August 20, 1982

L

isa Vaughn fought to pull her wrist loose from her mother's strong hand. "No, I'm afraid. I'm going to tell Grandma. No, Mommy, no, nooo!"

They were up on the deck where everyone had done the lifeboat drill but now no one else was around. Eight-year-old Lisa loved the big cruise ship she was on in the middle of the blue sea with Grandma, Mommy and baby Jani. But Grandma was taking a nap in their cabin, and Mommy was crying. So was Lisa's baby sister, maybe because Mommy was holding her so tight against her chest with only one arm. With the other hand she dragged Lisa toward the back railing of the ship with lots of bubbling white water underneath.

Walking around the deck with Mommy and Jani, Lisa had thought it was pretty at first, all that wild water like when you swished your hand real fast to make lots of bubbles in the bathtub. But Mommy kept saying something about "Getting away just like your father did, just getting away with my girls...peace forever..."

Lisa started to cry, too, when her mother put one leg up high over the railing. Still, she didn't let go of Lisa's wrist, dragging her closer. Jani cried and squirmed. Wet-faced from her own tears, Mommy kissed her little cheek, then looked back at Lisa.

"You have to come with us, Lisa. Stop struggling!"

She gave Lisa a huge tug, trying to lift her over the rail, scraping her stomach.

"No!" Lisa shouted as she pulled back and kind of shoved Mommy away at the same time.

Lisa fell hard on the deck, so surprised and scared as Mommy, still holding Jani, fell backward, down. Lisa jumped to her feet in time to see Mommy and Jani drop and disappear, sucked into the sea by the wild white water.

Duck Lake Lodge
Near Bear Bones, Alaska
August 20, 2008

D

espite the calm beauty of Duck Lake ten feet below the pine-tree-lined path, Lisa Vaughn felt compelled to watch the Wild River on the other side of the low ridge where she stood. Because the summer sun had warmed the snow-tipped Talkeetna Mountains for hours, the snowmelt river roared. When the temperature dropped at night, despite the fact the skies barely darkened, the river rumbled like distant thunder. She was amazed by the reddish-colored salmon as they battled the fierce current on their long journey upriver to their breeding grounds. It almost looked as if the river was bleeding.

But mostly the river awed Lisa because, exactly twenty-six years ago, she'd seen her mother and baby sister drown in the turbulent, foaming wake of a cruise ship. Since then, roiling water mesmerized her. And she had never seen anything like the rapids of the Wild River.

She pulled her gaze away and hurried along the ridge toward the cutoff to the lake landing where she and Mitch had agreed to paddle a kayak to a picnic spot. "I know you've never been in a kayak," he'd said when he suggested it, "but we'll be fine as long as you match your strokes to mine, so we don't slam our paddles together."

Match your strokes to mine. His words echoed in her head. Was it just she who was still furious about the death of their passion? Although their romance and future together had ended when they'd slammed their different goals into each other, the man still got to her in a dangerous way. This trip had to be all business for her, all about getting a promotion, not rehashing the wreck of their relationship. She'd been dreading this whole slippery situation, but maybe talking it out could help her to finally write the obituary for what she'd thought was mutual love. She let out a breath, then inhaled deeply, not to savor the fresh, pine-scented air, but to calm herself.

Mitch Braxton seemed a different man from a year ago when they'd broken their engagement and he'd left her and Fort Lauderdale for the heart of Alaska. He'd broken her heart, but she'd been so angry with him that she'd quickly patched herself back together, at least on the surface. She'd gone on with a vengeance, not looking back until her boss set up this command performance at Mitch's lodge.

Lisa had worked hard to pretend to get over her resentment of his shattering her prettily planned-out life. She had expected to be a skilled attorney, a wife, a working mother to their future children. Though she knew better, sometimes she felt that, at age thirty-four, her marital and biological clocks were not only ticking but clanging. Just when she'd thought never to see Mitch again, Graham Bonner, the managing partner of Carlisle, Bonner & Associates, had been adamant that he had a unique plan for screening the three candidates for the next senior partner of the prestigious law firm.

Graham and his wife, Ellie, insisted they were taking the three junior partners to participate in the family/corporate bonding program Mitch offered at the lodge he'd inherited in Alaska. Since they'd only arrived yesterday, all they'd done so far was walk blindfolded through an obstacle course by following vocal directions--but so much more was in store. Scheduled during the week were ziplining and whitewater rafting, all the while being observed by the Bonners to decide who would get the coveted senior partner position Mitch had abandoned.

Some of Lisa's friends had argued it was a crazy way to vet a lawyer, though it sounded like a great, free vacation. But Graham was clever and convincing. He'd learned the law-firm ropes from Ellie's father and her brother Merritt, who used to run the firm and had used it as a stepping stone to his fast-rising political career.

Come hell or high water, Lisa intended to be the new senior partner, but she knew her competitors Jonas and Vanessa were just as tenacious and ambitious. Maybe that was what the Bonners were judging them by anyway. She couldn't help but wonder if, as upset and betrayed as the Bonners had also felt by Mitch's defection, they hadn't still enlisted him to help them make the important decision. He'd always been the Bonners' golden boy. Once Lisa had even thought they were grooming him not only to take over the firm but to partner--in more ways than one--with their twenty-four-year-old only child, Claire, who was now in law school at Duke University, and would soon join the firm as its third-generation lawyer.

Stopping above another clearing where she could see the river, Lisa brushed several mosquitoes away, then put down the small plastic cooler she carried. The cooler had been beautifully packed, down to bright cloth napkins and a tablecloth by Mitch's lodge manager and chef, Christine. Like the lodge, Christine Tanaka seemed both down to earth, yet frontier elegant. Lisa had sensed something between Mitch and the striking, ebony-haired, high-cheek-boned woman, and was annoyed that it bothered her.

While Christine knew where they were going, Lisa hoped they wouldn't be missed by the others during this three-to-five afternoon break, when everyone had some private time before gathering for pre-dinner appetizers and wine.

She sprayed herself lightly with the bug repellent she'd brought along. Close to the lodge they fogged the area and the brisk breeze today kept most of the mosquitoes away. She was used to them, being from South Florida, but the Alaska version seemed especially voracious. At least, in his introduction to them yesterday, Mitch had mentioned the bug season was waning.

She forced her gaze away from the river rapids and stuffed the small spray can back in the top of her sock, then rolled her jeans back down. She wore her running shoes and a life preserver over a light jacket and T-shirt, but the day seemed warm--too warm, if she kept thinking about Mitch.

Turning back to the river, Lisa fastened the Velcro straps of her orange PFD jacket. Mitch had warned them, "No one, not even Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, if he shows up here, goes out on the lake or the river without a PFD!"

She and her colleagues had joked that an attorney, on the losing end of a lawsuit, must have named it a Personal Flotation Device, but then it wasn't a plain old life preserver. PFDs were made of sleek, contoured neoprene, a far cry from those old bulbous, canvas jackets the cruise ships had passengers wear during lifeboat drills. For all she knew, that drill had given her mother the idea to jump overboard.

If Lisa was getting in a kayak for the first time, she was going prepared. She could swim like a fish, but since her family tragedy--though she tried not to let people know--churning water not only horrified her but lured her.

She picked up the cooler and glanced back down the path toward the sprawling two-story log lodge with its four rustic cabins huddled nearby like chicks around a mother hen. No sign of Mitch yet; he was busy here, king of his realm. But then, he'd seemed to be master of his fate in Florida, too, before the dam broke and their mutual future was swept away.

She heaved a huge sigh, staring down into the river. Mitch said he'd bring the drinks, and she wondered if it would be wine. Last year, the night they had broken up, she'd snapped her wine goblet off at the stem when he'd told her he had to get out of the rat race and leave Fort Lauderdale. Her hand had bled from a puncture wound; she still bore the scar--that and too many others as she went on with her high-flying career. That terrible night, she had tossed her engagement ring at him, and would have thrown the gold bracelet with the flying seagulls he'd bought her as well, except the clasp had stuck.

But now, when she looked back on that night, she knew she'd done things to upset him, too. She recalled Mitch's explosion when she'd told him she had volunteered both of them to testify at a state senate committee hearing. They were both under pressure then, working day and night on a high-profile money-laundering case. They'd been harassed, even stalked by someone, until Graham had suddenly taken them off the case for their safety. She was trying to find another way to keep them in what she thought of as "the local lawyer limelight." They were having drinks on the patio of her condo with its view of a golf course she'd never played.

"No way!" he'd shouted, shocking her. "I just can't take time to testify at some senate hearing! Leave that political stuff to Ellie's beloved brother, who will probably be our next senator or even president, for all I know!"

"Listen, I realize it will take time from your other cases, but it's great PR, and your name carries clout now," she'd insisted.

"I may be successful, but I'm so stressed I'm getting distracted--careless--when people's futures are in my hands. I'm scared I'll not only ruin someone else's life, but my own. Carelessness can lead to self-destruction. Sometimes I don't give a damn about things I need to care for, to control. Half the time, all I've worked for seems pointless."

"Including a future with me? Our love, our plans, both professional and personal?" she'd demanded in her best litigator's voice. "Mitch, we can have everything together, including our careers, helping people, not wasting time on something pointless!"

That was when he'd dropped the bomb that he'd inherited his uncle's land and lodge and wanted to move to Alaska. He'd been meaning to find the right time to tell her. Would she change her plans to go with him?

Shocked and angry, she'd refused, accused him of being self-centered. But she saw now she had been, too. Why couldn't he understand that no urban career woman who loved luscious, lively Fort Lauderdale needed a dropout who preferred the lonely wilds of Alaska? No, she couldn't risk loving someone who suddenly claimed to be nearly suicidal, not after all she'd been through.

Now, lost in her regrets, trembling again at the memory, she frowned at the raging river. Then something happened. Somehow, it was as if her rage at her past, at her mother, at Mitch, pushed her over some psychic edge. She tumbled headlong off the path, off her feet. The cooler went flying, hit her knee. She screamed, lost her balance, then rolled sideways down the ridge.

She landed on a spruce sapling, but before she could grab it, it bent under her weight to fling her forward. In the clearing, nothing else stopped her fall. Over, over she rolled, until she slammed into the rushing river, going under. The frigid water shocked her. She gasped and sucked some in. Choked. Her sinuses burned while her skin froze.

The PFD lifted and righted her, head up, but foam crested over her. Mother with Jani in her arms fell over the rail again. The boiling foam devoured them, devoured Lisa. Had Mommy pulled her in with them? How did this happen? She was horrified for her family, for herself. Terror screamed at her, in her, echoing the smashing water, clawing at her courage.

She was swept around, past jutting rocks. She pulled her hands and feet in close. She had to get out but found nothing to hold as she was tossed, whirled, pulled and yanked, bumped by boulders, cold and drowning, dragged downriver.

Though the two glasses Mitch had thrown in his backpack with the cans of ginger ale were plastic, they clanked as he walked the ridge path, their dissonant sound nearly drowned by the river's roar. If Lisa thought he'd cart wine out here for some sort of a lovey-dovey reunion, she was wrong. This was strictly a business meeting, he told himself.

So what if he still felt he wanted her? It was a pure physical reaction from hot memories. His body's reaction to being near Lisa again was something he could absolutely handle--had to.

When he moved to Alaska, he'd needed to cleanse himself of the dirty feeling of defending clients he knew damn well were guilty. He felt guilt-ridden by his own obscenely high fees and the busy schedule that left no time for pro bono work. Pressure, pressure, pressure--and for what? Prestige? Cruising Lauderdale's canals in his boat, chasing women or raising a future family he didn't have time for? Unlike Ellie Bonner's brother, Merritt Carlisle, he didn't want the power that came from a place in national or even state politics. Back home--though this was home now--he'd been fed up with convoluted power connections in the fast-fleeting fame lane. Thank God, Alaska had helped to heal him. It was said people who came to Alaska from outside were either running from something or to something. He guessed, in his case, it was both.

He knew he had let a lot of people down when he'd come north, but helping other people's families, friends and coworkers to connect with each other was far more fulfilling than his old life. He'd continued his uncle's work here through his adventure-bonding program. At least Graham and Ellie bringing their three candidates here to decide who should fill Mitch's vacant position showed they still trusted his judgment and had forgiven him for leaving.

But golden-skinned, blonde, beach-baby Lisa Vaughn had never understood why he had to change his life, leave Florida for Alaska to keep his sanity, even if it meant changing the plans they'd made. They needed to just talk it out, this time briefly, unemotionally, objectively, then they could get back to the business at hand.

He wished Lisa well in her quest to make senior partner, but he wasn't playing favorites. He owed Graham that--Ellie, too, because her father had founded the firm, and the old man had eventually made his son-in-law Graham a full partner before he died. Graham had been Mitch's mentor, just as Mitch had tried to mentor Jonas, the candidate he actually favored, although both Lisa and Vanessa were excellent lawyers. No one worked at Carlisle, Bonner & Associates of Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Palm Beach, if they weren't. Though Mitch didn't especially trust politicians, Merritt, who had still been a lawyer at the firm when Mitch first worked there, was someone who had managed to keep his nose clean.

Just before he cut off the ridge path onto the downward spur toward the lake landing where he'd told Lisa he'd meet her, he spotted the small, white cooler Christine had said she'd given to Lisa. It was open, with wrapped appetizers, bright plates and napkins, strewn down the ridge toward the river like a hand pointing toward the water. Had Lisa seen a bear and run? No, the bear wouldn't have left the food.

He stooped and squinted down toward the river. The drop-off over the ridge was fairly open. Surely she knew to turn right toward the lake, not left. Had she fallen toward the river? Dear God, please don't let her have fallen in the river!

"Lisa! Lisa!" he shouted, but he knew the roar of the river would cover his voice if she wasn't nearby. She was physically fit, an outdoors girl, but the kind who loved sunny skies and sand. Beach volleyball, at which she excelled, was her sport of choice.

"Lisa? Liiiisaa!"

Holding on to a couple of spruce saplings, Mitch went down the steep bank to the river. He gasped when he saw her in the foaming water, about ten yards away, clinging to a rock on the far side. He never would have spotted her, except she wore an orange PFD that showed up like a beacon in the rapids. If she let go, she'd be a goner, because not far beyond was a narrow gorge with a hairpin turn of boiling white water, and later, a series of small falls that didn't stop the salmon coming up but could kill her going down. Worse, exposed to water this cold, she'd go numb and hypothermic in twenty minutes, then die. His uncle had told him that feeling in the limbs went after about seven minutes, consciousness in the next seven, and life itself in the following seven or so. And a South Florida girl was hardly prepared for a snowmelt swim.

He waved his arms and shouted again but she was facing downriver and didn't see him. She was hanging on for dear life--literally.

He half climbed, half crawled back up the bank. A kayak! He needed the kayak that was on the other side of the ridge. There was no time to get help. No one at the lodge would hear him above the water if he shouted, nor could they see him from here. How long could she hold on?

He'd have to get her in the kayak without tipping it, shoot the next eddies, humps and holes to get them to a landing spot before the gorge where he could tend to her. But there was no easy way to return. They'd have to either hike back on the other side of the river or portage the kayak around the falls and ride the rapids all the way out of these mountains.

He yanked himself up from Sitka spruce sapling to sapling, digging his nails into the green moss and orange lichens. He scrabbled past where she'd dropped the cooler, over the ridge, then raced down the path to the red, two-person kayak sitting by the serene lake awaiting their easy trip across to one of his favorite picnic spots. Damn, why hadn't she fallen down this side of the ridge?

His heart pounded; adrenaline stoked his strength. Kayaks weren't overly heavy, but he had to get it up the path, then over the ridge to launch it without splitting the quarter-inch plastic. Yes, two paddles in it. Two PFDs, too. He glanced once across the lake to see if his friends Ginger or Spike might be somewhere in sight, but saw no one. Ginger's little motor boat was pulled up on the shore near the lodge, but she was nowhere around.

"No one but me," he grunted as he shoved the kayak before him up the path. Please Lord, he prayed, let her hang on to that rock.

Panting, his heart pounding and muscles screaming, he got the kayak up and over the ridge, now trying to keep it from crashing down into the river and taking off without him. Sweat burned his eyes as he squinted to see if Lisa was still hanging on. Yes!

He cursed the time it took him to get the spray skirt out of the fore dry storage well and tight around him while he hung on to a sapling so the kayak didn't take off from under him. Otherwise, if too much water got in, he could go hypothermic himself, or capsize. He fought the violent pull of the water--nothing like surfing offshore in South Florida.

Mitch realized he still wore his backpack when it bumped against the kayak. He yanked it off and exchanged it for one of the PFDs in the front seat. He jammed the backpack into the well. He needed the neoprene wet suit he saw there, but no time, no time. He realized he had no helmet--hadn't put one in for a simple paddle across the lake. He was breaking the rules he'd laid out for safety, but this was life and death--Lisa's, and maybe his, too. "Be stupid and a kayak can be your coffin," he'd told more than one group of guests.

He felt a jab of anger at Lisa for being in the river, for getting them into this nightmare, when he'd thought things in his life were going so well. So well, that is, except that for the week he had to be near the woman who loved her career and her sunny spot on the planet more than she had loved him.

He shoved off, stabbing the river with deep strokes, fighting for control and balance so he wouldn't shoot past her. He prayed he could get over to her and somehow get her on board without rolling them both under. "Don't let go! Don't let go!" he shouted, though he figured the roar of the water would keep her from hearing him.

He squinted through sun and spray to locate her by her orange PFD again, and, in that instant, saw her swept away, flailing in the foam.

L

isa tried to cling to the next rock she saw, even claw her way atop it, but the water pinned her against it. She couldn't breathe. Should she let go? Try to find a flatter rock to hold?

But the choice was not hers, caught in the cold current, being twisted and turned. Her shins scraped boulders on the riverbed; she pulled her legs up and arms in for warmth, for safety, but found neither. She saw bloodred salmon streak past her in the foam, going the other way. How could they fight this water? she wondered. It might be easier going deep down.

Deep down, deeper...Mommy and Jani had gone deeper, so deep. The wet, white arms of water and death had taken them away. It would be easier that way, to let it all go, let everything go.

Lisa tried to swim for the riverbank, but each time she neared a handhold, the river snatched her away. She knew enough to try to point her feet downstream, but she couldn't control that. When her numb legs bobbed up, she saw the water had ripped off her shoes.

She was doomed. Dead. Smashed by violent fists of water...her lungs burning to get a breath. Icy water surged up her nose into her sinuses. Get your head up! Take another breath! Hold the air in!

How had she fallen in? The water had looked so beautiful, even alluring. Did something trip her? Surely no one had pushed her. Had Mother and Jani pulled her in to be with them at last? Was this just her memories turning to a drowning, screaming nightmare again?

No, this was not some awful dream where she could will herself to wake up. She had to fight. To live. Dear Lord, help me. Help me be safe and warm.

But the force was brutal, banging her through waves like giant fists, slamming into rocks. Like a leaf going down a storm sewer...lost at sea. Her mother had lost her mind, Grandma said, postpartum depression or some sort of mental aberration made her kill herself. Daddy's desertion of the family might have caused it, too. That's what a psychiatrist had told her once.

Mother, I didn't know. I was only a child. I knew you were sad, but if I had known you were desperate, I could have helped you. At least I could have saved Jani for Grandma to raise along with me.... Someone once said you loved me, so you wanted to take me with you. But it's wrong to kill someone who hasn't had a chance to live....

But should she have drowned, too? Why had Lisa lived when Mother and Jani died? She was haunted by a thought she'd told no one, not even her psychiatrist. When she'd yanked back so hard from her mother's grasp, did that send her over? If she had not pulled back, maybe there was a split second where her mother would have changed her mind. In that last moment, had she sent them into the wild, white water?

So confused, so dizzy, so caught in a spin of water, of fears...

Whispers, loud ones, roared all around her, wet and cold in her ears. Stop it! Stop the memories! This was real. She had to find a place to get out. If only she'd told Mitch she was sorry. Not sorry she didn't go with him, but that she still cared, still wanted him in some sort of angry way, but now all she wanted was out of this forceful, freezing water. Fingers going numb, so cold. Keep your head. Keep your courage. Don't let go! She heard a voice in her head and heart shouting, "Don't let go!"

Mitch was getting panicky. Because Lisa was in the river and his kayak was on top of it, she was moving away from him faster and faster. And she had a head start.

At times he lost sight of the flash of orange that was his best chance of tracking her in the foaming rapids. On river right, he passed a big boulder, fighting hard not to be smashed into it. Unfortunately, he was in a wide, flat-water kayak best used on the lake, not the narrower white-water craft designed for mobility. It took much more strength and skill to maneuver this craft in white water. Yet, heedless of humps and holes and the danger of submerged rocks, he dug his paddle in faster, faster, trying to catch up.

Trying to catch up--the story of his life. He'd been raised in the shadow of an older brother who was brilliant, Superman, his parents' all in all. There was no mountain too high, no challenge too big for Brad Braxton. Eagle Scout. High school student body president. University of Miami Gators swim team, All-American. Couldn't try out for the Olympics because he was a Rhodes Scholar. Now a thoracic surgeon in Miami, with a gorgeous wife and two kids. Unreal expectations to keep up with...keep up with...

This was unreal. Could not be happening. How in hell had Lisa fallen in? No way to call for help. Cell phones didn't work in the Talkeetnas, and he needed both hands on the paddle. The snowmelt had the river up to at least a Category III with four-foot waves and a rocking roll with worse ahead in the tight turns of Hairpin Gorge. His friend Spike had told him that the old prospectors had called that part of the Wild River the Turn Back Gorge, but there was no way he could turn back now, even if he lost her.

Using the paddle, he braced himself away from another rock, then righted the kayak when it was yanked into a pivot point. Off to the races again, squinting through the spume, hoping to see that slash of orange. She had to be here somewhere, unless she'd been trapped in a snag or sieve underwater.

In the first twist of Hairpin Gorge, narrow, gray haystacks of constricted water piled up into standing waves on both sides of the bow. He saw the path through it was chaos. Lisa would never survive.

The crash of the water almost deafened him. He pointed the kayak toward the chute and plunged into it. He glimpsed red king salmon struggling to go the other way. He fought a force he felt he'd never conquer, but sometimes a narrow ribbon of white water was faster than other places in the river. He was chilled and sopped down to where the spray skirt gripped his waist. He braced his knees against the inside of the craft, working the foot rudders, praying he wouldn't capsize. When Uncle John had taught him kayaking years ago on his summer vacations, he'd joked it was really an underwater sport. He'd taught Mitch the Eskimo roll, but it would be a life-and-death combat roll if he flipped today.

