To help a desperate woman’s search,

he’ll have to brave treacherous territory.

In the wilds of Alaska, grieving former marine Colter Hayes shuts out the world...until he and his combat tracker dog become Kensie Morgan’s last hope of finding her long-missing sister. The improbable mission starts to rekindle Colter’s desire to rejoin the world—while saving Kensie from a killer unsettles his heart. Can they find all they are searching for before it’s too late?

ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists and a little romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range. Elizabeth graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English literature. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. Visit Elizabeth at www.elizabethheiter.com.

Also by Elizabeth Heiter

Bodyguard with a Badge

Police Protector

Secret Agent Surrender

Disarming Detective

Seduced by the Sniper

SWAT Secret Admirer

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

K-9 Defence

Elizabeth Heiter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09392-7

K-9 DEFENCE

© 2019 Elizabeth Heiter

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to have many

loyal companions like Rebel. This book is for all my

furry, feathered and scaled family members.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Chapter One

“I’m still alive.”

Three simple words in a note. A note signed by the sister Kensie Morgan hadn’t seen in fourteen years had sent her in a frantic rush across 3,500 miles. Kensie had left a brief message on her boss’s voice mail, telling him she needed some time off, then called her family. They’d been less supportive.

But this time, Kensie had to believe, the lead could be real.

The hope had buoyed her from one layover to the next, warmed her as she stepped off the plane in Alaska. For early October, the temperature was way colder than she’d expected, and it had only gotten worse as she’d paid for her rental pickup truck and headed north.

Desparre, Alaska, was the kind of place you came to to drop off the map. The sort of place no one would think to look—and even if they did, they might never make it out.

After her GPS had given up and she’d made a half dozen wrong turns, she’d finally been able to get directions from a local into town. Now Kensie shivered as she stepped out of her truck for the first time in four hours. Her heavy down jacket was no match for the windchill, so she tugged up the collar as strong gusts whipped her long hair around her face. There was no avoiding the snow covering the walkways, so Kensie trudged through it. Her next stop after the police station was going to be for a new pair of boots.

Her fingers tingled from the cold and she clenched them into tight fists in her pockets, hoping the motion would also ease her nerves. She’d planned to make the store where her sister’s note had been found her first stop, but when she couldn’t find it, she’d given up and headed into the main part of town.

Kensie glanced around, taking in the assortment of buildings—post office, clothing store, bar, drug store, grocery store, church. She felt like she’d stepped back in time to the eighteen hundreds. The only thing missing was horse-drawn carriages. But it was probably too cold for horses. Even the monstrous all-weather truck parked up the street seemed ill prepared for Desparre once winter descended.

Chicago got cold, but after not even one day in Desparre she was longing for the ridiculously cold-but-not-this-cold windchill off the lake.

With the exception of a guy playing with his dog down the road, she was the only fool outside. Kensie hustled, careful not to slide in the snow as she yanked open the door to the tiny police station. Her stomach churned as reality set in. She was finally here.

This time will be different, she told herself, trying to bolster her courage.

The officer behind the counter looked up as she entered, but she wasn’t sure if the scowl on his face was for her or the blast of cold air she brought inside. “Can I help you?”

Desparre probably didn’t get a lot of outsiders, so she was going to stand out here. Kensie had gotten the same questioning looks each time she’d stopped to ask for directions on the outskirts of town.

If her sister Alanna really was here, maybe she’d be the one to find Kensie.

If only it could be that easy. But fourteen years of bright, painful hope drawn out for days or years and then dashed in yet another dead end, in yet another godforsaken town, told her that nothing about finding Alanna would be easy.

But if the note was real...

The hope that bloomed inside her now brought tears to her eyes.

The officer stood and rushed to her side. “Are you okay? Do you need help?”

She blinked the tears back and prayed her voice would be steady. “I need to talk to someone about the note you found from Alanna Morgan.”

Frown lines dug deeper, creating grooves across the officer’s forehead. He looked like he belonged in a rocking chair with a couple of grandkids on his knee, not wearing a police uniform. “Why?”

“I’m her sister.”

The flash of emotions on his face was quick, so quick Kensie might have missed them if she hadn’t seen them so many times in her life. Surprise, discomfort and pity first. Then something hard and distant—law enforcement probably learned to compartmentalize to keep themselves from going crazy case after case, victim after victim.

“You shouldn’t have come all this way. Didn’t you talk to the FBI?”

The FBI had spoken to her and her family, of course. They’d been the ones to call and inform Kensie about the note found in Desparre in the first place. But that didn’t matter. “I needed to see for myself.”

The frown was back, this time mixed with worry, but the officer nodded, patted her on the arm and then said, “I’ll be right back.”

He disappeared through a door marked Police Only and Kensie took a deep breath.

You can do this, she reminded herself. She was just out of practice. It had been years since the last lead on Alanna.

Standing in a police station now took her back to her childhood. All those years of waiting in hard plastic chairs, her mom’s hand clutching hers way too tight, as they prayed for any shred of good news. Her dad standing stiffly beside them, his arm wrapped around her brother, holding him close as if that could keep him safe. Officers catching her gaze and then looking quickly away. Kensie’s palms damp and her heart thudding way too fast.

Missing Alanna. Knowing it was all her fault her little sister was gone.

“Ma’am?”

Kensie looked up, realizing her eyes had glazed over as she’d stared at the floor, getting lost in her past. She stiffened her shoulders, tried to look like the professional woman she’d become instead of the terrified thirteen-year-old who always reappeared whenever she heard Alanna’s name.

She held out a cold hand, shook hard and stared the new officer directly in the eye. Let her know she couldn’t be sent off with a “sorry” and a pat on the back.

“I’m Chief Hernandez.”

From the slight grin the chief gave, Kensie’s surprise probably showed. She was young for a police chief, likely only a few years older than Kensie’s twenty-seven.

But there was wisdom in her steady gaze and strength in her handshake.

“Kensie Morgan. I want to see the note that was left at the store.”

Chief Hernandez held out her other hand and Kensie reached for the computer paper.

It was a photocopy, but her heart beat faster at the slanted cursive handwriting. She read it aloud. “My name is Alanna Morgan, from Chicago. I’m still alive. I’m not the only one.”

“You recognize the writing?” the chief asked, skepticism in her voice.

“Alanna’s? No.” How could she? Her sister had been five years old when she’d been kidnapped out of their front yard. At five, everything had been big sloppy letters, forming words that were often misspelled. There was no way to know what Alanna’s handwriting looked like now. If she was really still alive, she’d be nineteen.

Nineteen. The very idea made pain and longing mingle. What would a nineteen-year-old Alanna look like? What had happened in all the years between? Kensie had missed all of her sister’s milestones.

