The front door of the house was unlocked, and he padded down the hall.

Someone was already in the bathroom. He looked around and saw that Tims door was still closed. Employing the covert tactics taught him at the trooper academy in Sitka, he opened Tims door and saw the boy deeply asleep beneath a tangle of blankets, a book open on the floor next to his bed, noise coming from a set of headphones that had slipped from his ears.

He grinned and closed the door.

The bathroom door locked from the inside. “Tim? Wys voice came from behind the shower curtain.

Liam stepped out of his sweats and pulled the curtain to one side. Wy blinked at him through the water running down her face. “Liam!

He stepped into the tub and pulled her against him.

“You cant be in here!

He lifted her and kneed her legs apart.

“Tim is right down the

He kissed her and slipped inside her in the same moment.

“haaaaaall, she said. Her other leg came up to wrap around his waist. “Liam, she whispered.

“Wy, he whispered back.

“We shouldnt be doing this, she said weakly, and arched her back to take him all the way inside her. “Tim might wake up. He could come in, he might

He paused. “Want me to stop? He kissed her, the water running warm down his back. “Ill stop, he whispered.

“Noooooo, she said, and after that they didnt talk.

Liam and Wy were both late for work, and Wy was later because on a whim, she had reversed back into the driveway and run into the house to put on her gold hoop earrings. Liam had given her those hoops during a four-day trip to Anchorage three years before. The trip hadnt ended well and she hadnt worn them since. Today seemed like a good day to resurrect them. She was unaware of just how complacent the smile on her face was when she left home for the second time that morning, headed for Mad Trapper Memorial Airport and the headquarters for Nushagak Air Taxi Service, which business consisted of one Piper Super Cub, one Cessna 180, one small shack and Wy, owner and chief pilot.

Nushagak Air Taxi held the contract to deliver the U.S. mail north of Newenham, to settlements scattered along and to the west of the Nushagak River. Bristol Bay Air Freight held the contract for the east side of the river and for the communities south and west from Newenham to Togiak. Dagfinn Grant, the owner and operator of Bristol Bay Air Freight and Wys direct competitor, had been her nemesis ever since the United States Postal Service had decided to spread governmental largesse around and carved off a slice of Grants mail route to award to Wy. It was only ten villages, with mail service once a week year-round, but to Wys one-woman operation it meant the difference between paying attorney fees for Tims adoption or letting Tim be remanded to the custody of his mother, who had nearly killed him the last time he was in her care.