Lisa knew she'd be dead already if she hadn't been wearing her PFD. To keep her arms and legs from being banged by rocks both above and below the surface, again she fought to wrap herself into a ball, knees pulled up, arms around them. But when the water rolled her head under, she had to let go to right herself. She tried to kick and paddle but she still got tossed aside and around out of control.

She saw the taller walls of the gorge ahead. The first turn into it nearly finished her. She held her breath until she thought her lungs would burst. For one wild moment the sun was in her eyes. She tried to think of hot days on the beach, the South Florida sun beating down on her, not the weight of all this water. She might suffocate before she'd drown.

On the next turn, she knew she had to make one last grab for something along the bank or she'd black out. She had to drag herself out of this water, hang on. Back at the lodge, Mitch would miss her, maybe figure out what happened. But what had happened to get her in this killer river?

She tried to grab a rock and was shocked to realize both arms had gone numb. What was that called when you got so cold you fell into a fatal sleep...drifted into death? She couldn't die of something she couldn't recall the name of...Lawyers always had the right terminology, whether in English or Latin. Qui bono, who would profit from a crime? Lawyers knew all about plea bargains...the way out...but there was no way out here.

Though Mitch was in great physical shape, the muscles in his arms and back not only ached but burned. He had to find her now or it would cease to be a rescue and become a body recovery, if he could even manage that. But a whirlpool snagged him, and when he freed himself, he shot into another chute. It was fast, very fast, suddenly a smoother ride than any of Spike's musher sleds on sleek snow with his huskies barking. He imagined he heard them now, heard voices in the roar of the current, heard a woman's screams, but it was all in his head.

After the second twist of the gorge, he saw her again, pinned against a busher--a fallen tree--caught like a salmon in a Yup'ik fish wheel. Danger! Bushers were deadly, because they could trap a kayak or smash its thin plastic hull to bits.

But he had to risk it and go after her. Maybe they could climb out onto the tree, make it to the rock ledge. Was she moving? She'd have to be hypothermic by now, but could it be even worse? The power of the water pinning her there must be brutal.

He tried to edge in next to her, but the kayak corkscrewed and the current capsized him. Praying he wouldn't hit his head on the trunk or a submerged rock, he held his breath as he went under. The frigid slap of water shocked him, and made him fear for Lisa even more.

"Eskimo roll!" He heard his uncle's voice, clear and crisp. "Paddle thrust, body twist! Up! Over and up!"

He fought to keep from panicking. His lack of helmet could kill him, too. Upside down, with his body submerged but buoyed by his PFD, he lifted his paddle above the water with both hands out, then swept his torso and paddle while he snapped his hips up. The rotation worked, though the thrust of the current slammed the kayak sideways against the tree trunk again, jarring his teeth as he shook his head and upper body like a dog to get the water off. The entire craft shuddered.

He sucked in a huge breath. Despite the warmth of the air and sun, he felt as if he was rolling in snow. Five feet away from him, Lisa lay sprawled, unmoving, draped over the tree trunk like a drenched rag doll, apparently not breathing as the water crested in white plumes over and around her back. At least it had stopped her before the rest of the sharp turns and then the series of small falls a couple of miles beyond. And, thank God, she was upright with her shoulders and head out of the water.

He tried to brace himself with the paddle to get close enough to at least touch her, pull her down into the kayak or get them both out onto the tree. But when he took another stroke, the washing-machine effect of the churning river flipped him back under again.

Christine Tanaka occasionally glanced out the kitchen window of the lodge, but she kept cutting smoked salmon strips with her small, sharp ula. She was readying plates of appetizers for their guests from Mitch's old law firm--his job in his past life, as he liked to put it.

"Iah, don't say it that way!" she'd told him more than once. "It sounds like you're a ghost come back from the dead!"

But really, Mitch could do no wrong in Christine's eyes, including the fact he mispronounced her name in her Yup'ik tribal language when he called her Cu'paq. It was a tough language for a kass'aq, with its clacking sounds deep in the throat. But it always sounded like Mitch was saying Cupid, that little winged spirit who zinged arrows into people to make them fall in love. She knew too much about that and how dangerous it could be. But the thing with Mitch was he honored her people and was trying hard to become an Alaskan. She loved him for that and for so much more.

She jumped at the deep voice behind her and turned off the Yup'ik radio broadcast she often listened to in the summer when she worked, just to hear the language of her kin. One long, beaded earring snagged in her thick, shoulder-length hair, and she tugged it free.

It was Jonas Grant, the tall, African-American lawyer here with the Bonners. He was one of the attorneys vying for the senior partner position that used to belong to Mitch.

"Mind if I come into your kitchen?" he asked, holding the swinging door ajar. "Tell you the truth, I'm starved, and Mitch told us to see you if that was the case. All this fresh air or my jet lag's making me hungry."

She was surprised she hadn't heard him come in because she had sharp ears and usually sensed someone's presence, but this man moved so quietly. Jonas had a shaved head, which wasn't the wisest thing in Alaska, but it probably worked well where it was hot and humid.

Mitch had joked, "I taught Jonas everything he knows, which means he's pretty smart." She thought the man's wide, dark eyes under his sleekly arched brows backed that up. Jonas was always watching others--keeping his own counsel, as Mitch had put it when he'd given her a pre-arrival rundown on their guests. Yes, she could see that Jonas Grant was always calculating what to say and do. Truth be told, she was wary, too, so she'd recognized that in him right away. And she liked the color of his skin, a lot like the Alaskan sun-and wind-burnished complexions of her people--that is, her former people, before so many turned their backs on her for what she had done.

"Sure thing," she told him with a nod. "I'm fixing salmon tenders with strawberry dip, moose enchiladas and squares of fresh-baked bread with black raspberry spread for appetizers. You want something to drink, too?"

"No, thanks--just hungry."

As she fixed him a hearty plate, she glanced out the window to note no Mitch, but no kayak either. She squinted into the sun to see Ginger Jackson getting in her motorboat for the across-lake trek home. Ginger made all of the baked goods for the lodge and brought them each afternoon, especially the array of yummies for the breakfast buffet the next morning. How she managed to bake all that with a bum right hand was beyond Christine. The only bad thing about Ginger's baking was that she fed her brother Spike too much. In the summer, when he wasn't running the dogs but was mostly taking tourists flightseeing, he put on weight around his middle.

Spike Jackson's red seaplane sat at the far end of the lake since some guests had complained about the early-morning noise when he took off near the lodge. If guests didn't want to drive or land at Talkeetna's airport, he flew them in from Anchorage. He also took people on what was called flightseeing. Earlier today he'd flown Mrs. Bonner, who had her own private pilot's license no less, to view the entire area from Talkeetna clear down to Wasilla. She'd said she wanted to see the little town where that spunky, ambitious Sarah Palin was from, who had come out of nowhere--though folks hereabouts didn't think of big-boom Wasilla or the capital, Juneau, as nowhere--to run for vice president of the United States. Mitch had mentioned that Mrs. Bonner had a brother who was big in Florida politics and aiming higher, so no wonder Mrs. Bonner was interested in Alaska's Governor Palin.

Christine handed the filled plate to Jonas. "Thanks," he said with a big smile that flaunted lots of straight, white teeth. "My boy would say this really rocks--not the smoked salmon but moose in an enchilada."

"How old is he?" Christine asked as she followed him toward the door to the big common room that comprised the living area and dining room. The lodge bedrooms were upstairs in two wings, guests to the east side, Mitch's suite to the west. Christine's room was at the back corner of the first floor, next to the small library loaded with books about Alaska and overlooking the stone patio with the barbecue, fire pit and Finnish wood-fired sauna and hot tub, and then the lake beyond.

Actually, the Duck Lake Lodge--the original name for the lake was Dukhoe--was the most beautiful home she had ever had. Made of rough-cut local spruce with pine-paneled walls, it boasted a seven-foot bubble window overlooking the lake. The entire building and the outlying cabins were heavily insulated, so in the winter it was like being in a thermos that held heat from the big, central stone fireplace.

The fourteen-foot cathedral ceiling above the common room had hand-hewn beams that soared above comfortable clusters of upholstered sofas and chairs interspersed with rocking chairs all set around woven area rugs in muted blues and greens. Snowshoes, quilts and antlers decorated the walls, except in the little library where Mitch had insisted she put the remnants of her collection of Yup'ik dolls on display. Her real realm, the kitchen, looked strictly modern, with new stainless steel appliances that would make a Fairbanks restaurant proud. Off and on, as needed, two women came in from Bear Bones to help with housekeeping chores.

"My boy's nine," Jonas was saying in answer to her question. "He's been pretty sick. He's--" facing away from her, he either cleared his throat or swallowed something "--he's had chordoma, a malignant bone cancer in his spine, since he was five."

"Oh. I'm so sorry. How hard for a young kid who wants to run and play."

"Yeah," he said, turning back to face her at the bottom of the central staircase. "Doctors give about a seven-year life expectancy for that when it's first diagnosed. I'd love to have Emerson here to see Alaska--bears, moose and that rough river out there. Tell you the truth, I feel guilty spending even a few days away from him, but this big opportunity with Carlisle and Bonner..." Frowning, he cleared his throat. Christine saw his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. "'Course, I'd do anything to help him survive, and those massive medical bills keep piling up. Well, didn't mean to bend your ear, but Mitch said you're easy to talk to."

"Did he?" she asked, feeling warm clear to her belly. "It's because I don't say much myself. Now, you need anything else, you just let me know. And get some rest if you can because the summer nights not only come later here compared to where you're from, but the summer sun never quite goes down, even in these mountains."

"What's that they used to say? 'The sun never sets on the British Empire'?"

"Did they say that? Well, we gotta get all the sun and light we can this time of year."

"In the long, dark winters, I guess you pay the price."

"But that gives us the gift of the northern lights, the aurora borealis."

"Yeah, I'd like to see that. Like for Emerson to see that, too. Mitch said you have a lot of Japanese tourists here because they believe a child conceived under the northern lights will be fortunate." He shook his head and started upstairs before he turned back, looking down at her over the banister. "Do they, you know, conceive the child outside in the winter, really under the lights?"

Christine smiled and shook her head, suddenly feeling irrationally happy. She was very fortunate. She'd done what she had to do to protect herself. And she certainly sympathized with Jonas, because she understood doing anything to survive. "No," she told him. "In the winter, even the wildest Alaskans do that inside, in bed."

He smiled sheepishly, thanked her again and went up the stairs toward the east hall guest rooms. Though she had a meal to start for about eight people, counting Spike if he was staying, she stepped out the back door and glanced down the familiar ridge path toward the lake landing. Lisa Vaughn had been no good for Mitch before and wouldn't be now. Iah, if only that woman hadn't come with these other lawyers to this haven Mitch had made for the woman he called his Cupid.

O

nce Mitch managed to right the kayak again, he knew he had to abandon it. The current pinned the boat tight to the tree, though he knew it could capsize again. He had to get to Lisa, be sure she was breathing, then get her--both of them--warm. But he'd need some of the supplies that were stowed in the kayak for them to survive out here. They were going to have to hike back to civilization, and the only access road was on the other side of the river.

Bracing himself as best he could with his paddle, with one hand he quickly unfastened the bungee cords securing the dry well at the front of the kayak, opened it and grabbed out the single wet suit. He wrapped it around his neck like a big scarf, then rummaged for the roll of duct tape he knew must be there. Finding it, he shoved it on his arm above his wrist. It was good for patching kayak cracks, but also for immobilizing sprained or broken bones. Being careful not to tip the kayak, he loosed the spray skirt and was surprised he was sitting in water. The cockpit was partly flooded, but he'd been so intent--and so much colder from the waist up--he hadn't even noticed. His sweatshirt over his T-shirt was soaked and heavy.

He half dragged, half hoisted himself onto the tree about four feet from Lisa. Holding on to protruding broken limbs, he crawled toward her. Her wet blond hair looked like a curtain covering her face. Though his instinct was to lift her into his arms, he reached down to feel for her carotid artery with two fingers. Her skin was so cold it shocked him, but he felt frigid, too, his fingers numb and fumbling.

Yes! She had a pulse--faint, maybe fluttering, or else he was shaking too hard to tell. She was breathing, steady but sure, so he wouldn't have to do mouth-to-mouth. Gently, he pushed her sopping hair back from her face. She looked pasty and bruised.

"Lisa. Lisa, it's Mitch. You're going to be okay. I'm here to take care of you and get you home--at least to my home, the lodge."

Nothing. No movement, but a pulse and breath was enough for now. He'd seen his uncle revive one of his homesteader friends who fell in years ago, though that had been near lodge property where they could get help, as slow as it was in coming from Bear Bones.

Praying their combined weight would not shift the tree trunk and send them barreling down the river with it, Mitch put his hands under her armpits. Slowly he lifted and laid her out on her back. Her legs flopped on either side of the trunk. Dragging her crawling backward, he inched along the log toward the low ledge where the roots of the tree had caught. Sunlight poured onto them. Sunlight! But it would not last long in this narrow gorge, even with the nights still filled with light.

It seemed an eternity before he had her laid out on the ledge. He curled her up, hoping to preserve whatever core body heat she had left.

"Land ho, sweetheart. You're going to be all right," he said as if to convince himself, but his voice broke.

He ventured out onto the tree trunk again, still on all fours. Sprawled on his belly, he carefully reached down to unrig the trapped kayak's other dry-storage well. Besides the extra PFD he'd shoved in there, he wasn't sure what was stowed, but it was the first break he'd had all day. He pulled out a four-pound butane camp stove and a one-person tent, though he saw no sleeping bag. There were no provisions but a small, plastic, zipper-locked sack of what Christine called squaw candy--dried salmon. He tossed the PFD and food up on the ledge and, pulling his backpack up over his shoulder by one strap, carefully hauled the tent and stove along the trunk to safety.

At least he had four ginger ales. Otherwise he'd be pouring boiled river water into Lisa. He could carry the tiny tent and stove with them if they could get off this ledge to hike out. But first things first.

Huddled over her to make a windbreak against the breeze, Mitch removed her PFD and stripped her down to her black bra and panties--stunningly sexy even out here where they seemed so fragile and fancy. Despite her tan lines, she looked fish-belly white. Her beautiful body now seemed a cold, marble statue. He moved fast to cover her with the neoprene suit, not putting it on her yet because it felt cold. Rafters and kayakers often wore a layer of fleece under it to maintain body warmth, but she had been depleted of that.

He unzipped the tent from its pack and formed it into a windbreak, making sure it didn't shade her from the sun on the wall and floor of the small ledge that made--he hoped--a lifesaving pocket of warmth. He needed her conscious to be sure she didn't drift away, so he kept talking to her as he moved her arms and legs to check for broken bones. She looked battered and bruised, but he was amazed she seemed to have escaped without any serious injuries, not even signs of frostbite.

He tossed her clothes farther down the ledge to dry, then rubbed her all over with the neoprene wet suit, the only dry garment he had, since he was thoroughly soaked, too. He chaffed her fingers and toes in his hands, then wrapped her in the small canvas tent. She'd need his body heat--what there was of it--to come back, to survive, but he could put the wet suit on her later. He had to get hot liquids into her first. It was just as important to be warmed from the inside as out.

With its burner protected by its little windscreen, the butane-fed, self-igniting cooker heated rapidly. He had a small pan, but, shivering, he ignored that for now. Somehow his stiff fingers got two of the cans of ginger ale open. He put them directly on the burner. When he realized the bag that had held the tent was still dry, he put it over Lisa's head like a too-big bonnet. So much body heat was lost through the head. He'd kidded Jonas about that, but the big guy never seemed to get too hot or too cold. Damn, what he wouldn't give for a hairdryer out here, and the lodge's hot tub.

While the cans of ginger ale heated, he huddled close to the stove's burner to get feeling back in his fingers. Shaking in his haste, he stripped off his PFD and his own wet clothes. With one can of ginger ale in his hand, he managed to wrap himself and Lisa in the small tent as if it were a double sleeping bag. He pressed his hip to hers and threw one leg over her to warm her thighs. The sudden, sweeping impact of mingled protectiveness and possessiveness astounded him.

A memory leaped at him of the day he'd really looked at her for the first time as a beautiful woman and not just as an associate at the firm. She had not been wearing much that day, either. In a way he'd wanted Lisa the moment he'd seen her on the beach, when he was coming in from windsurfing. What a shock to see Ms. Wet Behind The Ears Lawyer out of a business suit and wet all over.

At work and especially in court, as if she'd wanted to hide from something, she'd often worn dark-rimmed glasses and her hair pulled back. Yet that day on the beach he saw classic features with a naughty tilt to her green eyes even sunglasses couldn't conceal. Her lithe body in that black bikini was so graceful, even when she spiked a volleyball with her long blond hair flying. Yet there was always something vulnerable about her.

"That's Lisa Vaughn?" he'd said to himself that day. He'd decided right there he'd do what he shouldn't--date a colleague and hope she wouldn't only agree to see him socially because he was Graham Bonner's heir apparent at the firm. There was nothing on the books about not dating coworkers, though he knew it was a bad idea, and one Graham would frown upon.

He soon learned Lisa was so much more than a beach babe or an ambitious attorney. She was bright and funny, though she had a problematic past she hadn't mentioned for the first few months they dated. She'd finally shared that she'd seen a shrink for years when she was a child and in her teens. The doctor had told her that her history, what she called her Darth Vader secret--her dark side--was a combination of shock fatigue and survivor's guilt from witnessing the drowning of her mother and little sister.

Now, come hell or high water, he was not going to let her be a victim either of the Wild River or the wilds of Alaska. He had to get some of this warm liquid into her, so he lifted her head into the crook of his arm and pressed the heated can to her lips.

"Lisa, drink this. It will warm you."

He got some in her mouth. It dribbled back out, so he tried again. His chest pressed to her breasts and his cheek to hers, he spoke close to her ear. "Lisa, it's Mitch. You're going to be all right. You have to drink this to get warm."

"M-M-itch."

Thank God! He was so thrilled she was still in that stone-cold body he could have flown.

"Drink this. You have to drink this."

Her teeth began to chatter, and she quivered all over, actually a better sign than nothing moving. She was hopefully coming out of hypothermia, and he was shaking as if he was plunging into it.

"Mitch." It was a mere whisper. She still didn't open her eyes and had barely moved her swollen, bluish lips.

"Yes, it's Mitch," he repeated. "I'm here and I'll take care of you. Drink this."

She sipped some. Praying he had enough warmth to give, he held her closer. The slant of sun helped so much. If you could find the right spot in July or August, get out of the wind, the sun could get the temperature up to the high eighties.

She drank. He positioned himself ever closer, trying to get in contact with every inch of her. Hating that he had to let cold air into their cocoon, he reached for the second can of soda, then thought to shove the first warm, empty can down at her feet like a heated brick.

He took a quick swig from the second can, then poured more into her. When that was gone, she broke his heart by cuddling close, though she still seemed limp and cold. With her upturned face tucked under his chin, he held her tight again. He knew she wanted to sleep, but he had to keep her awake and talking. Hypothermic people often felt warmer, even stripped off their clothes before they went comatose and fell asleep forever.

"Lisa, talk to me. Keep talking. How did you fall in the river?"

Her eyes still closed, she frowned. "Dunno."

"Did you stumble or trip?" he asked.

A tiny shake of her head, but no answer. Of course, it wasn't unusual for someone in trauma to lose their memory of the horror of it. But since her memories of the ultimate horror of her life--the shock of witnessing the terrible loss of her mother and sister--were so vivid and, he knew, sometimes haunted her yet, surely she'd be able to recall how she'd fallen in.

Suddenly, strangely, she went stiff in his arms. "I'm here," he said. "It's all right."

Her eyes opened wide for one moment as if she was seeing something again. She shook her shoulders slightly. At least she was moving, but was she trying to shake off his arms from holding her?

Then she frowned, squeezing her eyes tightly closed. "Pushed," she whispered. "Pushed in."

"Someone pushed you in the river?" he demanded, much too loudly, because she flinched as if she'd been struck.

"Yes. Pushed."

"Pushed by whom?"

"Didn't see."

"Did you hear anyone?"

"Heard the river--rush of river."

She was talking, but she must also be hallucinating, he thought. The shock of it had made her--hopefully temporarily--delusional. He knew his staff and his guests. No way had someone pushed her in the river.

"The sun..." she whispered, suddenly opening her eyes and blinking into its brightness, her mind evidently wandering again. She looked slit-eyed at him before she seemed to almost swoon in his arms. Her pupils were huge. Could she have a concussion? That would explain her thinking she was pushed.

He gave her a tiny shake to keep her conscious, happy to change the subject from what would be, in a court of law, attempted murder. "Yes, summer Alaska sun. Our own northern light," he said.

Even so, he knew it would be shifting away soon, and it would be a cold night on the ledge. When would Christine or Spike or someone else realize they were gone? What would they think? Even if someone figured out they needed rescuing, no way could they be spotted by an airplane here or be helped if someone didn't tackle that damned dangerous river. Even if the sheriff came from Talkeetna or Spike and Christine summoned a search party from nearby little Bear Bones, the two of them were on their own.

"So, do you need any help?" came the melodious female voice.

Hearing the tap-tap of heeled boots on the pine floor, Christine turned from setting the table to see another of the guests, Vanessa Guerena, come in from the wooden deck overlooking the lake. She'd been out there, pacing like a caged cat, as if waiting for someone to arrive or something to happen.

From their first introduction, Christine had admired Vanessa's appearance--sleek figure, shiny, shoulder-length ebony hair, bronzed skin and flashing, dark eyes. In another world, they could have passed for Yup'ik cousins with the same height and build. Christine guessed the woman must be about her age, thirty-five or so. But Vanessa reeked self-confidence and charisma, the words Spike had used to describe her. He'd probably had to pick his jaw up off the ground when he first saw Vanessa.

But size, skin and hair was about where it ended for her and Vanessa's similarities. With her suede boots and her butterscotch-colored leather knee-length pants and jacket--in this warm weather, no less--she looked so dressed up next to Christine's running shoes, jeans and layered T-shirt top. For everyone else, including the obviously wealthy Bonners, denim was the name of the fashion game around here. Maybe Vanessa hadn't gotten the message about how to pack for the land of remote fly-in lodges and cabins in America's "last frontier."

