Lily’s relationships, when she’d had time for them, were always mutually compatible arrangements that worked for both parties—low-key, nondemanding, convenient. She did not spend time wondering or worrying about when she might see someone next.

Now was definitely not the time to start. As evening came and went, she kept busy until she could slip away to bed. Where she absolutely did not think about Chase much at all.

* * *

Just shy of dawn, Chase slowed at the turnoff for the lodge, hesitating. If she traveled another ten miles up the road, she’d reach the off-road trail up to her cabin, and she could sleep in her own bed for the first time in three nights. Any bed, for that matter. But she’d already missed the first two days of camp, and Sarah wouldn’t let her forget about it for a month if she missed much more. And then, there was Lily. She’d broken their date. Maybe not a date, exactly, but she’d been looking forward to taking Lily into town. Lily’d interested her from the first time they’d met, with her slightly prickly facade, quick wit, and drop-dead sexy…brain. Chase chuckled. Yeah, and the great body, the amazing kisses, and the sadness that crept into her eyes all too often. The sadness more than almost anything else got to her, made her want to know why, made her want to wipe it away.

When the callout came, she hadn’t had any way to tell Lily she was leaving or how long she’d be gone, because she hadn’t known, and once she was out in the mountains, there was no way to communicate with anyone except the base station, and she wasn’t about to ask one of the other rangers to give her friend an update on her schedule. Couldn’t even call her girlfriend, and even if she could, that’s the last thing she would’ve done. She wouldn’t hear the end of it for a year. Probably more. Long after Lily had disappeared.

So now she wanted to see her. And if she wanted to see her, she’d have to go back up to the lodge. Grab an hour or so of sleep. Maybe see if Lily could work in that trip to town. But she was damned if she was gonna crawl into bed in the clothes she’d been wearing for two and a half days, and feeling like she’d been beaten all over for most of that time. A shower wasn’t gonna be enough. She eased the Jeep as quietly as she could into the parking lot as the sky lightened, dug around in the back until she found a clean set of clothes and a fairly clean towel, and headed down to the lake. Like most nights this time of year, the air was a little crisp, but she needed the refreshing.

She was tired, bone-deep physically, weary from climbing up rocky escarpments and rappelling down sheer rock faces, worn down by the strain of searching for almost forty-eight hours over rugged terrain still muddy from snow runoff, into areas that would be off-limits for hikers even at the height of the season. The dogs had led them through it, and the rest of the team’d followed as quickly as they could without risking someone breaking a leg or worse. Her stomach tightened. She knew what worse could mean. The weeks of pain, wondering if you’d ever be able to move the way you had before, the rehab where the progress was so slow it was hard to believe there’d ever be an end to it. And then when you finally reached the end, discovering you’d never be who you were before. What you were before.