“Not that I’m surprised you specifically can do this, just that it’s a thing at all. It’s like you can read the dog’s mind and she can read the wind, the air itself. That’s pretty amazing, that’s all. Your dog’s amazing. You’re...” Wyatt trailed off.
The silence stretched between them and Elsie heard every noise. The wind in the spruce trees below them, the sound of Willow’s breathing, her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.
The thing that scared her most was that Wyatt didn’t sound like he was feeding her lines. He sounded awfully sincere. Surely she was intelligent enough that she could tell if someone was genuine.
But she didn’t trust herself right now, not with her old high school crush coming back to life. Even when he’d not been her type, when he’d been living life at way too fast a pace, she’d been intrigued by Wyatt. It had been so easy as a teenager to write that off to a stereotypical attraction to the bad boy, heightened by the fact that he was her friend’s very much off-limits brother.
But she wasn’t a high school kid anymore, and Wyatt wasn’t the man he’d been. And she liked who he seemed to be now. Not just a high school bad-boy stereotype, but a man who wanted to keep her safe even if it meant stepping into danger. A man who liked her dog. Someone who would follow instructions on a search without trying to pretend like he was the one in charge.
She...liked him. A lot. More than she had meant to?
That was almost as scary as anything that could be waiting for them in this wilderness. Even Elsie’s past.
“We should go. Start the search again,” she said quietly, but the words still felt so loud to her own ears as she broke the silence and whatever might have been between them.
Wyatt started to stand as soon as she said the words. “Sounds good.”
If only Elsie felt like anything was normal between them. She put Willow’s vest back on, told her to continue the search and then followed, aware of Wyatt’s presence close behind or even beside her. He was quiet. More so than he’d been on the way this morning, but maybe he was getting tired.
Or maybe she wasn’t the only one aware of...whatever it was. The fact that he’d almost called her amazing, then cut himself off. It wasn’t like he’d confessed his undying love. He hadn’t even tried to kiss her, like those moments characters in a movie had where they moved close and their lips parted and all of that ridiculousness.
Somehow it was more than that, though. The catch in his voice, the genuine admiration, even if he hadn’t finished his thought... It meant more to Elsie than all those things.
She hurried through the woods, eyes on Willow, willing herself to see something that could help them in their search for the missing woman. Noelle Mason, twenty-three. Orphan, no family. Worked in Anchorage at a community homelessness resource center, volunteered at elections, snowboarder, hiker.
The details made her more vivid in Elsie’s mind, less ethereal. This was a real human they were searching for, which was why it was so important not to let the search slack off at all, even if one’s search partner had dark eyes and a too-appealing five-o’clock shadow.
Willow sniffed at the air at their next decision point, where the trail split in two directions. Elsie waited as Willow considered her options, then seemed to catch just a hint of scent with her nose and took off toward the right.
“Is this a fast search or a slow one?” Wyatt asked as they kept following her.
“Most searches are over pretty quickly, statistically speaking. But here in Alaska it seems like we often get the searches that last for multiple days.”
“Just the terrain difference, you think?”
“That and maybe we have different categories of people getting lost? It’s really difficult to say.” She shook her head. “I don’t know, really.”
“Do you think...?” His voice trailed off. “I mean, she could still be alive.”
“Yes, definitely. It’s a good time of year to survive in some ways, dangerous in others. If she’s gotten rain-soaked or wet somehow, then hypothermia is a legitimate worry, even though it’s not necessarily cold outside. But if she’s managed to stay dry, this is definitely not too long.”
“And we don’t know if the shooter is still here. Do you think...? Is she connected to that?”
Elsie hadn’t managed to work that out.
How was the missing person connected to the people who appeared to be after Elsie? She had to admit that this seemed too big a coincidence for there not to be a connection.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I wouldn’t know where to start coming up with ideas about something like that...” He trailed off. “It really might be time to talk to the police.”
“No.”
“The troopers, then.”
“Still no.”
“Elsie...”
“I told you, Wyatt, they’ll take me off the case and there’s no one else around here. She needs to be found.”
“She’s not the only one. You need to be able to find out what’s going on and move on without this shadow hanging over you and some kind of mysterious past hunting you down.”
“Hey, leave my past out of it.” Her voice was firm. Resolute. “This is my life and I don’t want them digging deeper into it.”
“Because you’re afraid of what they’ll find?”
“Absolutely yes.” She met his stare, looked back firmly, then directed her attention to the dog. “I don’t need someone else digging into a past I don’t know enough about myself.”
She read his hesitation and doubt in her plan, but so far he wasn’t convinced enough that she was wrong to go against her wishes, which she appreciated.
“How about we go over it tonight? When we’re back in town, when it’s too late to search for the day, let’s see if we can come up with some ideas.”
“That’ll mean me digging into your past, won’t it?”
That was different. Or was it? She could trust Wyatt, Elsie knew that.
She took a breath. “I think that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
