But she’d had enough of promises, of people who said one thing and did another. If she wasn’t enough for him to stick around, then it was his loss.

She’d find Peyton on her own. She didn’t need him coming after her, protecting her, or making her feel like he cared.

In fact, he should follow his dreams. The last thing she wanted to do was be second place.

She headed for the door. “I’m getting my dog and going home.” She turned, walking backward. “Do you want to drive, or should I?”

twelve

To make matters worse, they nearly hit a moose on the way home.

Dodge was driving, and the road ribboned out, sleek and dark, the snowbanks a wash of endless white. And to be honest, sleep crept over him like the tide, slow, enveloping.

He spotted a hulk in the road from afar, leaned up, trying to make out the form in the darkness, until suddenly the animal formed in his headlights, staring at him, defiant.

Dodge crunched his brakes. The skid woke up Echo, who’d curled up on the passenger seat beside him, not touching him, a gulf of chill between them. She slammed her foot on the floorboard, bracing her hand on the dash—

And didn’t scream. Just watched in silence as he zigzagged toward the beast, who froze, anticipating the tragedy.

They were going to hit it. And at this rate of speed, not only would the moose be killed but it would total the truck, too, and the beast might end up in the windshield.

They’d be crushed.

But, as if a hand reached out of heaven to grab the truck, they spun right around the moose. They missed it by a hair, and if Dodge looked carefully, he could probably see the animal’s snot on the passenger window.

They glided out to a soft landing in the ditch, not even raising a plume of snow.

He sat there, barely breathing, staring out into the dark at the moose. It considered them, then headed for the snowbank, its long legs like toothpicks breaking through the crusty top until it vanished into the dense pine.

“Grizzly,” Echo said.

He looked at her. “Moose.”

“Yep.”

He frowned. “You okay?”

“Mmhmm.” But she was unbuckling herself and turning around to check on Goose in the back seat. He’d been knocked to the floor, but now got up and shoved his pretty black-and-gray face between the seats as if to say, What’s all the fuss about up here?

Goose licked Echo on the chin.

Dodge turned the truck around and headed north again, now fully awake.

Echo stared out the window.

“Are you angry with me?”

She glanced at him. “Why?”

“No reason. Just . . .” He reached across the seats for her hand, trying to puzzle back together the picture of their life, the one he’d worked out so long ago this morning.