Her raised eyebrows seemed to point out the irony of his instruction. That was different, Wyatt knew, even if Elsie didn’t. It was one thing to be a perfectionist like Elsie seemed to be, demanding something from herself that was asking too much. He wasn’t a perfectionist, not even close. If he was hard on himself, he deserved it.

They walked first to Elsie’s boat, which Willow jumped into with the ease of a dog who had grown up around the water and was used to using boats as transportation.

Come to think of it, she’d been amazing on the plane, too.

“That’s quite the dog you’ve got, you know? I love my dog, but Sven took a lot longer to adjust to the plane than that, and boats still scare him. He just presses down into the deck the entire ride. And when he has to climb in one, he sort of slinks toward it like ‘here we go again.’”

Elsie laughed. “She’s a great dog, but it’s training, too. We worked on those things when she was a puppy, because they’re necessary in a dog that does search and rescue work. We can’t worry about how she’s going to respond in situations like that. She needs to be all but bombproof.”

“That’s a lot of training. Says a lot about the quality of her trainer.”

Elsie blushed. “I mean, like you said, she’s a good dog.”

He let that one go. Clearly she didn’t want to take the compliment, but she did deserve it.

After looking around to satisfy himself with the knowledge that her boat hadn’t been tampered with, Wyatt headed to his own boat and prepped it for the ride across the bay. Had it really only been a few days ago he’d done this same trip in the middle of the night? Such a short time had passed since then, but it felt like so much had changed. Elsie had gone from a near stranger, just a friend of his sister’s, to someone he cared about, as a friend, in such a short time.

Or was it that short? They’d known each other almost their whole lives.

No, it was still short because Wyatt had spent so much of his life self-absorbed and barely noticing his sister’s mousy friend. Who was not as mousy or timid as he’d initially believed.

She still needed protection, though. The danger against her was like a living thing, growing as time passed and becoming clearer and clearer.

It bothered Wyatt that someone had spoken to her during both incidents. Bold criminals seemed to be the more dangerous type, just from what he’d observed while flying for the troopers and watching them do what they did.

The ride across the bay passed quickly and soon Wyatt was beaching the boat, downing the anchor and walking toward Elsie’s cabin. It looked undisturbed, but appearances didn’t always tell the whole story.

Elsie herself came to mind again. He was too intrigued by her. He needed to stay focused on the goal, which was keeping her safe. Then he’d be back out of her life, back in his own somewhat empty one, just existing...

Yeah, it didn’t sound good that way.

But that was just the way it had to be. Wyatt should know better by now than to want something he couldn’t have.

He made his way toward her cabin, struck by some of the similarities this little corner of Alaska had to the island where they’d been today. The trees were the same tall Sitka spruce, the ground damp from ocean air and humidity, moss everywhere.

Did Elsie notice the similarities? The island seemed to scare her and make her go into some dark place in her head where he couldn’t reach her. This place seemed to make her comfortable.

No sooner had Wyatt processed through the thought than he wondered if it was true. She was comfortable here, but was she happy? She certainly seemed to enjoy the independence, but she was so isolated. By choice? A weird tie to her past?

Not his business, really.

“Everything looks okay from here.” Elsie spoke up beside him. He hadn’t even seen her walk over from where she’d tied up her boat at her small dock. He needed to be more situationally aware as long as they were involved in whatever kind of investigation this was.

“That’s good.”

Conversation was awkward, like they’d been through too much too quickly but that was outside of town, outside of places that made up their normal life. Now it felt like they were almost starting over.

“Ready to go check it out? You still don’t mind? You don’t have to.” Her words were almost shy.

“I want to help.”

“Why? Why are you helping me so much? Yeah, we both know your sister, but we barely know each other.” The urgency in her tone wasn’t demanding, just curious. Wondering.

Did he even have an answer? Wyatt himself wasn’t sure.

“Maybe...” He trailed off. “Maybe it doesn’t make a lot of sense. To me, either, to be honest, but I wanted to help the other night and now it’s even more important to me to keep you out of danger.”

“Why?”

“Because I...” Care about her? He did, but the words would sound empty, especially coming from him, or would sound like a flirtation he didn’t mean.

Instead he didn’t say anything, just shook his head. “It’s just important, that’s all.”

That seemed to be enough for Elsie. She nodded once, and they walked to her cabin. As she reached to open the door, Wyatt took a fortifying breath. The way danger seemed to be growing, his self-imposed task of keeping her safe seemed to be getting more and more difficult.

He could only hope—maybe even pray—that he would be able to protect her.

Elsie was confident in the search she and Wyatt had done of her cabin hours before, but that wasn’t making sleeping any easier. She couldn’t even seem to find comfort in the fact that Willow had gone to sleep peacefully, giving no indication that anything was out of place.

Every settling noise that the cabin made, every call of an owl from outside her window, all of it heightened her senses and put her on edge. It had been all she could do to convince Wyatt not to sleep on his boat, which she’d discovered had been his initial plan.

She and Wyatt searched the cabin, and then she’d made them each a cup of coffee. They’d sat in relative silence while they drank their coffee, which she’d appreciated. It was rare to find another person who didn’t mind some silence, but Elsie needed it in her life, for reasons she couldn’t quite explain. When coffee was finished, he’d told her good-night and left.

It wasn’t until later that she’d realized she’d never heard his boat. Unease swirling in her stomach, worry for him and his safety rising in her, she’d walked with Willow down to the beach, vigilant the entire way for anyone who might be lurking among the spruce trees. She’d found no one with ill intentions, just Wyatt’s boat right where it had been earlier.

“I thought you were leaving,” she’d called from the beach.

“What if I just sleep on my boat?”

Sweet man. It was the first thing that came to mind and the thought startled Elsie, though she knew it wasn’t a bad description for him. “I’m fine, Wyatt. Go home.”

It had taken a little more convincing, but eventually he’d pulled up his anchor and headed back into town, and Elsie had gone back into her quiet cabin.

That he’d been willing to sleep in a too-small area on a too-small-to-be-comfortable-to-sleep-on boat in the open to keep her safe meant a lot. She wasn’t used to anyone taking care of her. Oh, her foster parents had been fine, no neglect or anything. But she hadn’t felt...cared for. Not in the way other kids seemed to. She’d always felt just a bit like she was on her own, even as a very young child.

Now Wyatt was making that untrue. She wasn’t facing this danger alone.

It couldn’t mean too much to her. She couldn’t let it. Being in close proximity to Wyatt so often was bound to resurrect the ridiculous crush she’d had in high school, which was all the more dangerous since he seemed to have changed. Did people change, really, though? Or would she be a fool to ignore his past?

Elsie was confident she knew the answers to those questions, whether she liked them or not, which meant she was going to have to do a better job of keeping some defenses up, not letting him get too close.

So she’d sent him home and she was alone in her cabin with her dog, her mind replaying the night of the break-in and the encounter in the woods on repeat.

Maybe she should just give up on sleep and have another cup of coffee and read. At least then that way danger wouldn’t catch her unprepared. Would that really be better, though?

She needed to sleep. Elsie took a long breath in, thought of her dog and the way Willow trusted her when it was time to rest. She needed that, too, to be able to trust that it was safe to sleep.

Again, she thought of Lindsay, whom she’d texted earlier with only vague descriptions of the trouble she’d been in. Lindsay was going through her own stressful time at work; it wasn’t fair to burden her too much. Besides, she still felt funny admitting that she was hanging out with her friend’s older brother.