Page 61

CHAPTER

SIXTY

FAIRBANKS, FIVE YEARS AGO

The morning after the funeral, Logan rose early, intending to slip away before Morgan woke. But she was already in the kitchen, camera equipment spread across the table as she cleaned lenses with methodical precision.

“There’s coffee,” she said without looking up. “And I made extra breakfast if you’re hungry.”

Logan poured himself a cup, watching as her hands moved with practiced efficiency among the equipment. “You’re a photographer?”

He knew the answer, but it was best if he didn’t show just how much he knew about this woman.

“That’s right. Landscapes mostly. I was supposed to shoot Denali this week, but . . .” She trailed off, the unspoken grief filling the space between them.

“You’re going to reschedule?”

“No.” She carefully reassembled the Nikon, her movements gentle but certain. “I’m going today. Bobby would hate knowing I missed the first snowfall on the mountain because of him.”

Logan found himself admiring her resilience, her determination to continue despite everything. It reminded him painfully of her brother.

“What will you do now?” She looked up at him. “Go back to Denver?”

The question caught him off-guard. He hadn’t thought beyond this moment, beyond seeing her, beyond paying his respects.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “My assignment there is finished.”

Something shifted in her expression—a recognition, perhaps, of what he wasn’t saying. “There’s a position open with the Alaska State Troopers.”

“I don’t know anything about Alaska.” Even as the words left his mouth, he felt the pull of the landscape outside the window—vast and uncompromising yet somehow right.

“You learn.” Morgan offered a small smile.

The simple statement, delivered in her matter-of-fact tone, struck Logan with unexpected force. Why did he feel such a connection to this woman?

When she learned the truth about his past, she’d hate him.

He had no doubt about that.

Yet he still felt so drawn to her.

“I should go.” Logan set down his coffee cup. “Thank you for the hospitality.”

Morgan nodded, turning back to her camera equipment. “The offer stands. If you decide to stay.”

At the door, Logan paused, looking back at her. At the quiet strength in her posture. At the grief she carried without being crushed by it.

Something stirred in him, a feeling he immediately recognized as dangerous.

“Morgan.” Her name felt strangely familiar on his tongue. “Bobby . . . Bobby, even though I didn’t know him well . . . he almost felt like a brother?—”

“I know. You don’t need to explain. Not today.”

Relief and regret warred within him. “Another time, then.”

She nodded, but they both recognized the lie. There would be no other time, no further explanations.

This brief intersection of their lives was ending, as it must.

As Logan drove back toward Fairbanks, he renewed his promise to Bobby.

He would watch over Morgan Riley from a distance. He’d make sure she was safe, that she had what she needed. He owed Bobby that much.

What he hadn’t anticipated, as he picked up the phone later that day to inquire about the Alaska State Trooper position, was how much he would come to need that connection himself—how the promise to protect Bobby’s sister would become the center of his new life.

Or how impossible it would be to keep his distance from the one person he had no right to get close to.