Page 47

CHAPTER

FORTY-SIX

FAIRBANKS, FIVE YEARS AGO

Logan told himself he wouldn’t go to Morgan’s after the funeral and burial.

Instead, he drove back to Fairbanks and checked into the airport hotel. He even showered and changed for his flight.

But as the departure time approached, Logan found himself in a rental car headed west instead of toward the gate.

Morgan’s cabin was modest, but it looked cozy. It sat in the middle of nowhere. Smoke curled from the chimney, and warm light spilled from the windows onto the new snow. Eight vehicles were parked up and down the lane leading to her place.

Logan sat in the idling car, questioning his judgment for the hundredth time that day.

He was still sitting there when a tap on the window startled him. Morgan stood beside the car.

Logan rolled down the window, his face heating despite the cold air rushing in.

“You planning to sit out here all night?” she asked, her breath visible in the darkness.

“I was just?—”

“Overthinking it,” she finished with a raised eyebrow.

The casual accuracy of her assessment startled him. He killed the engine and got out of the car, the cold immediately seeping through his inadequate jacket.

“Come on.” Morgan turned toward the path to the cabin. “Before you freeze to death.”

Inside, the cabin was warm and surprisingly spacious. The main room centered around a stone fireplace, the walls adorned with framed photographs—all landscapes, Logan noted, with not a single human subject among them.

About a dozen people were scattered throughout the space, some talking quietly, others simply staring into the fire.

Morgan introduced him simply as “Bobby’s friend from Denver,” offering no further explanation. Logan was grateful for her discretion as he accepted condolences and deflected questions about how he’d known the deceased.

As the evening progressed, people shared stories about Bobby. They laughed and cried.

Logan’s guilt compounded.

Maybe he should tell Morgan the truth. However, that would only add to her heartache.

As the evening wore on, the other guests departed. Then it was just Morgan and Logan sitting before the dying fire, a comfortable silence between them that Logan hadn’t expected.

He knew he should leave. But something kept him here.

She reached for a framed photograph on the side table, passing it to Logan. “That’s us, the summer before he left Alaska.”

The photo showed a teenage Bobby with his arm slung around a younger Morgan, both grinning wildly beside a freshly caught salmon. The carefree boy in the image bore little resemblance to the haunted young man Logan had met in the biker gang.

“He was smart.” Logan traced the frame with his finger. “Quick to learn. Loyal to a fault.”

“Yes,” Morgan agreed. “All those things. And reckless. And stubborn. And determined to pave his own way.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, that too.”

She took the photo back, her fingers briefly brushing against Logan’s. “I just wish he’d listened to me.”

“Me too.”

They sat in silence again, the fire crackling and settling as the last embers glowed orange in the grate. Outside, snow had begun to fall in earnest, blanketing the world in pristine white.

Morgan glanced at the antique clock on the mantel. “When’s your flight?”

“I already missed it.”

Maybe he should have felt panicked about the fact he’d miss his debriefing tomorrow morning, about having to explain his unscheduled detour to Alaska, about sitting here with the sister of the gang member who’d been killed under his watch.

Instead, he felt something like peace for the first time since the raid.

“Listen, I have a spare room,” Morgan said. “It’s nothing fancy, but it’s warm. You can head back to Fairbanks in the morning. The roads are going to ice over. It’s below zero out there, and you’re not used to driving in Alaska.”

Logan knew he should refuse. Drawing this out only complicated things, only deepened the deception. But as he looked at Morgan—this woman who’d lost her last family member yet still offered kindness to a stranger—he couldn’t form the words to leave.

“Thank you,” he said instead.

Reluctantly, he went to bed.

Later, as he lay awake in the narrow bed of her guest room, Logan made himself a promise.

He’d tell Morgan the truth someday—about Bobby, about his role in her brother’s death, about all of it.

But not tonight. Tonight, he’d simply remember Bobby and let Morgan mourn.