Focus on now, Kensie reminded herself. Focus on what you can change. “What do you know?”

Chief Hernandez shrugged, then frowned, like she regretted the motion. “Not much, I’m afraid. We don’t know who left it. We can’t be sure it’s even real. It says—”

“I know,” Kensie cut her off, not wanting to hear a repeat of the FBI’s depressing analysis. “But you must know something. What about the store owner who found it?”

“It was in a stack of bills. He couldn’t even say who put it there or when.”

Chief Hernandez tilted her head in what Kensie had long ago come to recognize as a pity gesture. “I’m sorry. You came a long way for nothing.”

The tears surprised her. They rushed hard and fast to her eyes and Kensie ducked her head, trying to blink them back.

“Miss Morgan—”

“Thanks,” she said, handing back the photocopy of the evidence—the photocopy of what might be her little sister’s writing. Without another word, she rushed out the door.

This time, the cold was just what she needed. It slammed into her face, stinging her eyes and probably freezing the tears on her cheeks.

Get it together, she told herself. Ducking her head against the wind, she hurried for her rental, parked across the street.

It didn’t matter what the police thought. It didn’t matter what the FBI thought. It only mattered what her heart was screaming.

Alanna was still alive. And Kensie might finally be able to bring her home.

The gunning of an engine ripped her from her hopeful thoughts. Her head jerked up and right, toward the source of the sound.

A station wagon the size of a small boat was plowing down the street, spraying snow and coming straight for her.

* * *

COLTER HAYES DIDN’T know what happened.

One second, his retired Military Working Dog, Rebel, was goofing off, chasing a stick as naturally as she’d once tracked dangerous bombers back to their hideouts. The next, she was racing away from him so fast he knew her injured leg would be acting up later.

He heard the engine a second after that, spotted the old station wagon careening around the corner, cutting through the slippery snow way too fast. And a woman frozen in the middle of the street.

“Move!” he screamed at the woman, cursing the injury in his own leg—sustained at the same time as Rebel’s—as he raced for both of them.

He’d never make it in time.

The world around him seemed to move in slow motion as panic shot up his throat, mingling with the cold and making it hard to breathe. The car slip-sliding out of control. His five-year-old Malinois–German shepherd mix—the only friend he had left in the world—running straight in front of it.

Colter pushed his leg as hard as he could, trying to follow, trying to be of any use at all. But it was no good.

Rebel leapt up high, slamming into the woman’s chest with her front legs, knocking both of them out of sight as the car raced past Colter. It slowed for a second, then sped off.

The panic dropped lower, making his chest hurt and his heart beat too fast. The memory of a year ago, of Rebel jumping on him as a bullet passed so close he felt its trajectory over his head, made it hard to breathe.

He tried to push it out of his mind, willed himself not to fall into that darkness as he raced across the street, sliding in the snow toward the two figures lying prone on the ground. He dropped to his knees, ignoring the pop in his knee and the pain that rushed up his thigh.

Another memory from a year ago, of surgery after surgery as he begged to know the condition of his unit. No one would tell him.

Colter blinked the present back into focus.

Rebel climbed off the woman, her movements a little stiff. She nudged her way under his arm, like she knew he was hurt.

Colter dug one hand into the soft fur on Rebel’s back, reassuring himself she hadn’t been hit.

Still lying flat, the woman groaned and reached a trembling hand up to the back of her head, poking around like she was searching for blood. But her hand came back clean and he helped her to a sitting position.

She stared at him with haunting brown eyes framed by dark lashes. Long, silky dark hair slid over her shoulders and across the back of his hand. The kind of woman he wouldn’t have been able to resist once upon a time.

But she was as stupid as she was gorgeous.

“What were you thinking? Crossing the road without paying any attention?” His voice rose even as Rebel pushed her wet nose into his neck, something that usually made him laugh.

But nothing could make him laugh today. “You almost got yourself killed. You almost got my dog killed!”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, sounding more shell-shocked than scared at her near miss. She reached a still-trembling hand out toward Rebel, gently stroking his dog’s brown-and-black fur.

Rebel ate it up, the little traitor, giving the woman a solid push with her nose as if to ask for more.

The woman laughed, a deep, rich sound that seemed to curl around his body.

Colter scowled at both of them, but tried to keep his anger in check. Stupid or not, she had almost died a few minutes ago. And she wasn’t a soldier in battle, but a civilian clearly out of place in Alaska.

To his surprise, his voice came out calm, almost soothing. “Let’s get you out of the street before another car comes through. Everyone’s going too fast today. Living here, they should know how to drive in the snow, but with the first snowfall of the season, it’s like everyone forgets.”

“Thanks,” she whispered in that same soft, slightly husky voice.

It would have been a voice for his dreams, back when he had dreams. These days it was nothing but nightmares.

“Come on, girl,” he told Rebel as he planted his hands in the snow and pushed himself clumsily to his feet.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked, her eyes even wider than they’d been a minute ago.

“Yeah, fine.” It felt like his knee was on fire, but experience told him it didn’t warrant a trip to the doctor. He’d just twisted it wrong and the rod and screws holding together his right thigh didn’t appreciate it.

He had a few nights of ice and elevation in his future, but he’d been through worse. Much worse.

“I’m so sorry.” Her voice wobbled, like she was on the verge of tears.

He prayed she’d keep them in check. “It’s not your fault. It’s a war injury.” He held out a hand to help her up, but she frowned at it, climbing slowly to her feet on her own.

Colter felt his face redden. At six foot two and 180 pounds of mostly muscle—even after his injury—people had always looked to him for help physically. The snub now hurt more than the hit to his knee had.

Once 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.

Chapter Two

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 his recliner, gingerly lifting his right leg and wishing he’d grabbed some ice for it first. But now that he was settled, he didn’t plan to move for a few hours.

Between the heater kicking on and the fireplace warming the cabin even more, Colter’s stiff muscles slowly started to relax. An hour later, his leg was still throbbing unhappily, but the pain was a lot more manageable.

With the fire roaring away on one side of him, the view of the valley covered in snow through a thick-paned window on the other and Rebel at his side, Colter felt complete. This was why he’d come to Alaska. Yes, his parents’ claim was true—he was hiding here. But he was hiding from all the well-meaning but clueless people—them included—who wanted to fix him. Who had no idea what it meant to survive an ambush when all of his brothers had died.

Rebel whimpered and when Colter glanced at her, he could swear she knew what he was thinking. “It’s okay, girl.”

But instead of calming down, she stood, went to the window and started barking.

