Trail 3 is a mess when I get there—whiteout gusts, visibility cut in half, snow drifting over tracks like the earth is erasing evidence. Dillon’s truck is already pulled to the side with hazards flashing. Ryder and Avery are unloading a sled. There’s asnowmobile tipped on its side in the brush like it tried to argue with gravity and lost.
Dillon looks up when I approach. “Guy’s lucky. He went down before the drop.”
“Conscious?” I ask, kneeling.
“Yeah. Loud about it too. Says his ankle is broken and his ego is dead.”
I crouch beside the man—mid-thirties, red-faced, stubborn. Classic. “Name?”
“Ty,” he grits out. “I’m fine. I just?—”
“You’re not fine,” I cut in, calm. I touch the boot, feel the swelling already pushing. “You tried to take a turn too fast.”
“Trail was slick.”
“Mountains don’t negotiate,” I say.
He groans. “Can you just—fix it?”
I glance at Ryder. “Splint. Pack him up.”
We work fast. Efficient. No wasted motion. My hands do what they always do—secure, tighten, check, steady. The only time my mind tries to wander is when the wind changes and I catch a scent—cocoa, faintly—like my memory is messing with me.
I push it down.
I don’t do distractions on rescues.
Still… I hear her voice in my head anyway.
I am a capable woman.
It was very informative.
I shift the man onto the sled and strap him in. His breathing shakes with pain, but he holds it together.
“You did good calling,” I tell him.
He blinks up at me, surprised. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s how you live long enough to complain about it.”
Dillon gives me a look over Ty’s head—because he knows me, and he knows I’m quieter than usual. “You good, Wilder?”
“Fine,” I say automatically.
He snorts. “Sure.”
We get Ty down the trail and into the truck. He’s headed to town clinic. Another day, another lesson learned the hard way.
When it’s done, when the adrenaline drains out and the cold bites deeper, I stand by my truck and let the snow hit my face like penance.
Dillon leans against the tailgate, arms crossed. “You going back to the station?”
I glance toward Timber Creek—toward the road that leads to Bluebird cabin.
“Yeah,” I say, because it’s the right answer.
Dillon watches me for a beat. Then he says, like he’s tossing a match into gasoline, “June text you yet?”
