“Hope so.” He’d been in contact with Hamilton Jones, his boss, who’d confirmed that teammate Fraser had returned to the States and was recuperating. Ham had told him to take all the time he needed before he returned.

What he needed was to do something, get his mind off . . . well, all of it.

Mistakes, failures, betrayals, missteps, what-ifs, and never-agains.

“You never told me why you left Delta. Or how.”

“Nope, I didn’t.”

Silence. “Okay.” Dodge blew out a breath. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

There it was again, the weird thread of warmth from his big brother. Apparently, he had his own story, because Dodge had been a lot of things. Responsible, arrogant, bossy—but never warm.

“Thanks.”

“I see the plane,” Dodge said.

Colt looked up, spotted it sitting like a snowbird in the middle of the storm, covered in ice. Dodge picked up his pace.

Sleet and snow saturated Colt’s boots, his feet nearly frozen by the time he reached the plane. Dodge had it cleaned off, but the wings were heavy with ice. And a couple pushes on the wheel struts had Dodge shaking his head.

“We’re not going anywhere tonight.”

Perfect. Colt wanted to howl. Instead, “I’ll get the tents.”

Conditions like this were why they always stowed camping gear in the back of the plane.

Two tents, four sleeping bags, two nights of MREs and rations, water, a stove, and a high beam flashlight.

Dodge and Colt pitched the tents while Echo heated up water on the tiny propane stove and Tae unpacked their gear. By the time they had the two tents up, the wind turned hard upon them, and they got into the plane to eat dinner—Spanish beans and rice and hot coffee.

“I called home. No answer,” Dodge said, blowing on his coffee. “But could be that the weather is blocking our call. Dad is probably already in bed, anyway. It’s late.”

Colt put the hour past midnight, so probably.

“Ranger might be up though,” Echo said. “He hasn’t been sleeping well.”

Ranger’s recent eyesight loss had made him keen to every noise in the house, it seemed. Even though he and Noemi had renewed their wedding vows—this time in front of the local JP, just to make things US legal—Colt had found his younger brother asleep on the sofa downstairs.

Or more often awake, drinking coffee, listening to a podcast.

Poor guy. He’d gone from Navy SEAL sniper to the family chef and chief radio operator. But Dodge had roped him into helping out with the newly formed Sky King Rescue, as their base dispatcher.

If anyone could handle the chaos of a rescue operation, it was Ranger.

So yes, strange that he wasn’t up, answering the radio. But maybe tonight, with most of them gone, he was sleeping. Or the weather was indeed blocking their signal.