they were safely on the sidewalk, she shuffled her feet. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her too-thin coat, another dead giveaway she wasn’t from around here. It looked warm enough, but it wasn’t cut out for Desparre’s coming winter.
Her gaze darted from him to Rebel and then off into the distance, as if she was afraid he was going to yell at her again.
Colter held in a sigh. Beautiful or not, he didn’t have the energy to coddle her. But she was starting to tremble, and he figured it was as much the realization of her near miss setting in as the cold. So he tried for a smile.
It felt unnatural, as if those muscles had forgotten how to work, but she seemed to relax a little. “I’m Colter Hayes. And this is Rebel.”
She held out her hand. “Kensie Morgan.”
He had her hand in a firm grip before the last name sank in. It had been all over the news a few weeks ago. “Morgan. As in—”
“Yes. I’m Alanna Morgan’s sister. I came here to find her.”
Although he could feel the tremble in her hand, her voice was strong, almost daring him to challenge her ability. Not that he’d dare. If there was one thing he understood, it was loyalty to a sibling, blood related or not.
And hope. He understood how hope could keep you going, when everything inside you screamed it was time to give up. “I hope you do find her.”
“Thanks,” she replied as he reluctantly let go of her hand. “Rebel is amazing. I froze and then she just—she saved my life.”
“She was a military dog. A Gunnery Sergeant, in fact.” One rank higher than his own, because the military taught soldiers to respect their K-9 partners.
“Really?” Kensie’s gaze dipped to Rebel, whose tail wagged as they talked about her.
“Yeah.” He didn’t know why he’d shared that. Now that Kensie was looking less shaken up, he needed to get out of there. Away from the intensity in her eyes and the fullness of her lips. Away from the sudden physical attraction that took him by surprise.
“What did she do in the military?”
“Combat Tracker Dog,” Colter said quickly, knowing that, like most people, she’d probably have no idea what that meant. “You should get out of the cold. You’re not dressed for Desparre.”
Even though her lips were taking on the slightest tinge of blue, she didn’t seem to notice the cold—or his suggestion—as she stared at Rebel. “Tracker?”
There was too much hope in her voice. A dozen swear words lodged in Colter’s brain. “Not that kind of tracker.”
“But what—”
“She tracked back to perpetrators from explosion sites.” Just saying the words filled his mind up with images of a military convoy, blown to bits. Bomb fragments lodged in everything. Limbs not attached to people. Friends, gone in an instant.
An L-shaped ambush that had come in two waves, one for the people he’d come to help and one for the responders. His chest started to compress again, the edges of his vision dulling.
“But couldn’t she—”
“No,” Colter snapped, more harshly than he’d intended.
Even if he and Rebel did the kind of tracking she wanted, she had no idea what she was asking. If he tried to help her, he knew what would happen. He’d have a mission again. A reason to reconnect with the world.
And connections meant pain.
“I’m sorry,” he added over his shoulder as he spun away from her, whistling for Rebel to follow.
Kensie Morgan was trouble.
Colter watched her image shrink in his rearview mirror and tried to tell himself he’d done the right thing. The truth was, he longed to turn around and promise to help her, even though he really wasn’t that kind of tracker. And neither was Rebel.
From the back seat, she let out a short howl, as if she disagreed with his choice to leave.
“She’s no good for us, girl.”
His conversation with Kensie felt like the longest sustained chat he’d had with anyone in a year. He knew it wasn’t, but maybe she was just the first person he’d felt connected to in all that time. The first person he’d actually wanted to stay and talk to longer. And that was dangerous territory.
Cowardly or not, he was finished with human connection. He had Rebel; he had the sheer, uncomplicated beauty of Alaska. That was enough for him.
Rebel didn’t mind the nightmares. She probably had them too, poor girl. And now that they’d both been cut loose from the service, she wasn’t going to go and die on him anytime soon. As long as she stopped saving people’s lives.
She nudged her head between the front seats, resting her chin on his arm as he maneuvered up the winding, unpaved road toward his cabin. It was up high, which made the trek tricky during the worst of winter, but the view was worth it.
Staring out over miles of nothing but snow-topped trees and breathing in the crisp, cold air, so unlike the deserts where he’d served, brought him as close to peace as he figured he’d ever get. And once a military man, always a military man. There was just something about having the high ground that helped him relax.
His closest neighbor was miles away, down in the valley. He rarely saw other vehicles on his ride out of town, and never in the last few miles. A vehicle coming up the final hill meant someone was coming to see him. And no one came to see him.
His parents still called him regularly, certain he had to be lonely. But they’d been afraid of the trip to Desparre, of the wild animals they were certain roamed everywhere and the thick, heavy winters that sometimes prevented travel in or out until spring came around again. They couldn’t understand why he’d come here. But then, they’d never really understood him. Not when he’d joined the military right out of high school and not a decade later when he’d been forced to leave it.
They loved him, but they didn’t realize what he’d been looking for or what he’d lost. Brotherhood. A bond he shared with no one but Rebel these days, because she’d been in the thick of it with him.
As he slowed the truck to a stop in front of his cabin, his breathing evened out. All the open space did that for him. Beside him, Rebel seemed to relax, too.
He opened the driver’s side door, telling Rebel to stay as he hobbled around to the back. Normally she hopped into the front and climbed out after him, but he knew her injury almost as well as he knew his own. She might not be showing it, but she was in pain, too.
“Come on, girl,” he urged, watching as she stepped gingerly to the ground. She led the way up to the cabin, favoring her back left leg.
“We’ll sit by the fire and take it easy tonight,” he promised her, earning a half-hearted tail wag.
As soon as he opened the door, she walked straight over and claimed a spot in front of the fireplace.
“Greedy,” he teased her, and she gave him a look as if to say, Get a move on. It’s cold in here.
He’d had the heat set too low, not expecting the cold to come so soon, although he should have been used to it. By the time he’d moved out here last October, the snow had been so high the real estate agent had needed his help clearing it away so they could even open the door.
He cranked the heat up now, then got to work building a fire. He poured Rebel some dog food and dragged it over to her. He was hungry, too, now that dinnertime was approaching, but his leg was more demanding than his stomach. So, instead of cooking, he settled in