“She was gone?” Lily asked.

“Yeah. We couldn’t get the chopper in when we found her, and we needed to rappel down. Carry her out. It just took us a while.”

“I’m sorry. That’s horrible.”

“It happens more times than you think every year.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier, I know.” Lily slipped her hand around Chase’s forearm. Her grip was warm and comforting, and Chase’s body hummed as if Lily was infusing her with strength.

“It helps that you understand without me explaining,” Chase said.

“What you need is something to eat and a few hours’ sleep.”

“I definitely need the food. I’ll have to look at today’s schedule, but I don’t think there’s gonna be any sleep in my future.”

“I imagine we can figure out how to fill the campers’ time without you. The last two days have been nonstop orientation, boating- and water-safety instruction, and I believe today has something to do with survivalist camping—knowledge I sincerely hope I never need to utilize.”

Chase groaned. “That’s definitely going to be me, then.”

“Maybe Natalie can fill in again.”

Chase shot her a look and quickly covered the totally out-of-nowhere spurt of jealousy. Totally not her thing. “Has Nat been here?”

“She came by the first morning for the orientation because you were’t here. Since then, she hasn’t been around. She wasn’t out with you?”

“No, there was an unscheduled burn in another part of the district, and she was on that. She doesn’t usually go out on search-and-rescue unless we need multiple teams to cover the search area. We’ve got the dogs, and we’re all SAR rated.”

“It’s an amazing job that you all have.”

“No more amazing than what you do.” Chase laughed a little. “We just have a better place to do it.”

Lily laughed with her, a lightness to her tone that Chase hadn’t heard before and that struck her with another surge of energy. Lily brought a light into the dark places.

“How would you like to have breakfast with me?” Chase asked.

Lily stopped and searched Chase’s face. When their eyes met, she smiled, and Chase felt the punch all the way to the pit of her stomach. Oh yeah, the heat was still there.

“I would like that very much.”

“Good,” Chase said around a knot of desire in her throat. She wanted her, more than she’d realized.

* * *

Lily thought about the way Chase had looked climbing out of the water, the way the droplets had gleamed on her skin as the first rays of sunlight banished the night. When Chase had bent down for the towel, Lily had caught a glimpse of her back, right before she’d turned her own. The scar down the center of her spine was impossible to miss, and she knew what it meant. A major trauma of some kind, and she could only think of a few ways it might’ve happened. But she couldn’t think of a way to ask.