Vanessa's pent-up energy and jumpiness made her stand out. The woman's Cuban heritage and temper, which Christine had noted when she'd seen her arguing with Jonas from a distance earlier, was a far cry from a Yup'ik personality. Yet Christine saw Vanessa had a good side, what the Yup'ik called catngu, the gift of friendliness and helpfulness. Had she been hanging around the back of the lodge just waiting to help out? Maybe she thought being prompt would impress the Bonners, when they hadn't even come downstairs yet. Or was she lurking around, maybe trying to keep an eye on her competition for Mitch's old job?

"I'm just fine, but thanks for the offer," she told Vanessa. "You just make yourself at home. Go ahead and enjoy some of these appetizers. I'm sure the others will be here soon, and you don't have to wait for them."

"Thanks," she said, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jacket. "So, have you seen Mitch?"

"Not for a while."

"Lisa?"

"Briefly."

"Were they together? Oh, sorry, too used to interrogating potential witnesses, I guess," Vanessa said with a little shrug and smile.

Christine nodded and went back out in the kitchen for more food. She glanced out the window down the path toward the lake landing. No Mitch, when she was expecting--wanting--him back.

She carried the last plate of appetizers to the table. Now Vanessa was pacing inside, pretending to look out the big bubble window. When she saw Christine was back, she said, "I didn't want to miss anything, but I've got to get my exercise in, since my appetite's gone as wild as the woods up here."

When Christine put the last plate of food down, the woman came over and pounced on it. "I hope I burn off these calories with everything Mitch has planned," she said, pouring herself a glass of Chardonnay to accompany her full plate. "Jonas said he's ready for more of your delicious deep-forest fare, too."

Christine was willing to bet both of them--Lisa Vaughn, too--had been just plain hungry for Mitch's old position since he left the law firm. But, yes, where in all creation was Mitch? And, as Vanessa had asked, where was Lisa?

All Lisa wanted to do was sleep, to get lost in the arms of warm, lazy sleep. She must be on the beach because a canvas cabana covered her head and wrapped around her. She loved the sun but knew too much of it on her skin could be dangerous, even deadly. Dangerous...deadly...just get warm. So sore and exhausted...Just stay warm and go to sleep...sleep...

Someone shook her, held her. A lifeguard? Was a lifeguard here because a big wave had hit her?

A man with a deep, raspy voice said, "Lisa, I said you have to keep moving your arms and legs. Wiggle your fingers and toes."

She dragged her heavy eyelids open. Mitch. Mitch on the beach with her. No, there were tall stone walls, and she could hear the roaring surf. But this wasn't Florida. "I guess we're not in Kansas anymore," Dorothy said to Toto after the tornado had picked her up and spun her silly. Lisa tried to do what Mitch said, what the good witch told Dorothy to do to get home. She tried to click the heels of her sparkly shoes together and make a wish but she had no shoes, and her feet were so cold....

Someone shook her again. Mitch. Mitch was here.

"Lisa, listen to me. I wish we were back at the lodge but we're not." He shook her shoulders and squeezed her tighter to him. "You fell in the river. You are hypothermic and you have to get warm. Drink more of this and move your arms and legs."

It took great effort, but she obeyed. Sore, so sore. But she swallowed a warm, fizzy drink. Champagne? No bottles or glasses were allowed on the beach.

Then she really remembered. Back at the lodge, outside on the lake landing path, she'd been waiting for Mitch. Looking at the roiling water and almost seeing Mother and Jani there, Mother's face staring up at her through the river foam. And then--

She jolted alert in his arms. Someone had pushed her in! Hadn't they? No way she had fallen or jumped just because she was thinking about Mother and Jani. Surely Mitch had not pushed her, then rescued her, so he could be a hero, so he could win her back. No, wishful thinking, wishing upon a star. There's no place like home, there's no place like home. Home was where your loved ones were. But her loved ones had been swallowed by all that raging white water.

A second jolt shot through her, cosmic compared to anything else except the initial impact of that freezing water. She was in Mitch's arms, in some sort of bed, and they were both naked.

She tried to sit up. He pulled her back down. Where were they? What had they done? No, no, Mitch was right. She fell in the river, and he must have come after her, saved her. But she fell because she was pushed. But by whom and why?

She went rigid against him. "I'm better, warmer. You can let me go." She didn't sound like herself. Her lips were swollen and bruised. She was almost mumbling, stuttering.

"I'd like to believe that, but you were close to comatose. You've only been out of the river for about two hours."

"I--th-thank you. You came in a b-boat?"

"I chased you in the kayak that we were going to take across the lake."

"Oh." She tried to process that. Yes, they'd agreed to have a talk, but now this.

"M-Mitch, someone pushed me in the river. I fell down the bank and rolled, but someone pushed me first."

"You said that."

"Don't you believe me?" It came out as Don't you leave me.

"When we get back, we'll look into it. I did see the stuff Christine packed for us strewn down the bank toward the river. Why didn't you go down to the lake landing to wait for me? Didn't you see or hear anyone?"

"Hear them, with the roar of the river? I--I was just looking at the salmon in the water. My mind is working all right now. I'm better," she said, shifting away again. She wanted to remember what had happened, but not feel the hopeless panic, the fear of riding the river. Was her memory messed up like her mind?

And Mitch--he felt more solid than she recalled, so good, warm and strong with rock-hard muscles like the ledge under her. Had Alaska done that to him? Yes, he'd looked more bulked up when she'd seen him yesterday after an entire year apart. If it wasn't a crazy idea, she'd almost think his new life had made him taller, too.

"I'll see if your clothes are dry, and we'll get the wet suit on you for warmth, too," he said. "The little cookstove may warm your hands, but don't be in too much of a rush to get up. The shock of it--you'll come back slowly and may have some scrambled thoughts."

That's for sure, she told herself, but demanded, "You don't believe I was pushed in?"

"It's good you're getting angry at me. That will get your blood and temp up--and besides, that's more like picking up where we left off, isn't it?"

"That's all past now. I can't thank you enough for risking the river to come after me. Can't I just get d-dressed, curl up and sleep for a while? I'm so exhausted. It's a trauma for both of us."

"Sure has been, and not just this river ride. But no, you can't just go to sleep yet. I'm not the doctor in my family, but I know a hypothermic victim shouldn't do that--too dangerous for a while. I think it's like having a concussion. My clothes were soaked, too, and you needed core body heat badly, so if you're wondering why we're both undressed in here--"

"I knew that. See, I'm compos mentis again." She had to fight very hard to form thoughts and words. It was like groping for something in the dark. "Thank you, but I'm all r-right now. And if you're thinking I did really fall in, or just trip--or if you're thinking what you know about my mother, it isn't that. Someone pushed me, and I can think of at least two people with motives, maybe more. I wasn't halluc...hallucinating...."

Her voice trailed off as her thoughts swirled again. Or had she been? Had she actually been pushed in, or had that river lured her, seduced her because, after all was said and done, little Lisa had actually wanted to be with Mommy and Jani? Was little Lisa still terrified that she had sent them right over the edge?

Even though she hadn't seen her psychiatrist, Dr. Sloan, for years, she heard his voice. "You have to get over the idea you should have died with them or that you caused their fall. I know you blame yourself for not realizing your mother was so sick, but you were just a child. It wasn't your fault. None of it was your fault."

Mitch's voice broke into the memory. "Lisa, can you hear me? Your eyelids fluttered, and you looked as if you were going to pass out again."

"Only to sleep. I need to sleep."

"Me, too, but no. We're miles overland from the lodge and help--from any civilization--so we're going to have to hike out of here. Just rest here a few more minutes. I'll get dressed first, if my stuff's dry. But keep your eyes open and keep talking."

"I--I don't have shoes to hike. The river took them."

"I know. I'll make you some from our extra PFD, tape pieces of it around your feet."

"Wow, a guy who understands how girls love shoes."

He actually chuckled as he moved out of their warm little cocoon. She caught a glimpse of skin and curly, black chest hair. The cold air slammed in on her, and she fumbled to pull the canvas cover closed. But his laugh had warmed her. That and the fact he told her to keep her eyes open while he crawled out naked on the ledge to get dressed. But she didn't want to give him the idea she cared about him that way, so she pulled the canvas bag closer around her and turned away.

Just business--and survival--between them now. She had to be strong to help get them out of here and so that he could give a good report on her to the Bonners. At the very least they would think she was a klutz for falling in the river. Would they all think she was crazy if she claimed someone had pushed her? Maybe she should tell Mitch she had just imagined it, not tell people what had really happened. Then she could investigate who could have pushed her, set someone up for a confession--or, God forbid, another attempt to eliminate her. But who would be that desperate to get rid of her?

But then another thought drifted in. Maybe the person didn't think she'd really fall in the river, just wanted to warn her or shake her up. But why? Maybe it wasn't just Jonas or Vanessa who had motive, means and opportunity to shove her down a clearing toward the river.

On Spike Jackson's plane, flying in from Anchorage to the lodge yesterday, she remembered a strange exchange between him and the Bonners. "So this is some kind of a marathon or endurance test for your candidates?" Spike had asked Graham. Strapped in next to Lisa, Vanessa had strained forward to hear what Graham said over the loud hum of the plane's single engine.

"Sure, a test of sorts, both with the activities Mitch has on tap for us and some others we have planned," Graham had said. "We'll have some group endeavors, some individual efforts."

Jonas had joked from the single jump seat in the back, next to the pile of luggage, "Like pitting us against an Alaskan bear or wolf in a deep-woods arena?"

"Nonsense," Ellie Bonner had piped up. From her place next to Spike in the copilot's seat, she'd twisted around to face the rest of them. "This is not some face-your-worst-fears, Survivor-like game show. Graham and I want you to enjoy yourselves and focus on what are essentially bonding, not competitive experiences."

"Just so long as she didn't say 'bondage,'" Jonas had whispered from the backseat so only Vanessa and Lisa could hear.

But could the Bonners have planned some sort of face-your-worst-fear survival test, and hers just got out of hand? Several years ago, after she came to know and trust both of them, she'd confided in them about her childhood tragedy and trauma over dinner at their home.

No. No, she scolded herself. She had to fight being paranoid, had to fight to show everyone she deserved the senior partner position and that she didn't want Mitch anymore. Maybe bringing her to face Mitch was really her endurance test, and now, here she was, alone with him and dependent on him. Surely the Bonners--or Mitch--could not have planned or wanted that.

Her head snapped down, then jerked up. She'd almost nodded off, but he hadn't seen. He was her rescuer, the one who knew the wilds, so for now she would try hard to do what Mitch said. She chatted, even chattered, tried to answer his questions about how she felt. She was bruised and battered all over but grateful no bones were broken. She was absolutely aching for sleep. But she had to cooperate so he could get them back to civilization, back to safety at the lodge. But, since--if--someone had pushed her, was it really civilized or safe there?

M

itch knew they had to get off the ledge. He had planned to spend the night here, but if he made Lisa get up and walk, she'd have to stay awake. He was also exhausted and feared he'd fall asleep. The worst scenario was that he'd have to hike out for help alone, but no way could he leave her near the river that could have killed her.

Besides, when he explored, edging along a narrow curve of cliff face, he was excited to discover a cleft in the gorge rocks, one he could even glimpse sky through. On one side of the cleft was a ledge where they could make their way out. From flying over the area with Spike, he knew that beyond these rocks lay not only muskeg, a shallow bog, but dry tundra. And he knew that, because of the contour of the land near the lodge, it would take them days to hike directly back to the west.

So if they could get beyond this gorge, they would go east, then ford the river below the falls where it was divided into braided streams that were much more shallow. The salmon had easier going there, and they would, too. On the other side of the Wild River was a dirt access road, which might have some traffic from fishermen or hunters who could give them a ride back home. But he wouldn't tell Lisa all that right now. Finally, he was making decisions for her as he had for so many others.

But, unfortunately, like a few other clients Mitch had defended, he questioned if she was a trustworthy witness of what had actually happened to her. He just couldn't accept Lisa's claim she'd been pushed into the river. Who at the lodge would be that desperate and dangerous? Opportunity for that must have been pure chance, and what would be a motive? Surely not just this competition among colleagues the Bonners had set up.

If Lisa had hit her head in a tumble down the slope near the lodge, she could have just thought she was pushed--or be lying about it so she didn't look careless or reckless to him and the Bonners. No, she wouldn't be that devious to gain sympathy, even if she'd always been ambitious.

Granted, she had been haunted by the drowning deaths of her mother and baby sister for years. He was sure, though she'd denied it, she'd been suicidal years ago, survivor's guilt and all that. But to think of her jumping in of her own accord was as crazy as the idea she'd been pushed.

Whatever had happened to get her in the Wild River, they had to risk the ledge over the chasm to get away from it right now. Even if rescuers rafted or kayaked down the river after them, their attempting to land on the ledge where they were hemmed in could be deadly, or they might shoot right on by toward the falls.

"Lisa!" He hurried back to her. She sat slumped on the ledge with her back to the rock face. Upset she'd fallen asleep even sitting up, he shook her shoulders. "I see a way we can walk out. I think we should go now, since we've lost the sun on the ledge. And if the river rises even more, we'd get more than wet here. I'm going to fill our empty cans with water and get things together. Can you get dressed by yourself?"

"Yes. Yes, of course," she insisted, sounding and looking annoyed right back at him. "I'm just f--"

"Don't you dare say you're fine!"

"And don't try to read my mind! I'm just feeling a bit funny but more alert--that's what I was going to say."

"Sorry I jumped to conclusions."

"Since you only saved my life today, you're forgiven--for that," she grumbled.

That warmed him, not only because her spirited response sounded more like her but that she was grateful. She'd thanked him already, but he'd felt so guilty for so long about throwing a fire bomb into her life and then leaving Florida, that maybe, just maybe, what he'd done here could begin to make up for it. Not that he wanted her back--for sure not that--but it might make him feel less of a heel. On the other hand, he thought, hardening his heart when he realized he wanted to hold her, if she'd really loved him in the first place, she'd have understood and maybe even come with him to Alaska, taken a leave of absence, or visited the lodge on her own--at least given it a shot. He sure wasn't the only one to blame for their breakup.

The moment stretched out between them as, both frowning, they looked deep into each other's eyes while the river roared.

"We're partners at least for getting out of here safely," he said, then cleared his throat when his voice caught. "And when we get back, we'll look into what really happened to you."

She started to say something, then just nodded.

"I'll pack our stuff," he added, taking his Swiss Army knife out of his jeans pocket so he had something to do with his hands rather than touch her again. He rose and moved a few feet away on the ledge. "I'll cut up our extra PFD for your feet."

"I'm hungry enough that I could eat a piece of a PFD!"

He tried to grin but he knew it was more a grimace. She was not the only one who felt stiff all over. "We'll have to stick with some of Christine's dried salmon. Not sure what we'll find on the other side of the chasm through the gorge, but there should be some berries to eat and fish to catch, if we get out of here."

"If?"

"I can only see so far down the ledge. We'll have to watch our footing, that's all. As a matter of fact, maybe you should go out barefoot, and we'll put these fancy, schmancy Manual designer shoes on you after."

"Do you mean Manolos?" she asked with a little laugh.

"Yeah. Just testing your memory."

He turned away to let her get her clothes on over the body-hugging wet suit she already wore for warmth. He glanced at his waterproof watch and noted it was way past pre-dinner time back at the lodge. Surely they would realize that he and Lisa had not just decided to run away together.

Spike and Christine were overseeing the search effort. Of course, Spike was trying to order her around, but she wasn't taking any guff from him. Whatever she'd done in the past, she wasn't going to be a doormat for any man.

Iah, but Spike Jackson was an imposing man. Nearly six and a half feet tall, red-haired and big-shouldered, he seemed larger than life--certainly larger than any Yup'ik man she'd ever known. Yet he had a lanky grace and a boyish manner at times. But when cornered, or upset as he and all of them were now, he turned into a real macho man.

"Okay, listen up here," he told the guests assembled in the great room of the lodge. "I radioed my sister, Ginger, and she checked the area across the lake where Mitch said they were going. No sign of them. The red two-seat kayak's missing, but sure as hell someone as skilled as Mitch didn't capsize in the lake."

"I repeat," Graham Bonner put in, "I'll gladly pay for an air search and rescue."

Christine figured Mr. Bonner was used to being in charge. Still, the Bonners had pitched in to help scour the immediate area of the lodge for Mitch and Lisa. The Bonners were such a handsome couple--trim, silver-haired and blue-eyed. Although they were fish out of water in the Alaskan wilds, she could tell they were used to being in control of all they surveyed.

"Yes," Ellie Bonner added. "Spike, if we take your plane up, we'll pay for the gas, and I'll go with you to copilot while you use binoculars or vice versa."

Christine guessed Mrs. Bonner was in her late fifties, a natural beauty aging gracefully, petite and pretty with a cap of hair that contrasted with her sharp, sparkling eyes.

"Thanks," Spike said, "but thick tree cover around here and the river gorge and mountains make that not a good option for spotting them. Besides, they couldn't have hiked out this fast to the flatter tundra and valley areas where we could see them. Both of his vehicles are still here. They've gotta be around somewhere--maybe took a walk in the woods, skidded into a hole, someone turned an ankle, then 'cause of predators, they thought they had to stick together, something like that. The locals we got coming from Bear Bones know the area and can fan out around the lake. Mitch and Ms. Vaughn must have decided on a different place than where he told Christine he'd beach the kayak so they could talk things out."

"On a private little picnic?" Christine heard Vanessa whisper to Jonas behind her. "Talk things out, my foot!"

"Just don't put your foot in your mouth," he muttered back. "You'd better cooperate with all this and look like you mean it."

Christine didn't let on that she'd heard them. Spike was saying, "Mitch must of just pulled the kayak up on a stretch of beach where we haven't spotted it yet, that's all."

The sound of vehicle engines and the blast of horns drew them all outside. At least forty people, nearly half the population of the nearby town of Bear Bones, piled out of pickup trucks or SUVs. Some wore backpacks; some carried rifles.

Christine went back inside quickly. She didn't need their stares right now and even the sight of guns made her uneasy. Her stomach was tied in knots already. Lisa lost was one thing, but she couldn't lose Mitch.

"Okay," she heard Spike tell everyone in a booming voice from outside, "you all know what Mitch looks like, but the woman he's with--Lisa Vaughn--is about five feet five, blond hair to her shoulders, slender, but athletic-looking, green eyes, real pretty face...."

Oh yes, Christine thought, a real pretty face all right. Obviously Mitch's ideal, maybe Spike's, too. She saw out the opposite set of lodge windows that Ginger had come back across the lake. She was not putting in at her usual spot but ran the prow of her old motorboat up on the shore farther down. Christine went out to fill her in. The two of them were going to hold the fort in case Mitch or Lisa came back or the sheriff or medical help needed to be summoned from Talkeetna.

Christine strode the path to the lake landing and hurried down to it.

"Any news yet?" Ginger asked as she tossed her little anchor on the pebbled shore. Like Spike, she was lanky and redheaded, but with gray eyes and a distant gaze that could really unsettle you. Sometimes she seemed to look past or through you. Even for backcountry Alaska, Ginger Jackson was as eccentric as they came, dressed in a combination of gypsy and frontier-woman clothes.

Ginger lived mostly hand to mouth. Besides baking for the lodge, she picked up random short-term jobs in Bear Bones and always helped Mitch with ziplining for his guests. Ginger's brother, Spike, loved flying, but Ginger's high-flying thrills came from zipping along on a steel cable through tall Sitka spruce. Christine admired Ginger's independence. She'd turned down an offer of marriage from a guy because he insisted she move into town. Ginger wouldn't accept anything from her big brother but the firewood he cut for her baking and heating stoves for the cold months. She was even scrimping to save money to pay Spike for that, since the price of jet fuel was, literally, sky-high. Yet since Ginger's mail came to the lodge, Christine knew that she received lots of high-end catalogs with all kinds of exotic luxury goods--her "dream mags," she called them.

"We still don't know anything," Christine called to her, hurrying closer. "It's like they vanished into thin air."

"Maybe they just had things to settle and said the heck with everyone else. That's what I'd of done. Did Mitch talk about her? I mean, we knew somebody threw somebody over, but I've learned never to hold people's pasts against them."

Christine wondered if she meant her own past. "No, he didn't talk about her until just before they arrived," she admitted, wishing Mitch had confided more to her. That was another thing she liked about Ginger--live and let live. But she didn't like the way the woman was staring at her, still standing in her boat, hands on her hips, head tilted, almost as if she were accusing her of something. Christine had gone through enough of that.

"What?" she challenged Ginger.

"There!" Ginger pointed past her. So she wasn't staring at her after all. "Maybe Mitch didn't put the red kayak I saw here earlier into the lake. See? Someone shoved a kayak up or down here and to or from where? That ridge path above the lake and river?"

Christine turned and looked, then had to shade her eyes and stand back a bit to see what Ginger was pointing at. She gasped and scrambled up the bank toward the path with Ginger right behind her.

They looked at the path, then down it to the other side. Strewn there was the food and cooler Lisa had carried as well as the path of what could well be the kayak sliding down toward the river. A wolverine hunched there, too stubborn to move, bolting down the food, but that wasn't what upset them.

"Mitch decided to take her white-water kayaking?" Ginger screeched. "Is he nuts? We gotta make folks search the river!"

"But this food strewn here..." Christine began, then stopped in midsentence. "Or maybe she just set the cooler down here and that wily wolverine opened it after they took off. But I can't believe Mitch would do that."

The wolverine hustled away as Ginger skidded off the path and looked downriver, shading her eyes with both hands. "No one. Nothing!" she shouted up over the river's roar, but Christine was already running to tell Spike before the searchers set out on a wild-goose chase.

"Feel your way with your feet, one slow step at a time," Mitch told Lisa as they edged into the cleft in the gorge, both facing the rock. "Don't look down!"

"I won't!" she vowed, but she already had. About twelve feet below, she had heard and seen white water surging into the bottom of the cleft, then being sucked back out. She could almost feel it washing over her, like when she was in the river, or in her worst nightmares. But Mitch was just behind, talking to her, urging her on.

Because she could feel the firm rock under her, she was glad she was barefoot, even though she ached all over, including the soles of her feet. Words from her grandma Colleen's favorite Psalm came to her: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

Mitch had said she should lead the way out because he needed not only to watch where they were going, but watch her. They'd abandoned the kayak. All their other goods were strapped to his back, but he wouldn't let her carry one thing.

"You're doing great," he said. "We're making good progress."

"I'm shaking. It makes me feel as if the wall is," she admitted as she tried to find handholds, yet not push away from the rock face so she tipped back. Their yellow brick road out of here was only about two feet wide in places. She knew she had to do this just right, because if he had to make a grab for her, they'd both bounce down into oblivion.

