier than they were, but he taught us to take care of ourselves and each other."
"Is that why you all stayed in Alaska?"
"We found what worked for us here. Kane runs his boats and his daughter out of The Ridge—he's the oldest, and was the only one of us with a kid until Eliza and Matt sorted that out.
Finn runs the lodge at Crystal Creek and most days runs the rest of us with it.
Rhys keeps the books at the general store down at Birch Bay—color-codes his spreadsheets, complains about my receipts, calls every fourth Tuesday to remind me my supplier invoice is overdue.
Reid runs the Kingfisher, his charter boat, out of Lantern Bay.
He drives her too hard and won her in a poker game in Anchorage, which tells you everything you need to know.
Eliza made a good life of her own, well clear of all of us.
Each of us found a way to make a living from what the land offers. "
I sit back a little. "Reid drives like Han Solo shoots—recklessly, and somehow always first. Rhys is his C-3PO, complete with better hair." I shrug. "Twins. They chose different sides of the Force."
"And you guide people into country that could kill them."
"I keep people safe while they experience something real. Most folks spend their lives insulated from anything that matters: real weather, real risk, real connection to the natural world." I set down my empty bowl, meeting her eyes across the small space. "You understand that better than most."
"Do I?"
"You left everything comfortable and familiar to chase an animal through some of the most unforgiving country in North America. That's either crazy or worth everything."
"Which do you think it is?"
"Both," I say, and the honesty in my voice surprises me. "The best things usually are."
She studies my face in the flickering light of the lantern, and I catch something unguarded in her expression before she puts the walls back up.
We're alone in a tent in the middle of a wilderness storm, closer than we've been since starting this expedition, and the air between us hums with possibilities neither of us is ready to acknowledge.
"Nash?" Her voice is soft, uncertain. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For not giving up on me. For teaching me to see things differently. For helping me understand that keeping promises matters more than maintaining comfortable illusions."
The gratitude in her voice hits me harder than it should. She's looking at me like I've given her something precious, but all I've done is show her truths that were already there.
"You don't need to thank me for doing my job."
"This isn't about the job anymore."
No, it isn't. Somewhere between the binding check in the snow and the tracking tutorials, between shared meals and honest conversations, this has become something more personal.
She matters to the mission. I leave it there.
It terrifies me, because she'll leave when this is over, return to her academic world and her city life, and I'll be left in these mountains with the memory of what it felt like to matter to someone like her.
"Get some sleep," I say, because the alternative is admitting things I'm not ready to say. "Tomorrow we find Waldo."
"You really think we will?"
"I think you don't give up until you get what you came for."
She settles into her sleeping bag, but I catch her watching me across the small space between us.
"What about you, Nash? What did you come for?"
The question hangs in the air between us, and a pulse starts up at the base of my throat.
What did I come for? To guide a client through a routine tracking expedition. To earn the fee that will help cover winter expenses. To do my job and move on to the next assignment.
But looking at her now, hair loose around her shoulders, eyes bright with intelligence and determination, face flushed from the warm tent—I came out here for the job. The job keeps surprising me.
"Sleep," I say instead of answering. "We've got miles to cover tomorrow."
But as the storm howls outside and Aris settles into sleep beside me, I lie awake. My hand still burns where I touched her knee. That's the detail I can't shake, not the storm, not the tracks, not the wolves. That one inch of contact through denim and cold air.
And I wonder what the hell I'm going to do when we find Waldo and she goes back to her life, leaving me with the knowledge that some connections run deeper than professional obligation or wilderness competence.
Some connections change you in ways you can't take back, whether you're ready for them or not.