And now, hours later, here I am.
Alone, worried, pacing shallow circles in the loneliest way, reminding me that this isn’t really home and I have no business being here.
But I can’t and won’t leave so long as there’s the slightest chance the kids could make their way back.
For a second, I hear the voices drawing closer through the darkness.
My ears prick up, but I realize it’s just the search parties moving to their rally point.
I don’t know if that should worry or relieve me—but when I hear a heavy foot treading on the front step, I whip around so fast I almost trip.
I know already it’s not Eli. There’s not enough weight on that string-bean of a boy to make that kind of sound.
When I see Alaska through the glass, his dark flashlight hanging limply from his hand and his expression drawn and blank with grizzled weariness, my heart skips.
Then it freaking breaks right down the middle.
He starts to push the door open, but I’m faster. I almost rip it open and fling myself against him, wrapping my arms around his neck so hard my nails dig into his thick skin.
“Paxton,” I whisper. “Please tell me you found them, and they’re not...”
Lost? Hurt? Dead?
I don’t dare speak anything that terrible into existence.
My brain doesn’t want to contemplate the very worst.
That the search was called off because they found Eli and Tara, but too little, too late. Whether it was the elements that got them, or something more vicious...
Something like Paisley Lockwood.
She doesn’t need her sadistic little switchblade to be lethal.
And the shaft of hurt piercing through me cuts just as sharp as her pet toy when Alaska stiffens against me, his arms slouched at his sides.
It’s selfish of me, I know.
That my first instinct is to feel rejected, shut out, when I’m probably the furthest thing from his mind and that’s how any sane man should feel.
Pressing my hands against his chest, I push back and look up at him.
“Alaska...?” I bite my lip. “Say something. Please. Please say something about the kids.”
“There’s...” His voice grinds to life like old machinery trying to overcome an engine flaw.
One look tells me more than words.
He’s filthy and scratched up and looks like he hasn’t slept in years—and like he’s aged just as much in the space of one night.
“Alaska?”
“Nothing. No news. We haven’t found shit. Not even a footprint.”
My eyes pinch shut and stick until it hurts.
My heart goes out to him, then.
It isn’t good news, but it’s not a disaster—not yet.
There’s also a spark of hope.
Kids have been getting lost in these woods for as long as they’ve existed like an evergreen shroud around Heart’s Edge.
When I was little and first moved here, it was almost a rite of passage to scare the hell out of your parents and then wander out of the underbrush no worse for wear, a little scratched up but elated to be home.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.
Rural Montana can be cruel. Unforgiving. Endless steep slopes, little gullies and drop-offs, not to mention the cougars and coyotes.
At least with the wild animals, they’re often more afraid of you than vice versa.
And kids are resilient.
I tell myself that over and over again because it’s what I want—no, need—to believe, but I can’t bring myself to say it to Alaska.
Exaggerated hope would just feel like useless platitudes to him right now.
Even so, I can’t let him go on like this. Staggering in drained and tired and so bitterly alone.
Taking a step back, I reach for his grimy, scratched-up hand, tugging fiercely at his fingers.
“Come on,” I say. “You need rest. You need to be ready to try again in the morning. Eli’s waiting for you.”
Alaska balks, this anger crossing his face in a sour flash that almost scares me.
He’s a mountain of a man, and I’m not made for moving mountains, but I dig my heels in and try to tug him along anyway.
...and I get exactly nowhere.
He’s not looking at me anymore, wearing this blank stare that’s just lost, aimed over my head, fixed on the wall like he’s projecting his own nightmares. Every worst case scenario possible.
I frown, then let go of his hand and reach up to cup his cheek through his beard.
“Paxton,” I whisper sharply. “Pax. Are you with me?”
That gets him to blink, a startled shake of his head, before he looks down at me with a puzzled frown. “I...what?”
“You remember what you told me?” I ask. “The bell. You’re not ready to ring that bell, not for Eli...are you?”
Pure agony crosses his face before it hardens into determination so intense a chill dives down my back.
“Fucking never,” he snarls.
“Then come inside and rest. Let me get some food and water into you. If I know Eli, he’s probably Swiss Family Robinsoned the two of them a treehouse by now,” I say with a cautious smile.
That’s not what I totally believe. Not when I can picture Eli tied up, struggling to be brave for Tara, Paisley’s contorted shadow falling over him.
But I say it anyway, for Alaska’s sake.
And I get back a pale half smile that means the whole universe tonight.
“I bet the kids are sound asleep right now. You should be, too,” I venture.
His smile fades, but thank God he lets me guide him, slowly and woodenly into the kitchen.
I don’t think Alaska realized how dehydrated he was until I’ve poured him a huge glass of iced water. I watch him take one slow sip—then tilt his head back and down it like he’s pounding a beer, his strong throat working desperately.
He does it again when I give him a second glass, and a third with a sandwich he devours in three bites.
No question about it, he’s operating purely on self-preservation.
Autopilot mode because he doesn’t even seem aware of much as I nudge him to his feet and into the bathroom, then gently undress him.
I’m in no mood to appreciate that chiseled body as I push him under the steaming water.
He may be the sexiest man alive, but my mind’s glued to other things.
A certain grim resolve rises inside me, too.
Whatever the outcome with the kids, I know what I have to do.
But first, I need to get Alaska into bed.
He looks a little more present when he finally emerges from the shower with a towel wrapped around his steel hips.
He’s always seemed so strong, so patient. Almost like he was born that way, and the SEALs only honed a certain toughness into him when he already had the endurance of stone, the Alaskan wild sewn up in his sky-wide soul.
But every man has his limits.
Every man breaks.
Every man falls apart, and if he’s lucky, he gets a chance to heal, call for help, and come back stronger.
I learned that from him not long ago.
It’s no surprise that it takes the fear of losing his son—the helplessness of being able to do nothing until morning—that comes close to shattering Alaska beyond repair.
I’m breaking inside, too, and I’m not even Eli’s mother.
But he promised me he won’t ring the bell, and neither will I.