Finally, finally, the ledge widened, but then it came to nothing.

"Mitch, dead end."

"So I see. But we're almost out of the gorge. Just stay very still."

"I feel like we've already climbed Mount McKinley--Denali, you called it."

"Don't talk."

He came very close to her, even putting one foot between hers where she was standing with her legs apart for better balance. He pressed her closer to the rock face. It almost felt as if she were sitting on his lap. She could feel his breath on her temple, stirring her hair. Her heartbeat kicked up even more than it had from fear. In the worst of extremities, why did she let this man who had deserted her and hurt her get to her like this?

"I see a place just a ways down where we can get onto another ledge to make it out," he said. "I'm going to take this weight off my back and drop our stuff down to the ledge below. Stand very still. I may have to press into you harder."

She closed her eyes and held her breath. Why a certain memory came to her then, she wasn't sure, but she saw--and felt--Mitch standing behind her on his boat, Sea Dancer, to help her handle her fishing pole when a big fish had hit off Key Biscayne in that warm, sparkling water. It had been a very calm day, no waves, no white water, no turbulence. They had just started dating, and she'd thought he was so perfect then. A combination of GQ magazine handsome and Pro Football Today rugged. Whether in a tuxedo or cutoff jeans, the man reeked of masculinity with his dark hair, square jaw and thick eyebrows over deep-set, coffee-colored eyes. His voice, somehow both refined but rough, sent shivers down her spine. Then they'd landed that big fish together and--

She felt him drop his pack and heard it hit below.

"How far down?" she asked, not daring to turn to look.

"Not too bad. I'm going to lie on my stomach, help you down to our stuff, then scoot down to join you. Here, turn carefully and sit on the ledge. You'll have to look down, just for a sec, so you know what I mean."

As he held her, she turned and sat. Pressing her back to the rock, she looked down and gasped. The ledge was at least five feet below and only about four feet wide! Although no water churned beneath them now, their escape route had narrowed so much that if they slipped, they'd be wedged in jagged rocks.

But looking left, she could see that from the lower level, they could work their way down to the valley that spread out below. And the most glorious sunset stretched across the sky, streaks of pink and orange and fuchsia. In blinding colors, it looked almost neon, like in The Wizard of Oz she'd been somehow thinking about--hallucinating--the part where Dorothy lands in Oz. This was the part where the movie went from being black and white to amazing hues.

"Lisa, you ready?"

"I better be. I don't see we have a choice. And, at least this time, I'm ready to ride off with you into the sunset."

The minute that was out of her mouth, she regretted the choice of words, but he only said, "That's one of the treasures of living in Alaska. This time of year, though you can't see the aurora borealis clearly, that kind of sunset will last all night."

All night. It must be night now, she thought as she somehow found the courage--or sheer desperation--to turn on her stomach and inch her legs and lower torso over the edge while he held on to her. She scraped her thighs, belly, breasts and chin while he slowly dangled her lower. After what seemed an eternity, she stood alone on the ledge, praying silently for his safety, while he scooted closer on his stomach.

"I said, don't touch me in case I fall," he gritted out, but she pressed her hands to the backs of his thighs, then to his hard buttocks as he came over.

"On second thought," he said when he finally stood beside her, "that felt great. Maybe you can boost me up there again and--"

"We're just hiking and camping buddies, remember."

"And we're going to have the time to talk we've needed."

"I'd like to say 'water over the dam,' but it isn't, is it? Not with either of us."

Pressing his lips tight together, he just shook his head, then bent to pick up their gear again. He slung the makeshift pack over one shoulder. "Let's find a good place to rest, and we'll get these shoes taped on you," he said, sounding all business now, just the way he always had in the office or in court when she used to study how controlled he was, how self-assured. Even that had moved her deeply, because she knew the other, passionate side of him, when they were alone--as they were now.

W

hen Spike told the search party what Christine had said about the kayak trail from the ridge to the water, many of them rushed to the river. A few went down to look at the exact spot, but most stood on the lawn of the lodge, gazing in the direction Mitch and Lisa must have gone in the two-seat kayak. Some whispered and shook their heads, then turned away, heading back to their trucks.

"But why?" Mrs. Bonner asked her husband. "Has Mitchell become such a daredevil in extreme sports here? He seemed all about safety rules and regulations yesterday."

"Life in Alaska can be an extreme sport," Spike said just loudly enough for Christine and Ginger to hear from his position between the two of them. The Bonners stood directly behind. "But something's weird--really wrong," he added.

"And I can't believe," Mrs. Bonner went on to her husband, "Lisa would agree to such a thing, not after losing her family that way."

Despite the fact Christine never would have let on she could overhear, Spike turned to the Bonners and said, "You mean her family drowned in a river?"

"An accident in the Atlantic--or maybe it was the Caribbean," Mr. Bonner said, frowning at the churning foam.

"What kind of accident?" Spike pursued, though Christine elbowed him as subtly as she could.

"Boating, not swimming," Mrs. Bonner said, sounding brusque. "Her mother and her sister drowned. It was a long time ago, but I'm sure it's something one never gets over."

That was sad about her family, Christine thought, but she couldn't help resenting Lisa Vaughn's continued sway over Mitch, her power to still hurt him. Christine had seen it in his eyes and heard it in his voice.

"I'm going to phone the state troopers," Spike told them. "I'm not sure what they can do if Mitch and Ms. Vaughn are kayaking the rapids, heading for the gorge, but they gotta be informed."

"Wait!" Mrs. Bonner cried, grabbing for Spike's arm. "I--I was reading online about Alaska before our trip and learned that law enforcement officials are really scarce and have to cover hundreds of miles. Maybe my husband can pull some strings to get some here."

"Here wouldn't help," Spike told her. "In that river they're long gone--from this area, I mean. But the local police may be able to get the Denali Park Rangers to help with the search way downriver. I'll call the locals and the feds."

He strode away briskly, with the Bonners following. Christine went, too, leaving Ginger with just a few stragglers to gaze out over the river. Spike muttered, talking aloud to himself as he often did, "They'll have to look for them below the series of falls in case they got around or over them."

"Falls?" Mr. Bonner said, his voice stern and clear, compared to his wife's sweeter tones. Christine had seen lawyers up close and personal. That's why the guests made her uneasy. She could just imagine Graham Bonner cross-examining someone on the witness stand. "Waterfalls?" he repeated in his clarion voice. "How many, how large?"

"Four fairly small ones, but any one could put you in that cold, rough river," Spike said, still walking. "Mrs. Bonner, as soon as I contact the police and park rangers, I'll take you up on that offer to fly with me for an air search."

"But with these rapids--and the falls--you think they can survive all that?" she asked, tears in her eyes and her hand clutched at her throat. "They are both very dear to us."

"Gotta try."

"Mitchell should have known better," Christine heard Mrs. Bonner mutter as the couple fell behind and she and Spike hurried into the lodge to make the calls. "Graham, it just shows you they are both a bit foolhardy yet, just when you think they'd learned to stay apart and away from all that past pain."

Christine stood next to Spike while he used the kitchen phone. She wrapped her arms around herself tight, as if to hold herself up. She shook all over and blinked back tears. If she lost Mitch, she lost her future. Mrs. Bonner was right. Mitch knew better than to risk the river, no matter what the reason. But she kept hearing Mrs. Bonner's last words: You think they'd stay apart and away from all that past pain...

She and Clay should have stayed apart. She should have left him--fled--but Yup'ik women were loyal and tenacious. She bit her lower lip hard, trying to stop the jagged memories of the lawyers picking apart her testimony about being beaten black and blue...all that pain...but she stayed with him too long....

But now--far worse--she knew Mitch had been gone on that devil of a river far too long.

Lisa hurt all over, as if she'd been beaten by someone's fists. Her skin, what she had seen of it before donning the wet suit earlier, was turning black and blue, even greenish in spots. A new fashion statement in an eco-conscious world--green blotches to complement her green eyes. She was so exhausted she thought she could fall flat on her face and drown in this shallow, spongy-bottom muskeg they traversed. But she went on, step after painful step, behind Mitch as he made a wobbly path for them around thickets and through grass and sedge in about one foot of water.

"How are those Mitchell Andrew Braxton designer shoes holding up?" he asked. He sounded and looked exhausted, too, plodding under the burden of that pack like some old, worn-out Santa Claus.

"They're a bit buoyant so I'm almost walking on this water."

"When we were first dating, I used to think you could walk on water."

"I know you keep talking just to keep me going, but I can't even concentrate--can't go on."

"You can because I see tundra instead of this muskeg ahead of us, and, I think, some berry bushes. It's about time for blueberries but that might be lingonberries, something like cranberries."

"I just want to lie down."

"We will, soon as we hit dry ground. By the way, in case an airplane should fly over, looking for us or not, raising two hands means we need help. Raising one means we're okay."

"I don't have the strength to raise one, let alone two."

"You know what? It looks like a patch of blueberries, so I hope the bears have left us some."

"Bears?"

"They love them. Come on, Lisa Marie!"

"I told you a long time ago not to call me that, even if it is my name. I hate my middle name. It reminds me of Elvis's daughter, who married Michael Jackson, no less. Married Michael Jackson!"

"Yeah, but they didn't last long. You know, it sounds like you're awake enough to be mad at me and at Michael Jackson, Lisa Marie."

"You're just trying to get me riled so I keep going to spite you."

"Riled? Now, isn't that a good frontier word? As it says on the state's license plates--The Last Frontier."

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that picture. And you're starting to sound like a travel brochure."

But she had to admit, as he'd said earlier, the sunset never ended. It was still glorious, a rainbow of hues that didn't just hang in the west but covered the entire sky. Mitch turned back to help her up to higher, dry ground. She didn't care what he said, if he insulted her or praised her. She sank down where she was, surrounded by some sort of spiky pink flowers. He dropped his pack beside her with a thud.

"I'll be right back," he said, jolting her alert again.

"Right back from where?" she blurted, getting to her knees to rise until she realized he might have to relieve himself. They'd both managed some privacy for that, on and off the ledge, but she seemed to have sweated all her hydration out now.

"I see a birch tree, and I'm going to use my knife to cut you some of the inner bark to chew. It's what the Inuit use for aspirin. I know you've got to be hurting."

Got to be hurting. When had she not? Actually, as sore as she was, as many aches and pains that plagued her right now, she knew from experience that this physical agony was nothing next to that of the heart and spirit.

She closed her eyes. Did she doze off?

"Chew this," Mitch said, already chomping on a piece of bark when he came back and offered her a short, white strip. "Honestly, it will help. Then, take my knife and cut some of these fireweed greens for us. They make good salad greens, even though I don't have a variety of salad dressings to offer. I'm going to get the backpack full of berries, and we're going to have a feast before we go to sleep."

"Sleep right here? Will it be safe?"

"You said you couldn't go on and neither can I."

They ate the last of their smoked salmon, gorged themselves on plump blueberries--the best she had ever tasted--and chewed fireweed washed down by river water. Mitch had made stoppers for the soda cans with plugs of neoprene so it wouldn't spill out. Neither of them said much, until she watched him spread out their tent, lie down and gesture for her to come into his arms.

"We can't sleep the way we did before," she protested. "Both in there, I mean."

Looking exasperated, he shrugged. "Suit yourself, but after being hypothermic, I'd think you'd want to keep warm. This cover is fine for two and, once again, we'll need the body heat. Nothing personal, Ms. Vaughn. Besides, I'm expecting some voracious females tonight, if I'm not covered up."

"What?"

"Mosquitoes. The females of the breed are vampires, you know, but I think we'll be safe from everything else."

"I've got this wet suit on under my clothes, and I'll put your backpack over my head. I'll be fine."

He snuggled into the canvas tent, and his voice came to her, muffled. "I thought you were exhausted. Say your prayers but quit talking."

She lay down about four feet from him. At least he could have let her use the tent he made a big deal of wrapping tighter about himself like a cuddly cocoon. Facing him, she curled up on her side and pulled her knees up nearly to her chest. What if a bear came by after those blueberries? She heard the high-pitched whine of a mosquito, and she swatted at it. But she was so tired, nothing would make a difference now, nothing....

She drifted away--away on the foam where her mother beckoned to her through the whirling white water.

"Well?" Christine said to Spike when he hung up after the second call to the authorities. "Can they help?"

"Yeah, but they wanted to know why he'd be crazy enough to kayak that part of the river. They said he had permission only to put rafts or kayaks in six miles to the west of here which is a good mile before all the rapids get dangerous."

"He knew that. I--I can't understand it either. Unless--"

"Unless what?" he said, turning to her. He looked into her teary face--he had never seen her cry--and put his hands on her shoulders. Big, warm hands when she was shaking all over. She lifted her hands to clasp his wrists.

"I don't know. Unless he was showing her something about the kayak, and it just took off with them in it."

"Not like him. Too crazy," he said, then leaned against the counter. He pulled her into his arms and held her tight.

For once she didn't flinch when a man so much as touched her. Her head found a perfect fit under his chin. Mitch always smelled of pine and fresh air, while Spike emanated Lava soap, gasoline, motor oil and his precious sled dogs. But she didn't care. She needed his strength right now, maybe more than that. She sniffed hard, then, instead of just standing stiffly in the circle of his arms, hugged him back hard, her arms around his waist.

"I don't think of you this way--crying and needy," he murmured, his lips moving in her hair atop her head. "You're always so strong, even...with everything. Hell, honey, got to get going," he said, setting her back and avoiding her eyes now as if he'd seen something there that scared him.

"You and Ginger stay near the two-way. I'm gonna go get the plane and fill it up, then take Mrs. Bonner up with me. Hard to believe it, but that little lady knows cockpits, loves to fly. Keep the home fires burning now," he added as he made for the door, nearly running into his sister as she came into the kitchen.

"Spike!" Christine called to him, and he turned back. "If you go right now, you'll have the sun in your eyes over Denali and the top of the gorge. You may have trouble seeing anyone. Just be careful...."

Had she called him back for that? He knew this area better than she did. Or was it that she just couldn't bear to let him out of her sight right now?

"I'll be in touch," he said, and hurried out.

In touch. She still felt his touch as she turned away from Ginger's probing gaze.

Lisa heard herself crying in her grief, howling inside her head like an animal in pain. She felt so alone since Daddy ran off with some woman, with Mommy and Jani dead. Grandma Colleen took her in and loved her, but it wasn't the same, wasn't right. Nothing was right until she made friends she clung to and then Mitch...Mitch, let her down, down onto the next ledge.

She dragged herself from the depths of sleep. Where was she? She saw strange colors overhead, more muted now.

She jerked fully awake. She was sleeping in the Alaskan wilderness with the man who had ruined her life but then saved it.

She saw he had moved a bit closer to her in the twilight. Yes, he'd said it never got dark this time of year. The sunset had faded to pale hues with cirrus clouds roped across the heavens. Mitch had been right--she was cold. But nothing compared to being in the river. Yet a chill snaked up her spine when she remembered that someone had shoved her in that river. Hadn't they? Jonas or Vanessa? Christine Tanaka knew where she was going and maybe knew that Mitch was running a bit late. Surely not the Bonners? Or could she have just stumbled and hit her head? No way had she been so drawn by that white water, felt so strange and guilty and then leaped toward it of her own accord.

The howling, long, low and lonely, came again. What was it? How close? Surely that was not a bear.

"Mitch. Mitch!"

He stirred, then lifted his head. "What?"

That horrible howling again. The hair prickled on the back of her neck, and her stomach cartwheeled.

"Just wolves," he said.

"Just? Then what are we doing here near them? They hunt in packs to eat big game, don't they?"

"My guess is they have plenty to eat out here besides humans. That's probably their version of a love song to a mate. I think they avoid people."

"You think they avoid people?"

"Yeah. Bears do, too, if you make enough noise--unless they're protecting cubs. Are you warm enough?"

"Not really."

"Since you won't sleep with me--you know what I mean--you could take my knife and cut some more fireweed and make a kind of extra blanket for yourself."

"I changed my mind. I want in the tent."

He said nothing, but unwrapped and lifted the edge of it for her. She scooted close, put her back to him and rolled inside the warmth and safety of his arms. Her cheek was on his bicep, as hard as the ground had been, but so comforting. She felt his hot breath on the nape of her neck, and her bottom pressed against his thighs. What would it have been like to have a lifetime of closeness like this with him, not forced but chosen? A relationship not damaged and broken but healthy and whole?

"When are we heading out?" she asked.

"Let's give it a couple of hours unless those howls get closer. Blueberries and water for breakfast, then we'll head for the river below the falls. The Wild River's not so wild there, divides into four or five more shallow braided streams where we can walk across. There's a road on the other side. We can hike out on it or maybe even hitch a ride."

"How long a trek?"

"Never walked it before, only seen it from the air."

He yawned, stretching a bit, flexing his muscles, then relaxing. She was panicked to realize she could feel his merest movement in the pit of her belly. Even in this tight wet suit, her breasts tingled. She had to get him talking, maybe really wake him up so they could push on now.

"I'm sorry I ruined everything," she told him. "I mean at the lodge, where you had those bonding activities planned for everyone."

"Yeah. The Bonners' bonding experiment."

"It's not fair if this disqualifies me."

"Maybe they'll see you as a survivor who can handle anything after this."

"I'd like to pretend so--that this is all some sort of test, and they'll jump out of the berry bushes and say, 'Surprise! You were just on Candid Camera,' or something like that. Then the emcee will say, 'Here in the Alaska twilight, we have seen how a wimpy South Florida native was saved from the raging river and taught to survive in the wilderness by--'"

"Shh!"

"Sorry. I'll shut up and try to sl--"

"Lisa, shut up! I think I hear a plane!"

He yanked their canvas cover open and jumped up. She heard it now, too, a much better sound than wolves howling. She staggered to her feet as he ran back toward the bog, into more of a clearing than where they were with bushes and birch trees.

"Damn!" he shouted, pointing back toward the river. "I think it might be Spike's plane, though there are lots of red ones. But it's over the gorge, heading west!"

"Can we wave something? If we only had something for a signal!"

"It may circle back if they're searching. If they've found evidence we put a kayak in the river, maybe they'll look below the falls, and that's where we're heading--right now. Come on. We'll sleep when we get back to the lodge. Let's pick some more blueberries and head out."

She helped him gather their goods and stuff them in the tent that made his pack. The drone of the plane faded, but at least it wasn't dark, and Mitch's shouting seemed to have made the wolves move on. Now they had to move on, too.

"I

t will take us an hour to hike around that lake up ahead!" Lisa cried after they'd walked about two hours. "How did the stream we've been following turn into a big body of water?"

"Beavers dammed it up," Mitch said. "See them over there?"

He pointed to a group of them. Each sleek, brown animal looked busy as a--Yes, an apt old adage, she thought. Every beaver she could see in or out of the water was either moving wood or gnawing at it, and their half-submerged, haphazardly piled homes were visible from here, a village of them.

As they got closer, Lisa saw the mud-and-stick dams were also embedded with rocks and tree trunks. "Amazing," she said. "And look at their little humped houses."

"They're called lodges. I own one Alaskan lodge, but they own a whole chain of them."

The sleek furry heads made little waves through the water as the beavers ferried logs, propelling themselves with their large flat tails. Several of the animals were quite close by, gnawing at trees along the bank of the lake.

"They're smooth in the water but clumsy on land," Lisa whispered, "but then we all have our own habitats." She thought of herself, a South Floridian, a fish--no, a beaver--out of water here in Alaska. And had she ever actually seen a beaver, even at a zoo? To be so close up, so intimate, was awe-inspiring. She could even see what appeared to be baby beavers, playing atop the dam, chewing leaves and twigs.

"Do they actually eat wood?" she asked. "It looks like they're chewing on the sticks for food."

"They eat the inner bark layer, something like the way we've been chewing on the inner birch bark."

Fascinated despite her predicament, Lisa moved a bit closer to the fringe of the pond, until a big beaver, glaring at her, swam closer and smacked its tail, spraying water. The splash resounded, echoed. She expected to see the other beavers scatter, but they didn't. The defender flaunted his big square front teeth and smacked the water again.

"Why don't the others hide if we're a danger to them?" she asked, despite the fact she could tell Mitch wanted to move on.

"He wants to scare you away, not warn them. Come on. We're rocking their boat, so to speak, and we have a long way to go."

"This place is starting to remind me of the Animal Planet cable channel, but close up and personal," she said as she turned reluctantly away.

"You must watch one hell of a lot of TV these days--this last year," he said, flexing his back muscles. "You've mentioned a couple of shows since we've been walking, including that Survivor show--though I could see why--and something about that old movie, The Wizard of Oz. Staying home a lot lately?"

That annoyed her. He was goading her, implying that since he'd left, she had no social life. Even out here, even if it was true, she wasn't going to let him get away with that.

"Of course, now that you're helping others bond and build great relationships," she said, her voice dripping sarcasm, "you're too busy and fulfilled to waste your time on such plebian pastimes as television. You've probably been using sad illustrations of your own family and former fiancee to contrast how great you are at personal relationships. Everyone in your past has been shallow and selfish--except you, of course."

He spun back to face her. "I came to a crisis in my life and thought I could count on the woman who said she loved me." He blocked the path and dropped his pack. "We've tiptoed around the big discussion we were supposed to have yesterday, but your sudden attack indicates the time and place is now." He crossed his arms over his chest. He looked big and forbidding, but so much had been building inside of her that she had to let it out.

She thrust her fists to her hips to counterattack his body language. "I loved the Mitch I knew," she insisted, "the one I thought was being honest with me about his and our future when we got engaged!"

"Yeah, well, people change and need help sometimes, and if you, of all people, haven't figured that out by now, I'll have to tell Graham you'll make a lousy lawyer in general, let alone a senior partner--or marital partner. You've had crisis points yourself and gotten help along the way, but evidently you can't accept the same for someone else."

"Oh, now we're to the nitty-gritty, aren't we? Back in your element, the man of clever words--talk about an attack!" She found herself flinging gestures despite how her arms ached. That was a nervous habit she'd worked hard to conquer, yet he was making her regress--in so many ways. She spit out the wad of birch bark she'd been babying, because it did help the pain, but it was keeping her from enunciating clearly. Most lawyers knew better than to tangle verbally with Mitchell Braxton, but she was determined to finally tell him off.