Someone was here. And since there was no one in Alaska he knew well enough to visit his house, it wasn’t a guest.

He’d come to Alaska to hide from what was left of his life. Yeah, he could admit that. But there were plenty of other people who saw Alaska as the final frontier: a place to hide away from something they’d done, to run from the law.

Colter winced as he swung his injured leg to the ground, then hobbled over to the cabinet against the far wall and grabbed his pistol. He’d stopped carrying it into town, but right now he was happy he hadn’t given it up altogether.

“Rebel, quiet,” he commanded. In her three years as a Military Working Dog, never once had she disobeyed a command from him.

But today she just barked louder.

Colter released the safety on his pistol and eased toward the door, preparing himself for trouble.

* * *

KENSIE GRIPPED THE steering wheel until her knuckles hurt, stomping her foot on the brake. But it didn’t help. Her rental truck still slid backward, angling toward the edge of the road, toward the drop-off beside the steep hill she was trying to climb.

Why did Colter Hayes have to live in the middle of nowhere?

According to the few locals who would talk to her, he was an ex-Marine hiding from the world after being badly injured. No one seemed to know how he’d been injured or why exactly he wanted to hide. In fact, none of them seemed to know much more about him than the few details he’d shared with her on the street. And yet he’d lived in Desparre for almost a year.

“People come this far into the Alaskan wilderness for three reasons, honey,” the grocery store owner had told her, then ticked off those reasons on gnarled fingers. “Either they love a good adventure, the kind that’s as likely to get them killed as not. Or they want the entire world to leave them the heck alone. Or they’ve done something they don’t want anyone to know about—probably something illegal—and they figure no one will ever track them down here.”

Then she’d narrowed her eyes at Kensie. “We all assume Colter is the middle one. But you’ve got to be careful who you trust.”

Her words echoed in Kensie’s brain as her truck finally stopped its dangerous backward descent. She kept her foot wedged down hard on the brake, her hands locked tight on the wheel, afraid to move. Should she keep pushing forward or turn back?

She leaned forward, craning her head up at the hill in front of her. Snow was still falling on it, obscuring what was little more than a dirt trail. She had one more crest to go and she wasn’t sure if her truck would make it. But she wasn’t sure she could turn it around, either.

Now it was her brother Flynn’s voice she heard in her head. “You’re going to Alaska, Kens? Are you crazy? People venture out into the woods there and never come out again. You could die up there and we’d never even know where to start looking.”

At the time, she’d thought he was overreacting. He always had when it came to her, even now that they were both adults. He’d already lost his little sister and she knew, somewhere deep down that he’d never admit, he was afraid of losing his big sister, too.

She realized now how ill-prepared she’d been for this trip. Desparre was insular. People here already distrusted each other, but they distrusted her double for being an outsider. Some of them had been nice but ultimately dismissive. Others had just eyed her suspiciously and refused to talk. Questioning as many people in town as she could had told her that either no one knew anything about Alanna other than what they’d read in the news, or they just weren’t going to tell her.

But Colter understood this place. And regardless of what he’d said about his tracking skills, she knew one thing. Trackers found people. Whether it was someone who’d set a bomb or someone who’d been kidnapped, she had to believe he could help her.

And she might not be prepared, but she was determined. If Alanna was really here, Kensie wasn’t leaving without her.

Assuming she could get up this mountain.

Gritting her teeth, Kensie switched her foot from the brake to the gas as fast as she could, not wanting to lose traction. The truck’s wheels spun, spraying snow at a crazy angle, and then it shot forward, up the hill.

Kensie grappled to keep control of the wheel, her muscles aching. The truck veered left, then right, but it kept moving upward until she could see the top of the hill. She was going to make it.

As if thinking those words had been bad luck, the truck veered right again, straight off the side of the road. It sank down several feet, jolting her forward as the front end planted itself in a snowbank.

Kensie swore, tears of frustration pricking her eyes. For fourteen years, leads on Alanna had come and gone like rabbits in a magician’s disappearing act. One minute promising and solid and right in front of them. The next minute poof! Like they’d never even existed.

This time might be no different. Her family didn’t think it was. But they’d come to accept years ago what statistics said was a near certainty: Alanna was gone. She was never coming home.

Kensie had never been able to do that. And she didn’t think it was guilt eating at her gut this time, telling her something was here. She had to believe that this time, if she looked hard enough, maybe the magic trick would become real.

Colter could help her. She knew he could. If she could find him. If she could convince him.

Was she even close to where he lived? She had no idea. She assumed she’d followed the directions properly, but what if there’d been a turnoff she’d missed? She could be miles from his cabin.

She peered through the windshield at the snowflakes, falling faster and thicker from the sky. It had been cold when she’d arrived, but temperatures had dropped to near zero in the hours since. And that was down in the main part of town, not up in the mountains where Colter lived.

Fear settled low in her belly as she zipped her coat up to her chin and slid her hood over her head, fastening it tightly. She didn’t need to gun the engine to know there was no way she was getting her truck out of this snowbank.

She was walking from here. She just had to pray Colter’s cabin was nearby and she wouldn’t walk right by it in this snowstorm and then freeze to death.

Chapter Three

The moment she stepped out of the truck, Kensie wondered if she’d made a mistake. Her whole body seemed to ice over as her feet sank into a pile of snow, rising over the tops of her boots. The cold seeped through them, too, soaking her up to midcalf. She had to hold the tops of her boots to make sure they came with her as she climbed out of the snowbank and then her hands were soaked through her gloves.

Enormous snowflakes plopped on her head, sliding down the side of her hood, where some dropped off. The wind sent others flying into her face, where they left a watery trail down her neck and then slipped inside her coat.

She was going to die out here. She could already feel the icy cold in her lungs with every breath. What had she read about extreme cold bursting your lungs?

Calm down, she told herself. Colter’s place had to be close. The grocery store owner had said the top of the final hill. There were no more hills to climb. And yet, no cabin.

There were a lot of trees, though, more than she’d expected this high up. She thought she could see a road marker ahead, leading a winding path through them. Colter’s cabin could be behind the trees somewhere. But so could bears. Or she could get lost and not be able to find her way back to the truck. Every few steps, she glanced backward.

Soon she could no longer see the truck. Panic built inside her and she paused. Keep moving forward or turn back?

Then she heard it. Or maybe hypothermia had already started to set in and she was imagining the barking.

Kensie started to run. Her lungs protested every breath, painful from the cold, but as she rounded another copse of trees, there it was. A beautiful little cabin with a clear, perfect view of the valley below. She could even see a glacier from here. In other circumstances, she would have paused and soaked in the amazing vista.

