Quinn’s hand flew to her mouth as her stomach dropped. “What?”

“I’m so sorry.” Denise spoke fast. “Nothing like this has ever happened here before. Your father is so young and all, the new front desk girl didn’t suspect a thing when he walked on by.”

“Have you called the police yet?”

“I’m just about to but wanted you to be notified first.”

“Never mind. Let me handle this. I’m right across the street from the sheriff’s office now.” She’d manage the disaster personally. “Please arrange a search party, the weather is bad and getting worse by the minute.” Her voice held a shrill, almost hysterical note. Who cared? Dad was lost, possibly hurt.

“I know. I know.” Denise sounded on the verge of tears herself. Not reassuring. Quinn needed to believe that her father would be found. That nothing bad would happen to him.

Wanda leaned across the counter, her broad face puckered with concern. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” Quinn snapped, for once admitting the truth as she tore to the door. “Not by a long shot.”

She pushed outside and gasped. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees in the last few minutes and the gale-force gusts pushed her back against the building. A tear froze to her cheek.

Dad was outside wandering alone in these conditions? What would happen to him?

Chapter Three

WILDER WALKED AGAINST the wind, head down, jaw clenched. The new rhythm defined each impatient step. Cane. Foot. Foot. Cane. Foot. Foot. Cane. Foot. Foot.

The doctor said that if he persisted with his regime of ambulatory and endurance exercises eventually he could say sayonara to the cane, but adjusting to a prosthetic took time. “The good news is that the amputation occurred below the knee, saving you a great deal of mobility.” The doctor had grinned as if he’d dished up a plate of good news, like losing your leg in a freak parachute accident, having your career go up in flames, and returning to the town you had long fled was cause for fucking optimism.

“Hey, at least you’re alive,” Archer had muttered midway through the silent flight from Montana.

Wilder hadn’t replied—couldn’t find the right words. The only people capable of looking on the bright side were those who still saw the light.

These days, Archer had it pretty damn good. He ran Hidden Rock Ranch, lived in the big house with his pretty fiancée, Edie, and together they took care of Grandma Kane who struggled with mobility issues after breaking her hip mid-summer. In his own, more understated way, his other brother, Sawyer, appeared just as content. He served as Brightwater’s sheriff and settled into a comfortable life in his hand-built cabin with his old flame, Annie Carson, helping to raise her young son. Family life suited him and it was only a matter of time before either of the two guys tied the knot.

Wilder didn’t begrudge his brothers a single ounce of their hard-won happiness. How could he when he single-handedly destroyed their childhood? Wilder swiped the snow from his face. Almost home.

Home.

He couldn’t restrain a snort. Returning to Brightwater had come with one non-negotiable condition: His brothers must let him live alone. They agreed with a caveat of their own, saying if that was the case, he needed to stick with physical therapy, get out and about. Figure out a plan. A new career.

Easy for them to say with their loves and lives.

All Wilder had was a cane and ghosts.

A deer stumbled up the ravine wall, sending down a small cascade of snow and soil. It was going to be a hard winter. All the old-timer signs pointed to it; squirrels were busy, leaves fell late, halos kept appearing around the moon. He could pick up some cracked corn from Higsby Hardware to help supplement the deers’ diet, but it might not make a difference. The wind keened, seemed to carry his mother’s voice, her oft-repeated refrain, “No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.”

His next step was a stumble.

Forget about the deer. Focus on not face-planting.

He purchased a small cabin near Castle Falls for a song. Even with property prices booming in the Brightwater Valley, the fastest growing real-estate market west of the Rockies, Castle Falls was steeped in long-time fear and superstition. Stories went around about the gulch, whispers suggested that the place was haunted. Cursed. People kept their distance.

It was a perfect place to become a hermit.

“Why, this old place does have a certain charm, what with these cobblestone walls and, look, the floorboards are genuine redwood planks.” Edie Banks, Archer’s fiancée, had announced during his move-in day. “They don’t build houses with this type of craftsmanship anymore.”

Archer had managed to hold his tongue for once and Wilder knew why. Edie might look at the cabin through rose-colored glasses, but this faded hovel held all the cheer of a mausoleum, and that’s exactly what it would be—a tomb for Wilder to bury away any future hope or ambitions. He’d kidded himself into thinking Montana would be a fresh start.

Brightwater was his penance.

The wind picked up in ferocity, tossing him forward. The stick, cane, or whatever, broke through a puddle. Thin frost sheened the surface, ice that hadn’t been there an hour ago. Sawyer had given him the simple hand-carved oak walking stick as a welcome-home gift, replacing the one better suited for a man three times his age. “A cane for a Kane,” he’d said, his mouth quirking even as his eyes stayed serious.

All the Kanes shared the same bright green eyes, but Sawyer’s gaze searched out your soul. A useful skill in law enforcement.

Too bad Wilder didn’t have one.

He peered through the snow. Someone hunched in front of the mailbox at the end of his driveway. Maybe his latest book order had come in.

No. He wiped his eyes clear. This wasn’t Fred, the local postman. The guy was middle-aged, dressed in a pair of grey and green camo pants and a tucked-in plaid shirt, the same kind a lumberjack might wear. Red and black, thick wool, but in this weather the guy must be freezing his ass off.

What reason in hell did he have for poking around in his mailbox?

“Can I help you?” Even with the wind, his words carried. Wilder knew how to project his voice, had years of practice yelling out commands over the noise of the jump plane or a fire’s roar. A skill he wouldn’t need anymore.

Can’t be a smoke jumper without a leg.

The stranger didn’t hear him though. Or ignored him. Wilder tried to pick up his pace but shit, he couldn’t move quick.

“Hey!” Wilder shouted as he approached. “Hey, you there.”

Nothing.

A chill shot down Wilder’s spine that had nothing to do with the windchill or snow. Something wasn’t right.

He settled a hand on the man’s wide shoulder and the guy half-turned. Black hair hung over his forehead and he had a trimmed mustache. The guy was big. Not as big as Wilder but also vaguely familiar. He knew the face but couldn’t place the name. He’d been out of Brightwater for over a decade but could still recognize a local.

The gaze was what got him, staring into space, eyes slightly unfocused, even as his cheeks were bone white and slack lips almost bloodless. His pants were streaked with moss and his tennis shoes were mud-caked. Wilder turned and picked out a few faint footprints leading to the hill across the street. Castle Falls was below the main part of town. Where’d he come from? The silent stranger wasn’t out on a random pleasure stroll. The bluffs were steep, riddled with small cliffs and dense prickly blackberry thickets.

The man mumbled a few words, tapping his fingers against his chest in an erratic pattern. There was something wrong with him, cognitively speaking.

“Come on then,” Wilder said gruffly. He didn’t want company but he’d be damned if he’d leave a confused man alone on a night like this.