"You have no right," she rushed on, "to blame my childhood trauma for making me sound like someone who was so devastated that she can't give love or understand someone else's problems. Your childhood wasn't as hard as mine, but you've never gotten over being overshadowed by an older brother you thought your parents loved more! Well, that's nothing compared to what I've been through, but I've risen above it, so--"

"So, did someone really push you in the river?" he interrupted. He leaned back slightly on his heels, gazing down at her from his height as if he were about to pass sentence on her. "Or was that just a crazy whim of yours to get attention, sympathy from the Bonners maybe, or to make me feel bad--then, of course, it went awry, and you really did slip in. You told me once that foaming water fascinates as well as scares you. You underestimated the power of the current, didn't you? You could have killed us both. I rest my case."

"Your case is flimsy--worse than ridiculous! You think I'd so much as get near that raging river after what happened to my family? You're the one who's crazy, not me!"

"Evidently true, since I risked my life to come after you and am still stupid enough to care about y--Oh, hell, forget it. But you'd better be damn sure you don't get back to the lodge and start accusing someone of shoving you in or start playing detective when this could easily be all your own fault!"

He cut himself off, yanked the pack back into his arms, turned and started away, taking huge strides. She stood there for a moment, stunned. Her own fault...her own fault. Those words, that fear--maybe that truth--swam through her brain. What he'd said was true, partly. She had felt guilt over her childhood losses--not just survivor's guilt, but the guilt that maybe pulling away from her mother, instead of trying to hold her on the railing, on the deck, might have been the jolt that sent her loved ones overboard to their deaths.

So could she be punishing herself again by intentionally falling in, maybe even by throwing herself in the river? No, surely not, surely not.

Mitch had stopped and was looking back at her. "We're wasting time and strength, attorney Vaughn," he threw back over his shoulder as he started away again. "I suggest you follow in my footsteps here, though. If the Bonners ask me, I'll have to tell them you're too unstable to follow in my footsteps at the firm."

So maybe the Bonners were relying on him to help choose the next senior partner. Maybe she was unstable, but what about his picking up stakes and leaving all he'd ever worked for in Fort Lauderdale?

She wanted to scream that at him, but she was out of breath and had to hustle to keep up. That other Mitch, she had to admit, was not this Mitch who lived in Alaska. And she was indeed crazy to turn him against her, at least until she could get back to the Bonners and explain what had happened. But what had happened? They would all think she was demented if she accused someone of a premeditated, attempted homicide on the Wild River, with her as the intended victim.

They didn't speak for a long time, not until they finally arrived at the spot Mitch knew they'd find the braided river. He was still fuming. He supposed she was, too, and he was trying to convince himself that he didn't care.

"Damn." He summed it up when he saw their fording place.

"Oh, no," she agreed.

All along where the narrow riverbed finally widened to four shallow, snaking streams surrounded by gravel banks, huge brown bears, both in and out of the water, fished for salmon. Fourteen of the beasts ranged up and down the best crossing spots.

"I've never seen so many at once," he told her.

"It's a far cry from the serene, calm lake with the beavers. Violent but still awesome. So--real."

"Some of those are unusually massive, up to twelve hundred pounds, I'd guess. They're taking on fat to survive during the winter hibernation. It's an absolute feeding frenzy."

"They're beautiful in a scary way, so bulky with that huge muscle mass over their shoulders, and they're not just brown. Some look almost blond and some black, at least where they're wet. That icy water doesn't seem to bother them a bit," Lisa said.

Mitch saw she edged closer to him as they watched two bears rear up on their back legs to argue over fishing territory. She shuddered, yet her gaze on the fighting bears didn't waver. He was tempted to put his arm around her, but he just pressed his shoulder into hers to steady her.

"The bear version of fast food," she said, her voice not trembling when he'd expected that. "Takeout but not eat-at-home."

He almost smiled at her clever comments and the fact she seemed to look to him for protection, even at this distance from the big beasts. They watched in silence as razor-sharp claws speared the egg-laden fish heading upstream to spawn. Sharp teeth tore them apart, flaying the rich, red meat on the spot. The bears immediately devoured them, except for the big sow who was feeding two cubs.

Mitch finally said in a normal voice, "At least they don't seem to hear or smell us. With cubs present, you just never know how touchy and aggressive they can be."

"Like people," she said. "We really don't know some people like we think we do."

He thought about Jonas and Vanessa again, then his mind skipped to Ellie and Graham. He still couldn't get his mind around the fact that any of them would have pushed her, and no one else had opportunity but Christine and maybe Ginger. But there was no motive.

They both gaped at the bloody mess littering the banks where the bears heaved the fish remains before snatching their next prey. Occasionally, when one got too close to the other's territory, there was growling, shoving and swatting before they lumbered back to their task of gorging themselves.

"So much for trying to cross here," she whispered as they stayed hunkered down behind a rock. "Could we try it a bit upstream, even if it's deeper?"

"You're sounding brave all of a sudden. No, we can't take that chance. When you get back home to peaceful Fort Lauderdale, you can regale your friends with the fact that brown bears are called grizzlies outside Alaska, and that any bear anywhere always has the absolute right of way."

"Maybe that airplane will come back--or others."

"Bears or not, if the plane returns, it would be tough to land here even with pontoons. They'd need to send a chopper with a basket." He heaved a huge sigh. He saw her reach out to touch him, maybe even to try to comfort him, but then draw back. He cleared his throat, willing himself not to just pull her into his arms. "We're going to have to go downriver a bit farther where there's another way to get across," he said.

"But I can see beyond where the valley narrows, and it turns to one river again. Deeper with more rapids. Get across how?"

He turned to look in her eyes for the first time in hours. The mark of a good lawyer was to be inquisitive, to leave no stone unturned, plan ahead, no surprises. But he dare not tell her the truth until they got there and it was too late for her to turn back, or she'd balk for sure.

Why did this stubborn woman exert such a pull on him? Again, as at other points on this journey, he felt a surge of desire for her. He was impressed with her resilience after all she'd been through. But there was no one worse for him in this life he'd chosen and desired, so why did he still want her? He might as well propose to Christine Tanaka, take a chance on her despite her past. At least she loved this life and place the way he did, and was tough enough to flourish here. Yet soft city-girl Lisa, as banged up and scared as she still must be, managed to look back at him unflinchingly.

"I got us this far," he said, "so I'm asking you to trust me. Take it or leave it."

She bit her lower lip, then said, "I have to, of course."

"I don't want to hear 'I have to.' I want to hear 'I do.' You know what I mean--that you really do trust me to get us out of this."

"All right, to get us back to civilization, I do trust you. But you know what this scene reminds me of? And it's not some TV show. In a way it reminds me of what we call civilization."

"Wall Street devouring people's lives? Lawyers or businesspeople?" he asked.

"That's scary if we're starting to think alike. Yes, people doing anything to protect their profits and desires at any cost to others. Frankly, the bears remind me of some of Carlisle, Bonner and Associates' clients."

"Or fellow lawyers desperate enough to push a rival into a roaring river?"

Before she could answer, he said, "Come on, partner, we've got to push on." He patted her shoulder, hefted his pack and turned away from this dead end where he'd hoped to cross the river.

The moment Spike's plane landed, Christine and Ginger, followed by their guests, ran out on the floating boat dock to meet it. Christine had gripped her hands together so hard that her fingers had gone numb.

"Any sign of them?" Mr. Bonner called out before she could ask.

"Nothing!" Spike answered as he helped Mrs. Bonner climb down from the cockpit to the dock. He usually tied the plane at the other end of the lake, closer to Ginger's place.

"But then," Christine said, "that could be a good sign."

"Right," Spike agreed and threw his arm around her shoulders. No one said what they must all be thinking--no bodies or wrecked kayak, at least. She leaned into Spike. If any good came out of this, it was that she and Spike seemed to be more of a team. He'd always been wary of her, almost tiptoed around her, and she knew why.

Like most people in these parts, he knew her past. She prayed that wouldn't come back to haunt her if there was some sort of investigation here. After all, she'd probably been the last person to see both Lisa and Mitch alive. Iah! No, she would not think that way. Even if Lisa was a greenhorn around here, Mitch wasn't. But if Lisa's loss ended up harming Mitch, Christine would never get over it.

Her chin quivered and she almost burst into tears, when she'd vowed never to cry again after she'd been acquitted. That old, heavy weight of guilt sat hard on her heart again.

"What are we going to do?" Vanessa asked. "Should we fly home, or just wait around for--"

"No one should go anywhere yet," Jonas piped up. "We'll find them--local law enforcement or the national park guys will, at least."

"No, of course, we stay right here," Mr. Bonner said. "We have four full days left in our stay anyway. We've left capable staff behind. We do what we can and hope and pray for the best. Mitch was a great attorney. I just hope he's as good at what he does now. And Lisa's resilient and determined, however much she'd be out of out her element in these wilds."

Spike said, "We'll go back up again as soon as I refuel and get someone to feed my dogs. They're all out on lead lines without enough water to tide them over this long."

"I'll do it," Christine offered, surprising herself as she'd blurted that out.

"Better let Ginger, so you can still host the lodge guests," Spike said, giving her shoulders a little squeeze before he let her go. "But thanks for saying so when I know a dozen big hungry huskies aren't your thing."

"But they are yours so that's okay," she said, looking up at him. She felt a blush starting, though her tawny skin probably wouldn't give her away. Even with everyone looking on, even in these dire straights, she and Spike Jackson seemed to have a common cause that went beyond the lodge, even beyond finding Mitch and Lisa Vaughn. That bond certainly wasn't the dogs. Her husband, Clay, had kept snarling, half-hungry dogs, and any group of huskies still set her teeth on edge. No, their other common cause in this potential tragedy was taking care of each other.

Lisa could not get the sight of the bear-eating-fish carnage out of her mind. The river was both life and death to those determined salmon. And it could have been death to her, but--with Mitch's help--she had survived.

And those bears! At first the voracious bloodlust had horrified her, but she had swiftly accepted it as--if not beautiful--part of this beautiful, raw land. Survival. The basic elements of life. And yet in the midst of all that potential violence, there was a mother feeding her cubs, teaching them what they needed to know to flourish here in this land of stark contrasts and stunning sights.

Now she and Mitch sat on boulders at the edge of the beaver-made lake about a half mile from the river, but distant from the beavers themselves.

"It looks pretty deep here," she said, gazing into the lovely lake the beaver village had created. She was eager to keep the conversation on anything but their past. She shouldn't have argued with Mitch since she had to rely on him to get out of this wilderness.

"Yeah. Lots of pond vegetation down there makes that green, wavy look."

"I think I'm going to wash my face and hands here. The water's not as cold as--well, nothing I've ever been near was that cold."

She took off her denim jacket and rolled up her wet suit sleeves, then rinsed her face and hands in the sun-warmed water. She blinked beads of it off her lashes, then stared down into the green water at her own face, slightly distorted in the wavering reflection. Something shifted beneath the surface. It reminded her of her childhood nightmare, one her psychiatrist had helped her to handle. Her mother's face, more and more like her own as she grew up, was staring at her through a watery barrier, calling her, beckoning....

A burst of bubbles pulled her from her reverie. Bubbles from fish? Had a beaver come over? The silvery beads were in the shape of a question mark. She dangled her hands in the water, swishing the bubbles and nightmares into oblivion, staring into the swirls she made.

If she was sure she'd been pushed in the river, the question was by whom and why? A few motives were obvious--Jonas and Vanessa wanted the same fat fish she did from the river of ambition, but would they go so far as to push her in? The idea of the Bonners testing her was too far-fetched. She didn't dare to ask Mitch about his relationship to Christine, so her thoughts kept swirling, fading in and out.

Besides, she needed Mitch's help out here, despite the fact the so-called Alaskan frontier didn't scare her half as much as she'd expected. Once she was out of the river, that is. Even those bears flaying and gobbling down live fish--she accepted it. The howling of the wolves had a certain lonely, austere loveliness--at least that's the way she recalled it now. The beaver village was fascinating and the sunset stunning. Despite her agonizing over what she faced back at the lodge, she could almost--almost--have enjoyed at least parts of this adventure.

Perhaps this vast, awesome land helped to put things in perspective. Out here, her troubles back in so-called civilization didn't seem so all-consuming. The chance for her to be granted the senior partnership at Carlisle, Bonner & Associates might now be, sadly, gone with the wind, at least endangered, she admitted silently. But, if she had to, surely she could find another law firm at home and make her new colleagues a sort of family as the Bonners had been to her. Yes, she'd get busy as a beaver once again and make a new life, she tried to assure herself. She was learning to be a strong, independent woman, whether in the fun-in-the-sun southeast or here in the northwest Land of the Midnight Sun.

Maybe she should tell Mitch just that, since he'd said he was going to tell Graham she shouldn't be the one chosen--

Huge and horrible, the monster rose from the lake. It emerged just four feet from her with massive, bloody horns and the face of a furry ogre, snorting--

Screaming, she vaulted backward, flinging water as the thing came closer, looming larger. She threw herself into Mitch's arms and held tight with her heart slamming against her ribs.

"Moose, Lisa!" he said, picking her up. "It's a bull moose just coming up from where he's been eating those underwater veggies I mentioned. He's not dangerous unless you're another bull moose. He's just--magnificent."

"Oh! Yes. Of course. But his red horns--"

"Antlers. That stuff is the velvet he's shedding off his rack this time of year. Man, almost five feet across. That big boy's almost nine feet tall at the shoulders--wow! His antlers will be all bone so he can fight other bulls for the choice mates in the rutting season coming up," he said and bounced her once in his arms, as if to convey some secret, extra message.

"It--it just startled me. I don't know what I thought," she admitted as he put her down.

After staring at them, still chewing his cud, the big bull sauntered sideways in the lake, snorted and submerged again in a circle of bubbles.

"We're not getting much of a rest," Mitch said. She wasn't sure, but he looked as if he was trying not to laugh. Thank heavens, she hadn't been preaching to him what she'd been thinking about her independence and growing self-confidence here.

"I'm sorry I jumped on you," she said as she dried her hands on the outside of her jacket before slipping back into it.

"Just now or earlier?"

"You know what I mean."

"I think we could use some solid food, and those bears back there gave me an idea. I could probably catch a salmon with the corkscrew on my Swiss Army knife. Sorry we don't have a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse to go with it. We've got to use this four-pound stove I've been carting around for something."

And so, by quickly moving on in topic and place, he seemed to give her at least the remnants of her dignity back, Lisa realized. He wasn't such a barbarian after all. And now that she'd been back with him a while, she was starting to remember even more things about him. His instincts had always been to protect her, to coddle and spoil her even--that is, before his big, out-of-the-blue bombshell to move her to Alaska.

Anyhow, she sensed there was something he wasn't telling her right now, maybe about how they were really going to cross the river to get to that access road. If he thought she was going to walk across a big tree trunk over the rapids or cross in a boat someone had stashed, he was crazy. She'd stay behind, and he could send that chopper with the basket for her. No more white water, not even on a raft farther upstream from the ledge, where he'd assured them all that the river wasn't as rough as when it rampaged past his property. Again, she thought that maybe the plum position of senior partner at the firm was not worth some things. Not only almost dying but the vast beauty of Alaska made you think about what life was really worth.

M

itch was proud of the meal they'd just had, and prouder yet that Lisa seemed to appreciate it. For the first time since he'd left the lodge, he felt full. He'd caught a large salmon with a corkscrew, much like the bears speared their fish, and he'd cooked it on their small stove.

"Just like I've never had better blueberries," she told him, "I've never had better salmon."

"I don't want to sound like your idea of a travel brochure again," he told her, "but water tastes the best and food even better in Alaska."

"Yes, but there's something to be said for Florida lobster, stone crab and citrus salads--not to mention key lime pie."

"True. And I miss those things, but that doesn't mean I can't go back--to visit, I mean."

"You could become a snowbird."

"Maybe. For a month or two. If things go well here financially and Spike and Christine could keep an eye on things when I'm gone."

"I can tell she thinks a lot of you. I take it she's single."

"She is now. Her husband abused her."

"So she left him. Separated or divorced?"

He frowned out over the water. Everyone around Bear Bones knew, but he'd promised Christine he would never tell any of the guests, and he felt he should get her permission first before telling anyone, even Lisa.

"Separated," he told her. "Permanently because he died."

"Oh. She seems to have a mixture of sadness but pride about her. But I guess the Eskimo people have to be strong."

"Most people in the lower forty-eight don't know it, but the term Eskimo is about on par with calling Native Americans just Indians these days. We say Inuit or use tribal names. Like a lot of people in these parts, Christine's Yup'ik."

"I certainly don't want to offend anyone. I'm glad you told me. I didn't know."

There was a lot that she didn't know, Mitch thought, because he'd told her a couple of half truths--but with good reason.

They sat close together on the bank of the river. Though it roared past them again, it wasn't quite as fierce as it was near the lodge. But Mitch knew it was deeper, since it had picked up several other streams that fed it. Sometimes he could hear granite boulders, grinding, rolling along in its depths like distant thunder. He figured they were just around the bend from where their only shot at a crossing for miles would be, so he had set up their last stopping point here. They both needed strength from a meal. And, he feared, once she saw what he intended, he'd have trouble on his hands. He might have to overpower her and tape her hands and feet to get her across. He wouldn't even know about the way to the other side if he hadn't remembered what one of his uncle's hunting buddies had said about the crossing below the braided rivers. He prayed really hard that it was still there.

It bothered Christine that Spike had taken Mitch's chair at the head of the table for this very late meal, but everyone was famished. Ginger was the only one not there, because she had gone to feed Spike's dogs about a mile away.

Though they all desperately needed sleep and it was getting lighter outside again, no one had gone to bed, though she noted that Vanessa had gone up to take a shower, wash her hair and put on fresh makeup. Compared to everyone else, she looked rested and calm. Jonas had taken over the pacing Vanessa had done earlier, but it was actually Mrs. Bonner who had insisted on helping Christine get this food on the table. The woman was rock solid--going up with Spike, being such a support and pitching right in when she and her husband could have lorded it over everyone.

"I regret that the salmon's cold, but it would be dry if I rebaked it," Christine told everyone. Spike had insisted she eat with them, just as Mitch always did. If Mitch never came back...

"It's delicious--all of it," Mrs. Bonner said. "Salmon is excellent hot and cold."

"Christine's a great cook," Spike said. "And thanks for saying you'd stay and for buying the airplane fuel, sir," he told Mr. Bonner.

"Mitch was--and I only use the past tense because he chose to leave us for a different life last year--like a son to me, to us. Since I don't have an heir--"

"He means a son," Mrs. Bonner interrupted. "We have an heiress, a wonderful, bright daughter in law school who will join the firm next year."

"Exactly," Mr. Bonner said with a nod. "Just like Ellie's father, Cameron Carlisle, who mentored me and took me into the firm when I married his daughter, I had similar hopes for Mitch."

"That he would marry your girl?" Spike asked, a sourdough biscuit halfway to his mouth. Iah! If Christine could have reached him under the table, she would have kicked him.

"At least," Mr. Bonner said, "we had hopes that our Claire would marry someone who would take an interest in the firm--keep the majority of the control all in the family. When Lisa and Mitch announced their engagement, of course--and then Mitch left--the other was out of the question."

"That they were even dating," Vanessa said, "came as a huge surprise to everyone, because they kept it very sub rosa--secretive," she added as if Christine and Spike needed a translator.

"I certainly don't mean to rush anyone," Christine told them, pushing back her chair and starting to clear dishes, "but we won't be any good for the search if we don't get a little rest."

"Will the sheriff be coming out here, Spike?" Jonas asked. "Or the state patrol you mentioned? If they start asking questions, will you need some counsel around? If I can help you with any of that, just say so. I owe Mitch a lot."

"I'm going up in the plane again and I've got two other guys who fly to search, too. Christine's in charge here if there's any questions from the sheriff or troopers."

She almost dropped the plates she held. No way did she want to be answering any law enforcement questions.

Spike continued. "Still, the law better be looking for them and not wasting time here. See all of you in a few hours. Keep your spirits up. Just like Mitch was a good lawyer, he's a smart Alaskan, even though he's not lived here that long."

Taking a couple of his sister's homemade sourdough biscuits with him, Spike left to get the plane refueled. When Christine came back in to clear more plates, everyone else was still sitting there until Mrs. Bonner, then Vanessa, jumped up to help her. Though she would have protested that just yesterday, she nodded her thanks, because once she got everyone in their rooms, she needed to search Mitch's.

"I can't believe it!" Lisa cried when she figured out where Mitch intended to cross the river. "Another gorge starts here. This surely isn't where you said we could get to the other side. Do you have a boat here somewhere? The water's just as violent here as by the lodge."

"Not quite. We're not going through the water, but above it. See?" he added, pointing.

"What? No, I don't see--Oh. A cable goes from side to side. But we can't just hang on that."

"Come on. I'll show you," he said, setting out ahead of her again, climbing uphill on a rocky path as they had for the last half hour. "Up ahead, where that cable is tethered, is called a gauging station, a spot where scientists--hydrologists, specifically--used to drop a weighted plumb bob to measure the water's depth. I heard it was built by a geological survey team but was abandoned for lack of funds. Hunters use it now."

He kept talking. She could tell he was nervous, too. "It's like a little ski lift, I guess, with a cable car. At least that's what I heard from a friend of my uncle's. I'm just glad I recalled what he said."

"But that cable--"

"It's made of braided steel."

"I don't care. It sags. It's old."

He didn't answer as they neared the spot where the cable was connected to the gorge, bolted into solid rock on this side and attached to what looked to be about a ten-foot tower so it would be fairly level. But the so-called cable car was actually a big, aluminum bucket, a bit smaller, but shaped like the gondola baskets that hung under hot-air balloons. It measured maybe two feet by four feet, and its height might come to Lisa's chest.

"No way!" she told Mitch, and sat down right where she was.

"It's the only way across for miles. We'll be over the river in minutes, onto the access road and home quickly."

"My home is thousands of miles away. I'll stay here while you go and send help. But I don't think you should trust it either. I haven't looked down, but, honestly, I just can't do it, and it looks like we'd have to cross one at a time. Alone. The weight of one person in there would be scary enough, but two?"

"I'll test it first with a trial crossing. We can't send it over empty because it looks like the pulley system will have to be worked by hand to haul it up the last little distance on both sides."

"Even more than the worry about its condition, I just cannot go in or over this river. It almost killed me--that and whoever pushed me," she protested.

He came back, dropped the pack and sat down beside her with his knees bent up almost to his chin and his arms linked around his long legs. She thought he would berate her, but his voice was calm and steady, almost seductive.

"So how are you going to handle that when you get back? Call the sheriff in from Talkeetna and ask him to arrest whom? Pretend to go back to normal, trying to get the senior partner position as if you just fell in? Or do you plan to carefully investigate--try to discover or set up whoever shoved you?"

