Page 27 of The Lovely and the Lost

Gabriel, apparently, wasn’t a person who liked to be thanked. “We both know who the real hero here is, and it’s not me. There’s no trace of hero in my DNA.” He nodded to Saskia. “All credit goes to her.”

Saskia was the one who’d found this place. She’d gone in blind. She’d taken the risk. It meant something that Gabriel recognized that, when most people couldn’t look past the wolf in her eyes.

“Kira!” Cady called my name from somewhere near the cave’s entrance.

“Here,” I called back, moving toward the sound of her voice. “Sass and Gabriel, too.”

A beam of light, brighter by far than what my flashlight could offer, flooded the entrance. Cady’s hair was soaked, her clothing dripping. Mackinnon Wade crouched beside her. With unnatural calm, he surveyed the situation, then dropped down into the cave himself. He let out a low, soothing whistle and held out a hand to Saskia.

My dog’s blue eyes studied the large man intently. After several long seconds, she approached.

“What do you say, superstar—how about we get you out?”

Gabriel snorted. “Saskia has a counteroffer. She would like to eat your face.”

To his credit, Mac didn’t seem to take offense. “Will she let me pick her up?” he asked me. “I can hoist her out without much fanfare.”

“Will she let a large man wrap his arms around her and constrain her?” I rephrased Mac’s question. The answer was obvious, but this was our chance to prove to Cady that my girlandI could work with a team.

“She trusts you,” Mac responded. “You need to trust me.”

“Kira has a counteroffer,” Gabriel started to quip.

I shot him a disgruntled look. “Shut up, Gabriel.”

Gabriel seemed to prefer being told to shut up to being thanked. As I turned my attention back to Mac, my pulse jumped slightly, and I tamped down on the part of me that had gone vigilant.Cady trusts Mac,I told myself. I pictured the photograph Free and I had found.Cady knows him.

My breathing evened out, and I knelt in front of Saskia. “Sit,” I said. I gestured, palm to the ground. “Down.”

Saskia went to the ground. I went with her. I pressed my belly to the cave floor, nose to nose with my K9 partner. It went against every instinct I had to stay there, with Gabriel and Mac standing over us, but I wouldn’t ask Saskia to do something I couldn’t.

“Stay,” I said softly. I could do this.Shecould do this.

Mac slowly knelt and got into position beside her.

“Stay,” I repeated, my eyes on Saskia’s and hers on mine. The cave floor was damp. My heart was racing. Saskia didn’t so much as look at Mac. She looked at me. She trustedme. I lay there, vulnerable with no line of defense. With liquid grace, Mac made his move. One second, Saskia was on the ground, and the next, he had the husky in his arms, over his head, and out.

Even once she was back on solid ground, Saskia held the down position.For me.I was on my own feet in an instant. Mac boosted me up. I barely even felt the contact.

The second I was on solid ground, I dropped the stay signal, and Saskia came barreling into my body.

“Are you hurt?” Cady asked me. “Is Saskia?”

I let her run her hands over me, assure herself I was okay—and then I shook off both her worry and her touch. “We’re fine.”

“You’re better than fine.” Cady looked down at Saskia. “I can’t believe she let him do that.”

“I can.” I allowed myself one moment of victory, and then I got down to business. “Gabriel and I aren’t sure how big the cave system is, but it wasn’t on any of the maps. There could be other entrances, other exits. I’m fairly certain there’s running water down there.”

“And how exactlydidyou find this place?” The sheriff announced his presence. A half dozen deputies and rangers began making their way down into the cave as Mac boosted Gabriel out.

“I didn’t find the cave,” I said, unsure what exactly it was about the way the sheriff had spoken that set my teeth on edge. “Saskia did.”

I prepared myself to recount the search, step-by-step, but the sheriff looked past me, toward Gabriel. “And I suppose,” he said, drawing out the words in a way that made my stomach lurch, “that Gabriel will tell me that he had no idea this cave was here, either.”

I shifted my weight forward without knowing why.

“I could confirm your assumptions,” Gabriel replied contemplatively. “Or I could tell you that you have a tiny piece of kale caught in your teeth.”