Page 69 of Track of Courage

And she smiled.

“You’re humming.”

Dawson looked up from where he stood on the stacked woodpile, tossing down logs to Griffin and Landon. Overflow firewood,the cords that didn’t fit in the shed, lined the back of the barn, two stalls deep.

“It’s something Keely was singing earlier.” He didn’t know why it stuck in his head, but he liked it.

She did have a pretty voice, and today, it seemed stronger.

Sheseemed stronger. Not that she’d seemed weak before, but last night, as he’d struggled through the snow to get them back to the lodge, she hung on to him tighter than he would have imagined.

The kiss sat in his mind, his chest all night, the smell of her, the taste of her, as if surprised, but eager, almost curious. All the way up to“I’m sorry. This can’t work.”

Whatever. The kiss, he could blame on her next words, the part about not wanting to hurt him, as if she had secrets that might make him walk away from her.

Hello, he’d already told her his, and she hadn’t run.

He wouldn’t run either.

“She has a nice voice,” Griffin said as he picked up a couple chunks of firewood tossed into the snow. He added them to the two-person tote made of canvas and wooden handles. Griffin and Landon had already carried in one load.

Now, Landon worked his way down the row of livestock pens, feeding the animals.

Outside the blizzard howled, relentless. Alaska.

“Probably a good thing for her to be holed up here, really. Let her voice heal.”

Dawson frowned as he tossed down a few more logs, then climbed down the ladder. His knee felt tired today, but not as achy. All this regular work seemed good for it.

Good forhim. Moose showed up in his head, as he clapped off the wood splinters from his hands.“God usescircumstances to wake us up,get at things inside.”

Stuff. Like grief and anger and frustration ... but here, suddenly,all of that didn’t seem quite so raw. Maybe Keely’s words had found root—“There is a lotmore churning around inside here,Dawson. And none of itadds up to you being the villain.”

He’d called himself the villain for so long, he didn’t know what to replace it with. But maybe ... “Yeah,” Dawson said. “Like you said, maybe we were supposed to stay.”

Griffin threw the wood on the pile. “I know. Despite the storm, there’s a peace here, right?”

Dawson shrugged and kept working.

“Or maybe it’s not the place, but a person.”

He looked at Griffin, frowned. “Are you talking about Keely?”

“Actually, I was referring to Jesus. And I know he’s not just here, but sometimes it’s easier to see grace and abundance and mercy and all the things when we find ourselves safe and warm inside a storm.”

From the last stall, the one closest to the wood, the llama shrieked, clearly ruffled at the disturbance. What did Griffin call her—Woolly Bully? The animal had already rammed her cage once, leaning down to nip at them as they worked.

“Maybe. But ... sometimes I feel like I’m standing in the middle of it.” Dawson didn’t know what it was about Griffin, but he seemed ... well, he seemed to get it.

The man picked up the feed bucket. “Cold and suffering and alone? That’s not a bad thing either.”

“Suffering is a good thing?” Dawson added a few logs to the tote.

“Absolutely. Suffering helps us taste just a little of what Jesus did for us. It brings a greater understanding of his love, grace, and mercy. And, hopefully, brings us a little closer to God. So, while we don’t love storms, we’re not afraid of them. Right, Woolly?” Griffin poured feed into a bucket attached to her pen. Turned to Dawson.

“In the ebb and flow of the world, of the terrible and the good,maybe darkness doesn’t win because God’s goodness is still in the world, through his people. Through his providence. Even when it feels like the darkness is winning.”

He dropped the bucket back into her feed bin. “And it doesn’t hurt that you get to have Keely around just a little longer, before the world finds out.”