"You believe me now?"

"I'm just strategizing like I would with a client preparing a defense. Whichever of those paths you take, unless you're just going to run--and back to where, to the law firm where someone might have tried to kill you? Those are your choices. You and I made a good legal team a couple of times--the Dailey case, then the big casino money-laundering investigation. You cross that river, after I've checked out the steel cable and aluminum tram first," he went on, pointing down at it, "and I'm your sidekick private detective and co-counsel on this attempted homicide investigation. Even if someone ends up claiming they didn't mean for you to fall in that foaming, freezing river, we'll know who did it and can find out why. Or maybe we'll figure out the why first and that will lead us to the perp. It's possible that the why involves me, too."

"I'm remembering why you have such a great reputation as a persuasive attorney. But what do you mean it could involve you?"

"Two reasons. One, maybe someone didn't want us back together to talk things out."

"About our breaking up? Who cares about that but us?"

"We're just in the realm of 'what ifs' right now."

"Do you mean someone could be afraid we know about something they did?"

"Or didn't do. I don't know. I'm just fishing here again and not even with a corkscrew."

"Maybe Jonas or Vanessa thought I could sway you to tell the Bonners I'd be their best bet for senior partner. But is that enough motive to try to kill me?"

"I've been trying to reason it out, but I'm too exhausted to think straight right now," he said.

"But you have thought straight. I've been agonizing over the who and why, too, and if I just say I slipped on that ridge above the river it would give us at least a couple of days to investigate what really happened."

"One drawback here is that the perp would know you're lying about falling in."

"We could say I hit my head and couldn't really recall what happened. We could intimate my memory might come back, then set a trap. But we can't let him or her get wind that we're investigating. Once we get back, he or she will be nervous enough we've had some time to talk, to reason things out. Mitch," she said, turning more toward him, "you really do believe that someone pushed me?"

"Despite your love-hate relationship with churning water, I believe you would not jump in. And, even under duress and in pain, you've been sure-footed and brave on this trek, so I don't think you fell."

"Thank you. Even though we're not going to be life partners, I appreciate your advice and your offer," she said, putting her hand on his arm.

"So do we have a deal? After I test our tram, you will let me send you over to the other side before I join you there?"

She stared into his dark eyes, sharp and steady--stern but sweet. Yes, Mitchell Andrew Braxton had always shown a tenderness, a gentleness beneath his go-for-the-jugular instincts. But that foaming water would be under her, and she was terrified of falling in just like--

"Yes," she said. "I thought I'd never trust you again after we broke up, but yes. That much is a deal, and I am grateful for your help when we get back."

She stuck out her trembling hand to shake his. He took it, pulled her close and kissed her cheek. His beard stubble burned her sore skin, and his words and touch seared deep into her heart.

C

hristine knew she didn't need a key to get into Mitch's suite, because, so far at least, he'd never locked it. She ducked inside and quietly closed the door. It was a long shot, but perhaps she'd find something here that hinted at what had happened, such as a note from Lisa Vaughn. She was getting desperate. She could not lose Mitch.

She scanned his small sitting area--ever neat and tidy--and moved quickly to the big rolltop desk that had been his uncle's. She saw stacks of bills to pay, future reservations, some from Tokyo. Those guests would start arriving late next month. Though darkest winter was the best time for viewing the aurora borealis, it was possible to catch pale, wispy glimpses of its grandeur anytime soon.

Without going through his entire in and out baskets and desk drawers, she didn't see anything unusual, such as a personal note. If she had time for a more thorough search, she'd go through all that later.

But there was a wadded up, printed e-mail in the otherwise empty wastebasket. She picked it up, unwrinkled its violently twisted form and scanned it. She was sure it must be from Lisa and whatever it said had angered him.

But it was from his brother saying he was too busy to come this summer, and the kids would be in school in the fall, but he wished him the best in his "frontier adventure." Then a final line that revealed so much. "After all, Uncle John left that place to you, not me."

Christine sighed. Another family with damaged relationships as sad and bad as her marriage had been, as icy as the whiteout fogs in Fairbanks.

Mitch hardly ever talked about his brother, but he had his family's photograph prominently displayed on the desktop. She saw it was now lying on its face as if he'd knocked it over, but she'd looked at it several times. An eight-by-ten in color of his surgeon brother, Brad, his pretty wife--another blonde, so maybe both Braxton boys liked blondes--and their two kids, a boy about ten and a girl about six. No doubt, Mitch, too, longed for a family. Well, Christine was never going to have that and maybe Mitch wouldn't either.

She tiptoed into his bedroom, moving like a leaf on the forest floor. His bed was covered by a quilt in browns, muted blues and greens. The bed was carefully made, though she'd volunteered when she first came to make it every day. He'd told her she wasn't a hotel maid but the lodge manager and chef, and that had given her an early glimpse into the heart of the man.

She scanned the top of his bureau, his bookshelves, the compartments built into the headboard of his bed. Why he slept in a king-size bed, she hadn't asked, but maybe it was because he was restless at night, thrashed around a lot. Maybe like her, he had bad dreams.

The folklore of her people taught that each human being had a joncha, a secret identity linked to an animal the person could contact through dreams. When you discovered which joncha was yours, the old belief was that you could change into that animal at will, but were also plagued by its weaknesses.

Her joncha was the silent, stoic and observant wolverine. Though Spike and Mitch weren't Yup'ik, she pictured Spike as the powerful but sometimes bumbling bear. Mitch Braxton was an eagle, wise and daring, but one who could be snared by wanting too much. She'd seen an eagle try to snatch a too-big salmon from the river and get pulled under, his talons caught in the flesh of the fish, the river pulling him down to destruction, just like Lisa Vaughn might have ruined his life--again.

She collapsed on the edge of the bed, put her face in her hands and sobbed. But did she hear footsteps? Could Mitch be back?

She bolted off the bed, nearly slamming into Spike as he came around the corner and looked in.

"What the hell are you doing in here!" he demanded, striding in and grabbing her hard by her shoulders, then pressing her between the wall and his big body. She hit hard at his hands and kicked at his shin, though he barely budged. Memories of brutality, of beatings, roared at her.

"Don't grab me like that!" she cried.

He released her immediately, but shouted, "You told me you weren't sleeping with him!"

"Don't shout. I'm the lodge manager, and I came in to see if he'd left any clues behind, that's all."

"You haven't answered my question."

"It wasn't a question but an accusation. You think that of us, you ask him when he gets back! Iah!"

At first he seemed angry, but she saw realization dawn on his frowning face. "I--I didn't mean to hurt you--or remind you of...him, your husband. It's just--I lost my head. My temper. I won't grab you like that again, I promise."

Linking his fingers and putting both hands on top of his head, he leaned back against the door frame and stared up at the ceiling. "Sorry. I blurt things out. And I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's all right--this time. We're all on edge."

"Truth is, I just checked Lisa Vaughn's room."

"Anything there?" she said, glad for the shift of subjects as she subtly smoothed the sleeves of her blouse he'd wrinkled.

"Her room's a lot messier than here. Christine, I really am sorry," he said, finally looking at her and folding his arms over his chest.

"I'm flattered you were upset and happy you can humble yourself to apologize."

"It wasn't personal--just...I gotta go. I'm taking the plane up again."

"With Mrs. Bonner?"

"She's like that bunny in the battery ads. Yeah, she insists on going, and they're paying for the fuel again. They're probably used to buying anything they want, but I still like both of them." He lifted one hand and started for the door before turning back.

"I think," he said, "after she fed my mushers, Ginger went to look for Mitch and Lisa over near her place again, even though the kayak obviously went into the river. She--when she gets something in her head, there's no stopping her. Gotta go," he repeated and hurried out.

Lisa told herself to breathe. In, out. Calm, steady. Just breathe.

But she could hardly stem her terror as she watched Mitch unhook the basket--thank God, it was on this side of the river--and climb into it. This was to be the test run, but she suddenly didn't even want him to do that. What if it dumped him into the raging torrent? She couldn't bear to lose him, her rescuer and ally. And her partner for what might turn out to be an attempted-murder investigation.

"Help me hold it steady until I let it go," he told her. "Then stand way back. Don't look down at the river. You do not have to look down." Then, he added, so quietly she could hardly hear over the roar of the water, "How about a kiss for luck?"

He quickly kissed her cheek but then he molded his lips to hers with one hand behind her head to hold her to him. His mouth opened slightly, exciting, enticing. A jolt of power shot through her, nose to toes. The kiss made her feel she was in the basket with him, flying, looking down over a whirling vortex.

"Okay, get back now," he said, freeing her. "And when I return, you may have to help me get the tram back up here, because it looks like the cable dips on this side a bit more than on the other. Watch how I use the pulleys to give a hand-over-hand pull up at the end of each side. Let go, get back! Here we go!"

We, he said. As if they were indeed a team. She stood back, her hands pressed over her mouth and her spine pressed against the solid rock into which the cable had been grounded. Still, her legs trembled. She watched wide-eyed as he hunkered down a bit in the basket, edging it out over the void--and then let go of the pulley and flew, down, away, the hook screeching over the steel cable until the river devoured the sound.

He slowed in the sag of his steel lifeline, dipping to maybe twenty feet above the river. It seemed an eternity to her before the aluminum tram slowed as it started up the other side of the cable, where he had to use the pulleys.

Instead of going clear to the tower, he let go again and came flying back. On this side, he didn't even have to pull himself up very far. When he was over solid ground, she held the basket to stop its rocking. She smiled through her tears, and he gave a little cheer.

"Not much different from a roller-coaster ride at Disney World!" He exulted, looking like a boy who would love such a ride. "Your turn."

The time had come to face her worst fears. She'd promised him, but she hadn't looked down yet and now she would have to. No way could she make this trip with her eyes tightly shut.

Mitch clambered out.

"What's downriver from here?" she blurted.

"Don't start thinking too much. If you must know, miles away, massive Denali Park--eventually, the Bering Sea and Russia--okay? Just concentrate on the here and now. You'll be fine."

He lifted her up to swing her into the basket, but she held hard to him, her arms around his neck. She pressed her cheek to his despite the stubble of his beard.

"Mitch, if anything happens, I'm sorry about what I said about your family and your brother. I'm sorry I couldn't change enough to move here with you."

Holding her, he kissed her again, hard, a rotating, grinding kiss that she felt in her bruised lips and deep in her belly. "We'll work everything out back at the lodge," he told her, breathing hard in unison with her.

He put her down in the basket that reminded her of a big tin can.

"Kneel down and hang on," he ordered as he shoved the basket away. "See you on the other side of this big river."

"Mitch, I can't--"

She wasn't sure what she was going to say, but he gave a last little shove and the basket fell free of solid ground. She closed her eyes and let out a little scream as it careened away, faster, over the river that had almost killed her. Someone had wanted that, someone had tried that.

In the central sag of the cable, she imagined herself crashing into the current. She fought hard to keep from seeing Mommy and Jani disappearing into the depths again. Terrified she'd fall into the roaring foam, she gripped the sides of her little basket so hard her fingers went numb.

Then the basket slowed. What if it stopped, dangling her over the water so Mitch had to come across it hand over hand to save her?

She opened her eyes and saw she was almost at the tower on the far side. Don't look down, she told herself in a frenzied little mantra. Don't look down into that screaming white water.

Looking up at the cable line, she feared it would snap, but it held. Shaking hard in the swaying basket, she reached up and worked the pulley the way she'd seen him do it. Yes! Yes, she was over land, but what if this thing took off before she was out? What if it didn't get back to bring Mitch over and she had to walk out of here alone? He'd said there was an access road if you just walked south, but she was terrible at directions and she'd be so alone in all this vastness. And with the roar of the river, they wouldn't even be able to shout back and forth across it.

But as she got out and felt dry, firm rock under her feet again, feet still covered with the shoes Mitch had made for her, she heard an inner voice clearly say, You can do whatever you have to.

Shivers shot through her. It wasn't her mother's voice that she so often tried to remember. It wasn't her psychiatrist's from long ago. It wasn't even Mitch's, though it almost could have been. Perhaps not even the Lord God's or some kind of guardian angel's. It was almost as if this vast, powerful land had spoken to her, taught her that she could survive despite her fear of the raging torrent of troubles or the unknown side of some deep, dark chasm.

As she waved across to Mitch and shoved the basket out so it would return for him, she made a vow. No matter what, with his help, she was going to find out who had tried to take her life and why.

"T

hanks for your help!" Mitch told Gus Majors as he drove them onto the lodge property in his rattle-trap pickup. Gus was a big bear of a man, and Lisa was squeezed in between them. The pickup was old enough that it didn't have seat belts, or else Gus had ripped them out.

Gus ran the hunting supply and hardware store called Whatever in Bear Bones, and did taxidermy work on the side. Like Spike, he ran a team of sled dogs. Many Alaskans held numerous jobs to survive. Like some other local guys, Gus had never married--literally not enough women to go around. He'd tried to court Ginger for a while, which Mitch figured took nerves of steel, but nothing had come of it. As a matter of fact, Mitch had heard the two former lovebirds had had a shouting match in town at the Wolfin' Cafe a few days ago.

"We really owe you, Gus," Mitch added.

"Naw, glad me and old Betsy was comin' down the road. Bad huntin' for moose, but good for lost neighbors, eh?" Gus said with a slap at his steering wheel and a hearty guffaw. "You'd a done the same for me, Mitch."

With a honk-honk of Betsy's horn, Gus hit the brakes in front of the lodge, and the three of them piled out.

"Glad to meet you, too, Missy," Gus added, snatching off his Yukon Quest ball cap when Mitch helped Lisa down.

Mitch waited for her to correct Gus. Though he called most women Missy, she'd probably think he'd forgotten or screwed up her name. She'd had a habit of correcting people's pronunciation in practice sessions before they went on the witness stand, when Mitch had always thought they should just be themselves. But now, to his surprise, she gave Gus a hug.

"Mitch saved my life," she told him, "but you saved us from a long trek back, Gus. I'm glad to meet you, too, and you're invited to the lodge, for dinner on me, before we leave."

"Just better not have Ginger there, too, then," he said, "because--"

He stopped mid-sentence as Christine tore out of the lodge.

"Thank God, thank God!" she cried, and hugged Mitch hard before holding him at arm's length. "Iah! What happened?" she asked, staring over his shoulder at Lisa before looking back to him.

"Cu'paq, thanks for holding down the fort."

"We were worried to death. We've even got Denali park rangers looking for you way downriver. Spike's been up a couple of times with Mrs. Bonner, and they just got back. I'll go tell them...."

She turned and ran for the lake.

"Best be goin'," Gus said, shaking Mitch's hand and patting Lisa on the shoulder. "Now don't you think nothin' of it--all in a day's work 'round here. Right, Mitch?"

They waved to him as his truck chugged away. Jonas and Vanessa barreled out of the lodge with a beaming Graham Bonner right behind. Spike and Ellie came running from the lake, with the little woman in tears but managing to keep up with Spike's long strides. Spike slapped Mitch on the back, and Ellie hugged Lisa, then him. Mitch noted Ginger kind of edging around the corner of the lodge, hanging back, watching rather than joining the party. Either she'd seen Gus here or just didn't want to get in the middle of all the hoopla. She seemed a sort of split personality at times--sometimes private, other times almost pushy.

Everyone spoke at once, asked a hundred questions, but always the big one. "What happened?"

"Lisa?" Mitch said, turning to her.

"Things are really fuzzy," she told them, as everyone hushed. "Besides the shock of the icy river, I must have hit my head at some point, because I can't recall exactly what happened. It may come back to me. Some things have. Right now I only know that Mitch got in a kayak and rescued me at this end of the gorge. I had hypothermia but he saved my life by getting me warm again."

Mitch noted the toss of Vanessa's head and the roll of her eyes. She glared at Lisa before she managed a merely concerned expression. Why did that woman always suspect the worst? Could she still be fuming that he and Lisa had managed a secret relationship? Just a couple of months before he had started dating Lisa, Vanessa had aggressively propositioned him at a New Year's Eve party, and he'd turned her down. Jealousy was always a powerful motive for revenge. Maybe, in this case, exacerbated by the fact the Bonners had forgiven him and Lisa. Maybe Vanessa could not stand for Lisa to best her again if she got senior partner.

Lisa was winding down her succinct explanation. "We had to hike out through the swampy muskeg to dry tundra and then to a spot we could cross the river to the access road where Gus Majors picked us up."

"Right." Mitch backed up the story they'd decided on. "I first spotted her clinging to a rock near here--I'll point out which one later. I moved the kayak from the lake to the river and went after her, even when she got swept farther away. We've had a real adventure hiking out, but we're both exhausted, aching and starved--"

"But if she hit her head and can't recall, she'll need a doctor," Ellie said, wringing her hands. "Being battered in that river, a thorough checkup is in order. She's all black and blue--as if she's been beaten."

Mitch and Christine exchanged a quick look as Lisa insisted, "I'm fine now, really. Mitch made sure I didn't have a concussion. I think it might just be the shock of that cold water that's jumbled my memory for now. I'm even getting used to walking off my aches and pains."

"Walking all that way in those shoes?" Vanessa asked, pointing. Everyone looked down at the beat-up, makeshift padded cloth and duct tape shoes Mitch had made for her.

"Yes," Lisa said, tossing her head so her already wild hair flew up in the breeze behind her, making it look as if she was in an electromagnetic field. "Ironically, Mitch made them for me from a life preserver. Alaskan wilderness chic, I think."

"My shoes were too big for her, so we had no choice," he explained as he took her elbow, and they started toward the lodge.

"All she's been through," Graham said, keeping up, "makes me think she has the stamina and courage to fill your shoes at the firm. Lisa, if you can't take part in the other activities we have planned, I won't hold it against you."

She turned back to face him and Ellie. "Despite what's happened, I'm blessed to be alive and well. But I want to be a part of things here. Unless I have to get back in that rough river--"

"No one does," Mitch cut in, "because when we get to our river day, we're going way upstream where it's a lot calmer, and we're going in a big multiperson raft--and not until the very last event."

Mitch heard Jonas mutter something to Vanessa but he couldn't catch it.

"Graham," Mitch told his former mentor, "we've got a few days left before you leave, so how about full steam ahead with our plans? That is, after a hot meal, a good soak in the hot tub and some sleep?"

"We never gave up on either of you," Graham said as he walked between Mitch and Lisa with his hands on their shoulders and the others scurrying to keep up. "And it looks like you've worked together as a team again, just as you did at the firm."

Mitch saw Vanessa's frown deepen, and she elbowed Jonas, who just shook his head. Christine ran past them, hopefully to get some food out. And so, Mitch thought, unless Lisa really did hit her head and hallucinate being pushed into that violent river, building their case against someone here had begun.

As she stood under a pounding, hot shower, Lisa tried to calculate the time they'd been gone. It seemed to have both stood still and flown while she and Mitch had been in the wilds. Besides, she needed to think of something else besides this water sluicing over her, however good it felt. She had to establish a timeline, so she could track everyone's moves back here and eventually test their alibis. Hopefully with Mitch's help.

The Bonner party had arrived at the lodge on Tuesday and she'd been pushed into the river the next day, late afternoon. The fact that the sun never really set had made it seem as if they'd been gone for only one long day, despite the fact she and Mitch had huddled together in that little tent twice.

The first night had passed while they had edged away from the river and seen that glorious sunset and hiked to the blueberry bush and gotten some rest. Then only one more long, light-filled day had passed before they finally crossed the river at the gauging station. It was now the second night. She was so tired and full of Christine's good food, her body was aching for bed. Yet her mind was still alert. Coffee and chocolate always got to her like that, but her anger over what had happened--and the panic someone might try to harm her again--beat any other stimulant, however exhausted her body was.

Could Vanessa and Jonas be somehow working together? They had seemed to be sticking tight when everyone had greeted them. But they, too, were rivals, so why would they be in collusion? Besides, surely they were smart enough to know that once a criminal told someone of the crime, or had someone abetting it, secrets would get out. Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, as the old saying went.

Besides, she couldn't just suspect the two obvious people. Christine seemed possessive of Mitch and moved on deer's feet. If anyone could have sneaked up behind her on the ridge path, it could have been her, because the woman knew she was there then. Spike could also resent her. He might be afraid she'd hurt someone he obviously looked up to. Perhaps he was afraid that if she and Mitch reconciled, she'd get him to move back to Florida. She had to learn more about his staff from Mitch, if he wouldn't just defend them.

She finally climbed out of the shower and toweled off. She'd shampooed her hair so she blasted it with the blow-dryer, still thinking, agonizing. Yes, this twilight--she couldn't think of it as night--must be the end of Thursday, and they weren't supposed to leave until next Tuesday morning, so she and Mitch had four full days. Graham had called the time left a "few days." She had to move quickly, not waste even one day recovering. It was high time to find a killer who now might want to correct the problem of her surviving the river.

Though the bed beckoned, Lisa pulled on her bathing suit--she'd looked like one big bruise in the steamy bathroom mirror--because she knew Mitch was going to soak in the lodge's large outdoor hot tub and she needed to talk to him. She didn't want anyone--including him--to see her knocking on his bedroom door. If others were in the spa, it would just have to wait. Taking a fresh towel and donning the thick, white terry-cloth robe the lodge provided, she went out and down the hall.

Through the next room's closed door, Lisa could hear Vanessa talking, but to whom? Cell phones didn't work here, and no room had phones, though, ironically, since the great room downstairs was equipped with Direct TV, the guest rooms offered Internet service. Could Jonas be in there with Vanessa?

If she had to pick one or the other as her number-one suspect, she'd choose Vanessa, but Jonas was desperate for the promotion because of his financial obligations with his sick son. He didn't know it, but she'd seen him playing online poker on his laptop one time when she went into his office to ask him a question. And she'd accidentally taken a call for him once from a collection agency. So how desperate was he to make senior partner? Did he see her and not Vanessa as the front-runner?

She stopped in the hall, tempted to put her ear to Vanessa's door, but then realized she was not talking to someone, but chanting some hip-hop song in Spanish. The woman who had clawed her way up from a Miami barrio was proud of being fluent in her native language--such a help in a South Florida law firm--but not proud of the tough past she tried to hide. Her father was in prison, and she was twice divorced before she was thirty. Talk about ambitious men having starter and trophy marriages on their way to the top--don't mess with Vanessa Guerena and, unless you're a useful or wealthy man, get out of her way!