Tears of relief spilled over and instantly froze on her cheeks and then Colter was there, his strong arm around her shoulders, leading her into his home.

She didn’t even pause at the doorway, wondering if it was really a good idea to trust a man she’d just met. She simply let him help her inside.

As soon as she was through the doorway, Rebel pressed up against her side. The dog stayed with her until Colter pushed her into a big recliner near the fire. Then Rebel sat primly next to her, soft brown eyes full of worry.

The heat from the fireplace made Kensie shiver. It didn’t make any sense, but she couldn’t seem to stop as Colter bent down with a pained grunt. He pulled the sopping wet boots from her feet and propped her legs up near the fireplace. Then he peeled the gloves from her hands, rubbing them between his own big, calloused palms until the warmth finally penetrated.

And so did his words. “What are you doing here? Wandering around in this weather is dangerous. Do you have some kind of death wish?”

Before she could bristle, he let out a heavy sigh and stopped rubbing her hands. “Hold them by the fire. I’ll make you some cocoa.”

“My truck hit a snowbank,” she managed through chattering teeth.

“But why were you up here to begin with?” he asked, looking like he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer as he walked into the connecting kitchen.

“I came to see you. I need your help. No one here will talk to me. But you know them. You know the area. You know how to track—”

“I told you, Kensie, Rebel and I don’t do that anymore. And the kind of tracking you’re talking about, we never did. It’s not the same thing. Dogs are trained to do one thing. You can’t just switch them over, make a drug-sniffing dog an explosives one. Doesn’t work like that. And finding people without a direct trail? Even if we had a scent to work from, we wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Kensie felt her shoulders drop. She’d come all this way. This couldn’t be the end of it.

Colter kept talking as he put a pot on the little stove and poured in milk and cocoa. She barely heard his words as she thought about the note that had been found. Thought about Alanna, somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness with her kidnapper.

“...Military Police don’t do that. In a war zone—”

Kensie’s head snapped up. “What did you say?”

“That kind of tracking work,” Colter said, as the scent of cocoa filled Kensie’s nostrils. “We don’t—”

“No, not that. You said you were Military Police?”

“Yeah.” The word was full of wariness.

“So, you know how to run an investigation.”

“So do the civilian police. And they actually have authority here,” Colter said as he handed her a steaming mug of cocoa.

The heat felt wonderful in her hands, the scent tempting her. But she just clutched it and stared up at him. “They don’t want to help me.”

He frowned as he lowered himself stiffly onto the chair on the other side of the fireplace. “Why not?”

Internally, she cursed her stupidity. If he knew the truth about what the FBI thought, he’d call her crazy, too. He’d probably join the chorus of people trying to get her to return home.

She postponed answering him by taking a gulp of the cocoa. It burned its way down her throat, making her eyes water, but it also seemed to warm her from the inside, so she took another sip and then another. When the mug was almost empty, she lowered it to her lap, realizing her teeth had finally stopped chattering.

Pins and needles danced along her feet and hands, but they’d gone numb when she’d been outside. The painful return of sensation was a good thing.

“Kensie,” Colter prompted, staring at her with light blue eyes fringed with pale brown lashes.

He was more than just good-looking. The hard, battle-worn expression he seemed to constantly wear disguised it, but when he stared at her like he was now—with curiosity and sympathy—awareness settled low in her belly.

Suddenly, it wasn’t just the scent of cocoa tempting her.

His dark blond hair was cropped close, military style, but she suspected it would be soft if she ran her hands through it. There was no hint of matching scruff on the hard planes of his jaw, but she wanted to slide her hands over the skin there, too, to pull him close and see how much control he’d have if she kissed him.

As she stared, his pupils dilated. Fire seemed to race over the icy surface of her cheeks and she ducked her head, trying to gain control of her emotions.

It had to be the fear of dying all alone of hypothermia. Or the stress of chasing after Alanna. Or maybe she’d just ignored her own needs for too long.

“It’s old,” Kensie blurted, hoping he hadn’t noticed what she realized had been blatant ogling. But of course he had, or she wouldn’t have seen the reciprocal attraction.

“What’s old?”

She wanted to smile at the confusion in his voice, a little part of her hoping he was still as distracted as she was. The more sensible side of her brain reminded her that she was stranded in his cabin and she barely knew the man.

The voice of reason in her mind won. She straightened in her seat, meeting his gaze with an all-business stare. “The case is fourteen years cold.” She shrugged, hoping he’d believe it, because it was the truth. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

She rubbed Rebel’s chin with her free hand, to distract herself from the lie by omission. She prayed he wouldn’t read it on her face.

“So, they’re not going to help you?” He sounded incredulous and a little outraged.

The combination just made her like him more. But she couldn’t afford to be distracted by him. Not when Alanna might be out there somewhere. Not when everything inside of her was screaming that he could be the break she’d been waiting for most of her life.

And she had him. She could feel it. He sympathized with her pain and he had skills she’d never possess. With his help, they might really be able to bring Alanna home.

“It’s a resources thing.” She paraphrased what she’d been told hundreds of times over the years. Police always had to work on new cases, missing persons who hadn’t been gone for years, who had a higher chance of rescue. The longer someone was missing, the less chance they had of ever being found.

Years ago, they’d first learned the realities about Alanna coming home as months went by with less and less interest from the police and the community. Her parents had made a promise. They’d do whatever it took to be sure that wasn’t Alanna’s fate.

But fourteen years of disappointment and two other children who needed them had taken its toll. Kensie knew it was her turn to take up the torch and keep that promise.

She stared expectantly at Colter, sensing his next words would be a wary agreement to try and help.

But he just shook his head sadly. “Believe me, I understand your pain, Kensie. Probably better than you realize. But I’m no good for you. I’m no good for anyone. I can’t help you.”

* * *

MAYBE SHE WAS CRAZY.

It wasn’t just her parents and Flynn who’d begged her not to fly out to Alaska on a questionable piece of evidence and a thin thread of hope. It was also her friends, the ones who’d been by her side since childhood, who’d watched how the constant surge of hope followed by inevitable, bitter disappointment had almost torn them all apart.

She’d overheard family friends talking about how Flynn’s car accident had been a necessary wake-up call for her parents, reminding them they still had two children who needed them. And in some ways, it had. But it had also been the day they’d decided to accept something Kensie never would: that Alanna was gone for good.

But right now, hopelessness reared up.

After his announcement that he wouldn’t help her, Colter had gone outside to dig out her truck over her objections. The whole time he’d been gone, she was worried he’d hurt his leg or freeze out there. But he’d bundled up in much better winter gear than she owned and forty-five minutes later, he’d reappeared.

