Chapter 10 #3
“Just saying, maybe it was good for you too.” He met Jericho’s gaze. “To face what happened. The accident last year . . .”
Jericho stilled. “How’d you hear about that?”
“Hudson was worried. We all were.”
Perfect. He looked away. “I’m good.”
Orlando loped over to Harley again, pressing against her legs until she laughed, the sound echoing off the mountains. Her gloved hand scratched behind his ears. He bounded away, picked up snow and ate it.
“That dog sure likes her,” Topher said.
Warmth spread through Jericho’s chest as he watched Harley. The way Orlando leaned into her touch. “Yeah. He does.”
Behind them, Gabe helped Sunni into the body of the plane.
“Pastor Neil was talking about that verse in Lamentations last week. About waiting for God’s timing.” Topher smiled. “Said it’s always perfect, even when we can’t see it.”
Right. Whatever.
“But sometimes it’s hard to see past right now.” Topher’s gaze fell on Winter as she walked around the plane, doing a preflight check. “Is that why you stayed away so long?” he asked.
“What?”
“Just saying that sometimes it’s harder coming home than staying gone. Than facing the people you let down.” Topher’s gaze stayed on Winter. He finally turned to Jericho. “But you did it anyway.”
He didn’t know why, but Topher’s smile felt like grace. Or forgiveness. Or simply sheer light in his soul. Huh.
“I guess. Really, though, I did it for my dog.”
“Right.” Topher walked over to the door and held it open for Winter, who climbed in for her instrument check.
Orlando’s low growl cut through the crystalline air. The dog’s hackles rose, eyes fixed on the tree line, where shadows stretched long and blue.
Jericho followed his gaze. There, massive against the white and green forest stood a bull moose, steam curling from its nostrils. Muscles rippled beneath its winter coat as it watched them.
It wore a rack of antlers wide enough to cast shadows across the snow.
“Don’t move,” Jericho whispered.
The moose pawed the ground.
“I’m moving,” Topher snapped.
Orlando’s growl deepened, a warning rumbling from deep in his chest.
“Harley!” Jericho called softly, every muscle tensed. She had gone back to the cabin and now stood in the snow, stilled. “Get to the plane. Now.”
The moose’s muscles bunched.
Harley edged toward the plane.
“Slowly.” Jericho inched her way, fighting the urge to run toward her. “Very slowly.”
The moose snorted.
“He’s going to charge,” Winter said from behind him. “We don’t have time for slowly. When I say run, everybody move. Toph and J—give the plane a push, out of the snow ruts—”
The moose swung his head, dark eyes fixed on them. One hoof stamped the snow.
Orlando’s sharp bark cut through the air.
The moose lurched forward.
“Run!”
Harley high-stepped it, plowing through the drifts, and Topher and Jericho gave the plane a hard push just as she reached the lake’s edge.
“C’mon! C’mon!” Jericho couldn’t stop himself—he threw himself at Harley, grabbing her arm, yanking her toward the plane.
Orlando barked again, circling in front of the charging moose, buying them precious seconds.
Harley scrambled into the aircraft, behind Topher.
“Orlando, come!” Jericho shouted.
The dog turned and sprinted toward him, hard. He jumped and Jericho caught him in his arms, turned and trundled him into the plane.
“Jericho, get in! Get. In!” Harley reached for him, catching his dog, cradling him.
Winter had started the prop, the bird jerking and Jericho threw himself at the open door, just as the moose’s antlers caught the Cessna’s wing. The attack turned them.
“Hang on!” Winter pushed the prop forward and the machine shuddered. Jericho fought the door, shut it. The moose bellowed, his breath clouding the frigid air.
Snow sprayed in crystalline arcs as the skis fought the drifts. “Come on, baby. Come on,” Winter said, glancing out the window.
They broke free of the tug of snow, picked up speed. The moose’s hooves threw up snow as it charged behind them. They skimmed over the snowy lake and Jericho leaned forward in his seat, as if urging the plane into the sky.
