She stoked the flames back to life, the memory of Dodge doing just the same thing the night before vivid in her mind.

What was he doing here? She couldn’t scrape the question from her mind. He’d driven her father home, stuck around to accuse her of not living a bigger life, and then left after admitting he’d gotten her letters and simply didn’t care.

Weird.

Still, something about him being back here had felt, at least for a moment, right.

And maybe that’s why the nightmare had found her. Because just when everything was right and good, a grizzly stepped out onto the trail.

Okay, that was a bit dramatic, but still, accurate.

Or maybe the dream came from his question. “So, you’ve just been here, working the homestead, for the past ten years?”

She hadn’t needed to be so defensive. Except, the question needled her.

She had wanted to leave. More than once. Had wanted to run the Iditarod and study biology and take pictures and maybe travel beyond Anchorage, even to the Lower 48. But every time she thought about it, she simply felt paralyzed, the scream still clogging her breath.

No, she wasn’t like her mother. Not one bit. It sorta irked her that her dad had said that the other day.

The fire flickered to a warm glow and she got up. Her dad was back in the kitchen, his cast-iron pan on the stove, bacon sizzling. “Eggs?”

“Please.” She slid onto a chair, one foot up, her hands wrapped around her flanneled knee. “Do you ever think about her?”

He wore a pair of baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. His hair was short—he didn’t have a lot of it anyway. After they’d stitched his scalp back together, his hair came back spotty and stark white.

His shoulder was hurting today, from the way he held his arm against his chest.

“My mother,” she added when he didn’t answer.

“I know who you are talking about. And yes. Often. Probably too often.” He looked at her, and in the wan light of the kitchen, he looked old and tired. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I just . . . you never talk about her.”

He sighed. “They say you only get one great love. Effie was mine.” He looked at her. “Still is.”

She understood the ache behind that confession.

“I have one really vivid memory of her. We’re playing Sorry! in front of the fire. You’re making popcorn—”

“Oh, no. Your mother was the one who always made the popcorn. I learned from her. No one makes it like your mom—I still can’t get it right.”

Huh. Somewhere in the back of her brain, she thought she remembered that too, maybe. “There were happy times, right?”

“We were very happy, Echo.” His voice was soft, as if he hadn’t wanted to admit it.