She could tell he was trying to hide how badly his leg hurt, so she’d forced herself to keep quiet rather than asking. But guilt had followed her closely as Colter drove behind her rental all the way back into town. She’d parked by the police station where she’d first seen him playing fetch with Rebel, rolled down her window and debated what to say. She’d known him only a few hours and yet she’d been struggling to say goodbye.

Apparently, he had no such quandary. He’d given her a wave, a solemn “Good luck,” and off he and Rebel had gone.

She’d probably never see them again.

The idea left a bad taste in her mouth.

But right now, she had to figure out how to move forward. She’d come here alone, with no expectation of help from an ex-Marine with investigative and tracking experience. Nothing had changed. She could still do this alone.

As many times as she told herself that, she still felt Colter’s absence like a huge blow to her goal of finding Alanna. And maybe a little bit of a personal blow, too, although she didn’t know him well enough to feel anything more than unsatisfied lust.

“Get over it,” Kensie muttered. If Colter wouldn’t help her, she’d do it herself.

After her experience slamming into that snowbank up near Colter’s cabin, her first stop should have been to get better winter gear. But down in the main part of town, the snow was slowing and the accumulation was much less. Only an inch or two of slushy white coated the streets.

More than a pair of warm boots, Kensie needed a mental boost. Something had to go right, something to reassure her that she wasn’t chasing a ghost. Maybe there would be a lead at the store where the note had been found. If she could locate the store itself.

Having an immediate goal made Kensie feel better. She steeled herself as she stepped out of her rental and back into the cold, but couldn’t stop the shiver that raced up her spine. As quickly as possible, she stomped back into the grocery store where the woman had helped her before.

The instant Kensie walked inside, the woman—who was probably the owner as well as the cashier—looked up. Her steel-gray eyes, the same shade as her long braid, were sharp and knowing. “He was no help?”

Kensie shrugged in response, not wanting to badmouth Colter after he’d whipped her up a pot of cocoa, warmed her hands between his own and dug her truck out of the snow despite a badly injured leg. “It was a silly idea,” she said instead.

The woman let out a grunt that sounded like she disagreed. “What else do you need?”

A small smile tugged at Kensie’s lips. Living in a place like this must teach you to read people. As the bell dinged behind her, announcing another customer, Kensie said, “Colter Hayes has his own troubles. But I still need to find the store where the note was found. Do you think you could draw me a map? The roads are really confusing out here.”

“That’s because our roads are what you city folk would call hiking trails. Honey, you might want to wait until the snow clears. It’s out on the edge of town—so far out, most people don’t even think of it as part of Desparre. Owned by a cranky old guy who’s as likely to close for the day as not if the mood strikes.”

Ignoring the little voice in her head reminding her what had happened when she insisted on driving to Colter’s place in this weather, Kensie shook her head. “I want to try today. I need some good news right now.”

“He might not have any.”

“I know,” Kensie said over the lump that had risen in her throat. She swallowed the discomfort back. She had to stay positive.

If she didn’t keep searching for her sister, who would?

“All right,” the woman agreed with a deep frown that told Kensie she didn’t approve. But she drew a map and explained it three times.

Kensie thanked her, then headed back into the cold. She eyed the clothing store down the street, wondering if they’d have better winter gear, then looked up. The sun was hanging low, casting beautiful shades of red and orange across the sky. If she wanted to talk to the owner and get back to her hotel before it got dark, she needed to go now.

A tap on her shoulder made Kensie jump.

The man standing there backed up a step as she turned to face him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He was almost as tall and muscular as Colter. Almost as good-looking too, with jet-black hair and chocolate-brown eyes. Kensie lowered her arms.

“I heard you talking to Talise.” She must have looked perplexed, because he added, “In the grocery store. You’re looking for Jasper’s General Store?”

Kensie nodded, clutching the hand-drawn map she still wasn’t completely certain she could follow.

“I can take you if you want. My truck’s right over there.” He pointed to a massive vehicle parked in front of hers.

It was probably much more solid in the snow than her rental, but what did she know about this guy? Back home, she’d never get into a truck with a stranger. Of course, back home, she never would have driven out to a stranger’s cabin, either.

Because even though a little voice in her head kept insisting she and Colter had a connection, the reality was that she didn’t know him.

As if reading her thoughts, the guy stuck out his hand. “I’m Danny Weston. Former military just like your friend Colter.” He gave her a big, crooked, boyish-looking grin. “Although Colter was Marines. I was Air Force. Grunts versus high flyers. Just kidding,” he added as she took his hand.

It closed loosely around her own, as if he was afraid to hurt her as he shook. Then he gave her a firm shake anyway. Must have been a military thing.

Kensie had an internal debate. She didn’t know Danny, but she didn’t know Colter, either. And that had turned out fine. Besides, this was about her sister. If it wasn’t for me, Alanna never would have been kidnapped. Kensie nodded to Danny. “Yeah, that would be great. Thank you.”

“Sure.” He led her over to the massive vehicle and held open the passenger door. “We can talk to old Jasper and then I’ll have you back here in an hour, before it gets dark.”

The last of her doubts fled as she settled into the comfortable passenger seat. “That sounds perfect.”

Danny smiled at her again, then slammed the door shut and ran around to the driver’s side. He started up the engine and was just stretching his seatbelt across his lap when the driver’s door was ripped open and he went flying out of the truck.

Surprise and panic shot through her as Kensie’s gaze darted to the perpetrator. Colter.

“Get out of the truck now!” Colter yelled at her, his voice deep and commanding. Rebel stood beside and slightly behind him, teeth bared.

The panic intensified. She fumbled with her seatbelt as Danny climbed to his feet. She tried to open the door, but there was no door handle on the inside, just an empty space where it should have been.

Kensie shoved at the door, but nothing happened. She launched herself across the bench seat, straight toward Danny.

He was squaring off, facing Colter, as though he was about to take a swing. But across the street, people were starting to come out of businesses, maybe because they’d heard Colter’s yell.

Danny paused, and while she still could, Kensie shoved herself out of the truck. Her body brushed past him and he started to turn toward her.

Her heart was pounding out of control, her limbs heavy and awkward in her fear. Then Colter’s hand closed around hers, pulling her first to him and then shoving her behind him. The fear shifted, no longer for her own safety.

Two men who’d come out of the hardware store were slowly walking their way. Talise stood outside with a cell phone to her ear and her eyes on the police station down the road.

She knew Colter was strong from the way he’d practically lifted her off her feet just now, but with his bad leg, would Danny hurt him? Kensie’s whole body began to shake as she glanced back toward the police station, willing officers to come outside.

“Drive away while you still can,” Colter said in a low, menacing tone that sent shivers up her arms.

