What the river keeps by Cheryl Grey Bostrom 3

approach, and the smiling, wet-headed driver dropped his window. Two more rigs tailed him.

"No quitting for you, right?" The middle-aged man brushed a drip from his nose. Beside him, a petite woman wiped condensation from her side window. "Us either."

He glanced past his shoulder at the vehicles behind him. "If you see Clarence or Otis, tell them us tenters are hunting motel in Port Angeles. Tell him we'll be here with bells on tonight, though."

Rolling forward, Luke saluted the man, then parked in the rain-flattened meadow. His phone dinged and he opened Hildy's reply to his text the prior morning. A thumbs-up emoji. Only that, and after 24 hours, good thing he liked to dance. Who knew if she'd ever join him?

Inside, steam rose from his damp cohort, assembled and raring to go. Clarence said the needle. Roll away to a half sache. He called and they were off. They passed through, separated, went home. Ladies curtsied, converged, yelled, "Woo! Weave the ring. Box the nat. Wrongway grand."

Shortly before 10:00, Clarence swiped his hands in loud, brushing claps. "That's your toy box, kids. Let's put them together and see you play. You ready?"

The twins stomped. Their father stretched his neck and crowed, flapping elbows like a rooster. A broad-shouldered woman scrunched her voluminous perm, put fingers to her mouth, and whistled.

Clarence set the needle and sang. Five short rounds and 20 minutes later, he stopped the music and pointed at the floor below center stage. "Square up right here tonight," he said. "Where I can keep an eye on you. Come 7 this evening, y'all are leaving the kiddie pool."

More whoops as Clarence opened doors to raincoats and umbrellas and more dancers blowing in on the freight train wind. Luke snagged him before he returned to the stage. Mouth at the man's ear, his hand swept the room's east windows. Their heads turned to a speaker on a corner shelf. "Worth a try if she don't come," Clarence said. "Depends on the weather, though."

Chapter 22.

Hildy breached. Sunday morning, Hildy backed the Yukon to her stoop, cinched her hood, and stepped into the storm as Miranda emerged from her car at cabin 1, thrust a wave at her into the wind, and hurried into the studio. Good. No talking, and no one else outside to further jam her brain.

The campground and dance hall, the busy market on this morning's grocery run. Their noise and hubbub crawled her like spiders, and her tearful revelations to Luke had left her ragged. Three bags of groceries to get inside, and then she'd hole up through tomorrow, until the holiday passed, and all these pressing, invasive people returned to wherever they came from.

A drenching gust slammed her as she opened her lift gate. With her back to the howling wind, she sidestepped to her door, balanced the paper bag on one hip, and fumbled for her key. The lock clicked open. Hildy shouldered inside just as Luke appeared at her elbow with groceries in both arms. He backed the door into the interior wall and held it for her. "This rain," he said. "Glad I saw you out there."

"What? No, you can't." Thunder struck, she couldn't speak, couldn't move.

Behind him, her empty car shut tight. He'd even closed the hatch without her hearing him. Now in plain view, in front of him were Butter Ness, her desk and chairs and messy table, her neatly made bed, and all of her things. Gasping, she shriveled over the groceries she hugged to her belly. No warning at all. How could he? He'd stripped her, gut-punched her, violated her most carefully guarded boundary. He'd tricked her appearing like this. Proved once again that she couldn't trust any man who showed interest in her. Even worse, he wouldn't care if she did or not.

After after seeing this, still hunched, she minced to the counter, lowered her bag, and propped herself against the laminate edge. Luke kicked the door closed, set his bags beside hers. She shrank when he reached for her. "What is it, Hildy? Can you stand? Look at me."

Rain slammed and sheeted the windows. Butternest cheaped between agitated hops. Hildy stared at a row of stones along the backsplash and ticked her head his way an inch. With his fingers on her shoulder, he waited. His touch reached her lungs somehow, slowed her drowning. When his thumb hooked her chin and turned her face to his, she saw only kindness in his earth-streaked eyes. Still she looked away.

What's the matter? Didn't he see? Elbows bent, she raised flat palms to the ceiling and swiveled at the waist, presenting her cluttered space like an offering or evidence. You should have called first. Then she could have left and met him elsewhere or hidden behind her locked door. Anything to keep him from this. At least her distress over his presence was dawning on him. He removed his hat, held it like a penitent.

"Oh. Uh, yeah, sorry. I hadn't planned to. This storm saw you out there and..." he shrugged. "Your groceries were getting wet."

She didn't know what to say, so she stood with arms crossed as he scanned the room. But instead of the horror or disgust she expected, his raised brows and open mouth showed only surprise. "So are these the tricks you said you developed to help store your days to remember your life? I think you said."

What could she say? Her lips stretched flat and wide as a baby robin's rostroom. She cringed as he strolled the room's perimeter. "Ingenious," he whispered.

"Tess thinks I live in a mess. Says I'm nuts to keep this stuff."

"She's the one defines you as crazy."

"No, Tess doesn't understand me, but she doesn't question my sanity. She just wouldn't want to dust it all. Streamlined as she is like mom that way. Though similarities end there, I don't mind the dusting. Feather dusting keeps me in touch with everything."

"I see." His reaction, well, his lack of one, astonished and calmed her. The back of Luke's hand skimmed a row of her notebooks. His fingernails clicked on their bindings. "So many," he said. "Journals, diaries, lists, mostly."

Her arms scooped air as if gathering her walls' contents. "I won't forget a single day, a single event ever again, Luke. Haven't for years now."

He inspected a duck decoy that hung from a cabinet, read its underside. "Number 462 corresponds with a diary entry. And this, a narrow piece of shale on the window ledge. #1423." She felt herself blushing again. "Likewise. Your good days, bad days, they're all here or in there." She pointed at the closed bedroom door. "Except for the rocks I left at my last place. Every day is here and accounted for since I left home uh 16 years ago. Written records and visual prompts of all my waking hours."

"Huh?" From the center of the room, he considered her wooden chairs, the bed, then walked to her love seat and moved a pillow. "May I?"

"I just danced for 2 hours."

"What?" He planned to stay and sit on her couch. Still reeling, she lowered herself into her usual chair at the table. "I guess."

Luke removed his boots, aligned them near his feet, punched the pillow, and rolled his ankles. "Much better. I'm all ears, Hildy. For what?"

"The backstory on this stuff. I'm interested. Very interested." Something beneath his words. She believed him. She tracked his sightline across the collection on her ceiling, along her walls, and over every available ledge. Surreal seeing him here, knowing his eyes roved her history, told in hundreds and hundreds of items from roads and rivers, mountains and trails, gatherings from yard sales and hatcheries, lakes and beaches and little streams. His soft eyes, "One for every day," she mumbled. "And they each have a story." She nodded, smooth crease from her jeans. "If you've got time, I've got time. How about you start by the door, work your way around, top to bottom, see how far we get. I don't have to go anywhere until 7:00."

"Seven?" He wanted to stay for the next 9 hours. "Chronological order could work, too." He sat up, tapped his chin. "Or what about grouping them by themes?"

"Themes?" Her hand shook as she plucked a box from behind Butterness's cage and refilled his seed. "Yeah, like hobbies." He slung his gaze over the dozens of antique hand tools she'd hung. "Woodworking or childhood? Family? Boyfriends?"

"I'd rather not."

"Which boyfriends?"

"Boyfriend? Just one, and I don't want to talk about him."

"Okay, then." He adjusted the pillow as a backrest. "I see quite a few toys here. How about..." his eyes scampered the baseboards. "...that?" He pointed at a doll's metal high chair, white enameled with a Nordic design painted in red on the seatback and tray lip. "It's like the one I lost." He studied her. "Like the things you mentioned the other night, lost things. Now there's a theme. You have more replacements in here of other stuff you lost?"

She nodded. "Not everything, though. I haven't found copies of everything yet."

"How old were you when you lost the chair?"

"Four, I think."

Groceries can't sit out. Opened the fridge, stowed orange juice, eggs, pizza dough. He watched her, thoughtful. "My Lucy was for..." hard to imagine her losing something that size.

Is he doubting me? "I'm not questioning whether or not the chair was gone. Hildy reading my mind. Just that the logistics seem improbable. A four-year-old wouldn't be likely to stray very far, carrying something the height of her chest. You sure nobody stole that chair? Lots of kids passed through campgrounds."

A can of beans slipped from her hands and rolled toward him. Hildy stooped, then dizzied when she stood. "It was winter. I remember a patch of snow, bare trees. We lived in the store apartment then." How did he do that? Get her talking. "Tess was at school. Dad gone somewhere. sticks in my mind because mom bundled me up, sent me outside while she cleaned upstairs. I stomped puddle ice, got bored, I think, and sneaked back in, hauled my doll and that little high chair out to the yard, then ran back inside, got a sheet, and spread it over a rake candle I propped across the fence in a yard chair, a tent house, all set up. I played out there quite a while until mom called me inside." Her voice trailed off. She sat at the table.

"I can picture it. Then what happened?"

"She was worried, said I was too cold, made me come upstairs and take a warm bath. I remember because of how my frozen fingers hurt in the water's heat, and because mom was so nice, she turned on the tape player with kids songs she knew I liked. I had a squirt gun in there and bubbles. She usually said no to long baths. Usually made me hurry." Bird seed chaff littered the table. Hildy swiped it into a palm, then crossed to the trash.

"While I was in the tub, mom was changing beds, cleaning down the hall. I made a mess, so she helped me dry off, then mopped my splashes. Told me I could pick fresh clothes by myself. I remember because she rarely let me."

"Why not?"

Hildy raised her eyebrow, chuckled. "You had little girls, wildest outfits ever when I got to choose. It surprised me that mom let me pick, but I was glad. I wanted my doll, so I pulled on some warm clothes and ran back outside." The scene was vivid before her. Her confusion more so.

"And I couldn't find her. No tent, no doll, no rake or sheet or chair by the fence either. Gone. All of it. As if I'd never been out there."

A sofa spring creaked when Luke leaned forward, elbows to knees, intent on her. "Your mom? She do something with them?"

"She was upstairs cleaning, like I said. Huh? Did she help you look for them? What did she say?"

"She heard me crying on the porch and ran downstairs. I remember how worried she looked when I told her, chewing on her lips. Then she sat on the stair and petted my head like I'd break or something. Told me I'd been riding my bike outside, not playing house. That she'd been keeping an eye on me from an upstairs window. That she'd called me in when she saw my red ears and nose."

"Hildy." Still, I insisted we hunt, so she indulged me. We scoured the yard before we found the doll in the toy closet where it belonged. The sheet was in the laundry basket, as if I'd never taken it. That rake, the lawn chair, back in their spots, too. We never found the high chair. Searched high and low for the longest time. I spotted this one at an estate sale. Identical, except the detailing on mine was blue. Strange, I know. I am. Happened a bunch of times."

She batted a pair of steel roller skates strung from a hook on the cabin's center beam and watched them swing. A metal adjustment key dangled by yarn from one wheel. "Tess and I each had a pair of these. Dad took us to sidewalks in town sometimes so we could skate on concrete. One day we'd been at Erikson Playfield pretending that big slab was frozen and we were stars in the ice capes." She caught Luke's smile and nod as if he knew about skating.

"When we got home, I distinctly recall setting my skates in the kitchen to the side so no one would trip on them. Dad called us into the store, scooped us some chocolate cones. We twirled on those stools at the counter while we ate them. After my skates had up and vanished. Nobody stole them, Luke. They were on our linoleum away from the door." Luke's gaze traveled to the replacement skates overhead.

"Huh? Mom heard me wailing and came in from outside. looked sad when I told her. Resigned, I guess. Said, 'Oh, Hildy, not again. All four of us scoured the house, the yard, even Dad's truck in case I'd left them there.'" Luke was frowning at the stories or at her. She didn't ask and didn't stop the telling, afraid she'd lose her courage.

One after another, she recounted two hours' worth of detail-laden narratives about disappearing toys and books, clothes and tools, even her puppy, for heaven's sake, all where she'd left them until they simply weren't. She told him about lost belongings and her fabricated memories of how she lost them, so different from reality she learned secondhand. She was pacing, chewing her fingers. After all this, Luke would know the biggest loss was her brain, her mental marbles, all her rambling. She'd taken too much of his time. Pausing for breath, she steeled herself against his judgment. Dismissal, expected him to tie on those leather boots of his and stroll right out her door. Prepared, she faced him, looked him square in the eyes, and caught her breath at his tenderness. Was he sorry for her losses? For her, more likely. So be it. At least he'd know what she was contending with if they spent more time together. More time unlikely after this.

"The stories don't add up." He tapped the skates, sent them swinging again. "No kidding. They don't add up. That's what I've been trying to tell you. I don't remember my life correctly."

"I don't mean that, Hildy. You ever look for a common thread?"

Her mind was quicksand. "I lost stuff. I don't recall how. All my misplaced things, my skewed recollections. They're ropes, not threads. Not those threads."

"What then?"

"Still thinking on it. I'll process better over a little lunch, though." He sauntered to the counter, eyed the folded Safeway bags, apples, a loaf of bread. "May I?"

She hurried toward him and reached for the bread, but he swung the bag. "I'll make you one, too. Got any peanut butter?" He tapped a drawer. Knives. Hilda yanked the next drawer open, dug a jar from the refrigerator, and watched Luke smear bread, wash two apples, and carry the food to the table. She hovered by the fridge until he looked over his shoulder, and smiled, patted the chair perpendicular to his etude slowly.

"I doubt your memory is the issue here. What are you trying to say?"

"Otis believes a lie is in play, right? And he calls those ugly things you sense 'lie makers.' Says they might link to your anxiety. You said both shadows and anxiety are worse for you in this valley." Warmer, warmer. "You could be closer to the truth than you think."

"I don't know, Luke. Your family's been in the Elwa for what, three generations?"

"Four. Some lies get handed down. Become strongholds kids are raised with." Her eyes went wide. "Like what?"

"I don't know, but I worked for that old man. Bingo almost died under his watch. Grandpa Diller is dead."

"I don't..." Let's change the subject. She picked at her food until they locked eyes. Luke broke the gaze first. "Okay, new subject. I have a surprise for you." Wary, she lifted her chin. "Guess where I've been the past two mornings?"

She licked peanut butter from a finger. "You said you'd been dancing right over there."

"Took lessons. You what?" After seeing those dancers the other night, I couldn't resist. And don't deny it, woman. You wanted to get out there right along with the rest of them."

"I told you, Luke, I don't didn't dance for a season or 10."

"Well, 20 years. What's stopping you now? Last I saw, your legs worked fine."

"You know what's stopping me?"

"Hildy. You want to feel better? That dance tonight is a good place to start. Come with me. Let's add a happy memory to the good stories you have about your dad in that hall." Her chair scraped as she thrust herself from the table. "I can't."

"I..." Luke leaned on forearms, smiling, relaxed. "Sure you can."

"I don't have one of those dresses."

"Who cares? These will do." He pulled two crumpled bandanas from a pocket, both blue. He shook them out, tossed her one. For the longest time, Hildy stared at the kerchief in her lap, rolled it, unrolled it, fingered the hem, and finally giggled.

Chapter 23.

Luke Doc. Home from Hildy's by two, Luke rubbed Jangles's ears, and while the Longhorn burped and chewed her cud, he sat in the shade of a poplar until the cow's galvanized trough overflowed. Hildy's stories were only now catching up to him as fully as he'd known they would. The unknown behind them pressed him. He guessed their talk would be soaking her now, too, and wondered if its impact would change her mind about the evening ahead, if she'd go with him at all.

The hydrant squeaked as he lowered the handle, cutting the water's stream. He walked to his barn, cool inside, and but for a row of small square windows, dim. Through each, yellow beams slanted to the floor, his workbench and the empty wheelbarrow awaiting woodworking scraps. He leaned against a rough-cut post supporting the loft, watched dust float in the light, and prayed for answers to be as clearly lit as those specks. He'd sleep a while before tonight, turn off his phone until he knocked on her door. No text from her would keep him away.

Subdued, but apparently willing, she met him on her stoop as the sun ducked below the day's heavy cloud of clouds, now empty of rain. They set out for the bridge where Luke took her shoulders and turned her in a full circle. "Wow, look at this," he said as a fire hose of the late light sprayed tree-stacked hillsides and the river and a billion drops on needles and leaves. She smiled and rotated a second 360 on her own before they walked on.

But as they neared the hall, her steps slowed. 50 ft out, she stopped altogether. Dancers walking behind streamed around them. "You're asking a lot of me here, Luke. I can't go in there again. Not yet." Her "can't" was softer than before. The door she'd been slamming stood ajar. Hopeful, he took her arm and swung them both back toward the highway. "I'll take yet. I have a better idea anyway."

The background cream of Miranda's toes of clay sign had gone bronze in the thick light when he guided her around the studio, down the lane, and past the other cabins. In the residual warmth of the long May day, trees steamed, ethereal with gold light and evaporating rain. Apart from swallows hunting low over the shimmery lake, when he and Hildy reached the dock, they were alone. Soon fiddle music and Clarence's rhythmic calls traveled through the hall's open doors and windows and over the lake's narrow neck, its rising mist a megaphone.

"This idea of yours." Bewilderment hiked her cheeks. Luke laughed and gestured to the dock. "Wide as a square with room for swings. Edges will keep us in line." He grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the planks. Rowboats tied to the pontoon dock bobbed like cows in stons. "Here." Two steps onto the weathered wood. She halted. "With just two of us. Well pretend the other six." He turned, grabbed her other hand, too, and backed her onto the makeshift dance floor.

"The dock's too narrow, Luke."

"Not for them." He swung their clasped hands toward the invisible pairs forming the rest of the square. "They can dance on air, you know."

"Go on home, y'all." Clarence droned from across the water. "Now, let's make room for one more square. Newbies, get out here. Raise those paws of yours so we all know who you are. Let's hear it for them, folks." Through the hall's windows. Whistles, stomps, hands clapped in unison. Hildy blew from ballooned cheeks.

"Easy one coming right up. Pat your pillows goodbye cuz we're about to leave the homestead. Bow to your partner." Hildy faced him and notched at the waist in a small, stiff bow. A rusty hinge, Luke thought, seized up. How long since she'd moved to any music at all?

"Join hands now. Circle to the left." As Clarence sang, Hildy shuffled a dosey do, her circle tight, then scowled through the next three calls. Luke questioned the wisdom of bringing her here, pushing her to dance, certain she'd flit away. But when she cocked an ear, listening hard, he understood her frown as intensity, not dislike. She wasn't quitting. She knew every single one of these moves.

"Birdie in the cage," Clarence called. "Let's see those wings." Luke danced around her, clapping, whistling as Hildy lifted elbows in a meager flap. "Birdie out, crow hop in." In a smooth rotation, they traded places. Now he bird-stepped in the center of the imaginary square. As she circled him, mist and swallows and a thousand ancient firs bore witness with Luke to her rising brow and a thaw in the ice of her movements. To her small extra twirl as she orbited him, arms folded, she arched her back and threw shoulders into another dosey do while he turned with her, his elbows flapping. When her shoulders swung as if oiled, he tossed his chin and crowed through a wide-beak grin.

"Hop out now and promenade. Go around town." Her hands relaxed in his as he retook them and her wrists and elbows and knees broke from the rust. She floated like that steam over the lake. Her fluidity a descant to the foot-stomping fiddle music. Like her river, he thought, surprised, delighted, escaping the dam.

The beginner's dance ended. Luke caught her at the waist and spun her. Didn't want to let go. As if watching, Clarence's light-hearted command flew across the water. "Y'all go home now, you hear?" Rhythmic clapping rolled from the speakers, and Luke imagined the dancers setting up, eager for the next stylus placement on the next disc in the caller's sizable stack. Through five sets, Hildy led Luke, demonstrated unfamiliar steps, doubled over in mirth at his impromptu inventions for steps he didn't know. "Easy, the beginner sets. Now," he added, "flare," and her laugh was a bell. Another break, then another hour of music. They sat out none of the tunes as Clarence's singing rolled down lake and echoed off hills. And while the sun dropped into the forest behind the hall, Hildy's giggle, the waning light, and the slap of the water on the dock's underbelly joined the double-stop fiddle in the gladdest music Luke had heard in years, maybe ever.

Venus shone above the hills by the time Clarence lifted the needle from the final song. "Give yourselves a hand, y'all." From across the water, applause. Background rustle, murmurs. "Watch your step heading out now. Stairs might still be slick from all that rain. Stir pickles into your potato salad. Picnics tomorrow at 3 right out front of here."

Luke scooped Tildy under the arms and swung her again, then draped an arm over her shoulder. Under his biceps. She felt supple. Her spine bowed her into his side. No ice, no rust. He dropped his elbow down her back and held her neck in horseshoe-arched fingers as they left the dock. Near a fat maple, he looked at her sidelong. "Excuse me, ma'am. There's this pie in my truck begging for plates and forks. Think I could find some in cabin, too?"

She looked at him straight-faced. "Depends. What kind of pie?"

"Not telling. It's a good one, though. Nothing but the best for those delicious lips of yours." Her face went rosy, and she scuffed to a stop. From behind her fingers, a challenge. "How do you know they're delicious?"

Luke shrugged, his grin uncontainable. "Just guessing." He stepped in her path, reached under the shield of her palms to cradle her flaming cheeks. "May I confirm?" He heard her sharp intake of breath as her eyelids closed, saw her small nod before he brushed her mouth with his, caught his own breath, and tenderly pressed his lips onto hers. He felt her reply as he lingered. Then he eased away, licked his mouth, and eyed the shining planet overhead, assessing. Hildy blinked blonde lashes, and he traced her cheekbone with a slow finger. "Looks like we're going hungry." Her pout clobbered him and he laughed. "If there's a pie fine enough for those lips, I've yet to taste it." She towed the ground, her smile a wisp. "I'm starving, Luke. I vote for the one in your truck."

Chapter 24.

Hildy. Vitamins. You should have seen us. Butterness. The bird hopped from the cage floor to a low perch. Crown feathers lofted. He cocked his head at Hildy in her chair at the table, then swiped his beak on the perch. The dock was our dance floor. She squinted at the bird's hyperextended toe knuckles, his nail arcs too tight for a clean grab at the perch. Outside, a man shouted a greeting, and another replied, a car door slammed, "Memorial Day. Time for a trim, little guy." The canary flitted from her slow-moving hand until she caught him at the cage bars and brought him close, gauging the distance from each nail's thin red vein. She threaded Butter Ness's translucent claws into the jaws of her clipper, snipped, then gently returned the bird to the enclosure. The canary pecked seed while she spread a hand towel on her table, filled a shallow bowl with cool water, and set it on the cloth.

She rolled her lower lip over the upper, reviewing Luke's kiss there on the dock, and again after pie, the berry taste of him, after everything I told him, and after all he'd seen here in her cabin. Her eyes swept the room, its clutter exposing her mind, illustrating it. Then she removed the bird's paper-lined floor and set the cage over the bowl. "Why does he like me, Mr. B?" Luke already knew more about her than she'd ever told Cole, but he kept showing up. Why? More confusing, how on earth had he bypassed her evasiveness, and why had she let him? Never again, she'd sworn after Cole until now she'd kept that vow. The bird hopped to the edge of the bowl, then into water as deep as his underside. He dipped his head and splashed, his flutters and flaps spraying drops to the towel and cage bars, and to the nests, fur cones, and papers littering the table, until his black crown feathers parted, and his yellow breast clumped wet. When he flitted to his high perch to shake and preen, Hildy twisted the wand of her blinds to the early sun, aiming rays to warm him. A scouring pad, she thought. That sun would scrub the forest, the store roof, the flowers in Miranda's pots, the skin on Hildy's bare arms. Here it comes. She hurried to her riverside window and yanked the blinds pull cord until the wooden slats stacked at the top of the glass, opening her view past her porch and the trees and the rope swing to where sun-struck water bounced and polished her ceiling. Her mind went to the prior day, the groceries, the rainstorm, Luke bumping his way into her cabin, learning her walls and her stories, their walk to and from the hall, and their dance on the dock in the bright mist in time to the fiddle, and the sunset and his arms around her, and the smell of him, and the electric current coursing from him, warming her until her fingers didn't itch. She clumped her loose, kinked hair to the top of her head and let it fall before she spotted her current diary unopened the day before. Gasped when she realized she hadn't written, hadn't felt the need to.

At 9:00 a.m., she pulled on shoes. Busiest weekend of their year, and she'd promised Otis she'd help. With free time for dancers until today's mid-afternoon picnic, every inch of the resort would hop. She leaned into the store and mouthed, "Otis to June at the till. Check the dock, sweets." Before the door jangled closed, Hildy was on the lane with campers fresh from the showers with totes and wet hair. In campsites, others soaked up early sun and sipped coffee and lawn chairs near RVs. More strolled toward the lake with fishing poles, trailed by scents of bacon and cottonwoods. A boy on a bike whizzed past. Hildy caught up with Otis on his way to the dock. "Where do you want me today?" she asked. He shifted an armful of oars and studied her, his grin rye. "I detect a little less aversion to the Elwa antill this morning." He spat into the grass. "Wouldn't have anything to do with that heel-toe action on the dock last night, would it?" Heat rushed her face and she shrugged, almost glad he'd seen them. "I remembered how, Otis. Good thing dancing you and him. All of it." He glanced at the waiting boaters, then back at her. "You willing to spell June at the counter for a bit?" He stepped sideways toward the dock, the oars like giant whiskers from his elbows. "I'm on it," she said. "You go."

Her phone buzzed when she pivoted back toward the shore. "Hey, Tessy. What time is that picnic today?"

"The usual. 3."

"Good. I'll pick you up then."

"Mom's talking."

"What do you mean?"

"Mom's talking. As in words, Hildy. And she's recognizing people. Condress herself again. The Hillview nurse who called me couldn't believe it either. When I agreed to the treatment, I sure didn't expect this."

"What treatment?"

"Mom's naturopath contacted me with 60 years of studies on vitamins improving brain function in dementia patients. Said her own patients have benefited. Doesn't work as well in advanced cases, but she thought it was worth a try. The stuff's cheap, so I told her to have at it."

"Which vitamins?"

"A multi and some other stuff, but mainly B3. Niacin, I think."

"No kidding. I'm skeptical, but I got to see. You're coming with me, little sister. Maybe she'll know us."

"He'll decide. Three, then." Seconds later, a text. "You working, dancer girl?" Her reply to Luke was quick. "For now, Tess coming at 3. Visiting mom at Hillview." Suddenly she wanted him there with her. Did she dare ask? Yes. Yes.

Come with from Hillview's portico. Luke hurried to Tessa's car when she pulled in and he opened Hild's door when they parked. "This visit's spur of the moment, right? Last night you thought you'd be on duty with campers all day." He swiped a hand toward Tess. "And both of you here? What happened? Is your mom okay?"

"Hey, Ly." Tess slung a bag onto her shoulder and slammed her door. "Violet's making a comeback."

"What does that mean?" His eyes locked on Hild's questioning, and he gripped her hand. She held tight, siphoned his sturdiness. Tess hitched and dropped a shoulder. "Improvements, I guess. She's buttoning, zipping, putting shoes on the right feet, more aware. They're giving her mega doses of vitamins."

Hildy dropped her voice as they walked the hallway. "B3 is the ticket. I found research spanning decades. Healings, reversals, mitigated symptoms." He looked doubtful. "If it's that good, why don't they?"

"You tell me. No money in it. I guess medicine's big business." Ahead of them, Tess turned at a door and Luke released Hildy's hand. She snatched it back and pulled him into her mother's room. Near a window, Violet sat in a swivel recliner, staring blankly at a half-frozen goldfinch fluttering at the courtyard feeder outside. "Bet they're eating thistle seeds, Mom." Tessa's voice boomed in the too-warm room. The birds scattered as she turned their mother's chair to face her visitors. Violet's frame had gone knobby, but her eyes sparked with recognition. "Tessy." When she snagged Tess's blouse, her sister braced like a bull.

