Dodge, of course, starring as the villain of the story.

He braced himself. “Larke?”

She turned, and of course she looked older—the last time he’d seen her she’d been eighteen and joining the Army.

And he’d been sixteen and just stupid enough to think that he had his life buttoned up.

“Dodge?” She wore trauma in her eyes, probably fatigue and worry, but also residue from the years she’d served as a medic. Still, he wondered if she had been the one to find the wreckage of their father’s DHC-3 Otter bush plane. His friend Moose had been sketchy on that part when he’d called to tell Dodge about the accident.

Glancing at the man in the chair, who rose, Larke put her coffee on the ledge of the window. “Wow. I didn’t think . . . I mean . . . how did you find out?”

Dodge wished she’d finished her first thought. She didn’t think . . . what? That he cared about the old man? That he’d ever return? That he didn’t think about his choices nearly every day, especially recently?

“Moose Mulligan, down at Air One Rescue,” Dodge answered.

Larke wore a pair of jeans, Sorels, and a wedding ring on her left hand, but he knew that, too, thanks to the Copper Mountain Good News’s online portal.

He just kept his subscription for the obits. And maybe the police report. Really. The fact that it listed her engagement to a Navy SEAL a couple years ago was just a bonus line item.

“Have you been in Anchorage all this time?” She seemed to be working her words, trying not to accuse.

He felt it anyway.

“How’d it happen?” He glanced at the other man—Riley—now standing. Big enough, built like a linebacker, he stepped close to Larke and put his arm around her.

Dodge met his eyes even as Larke spoke.

“Otto Smith saw him go down and called it in. Dad was low, coming in for a landing at the Copper Mountain airfield, and his wing clipped a tree. Otto wasn’t sure but he thought the wing might have detached before it hit.”

“A faulty wing attachment?” His gaze went back to Larke, having found some solid ground in his silent face-off with Riley. Riley loved her—he would protect her, and Dodge appreciated that. Larke might be two years older than him, but she was still his sister.

“It’s the only way we can figure it.” Her gaze flitted toward the closed door that Dodge guessed was the old man’s room. “He’s been flying for forty-nine years. He doesn’t make mistakes.”

“It doesn’t have to be a pilot error for accidents to happen, Larke. Weather. A wind gust. Anything can happen in the bush.”

Her jaw clenched and her husband tightened his grip on her. He finally held out his hand to Dodge. “Riley McCord.”