“Yeah, I know,” Colt said. He had his hands shoved into his jacket, chin into the collar, fighting the snowstorm that suddenly dogged them, coming out of the northwest like the harbinger of death on the wake of Tae’s words.

Poison the world?

Colt shivered, all the way to his bones, but not just from the wind that slipped down his jacket and tried to find his ears.

They’d spent the last three hours hiking back to the plane, and about thirty minutes into their walk, the clouds overhead had chased them down and started spitting sleet, then snow, heavy, wet, and brutal. The sun, which never went down, pushed shadows upon them, turning the world broody and dangerous, hiding their steps as they picked their way down the mountain.

Their plane sat in the middle of a high tundra valley, under the cover of semidarkness. Dodge had a sort of homing beacon to it that Colt appreciated. He’d stopped thinking and just kept moving his feet.

“Do you really believe her?” Dodge asked now, falling in beside him. Echo and Tae walked out in front, with Tae hunched over against the wind.

“I want to,” he said and glanced over at Dodge. Ice clung to his eyelashes. “I don’t know. I just want to get back to the ranch, thaw out, and then we’ll unravel her story.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just hoping the storm hasn’t frozen the wheels of the plane to the tundra.”

Perfect. Because what Colt wanted right now, probably more than the truth, was his bed. His entire body ached, right to his cells, and he’d freaked himself out more than he wanted to admit back there on the cliffside.

He’d felt like he might be having a heart attack, the pain thick on his left side, down his arm.

He still hurt pretty good after his captivity by the Boko Haram.

Maybe Dodge was thinking the same thing, because he glanced at Colt. “What happened back there? On the ice?”

“Out of shape. No problem.”

“You might need more time—”

“I’m ready to get back to work. I don’t like sitting around like a pansy.”

“You were nearly unresponsive for a week after we pulled you out of the camp,” Dodge said. “I thought we were going to lose you.”

Concern layered his voice, something Colt hadn’t heard in, well, a decade. Weird. Sure, they’d made peace, Dodge forgiving him for his stupid actions with Echo so long ago. But all this newfound brotherly concern had him rattled.

Colt wasn’t so sure he wanted back in the family fold. He was just too prone to screwing it all up. To doing something that could get people he cared about killed.

It was easier to live without strings or attachments.

Then he couldn’t take anyone with him if he went down.

“You headed back to the Jones, Inc. team?”