"Too close in here." Hildy's ribs stretched with a high-volume breath, hunting oxygen. Tess peeled their mother's fingers from the cloth just as Violet spotted Hildy and Luke. "Lars." The woman threw a hand to her mouth and wailed. "Hildy, you found your father."

"No, Mom. No, that's..." Hildy squeaked, slipped to the corridor, and pressed her spine to the wall. She slid to sit, folded knees to her chest, and chewed a thumb. "six again." In seconds, Luke was beside her, his hand on her knee-like ballast. Muffled voices seeped between the floor and Violet's closed door. Hildy again drank air, hugged her chest. "What's wrong with me, Luke? Mom took care of me, raised me. For heaven's sake. She can be a little annoying at times, but she was always kind. From the way I responded in there, you'd have thought she was one of the mean ones. I couldn't escape fast enough."

Luke studied the ceiling. "Do I look like him? Like who?"

"Your dad." Frowning, she ingested his face, torso, and the long-boned legs folded beside hers. Did he? He rolled his arms, inspecting elbows. "Anything? Maybe your hands?" He spread his fingers. "Yeah, that's it. I'll show you some pics." The sudden need to hide Luke from her mother stole more breath. Luke laughed. "Good. You start thinking I'm your dad. I'm out of here." That laugh, her chest filled with it. "Deal. Deal. Good." He said again. He pulled her to her feet, stuck his head in Violet's door. "We're going, Tess. Call you later."

"Lars. Lars. You can't take her."

"Mother, look at me." Tess in charge. Gruff. Leaving again. Lars. Violet's cries screeched after them.

Chapter 25.

Hildy. Gathering. When Luke first invited her to meet his people, she'd shied. The second Sunday, he asked, she drove to the property she'd visited twice with Miranda, and turned uphill on his gravel driveway, where she knew he'd be waiting over the rise. At the crest of his first pasture, she slowed, stopped mid-lane, and stepped from the car to calm herself like she usually did. Even after their six weeks of near-daily contact, if she didn't settle herself before she saw him, she still clammed up, and it took precious chunks of their time together before she found her tongue.

"It's as if you came to the maker's party that year you turned nine," Luke had told her over coffee. "But you stayed in the foyer. Time for you to meet more of the family, dancer girl. See the rest of the house." She agreed reluctantly. With her new Ela colleagues, she'd repeated the professional distance she perfected in her jobs at the UW and the USGS. The moat around her private life a mighty one. But that moat was draining. Kindnesses from Luke, Miranda, Juny, and Otis had begun to penetrate her mental hideout, and she now shared bits of herself in return. Four people, six if she counted Bingo and Tess. More than enough. Meet more of the family. Don't wreck this, Luke.

From the hilltop her eyes swept the dungeonous river's alluvial spit and the sky bouncing straight, then roved the watershed's farmland, and in the little town of Swim, houses full of families. She and Cole had imagined their own family once before she locked that wish away, too. She turned to the Olympic Mountains behind her, Sentinel Crags above Luke's two-story farmhouse and the weathered plank barn. Both buildings solid, simple, old. Luke stood on his porch, shading his eyes as he watched her. At his wave, she raised a hand, returned to her car, and drove toward him on the poplar-lined lane. Her mirror's rear view of water and valley dropped beneath the crest near the driveway fence. Luke's mild longhorn lay on folded legs and rolled cud in her jaw. A cowbird walked the animal's back, its head low. Hildy lowered her window and listened for the bird's gurgle. "Sing to me, Brownie," she whispered. The bird pecked an insect from Jangles's withers before Hildy proceeded toward Luke and the calico winding a tail around his leg. He opened Hildy's door and eyed the Bible in the passenger seat. "Hey, you brought it," he said. She handed him the leather-bound gift from her dad. He fanned pages, thumbed to her underlining, and looked up at her. "A 'wanna' verses," her cheeks heated. "Some," she said. "Some knew." He nodded, read her tidy script in the margins, and touched a passage. "He's talking to you," he said. "Can you tell words like these?" A smile cinched into fans at his eyes.

"We'll shortcut through the field," he said. "We're back and forth so much curtained I put a pass through in the fence." At a stand of firs they slipped through a narrow gate in the barbed wire. Behind the trees, two couples sat in lawn chairs on a rancher's patio. "Warm days like this we meet outside." Hildy bit a thumb. "Kurt and Jill worked in South American medical missions before they retired. Then Kurt finished seminary. They bought this place a few years before I got here. I met him on the road when he was walking his dogs." He shrugged. "The rest is history." She'd heard that history, how the man had worn a pasture trail to grieving Luke, packing comfort like Sav. Two more couples rounded the house with children. When Hildy hesitated, Luke caught her hand and pulled her into the group. Introductions blurred, but she sorted and assigned the children to their parents and heard of others grown and elsewhere. She attached names to the banker, lavender farmer, homemaker, and golf pro. Then to the pickleball champ, gardener, bird watcher, and kayaker before she escaped with Luke to the shady lawn, where some had already toted chairs and others spread blankets. Luke sprawled on the grass, and when Kurt perched on a stool and talked, Hildy sat cross-legged, and absorbed his stories, underlined verses, and scribbled notes. Her childhood meetings had felt something like this, when she and Tess flanked dad on folding chairs at the Crescent Grange Hall, then plucked donuts from the back table afterwards. Here, kids hollered for cobbler as fast as she and Tess had gone for maple bars, two each, on days mom stayed home to help campers. Hildy elbowed Luke as a couple herded four young children to their car. "They're patient," she said. Luke laughed. "Yeah, they're learning. Those kids give them a run for their money, but coming here helps."

And so the weeks passed, and rather than recording her days, Hildy lived them. Around her fisheries and resort duties, the Ela summer unfurled into time with Luke. After work and on weekends, they hiked to the riverside cabin at Hume's Ranch and to Alpine Wildflowers and panoramic views from Hurricane Hill. Ate dinners out or prepared them at their homes. Walked beaches and Luke's land where he'd tie Curt's lessons to stories from her walls and from his life since boyhood, and to fishing and nature and building things with wood. Talking she now craved to her surprise. Before long, her need to review each day compressed to bedtime after she closed her eyes. Then her skin would remember Luke's physical gestures, too. Thousands of affectionate touches that thrilled her, steadied her, and when he never wavered, sprouted trust. Touch she now warmly returned and initiated. Except around Miranda. She didn't know why she froze up around his sister. She almost idolized the woman. Luke certainly showed no such restraint. Whether Miranda joined them for lunch in Swim cafes, seafood dinners on the waterfront, or meals at his home, he'd invariably sling an arm around Hildy, kiss her openly on her cheek or hair. On hikes, when his sister tagged along, he'd hold Hildy's hand, touch or hug her like he always did. But as much as she wanted to, around Miranda, Hildy couldn't respond.

One evening, the three of them shared salad, garlic bread, and chowder from clams they had dug together. Hildy had served her berry sorbet, and they'd laughed, played rummy. But when Luke playfully caught Hildy at the waist, she went fence-post stiff. "What gives?" he asked as his sister's departing car dropped behind his hill. "I don't know. I can't help it."

"She doesn't bite, Hildy. She likes you. Likes us together."

"It's not that. You want me to leave you alone when she's around?"

"No. Absolutely no."

"What then?"

"I really don't know." And she didn't. Eventually, she had to chalk up her response to yet another feeling she didn't understand and couldn't explain, just as she couldn't clear the murk from her own stories or explain why some affected her so deeply. And one story was too packed with emotion to tell. She'd torn its page from the diary and ripped it to shreds.

Chapter 26.

Luke Window. He'd given Hildy time, hadn't he? Been straight up and affectionate with her, respectful and interested. Tried his best to be fun and interesting. He took care of himself. Looked good enough, he hoped, for a woman as beautiful as she was. And he knew they had chemistry. They both loved the outdoors, and their brains and beliefs connected on any number of levels. He even liked the mystery in that shyness of hers, tantalizing him with curiosity about what she'd say or do next. But with each passing day, he grew more convinced that shy or not, she was evading him. Not in all ways, of course. They could talk for hours on a wide range of topics. At the others' touch, they had to tap willpower and avoid situations that could take them too far. Intellectually, physically, and spiritually, they were on a good road. But emotionally, though he hated comparing the two, if Eden had been this dodgy, his younger self would have been long gone. Whether aware of it or not, Hildy was hiding something. Why? And why, with that near-perfect memory of hers, did she question the veracity of every childhood story she told him? He was falling for her fast. Any more time without a resolution to this, and he'd be in a real mess. Time to fish or cut bait, Hildy, for both of them.

With the tide low on this July Saturday, they'd started early, hiked the 10-mi round trip to the dungeonous lighthouse before lunch in Squim. On Luke's patio now, Hildy pulled off her hiking boots, shook her sandy socks. He carried ice water from his kitchen. "Trade?" He handed her a glass, lifted her barefoot into his lap, and rolled thumbs over her arches. Hildy sighed, closed her eyes. Her chin bobbed to the slow tempo of his massage. "You good for another outing? A short one? Got a surprise for you." She looked at him, waiting. "Wild blackberries, native ones, not those Himalayans. That same look from her. Top of my hill. Vines crawling the ground loaded with little half-inch beauties. She lowered her foot and grabbed a sock. "They ripe."

"Ripe and sweet as they're ever going to get. I'm thinking shortcake tonight. You in?"

Barry's thunked the bottoms of buckets when Luke pinched a plump one between his fingers and raised it toward Hildy, who was hinged at the hips and calf-deep in thorny vines. "For your thoughts," he said. "He was going to chase his hunch. He'd considered it for days." She eyed the berry and swung her bucket toward a dense mound behind him. "I was thinking we shouldn't try to pick over there."

"Why? Over there..." more blackberry vines sprawled the hillside in a tangle of toothy leaves. "Male brambles, only female blooms bear."

"No kidding." He ambled toward the heap, inspecting. Not a berry in sight. "As good a lead-in as any. Some guys are like that." He smiled at the segue and watched her closely. If his words registered, he couldn't tell.

"Ever know any?"

Her nose crinkled. "Huh?"

"Any what? Guys who didn't sweeten your life?" He pointed to a thorn's scratch down her shin. "Guys who made you bleed?"

Her lips parted. Fingers sped over vines. "Maybe just one guy. That boyfriend you mentioned but never talk about."

"Still don't want to."

"One conversation, Hildy. That's all I'm asking. A point on our map. We can pass right through it, but we need to go there if I'm to understand you, know you better."

"What for?"

"Because I wonder if whatever happened is still affecting you."

"What if it is?" He wove through the brambles to her. When he took her bucket and lowered it to the ground, she remained stooped, hands on her knees. He touched her arm until she stood. "Even the short version is fine," he said. She left the berry patch and faced the mountains, her back to him.

"I swore I wouldn't."

"Swear you wouldn't tell me. I swore to more than that. I don't bite, Hildy. Haven't I proved that time and again?"

"Yeah, but I..."

"I like you, Luke. I don't expect this us to last forever, but once you know, you'll..."

"I'll what?" She resumed picking.

"Quit wasting your time."

"Try me." Bingo's warning resonated, but Luke had to know. A Canada Jay perched on Hildy's bucket, then glided to a mate in a nearby fir. Luke added his berries to hers and watched her. 5 minutes passed before she spoke.

"Cole."

"Who?"

"His name was Cole. He was a senior in engineering at the U when I met him. First week of my freshman year." Luke upended his empty bucket and sat 8 ft from her. "We were together 10 months. He was amazing. Never gave me a reason to believe otherwise. Thought I'd be with him."

For the rest of my life. She went silent, studied purpleled fingernails. But here you are. Yes. Because we'd gone out 6 months when he asked me to marry him. I told him I would. No date set, but he gave me a beautiful ring. And then like extracting slivers, we made plans. I was really happy. We both were. I thought her tears erupted and he went to her. Hildy. She raised a hand. If you stop me, Luke, you'll never hear it. He pressed his lips together, returned to the bucket. End of the year, he graduated and I left for a summer internship in Maine. We talked every day, but I didn't see him for 6 weeks. She wiped an eye, stood like a soldier, and frowned. Then what, Hildy? Her lips trembled. I decided to surprise him, so I came back a day early. I parked by his truck in the alley so he wouldn't see me drive in, then sneaked into the kitchen. He never locked that door during the day. I couldn't wait to see his face when he saw me. I thought he'd be so happy. What did he say? Nothing. He didn't see me, I mean. But I heard him and a girl laughing. My freshman roommate before I moved off campus. Actually, she dated one of Cole's roommates, so she was around there a lot. Dumb me. I didn't suspect a thing. I tiptoed into the living room and she swallowed, looked at the ground. They were on the couch. They were Oh, man. Yeah. Neither saw me. I yanked off my ring, threw it in a bowl on the kitchen counter, slammed the door on my way out. No doubt. Resignation rode her exhale. You've got to know that I've been over him for a long, long time. But back then, I was so upset that when I couldn't reach Tess, I called my mother. Her mother. We talked for an hour. And she reminded me that relationships with guys were tough enough for normal women. Said that given my lifelong issues and the character of most men, catching Cole red-handed was the best gift I'd ever receive. She said, "If I didn't stay away from the whole lot of you, I'd be sorryer than I could imagine. I'd never heard her be so blunt." "But Dad was a good man," I told her. "And where is he now?" she asked, as if she knew. I couldn't answer her. I'd known Dad had gone hiking that morning, but something in mom's tone, the innuendo in it. What if he hadn't gotten lost after all? What if she knew he'd gone somewhere else? Now I had the rotten hope that if my dad wasn't who I thought he was, maybe he was alive somewhere. Maybe I'd see him again after all. But would I want to? Luke groaned. Once she brought dad into it, I didn't know what to think. Mom knew me better than anyone did, and she knew my dad. If I couldn't even trust him. Cole called me, wrote me, apologized so many times, cornered me outside my apartment and at my part-time job, and begged for another chance. But what was the point in talking? Mom was right. How could I possibly trust him again? How could I trust any man or myself? I vowed I'd never get involved with anyone again. She finally looked at him with dry eyes this time. And now here you are, and I'm playing with fire. A double whammy. This coal guy and worse, her mother's ridiculous advice. Her insidious advice. Just because one guy goes sideways on you doesn't mean they all will Hildy. What would it take for her to believe that? Was he the one playing with fire?

Chapter 27. Hildy leap. The August day after Dave briefed them at Olympic National Park headquarters in Port Angeles. The 21 members of four Ela survey teams headed for their assigned staging areas on the river. In this final survey before the dam's decommissioning the following June, researchers from myriad agencies would record water temperatures, depths and quality, the physical condition of the river's creatures, sediment makeup and accumulation, and other ecosystem data. But their most critical assignment, counting. From the mountain headquarters near Chicago camp all the way to the straight, snorkelers would swim the river, lay eyes on fish, and count them one at a time. Awake by 4:00 a.m. on August 20th, Hildy arrived at the Whiskey Bend trail head an hour before the others converged. "You're like a thorough bread in the gate," Luke had teased the night before. She parked her rig, smiling. That grin of his since she'd told him about Cole and Dad and her mother's take on things. Something had shifted in her. "For the better," she thought, though she couldn't say why. "A racehorse?" She'd suppressed her own smile hardly. But here she was about to bolt up river. As she waited in the awakening forest, she knew team one was setting up below the lower dam. Within the hour, team two would bivowwak here at Whiskey Bend, and she would set out with teams three and four for predetermined positions on the river's upper reaches. While all teams would begin shoreline data collection as soon as they got situated, the swimmers would wait for Hildy's call to avoid double counts of the same fish. Once her team four reached the headarters, she would set the simultaneous start time for all four teams. Only then would snorkelers enter the river and begin their counts. Near a heap of rope wrapped parcels, a string of three mules and a saddled quarter horse mare with a bell at her neck twitched sleek shoulders against flies. Slouched in waiting, the animals straightened cocked legs as the mule skinner lashed bundles of food, camping gear, dry suits, and survey equipment to their backs, balancing loads, checking for rub points. Like wind, the l was swished and murmured beyond them. A few feet from the packr, Dave Cloud's ran geling kicked at biting insects on its belly. Dave rubbed an insecticide wipe over the horse, then looped rains on the saddle horn and tightened the cinch. Hildy walked the line of animals briskly, touching lash ropes that secured khaki covered equipment to the pack saddles. Early sun flossed trees as she referenced the clipboard list at her hip. Team members assembled around her. Her impatience was rising. For weeks, she had evaluated reports from the Cessna's flyover, monitored log jams, and gauged weather and water conditions, antsy to enter the steep wild river and swim with those fish. Delayed twice by storms, their time window was closing. If they couldn't complete the survey before the fall storms arrived, they'd lose their low water opportunity to access the canyons and the essential data they hoped to collect before the demolitions forever. Now, finally, the river's clarity and depth were again at seasonal norms, and a strong high pressure ridge promised a week of fair, dry weather. "Time to go," she thought. "Now around them, tales of moss floated from trees like seaweed in the air's soft current." She sniffed for rain, skeptical of the blue patchwork through the woods canopy. In this country, a nose could often predict coming weather, as well as meteorologists or sky. And even in August, storms could rise fast. Another downpour could force more delays, compromise their research accuracy, and jeopardize team safety. Snorkelers could only swim narrow, bouldered Carlson Canyon in low flow conditions. Heavy rain would render that shearwalled stretch nearly as dangerous as the river's Grand or RA canyons. And anywhere along the Elwa, logs and unstable woody debris could trap, batter, or drown them. What's the barometer say, Dennis? A tall man checked to gauge. Lower than an hour ago. They looked at each other, then at the sky. Watch conditions, she told the gathered teams. Surveyors have flagged Whitewater. Team three, obviously bypass the major canyons. There's no way to climb out of those shoots if you get in trouble. Team four, we'll stay out of Carlson Canyon until we're sure it's tame enough. A lean muscled biologist whispered to a bearded colleague shouldering his pack, then ran his gaze down Hildy's body. She glared at him. I heard that, Bryce. Kayak all you like off duty, but we'll read Carlson when we get there. I don't care if you're wearing Kevlar or medieval armor under your dry suit. Stay out of crazy white water. All of you get to high ground if the weather turns. Everything else is a go. Track each other. Stay within range. Wear the rivers wide. Add a third diver so you don't miss swaves. She ran a finger down her clipboard. You all ready? Mules ambled onto the trail behind the Skinner's mayor. The group hoisted packs. Good. We're off then. Amused, Dave spoke low as she approached. Kudos, trail boss. Big cake of a reprimand coming from you. His saddle creaked as he mounted. They need to be careful, she said. We handpicked those teams, Hildy. They know. She bit a thumb. But Bryce, do you think he'd try to float Carlson if the water's high? Don't be gullible. He's getting a charge out of your reactions is all. The man's your age with enough river Rex kaying in that freestyle playboat of his to teach him a few things. You let him, he'll bait you all week. He nudged his horse onto the brown seam of trail. Gullible. She dawned her pack with mules carrying the bulk of their loads. Her gear didn't weigh much. They'd make good time. She brought up the rear, distanced from the others banter. Alone with her thoughts, her gaze swept the understory, the damp mossy boulders and the dark sea of tree trunks, and she assembled observations she'd share with Luke. He'd be curious about everything. So, how'd you feel about that, Hildy? She could hear him. She was learning to answer. This time she'd tell him about the trail's voice calling her. The parental hover of stiff limbmed spruces and furs, the river's moods, its pensive turquoise, its white narrow rage, and the ache in her over both. She'd also mentioned the elk calavs browsing near their mothers, and bulls dangling bloody velvet from new antlers once she could name the feelings about family they evoked in her. and she'd tell him how she watched for something, anything of her dad's, for clues on his cold, mysterious trail. Lunch, rest breaks, and 11 miles were behind them when the trail veered to a lowbank stretch of river. Dave directed team 3's attention to the gravel shore. Our first put in tomorrow right there. This section's a clean run and the first long reach, so we'll split our counts, start a new one at the surveyor's flag. Come on, let's unload. At nearby Elhorn cabin, the packer loosened diamond hitches and others carried gear from the mules. Dave and the Skinner pulled saddles, then watered and staked the animals to graze the meadow. Teams made camp in the cabin and around it, cooking, laughing. Hildy walked the field's perimeter, reading the trees and air before she slipped into her tent early. After breakfast, Hild's radio beeped. She replied to a downstream team, then frowned at scooting clouds and hoped the weather would hold. "We'll see you in 4 days, Dave," she said. The packstring set out, and Dave waved her and the upriver team on. Along miles of gradual ascent between Elhorn and Hayes cabin, Douglas furs gave way to the elegant silver furs Hildy loved, and team four followed the river past Floodplane. A liquid dream, she thought as she tried to ignore the shifting air. By late morning, however, the rising wind sent a steady whoosh high overhead, and she eyed the swaying canopy every few minutes. They had passed the Haze River confluence when Bryce slung his pack beside a landslide's uprooted fur and crashed through brush to peer over a canyon's lip. "There's Carlson!" he shouted. Seconds later, Hildy heard Dennis whistle and watched him and wiry dark-haired Liz lower backpacks and skirt more downed logs to reach indigo huckleberries dotting shrubs like jewelry. Time for a break anyway. Hilty shrugged free of her load, pulled trail mix from a zip pocket, and scaled the boulder for a clearer view of the river, the terrain, and the changing weather. The Skinner untied his mare from the string, quickly staked the mules, and remounted. He called to her from the trail. Wind's picking up. I'll get on top and take a quick look from that crown. See if more sky can tell us what we're in for. The packer's concern heightened Hildies. Her backcountry team could handle a storm without issues. But could she? A rogue squall could force delays, and rain would mean shared tents or decrepit shelters, and more time in the close proximity she did her best to avoid. At the riverbank, Bryce eyed treetops. "I'm not digging this," he shouted. "Looks like that blowoff Cape Flattery veered east." Hildy craned toward the sky. "Let's hope those clouds are bluffing. If they emptied their buckets even an hour ago, we'll be okay." 20 yards off trail, Liz and Dennis ate berries as fast as they could pick. Bryce peered into the water 15 ft below. Hildy was reading GPS coordinates when a wild Bray arrested them all. Below her boulder, the mules screeched, lines taught, they huddled, loads pressed to one another, their brown streaked teeth bared as a pair of black cubs scampered from the berry patch straight toward Bryce. No, not toward Bryce. The cubs hurdled toward their mother as she charged the man between her and her half-grown babies. Hildy clapped hands to her mouth. Dennis yelled, waved, and trampled brush as if to intercept. The mules swiveled long ears and kicked air. Slackmouthed, Bryce stood frozen between the advancing bear and her cubs for a full two seconds. Then he crouched, leapt toward the icy river, and disappeared.