Rebel crouched low on her haunches and took a slow step forward, growling deep in her throat.

Danny took one last glance at the approaching townspeople, then gave Rebel a nervous look. He let out a string of nasty curses directed at Colter. Then he jumped in the truck and pulled away so fast she and Colter had to leap backward to avoid being hit.

As soon as Danny was gone, Colter spun toward her. The fury on his face was unlike anything she’d ever seen. His jaw was hard, his lips turned out in a near snarl. His eyes were narrowed into furious slits. But he took a deep breath and the tension disappeared, his face smoothing back into what seemed to be his default—not happy and mild, but serious and steady.

Next to him, Rebel straightened, then sat, as if nothing had happened.

“I’ll help you,” he told her.

“What?” She was almost more shocked than when he’d pulled Danny out of his truck.

“On one condition.”

“Okay.”

“It’s just me, Kensie. You don’t get into some random jerk’s truck. That guy—” He broke off, blowing out a breath, then finished. “I help you and no one else.”

The fear that had filled her a moment ago drained away, leaving her exhausted. But a smile built up inside. This was what she needed. This was who she needed. Colter was her best chance to change everything that hurt in her life.

He held out a hand. “We have a deal?”

Kensie placed her hand in his, liking the way his fingers closed solidly over hers, as if he knew she was strong enough not to be crushed. “Deal.”

Chapter Four

Danny Weston had nearly kicked his ass.

Colter shoved down the embarrassment and tried to be thankful for the show of support from the townspeople. Despite the fact that he’d been here almost a year, the people of Desparre barely knew him. But they probably knew Danny. And what they knew, he was pretty sure they didn’t like.

On a good day, Colter could take a guy like Danny down with ease. But it had been a long time since he’d had a good day. He knew his limitations and, right now, his leg was screaming at him.

It was a small price compared to the one his brothers had paid, but it stung to be so useless in a situation he should have been able to handle himself. Some badass Staff Sergeant he was.

Of course, he wasn’t a military man at all anymore, except in his mind.

Turning around and heading back into town after he’d dropped Kensie off had been a fluke. A nagging sense that he’d regret it if he didn’t help her look for her sister, even if he had no idea where to start.

He glanced at her now, absently petting Rebel from the seat beside him. Her lips were clenched in a tight line and her head was bowed slightly, as though Desparre was beating her. She’d barely said a word since she’d followed him back to his truck, but she’d done a poor job of hiding her shaking.

Anger at Danny for making her feel that way overtook his embarrassment, but even that was quickly eclipsed by fear. Fear over what could have happened if she’d ridden off in Danny’s truck instead of his.

And nothing had been done about it. Police had shown up and taken his statement—and Kensie’s, about the missing door handle inside Danny’s truck. But the officers had shaken their heads, telling Colter he was lucky Danny wasn’t pressing charges for assault. When Colter argued about the door handle—obviously meant to keep someone trapped—they’d said it wasn’t a crime to have a broken truck.

As someone who’d run investigations himself, Colter understood their dilemma. But that same experience told him Danny was still a threat.

He shot another glance Kensie’s way, unable to stop himself from drinking in a quick look at her. Reassuring himself she was safe.

Catching his look, she said softly, “Danny said he was Air Force. I thought I could trust him.”

“I really am a Marine,” Colter blurted.

Thankfully, she looked more perplexed than startled by his outburst.

“An MP. Military Police,” he clarified. “I served for almost a decade, rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant. I doubt Danny Weston’s gotten any closer to the service than walking past a recruiting booth.”

“I shouldn’t have believed him.”

Her voice was so low he almost didn’t catch it. His hands tightened on the wheel of his truck as he continued his slow, steady drive along one of Desparre’s back roads out of town. “The guy’s a creep, but he’s smart. Good at getting people to trust him. Especially women.”

“I think he was in the grocery store. He heard me talking about you. It seemed like he knew you.”

“Yeah, he knows me. But we’re not friends.” Colter and Danny had crossed paths a few times since he’d moved to Desparre. Once had been in the bar where Danny was trying a little too hard to get a local woman to go home with him. Colter had walked her to her car, but he suspected if there hadn’t been people watching, Danny would have come at him that night. A few times since, Colter had seen him around, and the guy had set his radar off.

He had no idea what had brought Danny to Desparre, but he suspected it wasn’t good. And he didn’t trust the guy within a mile of Kensie.

“Just steer clear of him, Kensie.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

There was an edge to her voice that he suspected came as much from fear as it did from anger.

He drew in a deep breath through his nose, trying to calm his emotions. Yeah, it hadn’t been smart of her to get into a stranger’s truck, but how mad could he be when he’d essentially asked her to do the same thing with him?

She didn’t know him. She was acting on blind faith and desperation. They were feelings he knew well. As much as he didn’t want to get involved in anything remotely resembling a mission, he couldn’t let that desperation lead her into danger again.

Because if Alanna had been grabbed by a guy like Danny, it was probably already too late to save her.

The errant thought left a bitter taste in his mouth and he shoved back the inevitable memories that followed, of the last moments he’d seen the brothers he’d loved. Brothers he would have traded his own life for if he could have.

He prayed Kensie wouldn’t have to live with the same grief.

“So, the store,” he said, trying to clear the fog that always threatened whenever he thought about that day, his last day in the military. “Tell me what you know.”

She glanced his way, her beautiful eyes clearing, like this was the distraction she needed, too. “Not much. Apparently the owner found it in a stack of money. The chief of police told me Jasper didn’t know who’d left it there, but I’m thinking we can ask him about everyone who came in that day. Or maybe he’ll recognize me. My sister might still resemble me.”

Her last words were full of hope and wistfulness, and he tried to remember how cold she’d told him the case was. “You said she disappeared fourteen years ago?”

“Yeah. She’d be nineteen now.”

“How old were you when—”

“When she was kidnapped?” Kensie finished. “I was thirteen.”

She didn’t offer any more, so Colter let the silence remain, let Rebel take up the task of relaxing Kensie. His dog seemed more than up for it, leaning between the seats and practically hanging her head in Kensie’s lap.

“I think she likes me,” Kensie said, amusement in her tone.

“Yeah, she transitioned better into civilian life than I did. I think she’d be friends with everyone if she could.”

It wasn’t totally true. Like most dogs, she seemed to have an innate sense of who she could trust. But she definitely would like it if he’d let more people into his life, give her someone else to spoil her.

Kensie laughed as Rebel nuzzled even closer, her front feet practically in the seat with them now. “Well, thanks for making an exception and being my friend.”

