Her father had a stronger connection with Ranger than he did her. Swell.

“Noemi, are you okay with how you left things with your father?”

Tae’s words. And behind them, Noemi again heard her response. “It doesn’t matter. I was always an afterthought to him. And now, he’s already dead to me.”

Clearly not, because she’d spent the past two days what-iffing and . . .

So much for sleep, because now she was imagining her father tied up and beaten by a couple of Russian thugs, his cover blown . . .

Nope. She wasn’t going to lie here and conjure up terrible endings . . . especially the one where she ended up burying him, again. Grieving him, again.

Noemi threw back the covers, pulled on a sweatshirt over her pajamas, tied her hair back in a handkerchief, and headed to the bathroom.

Then she washed her face, brushed her teeth, and stared in the mirror, trying to figure out what it was that caused people she loved to lie to her.

No more. If Ranger was keeping a secret from her, she was going to ferret it out.

She headed downstairs, expecting to find him in the kitchen, maybe talking to his father over a cup of coffee. Nope. Barry’s recliner was empty and the kitchen void of anything that smelled like morning brew.

The view called to her—the golden spray of light on the mountains turning them a deep blue. She walked over to the window and stared out across the southern hills, across the fields covered in purple fireweed and yellow madwort. Such beauty fighting for life in an unforgiving land.

Just before she turned away, she spotted Ranger. Dressed in a pair of running shorts and a jacket, he ran along the dirt driveway, his gait strong, his steps sure. He wore a light stocking cap, his dark hair curling out the back, and now put his head down, as if fighting for the last few yards.

No, gearing up for a sprint, because he shot off in a dash toward the house. She lost him as he came around the end, toward the entryway, and expected to hear him coming in.

Nothing, so after a moment, she walked to the back window and spotted him heading into the hangar.

Huh.

She went to the cupboard, grabbed a water bottle, filled it with water and ice, then shoved her feet into a pair of old sneakers she found by the door and headed outside.

The air held the fragrance of summer—the scent of wildflowers, pine, and the slightest chill scraped from the towering mountains that shed magenta upon the valley. She liked it here—so different from the humidity of Africa, or even the mugginess of Florida, but really, anywhere Ranger was, she wanted to be.

The look that passed between Ranger and her father stirred up in her mind again, and suddenly the wound raked open.