Chapter 28. Hildy knife. The SA lurched to a stop at the bank's edge, then spun to 6'4 in Dennis, who spread his windbreaker overhead like a sail and bellowed. Liz pulled bearpray from her belt, and sprinted toward him. Hildy clambored from the rock just as the mother bear wagged her nose, grunted, and cuffed the first cub to reach her. When Dennis roared again, the SA stood on hind legs, raised her muzzle, and sniffed. Then she dropped to all fours, circled wide, and with Cubs in her wake, loped up the tailless hillside and over the ridge. Hildy, Dennis, and Liz scrambled to the cliff at Bryce's jumpoff point. Intent on the churning water. Hildy shielded her eyes, wishing for her field glasses stowed on one of those mules. She scrutinized the boulder strewn river below. "Water's low enough he can swim it." "If he's conscious, he'll have to swim it," Liz said. No way in or out of that gorge for more than a kilometer. He'll have to ride the cataract. Dennis squinted into the distance. A 2 m drop. He can handle that, Hildy said. Or could he? The cold would be paralyzing. He'd have to swim that frigid water without his dry suit. If he was conscious and could swim at all. Dennis stretched taller, teetering. There he is. 40 yards downstream, a drenched head rounded a boulder. Legs behind it flailed. But whether from the current or Bryce's effort, Hildy couldn't tell. Dennis cuped hands to his mouth. Ride it, Bryce. We'll get you out. No sign the man had heard. Reckless, stumbling, they reached the mules. Dennis blew his whistle for the Skinner. The sound bounced every which way in the trees and canyon, but no horse rounded the bend. Where was he? They couldn't wait. If the river hadn't already killed Bryce, the icy water could. They had to get him out, dry him, warm him. Liz and Dennis bolted downhill. Breathy with fear, Hildy pawed at the mule's wrapped loads. No time. She snagged Bryce's pack, tore his rain gear into a fleece from inside, and set off after them at a run. She'd followed for at least a mile before the pair ahead of her left the trail. All three clawed through brush to where the frothy river left the tight gulch, then pulled, spread, and slowed, its surface now as gray as the thickened clouds above them, and where, humped like the sa he'd evaded, Bryce staggered toward their side of the river. Hildy dropped the clothes she carried, all three splashed the kneedeep water toward him. Then Bryce stumbled, pitched into Hildy, and plunged them both into the glacial drink. I'm okay. You tend him. Though Hildy had never been colder in her life, at least they'd crouched behind a boulder out of the wind. Beside her, Bryce shuddered, his lips blew. Contusions purpled both his cheeks. Already clotted, a 2-in gash on his calf gaped. Liz squeezed Hildy's arm. Put this on. She opened her rain jacket, untied the fleece at her waist, and zipped Hildy into it, then cinched the hood over Hildy's dripping braid. Wear this, too. Hold in a little more heat. Liz removed her cap, seated it over the hood, and turned her attention to Bryce. "If you'd taken a snorkeling and slate, we could record that reach." Liz cocked a dark eyebrow at him. Bryce grinned crookedly as Dennis lifted his colleagueu's wet shirt, exposing a bruised shoulder blade and ribs scraped raw. "Yeah, what was I thinking?" Bryce said. "Would have been fun suited up." He winked at Liz, pursed his lips. "Don't get fresh, buddy. Stand up now. We'd better make sure nothing's broken before we hit the road. He dropped eyelids to half mast and raised his chin. Take your time, baby.'s teeth chattered as she watched Liz check Bryce's pupils, palpate his back and belly, and test his limbs range of motion. Bumps and scratches is all. Lips flat, Liz watched him work arms into the sleeves of his recovered fleece and rain jacket. Bryce, you're an animal. You know that? You just body surfed Carlson in nothing but cargos and a tea. She tugged Hildy and turned toward the trail. Come on, let's find those mules. Get you dried off. They'd scarcely set out when the clouds opened and wind spanked them with a horizontal deluge. In river soaked boots, Hildy already couldn't feel her toes. By the time they reached their abandoned packs, rain saturated the fleece Liz had loaned her, and cold reached her bones. She dawned her rain gear, but needed more than waterproof nylon over her soggy clothes. Layers of shirts, pants, warm socks, and her towel waited in that second beast's canvas pack. But the stakes, tieline, and mules were gone. Farther upstream with their handler, Hildy figured, "But how far?" Shivering in her raincoat, worry niggled at her as she spotted Dave ascending fast behind them, his horse blowing hard, his dripping poncho flapped. "Glad I caught you guys," he said. "I passed your mule string two miles ago heading downhill. He heard a whistle. Thought you were ahead of him. From the looks of you, that would have been a good idea." "Yeah." Hildy's teeth chattered. "This squall is no help. It's a cold one. It's no squall, Hildy. We've got ourselves a gully washer. an atmospheric river for the next two days at least. Oh no. Every team's called off. High waters expected the entire length of our study area. Fast runoff will be turbid. Dave shifted in the saddle. Water dripped from his poncho brim and ran in rivullets past the horse's flaring nostrils. If you can get to Haye's cabin, the packer and I will unload your gear there. We're so close. All those miles. He propped an elbow on the saddle horn and looked at her. You're not thinking straight. You don't even have tents. Dave's ran stood behind her, eyes closed, head low against dollops of water penetrating the canopy. Hildy blinked away drips, her brain cloudy. No, we don't. The four of you wait this out at Hayes. The Skinner and I will look after the animals at Elhorn and stay in the cabin there with team three. He scanned the forest, the thick trunks of evergreens like bars in a basement cell. Moss and needles from their branches dripped and bobbed in the wind. "You better get going. Already feels like twilight in this gloom." "I cashed more food inside Haye's cabin with your name on it. There's dry wood on the porch." "Gotcha," Liz said. Hildy nodded and stuttered her thanks. Bryce and Dennis angled downhill. Dave took up his reigns, his smile kind. "We'll debrief later. Just get to Hayes while you can still see the trail." Dave and his horse were long gone when the hikers splashed through gathering dusk and crossed the clearing to the Hayes River patrol cabin. On the covered porch, Hildy stumbled on the heap of packs left by the Skinner and smacked into the primitive log wall. Liz eyed her with concern. Dennis pulled a headlamp from his pack, took two buckets from hooks, and headed toward the sound of rushing water. Fumbling with the latch, Hildy's hands shook as she shouldered the door open. Liz hurried past her into the single room, shown a flashlight at the cook stove, and passed a large pot to Bryce. "Fill this, too," she said. Liz's face blurred in the dark, her voice seemed far away. "We'll get you a fire, Hildy. No running water or toilet in here, but at least you'll be warm." Her tongue thick, teeth rattling. Hildy nodded. Clumsily she grasped tinder and kindling from a crate and stuffed it into the cook stove's firebox. While Liz gathered fur rounds from the porch, Hildy broke the first match, her pressure against the abrasive strip unmeasured, her fingers useless. Clenched against tremors. She scuffed a fresh stick. The flame popped to life, but as Hildy thrust it to the fuel, she fell against the stove. Liz dropped her arm full of wood, caught her, and pulled her upright. I got you. Let's get some heat in you. Mustered a dull nod and stood at the open firebox. Liz gripped her tighter as the kindling quickly caught, crackled, and popped. The orange glow lit Liz's angular face. Her eyebrows pinched into the crease between them as she studied Hildy. Boots thumped the planks outside, and Dennis elbowed the door open, his buckets dripping. Bryce followed with the soup pot. "Back of the stove," Liz ordered. "Then hang on to her, Bryce. She's struggling. Ought to be me, not you. Bryce said, "Sorry I knocked you down." He blurred in Hildy's vision as he lowered the pot, threaded arms under hers, and propped her against him. Liz added wood to the fire. Her mind like cotton. Hildy watched Liz scoop water from the soup pot into the kettle and set it above the flame. Voices reached her, muffled, dreamlike. She thought her clattering teeth would break. Liz reclaimed her from Bryce. Give us 5 minutes, she said. Bryce brought Hildy's canvas tote and sleeping bag inside, then joined Dennis on the porch. Liz sprang into action. Dry clothes, hot tea, you'll be as good as new. She shook Hildy's sleeping bag onto the bunk closest to the stove, then rummaged the pack for dry undies and socks, a fleecy sweatshirt, leggings, and beanie. Think you can put these on? Hild's nod was [ __ ] When she reached for and missed the string to loosen her hood, Liz took over, untying, unbuttoning, unzipping. She sat Hildy on the bunk, stripped her saturated boots and socks, raincoat, fleece, shirt, and bra, then wrapped her sleeping bag around her while she stood her again, and pulled off her lower layers. Liz directed her as if she were a child, and Hildy responded like one, reaching, stepping, turning as Liz dressed her, tucked her into the bag, checked the water's temperature, and brought a mug of warm tea. drink," Liz said when she helped Hildy sit up. She held the mug while Hildy swallowed, then poured her another hotter one that Hildy wrapped with cold fingers. Outside the window, a headlamp beam illuminated a shadowy wall of firewood stacked between two trees. More wood thumped to the porch. Liz sat on the bed at Hildy's hip, leaned close, and shown a flashlight at her face and the empty mug. "Good, not shaking so much. I almost stripped down and got in there with you. Can you talk yet? Swallowed hard, licked her lips. I think so. Thanks, Liz. Sorry. The wind. I was too wet. My brain awol again. Now they'll know. Liz waved her off. Blame it on the bear. A knock sounded and Liz leapt to the door, swung at a jar. The bedraggled men hurled more bundles inside and latched the punchin door against the storm. Water pulled under dripping coats they hung on pegs. The monochrome twilight dissolved. Bryce shown a flashlight over the corner bunks, a rough table, chairs, and shelves laden with kitchen paraphernalia, canned goods, and litted plastic tubs snugged against the wall beneath the shelves. Matches, Lizzy. Liz tossed him the box. He lit the Coleman lantern on the table. The room flooded with white light as Liz draped wet clothes on a drooping line strung near the stove. Bryce added wood to the fire. Dennis cuped hands to the window and peered into the night's ink. "Sorry I didn't notice you were in trouble, Hildy," he said. "Thought you warmed up when we started walking. Too focused on Bryce. How's that leg, Superman? Anything left of that brain of yours?" Bryce waggled eyebrows above his bruised cheeks. "Regenerating as we speak, part crab, you know." He emptied a bag of dehydrated soup into the steaming pot of water, dug through Dave's tote for bread, and opened the communal cash. Never know what you'll find in these things. He extracted a package and laughed. Well, I'll be cornmeal mush. A true 1950s breakfast, compatriots. I dig this stuff. Last time I ate some was uh from a cash at Upper Lena Lake, boiled and sugared. He held the carton to the light and squinted. And get this, only expired 6 months ago. Bildy pulled her bag to her chin, watched Dennis add a can of chicken to the soup, and closed her eyes. He was doing out bowlfuls when Liz roused her, filled her mug. Silent, she dunked grainy bread, and ate. A half hour later, the others played poker while Hildy rolled to the wall, and burrowed into her bag. They all slept in. At 8:00, Bryce rekindled the fire, set coffee to boil. From her bunk, Hildy watched through slitted eyes as Liz sliced into the cornmeal packaging and stirred it into a saucepan. Bryce zipped and rolled his bag and secured it with a bungee. Dennis tidied and stowed, making room for them to wait out the storm. How about these knives, compadres? Bryce leaned over a log round in the cabin's far corner. Several midsize fixed blades and a couple of multi-tools projected from the saun surface, their tips embedded in the wood. I've seen clothes and food for the taking in these cabins, but never neck blades. Some nice ones here. Anybody need to trade up? Liz inspected the assortment, unsnapped a sheath at her belt, and pulled a shiny blade. From my fianceé, she said, "The man reads my mind. Feel the balance of this thing." She handed the knife to Dennis, who tested its heft, nodded appreciatively, and handed it back to her. Hildy crept from her bag and retrieved her dried boots from beside the stove. Bryce crossed to her, nudged her with an elbow. Morning sunshine. You sure were out. I checked you a couple times. Made sure you were still breathing. Checked me how? She scooted from him and thought of Butter Ness vacationing with June and Otis at the store. Oh, for the privacy of her cabin or on the trail or river with nobody talking to her, unless it was Luke. Good, thanks. She zipped her parka, fingered her pocketed multi-tool and yesterday's pebble, and slipped outside to pee. Dennis handed her a bowl of mush when she returned, and she wandered to the shelves, perusing. She ate standing, swallowed dregs, then strolled to the assortment of knives. She had pulled, inspected, and receeded two when a third caught her eye, and she tugged the 5-in blade from the wood. "My dad had one like this," she said. Dennis poured more coffee, stepped closer. Yeah, that buck knife. Can't imagine anybody swapping out a knife like that. Hildy carried it to the window, ran a finger on the engraved blade, and read the inscription, felt the blood drain from her face. It is my dad's. The other three bunched around her. Hildy handed the knife to Liz and sank into a chair. Bryce leaned close and read aloud, "HBD, my Lars, your V1 1980." So Lars is your dad. What's V for? Violet, my mother. Liz swiveled the knife, inspecting. The blade glinted light from the rain spattered window. Pretty conclusive, that's for sure. Amazing nobody's taken it. Your dad's been gone since you were a kid, right? Wonder how long it's been here. How did Liz What else did these people know about her? lost at hiking, I guess. Her lungs heaved as she rummaged a pocket and stabbed the tip of her multi-tool into the log. On a shelf, she found a water stained sheath, snapped her father's knife inside, and clipped it to her whistle lanyard. Her mind raced. When had dad hiked this far up river, or had he lost the knife only to have some other hiker find it and bring it here? And when. She hugged the sheathed blade to her chest, felt her underarms drip. If he left it here himself, why did he think he wouldn't need it again? The log walls, these people, the shingles thundering with rain. Oh, they pressed, pressed her, and Bryce. He crowded her, looked at her too much. Eyeing the door, she considered flinging it wide and running under the angry clouds into the pummeling rain. Anywhere but here. Her lungs shrank. She crawled onto her bunk and faced the wall, her fingers itching as she forced herself to breathe.

Chapter 29. Hildy split. Leaving for work. Hildy startled at Miranda on her stoop, poised to knock. Quickly, she stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind her. She glanced at her watch and frowned. Only 6:30. I wanted to come to your party, Miranda. I'm sorry. Miranda stood tall, a plastic wrapped piece of chocolate cake in her hands. We missed you. Luke missed you. She held the paper plate toward Hildy. I told him I'd bring this. You came from your lake house this early to bring me cake. Nice of you. But we need to talk, Hildy. I wanted to catch you before you left before you saw Luke again. Without the plate in her hand, Miranda rubbed a thumb. Fidgety shifted side to side. Nervous. Talk about what? About him and you. I'm only here because I care. You've got to realize that. Okay. A shiver ran Hildy's backbone. She eyed the scutting clouds, gripped the plate tighter. As if stealing herself, Miranda filled her lungs, then straightened even taller. Luke and you. He's the finest man I've ever known, Hildy. A man who doesn't want to scare you off. For some reason, he and Tess think you're some sort of baby needing protection, not a 34year-old woman. He thinks you only need time to warm up to him. Miranda sputtered, baldled her fists. But patience has its limits. Do you have any idea how he feels about you? I've been watching you for months now, and I honestly don't see you warming up to him at all. He could serve you his heart on a platter, and you wouldn't reciprocate. Last night, after he'd waited for days to see you, you blew him off. Blew him off. When he came back from your cabin, he had disappointment written all over him, and it was the last straw. Miranda's neck and ears blazed. Absolutely the last straw. What? Miranda had been evaluating her. Yes, and had found her lacking. Not good enough for Luke. Hildy sank to a stare, paid no mind to the cake that tipped and sagged onto her lap. Appears to me, Hildy Nibbo, that you're toying with him, killing time at his expense, and I won't have it. I watched his heart break once. You'll break it again over my dead body." Miranda crossed her arms and thumped them to her sternum, fierce, protective, and rejecting me. The wind swirled an alloy chill between them. Hildy couldn't look at her, and for a moment couldn't move. Then she brushed the upended cake to the ground. Talk to me, Hildy. War glinted in Miranda's eyes. I need to know you'll leave him alone. Hildy had no answers. No words at all. Wasn't even sure she had a tongue. She stood on trembling legs and walked to her SUV, her mother's caution loud in her head. Right. All along. At the natural resources building, Hildy slipped through a side entry and hunkered in her office with the lights off. the door locked. For an hour, she rearranged papers on her desk, their print too blurry to read. Accusations spun through her brain. Miranda rose large in her mind. Miranda, the woman she'd come to consider a friend,

Chapter 30. Luke. Warning. As his truck rounded the corner from the east, Luke saw Miranda collapse the A-frame open sign and carry it from the highway shoulder toward the entry to toes of clay ceramics. She looked up when he pulled into the empty lot. Seconds later, the Brinks SUV rolled in behind him. Miranda leaned the sign under a studio window. Arms spread, she hurried toward the vehicles as their doors opened. All of you? What a surprise. Then she saw them and halted, her face slack with confusion and concern. What? Arms folded, stances wide, Luke and Bingo stood at the Suburban's bumper and scowlled. Tessa's expression resembled the men's as she crawled from the passenger seat, slammed her door, and extracted a box from the rear seat. But when Bingo pulled a pitch pipe from his pocket and blew a steady C, their feigned gloom crumpled into grins, and Tess's alto, Bingo's bass, and Luke's baritone launched into an offkey rendition of Happy Birthday. Miranda giggled and batted a hand. You got me. I thought somebody died or something. Luke squeezed his sister to his side. Not a chance, Mirie. We're having us a little party for my number two woman. Tessa's head snapped toward him. Does that mean what I think it does? Her frown was genuine this time. Relax, Jesse. Bingo pulled another bag from the back seat and headed for the door. I never thought Hildy would sit in her place, but I've been waiting for somebody to dethrone his sister for years. He aimed a finger at Miranda. So has she. Miranda adjusted shoulders to a regal posture. On one condition, Luke followed her inside. And that would be that she's right for him. If she hurts you, Luke, save it for the wishes. At the narrow counter, Tess pulled a cone-shaped party hat from the bag, stretched its elastic, and settled it on Miranda's head. Bingo lit the single candle, then carried the cake to her on flat palms. "Blow!" Tess said. "Now?" Bingo raised the cake to nose height. "You think you'd get us to sing twice?" Miranda shrugged, tapped her chin, and contemplated the ceiling. Then she puffed out the candle and swiped a finger full of frosting. "Hold on, cavewoman." Tess pulled plates and napkins from the bag, handed out forks and party horns, then waggled a knife above the cake, now perched precariously on a bar stool. Whoa, Tess. Luke caught her knife wielding hand. Care if we wait a few minutes? They're down from the mountain. Hildy will be here. She texted me an hour ago from her office. Tess heaved a sigh, lowered the blade, lumbered to a window. She glanced up the highway hill, then thumped Luke's chest with a forefinger. Spittle rode her whisper. You be careful with my sister, Luke. She's as tender-hearted as they come. Like a baby sometimes. If you do her wrong, if you hurt her, push her, scare her, dump her, when all her weirdness outweighs her gorgeousness, I'll have your hide. I wouldn't think of it. A rig on the highway arrested him. His eyes darted from Tess as Hildy turned at the store and he flew outside to wave her SUV alongside his truck. When she stepped to the ground, he pulled her into his arms and swayed her. Her hey Luke was music. I missed you. He ran a knuckle down her cheek and kissed her nose. You were gone a year. Her smile was tentative, but she raised her chin and let him in. her white blonde brows, those pale lashes, that navy rim around her ice flecked irises. His gaze rested lightly lest he spook her, but she held it. "Oh, this woman!" Without a word or a touch in reply, she leveled him. Owned him. He glanced at the studio and pulled her out of sight. Their lips touched lightly at first, then full on the mouth, eager, joyful. A passing highway driver laid on the horn and she pulled away flushed. Tess brought cake, he said. Hildy leaned to view the studio. Was she surprised? Seemed to be fun regardless. We waited for you. He opened the Yukon's hatch, slung her pack over her shoulder, and watched her sidelong as they walked to her cabin. But when she fingered a leather case at her neck, her shoulders slumped, and he felt her retreat. "You okay?" Somber, she pulled the lanyard over her head, handed him the attached sheath, and unlocked her door. He carried her pack inside. She crossed to the sink as he extracted the buck knife, its blade gleaming. "My dad's," she said, squirting soap into her palm. "Found it cashed at Haye's cabin, where we rode out that storm." He tested the blade with a thumb. Still sharp. "I know." She lthered her hands, rinsed, splashed her face. "Any idea how it You'd better get back to that party?" He nodded, touched the blades engraving. "You coming?" She dried her hands, ticked a no with a headshake. "I have to think. Can't tell Tess yet." He slid the knife into the sheath, placed it on the table, and stared at it. "Save me some cake." He kissed her on the forehead. "I'll call you tomorrow." I can't believe it. 10 steps away, but she didn't even stick her head in the door. Tess licked her fork, folded the paper plate around it, and shoved both in the trash. Tessy, Tessy, think about it. Bingo brushed a crumb from his wife's lip. When's the last time you remember her at anybody's party? That storm delay, it was a long week. Took a lot out of her, Luke said. No wonder she likes you. You cover for her like dad did. Tess bustled to more empty plates. Come on, my man. Let's get home before a birthday girl here gets out her hula hoop. When they turned to go, Luke's clasp at Bingo's neck was quick, warm, another in their countless see you later. For 5 years, well, four, he'd paid attention, memorized every farewell, aware that each could be more than that. He looked from bingo to his friend's abrupt, usually lovable wife, and to his sister celebrating another year, before he thought of his Hildy next door. When she'd told him about Cole, he doubted they'd make Blackberry shortcake together that night, much less see each other the next day. But since then, somehow telling her story had softened that vow of hers, and she hadn't ditched him after all, nor he her. Quite the contrary, in subsequent weeks she had fallen toward him, not away, and he toward her. Weeks ago, he'd asked himself if he dared to love her. Now the answer was obvious. His eyes welled, and he blinked fast, absorbing the night, his friends, his sister. Miranda looked at him and nodded, her own eyes full.

Chapter 31. Hildy split. Leaving for work. Hildy startled at Miranda on her stoop, poised to knock. Quickly, she stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind her. She glanced at her watch and frowned. Only 6:30. I wanted to come to your party, Miranda. I'm sorry. Miranda stood tall, a plastic wrapped piece of chocolate cake in her hands. We missed you. Luke missed you. She held the paper plate toward Hildy. I told him I'd bring this. You came from your lake house this early to bring me cake. Nice of you. But we need to talk, Hildy. I wanted to catch you before you left before you saw Luke again. Without the plate in her hand, Miranda rubbed a thumb. Fidgety shifted side to side. Nervous. Talk about what? About him and you. I'm only here because I care. You've got to realize that. Okay. A shiver ran Hildy's backbone. She eyed the scutting clouds, gripped the plate tighter. As if stealing herself, Miranda filled her lungs, then straightened even taller. Luke and you. He's the finest man I've ever known, Hildy. A man who doesn't want to scare you off. For some reason, he and Tess think you're some sort of baby needing protection, not a 34year-old woman. He thinks you only need time to warm up to him. Miranda sputtered, baldled her fists. But patience has its limits. Do you have any idea how he feels about you? I've been watching you for months now, and I honestly don't see you warming up to him at all. He could serve you his heart on a platter, and you wouldn't reciprocate. Last night, after he'd waited for days to see you, you blew him off. Blew him off. When he came back from your cabin, he had disappointment written all over him, and it was the last straw. Miranda's neck and ears blazed. Absolutely the last straw. What? Miranda had been evaluating her. Yes, and had found her lacking. Not good enough for Luke. Hildy sank to a stare, paid no mind to the cake that tipped and sagged onto her lap. Appears to me, Hildy Nibbo, that you're toying with him, killing time at his expense, and I won't have it. I watched his heart break once. You'll break it again over my dead body." Miranda crossed her arms and thumped them to her sternum, fierce, protective, and rejecting me. The wind swirled an alloy chill between them. Hildy couldn't look at her, and for a moment couldn't move. Then she brushed the upended cake to the ground. Talk to me, Hildy. War glinted in Miranda's eyes. I need to know you'll leave him alone. Hildy had no answers. No words at all. Wasn't even sure she had a tongue. She stood on trembling legs and walked to her SUV, her mother's caution loud in her head. Right. All along. At the natural resources building, Hildy slipped through a side entry and hunkered in her office with the lights off. the door locked. For an hour, she rearranged papers on her desk, their print too blurry to read. Accusations spun through her brain. Miranda rose large in her mind. Miranda, the woman she'd come to consider a friend,

And with so many qualities Hildy admired, discernment, for one. For her to say all that, Luke's sister clearly saw Hildy as mom did. As I am. Strong, determined. Miranda had revived Luke after his tragedy and loved him to his core. The woman always spoke her mind and acted on her convictions, traits that left Hildy in awe. Luke's sister could never ever allow him to attach himself to someone like her. Her breath hitched. She had seen his sister's discomfort that morning. Telling Hildy her concerns had to be so, so difficult for her. But how courageous of her to intervene on his behalf. How wise of Miranda to guard him. And how foolish of Hildy to imagine she wouldn't.

Miranda had begun her explanation by saying she cared. No question about that. She wanted what was best for her brother. And like it or not, Hildy had to agree. Luke's best life would not include the real her. But her friend, her former friend, did have one thing wrong. Hildy wasn't toying with Luke. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her care for Luke had grown vast and deep, and she wouldn't hurt him for anything. If she had to give him up to keep from doing so, well, better to end the charade now before she caused him any more pain. But oh, the hurt in her.

When he called that evening, she let her phone buzz. His text arrived as she covered Butter Ness's cage for the night. "Did you get some cake?" Haunted, she'd crawled into bed when another came through. "Where are you, dancer girl?" How long until he'd leave her alone? When tears wouldn't stop, she buried her face in her pillow and lay awake for hours.

Chapter 32.

Luke empty, 5 days, seven. He'd gone 10 days without Hildy answering his calls or texts or knocks to her door, though Miranda assured Luke she'd seen her come and go. After dinner, he tried Hildy's line yet again and heard four rings to the same voicemail message. "Nibbo, here, leave your info." His text then Hildy only that knowing she wouldn't answer this one either, praying otherwise.

Awake at 3:00 a.m., he crept over their interactions the night of Miranda's party for the hundredth time, examining the ingredients of their last moments together and her reaction to each. Her understandable unease over the discovery of her father's knife, her request for cake. Didn't the latter say she'd see him again? He'd left her with a promise to call, and she'd leaned into his lips at her forehead. And then, without a whisper of warning, she'd dropped from the sky of their life together, fallen off the planet, more like it, without a breath of explanation.

At 4:00 a.m., he made coffee, filled his thermos, and drove the now joyless 45 minutes to the Elwa fishing resort and her empty Yukon. She had to go to work, didn't she? He'd catch her on the way between her cabin and her rig, ask her for two minutes. He slid his driver's seat backwards and stretched his legs, poured coffee into the thermos cap, and sipped. In the gray pre-dawn, he watched her door and the window beside it, his hand to his aching chest. At 5:30, the slats of the window blind opened partway, and a silhouette crossed behind them. "Not long now," he thought.

By design, her 7 to 4 work schedule had mostly matched his, granting them hours of summer's late daylight together. But 7:00 passed, then 8 with no Hildy. He waited another hour until Miranda arrived, and he followed her into Toes of Clay. "I don't get it, Mirs. She dropped me like a hot potato, and I do not know why." Miranda looked up from her till, a bundle of bills in her hand. "I guess it's good she did this now rather than later. Luke, you can't make someone care about you."

"That's what's so confusing. I know she does." He turned to the window in time to see Hildy's vehicle, leaving fast, his lungs constricted. "There she goes."

"Have you connected with her at all?" Miranda's sadness was palpable. "Not since the morning after the party."

"I took her that cake."

"What did she say then?" Miranda sighed. "Not much. And she's avoided me ever since. Got to have something to do with..."

"Never mind." If Hildy hadn't mentioned the knife to Miranda, he wouldn't either.

"With what? Nothing. Just speculating."

"Careful, Luke. Face facts. She doesn't want to see you and lacks the relational wherewithal to tell you why. Maybe it's better to let her go."

"I thought you liked her."

"I do, Luke. I really do. But something's not right there. To treat you like that, to refuse to talk when..." She shuddered, joined him at the window. "Surely you saw this coming, though. She's never been warm. Not like Eden." She adjusted a row of mugs. "Be patient, little brother. Wait for a girl who can love you back. At least now you know."

"Eden." He refused to compare the two. "At least I know what... that you still have it in you to care about a woman, to find someone else."

Her words slapped him. Incredulous. He stared at her. "I thought you got us. Understood her."

"Me? Don't you realize I don't want anyone else? Can't you see that? I want Hildy. Only her. I might even love her."

"Miranda, you've known her since April."

"Luke, the end of April. Love, really." She pressed fingers to her temples, rubbed slow circles. "I believe she feels the same way about me."

"Has she told you that?"

"She doesn't know how yet. How to get past this, this thing in her way, but she will."

"Luke, please don't. Haven't you been hurt enough? Hasn't she?"

"I thought you..."

"Graveling won't help."

"Graveling? When have I ever graveled? This isn't about me anymore, Miranda. Don't pretend you aren't hurting."

"Of course, I'm hurting, but so is she. I'm sure of it. And I will not fail her when she's in a rough patch. She needs me right now. Just doesn't know it yet."

"And how do you propose to come alongside her when she won't even talk to you? Listen to yourself, Luke. Face the music. She's written you off like she has me."

"Good grief, woman. What makes you think?" He shoved hands into jean pockets and paced. "I know you think you're helping, but I'm the one to decide if I'll walk away. And as far as I'm concerned, if she's breathing, there's hope. I'll figure out how to reach her."

"Oh, Luke, no. If for no other reason, imagine what your house would look like."

He stared at her, dumbfounded. "You went in her place."

"I looked inside. Enough for me. Should have been for you, too. I didn't react, but that room, she's a hoarder, Luke. Dang, mirrors. You have no idea."

"I think you..."

"I heard you the first time." He reached the door. "I may be back. Depending."

"Where are you going?"

"Damage control."

At her workplace, Luke slipped past the front windows to the back hallway toward the office Hildy had shyly shown him before her trip up river. He hesitated at her closed door, then tapped twice. "Come in, Dave. I've got that."

Luke locked the door behind him and was at her desk when she turned. He expected her surprise, but not her horror. She shrank as if expecting a blow. He took a step backwards, tilted his head, his hands raised, palms up at his waist. "Hildy, wh-what are you doing here?"

A gully formed between her eyebrows, the blue beneath them gone dark. "I think you know." She stayed at her desk, hugged herself as if she were cold, wouldn't look at him. "I didn't know what to say, how to tell you."

He sank into the chair across from her. "You can tell me anything, Hildy. Haven't I shown you that?"

Her eyes met his with sadness so profound he felt she might break. "Miranda was right, Luke."

"Miranda?" He propped forearms on his thighs. "What am I missing?"

"She doesn't." Her chest jumped in little hitches. "Doesn't what? Want us together? Thinks I'm... thinks I'm bad for you. Thinks I'll hurt you."

"She told you that?" Hildy snuffled with her nod, wiped tears when she brought cake.

Luke flinched as if from gunfire. "Really?"

She nodded again. "Said, 'You're handing me your heart and I don't give anything back.' That she wouldn't stand for me hurting you after... after all you'd endured."

"Did she now? Hard to believe she'd..." A low, wobbly cry interrupted him. "It's all right, Luke. I understand. Why would you believe me? Who knows if any of my stories are true. You should thank your wonderful sister. I mean that. She's wonderful. And whether my brain twisted her words or not, she's right. Absolutely right. If you keep coming around, I'll mess with your head. Heck, I mess with my own head. How could I not wreck yours and your heart?" She wrung a tissue, her hands tight.

At her sobs, a knock and a man's voice. "Need any help in there?"

"No," she said. The locked handle jiggled.

"You're sure?"

"I'm good, Dave. Thanks. Talk to you in a bit."

She walked to a window and Luke caught her by the waist, set his chin on her shoulder from behind. She peeled his hands away and faced him. "You're not taking me seriously. How could I not? You've avoided me for almost 2 weeks. Go away. Get on with your life. Leave me alone, Luke Rimmer." The strength in her resolve frightened him. Now or never, as effectively as she'd avoided him so far, would he get another chance?

