She’d chewed over her mother’s brutal, truthful words to her all the way home. She hadn’t even seen the moose, although frankly, if they’d run into it, it felt like the right physical ending to the tragedy playing in her heart.

Why would she believe that Dodge would ever choose her? Sure, once upon a time he’d knit their lives together in his dreams. But . . .

Yeah, she sabotaged that too.

Maybe she was just like her mother.

Perfect.

But shoot, maybe she shouldn’t have been quite so frosty toward Dodge.

“Let’s just call this before we find ourselves getting really hurt.”

Yes, that was harsh and born from the hurt welling up inside.

He hadn’t said one word, not one, about moving to Anchorage in a few months the entire ride home. And she couldn’t fit her brain around that. And sure, she could have said something, but she didn’t have the energy to open up her wounds and let them bleed out. Her encounter with her mother had wrung her dry.

But one thing was glaringly clear—Dodge had a different definition of “It’ll be okay, Echo.”

In the distance, the light from her house spilled into the darkness, a beacon.

She hadn’t a clue what to say to her dad. Had raked versions of that future conversation around in her head, too, for most of the drive home.

“She wrote to you, Dad. Wrote to you and you never told me.”

She could picture him, sitting in his chair by the fire, his mouth tightening. Maybe rubbing his shoulder, or even holding a cold pack on it to keep the swelling down after a day of chopping wood.

“Did you think it would be better for me to think that she outright abandoned me? Maybe regretted it and couldn’t come home?”

Maybe.

“I guess I was ashamed.”

Not ashamed enough to come inside and comfort a child whose world had been shaken.

“You weren’t alone. You had Charlie. He was a great father.”

Lame. Effie had simply dumped her on her dad. But he had been a great father. And she had thrived. Become a part of the big wildness that was Alaska.

Her feet crunched on the snow, her breath fogging out in front of her.

She had not only thrived but built a life that, frankly, she loved. Sure, she’d never run the Iditarod, but she knew the joy of running a team, slicing through a quiet, snow-covered forest of birch and pine.

She’d never gone to college, but she knew how to care for the animals of Alaska, how to find them, observe them, capture their moments.

She’d never traveled to the Lower 48, but what could Seattle offer her that outweighed the majesty of her backyard?