Page 77 of Claimed on the Ridge

"The wife had four years of practice," she says. "Hundreds of dinner parties, years of business calls from the next room, and one very good memory."

She picks up the coffee and drinks. Her eyes stay on mine over the rim, and the tension between us winds tighter until I can feel it at the base of my spine. The fight didn't kill it. It didn't even dent it. If anything, watching her dismantle me in this kitchen with the precision of a surgeon made it worse.

"Morrow's number is in the log." I pick up the satellite phone and hold it out. "Whatever you need from him, you can ask directly."

She stands and reaches across the table. Her fingers close around the handset, brushing mine. The contact lasts half a second. The heat from it runs straight through my arm and settles low in my gut. Her breath catches, barely. I wouldn't hear it if I hadn't spent every night since she got here learning what every sound she makes means.

"Ask directly," she repeats. "Not through you."

"Not through me."

"That must have cost you."

I allow a slow grin to lift the corners of my mouth. "You have no idea."

The corner of her mouth twitches. Not a smile. Recognition.

She looks at the phone in her hand, then back at me, and whatever she finds in my face keeps her there a beat longer than she intended. Then she sits, pulls the notepad closer, and begins integrating Morrow's intel into the margins of her own diagrams.

I leave her at the table and make my way to the equipment barn. Bryan is running a chainsaw chain through the sharpener. He kills the motor when I come through the door.

I don't sit. I stay in the doorway because Bryan reads posture better than words, and what I'm about to tell him isn't a request.

"Jack’s contact called back. Kendall has the details. You'll be briefing her directly on patrol status. Morning and afternoon. Anything off, she hears it the same time I do."

Bryan sets the chain down. He doesn't reach for the next one.

"Reporting to her."

"Briefing. Her and me. There's a difference, and you know it."

"Is there?"

"The physical perimeter doesn't hold against law enforcement. Gary can and will send people. Kendall has intelligence on his network Morrow couldn't pull in a day. She's an operational asset, and I've been wasting her. Morning and afternoon, Bryan. Direct to her."

He watches me, weighing whether this is tactical or whether last night broke something that's making calls it shouldn't.

"Tactical," I say. The word carries the same weight I use when I tell a client where to aim. Final.

"Then why do you look like you haven't slept?"

"Because I haven't slept. Do we have a problem?"

He studies me another second. Then one hard nod.

"Morning and afternoon."

The cold hits me when I step out of the barn. The sky has opened up since dawn, pale blue above the ridge line, and the snow on the south-facing slopes is starting to soften in the light. On a different morning I'd stand here and read the weather the way my father taught me. Wind direction from the tree line. Cloud weight from the color of the light on the peaks. Temperature from how fast the melt is running off the equipment barn roof.

This morning I'm reading the lodge. Kendall is visible through the kitchen window, bent over the table, the satellite phone within reach. She hasn't picked up the keys. She hasn't left. The truck is still in the shed and her coat is still on the hook, and the distance between the barn and the kitchen window is close enough to see her but too far to hear whether she's talking to Morrow or talking to herself.

I cross to the kindling block on the back porch. The hatchet is buried in the stump where Dash left it. I pull it free and set the first piece of cedar on the block, line the grain, and swing. The cedar splits, and I stack the halves and set a new piece.

The cold works into my forearms. The rhythm takes over. My father stood at this block. The blade marks in the wood go back further than I do.

The thought about my mother arrives on the fifth swing.

It doesn't matter whether Catherine chose the icy road. The conditions were the answer.