"I won't force you to do anything, Hildy. You want me to leave, I'll leave, but hear me out, will you?" When she stared at the ground, he took her chin and held it until she looked at him. "Will you listen? I'll be quick." Her "okay" wrote an exhale, reluctant.

He stepped away, rubbed his whiskers, hung his hands from the back of his neck, and studied trees outside the window. When he looked at her, she slid down the wall and hugged her knees. "First off, I know Miranda means well, but..." he gritted his teeth. "I'm not happy with her at the moment. Saying I'll be better off without you rocks in her brain. Second, the way I see it, Hildy, you haven't wrecked a thing in your life. Third, I believe every word of your stories just as you recall them. Few people I've known remember as much or as accurately as you do. Yes, you're dealing with some lies, but I don't believe they're yours."

"Whose are they then?"

"I don't know yet. Then again, he might." She parted her lips to say more, but he raised a hand. "Fourth, I love you, Hildenbo. And once I love someone, good luck getting me to quit."

She stared at him. "How can you say that?"

He shrugged his shoulder. "Easily. With all of me. I hope you take that seriously."

She groaned. "I waited too long."

"That bad, huh?" He roused a smile and nudged her to stand. "Come on, sweetheart. Unless my radar's been off, you feel something like that toward me."

"I'm not good for you."

"But you are, Hildy. Not only good for me, but good." He took her hands and kissed the palm of each. "Let's imagine you believed that. You're wasting. If you believed you were good for me, could you look in my eyes and tell me to go away? Would you say you never wanted to see me again?"

Her gaze darted to him, then the door. "I don't know."

"Not my style to chase you, Hildy. But unless you can say with certainty that you want me gone from your life, I'm not going anywhere." He ducked for a broader view of sky through her south windows and pointed at the crescent moon, translucent in the morning light. "I've lived in the dark of the moon, Dancer Girl. There were months I thought it forgot to orbit. Times when I could only see that shiny thumbnail out there. Or when I was really hopeless, nothing at all." Her forehead pressed the glass. "But phases pass, build. Picture a big round moon still tugging at the tides even when you can't see it. Always solid, regardless. Can you do that?" She closed her eyes. "Better yet, think of it full and bright without a shadow hiding it. Then think of us without the dark blocking us from each other."

It was her turn to shrug, withdrawing from me. "Keep learning, Hildy. I'm always learning. Keep tending that heart of yours. For your own sake, don't quit."

"You know, I'll do what I need to."

"I'm choosing to trust that. I'll text you now and then, see how it's going. But like I said, I won't chase you either. Reply or not, your choice." The door blurred as he grabbed the knob. "But do one thing for me, will you? If you decide we're through for good, tell me to my face." He extracted his phone and waggled it. "Not on this thing."

At her desk again, she rolled a pen. "Take care, dancer girl." Quickly, he pulled the door closed behind him before a reply took him out at the knees.

Chapter 33.

Luke. Siblings. Miranda. Luke slammed his truck door, fists tight, jaw clenched. He approached the studio. His sister plunged a trowel into a pot of blooming echinacea and bolted upright. "What were you thinking? Derailing us like that."

He spat the words. "I don't see it that way. Helping you is more accurate."

Hands on her hips like a dictator. "Don't pull that, Miranda. We're way past denial. Why didn't you tell me you'd talked to her?"

"I did tell you when I took her some cake. Remember?"

"Look, I know hurting me is not your endgame, but Lord knows you did. I thought you quit trying to manipulate my life a long, long time ago. How dare you?" She bent again at the pot, yanked a weed with fury.

"Quit the huffiness, woman. Your defensiveness won't work either. Are you going to spill the beans and hope I forgive you, or pretend ignorance and wreck the best friendship of your life? I'm all you've got for family now, in case you've forgotten." She dropped the trowel, propped hands on the pot's rim.

"When she didn't come to my party, Luke, I saw your hurt, and frankly, I saw red. Mad at her. What for?"

"Dismissing you yet again, thinking only of herself. When I saw how much she hurt you that night, how you'd waited for her and she still didn't join you. I..." she growled, stood with arms stiff at her sides. "Hildy treats things that matter to you like they're disconnected from her. You do something thoughtful for her, and she barely reacts. Doesn't care. She treats you like you're the paper boy or something."

Luke folded his arms and leaned against his truck's grill, studying his sister. "Honestly, couldn't you have asked me? All the talks we've had about the dangers of making assumptions, about taking matters into our own hands."

"She tell you what happened to her while she was gone up river?"

Miranda scowled. "Yeah, I thought not. Did you think to ask her why she didn't come to the party?" Her head shook an inch left, then right. "You don't have the slightest idea what she's thinking or how she feels about me or what she's going through. Instead of finding out, you stick that tongue of yours on her. Send her back to her shadows."

"Luke, she's wrong for you. She's a stray cat, a rescue. What kind of wife would she be? You'd pour your heart and soul into her, trying to rewrite both your failures to make up for ways you think you didn't love well before. What's she got to give you back?"

His jaw hung, his mouth stretched sideways. "Is this a repeat of your 'save Luke from Tavern's Crusade'? Jeez, mirrors. How'd that work out? I'd eat those meals you brought and down another six-pack. I can't rescue Hildy any more than you could have dried me out before I owned what I was doing to myself. Acknowledged that I was powerless to change it until I let God do the heavy lifting."

Miranda tracked a crow toward the foothills, bit her lip. Luke's voice dropped. "She's scared as a rabbit, and you've driven her into a thicket."

"Thorny in there."

"Book," she sighed wearily.

"I love that woman, Miranda. I see who she'll be when she's free. Like you saw who I would be, even if your plan to get me there was screwed at first. I'll talk to her."

"No, you won't. Not a word. You hear me?"

"But I..."

"No, leave it alone. Leave her alone. If you want us, you and me, to be okay, you will stay out of Hildy's and my business from here on. Understand? Talk to God all you like about this, and I'd be glad if you would, but stick to the weather with her, if she'll engage you at all. Am I clear? But I mean it, Miranda. Am I clear?" The trowel whapped her thigh.

"I didn't." He turned on his heel and left her. His anger wouldn't help anyone right now.

Home by noon, Luke postponed a door installation in Discovery Bay, ate leftover stew, and threw hay to jangles. In his barn, he climbed the loft ladder and dropped beside a broken bale, first to his knees, then prostrate, forehead to hands. He hadn't moved for two hours when his neighbor found him there. "Only place left to look," Kurt said.

"You doing battle in full armor?"

Luke rolled upright, sat on a tight bale, brushed hay from his shirt. "For Hildy or yourself?"

"Her, me, us."

Miranda tossed a grenade. Kurt stirred loose fodder with a toe. "Sorry to hear that."

"Yeah. Now Hildy suggested I stay away. Insisted in so many words."

"So, you've been asking for insight?"

"Yeah, Jill and I will as well. I'll bring the others on board, too, if you're good with that. We don't want you going backwards. If you don't pay attention, next beer you run across could look pretty good."

"Huh? Right. I set those tools on your workbench. Thanks for the loan."

"Anytime." Curt's foot found a ladder rung. "If you need me, call. I mean it."

Luke got to his feet. "Remember those shadows, Hildy saw? Pray against those two, will you? I think Otis is right about a lie somewhere."

"We'll do. Stay the course, man."

Luke bit a cheek. "I used to play trumpet."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, like that. March around the walls. Blow hard."

Chapter 34.

Hildy. Solo, friend or foe? In Luke's wake, Dave stood at Hildy's elbow. She turned from her office window inside. "Who?"

"That guy who just left. You two weren't playing cards in here."

"A friend, but I don't think I'll see him again. Goodbyes are hard, you know. I've said a couple of those." He assessed her, his eyes gentle. "Fine with me if you need to get out of here. Clear your head."

Hildy crossed to her desk, took her bag from a drawer. "I'll take you up on that. I won't get anything done today anyway." Her fingers trembled as she dug for her keys.

Dave watched her from the mudroom, then waved an envelope. "Before you go, may I run something by you?"

She looked at her boss, then down at her chest, expecting blood from her ruptured heart. "Back to business as usual." If she didn't leave soon, she'd collapse right in front of him. "Of course," she said.

"Good. Good. Picking your brain here. Hannah stopped by with this." He handed Hildy a letter from a biologist she'd met only once before the woman took maternity leave. Her resignation. Three kids now, so she's going to stay home. Can't blame her, but I sure don't want that position empty. I'm thinking about offering it to Bryce Dixon. He sent his resume last week. Wants to be on our river for the long haul."

"What about his research?" Her survey teammate's work was getting noticed. His latest paper had crossed her screen only yesterday.

"Good stuff, right? You see his abstract on osmoregulation, his salmon gills will be right at home in our lab. So, he'd take Hannah's workspace."

No question Bryce was qualified, but to share an office wall with him. The vacancy next door had suited her. "You'll be collaborating, so why not?" She looked at her feet.

"Don't fret, Hildy. Your door closes and locks for a reason. If you need space, you'll have it. But you'll be glad he's here. There will be lots of hats to wear around here the next few years, and you won't want them all. Bryce has the energy and then some. His competencies on par with yours, almost. I'll be relieved to have you both in place before I retire."

"Sounds like you've already decided."

"Subject to your approval." He clasped hands behind him and waited. What could she say? Her beef with Bryce wasn't a professional one. She simply had no interest in dating him. In Seattle, he'd pestered her with the same tenacity Dave appreciated. She'd only allowed him to join her snorkel team after he pledged to behave himself.

"No other contenders?"

"One guy, but he's a distant second, so no. Then Bryce it is."

"Good. No. Great. You go now, Hildy. Treat yourself to something nice. I'll get the ball rolling with our new hire."

"Our new hire?" How long before that decision haunted her?

By October, her preoccupation with Luke hadn't blurred as she'd hoped. Instead, he inhabited the front of her mind when she commuted or bought groceries. He swept her skin when she hiked rivers and worked at her desk. Memories of him sharpened her longings until they frightened her and strengthened her resolve to stay away. As wrong as she was for him, how could she do otherwise? If they were together, it would only be a matter of time before she hurt him when her brain went sideways. To wish for him now, to go to him at his expense. Doing so would be selfish, plain and simple. If she truly cared about the man, she'd avoid him at all costs.

Most days she opened her phone to tell him that, to cut their connection for good. "Get it over with," she thought. But then his "tell me to my face" rang in her ears, and she didn't dare. And a forever goodbye in person would kill her. No question he'd helped her daily. She heard him. "Keep learning, Hildy. Mark every verse that reaches you." The first time he said it, they'd hiked to Hume's ranch and were eating trail mix under that old apple tree by the cabin. "Works for me," he'd said. "There's love in that book. It's a road map out of the dark. Out of her anxiety, too."

Mornings she'd uncover Butter Ness, change his water and seed, then dress, brush, and braid. She'd eat oatmeal and open that Bible from her dad as a tug-of-war wrenched her thoughts, and her dad's knife lay like a threat on her table. Every now and then, though, a fresh shift in her understanding arrived. A week ago, she'd looked at the crescent moon and had seen the whole orb.

Mid-morning, a beep, static. Outside her cabin, Hildy dropped a bamboo rake and a pile of leaves and pulled the walkie-talkie from her belt. "Hey, June." As she always did now, she turned her back as Miranda set her Toes of Clay sign at the road. More crackling. "You got a minute, Hildy girl?"

"Man here wants to rent cabin 6 long term. Says you're his reference. Over me?"

"You over?"

"Did you tell him the resort's closing after the 4th of July?"

"He knows. Doesn't care. Says he's going to be working with you. Over."

"Uhoh. On my way." Unseen, she slipped through the store's back door to the kitchen and peeked. At the lunch counter, Bryce Dixon leaned toward June on muscular forearms, and they whispered like spies. Below the counter, his knee bounced double time. At an apparent punchline, June laughed, then spotted her. "Is he telling the truth, Hildy girl? This the guy you hired? Didn't picture him like this from your description?"

Bryce's twinkling eyes locked on hers. Their mischief familiar. "I'd like to hear that description, trail boss."

"Oh, to quit blushing at every little thing. I couldn't tell you what I said, Bryce. Something generic, I imagine."

"Generic? Hardly." How had she not noticed him before? He looked like a tawny, green-eyed puma without the twitching tail. Sinewy, strong, feral. His appeal surprised her. Clearly, what Luke had reawakened in her refused to sleep.

"But first, let's talk rent," Bryce said. "I'm guessing it's sweet with this camp on its last legs and all. Not sure it's available."

"A logger's been, according to this lady right here. The logger is in cabin 5. Cabin 6 is the one I want. Wide open and ready for me when I arrive on New Year's. Care if I bring some things over before Christmas? Prorate my rent if you need to. I start work Monday the 3rd and I don't want to be hassling with setup once the job starts."

"Honestly, Bryce, that cabin's nothing special. Why there?"

He spun a full circle on his stool. "No reason to live in Port Angeles for a slug more rent. Besides, I like the scenery around here better. Figured you could use some help now and then, too." He grinned and raised a dark, luxurious eyebrow. "No charge." Maybe he wasn't as self-centered as she'd thought. All the dismantling coming up. Extra muscle could be useful. At least he'd be four cabins away. More space than the wall they'd share at work. "Whatever. Work it out with June. I've got leaves to rake."

Chapter 35.

Hildy. Bryce. He arrived in a snowstorm, but when Dr. Bryce Dixon pulled into the store on December 23rd, 2010. He looked more like a surfer from that Pismo Beach she had visited after a seminar at Cal Poly. Golden somehow, his hair streaked, those green eyes the color of his down jacket. Hildy dropped her gaze to his sockless ankles as he snagged a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon from the cooler and carried it her way. She punched the price into the old register. "You look like you've been to Tahiti."

"Nope. Costa Rica. Back yesterday. Last chance on those waves before the job starts." He studied her face and frowned. "I should have invited you. You look like you could use a little sun."

"I get plenty of sun." An icy blast gusted the door wide and she rounded the counter to latch it. Snow drifted around the pumps. Bryce sidled next to her, caught her pale hand, and held it next to his tan one, comparing. "Just saying, Ghosty." She snapped it away and peered through the door at his jammed Toyota 4x4. A kayak and surfboard leaned in the roof rack like a rooster's comb. "Won't take you long to move in. Still a futon and a couple of tables in there, right? Stove, fridge." She handed him the key to cabin 6. "Not much else."

"Cool. I'm good to go. What time you done in here?" She glanced at the wall clock over the door. Only 4:30. Flakes swirled in the glowing above the foot-deep accumulation. "Won't matter today. Nobody stopped in hours." A snow plow passed on the highway. Bryce raised the six-pack and flipped the store's open sign to closed before he pulled a pizza from the freezer. "Join me then. Watch how a pro moves in."

She bunched her fingers to quiet them. June and Otis would be with their daughter in Idaho for another 3 weeks. With Luke gone and Miranda estranged, and no fish work until after New Year's, a new sensation had been plaguing her, despite cheery Butterness and plenty of the solitude she considered medicinal. The odd malaise had hounded her for a week before she identified it as loneliness.

"Okay." Bryce feigned a startle. "No way. A yes from the ice woman? More things new than a job around here." He grinned and pinched a puffer coat from a stand by the door. "This yours?" When she nodded, he snatched the parka, held it open for her. She slid arms into sleeves as a truck slowed past the store, and turned to the studio. As Bryce settled the jacket onto her shoulders, she glimpsed Miranda next door in her bright gallery, boxing items, closing shop for the season. Seconds later, she saw Luke stomp snow from his boots at the studio's door. Oh. To run to him.

At the storefront, Bryce balanced sweating cans on the frozen pizza, his fingers poised at the light switch. "Got everything." She pulled out her keys, wouldn't look up. "Yep." Lights flicked and the store went dark. While Hildy seated the store's deadbolt, Bryce opened the passenger door and when she sat, he set the meal on her lap. He revved the engine and the rig rounded the store, pushed through snow. Hildy glanced in the passenger side mirror. Luke was standing at Miranda's window, watching them drive by.

Past her cabin, Bryce sped up, busted drifts, and pulled in a slant at cabin 6. "Wait here," he said. Hildy bent over a heater vent on the dash as he opened the cabin and carried the food and three large boxes inside. 5 minutes after that, he shut down the engine and offered a hand. She refused as she left the rig. Snow filled his docksiders. "Looks good in there. Thank you, June." What am I doing? Twitchy, she crossed the floor to the compact wood stove, the blaze he'd started while she sat in the car not yet dispelling her breath's visible fog. She held hands to the fire while Bryce kicked off his shoes and dug in a box for socks. She waved a hand toward the kitchen range. "Want me to?" He leapt toward the second box, extracted a cookie sheet, clicked an oven dial, and smiled at her. "Yeah, good. Not Luke, but not bad. He'd help pass the time anyway. Besides, a girl like her couldn't be choosy." She slid the pizza into the oven. Bryce popped two tabs and handed her a can. "No, I..."

"Come on, Hildy. You're not 12."

"No, she wasn't." She stared at the beer as Bryce flopped on the futon and propped his feet on a drum-shaped ottoman. By a dropleaf table, Hildy perched on a wooden chair, the beverage untouched as she thought of Luke, five cabins away. Bryce aimed his chin at her beer, then swigged his own. "We're off the clock, Ghosty. Loosen up a little. Try it."

"No thanks."

He shrugged. "Big storm, long day. Roads were bad. Took me twice as long to get over here from Seattle." He stretched an arm at top the sofa's back rest as fire light capered the length of him, his half-lidded gaze, those dimples. Agitated, she stood and walked to the bank of windows. He loaded more wood on the fire, and at the timer's ding, pulled the pizza from the oven, cut it with a pocket knife, and served her on tripled paper towels. While they ate, he drank the rest of his beer and gestured at hers. "I don't like it," she said.

"You ever tried it?"

"Don't need to." He raised his brows, chugged hers, and got another from the fridge before he joined her at the window, watching the snow. "Getting worse out there," she said.

"Or better, near whiteout," he bent to her ear. "Wish you weren't within walking distance. A night snowed in with you could be kind of fun."

"I'd better get home, check my bird."

"Just kidding, Ghosty. Crime..."

"Many, you don't have to go yet." She was already at the door, zipping her parka to her chin. "Yes, I do."

"I'll walk you back." She stuffed feet into snow boots. "No need."

"You ski?"

"No."

"Snowboard?"

"No. Never."

"You from the moon?"

"Maybe." She shook her head. "Outdoor girl like you? I'd have thought for sure."

"You... You got any sleds?"

"Sleds?"

"Yeah. Have for tomorrow. What else we got to do?"

"In the shop, maybe. You look in the morning. I don't know, Bright. I'll text you when I get up."

"Aren't you going home for Christmas?"

"No home to go to besides this one. You're my Christmas."

"Oh, boy." A sheet of powder blew into the room when she opened his door. Without a glance or goodbye, she stepped through it and slogged a half-de trail to her cabin. The snow stung her cheeks as if she'd been slapped. She deserved it. What on earth was she doing with Bryce? Luke had shown her the moon.

Blowing snow heaped her porch, draped her door, and hid the white plastic bag leaning there. Her toe caught it when she stepped inside, and the bag slid into her entry. Still rattled, she ignored it, closed the door, and hurried to Butterness, feather puffed in the dark, chilly room. His head popped from under a wing and he crouched on his perch, startled. "Just me, Mr. B. Sorry I'm late." Light pulled when she flicked a lamp's chain, and she checked the thermometer, adjusted the wall heater's dial. "We'll turn it up a notch. H." She hung her parka, set her boots on a tray below it, and towed the quick puddling snow, pulled the fitted winter quilt over her bird's cage. Only then did she remove the dripping bag, and carry the box to her bed. A Christmas box untagged. Its paper red plaid. The ribbon a distinctive holly pattern from Toes of Clay. The wrapping at least. Customers had carried like packaged gifts from the studio for weeks. The wrapping was Miranda's, but the container. Hildy hung the ribbon on a hand drill hooked to the wall, tore a plaid scrap for a bookmark, and frowned at the label before she studied the large photo of a gooseneck barn sconce glued to the cardboard. A light fixture. She turned the package, inspecting, and smiled. Royal blue duct tape anchored cardboard flaps. Luke's tape. He joked about the color. If only she hadn't gone with Bryce. Luke would have come inside. We'd have talked. She pictured him stretched out on her couch, laughing, listening, his strong legs crossed at the ankles. No. She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples and closed her eyes. Time with Luke would falsely encourage him, and that wouldn't be loving. Loving? She felt herself blanch. Was that how she felt toward him even after all this time? Patient, kind, not just a feeling, love. Luke had said it at the gate in his upper field. They'd been walking home to his home after her second or third Sunday meeting at Curt's. Not self-seeking. She washed her hands and splashed her face, dried both, and tried not to care. Then she pulled a tissue-wrapped bundle and a sealed envelope from the box and opened an unlined paper to Luke's scroll. Bold, scratchy. She ran fingertips under the message and mouthed it in a whisper. "To keep you warm until I can, dancer girl. Luke." Alpaca Jill made it. Hildy pictured Curt's quiet wife, Jill, her shuttle flying, the thumps and clacks from her giant loom, a soothing rhythm. She made this. With a tug, she freed a jute strand from layers of tissue paper. They opened like petals to a soft wool cloud. Oh my. She touched her mouth and unfolded the lap throw. Drapey and scrumptious and the most beautiful gift anyone had given her ever, ever, ever. The loveliest thing she'd ever owned. She scrunched it to her face and breathed for a scent of its giver. Like cashmere, she thought, and in that color she'd picked for her beanie and fleece. She'd shown Luke the hue on a sunset hike. "Over there," she'd said, "that warm aqua riding the gold." Weeping, she unpinned her braid, undid her hair, folded her duvet at an angle to open her sheets, then tossed her clothes on a chair. Goosebumped, she wrapped herself in the kitten-soft alpaca blanket and scooched under her thick down comforter. A dreamless night for once, but she awoke before daylight, scowling at the necessity formed in her mind. She dressed quickly, spread the still warm throw on top of her unmade bed, and swiped it smooth with her hands. As if tending an altar cloth, she folded the magnificent blanket lengthwise and stroked it until the fight went out of her. The blanket was a piece of her history now, best displayed where she wouldn't reach for it. She hunted her walls for a vacancy. Finding none she liked, she took a ladder from the spare room and screwed a new hook into her overhead beam. When she draped the throw on a hanger, she hung it there above her head. At daybreak, she opened her phone and punched in Luke's number.

Chapter 36.

Luke. Slick. "Who's she with?"

Miranda. Luke tipped his head toward the resort's gas pumps as the lights above them went dark. A man held the door of an SUV for Hildy, then set something in her lap. Lit by the white ground and the rig's dome light, he seemed to be talking non-stop. Luke's sister brushed snow from his shoulders and followed his sightline through the gallery window. "He's new to me. I saw him buy something at the counter a few minutes ago, but he obviously knows her. I probably shouldn't comment on how good-looking he is."

"Have you talked to her lately?"

"Texted, but she hasn't answered. I told you, Mirs, I can't chase a rabbit. She'll come to me when she's ready."

"And you believe she will?"

"I do."

"It's been 4 months, brother. Patience is a virtue, but stubbornness isn't."

"Depends, Miranda. Take you for instance. Worst snowstorm in 50 years. And we have to close shop and haul goods to the lake house now. Not tomorrow or the day after, but today late. I'm sure you've got your reasons, but if not for that plow, I'd be in a ditch between here and Squim."

"You never go in ditches. Besides, tomorrow's Christmas Eve, Lukey, and you were coming out here anyway. And in case you've forgotten, I leave the day after Christmas for New York." He shook snow melt from his hat. "I rest my case. Who's to say my rationale for hope is any less valid?"

"So, you have a rationale?"

"I do, but I'm not telling you. You're minding your own business, remember?" He pulled a box from the bag he carried. "You could do a little penance, though. Wrap this for me. I'll deliver it and we'll head for Southerntherland before this weather gets any worse. I hope you've got food out there. I'm staying over."

10 minutes later, he trudged to Hildy's dark cabin and left the bag on her porch. With his back to the swirling storm, he returned to the lane, obscured but for the SUV's filling tracks, parallel swerves from spins and skids in the slickness. He followed them down the row of cabins hunkered in the cornness of snow at the riverbank, each unlit like Hildy's. But at cabin six, where the white blanketed Toyota sat askew, a flickering glow bronzed the windows, and he knew it was warm inside. For less than a breath, he considered a closer look, then pivoted into the wind.

Chapter 37.

Hildy, settle. Hildy glanced at the shawl she'd hung overhead and tapped her text to Luke, hoping her "Thank you" wouldn't wake him on this dark, sleepy morning. The short days and late dawn drugged everyone but her, it seemed. How long until Bryce woke after all those beers? Those parties she'd avoided in college, all that hangover talk in their wake. Her frame of reference was secondhand at best. She looked at the clock and grew edgy, already 7:50. Bryce would surely be up and headed her way any minute. When they'd camped on the upper reach, he'd brought her coffee before she'd wiped sleep from her eyes. Her gaze swept the crammed space around her, and her pulse quickened. Best to head him off, deflect him from her secrets here. Though Luke's hours in her home had led to repeat visits from both June and Otis, Bryce came nowhere near that trusted circle. She'd burn her cabin before she'd let him inside. No doubt he'd try, though, if she didn't act. Keeping the man off her porch called for drastic initiative. She'd knock on his door. But first, the sled. Long ago, their saucers and snowshoes had sold with her dad's tools. But she knew the steam-bent toboggan still hung by its curled nose on the shop's back wall. She'd seen it not 2 days earlier. She bundled up, hefted the small sleigh to the shop's doorway, and plopped it in the snow, sending a quiet puff of powder into the blue-white insulation that had fallen through the night. Then she took up the loop on the tie-round rope and trudged to cabin 6. Bryce didn't answer at her first knock. At her second, he held the door wide enough for her to see half of him. Five bare toes, tartan flannel bunched at a foot, its green plaid topped by a gray crew neck sweatshirt. Sleeping clothes. "Found the sled," she said, surprised that she spoke first. Bryce scratched his chest. "I see that. Want some coffee?" The door creaked wider to all of him, and he swung an open palm toward the interior. Chin-length, streaky hair tangled on one side, lay flat on the other. He looked accessible. Quite nice, actually. The room, however, was freezing. "June warned me," he said. "Should have picked up a space heater." Hildy panned the room. Two sport boards, one for surf and the other for snow, leaned near the door. Clothes and boxes mounded in the center of the room. Except for that kayak he'd emptied his rig. In that storm. She eyed the tub of kindling. "Otis is welcome in cabins with wood stoves. May I?" She said. Stiff fingers roughed his hair into symmetry. "Have at it." She stirred coals and lit split cedar sticks and watched from the corner of her eye as he filled a stainless percolator at the tap, scooped ground coffee into a strainer basket and seated lids, turned a burner to high as she sat at his table. "You're looking good this morning, Ghosty." He stretched, sauntered to her. At her ear, he rubbed her beanie's wool between two fingers. Behind him, a sleeping bag hunched like a worm casting on the futon. "You waking me up my first morning here. I'd never have guessed."

"Don't bug me at work," she said.

He chuckled, raised palms to her. "You made that clear before we swam the river, Ghosty. No worries. I know the code. Professional to the max when we're working. Off hours are another story. Wouldn't be my first secret life if that's what you're offering."

"I'm not offering anything."

"You said you wanted to sled." He pulled a breakfast bar from a box and tore it open. "You're here, aren't you? Admit it, Hildster. You can't resist me." When her face burned, he laughed. "Gotcha. There's a hill past cabin 7 my sister and I liked. Short but steep enough." He chewed the bar, pulled snow pants and a wool henley from a duffel, and looked outside. "Playground out there. Virgin powder. You sure you don't snowboard?"