Was that what he’d done? He let the idea rattle around in his brain as they pulled up to the store out in a little strip of shops off the beaten path. Yeah, he guessed it was. He’d saved her life, she’d seen his home, and he cared about what happened to her. Plus, he sympathized over what happened to her sister. A year after leaving the military, he’d made his first new friend. As much as he liked Kensie, it left him unsettled.

“Let’s go see what we can get out of Jasper.” As he spoke the words, a familiar determination filled him, one he’d prayed wouldn’t return. The feeling of a mission.

Instantly, his chest tightened and breathing seemed more difficult. The doctors at the VA hospital had told him the PTSD might always be with him. Sometimes it would be flashbacks, other times panic attacks or nightmares. They said he needed to learn to recognize the triggers and manage his response. But that was easier said than done.

Rebel’s head swung toward him, her ears twitching. The first few months after he’d gotten out, there were times when something as simple as a branch snapping would send him right back onto that battlefield and the first crack of the sniper rifle. And he wasn’t the only one; more than once, he’d found Rebel cowering in the bathtub during a thunderstorm. Or she’d leap on him, trying to protect him from a car backfiring, and re-aggravate both of their injuries.

Rebel knew exactly what was happening right now. But he didn’t want Kensie to see his weakness, so he flung open the truck door and practically fell out of it.

The cold air shocked his system, filling his lungs and stopping the spasms in his chest. He clenched and unclenched his fists, a trick he’d learned at the hospital accidentally. It helped ground him, give him control over one small thing.

By the time Rebel leaped to the ground beside him and Kensie hurried around the truck, he felt back in control.

She squinted at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Let’s do this.” It was something he’d always say to Rebel when they were about to track a scent. It came out now without thought, but instead of provoking another attack, it straightened his shoulders and filled him with strength.

Beside him, Rebel seemed to strain forward, even though she was always off leash. She sensed a new mission as much as he did. Unlike him, she seemed truly ready.

Thank goodness her injury hadn’t fully healed.

The selfish thought hit unexpectedly. But if Rebel had healed while he hadn’t, she would have been back at war, assigned to a new soldier. The only reason he’d gotten to keep her was that the huge piece of metal that had gone straight through his leg had also pierced her. Neither of them would ever be a hundred percent whole again. Which meant the military didn’t want them anymore.

“Okay,” Kensie said, obviously not realizing the dark place where his thoughts had traveled. She strode up the snowy walkway toward the store.

He followed, trying not to be distracted by the subtle sway of her hips under her parka. Rebel trotted along beside him, ready for the kind of action she’d been trained to handle.

As soon as they walked through the door, a bell dinged and Jasper Starn glared their way. With his chrome-silver hair slicked back on his head and his dark skin over-weathered by the Alaskan wind, he could have been anywhere between sixty and a hundred. He’d lived somewhere on the outskirts of Desparre and run this store for as long as anyone in town seemed to remember. And he was possibly the crankiest store owner Colter had ever met.

When they approached him instead of walking around the store, Jasper looked them up and down like he was cataloguing places they might be hiding weapons, then grunted.

Seemingly not put off by the less than cordial welcome, Kensie gave him a wide smile. It didn’t seem to do much for Jasper’s mood, but dang if it didn’t make Colter feel a little lighter.

“I’m Kensie Morgan.”

His lips pursed, but he made no other sign he’d heard her.

Kensie’s smile faltered a little. “I’m Alanna Morgan’s sister. I know you found the note—”

“I got nothing to say about that.” Jasper cut her off, then angled his glare toward Colter. “No pets in the store. I’ve told you that before.”

Colter nodded at Rebel, who promptly sat. At sixty-five pounds of pure, lean muscle, and always at attention, she could be intimidating. “We just have a few questions. The quicker you answer them, the quicker we’re all out of here.”

“I already talked to the FBI and the police. You want to know about it, ask them.”

Kensie’s smile dropped off. Probably she was used to people being accommodating—or at least polite—when she asked them about her missing sister.

Colter took an aggressive step forward, slamming his hand down on the counter. Sensing his mood, Rebel came up next to him, baring her teeth a little.

Then Kensie’s hand landed on top of his. It was soft and slender and unexpected and it totally threw him off his game.

“I was there the day she went missing,” Kensie said, her voice a pained whisper that made even Jasper freeze. “I was thirteen. I was supposed to be watching her, but I was reading a book up by the house while she ran around the front yard.”

A sudden, wistful smile broke across her face. “Alanna was five. She was wearing this blue flowered dress, covered in dirt because she liked to play with everything. She was so grubby—her hands, her face—but the cutest little kid. She had these dimples you wouldn’t even know were there until she grinned, and then this sparkle in her eyes that told you she was about to be trouble.”

Kensie took a deep breath and Colter felt the shaking through her hand. He flipped his over and closed it around her palm, trying to give her support even as his mind warned him he was treading in dangerous territory. Connection.

Kensie’s fingers spasmed slightly in his, but that was the only sign she’d noticed. Her gaze was laser locked on Jasper. “I saw the car pull up. I saw the guy grab Alanna.” Her voice broke. “I dropped my stupid book and ran after them, but they sped away. It was the last time I ever saw her.”

Colter had been in Jasper’s store more than a dozen times since he’d moved to Desparre. For the first time, he saw the man twitch and his glare soften.

“Look, I’m not playing games here,” Jasper said, his tone conciliatory. “I found the note stuck in a stack of money in my cash drawer at the end of the day two weeks ago. I don’t know how it got there.”

“Okay,” Kensie said, leaning forward. “Do you remember any of the people who came in the store that day? Maybe a young woman—about nineteen—who looked like me?”

Jasper’s lips twisted as he stared at Kensie. “Maybe. Someone with dark hair like yours did come in that day, but she was with her family. I don’t know who she was. Hadn’t seen her before and haven’t seen her since.”

Jasper’s was a regular stop for people who really lived off the beaten path. So if Jasper had only seen the girl once—if it was even Alanna—she might have just been passing through.

Kensie’s shoulders dropped and her gaze sought his, as if she was looking for him to find a new path forward. But he wasn’t sure there was one.

If Alanna had been in the store on her way to some even more remote part of Alaska, how would they ever trace her?

Colter knew what it was like to live with a desperate, burning hope, as painful as it was powerful. But he also knew that sometimes there was relief in release, too. He’d never return to the person he’d been before he lost his brothers. But when he’d woken in the hospital and no one would tell him if his brothers were okay, he’d been frozen. Sometimes he wished he could return to that state of hopeful ignorance, but it meant being stuck, unable to move forward at all.

Finding Alanna might be impossible. If it was, what if Kensie was frozen forever?

* * *

“WE NEED TO talk to the police.”

