Wyoming Cowboy Marine. Nicole Helm

no record of her anywhere.

      But Dad had grown up in the outside world. He’d only taken them off the grid because he’d wanted her to be safe. The outside world wasn’t safe, and you couldn’t trust anyone.

      Which was why she had to leave this police station. She couldn’t be here. This was a mistake. If something happened to Dad, it was up to her to figure out what. It was up to her to save him.

      What had possessed her to think outsiders should handle her business?

      Panic. Plain and simple. She didn’t know how to survive without her father, and she couldn’t find him.

      She would have to figure this all out on her own, because you didn’t trust the outside world. It was only ever out to get you, and that was why there was no record of Dad anywhere. He’d kept her safe, and she’d risked her and his safety all because of panic and fear.

      She had to get out of here. Fix this. Disappear back to her life because her life made sense.

      She got to her feet a little abruptly, and the man behind the counter raised an eyebrow, but she couldn’t worry about that.

      She had to get home. Away from the outside world and all its strangers’ secrets and lies. She’d go home and double-check to make sure Dad hadn’t returned in the time she’d wasted making the trek here and back.

      If not, she’d mount a real search, and she wouldn’t stop until she’d found him. And if she never found him...

      It wasn’t possible. She couldn’t think like that.

      She walked for the door, coming up short when the woman from earlier came through it, holding it open for another person behind her. A man. A large man with hazel eyes that seemed to move over her and file every little detail away.

      She didn’t like that. Anyone with that kind of interest in a stranger wasn’t to be trusted. They both weren’t to be trusted, even though the woman had been kind enough.

      You couldn’t trust kindness from the outside world, Dad had always said. You couldn’t trust, period.

      So why had he left?

      “Were you going somewhere?” the woman asked gently.

      Hilly didn’t remember what she’d said her name was. Hilly had been out of her mind with panic when the police officer had introduced herself, and their inability to find a record of Dad had been the reality check she’d needed to get her back home, to take care of this herself.

      They were probably lying about Dad not showing up in their computers. Computers. That was how the government kept you under their thumb. How they used you against your will.

      “I just realized how silly I was being,” Hilly said, doing her best to sound calm. Maybe a little chagrined. “He’s a grown man who can take care of himself.” And I’m a grown woman who can take care of myself. Dad hadn’t given her any skills to deal with outsiders or the outside world, but she knew how to survive.

      They always survived.

      “We’d like to help, if we can,” the woman said kindly.

      A lie. Besides, the man behind her looked anything but calm. He looked... She couldn’t even come up with a word for it. It was almost like a void. He didn’t give anything away. “I don’t need help,” she returned, forcing her gaze to return to the woman instead of the man.

      “Ms. Adams, you came to us for a reason. Because you’re worried about your father. Now, I know we can’t find a record of him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.”

      “It’s very kind of you,” Hilly said politely. “But I think I overreacted. I can handle it from here.”

      She scooted in between them and out the door, doing her best not to run. They would find running suspicious. She wanted them to forget she existed, not suspect anything. None of this was their business, and she’d been stupid and dead wrong to think it would be.

      She hurried through another doorway and then out the front of the police station. Idiot. The word looped in her brain like a chorus. If Dad found out, he’d be furious. She had to get home and make sure he hadn’t returned.

      It was a four-mile hike, but it would give her the time to plan and get ahold of herself. She walked around the building of the station to the back and the bushes where she’d stashed her backpack. She’d been afraid they’d want to search it, and she didn’t want anyone finding her revolver.

      She opened the pack and checked its contents. Everything was how it should be. She pulled the gun out and stuck it into the back of her jeans. It wasn’t comfortable to hike like that, but she wanted to be prepared. She’d stash it away again once she was on safe ground.

      Any place where buildings and cars could be seen was not safe ground. Other people weren’t safe. Ever.

      She adjusted her pack, the gun in her waistband, and then was about to set out toward the trees and mountains when the man rounded the corner of the building, opposite the way she’d come.

      He stopped when he saw her. “Ma’am, can I talk to you for a second?”

      His eyes dropped to her arm as she slowly moved it to her back, where she rested her hand on the butt of her weapon. He seemed to know, somehow, that was exactly what she was doing as he raised his gaze very slowly and carefully to hers.

      “Are you in some kind of trouble?” he asked. There wasn’t a kindness or gentleness to his voice like with the policewoman’s, but his tone wasn’t nearly as hard as his body was.

      “A strange man is accosting me in a parking lot.”

      His mouth quirked, and Hilly’s stomach swooped. She felt breathless for a second in the joy of that smile.

      Dangerous, dangerous man.

      “Leave me alone, stranger,” she said with some force.

      He didn’t say anything to that and, as she walked away, keeping him in her sights to make sure he didn’t follow, his gaze stayed on her the whole time. Until she disappeared over a hill.

      She had a bad feeling those hazel eyes would haunt her for a while.

       Chapter Two

      It crossed a line.

      Or one hundred.

      Cam had never been big on crossing lines. He believed in rules, in law and order, and doing what was right. But one thing his time in the military had taught him was that sometimes following rules or orders wasn’t right.

      The woman was scared of something. He’d watched from behind the corner as she’d pulled the bag from the bushes, taken the revolver out and shoved it in her waistband.

      She was spooked. Lost. Clearly the woman needed help and she was afraid to ask for it. He couldn’t just let her disappear into the woods never to be seen or heard from again.

      Where the hell was she going without a car? With that backpack and gun? Something didn’t add up, and maybe it wasn’t precisely right to give her a ten-minute head start and then follow her trail, but it wasn’t precisely wrong either.

      It further added to his suspicions and that itch Laurel had mentioned when the woman’s trail wasn’t easy to follow. Like she was purposefully covering her tracks.

      But with the mix of soggy ground from snow melt and snow itself as he moved to the higher elevations, he’d been able to follow the imprints of impact, making an educated guess what was human-made.

      When he’d gone roughly a mile, he considered heading back. He wasn’t prepared for a hike. He was wearing tennis shoes that were now soaked through, and he only had his cell phone and keys, no pocketknife or water.