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Dani grabbed the bow and slung it over her shoulder, along with the bag of arrows. The bedroom window opened without so much as a squeak, and she climbed out. She couldn’t trust the mountain man she vaguely remembered to save the day.

She needed to find Josh.

* * *

This reporter was going to be the death of him.

He had sensors on his doors and windows and knew the instant she’d opened the bedroom window. His closed-circuit security system let out a chime, indicating that he had a runner on his hands.

She had grit, that was for sure. The reporter wasn’t going down without a fight, and he liked that in a woman.

In Alaska, it was about the only way a person survived.

If only he could erase that fear in her eyes when she looked at him. He wasn’t the bad guy.

He walked out the front door and toward the rear of the cabin. And ran smack into Dani rounding the corner of the house.

“Wh-what are you doing?” She took two steps back with the bow in her arms. She had an arrow in place and pulled on the string.

Too bad the arrow was pointing the wrong way.

He stifled a smile. She was cute and dangerous at the same time.

She’d get them both killed if she ran off on her own. Because he’d follow her.

“I’ll shoot you. Don’t think I won’t.”

At her faux bravery, his heart thawed a little bit toward his unwanted guest. “If you do, you’ll shoot the tree behind you and hurt yourself.” He walked up to her and flipped the arrow around. “If you want to leave, I’m not stopping you. But you’ll need a weapon you can handle.”

She lowered the bow. “Like what?”

Evidently, the key to this woman was to keep her intrigued.

He pulled his switchblade out of his pocket and passed it to her. She turned it around in her palm. “Just don’t stab me in the back. But it might make you feel better to have a way to defend yourself.”

He went around the front and headed inside to grab two cups of coffee. He met her on the wraparound porch outside the front door.

She dropped the bow and watched him, still clutching the pocketknife. He passed her a cup of coffee and offered her a seat in one of the two rocking chairs that were his favorite spot on the mountainside.

She tucked the knife into her jeans pocket and sank into the chair. He took the one next to her.

“Fine.” Her breath came out in a huff. “The caffeine will wake me up for when we go look for Josh.”

“We will leave and search for Josh.” He set his mug on the tree stump that served as an end table and listened to the rain pelting the porch roof.

“But it’s eleven p.m., and the sun is going to set in about fifty minutes.

Trust me, we don’t want to be out in the darkness and rain.

Sunrise is around four a.m., and we can head out then.

If we still don’t have cell reception, I’d like to head back to the area where I found you, just in case Skye sends help that way. ”

“Skye. That’s why we stopped at the hotshot camp. I wanted to find my friend.”

She stood and walked to the edge of the patio, placing her mug on the railing. She turned to him. “I remembered what you called me, by the way. Diva Dani . And you yelled at me.”

He flinched. Why was he always the villain? Her look of contempt pierced him harder than an arrow from his longbow.

He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry for the way we treated you. And we never should have let you and Josh go up the mountain alone.” Not with a handful of SOR members still roaming around.

She nodded, which he took to be an acknowledgment of his apology. Maybe they could strike up a friendship, or at least she could stop fearing for her life around him.

“Why can’t I remember anything? I have no idea what happened once I left your base. Other than something bad happened to Josh. I just don’t know what.”

He stood and leaned a hip against the porch railing. Progress. She didn’t flinch as he moved closer to her. “Would you tell me more about the story you were working on? You seemed pretty convinced that there was a secret compound hidden in the woods. You had some pencil-drawn map too.”

He wondered how much Dani knew about recent events.

He’d been working when smokejumper JoJo Butcher had taken down the SOR camp, literally setting the place on fire.

They’d even recovered a sample of the bioweapon the group had been testing.

But did the reporter already have the inside scoop, or was she fishing for a story?

She felt around in her pockets and pulled out a crumpled paper. “I—I don’t remember this.” After she looked at it, she gave it to Grizz. “Did Josh and I find this place?”

Grizz looked at the map. He noted the trail and the area where he’d found her.

She must have made it to the area marked by a big X on the crude map.

