“We usually cut through this canyon, across the lake, then around the creek.” She pointed out the route, and in the distance, he made out the ridge.

“I remember,” he said. “I went hunting with my dad and the boys in this area, and we stayed there.”

“Then you know that the approach is up around the backside. Be careful. It’s pretty craggy around there, with lots of overhangs and crevices.”

Ice clung to the wisps of hair that strayed outside her helmet, her cheeks bright with cold, despite the covering. “My hope is that Peyton was heading there and somehow overturned the sled. Maybe she cut the gangline to let the dogs free and then made it to the cabin.”

He longed to put a fire to her hope. “That’s sounds like a reasonable scenario.”

She met his gaze, offered a smile. Then she put her face guard down, stood up, and throttled forward.

Of course, he followed her.

They were running out of sunlight, the gray-blue mountains rimmed with a fading fire as they descended into the canyon. He’d flown over this creek bed so many times that he could probably trace the route, the way it curved south, then north again, and finally broke into two more branches, one of them turning into the bigger Peters Lake.

As they turned out into the creek, he lifted his visor and breathed in the crisp air. They reached the lake, and he sat down on the sled, gunned it across the open ice, hard on Echo’s trail. She’d also upped her speed.

He nearly caught up to her as she reached the shore, but then dropped behind as she climbed out of the lake, ran along the creek bed and up a ridge.

This, too, he knew—the ridge ran west, along a narrow lip that fell to the north into a deep crevasse.

He guessed this was the crevasse in which she feared she’d find her sled.

They slowed as they topped the ridge. The view could steal his breath, even from the ground. A thick stand of spruce edged the lake ahead, the snow a pristine layer of frosting, the sky to the south a deep purple. He loved Alaska from the sky, but here on terra firma it was just as breathtaking.

He followed her tread as it chewed up the snow, aware of the slope of the earth dropping away to his right.

They finally found the log cabin, nestled into a pocket on the hill, the snow thick on the roof, drifts up to the windows. In the glow of their headlights, it looked uninhabited.

She pulled up in front of it. Took off her helmet. Glanced at him. “No tracks.”

“She might have gotten here before the storm.” But his gut clenched even as he fought his way through the drifts to the door.