"I don't."

The pot perked and he stripped his sweatshirt, grabbed the henley. Hildy looked away, the coffee forgotten. "The toboggan will pack the hill. I'll get started." He stopped dressing and studied her, arms half into sleeves. The shirt bunched at his tan belly. "You do that. Give me five minutes. Got to brush my teeth in case you make me kiss you after a run."

"I'll do nothing of the sort." Bryce pitched with his laugh. "I'd lay odds you will." She flicked a hand on her way out, dismissive and stronger than she imagined. The man was good practice at least and a measure of her growth. If he'd said that last winter, she'd have sprinted for home. Crystallin puffs rolled from her knees as she waited to the hill. Around her, the sunlit snow held fast to trees and roofs in the frigid air, and she shifted her thoughts to the chill. Unusual for here, this cold. Storms in her childhood had dropped wet leen flakes that slushed within hours, but this floaty high country snow her dad had loved. She thought again of their bentwood snowshoes, and how she'd hunted duplicates at yard sales and on eBay, still hoped to find their matches. She'd made two solo runs of the sloped 60 ft before Bryce trudged to her with an insulated mug. "10°," he said. "Your gullet will thank me." She opened the lid and sipped. Frowned. "What's in this?"

"A little Bailey's. Like it in the morning. Made for weather like this. Hildy. How else are we going to stay warm?" He slurped, laughed. "Well, I proposed another way, but you vetoed it."

"I..."

"You..." She sputtered and set the mug in the snow. "Aw, drink up, girly." He flipped the narrow toboggan, stood it on end, and rubbed its underside with wax before he dropped it to the snow. "We're going sledding." He drained his coffee, took the rope, and preceded her to the top of the run. "Curl up. You brought a kitty toy here. Not much room for two of us." Knees to her chest. She gripped the side rope as Bryce dropped behind her and placed feet on the curled bow, his legs sturdy rails on either side of her. Then he tipped the sled over the brink into a straight quick drop. "Oh yeah, short and sweet," he said at the bottom. He jumped to his feet and dragged the little sleigh to the top. Hildy followed, breathless, not from exertion, but from fun. Eight runs and Bryce eyed the backside of the hill. "No offense, Ghosty, but that looks like a better course. Steeper, longer. Ever been on a luge?" He glanced at her and smirked. "Don't answer that." More stomping, more packing until their new banked run ended in the trees. He downed her mug of coffee and rewaxed the sled. Hildy climbed on. "Hang tight, Chicky, and get low." At the sled's stern, he powered them forward and leapt behind her when the sled caught the chute and dropped. His feet found hers, and he pulled her into him backwards, flatter for speed, the rope taut at their sides. Hildy laughed out loud. But on the next run, when he rolled them into the snow at the bottom and aimed his mouth at hers, she turned her cheek, wiggled free, and got to her feet. "I'm going home now," she said, and pressed a mitten to lips that had last felt loose. "See you soon," he said. "Higher fruits tastier anyway." Oh, the man annoyed her. The sledding was fun, though.

On a Saturday in late February, Otis stopped the UTV as Hildy stacked firewood on her porch. "Hey, Otis. Got a few minutes, Hildy girl?"

"Of course. What's up?"

He patted the seat beside him. "Come along then, Missy. Got a broader view to show you." In the open vehicle, wind

shrank her into her parka as he accelerated. She pulled her knit cap to her eyebrows against the chill, and they crossed the bridge toward the dance hall.

Otis drove the UTV to the river's edge and a panorama of the seven cabins on the opposite shore. He raised an arm and opened his hand toward Bryce's cabin 6. "Been together for a couple months now. You and that one."

"I wouldn't call us together, Otis. I work with him. Hang out now and then."

"Don't take me wrong, Hildy girl, but that ain't what I see."

Hildy bristled. "And precisely what do you see?"

"You don't mean well trying to wear you down he is. What would make you give up that carpenter for him? You like this and more?"

"We're not serious, Otis. He's just around."

"First, you and June worry that I don't see anyone. And when I do, you're smarter than that, Missy. You know good and well we didn't mean for you to unplug from that beautiful heart and faith of yours. I only hope you ain't helping him empty our cooler. He's keeping us in business."

She'd wondered, though she was used to it now, Bryce did pack a can or bottle most everywhere. At least they'd struck a balance since he started going to town a few evenings a week, drinking elsewhere, and since he'd toned down those pushy come-ons, she didn't mind him so much. Nights he was home, they played cards and board games, talked about fish. Kissing him felt nice, and he made her laugh. Without commitment, he was no threat to her vow. What more could she ask for given her limitations?

"We're not involved, Otis, though. It's really no business of yours."

"You're the one who said I should have more fun now and then." Truth was, Bryce filled hours she no longer wanted to spend alone. When thoughts of Luke arrived unbidden, now that he fixed her coffee most mornings, Bryce consumed her learning time, too. She hadn't underlined verses for weeks.

Otis looked thoughtful. "So, you trust him then?" His voice fell off.

He had her on that one. No, she didn't trust Bryce. Not enough to believe he'd ever care about her or anyone more than himself, especially since she found that hair tie in his car a month ago, and that angora sweater behind the seat a week after that. Even so, when he kissed her, she believed a little more that though she couldn't be right for Luke, she might be compatible with a man like Bryce, who laughed off feelings and loyalty and trusted science as his god. If she had to split herself in two to avoid the isolation she no longer yearned for, so be it.

She shrugged. Otis looked at the river. "You don't get stronger or wiser or freer by compromising, Hildy. by giving yourself to the wrong man. Fake food for your deep hunger. A poor swap for love."

What choice did she have? To be alone forever? The irony struck her. That's what she'd pledged to herself until she met Luke, whom she wouldn't allow herself to think about and pushed from her thoughts when she did.

"What about happier?" she asked.

"Nothing happy about it. You got a voice, Hildy girl. The right man will hear what you stand for and love it as part of you. Worth waiting for." She clenched mittened hands.

"What voice?"

Otis waited, his eyes on the far shore. When she didn't say more, he turned the UTV to the highway toward the home she no longer worried Bryce would breach. As long as she went to his place, he didn't bother to come to hers.

Chapter 38.

Hildy. Lunch.

While the lecture hall emptied, a mixed group of Peninsula College biology students remained behind and peppered Bryce with questions. Hildy closed her laptop and slid it into her bag, then touched his arm as she left the podium. "Keys," she whispered. He gave her a fob from his pocket, and she slipped past them into Port Angelus's April Drizzle.

She texted Bryce from his Toyota 30 minutes later. When another quarter hour passed and he still didn't show, she retraced her route to the hall and spotted him with a foot on a bench under a sheltered walkway, nodding at an animated co-ed with long copper hair, smiling his sparkling, irresistible best. He tapped something into his phone, but Hildy's didn't buzz and he didn't see her. Instead, he watched the girl walk away, her hips swinging. Hildy observed them both, then slipped behind a stand of trees and beat Bryce to the car.

He was whistling. "Hey, Ghosty, got us some new recruits for the revitation team. Good feedback on our presentation, too. You should have stuck around. You had it covered."

"Ghostie, that name was wearing on her." She dropped the visor and checked her braid in the mirror, tucked erupting hair pins, and assessed her pale skin. He squeezed her knee. "Next up, waterfront. A late lunch at the crab house." Did he care if she liked the place? He didn't ask, and four minutes later, they walked inside.

Water, sky, her affect. Gray, gray, gray. Heavier now. Rain pelted the window beside their table as the steely drab of street and clouds absorbed her. Matched her more lightly. She swung her gaze to Bryce, his exhilaration the only bright thing for miles. He rocked his chair back onto two legs and his eyes darted the room. "This gig today, last thing on my slate before I take off, Hildster."

"You're leaving? Where?" In the four months since that Christmas snowstorm. When had he mentioned going any place?

"Don't you listen, woman? Tomorrow morning. You've known since I arrived I'd be out of here all May. Part of my contract negotiation with Dave. I committed to a consulting job on the Clamoth before he hired me."

"What? Oh, her unreliable brain. I didn't ever think of slotting my plans into your tidy little schedule, trail boss." She shrank, meek and off-balance.

"You're right, Bryce. Thoughtless of me." Her shoulders bowed like saplings.

"Fill me in." Her softness seemed to temper him, and his charisma revived. "Perfect timing, isn't it? River data submitted. Plans are set. We're ready on every front. No way I'll twiddle my thumbs until they shut off those turbines. Don't worry, Ghosty. I'll be back in time for them to throw those breakers at the dam on June 1."

"Don't call me that."

"Good to hear. Every word of this was new to her. Risky, but she had to ask. So, where besides Oregon?" Clamoth wouldn't take a full month at their phase of restoration. Blinking, she gave him the smile he liked, the one she'd stumbled on by accident. She ventured to guess. "Seattle."

"Yeah, like I told you, stopping there first to see my parents for a few days. They're on holiday."

"His parents? No home to go to?" He told her. Her stomach pinched.

"How long since you've seen them?"

"Aren't you nosy today?"

"Not since Dad transferred overseas. Transferred." "Where's your brain, girl?" His mouth stretched and rounded, slow, exaggerated, each 's' a hiss. "US Department of State, Denmark. But last Christmas, better to surf in Costa Rica than hang out in some Danish flatlands. Besides, my sister's a pain."

He had a sibling. Had he told her that, too? "Ah, your sister? What bothers you most about her?"

"What doesn't? You remember she's a tenure prof at that seminary, right?" No, Hildy didn't remember. When had he teaches theology in Dallas? "Been hassling me to read her work. Said she reads mine, so I owe her."

"You don't ever read her stuff? I mean, you kidding?" He gulped water, set his glass in its sweaty puddle. "Pauline epistles are her specialty. I read some of it a few years back, but that Paul dude's dry, I tell you. Out of touch." He arched a brow and a grin. "All Greek to me anyway."

Hildy stared out the window. A chill ran her spine and she heard Otis. "You have a voice, Hildy."

"Girl, a joke, Hildy. Greek. Get it? Jeez. Have a little fun, will you?" She forced a swallow.

"I like him, Bryce. Who?"

"Paul."

"That prehistoric dude, the 2,000 years ago preacher. I've learned a lot from him." His chair's front legs hit the floor. He leaned toward her on forearms.

"You believe that stuff?"

"Yes, I do."

"Ah, I get it now."

"Get what?"

"Your mixed messages, Ghosty. Why you won't going religious on me wasn't part of the deal."

"What deal?" How could she tell him all the ways those holy words exposed and undid her? The ways they described real love when I bother to read them. "I've been wasting my time, haven't I?" She wished she were strong enough to confirm that.

"You're coming over all the time. I've been patient, haven't I? Almost embarrasses me how patient I've been." He ran fingers into his hair and held them there when he leaned toward her, working his jaw. "But you've been playing me, Hillybo. You have no intention of putting out, do you?" His voice carried, heads turned.

"It's for marriage, Bryce," she whispered, but her words felt hollow. She knew as well as Otis did where Bryce wanted to take her. The destination had nothing to do with commitment.

"Marriage, Hildy. Marriage? Why? We've got a good thing going, right?" He took her hands, rubbed them with thumbs. "I thought you liked me."

"I do, Bryce."

Yeah. When she nodded, her chin stayed low. "That's my girl." Eyes twinkling, he relaxed into his chair. Past this ugly discussion, she hoped. But when the server arrived with their food, Bryce stabbed an oyster and held it poised between them. "How about you show me then? Before I leave for an entire month, give me something to come back for."

"Crimey, woman. Let me give you something to tide you over while I'm gone. Tonight?"

"No, today. Soon as we get back. I'll keep you going till we leave for work in the morning." She scanned the room furtively. They were attracting attention. She twisted her napkin, her food untouched as her tears erupted.

"Bryce, stop." She dabbed wet cheeks before the middle-aged hostess led two men their way. One wore jeans and that shirt she loved on him. No way to hide. When Luke saw her, he slowed and brightened until he searched her face, and his countenance dulled. He ran eyes over Bryce, intent on his food, then found hers. "Hello, Hildy," he said. He touched his cap and continued to his table somewhere behind her.

Chapter 39.

Luke straight.

The hostess veered toward a view window, but Luke pointed to a table mid-room. "Mind if we sit there?" He'd have a direct sight line to Hildy, the back of her head and shoulders anyway, and a clear view of her companion, as engrossed in his meal as if sitting alone. Luke studied him, confirming, "Yes, the guy he'd seen through Miranda's windows in that snowstorm, who took Hildy to his cabin, and now she was crying."

The hostess flapped a hand at the dreary waterfront. "No problem. Kind of dull out there today, anyway." Luke eyed the monotone sea and sky into the blinking Coast Guard beacon at the tip of the three-mile spit, surprised at the ease in his glance at the bay. Long time coming. Eating at this Harborview restaurant would have been unthinkable two years earlier. Difficult even a year ago. Eating here a short mile from the marina where he docked the Safe Seas where he'd last seen his family alive. His breath snagged at a flash of them curled on the bunk in another lifetime. He stood at his chair, squeezed the top slat. Now his future possibly sat there a few tables away with a man paying no mind to her distress, no attention at all.

"Hey, Luke." The man with him gestured at Luke's seat, took his own, and checked his watch. "Catch the view later. We've got work to do. I want to be at my office in an hour." Luke cleared his throat, swung eyes to the blueprint spread between them, and sat. "Sorry, Matt. Hijacked for a minute there." They read menus before Luke ran a finger over an architect's elevations and traced exterior windows.

"On your high bluff site? Amazing." The server jotted Matt's order and turned to Luke. "What are you hungry for?"

"If only you knew. Number three is fine. No mayo." Past them. The man with Hildy flipped his streaked sandy hair off a high brow. Sharp cheeks, thin nose, his eyes a sultry squint. Miranda would notice this guy. Well, she already had months earlier in that snowstorm. The man stood when Hildy did, draped her blazer over her shoulders, and laid a guiding hand to the small of her back. He was with her, obviously, until Hildy looked side-long as they walked toward the door, and her eyes locked on Luke's. Mouth pursed, her shoulders rose and fell, and her attention clung to him. At her sideways shift, the man tracked her gaze, bypassing Luke as he hunted the room.

"God help her," Luke thought. He finished a sandwich and the plans review with his client, and returned to his truck, resting his forehead on the steering wheel for a moment before he texted her. Another message she likely wouldn't answer, but for months, everyone he'd sent her showed read, "You were crying. Need a shoulder? I'm here." Skies cleared as he neared home, but he couldn't shake Hildy's lingering gaze, or the foreboding he felt. For the next hour, he walked his land, pleading, and felt himself at war. He resisted the impulse to drive to the river and find her, and instead located Jangles lying sphinx-like in the south pasture, her jaw grinding rich spring cud, massive horns tilted when he sat, and when he leaned on her withers and wept, she didn't get up.

Chapter 40.

Hildy capture.

Outside the restaurant, Bryce threw an arm around Hildy and brushed his lips to her neck. Her goose flesh rose with heat different from what she'd known with Luke, but heat nonetheless. In reply, she laced her arm around his waist and wished she'd never met either of them. Wished she'd never reawakened to the complicated power of touch. He opened her door, wiped rain from her brow, and kissed her on her lips this time, nuzzled her braid. "M. You smell good. Let's get home, hang out. We can fill Dave in on our presentation tomorrow." He pulled the belt over her lap, and buckled her in. "I'll fix you an early dinner, beauty. Not Ghosty."

"A new angle, huh, Bryce." She smiled at him, pressed her nose to his cheek. The man didn't quit, but she'd hold her own with him, like always. Minutes later, he emerged from Safeway to hoist a wine tote and grocery bag to her window and settle them behind her seat. "Bet you'll like this reasoning." She laughed. "You don't give up, do you?" Unlikely she'd drink this one either, but his buoyant good nature, his whistling, their comfortable silence the rest of the way to the Elwa. The familiarity soothed her, stifled her disease. He sheltered her from the rain with his coat and hurried her into his cabin, then retrieved the bag and two bottles, draped her blazer on a hook, and closed blinds against the drumming downpour. "No point in looking out at that, is there?"

When she hugged her upper arms in the room's chill, he hurried to light a fire. She warmed herself at the wood stove screen while he opened the two bottles, poured from each, and handed her a glass of golden liquid. He raised his glass of red. "Don't know why I never thought of it."

"Thought of what?" Hildy peered at her wine, swirled it. "A white like soda."

"You'll like this one. Is that right?" So many of the times she'd hung out with him, he'd suggested she relax and share his ever-present drinks. But though heaven knew she needed relaxing, they tasted awful. She'd shuddered and quit at every first sip.

"To us," he said, and clinked her glass. "Us." She touched the drink to her lips and licked them. Sampled it again and bent an eyebrow. Eyes wide, she swallowed a mouthful, and on its heels another.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Bryce grinned, took the glass from her, and held it out of reach. "Small sips, gorgeous. Take your time or you'll be sorry. So will I when you're snoring on my bed, or..." he waved his hand toward the bathroom. "Hold up in there."

"Okay." She swirled the wine. "Nectar." And he was right. Just two swallows calmed her. He set her glass on the counter, filled a small plate with crackers and hummus. "Better get some food in you before you drink anymore. You ignored that lunch." Bent to the open fridge, he extracted greens, a tomato, sprouts.

"Looking out for me."

"More progress. Want some help?"

"Nope. The gift begins now. Put your feet up and watch the chef work. Tonight's dedicated to the most stunning woman on the planet." He set the plate on the end table beside her, spread a fleecy throw over the scratchy upholstery, then brought her glass. "Eat first, then sip." More whistling while he made salad and vinaigrette and sliced a thick-crusted loaf. She giggled at his flourish of the bread knife, a salmon pun like Miranda's, and his deference, studied him while he connected a speaker, filled the room with Vivaldi and Rall, and refilled her glass. He set the steaks to broil, laid out place mats and napkins, utensils, and a pair of elegant dinner plates. She examined the underside of one. "Limoges." She'd eaten from plates with this pattern at a Seattle colleague's private dinner, welcoming her to the UW.

"Where'd you get those?"

"A couple of extras from her set. I cracked them out for nights like this."

"Wonderful." She said all of it was the music, the fire, the tender preparations, the wine, and to her surprise, this man. When he shoved a candle in an empty bottle and lit it, she blinked slowly, watching him. Her mind, body, and even her heart were warming. He held her chair, spread her napkin across her lap, and bowed, a towel on one arm. When he again filled her glass, she tugged him toward her, but he wagged a finger, then abandoned his fleeting primness, kissed her crown, and sat across from her, doing irresistible. They ate at a leisurely pace, and while the light of candle and fireplace flickered a connection she felt in her belly, he filled the quiet with his questions and kindnesses and observations. Did he hear her replies? The reciprocity with Luke had been electric and melting, respectful and trusted and beautiful. Was this similar? Momentarily, her vow forgotten. She wanted it to be. Plates empty. He cleared them, then took her hands and pressed lips to her fingertips. Then he emptied the bottle of red wine into his glass, flopped beside her, and they thumb wrestled, laughed. When he dropped to the floor and pulled off her shoes, she swallowed the rest of her rezling, sank into the cushion, and closed her eyes, as sleepy as she'd ever been.

When she opened them, night had fallen, and only the fire lit the room. She lay on her back on the fleecy blanket, her head on a sofa pillow. Bryce sat in a chair watching her. He'd turned off the music. "Well, that's a first." He swigged his beer and wiped his chin with the heel of his hand.

"What?"

"Never had a chick fall asleep on me like that before. Waste of perfectly good steaks."

"Hildy stretched. The meal was great, Bryce. The entire night was." He snorted and swilled again.

"The night never got rolling. He got to his feet and steadied himself before he plucked her refilled wine glass from the counter and crossed to the futon. Swaying over her, he set it on the end table and dragged a finger down her cheek. "Now, where were we?"

Hildy rose on one elbow, eyed the bathroom door. "I'll be right back." Midsentence, Bryce pushed her heart against the futon's backrest, and dread bit her like a trapped animal.

Chapter 41.

Luke alert.

4 hours and no reply from Hildy, though Luke had watched his text send, and its status changed to read. Her parting glance at the restaurant haunted him. What was she trying to say? The foreboding that settled on him when he watched her leave had grown oppressive as the afternoon stretched on. Through failing twilight, Luke tracked Curt's hurried course across the field and checked his phone. Huh. The tractor had drowned Curt's call. His friend leapt to Luke's porch, breathing hard. "Just heard from the group. Three of them were weighed down as they prayed for Hildy. Her name's been on the list since you two split, but tonight they were burdened for her, man."

Luke slapped a post and blew from puffed cheeks. "I knew it. Four months with only one glimpse of her. But today we end up 20 ft apart at the crab house. Think that's a coincidence?"

"She was with that guy I saw last winter at the resort. Yeah, him. She was crying, Kurt."

"What time did they get those warnings?"

"They met at 7. Liam called a few minutes ago." Luke glanced at his watch. Was he too late?

Kurt frowned. "What are you sensing?"

"That I should go to her. But when haven't I wanted to do that? I told her I know what you told her. Anything different this time." Luke dug in a pocket for keys. "But she's afraid."

"Go, friend. Now."

Chapter 42.

Hildy. Cut.

Before Hildy could gather her wits, Bryce stooped, gripped the futon's frame below her hip, and pulled. Something clicked. The backrest fell flat, and she found herself lying on a full-size mattress, the convertible bed Bryce slept on in the one-room cabin. Jolted, she sat upright and eyed the door. But just as quickly, he shoved her to the bed and straddled her, hands on her shoulders, holding her down, his mouth alive on her lips and cheeks, and traveling her neck as one hand clamped her wrist flat beside her. His forearm pinned her opposite shoulder as he worked the placket of her shirt.

"Bryce, no." She wrenched her mouth from his demanding one and clawed his back where she could. "Not this time, Chicky. All your games, I've waited long enough." Muttering, panting, his torso immobilized her as his free hand abandoned her resistant buttons, and his weight compressed her lungs. He grabbed her neckline in an iron fist. In the next second, he reared up and jerked her shirt in a quick downward snap. Sensations and sounds. The sharp pressure at her neck, the rending cloth, the crush of his weight again, his whiskers at her bare shoulder as he tore her shirt away. Somehow she freed an arm, flailed, and swept the lamp and wine glass to the floor. A split second of chaos and breakage. Bryce bucked and cursed, and Hildy writhed to the bed's edge, twisted and flopped backwards, her head and one shoulder onto the floor, her other shoulder, the bare one, onto the jagged bowl of the broken glass. She shrieked with pain. Bryce pushed himself upright and swore again. Dizzied, she rolled to her knees, clamped a hand to her injured deltoid, then winced and snapped it away. "Glass in me?" she gasped and scrambled to her feet. Scowling, Bryce swiped at her arm, but she slipped from his reach, lurched wide over wreckage, and again touched the cut. Fingers dark with blood, she hurried to the bathroom and locked herself inside, where she pulled her ruined shirt over the wound. But when fabric caught on an embedded shard, she whimpered, retracted the cloth, and inspected the gaping slice in the mirror, found splinters, and plucked.

Bryce's voice at the door. "Let me see, Hildy." She shrank, stared at the lock button. He rattled the handle.

"I'm sorry." Her heart thundered as she twisted toward the mirror. Below her frayed braid and pale face, a 3-in arc bloomed raw. Blood dripped to the counter and sink. The hollow door thumped. Hildy jerked as if shot. She froze when Bryce shouted her name, then tiptoed to the small window, hoisted herself to the frame, and squeezed through. Barefoot, she tiptoed beneath the dripping eaves of his cabin as a light flicked on inside, and its glow seeped past edges of the closed blinds. Muffled now, Bryce called her again, and she heard pounding. She crouched, clenched the ragged cloth across her chest, and minced on tender feet over gravel. At cabin five, then four, wet grass gave her softer footing. She crept faster, bent into driving rain that soaked her and plastered loose strands of hair to her brow and cheeks in the back of her neck. A truck rounded the store when she reached her stoop. Blinded by headlights, she cowered. "Hurry," she told herself and fumbled under the stair for her hidden key. Quivering fingers aimed for the lock missed.

"Hildy," a man's voice. An image of Bryce loomed in her mind, and she cried out, shrank to her knees. She flinched when hands pressed her upper arms, pulled her to her feet, and helped her inside. Eyes squeezed tight. She bumped a jacket slick with rain before she felt the warmth of him, smelled the scent of cedar and sweat, and kindness she loved. Luke, still bunching her shirt, she fell into him.

Chapter 43.

Luke voice.

"My bird," she said as Luke helped her to a chair at her table. Butter Ness flitted, clung sideways to his cage. Hildy spoke through chattering teeth. "His quilt." Luke covered the cage and assessed Hildy's unsteadiness, her shocky tremors. The bird wasn't the only one needing a blanket. Scanning the room, he pulled the alpaca throw from its hanger. "Give me your shirt," he said. She didn't move. "Come on, Hildy. I won't look. It's wet. You'll warm up faster without it." He raised the throw like a curtain until green linen hit the floor, then wrapped all of her upper body but the wound. Below it, the weave caught fresh blood in a swag of red. He dialed the wall heater to high, moved a floor lamp to her shoulder, and slid the strap of her sports bra farther from the cut. He drew a chair close behind her, sat and inspected. Her shivering wasn't merely from the cold.

"Wine glass," she said. "Hurts."

"No doubt it's a deep one, Hildy. I can get the bigger splinters out, but they'll flush it at the ER. You're going to need stitches." He rummaged kitchen drawers for clean towels, scrubbed his hands and dried them, then wrung a fresh cloth and dabbed blood from the perimeter of her torn flesh. Tweezers, medicine cabinet, zipper bag. He found the implement fast.

"A wine glass didn't shred that shirt."

"No," she said. "He hurt you anywhere else?"

"I got away. I didn't think he—he never acted like that before."

"Who's he?"

"Bryce Dixon. I work with him."

A light tap at the door. A man's voice. "I don't bite. Ghosty. You didn't need to run off. Slurry. I'm coming in. From the looks of my bathroom, you're bleeding like a stuck pig."

Luke switched on the porch light. And when the latch clicked open, he filled the doorway and frowned at the man he'd seen at the restaurant. "No thanks to you."

The man stepped backwards. "Who? Where's Hildy?"

"None of your business, unless she decides otherwise." Bryce wiggled a finger at dark drops at his feet, then tried to peer inside. "She's bleeding. Let me in. I can help."

Luke stepped in his path. "I don't think so. I suggest you turn around right there."

"Like you said, that's for her to decide, isn't it?" Bryce staggered, whapped a zippered case the size of a shaving kit against the jamb. "Hildy, I brought my med bag."

"Go away, Bryce. Leave me alone." Luke cringed at the phrases that had burned in him for months. Words so wrong when aimed at him. But at this low life, that a girl. She sounded stronger than she looked.

"You heard the lady." Luke closed the door inches from Bryce's face, threw the deadbolt, and pressed a hand to the frame, breathing to calm his anger. Praying. If Bryce took this further, Luke would do whatever the situation required. But Hildy needed help, not more conflict. Outside, planks thumped as the man muttered profanities and paced. Silence followed his thunks down the stairs, but Luke didn't bother to look. "I'll deal with him if he shows his face again," he thought, and turned his attention to Hildy.

Two triangular shards, a thin inch-long splinter. Luke tweezed more glass to a paper towel, patted the congealing blood, and ran a tissue over the wound, testing for snags from additional fragments. Though her shaking had subsided, she hadn't said a word as he worked, and only squeaked at the third extraction. Instead, she watched the wall, listless.

"How'd you know to come find me?" she asked.

