Maybe he’d freaked her out—not just with the moose but with today’s near-plummet from the sky. He still couldn’t believe he’d cobbled together that landing from nothing. He squeezed her hand. “I promise to get you home in one piece.”

She squeezed it back, then let go. “I know you will.” But her voice contained a sadness in it. Or maybe it was just fatigue, because she leaned back, closed her eyes.

And he couldn’t forget that she was probably worried about Peyton.

But then she opened her eyes and looked at him. “Why did you forgive me?”

He glanced over at her. “What?”

“At the clinic. You said you forgave me. Why?”

He kept his eyes on the road, the beam of lights peeling back the darkness. “Okay, in truth, I don’t know that I had, then, really. But . . . I do now.”

“Why?”

“Because . . . I love you, Echo. And all the reasons I was angry just seem small in light of how much I love you.”

Thank you, God, for the darkness. Because it felt a little like he might be undressing in the wild.

He’d expected a smile. Instead, her mouth made a grim line, and she nodded. As if he’d just told her he had to give her a rabies vaccination for her own good.

Yes, definitely angry. Or at least upset. She was sitting with her arms folded around her, looking small and tired and beautiful, and because he couldn’t figure out what else to say, he added, “I do forgive you, Echo.”

She wiped a hand across her cheek.

What—? “Echo—”

“What if I wasn’t sorry? Would you still forgive me?”

Huh? “Are you not sorry?”

“Of course I am, but . . .” She looked at him. Her eyes glistened in the moonlight. “What if I weren’t?”

“What are we talking about here, Echo?”

“Nothing.” She looked away.

He couldn’t help but feel like a moose had just walked into the road again. “Okay. My dad isn’t sorry, and yet, I forgave him.”

“Did you?”

He frowned. “You have to forgive me eventually. It’s not good for your soul to hang on to anger this long.”

“Okay, maybe not, but sometimes I think I want to.” He turned his beams to low as a car passed. “I thought I was over everything that happened, but being back has turned up all these . . . I don’t know—”

“Feelings,” she said. “Like the tiny shoots of spring, breaking through the ice.”

“Maybe, sure.” At least until Moose dropped the news. Sky King Ranch, for sale.

Talk about feelings.

Yeah, no, it was hard to forgive a guy who just kept betraying him.

Beside him, Echo had fallen silent again. And he kept winding through his mind the conversation-slash-fight awaiting him at Sky King Ranch.

They reached the spur for Copper Mountain. “Are you hungry?”

“It’s late. And I’m worried about my dad.”