Barry was waiting for her. He wore a cast on his arm, although it seemed more of a nuisance than correcting anything as he held open the door for her.

“How’s it feeling?” she said, stamping off the snow.

“I’m about to take a Skil saw to it,” he said with a grin.

She had always liked him. Barry Kingston was tough, strong, and embodied the land he’d been born on. He had a way about him—straight shooting, the kind of guy who kept his word, strict, but also fed out enough line to his kids to let them taste freedom. He’d taught Larke to fly when she was thirteen, and then Dodge, around the same age.

Dodge had taken Echo up for the first time when he was sixteen, right after he soloed.

“I feel like that would be a bad choice,” she said, laughing. “Is Dodge here?”

She thought she already knew the answer, but her stomach fell when he shook his head. “He headed out early to Remington Mines to do some hauling work for them. Said he wanted to get back early—I think he had plans to go to your place.”

“I wanted to talk to him about . . . well, a conversation we had last night. I wanted to clear the air.”

“You two get in a fight?” Barry smiled, an eyebrow up, and she felt about thirteen, remembering that time he’d caught her with Dodge’s named doodled in one of her notebooks.

“Actually, I was wondering how my dog was doing.”

Maybe he’d heard her, because Iceman got up from whatever pampered bed the Kingstons had made for him and nosed his way past Barry, into the arctic room. He licked her face as she crouched in front of him.

“Come in, Echo. I’ll radio Dodge and see when he’s getting back, and you can check on Iceman’s wound.” He called the dog inside and closed the door to the cold while she took off her outerwear.

By the time she came in, he had a pot of hot water heating on the stove, a couple mugs out. “Coffee?”

“Make my wildest dreams come true.”

He laughed. “We’re all about happy customers here.”

She crouched again in front of Iceman, endured a kiss on her chin, then turned him to look at his haunch. The wound was healing nicely, a reddened gash where something had grazed him, tore a quarter-inch-wide streak along his body. “He seems to be walking fine,” she said. “I’m not sure I should take him out with me though.”

The kettle whistled and Barry poured water into a drip coffeepot. The aroma woke her up, drew her to the counter. Barry set down a mug with the words I’D RATHER BE FLYING on it.

“Where are you headed?”

“I’m going to a hunter’s cabin west of Peters Lake, near Cache Mountain.”