"Got a nudge like we talked about." He touched her porcelain cheek with a knuckle, absorbing her. She turned to him wide-eyed, nodded, and drew an enormous breath, focusing. Finally, when he laid a fresh cloth over her shoulder, she didn't flinch.

"Good," he said, and eyed her bare skin and the afghan that wrapped her like a shawl. "Time for a little embroidery, sweetheart. Got something to wear to the emergency room?" Armed tight to her side, she rose and claimed a hoodie from her closet. Moments later, she emerged from the bathroom, zipped to her chin and holding the bloodied afghan. Her voice was birdlike. "Rinse this first." He took it from her, knew he'd wash the sky for her if she asked.

Luke shifted to park, glanced at Hildy, and peered through the windshield at three stories of gleaming hospital windows. "They'll ask for details in there. You want to file a report?" If it were up to him, he'd have the guy arrested and booked, her torn shirt tagged as evidence.

"No."

"Almost a whale. You think he'd have quit if you hadn't escaped?"

"I don't know." Luke scrubbed his cheeks, pressed his hands, heels to his eyes. "Dudes like him. He's not usually like that. He drank more than usual. And I went over there a lot."

"You're making excuses for him, Hildy, and taking blame." She fixated on the window. "A man who cared about you would have guarded you, not used your vulnerability for personal gratification." Hands clenched in her lap. Hildy wagged her toes in the truck's footwell. Watching her squirm, Luke blinked at a sudden insight. A picture of her as a child, yearning to please. Trained to accept mistreatment, then to pack another's wrongs as if they were her own. No wonder she settled for Bryce. At least her dad had loved her. In every story she told, Lars treasured her. Luke had watched Hildy's body language and eyes for mixed messages about him, but had seen only clarity and bright sparks of being cherished. If not for Lars, Luke doubted he could have connected with her at all. Who then who had sideswiped all that? He had an inkling.

"He assaulted you, sweetheart."

"I don't want to report him, Luke. I got away. I learned. Besides, he won't bother me again. I expect he'll replace me pretty fast. And try again with some other woman who isn't as strong as you are."

"I'm not strong. All those years you kept to yourself. You could have caved a long time ago. Even this time, you showed up on your porch with only..." He swiveled in his seat to face her. "Now, don't take this wrong. I'm not minimizing the seriousness. But when I found you, you were fully clothed with only a torn shirt and cut shoulder. He could have hurt you a lot worse. Grace on God's part, Hildy. Courage on yours. You escaped him."

"I was drinking wine."

"His idea or yours."

"First time he found something I liked. He'd been trying for a while."

"What's that tell you?"

"If not for the spirit staying my hand, I'd kill him."

"Come on, Wonder Woman. Let's get you sewn up."

Chapter 44.

Hildy hair.

11 stitches later, Hildy dozed in Luke's truck until they passed the curve to the Elwa Bridge. When Luke's headlamps flooded the resort's lane, the exterior light flicked on at cabin 6. Bryce stood in his doorway until they parked, then pivoted and disappeared inside.

"He's waiting for you." Luke threw the dead bolt behind them.

"Think he's got the stones to see how you're doing?"

"He's drunk, Luke." He shook his head. "Another excuse."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I don't think he cares all that much about me." Luke swiped as if at wasps. "Then why do you?" From a window, he again scanned the dark. "Never mind. Drunk or not, he's more likely to leave you alone if I'm here. I won't let him in."

"How many times did he light up your phone the last few hours? That lock won't stop him." Her eyes filled. "You'd better get home. I'm guessing you've got a full day tomorrow."

"He's leaving in the morning anyway for a month. He can't leave soon enough." With your permission, I'll be here to watch him go. He plumped a small pillow at the armrest of her love seat, then retrieved the aqua throw draped on a chair, its edge still damp from his rinsing. His stocking feet hung in air when he lay on the too-short sofa and spread her favorite blanket over himself. He grinned at her and winked. "When he takes off, I'll wave at him from right here. Now, if you're going to wake up for breakfast with me, you'd better get some shut-eye. You good with that?"

Sleep with Luke on the couch all night? The warm room, her relief at his presence, the ache in her shoulder as the lidocaine wore off. All quelled the protest that reared in her. She had no fight left. "Yeah, I am. Thanks."

"Mind if I read a while?" He chose from a stack of books on the floor.

"Will the light bother you?"

"I don't think so." Still dressed, braided, and too tired to care, she crawled into bed, rousing only when Luke later tucked her duvet around her, touched her cheek, and clicked off the light.

At dawn, rattling hardware startled her awake. Her eyes swept the quiet room and the empty love seat, and she heard her shower shut off. Beneath his cover, Butter Ness chirped. As quickly as it began, the noise at the door stopped, flooring thunked, and a vehicle revved. She crept from her bed in time to see Bryce's Toyota turn onto the highway. She paced until Luke emerged from the bathroom, fully clothed and rubbing his head with a towel. She hurried to him, clutched his shirt. "He was here," she said as he held her. "Tried the latch." She pointed toward the highway and realized how worried she'd been the night before.

"Drove off. Huh?" He swung the door open. The blazer she'd worn to Peninsula College threaded the door handle, and tan leather flats sat at the threshold. Luke checked around the porch and inside the shoes for more. "You'd think he'd at least leave you a note."

"I don't need specifics, but did he text you anything decent since he sobered up?" Messages from Bryce the night before, insistent, demanding, littered her phone. "No, nothing today at all."

"Not my business, Hildy. But I suggest you tell your boss. Tell Dave." Her employer thought of her as a daughter. He'd be livid and Bryce would be toast.

"I couldn't."

"Working with the guy is going to be untenable. At least say you'll think about it. If not for your sake, for the next woman's." She looked at her hands and nodded. "I will consider it. I mean." Luke handed her a steaming mug and sat across from her. "Enough about him. How's that patch job this morning?"

Hildy rolled her injured shoulder and winced. "A little sore."

"I'd be surprised if it weren't. You going to let me change that bandage already?"

"Later today. Don't you have to work?"

"It's Saturday, Hildy. And a holiday." She frowned and dug for the calendar in a pile of papers. "Uh, I don't think so. I'm a resort kid, remember? I know holidays."

"Call it an anniversary." Then she tipped her head and squinted at him. "Whose?"

His smile sent a surge through her. "Ours. We met a year ago, plus a few days, but who's counting. Worth celebrating, don't you think?" And just like that, here he was again.

"Why, Luke? After all, I've..."

He reached across the table, laid hands on hers. "Because we can, Hildy. Let's just see what happens. One day at a time. Think you can do that?"

Her cheeks burned. "I don't know. What if I can't?"

"I'm a big boy. I'll risk it." 24 hours earlier, she'd sat here alone, reviewing notes for the presentation she and Bryce would give at the college. Fingers quiet. Her brain ran the prior days and nights. Details. No need to write. Butter Ness pecked at millet, scattering seeds onto papers and the cleared surface between her and this astounding man. She opened the door to the bird's cage, and when he flitted through the opening and clung to a dangling skate, the accumulated tension, her fear, and a swell of relief commingled, and she burst into tears. The bird flew to the child's high chair and perched on its metal backrest. Luke rose and rounded the table. Kneeling, he stroked her wet cheeks.

"Copy him, Hildy."

"Who?"

"That bird leaving his cage." She shrugged and fingered her sleep-frayed hair. "I don't know what you mean. I'm too much of a mess to go anywhere." Luke tapped a loose hair pin.

"May I?"

"What?"

He ran fingers along her braid, pulled a pin. "Brush it."

"My hair." She shook her head. Luke dropped the pin to the wood. "Okay, I won't." But the sensation of his touch remained, his fingers on her braid, his release of one of those bent little wires she jabbed into her hair every single day of her life. For what? To protect her hair herself somehow. How was that working if last night was a test?

"No one besides me has handled my hair in years."

"Maybe it's time." Maybe it was. "My brush is in the bathroom." An urge to run. She gripped the chair seat, held herself in place. Rigid, she clamped her eyes closed until he brought the brush and slowly pulled each pin. As a small pile of golden wires accumulated, he unwound the yellow coil and removed the clear band that held its tail. "My girls liked braids," he said, and she was sure he was with his daughters, not her. But then his fingertips loosed the plate, and she knew otherwise. He shook the strands and spread the waves at her nape. A shiver ran her neck. "Wow, Hildy." He smoothed her hair's length and batted it side to side. "Magnificent. Your hair you." She felt naked and bathed by his words. The two perceptions arrived together and to her astonishment linked. The exposure of her freed hair, the safety with him who had freed it. Shameless and euphoric, she could have swooned.

"Here, turn," he said, and she shifted, the chair's back slats to her side as Luke bunched, lifted, and began slow, gentle, rhythmic brushing she leaned into like her long-ago pup had leaned when she rubbed his ears. So different from her mother's rough, hurried tending. A scene she'd not thought of in decades, charged in. Violet's sharp jerks of the brush through Hildy's snarls, her muttered threats to chop off the whole mess and throw it in the lake. 7-year-old Hildy's cries at the pain, her learning fingers fumbling to braid and pin the plate to her skull. She'd never worn her hair down again.

"Did you brush theirs like this? You're Lucy and Quinn often. Did your dad brush yours?"

"No."

"Why didn't he?" So many blanks in her remembering. "Mom did, but not like this."

"When did you last see your mother?"

"Not since I was with you."

"Too long ago, I know." He studied her. "You don't say much about your mom."

"Nothing to say." She pulled her head away, fingers taut. She divided her hair into three strands and yanked three passes of a tight new braid.

"Wo there. I won't push you." He rested hands on hers. "May I?" She paused in his calm, breathed that away. He caught the strands in one hand and massaged her good shoulder with the other before he twined a long loose braid down her back, reattached the band, and scooped the pins away when she reached for them. Then he flipped the braid so it swung at her waist. "You up for a little breakfast and swim?" She pulled the braid over her shoulder. Butter Ness chirped from a rusty wagon beside her bed. Clear to swim with her hair down. She may as well be in pajamas like this.

"Absolutely. Catch that bird and we'll go." She'd try it once.

Chapter 45.

Hildy offline store has been a ghost town today. June set a warmed cinnamon roll and fork in front of Hildy, then rounded the counter with a stack of mail. "Couple of fishermen earlier, but that's it. Nobody here on a warm, beautiful May morning. Odd." She riffled through envelopes and flyers, sorting. Hildy lifted the plate to her nose and inhaled.

"H. Who cares? A slow day lets you make these. You sure won't be baking come Memorial Day. Last dance hall convention before those turbines shut down. This place will be insane."

"Got that right. And soon as the lake drops, I expect looks coming out of the woodwork for a piece of history. End of an era." June poised an invisible walkie-talkie at her lips and crackled static in the back of her throat. "100 years of Elwa electricity over and out." She tossed junk mail in the trash, then wagged an envelope. "Good thing he's not bringing me his rent in person. I'd throttle him."

"How's your shoulder doing?" There was only one renter Hildy knew of who would mail a check. Only one male renter, period.

"Better. Got my stitches out."

"Glad to hear it." With a knife from a countertop caddy, June sliced the seam of Bryce's envelope and tapped his handwritten note. "Can't say I'm sorry."

"For what?" June flapped his check and letter like wings. "He's paid in full for the very last time. Dr. Bryce Dixon has given notice." She dropped the letter beside Hildy's plate and touched a scrolled line. "Says he'll be out of here months' end. Soon as he gets back from Oregon. I told you, girl, you should have given him the boot. Now he got the last word."

Luke had wanted her to evict Bryce, too, and offered to haul cabin 6's contents to the highway with a free sign.

"I don't care about that."

June's eyebrows arched. "You ought to. More ways to set boundaries than hiding out, Hildy girl. Stand up to that man."

"I did."

June's look was dubious. "You tell that boss of yours about him yet. How you expect to work with that creep?"

"He's not..."

Her mouth grim. June raised a stop-sign hand. "I don't care how handsome, smart, funny, or whatever it is you saw in him. The man's a creep. The farther he gets from this place and from you, the better. I'm tempted to call Dave myself, but with you being 35 now. Won't stop this from happening again if I care more than you do. Come on, girl. Step up."

"He was using you."

"Well, likewise. That's usually how it works, Hildy. You wouldn't be the first at the potluck swapping yourself for junk food. The girl comes out sadder and hungrier every time. Nothing but fake love in that trade."

"We didn't. I didn't."

"Only a matter of time. The way he was angling. You want to continue working with the man?"

"Not really, but he's the best. I don't want to mix my private and professional lives."

June snorted. "Too late for that. Dave needs to know. If not for that glass insult in your shoulder. Sure as I have a nose on my face. That man would have..."

"I guess. I mean it, girl. Tell Dave. Tomorrow." Hildy expelled a long sigh. "I'm not promising, but I'll try. Yes." To placate Luke, to protect others, and maybe for herself. Maybe telling Dave could perch her at the door of her cage, prep her for liftoff.

Monday, when she finished the telling, Hildy dared to look across the desk at Dave. Lips clamped, he leaned back in his chair, his face slack with sadness, his eyes sparking with the emotions she'd recognized in both Luke and June when they heard. Anger, indignation, care. Clear as the river, she recognized each one because freed in her voicing, each welled in her, too. At last.

"Wait till he gets here." Dave gritted his teeth. "I'm sorrier than you can possibly know, Hildy. Thankful it wasn't worse. And sorry."

"You report him?"

She turned her gaze to her knees. "What would I report, Dave? Think about it. A public accusation? No thanks. The guy's not a criminal."

"Depends who you're talking to." He stroked his chin and typed on his keyboard. "There it is. His email this morning." He turned the computer to her. "Beat me to the punch. Must have sniffed us about to talk and scadaddled." Leaned toward the screen, squinting as she scanned the lines. "He got his old job back. Apparently, read on. Says Noah made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He'll show up here on their river teams, but effective June 1st, Bryce is off our payroll. He quit."

She'd spilled her guts to Dave, and now Bryce was leaving of his own accord. The whole sorry event could have stayed secret. A wave of regret rolled over her. "I wish I hadn't said anything."

"Rats smell traps, Hildy. You're bringing this info to me, but he sensed it as soon as you decided. Things work that way sometimes." He shrugged. "If you'd kept this under wraps, you'd be working here alongside him with me none the wiser. Heartburn material or worse." As she listened, her doubts and that awful regret shrank. A new strength couched itself in Dave's observations. Clarity, too, about Bryce's role and hers. She could see the demarcation between them better now, and she refused culpability for Bryce's actions outright. She pictured Butter Ness flying and she couldn't wait to tell Luke.

"Well, I guess that's that." She stood and turned toward the door.

"Not so fast, Hildy. You won't press charges, but I'm going to document what you've told me and include it in his exit interview when he clears out his office. I'll respect your wishes and not go public at this point, but I'm flagging his file. I expect my written statement and a little face-to-face discussion will incentivize him to tow the line." Ambitious as he is, he peered over half-rim glasses. "Sure you won't let me throw the book at him?"

"I'll deny it if you do, Dave, and I won't sign."

That report of yours. Telling Dave was one thing. Going public, quite another. Formal charges would keep Rice and her snarled for who knew how long, and then everyone would know. Her privacy was at stake. He clicked his tongue as if urging his horse, "Have it your way."

Memorial Day weekend dawned overcast. By Friday afternoon, the gloom deepened as dancers' rigs rolled into the campground. Across the river, boondockers crowded the woods behind the dance hall as more RVs stacked into the overflow lot past Hildy's cabin. She waved a backing trailer into a narrow slot, then raised her buzzing handset. "June, don't watch your broadsided Hildy girl. You ought to know there's a red Toyota in that lineup headed for cabin 6. Over."

"Got it." June stepped between a camper bus and a tent trailer as Bryce's rig passed within 10 ft of her. Beside him in the passenger seat, that red head from the college. Wrapped in the auditorium's front row, the girl had trailed Bryce outside the day of their presentation. A recruit, he'd called her. For more than fish, Hildy thought. She peaked past the trailer as the Toyota stopped at Bryce's cabin and the pair went inside.

20 minutes later, she nearly collided with the girl exiting the store with a six-pack in each hand. "Sorry, I—"

"Oh, hey, it's you, Bryce. And I—" She hoisted the beer between them. "Want to join us?"

"Too bright." Hildy cringed at her tiny voice. "Other plans, thanks."

Without looking back, she found June behind the crowded counter checking in guests. "Heard from Tess yet?"

June glanced at the clock. "Said she'd be here by 6:00, so any minute. You leaving for Miranda's?"

Hildy pushed her walkie-talkie across the counter. "Soon. She's closing the studio at 6:00 and wants to eat by 7:00, so I'm chopping salad. Luke will meet us there."

"Glad to see you patching things up with her." June handed a receipt to a skinny middle-aged woman and circled a site on the resort map between them. "Luke's ankle any better?"

"He's limping, wearing a brace, but he's getting around. He'd called Hildy from a job on Hurricane Ridge Road when he wrenched it and she'd driven him to the Port Angeles clinic for X-rays. He'll be fine. No dancing, though."

"No dancing. Not for Luke, anyway. And she wouldn't go without him. Tessy and Dus can handle things here, girl. You go with that man of yours. Have fun."

That man of yours, was he? One day at a time, Luke had suggested, and though she dared not look beyond the next 24 hours with him, as their weeks together accumulated, her emotional footing stabilized. This morning, she dusted the shelves vacated by her packed-away diaries; her torrent of need to record and gather mementos slowed to a trickle. Even better, now she rarely gave shadows the time of day, counting each hour too precious to waste.

Usually at 9:00 the next morning, music and the caller's drone wafted cross river when Hildy left an early shift at the store for a late breakfast at home. Mid lane, she spotted Bryce, who slammed the hatch of his loaded vehicle before the redhead closed the door of cabin 6 and locked it. Bryce grabbed the girl from behind, pressed her to the wall, and kissed her hungrily. He took the key dangling from her fingers as she pulled him closer. Embarrassed, Hildy looked away. She neared her door when Bryce broke his embrace and spotted her. Trotting her direction, he tossed the key near her stoop. "All yours, Ghosty. We're out of here."

She turned her back, ignored the key, and slipped inside her cabin. Bryce could have been a stray dog for all she cared, and she'd have felt like one had she stayed her course with him. Stirring oatmeal at the stove, she glanced through the kitchen window when a horn blared outside. Bryce's hand stretched high, waving from the red SUV before it turned onto the highway toward Port Angeles. After breakfast, she towed cabin 6's key in the gravel, pinched it from the ground as if it were a dead squirrel's tail, and carried it to the store.

The morning of June 1st, Luke and Hildy stood on the Elwood Dam as a small group in hard hats piled into the powerhouse. Park employees, dignitaries, she said. Some held cameras. "And those reporters; this will make national news by tonight."

Luke leaned on the rail over the spillways. "Don't you want to go inside? See him flip those switches?"

"No thanks." Fingers wide, she stretched arms toward the foothills. "I'd rather hear those turbines go quiet. Get an earful of the valley the second the voltage leaves those wires."

Luke limped to midspan. "Yeah, only been 97 years."

They both went silent, their ears pricked, and were rewarded when the powerhouse whine dimmed. "One down," Hildy said. "Two to go." She pinched Luke's shirt sleeve and again panned the forested hillsides and the lake. "I've prepped mentally for this day for years, and I still find this hard to believe."

"Oh, it's happening." His head tipped. "There goes another one."

"Twice." Hildy hopped in place, then walked to Luke and stared at her watch. At 9:19 a.m., the pitch of the remaining live turbine dropped. Then the hum quit altogether. She dropped her forehead onto Luke's shoulder and listened. The collective shout she expected from the station never reached her ears, though her inward cheer lasted for hours.

Chapter 46. Luke Shoreline.

"A longhorn, huh? Ever think of breeding her? A calf could be fun for you. Not as entertaining as landing fish off Nia Bay, but you've got the land, Luke, if you've got the time." The Squim Dairy Man had run a hand over his barn's new sighting, inspecting Luke's handiwork. "I can match a sire for you. Store the seaman in my nitrogen tank. You see her in heat, ring me. Breeding her in June or July is best if you want a spring calf."

A calf? Hildy had patted Jangles's withers when Luke told her, and when her eyes lit, he'd sent a check for that seaman. Now mid-June, Jangles was bellowing along fence lines when Luke haltered the animal, snubbed her to a post in a corner of the field, and held her tail. While the farmer threaded a long pipette through her cervix, the cow wagged her monstrous horns and swayed foot-to-foot.

20 minutes later, Luke was on the road to Hildy's. She met him at her door in jeans and a tank top, boots in hand. "You'll call me when she's in labor. Day or night, I'll be there."

9 months until that cow would deliver, and Hildy was planning that far out with him. He hadn't dared hope past tomorrow. Happiness rushed him, and he kissed her nose. "Absolutely."

Hildy's attention darted. "Only two weeks since those turbines quit, Luke, and the reservoirs already dropped 18 ft. Our docks high and dry. You good hiking that new shoreline today instead of the hill? I've been trying to get out there all week." Anywhere they went together, she agreed with him.

"It's dropped that much, huh? Those shallows must be dry then."

"Yeah, now the river cuts sediment way past Mom's old cabin. The actual lake shore is quite a ways out." She thrust her thumb down river and tied a hoodie at her waist. The tip of that braid hung at her slender waist with no pins in sight. "Scavengers are showing up. One guy found a hundred-year-old wagon wheel. Sold it online to a ranger."

"Uh-oh. He get fined?"

"Yeah, hundreds of dollars. Won't stop people, though. Illegal or not, treasure hunters will raid that lake bed. Can you imagine how many tribal artifacts they'll find out there? And how many more they won't find after teams replant that forest?" She chewed her thumb, then curled fingers around it, grinned. "Riley, 'I'm bringing excavation tools. We'll call it soil testing. You get busted, I won't admit to knowing you.'" She grabbed his hand, pulled him to the waiting UTV, and added a shovel to buckets and a metal probe.

"Oh, yes, you will. We'll see about that." She laughed, and boarded the rig. "Nah, you're safe. I'm authorized. Next stop, the vanishing Lake Alwell with my partner in crime."

Partner? Oh, he could be if she'd let him. And she might. His optimism grew every day her receptivity to him lasted. But would it stick? He knew the change in her was too remarkable, too fast for all the emotional ground she had to cover yet. But he was beginning to believe it would.

Hildy hummed as she donned work gloves and pulled on a cap. In the distance, a grouse drummed for its mate before she drove them past the cabins, the stranded dock, then read the sediment and rounded the mud holes on firmer, gravelly ground. At the retreating lake, she rolled them to a stop and leapt from the rig. Hands on hips, her sights roved the glistening water and the rim of conifers before they landed on the evacuated shore. Luke tracked her gaze to the exposed lake bed. "Artifacts, right?"

"More like a bathtub ring." All he saw were waterlogged stumps and the thick trunks of windfalls, each layered with a gritty brown-gray film. He felt an absurd inclination to scrub. But when Hildy reached for a 5-gallon bucket, he grabbed shovel and probe and followed her onto the drowned wasteland she and those teams would spend years resuscitating. At least he could walk with her, jab the probe here and there.

"Easy with that thing, Luke. We want to find stuff, not wreck it."

Pointless, he thought, until Hildy hurried across the 40° slope and grasped an oxidized metal pipe projecting a foot above the water, a pipe with a handle. "I thought it was a branch at first." She planted her heels in the heavy earth, crouched, and pulled. The item budged barely. "Here, let me." Luke waded the river to his boottops, probed underwater, and dug. Hildy bent toward him, hands on her knees as he excavated. "What is it?"

When the object came free, he slooshed it with lake water, rubbed, and slooshed again. Beneath mud and algae, a child's wagon emerged, patched with rust and flaking red paint. Wheels, their hubs stark white, seemed to stare from bolt pupils, as if surprised.

"Not exactly an antique," Luke said. But way out here, Hildy seemed delighted. "No buildings within a mile. No road smooth enough to pull it on. You think it floated?"

Luke carried the toy to shore. "I doubt this thing was buoyant. There's a mystery here, Luke. I'm taking it home."

"You're going to get canned."

He laughed. "I'd better hire you. Keep you out of the bread line."

"Nobody will care if I take it. Those wheels. You're right. It's not that old." Luke rinsed and drained the wagon a third time, then hiked the handle over his shoulder. "I'm not packing it all the way to the dam. You see enough for today?"

A wheel spun when she tested it. "Yeah, we can head back." Her eyes narrowed and skimmed the lake. "Can you imagine what's hiding out there?"

A corner of Luke's mouth hitched as he reversed direction. "Might compete with your yard sales."

"It already is," he thought. He'd tagged along on a couple of stops at garages and yards filled with loaded tables. She had the same jittery focus out here. Upbeat, Hildy dogged his heels on their quicker return, and she didn't say much, but the occasional weight of her hand on the wagon gave him pause. Why her interest in this rusty old thing? He sensed more than a mystery, but did she?

The wagon dried while he carried it, then dropped silt and rusty debris when he set it beside the painted wagon in Hildy's cabin. From a chair by the wood stove, he watched her kneel, frown, and run hands along the corroded bed. "Same size," she said. "And the same make from the looks of it."

He leaned on to knees. "You keeping them both?"

A grin cleared her storm. "Of course." She scrutinized her walls and located a narrow strip the width of the wagon's handle. "There's room. We can hang it right there." Luke nodded, plucked a hook from her table, and screwed it into the space. She hung the wagon, her face tight with concentration.

"You're working a puzzle," he said. "Am I right?"

"A puzzle?" She mumbled. "I don't know."

"Stay on it, Hildy. See how the pieces fit."

"You think they will?" He took her hand from a wheel, pivoted her to him, and kissed her. "Yep." And when they do, they'd need an archaeologist's tools for one, and somebody wise about this stuff. His arms wrapped her and lifted her to tiptoes, his nose at her neck. She fell into him, nuzzled his cheek until he turned and replied with lips on his. That missing piece. Should he brooch the possibility with her? If only he had proof.

Chapter 47. Luke Ceremony.

Elwa Dam, September 17th, 2011. At the bluff above the Elwa Dam, Hildy pulled Luke aside for a shuttle cart that wound through the gathering crowd. A park ranger unfolded a wheelchair, and a wizened Clum woman disembarked from the cart and sat. The woman's grandmotherly companion leaned on a cane and called to friends seated in folding chairs. The shirt-sleeve September day was warmed even more by the crowd's high spirits, and Luke noted a glaze of collective disbelief. "Elders," Hildy gestured toward the women, then the two front rows. "They've waited a lifetime for this." She skirted the crowd and ducked to seats in the rear, her lips tight, her sunglasses hiding the discomfort Luke knew she felt among so many people, though she'd talked of this ceremony for weeks, of how the festivities would commission the excavator and dynamite, and launch the beginning of freedom for the river she loved. Freedom for the tribe, too. The strong people, Hildy called them. Luke hadn't thought about them much before he met her. His thumb ran tendons on Hildy's hand as he scanned the dignitaries and politicians behind the podium and the security personnel flanking them. An eclectic crowd of locals, park employees, natives, and what he guessed were reporters, scientists, and environmentalists chose rows and found seats in front of them. He zeroed in on the native men, their hair shiny black, peppered gray or ponytailed and white with years. Hildy said many were fishermen like he had been, and also like him, many new personal sorrows. Unlike him, however, they and the women and children seated around them packed a century of collective unbearable griefs. But they had borne them and survived. Hildy said they buoyed each other with better stories of what was and what could be again. Traveling their sadness to arrive at this day, flushed with hope for the river and the fish and their lives. For the first time since he sold his fleet, he missed his boat.