Lisa went downstairs and out onto the stone-flagged patio that overlooked the lake. It was under the wooden deck above, which was really on the first floor, for the land sloped down to the dock. She could see Spike's bright red plane tied up there now instead of at the far end of the lake. With her flip-flops making a gentle slap-slap sound, she walked past the sauna. It looked like a small log cabin, off a ways by itself, with its wood burner standing outside it. She knew how good a sauna would feel, but Mitch was in the spa, so that's where she was going. She passed the stone barbecue and a bonfire pit on the way to the big hot tub Mitch was soaking in. Though he had not turned on the overhead light, she could see he was alone.

Like an emerald set in azure mist, the water, lit from below, bubbled and steamed around him. She hesitated. The roiling water produced roiling foam. For one moment, her waking nightmare leaped at her--her mother's face staring upward from fierce water, haunting her head and heart. Lisa blinked to clear the vision.

Eyes closed, Mitch was leaning back against the side but looked back to reach for a plastic glass and saw her. He seemed surprised, but he'd mentioned it before and repeated to her quietly after dinner that he'd be here.

"One of the perks of civilization," he said and stood to lift a hand to help her down the steps. Water slicked over his muscular shoulders and chest. Surely he wore a swimsuit in there. She shed her towel on the bench where he'd put his and gave him her hand to step down into the warm water. The black bikini she wore seemed out of place here in the Alaskan wilds. She saw--and felt--his eyes on her, riveted.

"Did you think I'd stay out of anything larger than a bathtub?" she tried to kid him, but her voice sounded shaky.

"No, I just knew you were exhausted out of your mind."

"I am, and you must be, too, but that doesn't mean I can sleep. But you don't think I'm out of my mind, or you wouldn't have agreed to help me," she said, settling into the warm foam, clear up to her shoulders. They had things to decide and do, so she had to keep on track.

It was a big hot tub, but she sat close so they could talk. She hoped the others wouldn't be showing up. From her bedroom window, she'd seen Vanessa, Jonas and Graham use it the night they arrived. So, she encouraged herself, since she was remembering all sorts of details, surely she was correctly recalling being pushed into the river.

They had to raise their voices slightly to be heard over the spa motor and gurgling water, so she looked around--even straight up at the veranda over them--to be sure they were alone, then moved closer to him on the curved tiled bench.

They discussed Jonas and Vanessa. She told him she remembered that Jonas might be in debt not only from medical bills but from gambling. He told her Vanessa had not composed her face fast enough upon realizing that they were safe. "You don't think the two of them could be in cahoots, do you?" she asked.

"Probably not," he said, sinking down a bit so his chin nearly rested on the water. He hadn't shaved yet after their ordeal; the stubble shadowed his face. His eyes were deep in darkness. Although he had eaten enough for two men at dinner, he had a sort of gaunt-faced, hungry look. He didn't seem to be moving or even listening, but his hand touched her thigh, then took her hand and held it. Their fingers intertwined. That simple, strong but gentle gesture hit her harder than if he'd grabbed her and kissed her again.

"Working on this, together, we've got to remember that the walls--even the trees--have ears and eyes," he said. "We're looking for someone, but someone may be watching us."

"I know. I feel it, too. Like that time we were both being tailed when we were on that money laundering case--the one Graham took away from us because he was afraid we were going to get hurt, even that organized crime might be involved. I wanted him to keep us on that, but he said our safety came first."

"Yeah. Or second at least, after the firm's good name."

"I can't believe you said that."

"Graham's a great guy, just like Ellie's father was, but they didn't get where they are, with all those powerful clients, just playing patty-cake. Hardball, more like."

She sighed. "I know." She was surprised at his criticism of Graham because the older man had seemed to fill the void in Mitch's life left by his yearning for his parents' and his older brother's approval. "But," she went on, trying to stay on track, "when the Bonners were raising money for Ellie's brother to run for state senate, they did everything aboveboard--no big lobbyists or other donors who would want a favor later--and look how well he's done. I suppose Graham's told you that Merritt's on the short list to get a cabinet position if the Democrats take back the White House."

"Ellie told me. You think I don't read papers or see the news up here?"

"You pooh-poohed my watching TV, but let's not get into that again."

"What should we get into again, sweetheart? Other than a hot tub?"

"When you rub your thumb on my palm like that, I can't think. At least it's better than our yelling at each other."

"Yeah, and I don't think a bull moose is going to rear up out of here, but you never know about a bull of a man. As I recall, you once called me a bull in the china shop of your life."

She laughed, but her voice sounded rough, low. She wasn't sure if he was trying to tease her or seduce her, but she had to get out of here, and now, because she was getting crazy--crazed--enough for him that she didn't care who saw them do what. "Your memory is too good," she said. "But I need to ask you one quick thing. How are we going to set things up for tomorrow so we can keep an eye on everyone? I could say more memories are starting to come back to me, then see who reacts how or tries to corner me."

"I'm going to tell everyone at breakfast that we're going to see Spike's sled dogs, even ride behind the teams, see how everyone does learning something really different."

"Without snow--the sleds have wheels?"

"It's how they work the dogs in the warm weather. Yeah, you go ahead and say something like that, but then don't get out of my sight in case someone does try to corner you."

"There are risks involved, Mitch, and we--I--may have to take them. Whoever shoved me in the river is hardly going to take out a gun and shoot me. I'm going to have to get alone with them individually, give them a chance to make a wrong move. And that reminds me, even though the site where I was pushed has surely been compromised by now, we should look at the scene of the crime, but I'm not going back there alone."

"I'll give it a quick early-morning search, but I probably obliterated footprints or anything else when I shoved that kayak up and over the ridge. I'll watch you walk to your door and you try to get some sleep," he said. "I'm hitting the rack really soon."

They stood, and he gave her a hand as she climbed out. She wrapped her robe around herself, then bent down to whisper, "I'm glad the lodge is online even if cell phones don't work here. I'm going to do background checks on our possibilities."

"Fine by me."

"Mitch, I--I think that should include your staff bec--"

"Whoa--"

"--because they might have been panicked I'd try to take you away or angry because I hurt you before. They're very loyal, at least Spike and Christine, especially Christine--"

"They wouldn't shove a guest in that raging river," he said, forgetting to keep his voice down. "Christine and I are just friends and coworkers who admire each other."

She opened her mouth to tell him he was blind if he thought Christine only admired him. Another woman could tell she adored him at the very least. Besides, he was so protective of the woman, just as he had been of her. But she just nodded and said, "Good night," and walked away before they could argue more.

From her room upstairs, Lisa looked down to see if she could tell if the underwater hot tub lights were still on. They weren't, so Mitch must have quickly followed her inside.

The sunset was smeared across the sky again, but not quite as colorful as the one she'd never forget. The twilight it cast was about that of a full moon. But then she saw a form move in the dusk, coming from the corner of the lodge, the same spot where Ginger had hovered when they'd returned. She couldn't tell if it was Ginger or not. Wouldn't she have gone back to her cabin at the other end of the lake by now? Her boat wasn't in sight.

It was just dim enough outside and the deck slanted at such an angle that she could not make out who it was. Probably not Spike or Mitch--too short, though the figure was slumped over and her perspective from this height distorted things. Wouldn't Graham's or Ellie's white hair show up, though the person could have on a hoodie or hat. He or she seemed to retrieve something from near the hot tub, then moved slowly back inside. Perhaps someone had been down to use the spa earlier and had left a watch or something, at least on one of the other benches she hadn't used.

Still in her bathing suit and robe, barefoot, Lisa tore into the hall and went partway down the stairs, stooping to see who had or would come in from the stone patio. No one. No one, at least, she could see.

Then Christine passed from somewhere below and went down the short hall into the kitchen with something in her hands. Such strong hands. She moved so silently.

As exhausted as she was, Lisa went upstairs, locked her bedroom door, looked in her closet and under the bed--even behind the shower curtain. Then she wedged a chair under her doorknob and took out her laptop to search the Internet for "Christine Tanaka" + "Yup'ik" + "Bear Bones, Alaska."

L

isa found nothing about a Christine Tanaka in her search, but then newspapers seemed scarce here on the Alaska frontier. Of course she hadn't seen the nearby little town of Bear Bones yet, and they were not going into larger Talkeetna until Saturday for something called--of all things--the Mountain Mother Contest, but she had seen no newspapers around the lodge. Small Alaska towns might have weekly papers or even monthly ones, she thought. She could try accessing the extensive personal information banks the law firm paid for, but then her search would be recorded for her coworkers to see.

Frowning, her bloodshot eyes almost crossing from exhaustion, she skimmed down through later pages of search entries. One had hit on Christine and Yup'ik. A Yup'ik woman, Christine Kagak, had been tried for the murder of her husband in a trial where she claimed to be an abused woman.

Lisa clicked on the article and watched wide-eyed as it filled the screen. Could it be the same woman? Yes--a photo of her, leaving the courtroom in Fairbanks four years ago. Damn! Mitch said her husband died, not that he'd been murdered by Christine! Acquitted. She'd been acquitted! Her heart thudded as she forced herself to read slowly.

YUP'IK WOMAN ACQUITTED OF SHOOTING HUSBAND

By Sara Whitehead

Lisa realized she wasn't breathing. She exhaled slowly to steady herself. Now she knew what Mitch had called Christine when she greeted them today--Cu'paq, her Yup'ik name. And she knew who made the exquisitely detailed dolls in the little library off the great room.

But beyond all that, she now knew what Mitch wasn't telling her. Could she trust him to help her, or was he withholding other things she should know? At least she'd found the truth about Christine's past. Lisa's heart went out to her for being a battered woman rejected by her people. But she had killed a man to protect herself. Would she try to kill a woman to protect the possibility of losing Mitch or the safe haven she'd evidently found here?

Lisa kept going back to one line of print, one thought. When Christine's first attempt to stop her husband didn't work--shoving him down the stairs--she had found another foolproof way.

Mitch came late to breakfast as everyone--including Lisa--ate heartily. She knew she'd need her strength today. Despite being upset about Mitch's covering for Christine, Lisa had eventually fallen asleep last night, but had plodded from nightmare to nightmare, not about her mother this time, but of herself tumbling down stairs into the river.

"Sorry to join you late," Mitch said as he seated himself at the head of the table, facing Graham at the other end, and reached for one of Ginger's huge blueberry muffins. Christine immediately appeared from the kitchen to pour him coffee, leaning close over his shoulder from behind. That move seemed so intimate to Lisa. And strangely nostalgic, too, for her grandmother had been a wonderful baker of muffins, pies, cookies and breads. She'd taught the art to Lisa and handed down her recipes, but Lisa hadn't had the time to bake those favorite old pastries for years.

"At least," Mitch went on with a nod Lisa's way, "I finally got everything settled with the Talkeetna sheriff and the state troopers. The Talkeetna Good Times wants to do an article, but I told them no interviews now--though they may show up anyway. I'll talk to them later. The article won't be out until Lisa's long gone--back in Florida, that is."

Graham, halfway through a stack of sourdough hotcakes, said, "I knew you could patch things over, handle it all without a ripple. You always were good at that."

Lisa saw Mitch's face light up. The two men had always had a mutual-admiration society going. She knew Graham and Ellie had once hoped Mitch might link up with their daughter. But surely, the fact he'd chosen Lisa instead was not motive enough for murder. No, that was too far-fetched.

She wondered how was she going to get Mitch alone with everyone around and a full day planned. She had to confront him with his skirting the truth about Christine. Or should she not bring that up and just see how far he went with half truths when he had vowed to help find her would-be murderer? Lisa had seen how he'd protected her in the river and on their trek back, but now that they were here, maybe he was protecting someone else.

"I was able to smooth things over with the authorities because it was an accident," Mitch said, ladling strawberry jam on his muffin while Christine put a plate of eggs and venison sausage in front of him. "Of course, if there were any hint of foul play, the Talkeetna sheriff--and I--would be all over things."

"Foul play?" Jonas said, with a sharp clink of his fork against his plate. "You've got to be kidding. Who would push or throw Lis--"

"No one here would," Mitch cut in. "That's why it's back to normal today."

Mitch's mere mention of foul play had taken Lisa, as well as everyone else, by surprise. But she'd looked carefully, quickly at each face, exactly as she had last night when they'd told everyone the details of their ordeal. Mitch's ploy was a tactic she'd seen him use in court more than once. An apparently off-the-wall question, a bolt from the blue, the sudden reversal of direction. She should be used to it by now, especially since it was exactly the way he'd handled telling her he wanted to move to Alaska.

She noted that Graham had merely frowned. Spike looked so shocked he still held a big piece of his sourdough hotcake on a fork halfway to his mouth. And she'd seen that Jonas and Vanessa had exchanged swift looks.

"Lisa's falling in the river's a sad and bad enough event as is." Spike broke the silence. "So, thank God, it was just an accident and not deliberate. No one here would hurt any of our guests."

Lisa noted Christine said nothing but went back into the kitchen. Ellie, ever the upbeat, complimentary hostess, even when it wasn't her party, said, "Let's put that potential tragedy behind us, as Lisa has been brave enough to do, and treasure this day and this lovely place. I always like to look at the bright side of things. We are in a beautiful place with a fun day ahead. Breakfast has been hearty and delicious. Why, these pastries and breads are fabulous. I'd like to have a chat with Ginger about some of the recipes, though I'm sure it's the local ingredients that make the difference. Lingonberry tarts--it's a whole new world here. My, but she's a clever one to turn all this out each day, because I saw she has a hurt hand."

"Yes, ma'am," Spike said, obviously relieved at the change in topic. "An injury when our dad cut a tree down years ago. She uses a wood-fired cookstove and oven, too, pretty much one-handed."

That probably eliminated Ginger as her assailant, Lisa thought. Whoever had pushed her had used two strong hands.

"Ah, her kitchen would give a glimpse into the pioneer past," Ellie said with a sigh. "I'd love to see Ginger's cabin, if she wouldn't mind a visit. I believe she is rather a private person. Perhaps you can tell me more about her later, Spike."

Lisa downed her coffee and peered over her cup rim. You'd think that Ellie, instead of Mitch, had been enlisted to investigate suspects. Though Ginger hadn't pushed her, she might inadvertently provide more background on Christine or Spike. "I'd love to see her place, too," Lisa said, "if you want someone to go with you later, Ellie."

Evidently not to be outdone, Vanessa chimed in, "Me, too, but I'd be even more excited about seeing how Christine makes those gorgeously detailed little Eskimo dolls in the other room. I'd love to buy one or two."

The conversation segued to their walk to Spike's place about a mile away. When he described it as being in the woods, Graham excused himself and went upstairs. He quickly returned with a wooden-framed picture he'd obviously taken off a wall--no, Lisa saw it was a framed quotation.

"Mitch," Graham said, "I hope you don't mind if I share these lines with the others. Mitch has this hanging in his suite upstairs."

Lisa put her cup down with a too-loud clink. Graham had not only been in Mitch's quarters, but had felt he could go back up without permission and take something out. Maybe they'd planned more than just sporting activities. Maybe Mitch was helping with the Bonners' selection process and this was somehow a setup.

"Sure," Mitch said, "but I'll bet some of you know this already. It's my favorite quote."

"Thoreau, from his Walden Pond," Graham said, turning it toward himself to read, "'I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.' No doubt," he said, "Lisa and Mitch learned a lot about themselves these last difficult days, facing life and death."

Though Lisa was strangely touched, she noted Vanessa narrowed her eyes--an almost feral expression flitted across her face.

"I believe," Graham went on in his deep, oratorical tones, "we'll all learn a lot--and Ellie and I will learn what we need to know to decide."

"Alaska does that," Lisa said, almost before she realized she would speak. "It teaches you about yourself--but a lot about others, too." She leveled a look at Vanessa, then Jonas, then Christine, who was refilling Jonas's coffee cup, but looking up for once. Lisa looked at Mitch last. No one blinked; they all seemed frozen in a tableau as if waiting for her to add something else. Finally, Vanessa looked down at her empty plate. Mitch dared a nod and a smile at her, but it was Jonas who finally spoke.

"Anything that's a challenge does that--my son's illness has made me do things I never thought I'd do."

"Emerson's a brave kid," Graham said, somehow managing to break the tension as he reached over to squeeze Jonas's shoulder. "Let's make sure we get some pictures of you with Spike's huskies, because your boy will love that. Maybe we can even send some to him online before you get home. Okay, everyone, see you on the front porch in about fifteen minutes, then off we go into a part of that other world Ellie mentioned."

It's another world all right, Lisa thought, recalling her hallucinations about being in the land of Oz when Mitch rescued her from the river. No one was in Kansas--or South Florida--anymore.

Christine had no intention of going along with the guests to Spike's place, but both he and Mitch invited her. At least with so many other people around to see the huskies, it would be an opportunity to try to get over her nervousness. Clay had often abused his dogs, and they'd been snarly and nasty. She could understand why, but they'd been frightening to feed. If animals reflected their master's personalities and the treatment they'd been given, surely Spike's dogs would be happy and well-behaved. Still, she had a big knot in her stomach.

"I'm glad you came along, Christine," Lisa told her, dropping back to walk with her. Vanessa looked at them, but stayed next to Jonas. "I hear you made those beautiful Inuit dolls on display in the library and wanted to tell you how amazing they are."

"Did Mitch tell you that? Most visitors don't know to say Inuit instead of Eskimo."

"He told me about saying Inuit or Yup'ik, but not about the dolls. Vanessa mentioned it. So, you seem very content here at the lodge. Are you from this area?"

Mitch had told this woman she was Yup'ik, so what else had he told her? Christine wondered. "From Fairbanks," she said, "but I like looking forward, not back. And yes, I'm more than content here. I've finally found a good job--a home."

She glanced ahead at Mitch, leading the group with Mr. Bonner beside him. They were strung out on their walk to Spike's place along the forest path lined with thick birch and alder, overshadowed by the occasional tall Sitka spruce. This was one of the hiking trails groomed for cross-country skiing in the winter. It was at least ten degrees colder here, and she shivered. Ahead, Mrs. Bonner was now walking between Vanessa and Jonas. Other than snatches of conversations, Christine heard only birdcalls and the crunch of last year's leaves underfoot and the bear bells Vanessa carried, though bears would never bother a group of people. And she heard her own heartbeat and too-rapid breathing, not from the walk but from this talk.

"I hope," Lisa said, "you can give me a little advice about Ginger. She seems to like her solitude, so do you think she'd mind if some of us visit her, or should we ask her first--maybe have you do it for us?"

"Most Alaskans value their privacy and independence. But I'm sure she'd like the extra money, too, if you'd want to buy some of her baked goods to take home. She's saving money to pay Spike back for all the wood he cuts for her, though I don't think he'll take a dime, even with the cost of airplane fuel. I'll ask her when she brings tonight's things--late this afternoon."

"Late afternoon? Oh, yes, I saw her boat just before I fell in the river. I remember that much. But I'd appreciate it if you ask her. I'll try to head Ellie and Vanessa off at the pass if they plan to visit her earlier. Please tell her we'd like to place an order for some items--which reminds me again, as Vanessa mentioned, do you sell your dolls?"

"I made those several years ago, but I'm pretty busy here. I used to make them not just for money, but to preserve Yup'ik ways, but now I just have other interests. Mitch wanted them on display there, not me..."

Her voice trailed off. She hoped that didn't sound lame or rude. In a way it was the truth. This woman Mitch had almost married was watching her very closely, out of the corners of her eyes. Iah, that was the look of a lawyer, all right.

"Sorry," Christine blurted, "but I need to talk to Mitch about something for later. The hand-cranked aurora borealis ice cream, our special surprise for all our guests."

Though Christine had no question about that or anything else for Mitch right now, she forced a little smile and hurried faster before Lisa Vaughn could ask her more questions.

Jonas came back to walk with Lisa shortly after Christine left. "I just wanted to tell you something I hope helps," he said. "I was in a real bad car wreck when I was eighteen--I wasn't driving. Anyway, I got banged around pretty good, even with a seat belt on--concussion, brief coma. But what I wanted to tell you is that, even though I recovered--no residual problems--I never could recall the wreck itself, or what led up to it, the few minutes before the car rolled. Hopefully, your memories of that tumble in that monster river will be just like that."

"Hopefully?"

"Yeah, you don't want to be reliving that over and over in your mind. Just let it be blanked out--the things surrounding it. Is that the way it is for you, just a blank right before and during your fall?"

A chill snaked up her spine. Jonas was trying to find out how much she could recall? But why? Just sympathy and support? Or was he desperate to know if she'd seen or heard something--someone? Maybe him.

"That's the way it was at first," she told him, keeping her eyes on the forest path, hoping he wouldn't see the lie on her face--lawyers were skilled at psyching such things out. "But I really feel some of it's coming back to me, bit by bit. I really think I will recall everything."

"Well, sometimes it's best to just let tough times stay buried. You know--considering where we're headed--to let sleeping dogs lie. Can't wait to see these huskies. In photos they seem to have the bluest eyes. Never had a job interview, so to speak, where the criteria had to do with racing dogs and zip lines and river rafting. What a resume we're going to have when we get out of here. I was really nervous about all this at first, but what could possibly happen on a dog sled, especially one on wheels on grass in warm weather?"

He sounded nervous. Very nervous. Either from what lay ahead or what she'd said. "I would have agreed with you a few days ago," she told him, "but what could happen just standing on an elevated path between a lovely lake and a white-water river, right?"

"Famous last words, you mean?" Jonas said with a forced laugh that showed his white teeth.

Sharp teeth, Lisa thought, as they came into the clearing where Spike's property began. Teeth like the beavers cutting down trees or bears ripping apart river salmon. However much Mitch had not told her about Christine, she had to at least find a way to get him alone to tell him about Jonas.

L

isa thought Spike's Siberian huskies were beautiful. As Mitch had said about the moose that had terrified her at first, they were also majestic--their thick, silvery coat hairs tipped with gray or black, their deep-throated, eager barks. They sounded like howlers, but her feelings toward them were a far cry from hearing the wolves that night in the wilderness. The dogs had perky ears and curled, wagging tails and alert, sky-blue eyes. She could tell how much they wanted to please their master, especially when they saw him pull the three-wheeled sleds out of the storage shed.

"Okay, here's some info before I hitch four dogs to each of your sleds," Spike announced as everyone gathered around him at the gate to the dog yard.

Lisa eyed the metal and wooden sleds, mounted on sturdy-looking wheels for the dogs' summer exercise. "I'll give some background on mushing and how to handle the teams, because you'll each--Lisa, Vanessa and Jonas--be getting a chance to control one of these sleds on a short run thataway," he said, pointing.

