Speaking of big, nothing compared to the size of the bald eagle that’d landed on the riverbank to tear apart a fish. Its head would be level with her waist.

Beside her, Gabe sat with his back against a tree, playing with a strand of her hair. Why did she like that so much?

“Now that you’ve lived here awhile, are you enjoying Alaska?” he asked.

How in the world could she answer that? “It’s not what I expected,” she said finally. “It’s—”

A rustling sound from behind them made her stiffen. “Bear.” She grabbed Gabe’s hand, ready to run.

“Not a bear, a bull,” he said. “Listen. The thud-thud indicates a two-legged animal. A human.”

Seriously? Her hearing didn’t work like that. “Then—”

“It’s Bull,” he said. “Not many people are as heavy, and he has a slight hitch in his stride.”

She stared at him. She could barely hear the footsteps, and he could tell who it was?

Bull stepped out of the thick forest on the path that led to the road. Despite the chill, he only wore a T-shirt covered by a flannel shirt. Like Gabe, he had a daypack. “Hey, you two.”

With a breath of relief, Audrey settled cross-legged on the blanket. “How’d you know we were here?”

“Gabe left word where he planned to take you, and I saw the Jeep beside the road.”

“Oh.”

“Always leave word where you’ll be hiking.” Gabe’s smile flickered. “You know, so someone can rescue you…or retrieve the body.”

Men had such a warped sense of humor. “That’s not funny.”

“Just the truth.” Bull smiled at her. “But rescues aside, sometimes you get good stuff when people know where you are. You know, like bribes.”

“Yeah?” Gabe raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah.” Her boss set down his pack, pulled out a bottle of beer, and passed it to Gabe before winking at Audrey. “Want one?”

How could she resist? “A beer would be lovely, thank you.”

He handed over a bottle, took one for himself, and leaned against a tree. “By the way, Chief, your two graffiti artists showed up at the roadhouse and are working their asses off. You’re not their favorite person right now—neither am I—but they are trying. Reminds me of when Mako made us rebuild the meat cache after we’d misjudged felling that tree.”

With a smile at Audrey, he added, “When we were cutting down a dead spruce, the trunk caught on another tree—something we should have predicted. The spruce came down and smashed the platform where we stored meat in the winter.”

“Those were good days.” Gabe chuckled.

Wait a minute here. Audrey gave Bull, then Gabe, a long stare. “You said, ‘Mako made us’. Does that mean you two grew up together?”