K-9 Defence. Elizabeth Heiter

lungs with every breath. What had she read about extreme cold bursting your lungs?

      Calm down, she told herself. Colter’s place had to be close. The grocery store owner had said the top of the final hill. There were no more hills to climb. And yet, no cabin.

      There were a lot of trees, though, more than she’d expected this high up. She thought she could see a road marker ahead, leading a winding path through them. Colter’s cabin could be behind the trees somewhere. But so could bears. Or she could get lost and not be able to find her way back to the truck. Every few steps, she glanced backward.

      Soon she could no longer see the truck. Panic built inside her and she paused. Keep moving forward or turn back?

      Then she heard it. Or maybe hypothermia had already started to set in and she was imagining the barking.

      Kensie started to run. Her lungs protested every breath, painful from the cold, but as she rounded another copse of trees, there it was. A beautiful little cabin with a clear, perfect view of the valley below. She could even see a glacier from here. In other circumstances, she would have paused and soaked in the amazing vista.

      Tears of relief spilled over and instantly froze on her cheeks and then Colter was there, his strong arm around her shoulders, leading her into his home.

      She didn’t even pause at the doorway, wondering if it was really a good idea to trust a man she’d just met. She simply let him help her inside.

      As soon as she was through the doorway, Rebel pressed up against her side. The dog stayed with her until Colter pushed her into a big recliner near the fire. Then Rebel sat primly next to her, soft brown eyes full of worry.

      The heat from the fireplace made Kensie shiver. It didn’t make any sense, but she couldn’t seem to stop as Colter bent down with a pained grunt. He pulled the sopping wet boots from her feet and propped her legs up near the fireplace. Then he peeled the gloves from her hands, rubbing them between his own big, calloused palms until the warmth finally penetrated.

      And so did his words. “What are you doing here? Wandering around in this weather is dangerous. Do you have some kind of death wish?”

      Before she could bristle, he let out a heavy sigh and stopped rubbing her hands. “Hold them by the fire. I’ll make you some cocoa.”

      “My truck hit a snowbank,” she managed through chattering teeth.

      “But why were you up here to begin with?” he asked, looking like he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer as he walked into the connecting kitchen.

      “I came to see you. I need your help. No one here will talk to me. But you know them. You know the area. You know how to track—”

      “I told you, Kensie, Rebel and I don’t do that anymore. And the kind of tracking you’re talking about, we never did. It’s not the same thing. Dogs are trained to do one thing. You can’t just switch them over, make a drug-sniffing dog an explosives one. Doesn’t work like that. And finding people without a direct trail? Even if we had a scent to work from, we wouldn’t be able to do that.”

      Kensie felt her shoulders drop. She’d come all this way. This couldn’t be the end of it.

      Colter kept talking as he put a pot on the little stove and poured in milk and cocoa. She barely heard his words as she thought about the note that had been found. Thought about Alanna, somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness with her kidnapper.

      “...Military Police don’t do that. In a war zone—”

      Kensie’s head snapped up. “What did you say?”

      “That kind of tracking work,” Colter said, as the scent of cocoa filled Kensie’s nostrils. “We don’t—”

      “No, not that. You said you were Military Police?”

      “Yeah.” The word was full of wariness.

      “So, you know how to run an investigation.”

      “So do the civilian police. And they actually have authority here,” Colter said as he handed her a steaming mug of cocoa.

      The heat felt wonderful in her hands, the scent tempting her. But she just clutched it and stared up at him. “They don’t want to help me.”

      He frowned as he lowered himself stiffly onto the chair on the other side of the fireplace. “Why not?”

      Internally, she cursed her stupidity. If he knew the truth about what the FBI thought, he’d call her crazy, too. He’d probably join the chorus of people trying to get her to return home.

      She postponed answering him by taking a gulp of the cocoa. It burned its way down her throat, making her eyes water, but it also seemed to warm her from the inside, so she took another sip and then another. When the mug was almost empty, she lowered it to her lap, realizing her teeth had finally stopped chattering.

      Pins and needles danced along her feet and hands, but they’d gone numb when she’d been outside. The painful return of sensation was a good thing.

      “Kensie,” Colter prompted, staring at her with light blue eyes fringed with pale brown lashes.

      He was more than just good-looking. The hard, battle-worn expression he seemed to constantly wear disguised it, but when he stared at her like he was now—with curiosity and sympathy—awareness settled low in her belly.

      Suddenly, it wasn’t just the scent of cocoa tempting her.

      His dark blond hair was cropped close, military style, but she suspected it would be soft if she ran her hands through it. There was no hint of matching scruff on the hard planes of his jaw, but she wanted to slide her hands over the skin there, too, to pull him close and see how much control he’d have if she kissed him.

      As she stared, his pupils dilated. Fire seemed to race over the icy surface of her cheeks and she ducked her head, trying to gain control of her emotions.

      It had to be the fear of dying all alone of hypothermia. Or the stress of chasing after Alanna. Or maybe she’d just ignored her own needs for too long.

      “It’s old,” Kensie blurted, hoping he hadn’t noticed what she realized had been blatant ogling. But of course he had, or she wouldn’t have seen the reciprocal attraction.

      “What’s old?”

      She wanted to smile at the confusion in his voice, a little part of her hoping he was still as distracted as she was. The more sensible side of her brain reminded her that she was stranded in his cabin and she barely knew the man.

      The voice of reason in her mind won. She straightened in her seat, meeting his gaze with an all-business stare. “The case is fourteen years cold.” She shrugged, hoping he’d believe it, because it was the truth. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

      She rubbed Rebel’s chin with her free hand, to distract herself from the lie by omission. She prayed he wouldn’t read it on her face.

      “So, they’re not going to help you?” He sounded incredulous and a little outraged.

      The combination just made her like him more. But she couldn’t afford to be distracted by him. Not when Alanna might be out there somewhere. Not when everything inside of her was screaming that he could be the break she’d been waiting for most of her life.

      And she had him. She could feel it. He sympathized with her pain and he had skills she’d never possess. With his help, they might really be able to bring Alanna home.

      “It’s a resources thing.” She paraphrased what she’d been told hundreds of times over the years. Police always had to work on new cases, missing persons who hadn’t been gone for years, who had a higher chance of rescue. The longer someone was missing, the less chance they had of ever being found.

      Years ago, they’d first learned the realities about Alanna coming home as months went by with less and less interest from the police and the community. Her parents had made a promise. They’d