All around them, grass about a half-foot high and white wildflowers blanketed the clearing, blowing like green waves with whitecaps, like river foam. Lisa could picture the dogs rushing into it, pulling her deeper into a whirling current of green and white...She jerked alert. That memory, that vision, had sneaked up on her like it used to. A flashback of being in the river, or of losing Mother and Jani again. Or was she still so exhausted she'd dozed off for a microsecond, falling into the dream that had haunted her for years? Mother's face through the blurry barrier, her voice calling, calling, "Come with me--come on." Her mouth open, her eyes wide from behind the glass or water or--

Lisa shook her head to clear it and forced herself to look around at the here and now, to recognize reality. Spike's log cabin and his dog yard were in a large, oval-shaped clearing on the edge of the forest they had walked through from the lodge. The huskies lived in a miniature fenced-in village, where each dog had one of the small wooden houses set in two neat rows.

Spike had said the dogs slept, ate and played with their neighbors, stealing bones or nipping at ears or tails, but they were always ready to run. Ready to run. She could recall Graham saying, "So, are we ready to run?" more than once before a team of Carlisle, Bonner & Associates attorneys went into court on some huge corporate lawsuit or defamation trial. Not "are we ready to go" or even "ready to rumble," like Vanessa sometimes said, but ready to run.

"Here's the main thing," Spike told them, stepping up on the back of one of the sets of runners elevated on temporary wheels, as if he were on the witness stand, testifying in court. "It's easy to feel out of control on a dog sled, but you have to control yourself and the dogs. If you don't display leadership to them, they won't bother to obey you. They're intelligent pack animals, but they need to be led. To their way of thinking, I'm the alpha dog here. Likewise, you need to keep control while you're each in charge of four of them."

So, Lisa thought, this activity did make some sense in a race to see who could assume the leadership role of a senior partner. She tried to focus on Spike's advice. He seemed totally in his element here.

Vanessa asked, "Are their doghouses really warm enough in the brutal winters? You know, animal rights and all that."

"Sure," Spike told her. "Just take a look at their coats, even thicker than that in the winter. The breed can withstand temps as low as seventy-six degrees below Fahrenheit. Their cold months are like how Florida feels to you in the winter. Still, I keep lots of straw in the houses, the same houses that give them needed shade in these warm months. Like Mitch and me, these dogs thrive in Alaska.

"The word musher can mean the drivers or the dogs," Spike went on. "When it's the dogs, there's two kinds of mushers, the long-distance ones or the sprint mushers, like mine. They run shorter courses at faster speeds than those in the Iditarod or Yukon Quest races, but these are my kind of dogs."

"Fast dogs and fast airplanes for Spike Jackson," Ellie said.

"You got that right, Mrs. Bonner. Okay, just a few instructions, then we'll try it, maybe get us a little race going, since you're all here for a race for the senior partner position."

So, even Spike knew Graham and Mitch's game plan, Lisa thought. Not as much bonding as competition, at least in this activity.

"You stand back on the runners, see?" he went on, demonstrating. "And you hold on to the handlebow, this piece here. And I do mean hold on for dear life, 'cause the dogs will yank and lunge at first, though it's a smooth ride--'specially in snow--once they get going. Their towline's attached here to the front of the sled, see? There's a foot brake here for slowing or stopping," he said, demonstrating it, "but you really got to lay into it. The dogs will be harnessed, but there's no reins."

"Then how do you steer?" Jonas asked.

"Fortunately, on this run, you don't have to worry about a lot of commands to your lead dog and team. All you've got to know is my dogs follow the command 'mush!' to get going and 'halt!' to stop. Lots of folks these days use 'hike!' for the start, but that sounds like football to me. I like the old ways. I still use leather towlines 'stead of that new, fancy polyethylene rope, too."

"But on grass like this," Vanessa said, "we won't go too fast, right? I'm as raring to go as these dogs and love the speed of water sports, but a group of dogs pulling all this weight--on wheels--can't go too fast."

"Just remember," Spike told her, "these dogs are bred to run, so once you're on and moving, don't try to get off. And, like I said, don't let go, or you could get throwed."

Don't let go and keep control. Lisa clung to Spike's words of advice. That was the key to sprint racing behind sled dog teams, but it was also the story of her life right now.

Christine hated to admit it, but she was forming a grudging admiration for Lisa Vaughn. First of all, for someone to survive the Wild River was awesome, as if the woman had a supernatural protector way beyond Mitch. While Spike was hitching four dogs to each of the three sleds, Christine poured coffee into cups Spike had set out and just watched the others.

She noted that only Lisa was showing any interest in the dogs themselves right now, and they were the engine that made everything run in a race like this. Vanessa, who looked like she could have stepped out of one of those luxury-goods catalogs Ginger was obsessed with, stayed clear of the excited animals and sipped her coffee at a distance. Now that was body language to show what she really felt about this opportunity. Jonas had Mr. Bonner taking photos of him with the dogs in the background. Mrs. Bonner and Mitch were talking off to the side as Christine moved closer to Spike.

"They're great-looking mushers," she told him. "You take good care of them."

"Glad you came along. Yeah, they're tough and feisty, real special. It's my honor to care for them. I swear, some of them are smarter than I am. I control them only to the extent that we make a good team."

She had to smile at that. And the warm--even hot--look he gave her was a revelation. His eyes burned into hers, went down her body, then up like a caress before he turned away to bring up the next dog to its place on the towline. Iah, but she felt like he'd really touched her. Little butterflies beat in the pit of her belly. It was the closest she had ever felt to him, and yet there was a big dog between them.

"I just had a bad experience with them before," she tried to explain. "With some huskies that weren't loved but abused. Since yours are raring to go, I guess I'd better not pet one of them."

"I'd say pat, instead of pet, but sure you can," he told her. "You gotta be a bit strong with them or they won't even feel it. Even in these warm months, their thick coats are like armor."

His eyes devoured her again. Was he talking about being strong with the dogs or with him? Christine gave the one he'd just harnessed a good, strong pat on the back.

Clay's dogs had been howlers and growlers, as if he'd left them behind in the yard to keep her in the house. But this husky wagged his tail and gave her almost a grateful look. She blinked back tears at how good that felt, like she'd connected with this powerful animal. She sucked in a deep breath, held it and let it out. Something sharp and hurtful inside her uncoiled. It was like the armor that had kept her from Spike and Spike from her had a chink in it. But she was still scared of the feeling of trusting him, so she blurted out, "Lisa said the ladies would like to visit Ginger's place, but I don't know. I'll ask her."

"I know. Suggest to them that they go one at a time," he said as he brought the next eager dog over to be harnessed. "If they want to place bakery orders to take home when they see her kitchen, she'll probably say it's okay. I could stop by her place if she'd rather have me there."

"Wait till they see it," Christine said, patting this dog, too. "Little House on the Prairie with Neiman Marcus, Gucci and Tiffany catalogs all over. Yeah, for the extra money, I bet she'll agree."

"Okay, listen up, you mushers!" Spike called out. "I'm almost done here, then a few more instructions. You'll be taking your teams in a straight line to the edge of the clearing, so just let them run. See that barrier of straw bales down there by the trees? You should try to stop them with the brake and yelling, 'Halt! Halt!' But if they don't, they'll stop at the bales. There's only one little dip in the course, a pretty straight shot, but if you want to walk it first, go ahead, then get back here for 'on your marks, get set--go!'"

He lowered his voice and looked at Christine again. "You want to try this sometime, just let me know. Or I can put you in the sled and off we go. Well, darn--a poet and I didn't know it."

He grinned as he went to get the first dog for the last sled. Christine gave the nearest husky another strong pat, and, smiling, went over to clean up the coffee cups.

Lisa surprised herself. Her insides were doing flip-flops when she didn't think driving a husky team on a sled--with wheels, no less--would bother her at all. Besides, after being in that monster river, as Jonas had called it, she didn't think anything would scare her again.

Just as when she was assigned to a new case, she'd done her best to assess this situation. She'd examined a sled close up, talked to the dogs, patted them, observed how eager they were to please. She had skipped the coffee, even though Spike had said anyone who wanted to could use the facilities in his log home. Anytime she got keyed up, she felt she had to run to the bathroom, and coffee wouldn't help.

She had only examined the course to the dip in the blowing grass, though the others were walking the entire distance. Looking at Jonas and Vanessa ahead of her, she realized she should have gone with them instead of continuing to study the dogs and the sleds, because she wanted to see how comfortable her rivals were together and around her.

It was still a long shot that they were working together against her, but they could have made a pact to reduce the senior partner candidates by one. After all, how many coworkers had tried to sabotage another's career? She'd had several defamation and discrimination cases based on that sad reality and had won good settlements for her clients, too.

She saw Mitch was finally alone, coming out of Spike's cabin, and she strode straight toward him. "Mitch, I need to talk to you privately and that's obviously easier said than done. I don't mean here--no time."

"I know. Rather than sneaking off the lodge grounds or whispering in a corner--or sneaking into each other's rooms--let's just make the lodge wine cellar our meeting place."

"I didn't see a wine cellar on our tour."

"I never show it, my ultimate sanctuary. The small door in the reading room goes down to it. There's a light switch at the top of the stairs. An underground room in Alaska is really rare with the permafrost and rock barriers under almost everything, but Uncle John dug it out bit by bit over the years. Close the door behind you and watch the steps going down, but once we're there, it's soundproof. Midafternoon, about three, okay? If someone's in the reading room so you can't come down then, we'll get a Plan B. Here comes Graham, so if you found out anything, save it until then--unless it's life-and-death."

You might know he'd put it that way, she thought, annoyed at him again for what he hadn't told her about Christine's past.

"One quick thing," he added, and she turned back. "Before breakfast, I went out and checked the site where you fell in. No telltale footprints since you and I, then Christine and Ginger, were all over the area and my shoving the kayak through obliterated a lot."

"Ginger was there?"

"She's the one who spotted the kayak trail from the water and told Christine. She said Ginger picked up the cooler you dropped and gave it back to her. They saw the food being eaten by a wolverine they surprised at his feast. So--site of the crime--nothing helpful."

"Hey, you two," Graham greeted them. "With all the time you had wandering in the wilderness, I'm glad you still have things to say to each other. I know there were hard feelings on both sides for a while, and I was hoping this visit would allow you to settle things before you both go back to your own worlds."

He stood between them, holding one of each of their upper arms so they were facing each other. Lisa had been planning to ask Graham to give her away at their wedding. Their positioning reminded her of that, as if Graham were ready to hand her over to Mitch at the front of the church.

"No, really," Graham went on, "did you get the past settled while you were gone? You used to be quite a legal team for us."

"Yes, we did reminisce a bit," Mitch told him. "Cleared the air, which is clear enough in Alaska anyway."

"I must apologize again for taking you two off the casino money-laundering case right after you told me you'd been seriously--secretly--dating, but, as I said then, I didn't mean it as any sort of censure or punishment. You know I was starting to have a concern that some of our clients or their competition were playing too rough, trying to find out how much we'd dug up."

Lisa said, "Being tailed and having my condo and car bugged with a listening device was a pretty good hint someone meant business. But it was a key case, Graham, with important repercussions to expose people in high places. We would have both stuck with it--"

"Except then," he interrupted, "when you didn't stick together personally, everything changed. Then, with Mitch leaving, I just couldn't have you alone on that case, Lisa."

"I'm glad you took her off it," Mitch admitted, "but Jonas could have come on board. I was surprised you got permission from the court to withdraw from the case, yet didn't report the harassment we were getting. Frankly, I was afraid someone had gotten to you--threatened you--to make you back off."

For a moment Graham looked furious. His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed, but he quickly got control of himself. "No, nothing like that," he insisted, shaking his head and finally letting go of their arms.

"Yeah, but I could smell a distant rat behind our client's maneuverings," Mitch argued. "I just wonder how far the stench would have gone up the trail if we'd pursued it."

"Up the trail?" Graham challenged. "I'd say more like down to the dregs of society. Some sort of mobster or even foreign scum. So, did you two ever find--"

"Okay, mushers, let's go!" Spike's voice resounded. "And remember the key term for when you want your dogs to start running. I'm not gonna say it yet, or you'll be chasing your sleds. You'll shout the word. And don't use it unless you're set for a big jerk into action."

Lisa, Mitch and Graham went over to the starting line. "Just remember, hang on," Spike repeated. "Lisa, your sled is over there on that far side, Jonas in the middle, Vanessa here."

As she'd seen Spike do, Lisa climbed up on the back runners. They were plenty wide for her feet but were off the ground the height of the eight-inch wheels. She gripped the bar as he'd showed them and pressed the brake hard, to see how much it gave. "All right, boys and girls," she said to her team of four jumpy dogs, in the calmest but sternest voice she could manage, "we're going to win this race."

"Lisa," Jonas said beside her. "Graham's going to take pictures of me for Emerson, so could you and I switch sleds? That way I'd be on the outside where he can get better shots."

"I guess so," she said. "The sleds all look the same."

She jumped down and switched with him, talking now to these four eager dogs. Had Spike put Jonas between her and Vanessa's sleds because the middle team needed stronger handling, or had it been random? Whatever. She could handle the middle position.

Spike had his back to them as he talked to Vanessa. Did she need extra instructions or courage? Lisa heard her say, "These pets of yours are way bigger than my chihuahua, that's all!"

"These are working dogs!" Spike said, evidently not getting the humor. Then he bellowed, "Okay, everybody. Three, two, one--let's go!"

Lisa managed to shout "Mush!" to her team before the others did. The dogs jerked and strained in their harnesses; the towline pulled taut. She shot out in front, but the other two teams were soon nearly even with hers. The lunging huskies got the sleds going fast, faster.

It was exhilarating. As fast as on the river, but, thank heavens over solid ground and green grass. She felt she was flying, like riding the outer edge of a huge cresting wave. A sense of power, her own and the dogs', filled her. She held on for dear life, as Spike had said. Hang on--keep control. She had to control her investigation into who pushed her, but keep Mitch on her side, too. The wind whipped her hair. Was that just from her speed, or was a storm coming up? Beyond the forest, the cumulous clouds looked like snow-topped trees, and the lofty Talkeetnas speared the endless azure sky.

The dip in the ground came closer, closer. The dogs took it at full speed, down--up. She bounced hard at the bottom, almost off the runners, but held on. Vanessa was way behind, and Jonas...

He gave a shout, almost a shriek. Lisa turned her head only to see him fly backward off the sled while his team rushed on, dragging their towline while his empty sled slowed and stopped. She stepped hard on the brake, shouting, "Halt! Halt!"

Vanessa's dogs, then her sled, whizzed past as Lisa's team slowed. She stood on tiptoe on her sled and windmilled her arm for help from the others, then jumped off and ran to Jonas. He lay flat on his back in the grassy swale, staring straight up at the sky, not moving. Was he in shock? Paralyzed?

"Jonas?" she cried, kneeling next to him. "Jonas, are you hurt?"

Nothing at first. No response. It brought back to her the way she felt when Mitch pulled her out of the river. Dazed. Scared.

Mitch and Spike, both out of breath, got to them first, just as Jonas blinked, then shut his eyes tight before opening them again. Groaning, he looked up into Lisa's face, then, blessedly, moved his arms and legs.

"Not quite like the car wreck," he said, "but damn near."

"Thank God, you're all right," Mitch said, kneeling on his other side. "That's never happened before. Let's check for broken bones."

Graham, Ellie and Christine arrived, pressing in, and Vanessa came running back from the finish line where her team had stopped at the straw bales.

"Is he all right?" Graham demanded as Mitch and Spike helped him sit up slowly. "Jonas, that's going to be one hell of a picture for your boy to see."

"Yeah. I think I'm fine--just surprised," Jonas told them, moving his arms and legs again.

"Stand back and let him have a moment," Mitch said.

Lisa walked to Jonas's sled, where Spike was examining the towline. It was broken, but had it been chewed through, or even sawed apart? The end Spike held looked ragged. And no one had said so yet, but this sled was the one Spike had assigned to her.

When they all gathered in Spike's living room over more coffee and a tray of Ginger's cookies, Mitch was surprised that his old lawyer self rose to the surface. He knew Jonas could sue Spike or even him. Some attorneys were even more litigious than their clients.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Mitch asked Jonas again. "We can call for a doctor to check you out."

"No, I'm fine," Jonas told him. "If Lisa was fine after her much worse ordeal, I'm more than fine." They'd insisted he tilt back in Spike's leather recliner; the other chairs were all straight-backed Sitka spruce. "My pride's the only thing that's hurt, but my boy's going to get a good laugh out of it, and that's worth something. Those dogs must have almost chewed through that old, traditional leather towline you like, and you didn't spot it," he said, turning to Spike. "But we learn a lot from our mistakes. No, just like Lisa who walked miles with her bruises and pain, I'm raring to go. And I think we've had enough so-called accidents for one trip."

Spike looked like he wanted to defend his dogs, but he just nodded and mumbled that he was sorry. Actually, he was seething, because he thought he'd been set up, but Mitch had told him not to say anything about it, other than that he had no idea how the accident happened. Mitch's eyes met Lisa's across the pine-walled living room lined with aerial photos of Alaska. He wondered if she was thinking what he was--that Jonas might be using this accident to get attention, to draw it away from her harrowing river run. She'd been brave; now Jonas was making a comparison.

But could his former protege have set himself up for this? Mitch agonized. Jonas had traded sleds with Lisa at the last minute, changing what Spike had arranged, so rigging the potential accident--for Lisa--could also fall on Spike's shoulders. Or could Jonas have sawed through his own towline after the dogs started out? Spike had whispered he was positive that sabotaged piece of leather was intact before the race. And it was really worrying him that Jonas had just called what happened to him as well as to Lisa a "so-called" accident.

Mitch told Jonas, "I can walk back and get the truck so you can ride to the lodge."

"Hey, my man, I'm cool--really."

"Then we'll head back in about ten minutes," Mitch announced, forcing a smile. "Now, don't eat too many of Ginger's great sugar cookies, because we'll have a light lunch and then get some downtime this afternoon."

Mitch went into the kitchen and slipped out the back door to get a minute to himself. He loved his new life and trusted his staff, but something bad was going on here. Two potentially injurious, possibly fatal events with his old friends and associates--both maybe aimed at Lisa. He needed to clear his head.

Taking slow, deep breaths, he looked up at the vast sky. As usual, it seemed to offer several scenarios--clear blue to the east, gray clouds coming in, and to the north he could almost imagine the early wisps of the aurora borealis they'd enjoy this winter. But would he really enjoy it anymore during those long nights after Lisa had come here, walked here, slept here--then gone. Though the day was still warm, he hunched his shoulders as the wind ruffled at his shirt and hair. It would really ruin his and Graham's outdoor plans for these final days if the wind brought rain.

He turned to go back inside, but Graham stepped out, as if his thinking of the man had summoned him.

"Jonas is right," Graham said, blocking his way and stepping out to push him back a bit. He talked fast and low. "We all learn from our mistakes. As desperate as he is for money, it may have been his mistake--or even setup--but don't let on I said that. Anyway, I won't let Jonas sue, so stop worrying."

"You read me pretty well."

"So, Jonas's accident aside, how do you assess the way our three candidates reacted here today?"

Mitch cleared his throat, stalling to decide how forthright to be, then decided to just go with the truth, even though someone else here must be living a lie. Graham's support had meant a lot to him over the years, and he had been honored when the Bonners decided to bring the firm's business to him, especially after he'd deserted them. Besides betraying Lisa, letting Graham down then had also been hell.

"Lisa realized that understanding the dogs--maybe even bonding with them--was what mattered," he told Graham. "Jonas and Vanessa walked the entire course to check out the lay of the land, which was good, but Spike had suggested that. Lisa went down partway, but she was doing more homework and independent thinking in what was a new situation."

"True," Graham agreed. "Points on all sides, but advantage Lisa--and I won't call you prejudiced for her on that. Plus, she was willing to forfeit winning the race to stop and help Jonas. Sympathy, empathy, whatever you want to call it, has always been one of her strengths, probably because of her own tragedy."

Yeah, Mitch thought, unless it meant understanding and forgiving the man she'd promised to marry. But he said only, "Vanessa claimed she didn't see Jonas was down."

"Do you believe her?"

"No. I saw her turn back and look, but she must have either decided Lisa could handle it or that she wanted to win the race at any cost. And I think she was scared of the dogs, despite how two other women--Lisa and Christine--were making friends with them. But this outdoor life stuff is hardly Vanessa's thing. She can come off as bold, almost brazen, but strange situations can scare her. I think she knows things aren't black and white, but always sees potential problems in between."

"As a lawyer, she's got to learn to deal with the grays, then present them to a jury or judge as black and white, if need be. So the question is, if Vanessa lied to protect herself, is that a weakness or strength for being senior partner? Let's face it, having a savvy Latina as senior partner's a good move for the firm--a woman, and one who's the right ethnic mix for South Florida," Graham said.

"I'd like to think you'll make your final decision on who will tell you the truth in any sort of a race or struggle--or when the pressure's on in a case, black, white or gray."

Graham's steely eyes met Mitch's steady stare.

"Mitch, a word to the wise." Graham tapped his index finger on Mitch's chest as he spoke. "Whether or not Jonas is milking this accident for all it's worth to get attention today, if you take other bonding groups to Spike for sledding on grass or snow, make sure he examines his equipment. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and you are, so watch him. And I don't want Ellie going up alone in that plane with him again," he concluded and went back inside.

Mitch was glad he'd left, because his first instinct was to defend Spike. And he would defend him--and himself--if anything came of a potential lawsuit later, no matter what Graham had just promised. At least he'd jumped through the proper hoops to be able to practice law in this state. Sure, he needed to keep an eye on Spike, but on everyone else, including--as much as it hurt him to think it--Graham. And, evidently, he was just blowing it off that Jonas might have sabotaged his own towline so that he could milk the situation for his own benefit, despite the risk of injury. Jonas was a good athlete, a former college football player who no doubt knew how to take falls. If Graham knew all that, he wasn't letting on. So, how truthful was his former mentor and boss in general?

Hell, Mitch groused silently as he headed back inside, once a suspicious lawyer, always a suspicious lawyer. But was someone after Lisa and/or Jonas? Was Vanessa to blame, or was she next in someone's vendetta? Or was all of this part of some sort of test he hadn't been clued in on, a secretive trial by the clever Graham Bonner?

What was that crazy quote from Shakespeare he'd thought of in the middle of the night when he was agonizing over keeping Lisa safe if someone really was out to hurt her? The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.