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I bite back the urge to say “likeweimagined it.” It’s my nature to deflect when attention turns my way. I’m not shy—it’s just how I was raised. Share credit; accept blame. But when Dalton tenses, waiting for me to correct him, I smile and say, “It’s perfect, isn’t it?”
He brushes a kiss over my cheek. Haven’s Rock was my idea first, but it wasourdream, and now I see it unfolding below, and my chest clenches so hard I have to fight to draw breath.
I throw my arms around Dalton’s neck. There’s a moment of surprise. Again, this is one hundred percentnotCasey Butler behavior. But after that spark of shock, he hugs me back and whispers in my ear, “We did it.”
I hug him tighter. “We did.”
Haven’s Rock. The town may be new, but its roots go down into the permafrost. Even the name is significant. Rock for Rockton, the town where I went to work as a detective four years ago and met a hard-assed sheriff and fell in love—with him and the town and the Yukon itself. Rock for stability, too, a bedrock foundation, the thing we lacked in Rockton.
And Haven? Well, that’s the most important part. Haven’s Rock is a sanctuary for those in need. It’s a place to hide when the law isn’t enough to protect you from persecution for your beliefs or lifestyle, or from a stalker or abusive partner. Rockton was supposed to be that, and it was for some, but for the owners, it was a purely financial investment. This will be different. This time, we’re in charge.
The plane lands, and Dalton’s still opening the door when a woman strides into the hangar. Yolanda. We’ve never met, but I know her cousin, Petra, and her grandmother, Émilie, andthere is enough of them in her that I know her on sight. She’s taller than her cousin and grandmother, with dark curls and skin a couple of shades darker than mine, but her expression is one I know well—it’s Émilie or Petra on a mission and ready to do battle.
Great. We aren’t even out of the plane yet, and we’re already the enemy, even after dropping everything and flying a thousand kilometers to help her.
Dalton climbs out as I snap a leash on Storm. The dog sighs at that, jowls quivering, and thumps her bulk back onto the floor of the plane.
I laugh under my breath. “Yes, it’s a leash. Don’t worry, we’re not in a city.”
When we take her to Dawson City or Whitehorse, she only needs her leash in a few places. To her, a leash means a big city, like Vancouver, which she likes as little as Dalton does.
“Sheriff Eric Dalton,” Yolanda says outside.
I turn to peer through the open door. She’s striding toward him, her expression a little smug, as if she’s pleased that Dalton is nothing more than the cowboy she imagined. A modern-day Wild West sheriff, complete with boots and faded jeans and flannel shirt and even a Western-style brimmed hat. He has the rangy build, the steel-gray eyes, and the gun at his side. Tanned white skin and close-cropped dark blond hair complete the look. If there’s anything she might not expect, it’s his age, and he’s actually younger than she probably thinks—three days of beard scruff masks smooth skin, and he has crow’s feet on his eyes, from squinting into the sun. He’s thirty-four, a year younger than me and about ten years younger than Yolanda.
They shake hands as I bring Storm out the door. Yolanda’s gaze goes straight to the dog, with a frown of puzzlement. When it rises to me, that expression doesn’t change.
Dalton might have been what she expected. Evidently, I am not. It could be that my name led her to expect someone whiter. It could be that my job title led her to expect someone more physically intimidating. I’m neither. I’m a slightly built, five-foot-two woman who takes after her Asian mother more than her Scottish father.
“Casey Butler,” I say as I walk over with my hand out.
“What’s with the dog?” she says.
My brows rise.Good to meet you, too.
I don’t say that. I’m the good cop in this relationship—the reasonable one that everyone prefers to talk to. Everyone who doesn’t know us well, that is. Dalton and I have learned the benefits of this particular game, and so I bite back anything even mildly sarcastic and only smile.
“This is Storm,” I say.
“Uh-huh.”
“She’s our dog.”
“I see that.”
Dalton’s jaw flexes. “She’s our dog,” he says, in a tone that tells her nothing else should need to be said.
Our dog. Our town. Yes, her grandmother invested in Haven’s Rock, but the majority of the money came from my inheritance and my sister’s, and even that is none of her business. Yolanda was hired to oversee construction of our town. We can bring in an elephant if we want.
So far, I’ve been calm, even conciliatory, in recognition of the fact that Yolanda is a damn fine builder, even if, like so many experts, she’s a pain in the ass. I guess, if you’re at the top of your game, you have that luxury and the confidence to use it, and I completely respect that… it just doesn’t make her anylessof a pain in the ass.
We’d expected to be up here, helping build our town andgetting a sense of this corner of the wilderness as we did. Yolanda vetoed that. If we wanted her, we had to stay away. She wouldn’t work with the “homeowners” peering over her shoulder.
“I have two missing crew members,” she says. “I called you in to find them. This isn’t a site visit.”
Dalton points at Storm’s nose. When Yolanda narrows her eyes, he says, “The dog is here for that thing on the end of her snout.”
“Her nose?”
