He didn’t look at Charlie, but he’d seen the scars. The one through his scalp where the bear’s teeth had clamped down and separated flesh from skull. And the long thick scar down Charlie’s arm bore the legacy of the grizzly’s claw. From the look of it, he still couldn’t close his fist on that hand.

Dodge’s body, too, carried a few scars, and for a long time, the docs wondered if he’d walk again.

Charlie looked at him. “You don’t know anything about it.”

He tried to sort out the words as he turned off the highway, back through the winding, rutted road that led back half a mile to their homestead.

It. Being betrayed by the woman he loved? Yeah, he knew plenty about that kind of pain too.

His father’s words to him rose, clung. “You have to forgive me eventually. It’s not good for your soul to hang on to anger this long.”

Maybe Dodge had no right to lecture Charlie on letting go. Still, “Just think about Echo. She hurts too, every time she sees you like this.”

“Echo is my business, not yours. Not anymore.”

Right. He looked over at Charlie. “For what it’s worth, you taught me how to survive in the wilderness, and that toughness kept me alive in Afghanistan. So there’s that.”

Charlie said nothing for a long time. Finally, “Glad you made it home in one piece, son.”

Home. As Dodge pulled up to the homestead, blanketed in a layer of fresh snowfall, a well of memories opened. Him with the dogs, hitching up the sled, or attaching one of Echo’s dogs to his harness and skijoring with her through the pine-scented, quiet forests. Helping her feed the goats in the barn, the scent of fresh hay layering the air, and changing the straw amid angry, bleating goats. Gathering eggs in the coop, like hidden treasures, stealing them from scolding hens. Smoking fish and caribou meat in the tiny smokehouse.

Chopping wood—oh, so much wood—and stacking it in the massive woodshed.

Yes, this land had felt as much his as Sky King Ranch. More, maybe, because the ranch had had Ranger and Colt to tend it.

He’d felt vital here and helping run this place had been as much a hope as flying for Sky King Ranch.

“You added on to the house,” he said to Charlie, noting the new side entrance to the log home. As at many of the homesteads, snowshoes were tacked to the wall outside. Over the front door hung a pair of skinned moose antlers that Dodge knew Charlie had probably found rather than harvested.

“Echo’s idea. And she made me build an office to keep all my books.”