“I think you and Josh stumbled onto something. I heard a gunshot. It wasn’t a hunter.

” Her face paled, more from exhaustion than fear.

“Look, why don’t you rest some more? You clearly know where my bedroom is, so please go lie down and get some sleep.

I’ll stay up and keep watch, and I’ll pack us a few things so we can leave at sunrise. ”

If he needed a nap, he could take one on the couch. Wouldn’t be the first time he fell asleep stretched out on it.

She shook her head. “No, we need to find Josh. He?—”

He put a hand on her arm, and she backed up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I—” What could he say to win her trust?

He let out a low growl of frustration.

Well, that wouldn’t help make her comfortable.

“I promise you, we will go look for Josh. And I’m not going to hurt you.

Please get some rest. I think I have some clothes my sister Melanie left when she stayed with me, so you can get cleaned up.

You might get more of your memories back once your mind has had some time to relax. ”

“Yes, sleep might help. But I’m taking this with me.” She waved the knife at him and marched into the house.

At least she was a fighter. That, he could work with. He didn’t deal with the damsel-in-distress type so well. His last relationship had ended when his girlfriend had decided that Grizz’s best friend was better suited for her.

And the betrayal still stung.

Dani headed inside to the bathroom, so he went and rummaged through the back of his closet.

In a box, he found some jeans, a short-sleeved T-shirt, and a sweatshirt.

His sister liked to visit, but when was the last time she’d been around?

They’d used to come visit their grandparents all the time as kids.

But now Melanie had two children of her own, and Grizz had thrown himself into his work.

How long had Grizz gone without seeing his family? When he wasn’t working wildfire season, the word hermit applied to him, but it wasn’t like he’d planned to be this way. He laid out the clothes on the bed and moved to his lookout on the front porch.

He was much better on his own. Relationships just complicated things, and he liked his life simple. Predictable, in a way. He could trust himself to get the job done, but when it came to others? That was way too unpredictable for his tastes.

But there was nothing routine or simple about today. Dani was in trouble. Josh was missing. And the bad guys were out there. Grizz could feel it in his bones. Something wasn’t right about this situation.

After a while, he headed in and settled on the couch so he could continue to puzzle it out and try to figure out how everything fit together. Had she found evidence that the SOR had a secondary hideout? He’d heard talk that they might have another camp, but nothing had been confirmed.

Grizz sat upright. He must have fallen asleep, and now he wondered what had woken him. Then he heard the sound of someone stumbling around in the bedroom.

Exactly at sunrise, Dani emerged from his bedroom, dressed in an oversized gray University of Alaska sweatshirt. She still had on those stupid white fluffy boots. At least they looked comfortable.

“Thank you for the clothes. They mostly fit, and they aren’t caked with mud.

” Her straight blonde hair hung in waves around her face, and she’d washed the mud out.

She looked younger now, even though he knew she had to be around his age—thirty-two.

Without all the layers of makeup, her true beauty rang through.

He gave her a mug of coffee and a granola bar. “Sorry, I haven’t stocked up at the store recently since I don’t spend much time up here in the summer. Hopefully we can make it down the mountain and get some breakfast.”

She put the coffee on the kitchen table and squinted, pressing a hand against her forehead.

“Does your head still hurt?” he asked.

“I have a pounding headache. I think it’s the light from the window. But I just want to get out there and look for Josh.”

“It’s still raining, but it’s not a total downpour, so we should be able to look for him.”

He grabbed the backpack of supplies—water, snacks, and other survival gear. His Sig Sauer sat snug on his hip, under his jacket.

They headed to the ATV, and Dani climbed on behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist. So much for her earlier cringing with fear at his nearness.

Their nice clean clothes wouldn’t last long as the ATV sprayed mud. Grizz navigated the treacherous terrain.

“Wow. Those houses below are amazing.” She pointed at the mansions built in an exclusive resort area that spread out below them to the west in a break in the trees.

“A few celebrities and politicians that want to get off the grid for a while have summer houses here.”