“Listen,” Riley said. “I don’t know what went down, and she doesn’t talk about it, but she can’t stay, Dodge.” He took a breath, looked past Dodge to the window, his mouth tightening. “She lost our first baby about six months ago, so this one is higher risk. I can’t have her up there, doing . . . well, I’m well aware of the perils of being a bush pilot.” He shook his head. “We met the summer of the Copper Mountain fire. The one that took out your grandparents’ house. She was a daredevil, even then. I can’t—”

Dodge held up his hand. “Stop. I get it.”

Riley turned his gaze on him. “Get this, then. If you don’t fly, he loses his contracts. And if he loses his contracts—”

“He could lose the ranch. I can do the math, Riley. Once upon a time, I was planning on taking over Sky King Ranch.”

Silence fell between them.

“You weren’t planning on going home, were you?” Riley asked.

Maybe the guy was an interrogator, but Dodge had no secrets, not really.

The entire town knew why he’d left. He shook his head.

“Why are you in town?” Riley asked.

What could it hurt? “I have a job offer with Air One Rescue flying choppers.” He’d been sitting on his answer for a while now, not sure of the wisdom of saying yes to a job that might be doomed, but what else could he do?

His answer seemed made when Moose called him.

“I see. So nearby, but not all the way home.” Riley raised an eyebrow.

“You should stop right there, because you don’t know anything about it.”

“I know that I wish, with everything inside me, that I had a second chance to show my pop that I turned out okay. That I finally became the person he knew I could be.”

“My father couldn’t care less how I turned out.” And that came out exactly as bitter as it felt in his chest.

“He has your picture on his mantel,” Riley said.

“He probably has my brothers’ pictures up there too.”

Riley nodded slowly.

Dodge drew in a breath. Managed not to put his fist in the wall. Instead, he sighed and said, “Okay, here’s the bottom line. Nothing has changed since the day I walked into the recruiter’s office and enlisted. I’m not back. I’ll fly his routes until he can take over, but you tell Larke not to mistake any of this for a happy ending. There’s no sunrise of hope here.” He glanced out the window at the slush and rivers of melting snow. “This winter isn’t over, and everyone should just calm down. We have at least one more deadly blizzard ahead of us.”

Riley gave a slow nod. “Okay. So how do you like your coffee?”