Colter leveled his best Marine stare at Kensie across the table in the tiny restaurant off the main strip in Desparre. He’d pulled in on a whim because she’d looked so defeated after talking to Jasper that he hadn’t just wanted to drop her at her truck all alone. And if he was being honest, he didn’t want to say goodbye quite yet.

Because it was a place he came semiregularly and because Desparre was usually low-key, they let Rebel sit beside the booth as he and Kensie quietly sipped coffee. Her eyes were downcast, maybe to avoid his stare. But then, it hadn’t worked on her the first four times he’d suggested this course of action.

“What’s your hesitation? I know you talked to them once, but they’re not going to spill everything they know just because Alanna is your sister. If we go in and ask pointed questions about the note, we might get somewhere.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

He frowned, trying to figure out if talking to Jasper had discouraged her as much as it had him or if something else was going on. “It’s worth a shot, right?” he pressed, surprised with himself for playing cheerleader. He’d known this woman less than a day and already he’d spent more time with her than anyone else since his doctors at the VA hospital. Not only that, he was actually pushing her to press forward, when he’d been the one who’d wanted out in the first place.

Truth be told, he still wanted out. The last thing he needed was a mission. But Kensie had a pull about her he couldn’t deny.

She took a heavy breath before meeting his gaze. “You’re right.”

“Okay, then,” he said, forcing himself to sound more cheerful than he felt and praying he wasn’t just giving her false hope. “Let’s do this.”

At his words, Rebel’s head popped up and a grin tugged his lips. This time, instead of leading him down memory lane toward a panic attack, the idea of having a mission just made him feel wistful. If only it happened like that more often. But although he’d gotten better at avoiding triggers, it wasn’t the same thing that set him off every time.

“We’re not working, girl,” he told Rebel, who yawned and settled down on her tummy.

Kensie gave him an incredulous stare. “She understands you, doesn’t she?”

His smile grew a little. “You’ve never had a pet, huh? Trust me, they understand way more than you’d think.”

She shook her head. “Nah, we lived in the city until I was ten, then my parents finally decided three kids in a walk-up was too much and moved out to the suburbs. By then I’d kind of given up asking for a pet. I thought Alanna was going to be the one to wear them down about getting a dog. After she was gone, none of us had time for things like that.”

Things like what? A childhood? He studied her, trying to imagine what her life had been like after her sister had gone missing. Trying to imagine the guilt she’d internalized at such a young age when it clearly hadn’t been her fault.

He knew all about that. He understood how irrational survivor’s guilt could be, just like he understood that knowing it didn’t make it go away. But he’d been an adult, faced with an inevitable consequence of war. She’d been just a child. And yet, until she’d spoken those words to Jasper, he never would have suspected she blamed herself.

He barely knew her, but she came across as competent and positive. He supposed it showed that the front you put on for others didn’t always match what was underneath.

He dropped some money on the table for their coffees and stood, trying not to cringe as his leg spasmed. They needed to do this before the police station closed.

Desparre wasn’t big enough to warrant twenty-four-hour coverage. Officers here were on call after a certain hour, but the station would be closed. He checked his watch—8:00 p.m. They had one hour and then they’d be out of luck.

Kensie stood more slowly, taking one last, long gulp of coffee as if she was either preparing herself for something or delaying moving forward. Rebel followed Kensie’s lead—probably her leg was hurting, too.

Twenty minutes later they were back in town. Desparre had a few old streetlamps casting dim light over the main road, but otherwise it had grown dark while they’d been inside the coffee shop. The place looked like a ghost town, except for the light and rock music spilling out of the bar.

Kensie got out of the truck first, moving quickly. Rebel trotted by her side, only a hint of her injury showing in the way she favored her back left leg.

Colter grasped the door hard and lowered himself out slowly. Sitting in the car and then the coffee shop had stiffened up his leg. Without giving it enough time elevated, the muscle above his knee felt knotted into an immobile mess.

He forced it to move, gritting his teeth as he tried not to limp, just in case Kensie looked back. The military had drilled into him that failure and weakness weren’t options. He’d already failed, but he had no intention of looking weak in front of her. Not again.

Ahead of him, Kensie reached for the door to the police station, then jumped back as it opened from inside. Next to her, Rebel looked back to him, as if debating whether he needed her more than Kensie did.

She’d never taken to another human the way she had to Kensie. Not since he and Rebel had bonded on the battlefield had she so readily accepted anyone. Then again, he hadn’t given her a lot of chances to spend time with civilians, outside his parents and the doctors at the various hospitals.

Apparently deciding he was fine, Rebel turned back to Kensie, who was now standing face-to-face with Chief Hernandez. She was bundled up, obviously heading out for the night, and she looked less than happy to see Kensie.

Colter picked up his pace, biting down against the pain. He’d be paying for this later, but he’d seen too many veterans get hooked on painkillers or booze after life-altering injuries. So he stayed away from all of it and just took the pain. Maybe it was his penance for living when everyone else had died.

“Miss Morgan, there’s not much more we can tell you about your sister.” Chief Hernandez nodded at him as he pushed his way up beside Kensie. “Colter.”

“Chief. What about the girl who came into the store the day the note was found?”

“What girl?”

“The one who looked kind of like Kensie. She was there at the same time as a family.”

The chief gave a tight smile. “You mean the one there with her family? We don’t know who that was, but we did talk to Jasper about what he remembered. And that was a family, not a scared girl trying to escape.”

She looked at Kensie, who’d shrunk low into her oversized parka. “I’m sorry. I wish we could help.”

When she started to walk away, Colter blocked her. “What’s the problem? Is the case still open?” He heard the confrontational note in his voice, but couldn’t stop it.

She frowned and shoved her hands in the pockets of her parka. “Technically, we let the FBI take over. We checked it out. There’s nothing more we can do.” She looked at Kensie. “I’m sorry. I understand this is hard to hear, but—”

“Hard to hear? What? That the police won’t do their job?” Colter tried to keep the words inside. But either he’d lost his social skills during his self-imposed hideout this past year or he was just in military mode, assuming everyone was an enemy until proven otherwise.

He swore internally, but before he could figure out how to backtrack, Chief Hernandez stepped toward him, getting in his space.

Rebel bared her teeth and even Kensie sidled closer to him in a silent show of support, but the chief sounded more tired than mad when she finally spoke.

“We did our job. I think you’re low on information, Colter. We worked closely with the FBI on this. It was their call in the end, but we agreed with them.”

She looked briefly at Kensie, then focused her attention on him again. “Kensie already knows this because the FBI told her, but let me share what they determined after running down all the leads: The note was a hoax.”

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