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“Are you okay?” Sam crouched next to her. His blue eyes were dark with worry, scanning her face, her body. He ran his hands along her arms, looking for injuries.
“You came for me. I love you. I love you. I really love you.” She was babbling, incoherent with the relief of feeling a firm surface under her back. “I thought I was hallucinating at first. You’re actually here.”
“I’m here. You’re safe. It’s okay.”
Beyond him, about a hundred yards away, she saw a military helicopter perched on the ice. “What’s that?”
“Our ride out of here. We’ve been searching for you for an hour. I didn’t see you at first. We almost headed back, but then I saw your bag scattered across the ice. That red leather really stood out.”
“My bag…” She must have dropped it in her tumble, and hadn’t even realized it. “I love that bag. I can’t believe I dropped it.”
“I know. That’s why I knew you must be close by.”
“Did you find Elias and Jimmy Marsh?”
“And my Cessna,” he reminded her. “Yeah, we already picked them up. They’re both inside the chopper.”
“Elias saved my life. Jimmy Marsh was going to leave me to freeze to death in your plane.”
“That would never have happened,” he said flatly. “I would have found you.”
“I know you would have.” A sob burst from her mouth. “You’re the hero. Everyone better know that, and if they don’t, they’re going to get sick of me telling them.”
“No more a hero than you are. They were waiting for Marsh, and whatever you did to distract him, it worked. The Ice Falls is still standing.”
Sam gently helped her into a sitting position. Her head spun, and she drank in the chilly air. The sun was halfway below the horizon now. He’d caught up with her just in time.
“I think Soraya is behind all this. You should bring her in for questioning. You can charge her with reckless endangerment for shooting at your house. You have the footage from the wildlife camera and you can use that as leverage to get her to talk—” She broke off as Sam burst out laughing. “What?”
“I just love you, that’s what. I just pulled you out of a crevasse and you’re already directing a hypothetical interrogation. Don’t you want a minute to catch your breath?”
“You love me.” An unstoppable smile curved her lips. She had no control over that smile; it seemed to have a life of its own.
“Oh yeah.” He smiled down at her. “Every determined, wonderful, obsessive, loyal, luscious, juicy inch of you.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Now let’s get that sexy ass of yours off this ice.”
She closed her eyes and basked in the feeling of being held by him, loved by him. Rescued by him. A quick swoop of movement, and when she opened her eyes, she was standing upright on her own two feet, with Sam at her side.
You have more to do in this life. A lot more. Things you never imagined or expected, beautiful, wonderful things.
Bring it on.
41
The shockwaves of the news about the Chilkoots reverberated through Firelight Ridge, and they would be for some time to come. The story added another layer of notoriety to the already long list of wild scenarios that had happened in the area. The Chilkoot legend would live on.
As would the Chilkoots themselves, of course, although as it turned out, only a few of them were actually Chilkoots. And even that name wasn’t theirs. Luke, Naomi and his brothers had taken the name “Chilkoot” when they bought the property. Their previous name had been “Swindeman,” which sounded appropriate to Sam.
“Chilkoot” had been more of a concept than a family name, since they’d been “raising” a next generation of people who weren’t related to them by blood or even adoption. Luke and Naomi were visionaries, in their own twisted way. They also turned out to have rap sheets and a history of fraud. Quite possibly, walling themselves off from the world had been their last chance to stay out of prison.
Twenty of the children authorities found on the property turned out to have no official adoption papers. The Chilkoots claimed that a fire had taken all their paperwork, and that it would be cruel to the children to remove them from the only home they knew.
Ruth Chilkoot was cooperating with the investigation. Her guilt and grief over Daniel’s death had been eating at her, even though she’d had no idea what her family was planning. She’d answered every question investigators asked. Given that, and the shortage of foster placements in this remote area of Alaska, she was granted temporary custody of the children until everything could be sorted out. Sam had no doubt the children would be taken care of, because they all had the same lawyer—Molly Evans.
Molly had been given a special waiver to represent them until she passed the Alaska Bar. Her impeccable credentials had won her that role, as well as her passionate presentation on why she was the best equipped to be their advocate.
And then there was the fact that she’d assured the board that she was now a full-time Alaska resident who intended to set up a practice as soon as she was admitted to the bar.
Hot damn.
