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At midnight, after he’d cleaned up the bar on his own, Bear knocked on the door of the hardware store. Lila’s shift had ended at eight, and she’d left immediately. He’d found a note on his kitchen table. “I need to do some cleaning at home tonight. See you tomorrow.”

Which would have been fine, except that she’d mentioned cleaning. Wasn’t that a red flag? At least she’d left Goldilocks at his place.

He knocked again. “Lila. It’s Bear. Let me in. I don’t want you staying here alone. Remember?”

A swirl of wind sent snowflakes whipping against his face, numbing his cheeks. The temperature had dropped to near zero during the course of the evening. A deep chill was settling in, and it very likely wouldn’t get over freezing for months. Would Lila be okay in her poorly insulated house? Did she have enough propane for the winter? Would she be able to keep her woodpile stocked?

He told himself he was just concerned for her safety. But that was a lie. She’d gone quiet after Officer Cromwell left. And a sinking feeling in his stomach told him that was no coincidence.

Finally he heard footfalls across the floor and the sound of the deadbolt being removed. At least Lila was using the lock he’d put in. The door opened just a crack. For a moment, he was happy just to see her. She wore a knitted cap over her silver-white hair and a hoodie for extra warmth. Then he caught the look in her eyes—a little sleepy, a little confused.

“Lila.” He cleared his throat since her name had come out more gruffly than he’d intended. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”

“I have Buttercup with me.”

That hurt too. Buttercup was Molly and Sam’s dog, and Lila frequently took care of him when they were out of town. But no one would call the overly friendly yellow bearded collie a guard dog. Did she really prefer Buttercup to him as a protector?

“Come on. Let me in so we can talk. It’s two degrees out here.”

The door eased open and she let him in.

It was warmer inside the store, but still chilly. “Your fire went out. You left the damper open.”

“I fell asleep.”

“It’s winter. You can’t forget these things.” He knelt by her stove, blew on the coals to see if there was any spark left, then added enough kindling to get the fire going again.

She watched him with her arms folded across her chest. “I was perfectly warm in my bed,” she told him. “I have plenty of blankets, and Buttercup on top of them.”

He rose to his feet. The knot in his stomach was getting worse. “Whatever Officer Cromwell told you, it’s not the whole story.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “I don’t care what that man says.”

“You don’t?”

“Of course not. He’s kind of mean and bitter, isn’t he?”

Buttercup trotted in from the bedroom and sat on her feet. Probably missing her warmth. He could relate.

He eyed her cautiously. “I got the feeling…you’re not happy with me. I thought maybe he said something.”

She ran her tongue across her lips. “Look, Bear. I know there are things you don’t want to share. I understand that. I’m the same way, aren’t I? I don’t like telling people about my ‘blips.’ It just makes me sad, that’s all, because where does that leave us?”

Now he got it. She wasn’t angry at him. She was doubting that they could have a real relationship.

He took a step toward her. “There are things I should have told you. Things I don’t tell anyone.”

“Please, Bear, you don’t have to?—”

“I do,” he interrupted. “You’re the—” He broke off, then forced himself to continue. “You’re the person I most want to tell,” he finished in a low voice.

Her lips parted, but she didn’t respond. She shouldn’t be so surprised. Didn’t she know what she meant to him?

Of course she didn’t. He’d never given her any hint. He was too damn “scowly.”

“I don’t talk about it because I’m not supposed to, as a legal matter.”

“A legal matter?” Her eyes widened and she plopped down on the couch. Buttercup followed suit, so he found himself telling the story to both of them, the woman and the dog with his head on her knee.

“I was a police officer for five years, up in Bethel. I was good at it. Too good. I was following up on some leads about a missing Athabaskan woman. I uncovered some information that connected the police chief to her disappearance. I confronted him with it. I thought it would be better to be straightforward, but I didn’t know what I was getting into. He and his minions planted drugs in my locker. They started an investigation into me. It looked bad; they kept coming up with new evidence. None of it was real, but no one believed me. Even my buddies in the department told me to shut up and stop rocking the boat.”

He hunched his shoulders and paced around in a circle. All the emotions of that time were churning through him again, as if no time had passed and he was still in the midst of that nightmare.

That’s how trauma works , he thought. He knew that. He’d studied it during his time in the Alaskan bush, when he’d specialized in domestic violence cases. But he hadn’t thought about how it applied to him. Was he also a victim of trauma because of what he’d gone through?

“What did you do?” Lila asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

“I hired a lawyer. He had a good reputation, and he’d worked with other police officers, so I trusted him. He encouraged me to come to a settlement with the department. That’s what I did. They dropped the investigation and I quit the force.”