Clum dancers advanced uphill. Family groups, he realized, in red and black garb and woven cedar hats and long button robes adorned with art and feathers and mother-of-pearl, all bearing stories Luke suddenly wanted to hear with new ears and with the dancers's reverence. They treaded uneven ground toward the crowd, their feet bare on the late summer earth, their song rhythmic and low to the drumming sticks on deer skin stretched over bentwood hoops. Luke settled as he listened and translated their songs by feel. Songs of canoes and river, fish and earth and trees, he guessed, all pulsing beats of the valley and its original dwellers. The chanted melodies entered him like roots pushing through soil, tendrils of beauty and longsuffering, welcome and return, faith and release, until he could hardly bear their collisions. On his knee, Hildy's fingers entwined his. He bent over their hands and closed his eyes. Another song, a new pattern of drum beats. She squeezed his fingers and he sat up, drank a breath. When a stooped, smiling elder in a beaded neckpiece made his way to the microphone, Luke looked at Hildy sidelong. From under her sunglasses, tears streaked to her jaw. "Ben Charles, Senior," she whispered. "He'll level you. You'll see."

Within minutes, Luke understood what she meant. He tuned into the man's hands working the air, then to his reflections about grandparents, aunts, and uncles, about relatives heartbroken and praying when progress stole their river, about tears and shortened lives, and the great cloud of witnesses from generations past. In every row, listeners nodded, wiped cheeks and eyes. Prayers with no apparent answers, Luke heard, hopes flying away. Immersed. He felt as much as heard Ben's voice, its linguistic rhythm, the soft coast-sish staccato. But Creator was watching. Creator saw and said, "I'm taking care of it. A hundred years. That's a long time to us, but to Creator, a blink of an eye." The elder swallowed, considered the crowd, and spoke through tears. "Prayers are answered. Even though so many times we weep, we pray, we weep some more, we pray some more, we think, 'What's the use? What's the use?' But Creator says, 'Oh, come on. You're just about there. You're just about there. Come on. You're just about there.'"

Were he and Hildy, too? A flicker's call pierced the air like punctuation. And then Ben prayed for those who had blocked their river, destroyed their fishery. Luke sat transfixed. "I ask Lord that you be with them. Keep them in your hand. Help them to know we pray for them. We love them. And we thank you that they keep us aware of things that could happen." Luke reeled. Love, gratitude. After a century of misery, Ben was thanking the perpetrators for what his people had learned through their suffering. Mind-boggling. One thing was obvious, though. Despite all the events that could have caged and crushed this elder and his tribe, the man speaking in front of them was free. He stroked Hildy's knuckle. "I want that for you, sweetheart. For both of us."

When chairs emptied, he trailed her to the chainlink barricade. Seconds later, a cry erupted from the crowd. Below the bluff, an excavator bucket took its first bite of the dam.

Chapter 48. Luke Discoveries.

At dawn, November rain pummeled the Elwa Valley. Luke cinched his hood tighter in the gray, widening lake bed. Alone among the waterlogged stumps. He and Hildy plotted, intent on the gravel underfoot. At the base of an exposed silt terrace, she plucked something and held it aloft. The wind whisked her shout down lake as he hurried toward her. "Finally, another discovery." Every one of the seven Saturdays since demolition began, they'd hunted this wasteland and come up empty. He'd begun to question his theory.

Hildy beamed, elated. "An old one, Luke." He bent close to the stone she held and touched the wider of its two tapered ends. "Whoa. Indentations riddled its flat face. Looks like a primitive grinder. A pestle."

"Nope." She turned the object in her hands and tapped a riddle of indentations on the flat face of the tool's wider end. "Strike marks. It's a hammer. Archaeologists found one like this at the Clum Village they've been excavating by the mill. Called it a spool mall." Her head snapped toward the shoreline. "Hunting landmarks," he guessed. "Here." She handed him the stone and pulled the lanyard from her neckline. On the attached GPS, she saved the artifact's location coordinates and stowed the tool in her pack. "Got to report this one. There may be more under all this sand. Every storm now, high water will turn another page of sediment. This lake bed's like a huge old book."

Luke prodded the discovery site with his shovel blade, but Hildy grabbed the handle. "The tribe will send somebody." She walked backwards and tugged, then turned and skirted a cedar stump the size of a tool shed. Outlined by fabric, the mole shifted at the small of her back. "Come on. So much new ground opened up this week, and the river took a blade to it. There's more in those cuts. I can feel it."

She was half deep in shallows when her eyes locked on a spindly pair of metal rods that jutted from an eroded bank. "What's this?" she cried. Luke splashed to her and plunged the blade into sediment beside the nearest piece of metal. As if water skiing, Hildy gripped the rods and leaned back. When Luke leveraged the shovel, a mound of gray-brown grit and a small chair fell into the river. Hildy laughed. "Luke didn't." He watched her closely as the water muddied around a metal high chair no taller than his thigh. "A doll's chair," he thought, not 40 yards from where they'd found the wagon. He laid the toy on its back in the storm-driven flow, and when he splashed and rinsed and exposed the flaking white paint and its blue hand-painted design, Hildy gasped.

"It's yours, isn't it?" She pressed silty fingers to her mouth and nodded. "That toll painting blue." Confusion shadowed her face and something else dark behind her frown. He returned his attention to the chair. Identical. Apart from its trim color, it matched the one in Hildy's cabin, cleared down to its heart-shaped footrest. A confirmation of his suspicions. Probably, but the accusation would be serious. He forced himself to bite his tongue. Without proof, it could drive a wedge between them.

"I wish I could remember, Luke."

"You told me about that chair, Hildy. That camp you built outside. I'd bet my right arm you remember it just fine."

"Then how?"

"Mom said you can't expect to remember something you didn't see. Something that happened when you were uh, in a bubble bath with a squirt gun." They locked eyes. "I don't know what you mean."

He shrugged. "I didn't see what happened either, Hildy. You want to keep looking or go home?"

Still scowling, she stood the chair upright in the sand, inspecting it from every angle before she flicked a paint flake from the rusted metal behind it. Then she hooked the chair over an arm and turned on her heel toward a silty bend in the river. "Let's look for another half hour."

"Okay. Then, Mr. Fisherman, we'll have French toast. I bought sourdough." The first time she had called him that, he'd cringed. When had he stopped minding today? He'd let her call him anything for that toast of hers. It's nutmeg and vanilla and true maple syrup. Her hair would smell of its deliciousness for hours. He checked the time. "Deal."

20 minutes later, she'd turned for home when he stooped toward foot-deep water where a stripe of pink poked from the sand. The band resembled faded surveyor's tape, only wider and stiffer. He easily pulled it free. 50 yards up river and intent on the lake bed, Hildy hadn't seen him stop. He almost called to her, but rubbed algae from the pink vinyl instead, and his skin crawled. He darted a glance at Hildy, relieved at her steady progress up river, too far away to see the object he held. A collar. A good-sized dog's, he guessed as he considered its buckled circumference. He scraped slime from a brass plate, then spat and rubbed it on his jeans until he could read the etched letters. Coco and a phone number, no owner name. In the distance, Hildy turned and raised a hand to her eyes, blocking rain. His lungs labored as he waved her to him. Here was the proof he'd been hunting, though he'd never have suspected anything like this. Messing with Hildy's head was bad enough, but this—an urge to guard her seized him, and he raised the collar at the impulse to hurl it into the drink.

"What you got?" she shouted, as if spotting a gift. "Maybe it would be a gift." In a twisted sort of way. He lowered his hand. "That brown lab you had when you were little, what was his name?"

As if through a tunnel, he saw her head tilt and her face bright with curiosity, wet with rain. The slow-motion drop of her eyes to his hands. His heart thumped double time as she lowered the high chair. "Coko, why?"

He shifted, swallowed air, his mouth dry, answered by handing her the collar. Her face was unreadable as she studied the neck-sized loop, the disturbed sediment swirling at his feet. She returned her gaze to the collar and read the plate's inscription, though he could tell she already knew. "My puppy." He could hardly hear her over the wind. Her hands trembled. "Who would?" Beneath the straps of her pack, her shoulders jumped with a quick series of open-mouth breaths. "Who would?" Water swirled past her thighs as she sank to her knees in the river. The collar clutched to her chest. "Luke, who would?"

He pulled her upright and the collar slipped onto her forearm. "You tell me, Hildy. Not a lot of options, as far as I can see."

"Couldn't be. No." Through their heavy clothes, he felt her grow rigid, her movements jerky. "She gave him away and didn't tell us. She petted the collar, stared at it. Tell me she gave him away. Found him a good home."

Luke turned her to him, held her as her forehead thumped his chest. Her eyes pleaded. "She wouldn't. Not this. Who?"

"Hildy. Say her name."

"My mother." He felt the confession split her. A breach. He thought of her own unseen dam. Then doubted, second-guessing, though he prayed it was so. She pivoted, flailed, and the collar flew. "The lie. This is the lie, isn't it?" He snagged the strap, rammed it in a jacket pocket, and caught her with one arm. Hooked the high chair with the other, and plucked the shovel. She was crying, and wind snatched her words before they reached him.

"Come on, sweetheart. Let's get you home. You're wet." And she was cold. He aimed her toward the shower and listened for running water, then made a simpler French toast. Bread with beaten eggs browned in butter on the skillet, nothing like hers, but he cooked and stowed the food in the oven until she joined him, her cheeks pink with heat and the silence now lodged between them. He lowered plates and sat across from her, where he could see her eyes. Butternest sipped fresh water, then cocked his head, the cheer in his chirps from another galaxy. Hildy's attention swung to the collar he'd set near the canary's cage. She fingered the buckle.

"Koko slept on my bed with me. Luke got protective when he reached adolescence. He'd bark at night, jump on the window ledge, wake me up when Mom got home from checking the camp or from rowing all those odd hours. I kept my door closed so he wouldn't run downstairs. But his bark got loud and deep. He'd wake Tess sometimes, too. And Dad. I heard my parents argue about him more than once." Her fork clicked the plate as she toyed with her food. "One morning, he was just gone. Mom said he was whining at my door early, so she let him out to pee. Said he ran off, right?"

"And your mother's rowing hid the evidence." At least Hildy saw that now, though the truth immobilized her. Where was her fire over all this? Had Violet sunk that, too?

Chapter 49. Luke Confrontation.

Angry enough for them both, Luke scowled toward the collar, benign in the table's clutter. Hildy hugged her upper arms, chilled again, he thought, though from more than the cool room. He felt it, too. He stoked the wood stove as Hildy's glare sparked, and her mouth clamped to an iron line. Her chair toppled as she lunged for her phone on the counter, punched a number, and shouted, "Tess, get over here fast as you can drive." A protest from the phone. Luke couldn't make out the words. "I don't care what you're doing. Come now. It's about Mom." She ended the call, flung the device to her bed. Mad as a cut snake, and man was Luke glad to see it. In his experience, human anger did more harm than good. But for Hildy right now, well-placed dynamite before sunset, this new fury of hers could open the river to her soul. Bring it on, girl. He recreated the chair and carted Hildy's uneaten French toast and his empty plate to the sink. Arms crossed. He leaned against the counter while she paced and fumed, her tears a flood as she pieced the puzzle he'd begun assembling with every story that hung from her walls. Pieces he'd held close as cards. If he'd told her outright when he first suspected, she'd never have believed him. How could she? Something this bizarre.

"Don't get your hopes up." Last week, she called me Mrs. Beecher, Tess said two hours later. As Luke set the parking brake at Hillview, she unbuckled in the back seat and angled toward Hildy riding shotgun.

"Who's Mrs. Beecher?" Hildy asked.

"My third-grade teacher. She retired before you got there." Luke turned in his seat. "At least your mom's talking. You girls want me to be there?"

Tess punched his shoulder. "Dang right, Luke Rimmer. We need a voice of reason in that room. If you don't come, I may eat that woman alive." She tugged Hildy's ponytail. "And who knows what this one will do. I don't care either. You let her have it, Hildy. All of it. Three and a half decades worth."

A voice of reason, huh? His own rage steamed under an ill-fitting lid. If he went inside with Hurricanes Tess and Hildy unleashed, he couldn't promise anything. He forced himself to lower his voice. "How about you test the water with the wagon, the high chair? If you slam her with that collar, she may shut down altogether. And where will that get you?"

As if they'd get anywhere at all with Violet. Even if the woman were aware enough for them to confront her, if they thought they could dump their anger on her and walk out of there feeling better, well, a rude awakening awaited them both. No quick fixes for betrayal like this, and no quick understanding of the deep-seated pathology behind it. What mother in her right mind would do this? What human being in her right mind would?

From behind his seat, Luke retrieved a paper bag and walked toward the tailgate, where Tess lowered the high chair and reached for the wagon. Hildy pulled from the bed. Tess glowered as she seized the wagon's handle. "The collar. You got it, Luke." He swatted the bag. Hildy straddled the truck's bed above a wheel well, leapt, and threaded her arm between slats in the high chair. Their heads close, mouths furious with plans, the sisters marched toward Hillview's entry as Luke, tight-jawed, shoved gum into his mouth. They'd stick it to Violet. All right, who wouldn't? But if either's anger curdled, he'd smelled that stink before. Hildy could get as trapped in this new rage as she'd been in her isolation and fear. He lagged, praying they'd find Violet unresponsive or at least incoherent. They'd be frustrated, sure, but at least vengeance wouldn't be feasible. They wouldn't be able to offload ownership of their healing onto whatever Violet might say or do, either. Those were rabbit trails he knew all too well. Without those options, Hildy could get on with business, deal with reality head-on, mend. But would she? While he couldn't speak for Tess, he knew how unresolved anger could enshroud Hildy even more deeply in Violet's relational patterns and lies. And what about them, him and Hildy? If she stayed stuck, he'd have to face reality. The two of them didn't stand a chance. Even with the door of her cage wide open, Hildy would fly back to it every time she felt afraid.

Tess and Hildy charged down the hallway ahead of him, their rusty toys in tow. He lost sight of them when they stormed into Violet's room, but their voices carried, and he listened from the hallway as the accusations amped. Part of him tasted blood and cheered them on. "We're like wolves," he thought. "Too much like wolves. This attack could devour them all." He entered the room to Violet, cowering in her chair, her eyes clamped tight. Hildy stood to the side, her arms a straight jacket around her, her mouth thin and hard. Tess towered over their mother, bumping the wagon handle against Violet's knees. "Open your eyes, mother. Look at it." Violet shrank from the contact and pulled her knees to her chest. A ready cry escaped her throat. "No, Daddy. No, Daddy. No, Daddy. No."

As if struck, Tess reeled. Wide-eyed, she swiveled to Hildy, mouthed, "Daddy." Luke had suspected as much. Years earlier, he'd have stood beside these women, demanding an account from their mother. Seconds ago, he almost did. But now, compassion washed him. Generational sin took captives, and Violet was no exception. No matter what she had done, piling condemnation on her wouldn't help anyone.

"Enough, girls. We're aiding and abetting." Violet flinched when he laid hands on her shoulders, then visibly relaxed as he massaged them. Tess and Hildy moved to the wall, scowling.

"Traitor," Tess, still loud.

"Who's aiding and abetting who?" Hildy's frown had turned into confusion. "Those liemakers, sweetheart." Hildy stared at him, then looked at her hands.

"Fine." Tess stomped from the room, dragging the wagon. Luke tucked an afghan around Hildy's mother, and her blank eyes tracked him. He bent and whispered inches from her ear. "We're leaving, Violet. You're safe now." He pressed a hand to Hildy's back and guided her outside. "Hold on," he said, and retrieved the unopened bag on the bed.

Chapter 50. Hildy Find.

By January, Lakewell had shrunk beyond the bend, closer to the crumbling Elwood Dam. The lake holed up in deeper troughs, its waters opaque from sediment released as the Glinds Canyon Dam fell too. Miranda hiked to the shore, her mittened hands swinging on her first outing with Hildy and Luke since she'd scared Hildy off. She dropped a stone in a murky pool. "How can anything live in that dirty water?"

"Some won't," Hildy said. "The silt from Lake Mills is too fine. Stays suspended longer. Hard for fish to breathe."

"So what's the point if it kills them all?"

"Miry, she says some will die, not all of them. Besides, the demolition crews are pulsing the tear-downs. They stop every so often to let the water clear and the fish move. You should see the excavator at Mills. It's perched on a floating barge at the dam's lip, eating concrete between it and the drop-off. Way I see it, the whole contraption could go over the brink any minute. An ocean nightmare, I tell you."

Hildy snickered. "The barge is anchored. Luke, would you sit on that thing? Work levers on that machine, not knowing if the next bite would put you over those falls." He planted a foot in a logger's old springboard notch and hauled himself onto a silk-coated stump, his red beanie bright in the otherworldly grayscape. Rushed again by her attraction to him, Hildy felt her face grow warm, a near-daily occurrence now, along with his welcome lips. And since they'd found the chair and the collar, she couldn't explain it. But now that she knew the truth about Violet, she'd begun to welcome memories she'd previously questioned or denied, and her crazy badge was fading. That that storm last week. Her stutter caught her off guard, though the intensity of her feelings for him didn't. The riverbed shifted a good 50 ft. "Have a look from here." He crouched, extended a hand. She found toe holds, and he pulled her to the cedar platform 8 ft above the lake bed. His arms reached from behind her, and he settled his jaw on her shoulder. "Your river is finding its course again," he said. Sure enough, a new meander carved a serpentine through the silt, bent on a fresh route toward the straight.

"I think I am too, Luke."

"Yeah, I'd agree." He rocked her. "Won't happen overnight. But my offer stands."

"What offer?"

"To help you with that. See what's in store for us when the water clears."

"In store for us?"

"Yeah. Together. You game?" She squeezed his arms at her waist.

Farther down river, Miranda towed a terrace of sediment before she stooped, tugged at a flap, and shouted, "Cozy up later, you two. I've got something here." They hadn't found a thing since the dog collar. Halfway down the stump, Luke jumped to the gritty earth. Hildy was seconds behind him. When they reached her, Miranda had loosened a triangular corner blackened by mildew and thyme. Where she scraped deeper. The fabric continued into the bank.

"Nice try, Mir." Luke flapped the grommeted corner. "Somebody's litter is all."

"You don't know that. Not for months since she'd first witnessed their sibling banter. Had Hildy seen Miranda this imperious. If it were a scrap, I could at least budge it. Don't you think? It's got something in it."

"Yeah, like eons of mud," Luke said. Hildy ran a stick along the embedded tarp until it caught. "Some kind of ridge. I think she's right, Luke. There's a line wrapping the tarp."

"Where's the shovel?" Luke trotted for the tool, planted the blade, and dug. 10 minutes in, the three of them pulled a waterlogged bundle free from the sediment. The diameter of a smallish culvert and the length of a love seat, their discovery resembled a grubby caterpillar, pouched and segmented by a thin cable wrapping it, and with several strips of that same cable strung like legs between grommets on the tarp and heavy bulbous feet. Fishing weight feet, Hildy thought. Thinned downrigger balls the size of her big river rocks, but heavy as lead. Coated lead. 12 pounds each, Bingo had told her. He used them fishing saltwater on his charter boat.

"Good God," Luke said. On his knees, he lifted an attached weight by its cable, then let it fall. Where his hold rubbed away grime, stripes showed, multicolored. Hildy crouched, rubbed a longer section of the wire, then curled her hands, and shrank as if the patterned cable were alive. The hair on her neck and arms stood.

"That's our clothesline. There's a roll in the shop and a stretch of it in my cabin." All three of them stared at the bundle before Hildy flopped onto the tarp in an awkward embrace. Just as quickly, she jumped to her feet and backed away. From his knees, Luke lunged for her, caught an ankle. "Hildy, wait. Don't run." He scrambled upright and held her. The vice of his arms the only thing that kept her from dissolving into the river, the sky, the horror itself. Miranda stared at them both, then at the wrapped body, or what was left of it. "I'll call," she said. "Go bring help. I'll wait."

Chapter 51. Hildy Process.

"About time." June said a whole three weeks just to decide if those were his teeth. With newsprint-blackened hands, she settled another cereal bowl in the U-Haul moving box and waved off the laptop Hildy had turned her way. "Summarize that report, Hildy girl. If I don't get this kitchen emptied before the truck gets here, I'll lose my bet. I told Otis if I wasn't packed up on time, I'd make him a pie every week for 6 months straight once we get settled in Hungry Horse."

"You already cook pies every week." Words like a normal person's, Hildy thought. But then the truth and catharsis of recent weeks made for an odd grout. Patched with it, Hildy felt stronger today than she had since they found the body. Today, she actually felt like talking to someone besides the therapist Kurt had found for her, and Luke, of course. Poor Luke. That day at the falls, when he first offered to help her, he sure didn't know what he was in for. After every counseling session, she talked his ears off and was pretty sure she was just getting started.

June pressed her tongue against a smile. "It's the principle of the thing. For 45 years, I've buffaloed that man. Can't let him think I actually like baking now, can I? You'd be ruined."

"You don't dare refuse our help now. Tess will be here at 2:00." Hildy wasn't sure she'd have the energy to help June pack up, but she'd try.

June exaggerated a sigh. "Twist my arm, darling. Now, tell me about the report from that forensic dentist. Never knew there was such a thing before all this."

"There aren't any with that specialty around here. Dr. Tuppen took a while to find Dad's old records, but once he did, that Seattle dentist he sent them to confirmed the identity. Both Dad and that corpse had wisdom teeth."

"Lots of people have them."

"How?"

"Hold on, Juny." There's more. Hildy opened her laptop and leaned toward the screen. "And they both had MOD amalgams on tooth number 29, PFM crowns on numbers two and three, and MO composites on 14 and 12. It was Dad all right."

"As if you doubted," June's touch smudged Hildy's hand. "I'm going to miss you too, Juny." The woman kissed the whirl at Hildy's crown before she stroked her loose yellow hair. "Ah, Glacier Park. Those aqua rivers; you can hike for years up there. Bring that man of yours. We'll have plenty of room. Nice lodge we're looking after."

I couldn't speak for Luke, but couldn't imagine visiting without him. Couldn't imagine anything without him these days. "We will, Juny. Promise."

"Is that report you just read me public yet?" June closed flaps on the box and ticked her nose at the table. "Toss me that tape, will you?"

"Any minute, most likely. Once it hits the paper." Hildy wagged her head. "Wish they'd leave us alone."

"Have at it," Hildy had told authorities, given no choice after they recovered the body. For weeks since, detectives and law enforcement personnel had scoured the resort for evidence of Violet's guilt. But with the trail 20 years cold, they returned to the toys and dog collar and corpse, the distinctive clothesline, and those fishing weights. The case file wouldn't close for who knew how long, but that didn't stop circumstantial evidence from telling the story. Investigators assembled Tessa's statement about their parents' arguments, their mother's physical strength and after-dark rowing, the patterned lines matched to the coil in the shop and their laundry lines outside. Even the route Violet drove to the dock nightly. All of it implicated Hildy's mother in the murder of Lars Nybo and explained the feasibility of his transport in that green UTV to Mom's rowboat. Once word got out, few would give Violet the benefit of presumed innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.

"At least they aren't hauling Vi off to some cell," June said. "Not saying I'd want to lose my mind like that, but being unfit for prosecution has a way of keeping a person out of the clink."

"She's already in prison, June. Probably has been there her whole life. But Violet's motive for killing her dad was anybody's guess."

"So, you think your mother pitched your things because they troubled or threatened her?" Miranda said over dinner. Hildy and Luke had joined her for steaks at her lake house after goodbyes to June and Otis.

"That's what my counselor believes," Hildy said. "But I'm just beginning to assimilate all that. Most days I'm too busy being horrified or so angry I could spit. Wasn't until yesterday that I felt some sadness and pity for Mom for about 10 minutes. Honestly, I'm on a roller coaster right now."

Miranda thumped her glass to the table. "How could you not be? All those years Violet lied to you. She had to be copying her dad, don't you think? The way he burned things she loved. Who knows what mind games went on in their house."

"Yeah," Hildy said. "Luke told me about him. Mom wasn't cruel like that, though. At least not to me."

"That's debatable." Miranda reached for the butter. "She did to you what he did to her. Different costume, same party. I hope you told that counselor about your abominable grandfather."

"Mir, just saying, Luke, she doesn't have to agree. It's okay. Really?" Hildy pressed a napkin to her lips.

"Yeah, Sarah knows about Ulisses. She said we'll look at my extended family's relational patterns, too. Said strongholds can be broken. I don't understand all that yet, but I will." Miranda nodded.

"She have any thoughts on why your mother lied to you?"

"As of this morning, yes. Says it's possible Mom connected her little girl self with me, as if she and I were the same person at times. Anything of mine that was out of place or that she couldn't control sent her back into her childhood fear and powerlessness. And she became a child again, hiding from Ulisses. Became me by purging my belongings and creating new stories she could inhabit through me. That little girl believed she could keep herself safe, something she couldn't do in her real childhood."

Miranda was wide-eyed. "Oh, that's not the half of it," Hildy said. "Since Mom thought we were one and the same, I had to believe her fabrications too, which is why convincing me became so crucial to her. Sarah thinks I was a redo of her early life."

"No kidding," Luke said.

"Almost too far-fetched," Miranda said. "But that old man sure scared me. If I were Violet, La La Land might have looked pretty good." Hildy eyed her with surprise. "Tess used that term. La La Land said Mom lived there. But I don't. After all those years of feeling whacked. I'm pinching myself. I'm really not losing my mind."

"I could have told you that," Luke said.

"Wait a minute." Hildy swatted his knee. "Apparently, it'll take a while for me to believe it viscerally, though, and to trust my memory, at least as much as any of us can. Sarah said, 'My brain physically has to rewire to grow new neural connections from truth instead of all those lies.'" She also said, "She paused, flashed Luke a smile. 'My anxiety should shrink as my brain changes.'" Wax spilled from a candle, pulled at its base. "She can't explain why Mom killed Dad, though. I don't get it. He was no Ulisses."

"Reality wouldn't have mattered if fear twisted her brain," Luke said. "Her demons were working overtime." Hildy heard Otis in his words. "Them shadows, Missy liemakers."

Miranda salted her potato. "My goodness, Lukey. Where'd you get that? You'd better hide those books of his."

"Hildy. I'm not hiding anything ever again." Her eyes waited for Luke's above the taper's flame.

Chapter 52. Hildy. Confession.

A technician carried a bucket of feed to the first in a row of the narrow exterior raceways at the new Clum Hatchery. Six lanes away, Hildy laid a net and clipboard aside, and strode toward him to watch their spring hatch of coho in this outdoor pen. Elwood genetics dispatch. They'd moved them outside only this morning. At the human's shadows, the fish writhed subsurface, and when the tech strewed feed pellets, they boiled above it, silver bodies flipping, darting. Hildy nodded approval as she caught sight of a tall man crossing from the natural resources building toward them. His silver hair poked from under a stocking cap. She returned her attention to the fish until

The man hooked fingers in the chainlink fence surrounding the pens. Held Ibo. When she looked up, he dropped hands into pockets and hunched against the chill. "May I help you?"

She knew him from somewhere. "If we could talk alone for a few minutes. I won't take long."

"You here with the team?"

"No, it's a private matter." She waved toward the building from which he'd come and glanced at her watch. "I've got a team coming in 20 minutes. My office is—"

"Your receptionist told me. Thanks." She backtracked for her clipboard and hung the net in the hatchery building. He was waiting at the side door, clearing his throat. His eyes snagged hers, then darted to the forest behind the building. His hand worked the inside of a coat pocket.

"I know you, don't I?"

She angled her head, felt her eyebrows stitch into a line above her eyes. "You were young? I doubt you'd." But in a flash of recollection, she saw him as a younger man in a hard hat and the ubiquitous jeans and boots and plaid of manual laborers thereabouts. Behind him, a giant electricity generating turbine.

"You crewed at the powerhouse, right? Late shift. My mom brought Tess and me one summer evening and you gave us a tour. Mr. Lamp here, right?"