It worked. Really. The plane lifted, snow dusting off it, rising into the blue and clearing the trees at the far end by a few feet.
He leaned back, breathing hard.
Topher, in the copilot seat, glanced back, his eyes wide, his mouth open. Then he grinned.
Right?
Harley’s laugh held an edge of hysteria. “Did that really just happen?”
“Gotta love Alaska,” Jericho said, and only then realized he was holding her hand.
She, in the meantime, had an arm around his dog, who had nestled his head into her lap.
Oh brother.
Below, the moose stood in their tracks, growing smaller as they rose. The cabin became a Lincoln Log home nestled in white. Beyond, the mountains stretched jagged and forbidding, their peaks catching the morning, the sun turning them to flame.
“The storm’s completely cleared,” Harley said, pressing close to the window.
For a moment, she was fifteen, her face lit with the same look she’d given him the first time he took her flying.
Oh, he’d fallen for her then. Or maybe it had been earlier, much earlier.
Let’s say twelve, when he’d rescued her from some bullies at school.
Maybe she hadn’t needed to be rescued, really. Just his excuse, but even then, she lit him on fire—and not just with desire but with hope and purpose and . . . identity. She made him . . . him.
Maybe his dog had it right. Something about Harley grounded him. Made Jericho remember who he used to be.
Or wanted to be.
“You don’t always have to rescue everyone.”
Maybe not. Maybe he was just supposed to rescue one person.
No wonder he’d been so lost.
“Look at how the light hits the glaciers. Gorgeous.” Harley looked at him, grinned.
Yeah.
They flew home in quiet, broken only by Winter’s radio checks and Orlando’s occasional sighs. The landscape rolled beneath them—endless white broken by dark forests, frozen rivers threading silver through valleys, mountains ragged and glorious along the horizon.
Fresh snow draped the town of Copper Mountain in white, turning it into a postcard. Kind of made a guy believe in clean slates and new beginnings.
They landed on a runway, cleared and salted.
“What are we going to do about Gabe?” Harley asked Jericho as they taxied in. “The dome doesn’t feel safe.”
He didn’t have an answer—
A phone chirped, buried in someone’s jacket.
“I think that’s me,” Sunni said and pulled it out of her pocket. “It’s my mom. Three missed calls.” She answered it on speaker. “Hey, Mom, I’m sorry—”
“Oh thank God.” A sob caught in Sunni’s mother’s tone.
“Baby, you need to come home right now. Your father and Daniel”—her voice broke—“they’re gone.
Your dad’s phone is going straight to voicemail.
They went to town last night and never came back.
His truck was found in a ditch, but they weren’t . . . they’re not—”
“Mom, slow down.” Sunni’s face had gone pale. “What do you mean, his truck was found?”
“Levi Starr spotted it in a ditch last night on his way home. Called it in to the sheriff’s office. I was over at your aunt’s house—didn’t get back until this morning. They weren’t here.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I didn’t know . . . I didn’t—”
“Mom. Calm down,” Sunni said. She looked at Gabe, however, anything but calm herself. “Take a breath.”
“The sheriff came out this morning. Checked the truck . . . it was empty. It’s been having problems, so I don’t know . . .”
Jericho glanced at Gabe, whose hand covered his mouth.
“Sheriff Starr is here, along with his deputy, but they’re saying there’s no sign of, of anything. They think maybe they went looking for help, but it’s been hours, and with the storm last night . . . Why would they hike though such deep snow?”
Harley watched even more color drain from Sunni’s face. Gabe’s arm tightened around her shoulders.
“We’re coming,” Gabe said into the phone. “Right now. Stay with Sheriff Starr, okay? We’ll be there as fast as we can.”
So, there went the cat out of the bag. But maybe it didn’t matter. Gabe had taken the phone from Sunni and ended the call. Then he looked up and met Jericho’s eyes.
The same knowledge passed between them, unspoken.
This wasn’t about a storm or a truck in a ditch.
This was Mars’s next move.