He didn’t smile, and she wasn’t exactly sure he was kidding. He was fumbling with his jacket zipper now. “I would have been here earlier, but I followed Elsa into the forest and watched over her until she woke up.”

Only then did she see the darkness staining his coat. “Is that blood?”

He managed to get the zipper open and made a face as he eased off the coat.

“Dad!” She jumped up and helped him work it off. He groaned. “Oh—you’re shot.”

“Yeah. It happened a while ago—I think the bleeding has slowed. I startled them as they were hacking the antlers off a moose. They took a shot at me, and I got away into the woods, but they winged me good.”

He was pulling up his shirt.

Her breath caught. “They did not just wing you. This is a gut shot—you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“It’s a through and through. I’ll be fine . . .”

“Dad—”

He held up his hand. “I’ll be fine, sweetheart. I just need to rest.”

She opened the sleeping bag and helped him inside.

“We need to get a dressing on that wound.”

“Yeah, yeah.” But he let her examine the wound.

The shot had torn through his lower body, down by his hip. “They shot you from behind.”

“Yep.” He winced and grabbed her wrists as she probed the wound. “Take it easy there, honey.”

“I’m going for help.”

He didn’t let go of her wrists. “Nope. You’re staying right here. Idaho and his crew aren’t here to hunt. They’re here to terrorize. And you’re next on their list.”

She sat back. “Why?”

“Because he’s the devil,” her father said, his eyes closed.

She knew he was just being facetious. Maybe.

She sat back on her sleeping bag, her eyes on her father.

If ever she needed a miracle . . .

Dodge didn’t like the look of the Yazzie homestead when he stopped by the next morning, and it only conspired to add to the knot in his gut.

Echo was in trouble; Dodge knew it. And it wasn’t only the fact that all her chickens lay dead in the yard, blood strewn around the pen, or that the dogs were gone—he didn’t know if they’d run off or not—but something in his gut told him . . . she needed him.

And he wasn’t there.

He’d spent the night staring out the window at the waning moon, wishing she’d answer his text to her personal locator beacon.

Not a peep.

He should have gone out last night, his conversation with his father still ripe in his head. “What am I going to do? It’s too dark to go looking for her.”

“You’re going to take a breath. Eat something. Stop jumping to conclusions and remember that Echo knows how to survive.”