She frowned. “Why did he recommend that? Didn’t he think you had a case? They were fabricating evidence! I’m no lawyer but I’m friends with one, and I know that Molly would have destroyed them.”

He gave a short laugh. How he wished he wasn’t still bitter about how it had gone down. But he was.

“That lawyer turned out to be married to a cousin of the police chief.”

“Really? But that’s a,” she cast around for the right word, “that’s a conflict of interest. Did he tell you ahead of time?”

“No. I don’t know if it would have mattered. There aren’t that many people in this state. All kinds of connections pop up.”

She scratched Buttercup between the ears. “It sounds like he wasn’t working in your best interests.”

“No. He wasn’t.” Then he shrugged. “Or maybe he was, and he knew what could happen if I didn’t play ball. Corruption like that…it’s the worst thing that can happen to a place, whether it’s a town or a state or a country.”

His voice rose, passion vibrating through it. He never got worked up like this. He prided himself on keeping his cool. That stoic expression he was known for was no accident. It was a shield, a weapon, a tool—a survival mechanism. But under Lila’s riveted gaze, he couldn’t stop talking.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it publicly. That was part of the deal. My lawyer gave me a rundown of all the politicians the police chief was connected to. I’d heard of most of them. I even took my evidence to a reporter I knew at the biggest newspaper in Alaska. They wanted nothing to do with it.” He looked away from Lila, at the floor, because this was the part that bothered him the most. “I signed the deal on the condition that they keep investigating that Athabaskan girl’s disappearance. They promised they would. The chief passed it on to the local FBI office, and they started a task force. It lasted about a year, did jack shit, then they closed the case for good.”

“Oh my God, how awful. You must have felt terrible.”

Her sympathy nearly undid him. He didn’t deserve it. “It wasn’t about me. It was about her. I let her down. I just got buried under all this…fucking crap. It seemed like the only way I could get anyone to pay attention to the case was to agree to that deal. I should have known they’d fuck me over.”

He’d sworn more in the past minute than he had in the past year. The back of his neck was sweating. His heart was jumping. He drew in a long breath and called on his calm. “I’m part Native Alaska, Ahtna. I thought that was part of why it was hard to get anyone to listen. But that police chief was Inupiat. When corruption is allowed, when it isn’t checked, it corrupts everyone it touches. That was really hard to watch.”

As he finally came to the end of his flow of words, silence fell between them. After a moment, Lila got to her feet and padded toward him in her fuzzy socks and thick sweatpants. She leaned against him, put her arms around his middle, then leaned her head against his chest. At first he wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t hide his galloping heartbeat, or the stink of stress sweat.

Cautiously, he looped his arms around her back.

“I’m really sorry all that happened to you. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Like I said, I don’t talk about it. I’m not supposed to. It’s…I’m ashamed,” he admitted. “I worked hard to join the force, and to be treated like that, discarded as if I wasn’t worth anything, it hurt.”

“But that’s not what happened. You were a threat. You were chased away because you were a danger to that corrupt bastard.” Her fierceness brought the touch of a smile to his lips and lightened the shadow over his heart.

“So you believe me?”

She lifted her head off his chest so she could look up at him. “Of course I believe you. I never doubted that whatever your side was, it was the right one.”

“Never?”

“Never. I know what a good person you are. I thought…maybe you didn’t trust me, and maybe you never would.”

He nodded gravely, tucked a stray strand of flyaway hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I was going to tell you in the supply room, before we got interrupted by that ridiculous brawl. But I shouldn’t have waited even that long. It’s not because I don’t trust you, though. Didn’t,” he corrected himself before she could.

She smiled, puzzled. “Then why?”

“What you think is important to me,” he said simply. “The stakes were really high.”

“Mmmm.” Turning her cheek again, she nestled against his chest. Finally, he could take a full breath, that tight anxiety gone along with his secrets. “I did tell you about my intuition, right? Why would you have any doubts about what I would think?”

He shook his head. “Logic said you would understand. Fear said I couldn’t be sure.”

“The great and mighty Bear Davis was afraid?”

A laugh burst out of him, such a relief after all that worry. “I am human. Just because I’m a big one doesn’t mean I don’t have all the usual human emotions.”

“Mmm, like what else?” She pressed her stomach against his hips. He had the normal male human reaction to that move.

“Like I want to throw you down on that bed in there and show you how fucking amazing you are.”

He felt a shiver run through her body. “Then what’s stopping you?”