"You remember that, huh? You couldn't have been more than nine. You told us there were a million volt ampers in a megawatt. Your job matched your name."

"I guess I remember 'cause I thought it was funny and 'cause mom said you were nice. She didn't say that a lot."

She opened her office door, aimed a hand at a chair, and sat in her own. He perched uneasily, ran a hand behind his neck. "She told you that, huh?"

"Yeah. Worked there 30 years. I liked that shift. Read a lot. Watched the stars when the clouds cleared."

"You aren't here to discuss stars."

"No," he coughed. "I'm sorry about your dad. Sorry about a lot of things." He fished in his coat pocket and extracted a white rectangle he pressed to his palm. A card of some sort. "Should have brought this a long time ago."

She was really curious now. "Brought me what, Mr. Lamp?"

"Randy, please. Though you may not care what my name is once you hear."

"Hear what?"

"I—I—" His nostrils flared with a deep inhale, and for the first time since he'd arrived, he looked directly at her. "I got clean years ago. AA meetings every morning. Working the steps every day."

"Congratulations. Difficult to do, I hear."

"Some ways, but better in others. Not running away anymore, at least."

A sense of foreboding pricked her skin. "Step number eight. I made a list of people I hurt. A long list, but you and your sister were right close to the top. Your mom, too, of course. Damage all around. Not all the choices were mine, but mine a plenty. For years now, I've been stuck on number nine. The one about making amends. I hold no grudge if you refuse. But when I read about your dad in the paper and that Violet, well, before I knew all that, I thought it'd be better for you if I let things be. You didn't need more hurt after all you'd been through. Hoped you and your mom would have that you'd have some peace, make some good memories with her. Didn't want to wreck anything more with what went before."

Hildy shifted in her chair, leaned on her desk. "But reading all that in the news, he said all those lies had to mess with you girls' heads. I can't undo what I done. But going forward, well, knowing truth can free a person from a lot of rot. I mean, you—I hope you can get free."

What was he talking about? The guy had shown her around the dam, for crying out loud. His name brought her 4H circuit breaker to mind, not psychological damage.

"My wife, Dee, and me. Can't hardly believe she kept me around. Married 41 years now. We couldn't have no kids. No blame, just the way it was. But when babies didn't come, she left me for sadness. And I left her for your mom. Didn't plan to. But one night in August, I was sitting by the lake about midnight eating my lunch like I did during summers, looking up at Cassiopeia in that deep starry sky."

The seated queen left his wife for my mother. Then your mom rose up like that queen come to life. Strange a woman out there alone so late. I called to her, got her to come in. I knew who she was from buying gas at your store sometimes. And I remembered her from school a couple years younger than me. But out there she was like an apparition, like an angel come from heaven. All that blonde hair, those little shorts, and her shirt all sweaty and sticking to her. Of course, I knew otherwise, knew better, but it was like neither of us had other lives. Talked an hour or so that night, then the next one, and the next. Wasn't long before we was doing a whole lot more."

"They—what?"

In her mind, Hildy fought him, but she couldn't stop listening. "I'm not proud of what we done, but we done it," he said, "for years and years. Weather got bad, we hooked up in the powerhouse or my truck. No more long nights for me alone out in the middle of nowhere. I honestly didn't think anybody would find out. If they did and tried to stop us, I think I'd have killed to keep her."

"Killed? Did he?"

Her cell phone buzzed. A hornet on her desk. "Hold on a sec." She clicked it off, eyed her clock, beeped Dave on her intercom. "I've got a new team of volunteers in the lobby. Planters. You mind showing them the nursery? My meeting's going long and I—there's no way I can handle them right now."

No way she could think clearly either. Her hands shook. "Happy to."

"Everything all right?"

"No. I mean, yes, maybe. Tell you later." Would she?

Though her office was cool, she unzipped her fleece to a sweat-damp tee. "Sorry, Randy. Go on."

"Crazy. I know. I was crazy. We was crazy. Not with love, neither. I know now that I didn't love your mother, though if you'd asked me then, I'd have said I did. She was a drug, I tell you. Hours with her killed every pain I'd ever had until after when what we was doing to my wife, you girls, and your dad hurt so bad I was even hungrier for her. Hungrier to kill everything about that pain by being with her again."

"Kill everything? Like my dad?"

"Good lord, no, Hildy. I'd have doused myself in before I'd do anything like that. I—pied him. Hated myself for what we was doing. Didn't enter my mind that your mom would have it in there to—" He held his head as if it would pop. "I went to see her last week. My mother after I saw that write-up."

She didn't know who I was. She gaped at him, but he studied his fingernails, his head tilted with the remembering. "When you was in California for that school trip, Violet called me crying. Said Lars found us out, went to the hills, and hadn't come home. It was broad daylight, but she insisted I come there to your house. Distraught as she was, I went. I was nervous. Told her he could come through the door any second. Tells you how nuts I was. How nuts we was. It was 2 days since he left by then. And Vi said he'd took off in a rush. Hadn't taken stuff he'd need in the back country. Bothered me, him knowing about us, not knowing what he'd do. Kindest man in the world to me when we talked at the store. I felt like crap. Worse than crap." He rubbed his head and hair stood on end. "Now I know he was already. She'd already. She told me he was going to throw her out. Not throw you out, Hildy. Only your mom. She said she couldn't do life without you."

A grimace Hildy couldn't control. "Too much. Too much." She eyed her phone. Needed Luke. "I checked the park register and he hadn't signed. No record of where he was going in those mountains. So I went back to your house, dialed the sheriff's phone number for Vi. Stayed until I heard her report him missing. Then hightailed it out of there. Didn't see her for a month after that. Never in all that time or all those years since thought for one second that she would have—well, makes sense now why she didn't worry about me coming there to your house."

She fought to breathe. "How'd Dad find out about you?"

"Who knows?" He rubbed the card he held absently. "I never put two and two together, but things wasn't the same after he went missing. You'd have thought I'd have been glad we could finally be together, but it didn't work like that. His upsetness about us. It drove him into those dangerous mountains unprepared. We drove him there, or so I thought. I couldn't help but picture him in a cougar's belly, or broken up in a ravine someplace, or froze to death, all 'cause I couldn't keep my pants zipped."

She wanted to look at the ceiling, the floor, a spidered corner, anywhere but at his face. But she needed to hear this story and knew it.

"Vi and I, we tried to keep it together, talked like we would, but the fire I had for your mom went out just like that. I was done with the whole mess. Last time I saw her in the old way was some months after you turned 16. She gave me a nice buck knife of your dad's, engraved and everything. Asked me to take it up river next time I went. Kind of like that knife was ashes she wanted me to spread at a place he loved. Only there weren't no ashes. Or a murder weapon mom wanted in Ry's hands, not hers. After the last few weeks, nothing would surprise her. The police had that knife now. They could decide."

"Did you go?"

"Not until last year. Those first years after your mom and I split, I drank myself silly. Didn't climb those hills for a long time after I got sober, either. My wife doesn't hike. Once I came clean with her, she let me back into her heart. But her trust in me was in the tank. I didn't go many places without her. We're better now. Last year, I spent a week in those mountains hiking the back country with her brother. Took that beautiful knife and stuck it in a cedar block at Hayes's cabin for somebody without the history."

Only then did he acknowledge the card he held, bent while he talked. "And then there's this." He pinched and straightened the corners before he gave it to her. Between her fingers, the photo of herself at 16 took a moment to register. "My driver's license."

Hildy dropped her head to her desk. Nose to the wood, she mumbled, "Tell me."

"Your dad was gone. Vi said you was crying all the time and couldn't concentrate. And you, a brand new driver, she didn't want you behind the wheel, so she took it out of your wallet. Said you was looking all over for it. So when she gave me that knife, she asked me to hang on to it until she could trust you to be safe. Reared upright until she could trust me. Trust me. And she never tried to get it back from you. Like I said, I never saw her again. We never talked after that, neither. Guilty as I felt, I buried the knife and your license in a bunch of junk at my powerhouse desk, locked my drawer, and forgot about them. Compartmentalized, you know. I've read us men are good at that. Found them when I cleaned things out a couple of weeks before I retired. The day the turbines went offline. Water under the bridge, dredging a whole lot of sediment."

She refused to cry in front of this man, though water ran his cheeks as if from the river itself. "If I told you a hundred times a day for the rest of my life, I couldn't begin to say how sorry I am for my part in all of this. If you ever find it in your heart to forgive me, I couldn't ask for a better gift, though I sure don't expect you to. And don't blame you one bit if you hate me instead. Knowing Vi though and how she messed with my head, I thought maybe she messed with yours too and thought that hearing a different story, a true one, might help you a little bit."

She stared out the window as Randy got to his feet and pulled another paper from a jeans pocket, a scrap he dropped onto her desk. "My cell number. You think of any questions later, you call. My daddy knows I'm here, so anytime's okay. No more secrets. No more lies."

For an hour after he left, Hildy didn't move. When she did, she texted Dave. "Going home, thanks." She drove dry-eyed and shocked. Halfway home, she dialed Luke. More for them to process together. But they would.

Chapter 53. Hildy. Vigil.

Though the spring equinox dawned clammy and cold, Hildy had found the sweet spot on her heater's dial that kept the cabin at a steady 70°. But even with the warmth and Roma and a slice of apple clipped to bars, even with fresh cage flooring and grit, new seed and the radio for company, Butter sat on a low perch, his tiny body buried in a puff of feathers. She brushed her hair as she assessed him, her mouth bent with concern. "You sleep if you need to, little guy. A good day for that."

There wouldn't be 8 hours of daylight that day, and from the forecast, every hour would be dim. She banded her ponytail low, opened a window blind for whatever light would make it through the clouds, and covered half the cage against drafts. As she zipped her park, she kissed at the bird, then touched his door. "Back soon, Mr. B. Please hang in there."

Oh, this meeting. 10 scientists coming from out of town for the think tank planned months ago. She didn't dare be off. Luke answered the first ring. "Hey, can you come? I don't want him alone. He's dying, Luke." Unsteady each syllable. She cleared her throat. "On my way."

When she returned home two hours later, she heard Luke reading aloud, his voice a hum of comfort beside the cage where Butternest now squatted on the floor, his eyes closed, his feathery head bobbing. Luke scooted aside. As if grasping fog, Hildy reached into the cage and cupped her hand around the little canary. With care, she lifted him, held him first to her throat against her heartbeat, then her chest. Nestled in her open hand, he was quiet as she petted his black crown and wings, his golden rod body. Her fingers were gentle as air. Her heart heaved as she memorized her canary here now, and she scarcely dared blink. No need anyway. With her eyes a wash, she willed herself to a stillness that matched her little bird's. Down, up, down. Luke's fingers traced her spine, and she felt herself a new midwife, learning, and him, a doula, teaching her. When he rose and brought her water, she knew what she would tell him when this was over.

When Butterness flew, Luke read again, three psalms this time. A half hour later, when Butter Ness went limp in her hand, Hildy wiped her eyes, stroked her little bird, and pictured him fluttering, landing, peeping goodbyes, made new. While she held his quiet body, she imagined his loft through the ceiling into sky, with freedom falling from his wings like sparks. Flight paths. Luke was showing her one, too, and would, he'd said, for however long it took. He'd also told her that hard as her story was, its truth would strengthen the wings she was growing. She walked her gaze to him. Oh, she'd waited too long to tell him another thing she knew was true. She touched his jaw, angled closer, and when her, "I love you so," Luke Rimmer came out in a whisper, she felt herself soar.

Chapter 54. Hildy Avulsion.

Warm and heavy with moisture, the late March front rolled off the ocean onto the Olympic Peninsula from the southwest across the ancestral beaches of the Chinukan peoples, for which this wind and the largest of salmonids in the Elwa was named. The Chinuk gale clobbered the west side of the Olympics with inches of rain in mere hours, but held plenty in reserve as it roared across peaks, melted snow, and soaked the Elwa Valley. In response, the river, tasting new freedom from the compromised dams, surged in its banks and writhed over lake bed flood plains. Before work, Hildy pinched her raincoat hood against the pelting blow and pushed to the bridge. Nervous, she gauged the currents' attack on the pillars. Hindered by the exposed delta at the lake bed's southernmost end, the water heaped against sediment and churned. Fingers trembling, Hildy texted Dave. "Not coming in. Wild up here."

With June and Otis long gone to Montana, and Miranda's studio closed and emptied, she was the only one to see it. Also closed for good, the resort store stood silent amidst dirt piles and a gaping hole, its underground gas tanks gone for a week now. Cabins huddled empty at the water's brink, unoccupied, but for hers. She hung up and dialed Luke. He answered first ring. "Where are you?"

"Bridge?"

Her back was to the wind, her hand shed above her phone. "Can't hear you."

"I'm at the top of your hill. Be there in 5."

"I've never seen the river like this, Luke. It's ferocious." She jumped as a tree slammed the pilings, broke free, and surged past, its root ball bobbing in the froth. Luke's shout cut through the wind. "Can't hear you. Stay off that bridge, Hildy."

"I'm good," she shouted back, though wind pushed her toward the river now gray with rage. A branch cracked and the rope swing fell into the water. 20 ft past her riverside deck, a flank of earth collapsed. Oddly, she calmed as the storm grew crazier, and as the turbulent river twisted and gulped and jumped in response. Her hood caught and blew to her shoulders when power in the air, the water, her mind unzipped her. She flung arms wide and wanted more of the rending, the ridding, the purge of grit and mud and shadows from her decades, and the river's century of entrapment. All around her, wind and water were brooms and scalpels and bulldozers, making things new. Her hair and clothes dripped, and her coat hung from her elbows when Luke pulled her from the unstable bank, his mouth at her ear. "Come on, baby," he pointed uphill. "We need higher ground."

Up river, a swath of trees fell. Hildy resisted him to watch. She felt the crashing, then saw the currents readjust, carving deeper toward the cabins. She cast an arm toward cabin 2. "But my—"

"No time, sweetheart. We've got to get out of here." He grabbed her outstretched arm, towed her to his truck, and closed her inside before he flung himself into the cab, threw the gear shift into reverse, and peeled onto the 101 highway uphill.

In the cab's quiet, the storm's spell broke. Hildy swung her eyes from the hypnotic river to Luke. "Please stop. Pull over. I need to know for sure to see it happen."

Luke checked the rear view, frowning, gauging their elevation. She guessed, calculating safety before he eased the truck to the shoulder and set the brake. Hildy jumped from the rig and ran to a gap in the trees seconds before the rope swing tree collapsed into the river. Next door to hers, cabin 3 tilted, undermined. Hild's mind skidded. Everything she owned was in cabin 2. Her Yukon was parked at its stoop. The river had both in its sights. If the water didn't root and fast, the Elwa she loved would take her aqua throw, her diaries and collections, the furniture Dad made, and her only photos of him. Why hadn't she digitized them? Everything that grounded her and helped her remember was about to disappear into that river. Her computer, her lunch, her bag and wallet still sat by her front door. None had made it to her car.

Distance and the wind's oceanic rush muted the next collapse. But when the river ate the 30-foot section of the bank she'd climbed since childhood, and toppled another cottonwood near her deck, the sight nearly dropped her. Riveted, she held her breath until the water's next rending. Within seconds, cabin two wrenched and leaned. Luke enveloped her, his chin familiar at her neck. "You don't have to watch."

"Yes, I do." A year ago, she'd have run down there, clung to a log wall, and screamed over the groan of her listing cabin, quaking with terror and grief. Now only a heady anticipation swelled in her. And as her cabin jerked and slouched, she couldn't look away. When the structure sloughed into the water, where it broke apart and bobbed in pieces down river, a piece she couldn't explain came over her. As a chaotic stream of her belongings boiled in the broken cabin's wake, she mildly wondered what she would find in the storm's aftermath, if she chose to look.

Luke gripped her. Like hers. His head was bare, his hair a mass of streaming coils. His jaw left her cheek, and she knew he was watching her. "Hildy, I'm okay, really." She turned to him, twined her arms around his chest, and thought of her glossy old school calendar dissolving offshore. Better than okay, riddled with joy, actually, she imagined Butterness aloft, and felt herself fly with him. She pulled Luke tighter, looked at the sky, then into those eyes of his before she caught rain on her tongue and kissed him full and deep. Then she opened a foot of air between them and swiped drippy hair from his forehead. The wind made her shout. "Seems my schedule's wide open, Luke Grimmer." She raised an eyebrow, laid a finger to her cheek. "Come to think of it, I don't even have a calendar anymore. So, remember that question you asked me that day on the stump?"

He was laughing now, his mouth at her ear. "Oh, yeah. About seeing what was in store for us when the water cleared. I asked if you were game."

She kissed him again. "That's the one. I'm game, Luke. Pick any day you like. The sooner the better. I want us to be home when that calf's born."

Epilog. Hildy Dippers Elwa River, September 2018.

As if speed squatting to a snappy tune, the gray bird bobbed on a cobblestone half buried in sand near the Elwa's mouth. When the movement drew Hildy's eye, she sat on a cedar log and raised compact binoculars above the corduroy pack on her chest. "A dipper, Luke, be there, same color as the rocks."

Luke propped a foot beside her on the weathering driftwood and trained field glasses on the bird as it plunged into a riffle, disappeared, and resurfaced 10 ft closer. "He got a fish, Daddy." The dark-haired boy hopped on one foot as he tugged on Luke's coat. Late September shone in his ruddy cheeks. "I want to look."

Luke palmed the child's curls, lifted the boy to the log, and held one rubber-flanged optic to the child's eye. "Hold it with both hands, Larszy. Shut your other eye. Pretend it's your telescope."

"My turn. My turn. My turn." Still plump from babyhood, a sandy-haired 2-year-old snagged the dangling strap. Six-year-old Lars braced, the binoculars tight in his hands. "The bird flew away, Maxi." The toddler wailed. "Daddy, I want to see."

Luke scooped Max under an arm and pointed at the sparkling river. "Let's find fish instead, boys. Look for the big ones I told you about."

Lars's voice rose. "Those fishes are swimming way high to the mountains, Maxi. I'll find you a huge one, bigger than the one I catched with Daddy in the boat." Luke snagged the binoculars as Lars took off at a run. Max squirmed to free himself, but Luke tickled the younger boy under his parka. "You want a ride?" The child slowed his squirming. "Run with Larsy." But when his feet touched sand, Max pouted toward his brother and the widening gap between them. He reached for Luke. "Upy Daddy, I drive."

Luke laughed, swung the child to his shoulders, and turned to Hildy. "You coming?" Sun at her back. She stayed seated. "You go ahead. She's waking up." The boy gripped his dad's hair and kicked. Luke grinned at Hildy and grabbed the child's ankles. "I'm not trotting, buddy." Hildy stroked the fuzz protruding from her pack and watched the pair cross the beach toward her elder son. Max kicked his dad again. Luke whinnied. A bird's long lilting warble rolled across the water behind her husband, her boys. Hildy scanned the shoreline willows for a second dipper and lowered the carrier to her lap, shifting her position to shade the squinting baby. Eyebrows high, her smile open-mouthed, she curled over the wiggly tow head. "Bird music, my Annie, river music, sweet songs for my sweet baby." The infant cranked her downy head toward the cheek Hildy stroked, and she felt her breasts firm and twinge. She unzipped her parka, raised her fleece, and winced as the baby latched. "We'll get used to this, little one. Won't be long." She held her breath against the pain until her milk let down and the baby gulped to keep up. Hildy cradled the nursing child and hummed, remembering her lararsie's first weeks. Her worry that her breasts wouldn't feed him. How Luke had laughed and reassured her she'd have plenty, more than plenty, he'd said. When his prediction came true, she'd wondered if, then had come to believe, love flavored her abundant milk. First for Larszy, then Max, and now for this little bug. Full as she was, how could she not spill over? So full that though she tracked the river's progress eagerly, she hadn't visited this estuary or hiked above the dam sites since she'd quit her job 7 years earlier. She ticked through the chronology of pre-resignation events. The April day, one month after she lost her cabin, when Kurt married Luke and her on the shore of Lake Sutherland, and Tess, Bingo, June, Otis, Dave, and Miranda lit sparklers, toasted the newlyweds, and tossed bird seed as a sendoff to their month-long honeymoon to five national parks. Oh, those seeds. She and Luke shook millet from their heaped wedding clothes the next morning, and found more in the truck for weeks. She hadn't yet resigned her job that sunny day in August, either, when she stopped on the way home from work for fresh cod at the grocery, but wretched in the meat aisle and went home empty-handed. No, not until 4 months after she and Luke came home from Yosemite to their farm in Sequim did her career plans shift to motherhood. It was a September day when two weeks of non-stop vomiting and an inability to eat resulted in a diagnosis of hyperemesis gravidarum and the first of many IV drips from a visiting nurse. She emailed her resignation to Dave that afternoon.

In the distance, the boys jumped, screamed, pointed. Luke bent, his gestures animated. He lifted Max, then Lars to see. When he released them, his shoulders shook, laughing again. How she loved that laugh of his. Lars's arms slashed the air. "Big, big, big ones, Mommy," reached her ears. He wasn't seeing summer steelheads. They'd passed through already in droves, she'd heard. She thrust her hand high and returned his wave. The kings were coming home now. Chinook. Would they reach the headquarters like the others? Lazy swells rolled the strait, fringing the new delta with lacy white waves. Millions of tons of sediment, she thought. All of it freed from those lake beds to build sand bars, shelter pools, and lagoons with bends resembling, in the aerial shots she saw online, a sandy womb all its own, welcoming from the strait the fertility of salmonids and their genetics in roe and milt. She lifted Annie and kissed her nose, patted her back for bubbles, and changed breasts, her left side gone slack. On a slick track of riverbank mud, she watched a pair of otter skid into the river, here for the clams in the gritty new beach. In the years since she'd left her work with the tribe, even Edis Hook, the Port Angeles spit that sheltered the city's harbor 7 mi east, was regrowing its shore straight side with more of the sand from the Elwa that had built the rip-wrapped spit in the first place. Healing everywhere, in the river, in Tess, and for years and years in her. In their mother, too, she hoped, though only God knew. Now bedridden and unresponsive, Violet lay waiting for the rescue that Luke, Hildy, and their boys prayed every evening she would receive. The mercy for which Hildy had also asked aloud the preceding day as her hand cool on her mother's warm forehead petted her cheek and hair for an hour. Hildy dug for her phone and clicked a photo of her man and their sons on this magnificent river this magnificent day. When Annie finished her meal, Hildy burped her again, zipped the baby into her chest pack, and crossed the beach to see the fish.

A note from the author.

In 1887, my poetry-loving great-great-grandfather Charles Amsen Wood, pulled shallow Midwestern roots, transported his wife and children to the Olympic Peninsula, and replanted them in the Puget Sound Cooperative Colony, a utopian settlement crouched on Ennis Creek at the edge of the frontier town of Port Angeles. His and Emily's children, including my great-grandgrandmother Mary Emma, spent their childhoods a mere shout from pot latches at the Clallam's Ennis village. From land near that creek's mouth, my forebears looked through new cedar-framed windows toward Port Angeles Harbor and another Clallam village to Wissom at the base of Edis Hook, the alluvial spit guarding the harbor. Mary Emma and her siblings played on the shoreline where Clallams beached canoes, camped, and smoked salmon over driftwood fires. Even so, the broader coexistence of cultures was an uneasy one. Intense pressure from the USA's expansion had already forced tribes to sign the 1855 treaty of Point No Point, which ceded historic tribal lands to the US government. Ensuing years had seen tribal villages around nearby Port Townsend destroyed, driving the Scalam who lived there to new locations. A number of them joined the lower Elwa Clallams at their ancestral home 7 mi west of Port Angeles. Consolidated into fewer, larger settlements, tribal members strove for normalcy, pursuing traditional occupations guaranteed them when they relinquished their lands. They'd been promised the right to harvest fish and shellfish where they had always found them, as well as the freedom to hunt and gather on lands that remained unclaimed and open. Therefore, despite the government's umbrella of ownership, the lower Elwa Clallams continued to fish in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, gather shellfish on its shorelines, and hunt the area's ample game. In the Elwa Valley, they harvested wood and bark from enormous cedars to craft many of life's necessities, and most crucial of all, they fished the river. Though encroachments on their treaty rights persisted, it appeared likely that as long as nothing harmed the cornerstone of their survival, the Clallams would preserve their autonomy and culture. That cornerstone, the Elwa River salmon.

Enter Thomas Aldwell, who had been secretly buying Elwa bottomlands for years. In 1910, the year my great-grandgrandmother Mary Emma gave birth to my grandfather Sydney Toer, Aldwell tapped backing from Chicago investors, logged a reservoir site and began construction of the Elwa Dam. When the government failed to stop construction, the treaties pledged to protect the salmon on which the tribe depended flew out the proverbial window. Built without fish ladders and only five miles from the river's mouth, the dam blocked all salmonids spawning upstream of the Elwa's 100-foot barrier. Outside of the tribe, however, few paid any mind to the dam's ecological consequences. The hydroelectric benefits to the Olympic Peninsula were simply too profound to allow fish or the people who needed them a voice. After all, upon its completion in 1913, the Elwa Dam carried the primitive peninsula into modernity and launched an unparalleled lumber industry. Prosperity arrived for most who had toeholds in that commercial growth, and Lake Crescent and mills, once the Glines dam was finished, became hubs of wilderness recreation. The Clallams, however, saw few of those benefits. Instead, as the reservoir waters rose, they suffered cataclysmic losses of sacred sites, culture, livelihoods, and lives, all of which had been shaped by and depended upon the wild river and its abundant fish. Denied passage upstream to lay their eggs, returning salmon slammed the concrete barricade, circled helplessly at its base, and if they didn't die first, competed for limited spawning beds in the short lower reach. Since most didn't spawn at all, the seven runs of Elwa Salmonids, historically ranging from a combined 400,000 to a million per year, began a precipitous decline. By 1927, the Glines Canyon Dam upstream compounded the loss of fish by trapping even more of the sediment necessary for healthy reds. Salmon nests starved of sand and gravel that typically washed downstream. Lower reach spawning beds eroded to cobble. Without fish returning to the upper reaches to spawn and replenish the habitat with their mineral-rich carcasses, the Olympic Mountains wildlife and vegetation suffered too. Meanwhile, members of the lower Elwa Clallam tribe were banished from ancestral fishing campsites outside of the Elwa Valley as if they were squatters. Natives collided with homesteaders in traditional hunting grounds. Industrial builders buried Titzen and other villages under tons of fill and replaced them with pulp and paper mills powered by the Elwa River's generators. Though crushed, the Clallams persevered. Rightfully called the strong people, they pursued their treaty rights for decades, finally presenting the beleaguered fishery to 1991 to 1992's 102nd Congress. Their breakthrough arrived with the passage of HR4844. And when President George H.W. Bush signed that bill, the Elwa River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act, the Elwa's renewal was at hand. Or so the tribe thought. It would be another 20 years before the dam's demolition began. Tribal Elder Ben Charles, Senior, died a year before I began my research for What the River Keeps. While all other characters in the novel are fictional, Ben lived not only to see the dams come down, but to inspire others with hope, patience, and forgiveness while they waited for the river's re-entry. The Clallams' prayers, trust, and persistence have been holy notes in the river's miraculous healing and its song. Whether you hear the Elwa's melody in person, through the abundant online accounts of the river's recovery, or in the pages of this book, I pray you'll emerge from your listening certain that if this river's dark strongholds could fall, yours can too. You're just about there.

Thank you for listening to this audio production of What the River Keeps. Text copyright 2025 by Cheryl Gay Bostonramm. All rights reserved. This book was produced by One Audio Books in San Marcos, California. No portion of this recording may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the publisher.