“Do you think I broke it?”

    “You’ll need an X-ray to know that, Sierra. You have water?”

    “Yes,” she said, holding out her bottle.

    He took it and shared it with Beau, who had done a lot of running lately. Then he gave Beau and Molly a couple of treats.

    “Did Beau fetch you?” she asked. “I didn’t have many options but I thought he might be able to get himself home—he’s familiar with the trails out here.”

    “He did. I think we got ourselves a search animal. Or maybe just a smart animal, I don’t know. But he did come for Sully and he brought me to you.”

    “I couldn’t let Molly go. I thought she’d probably follow Beau, but what if she didn’t? I couldn’t go find her if she got lost.”

    He finished wrapping up her ankle. “Are you in a lot of pain?”

    “Only when I step on it and then, zowie.”

    He dug around in his backpack and came out with two bottles of water, handing them to her. Then he stuffed the rope and harnesses in his backpack. He took the pack behind the rock she’d been sitting on and hid it behind a bush. He covered it with his rain slicker.

    “What are you doing?”

    “I don’t need the extra weight. I’ll come back for it later or tomorrow. You about ready to go home?”

    Her teeth chattered and she nodded.

    “You’ll warm up a little with my body heat,” he said. He crouched in front of her. “You’re in charge of the water, for me and the dogs. Put it in your backpack and climb on—piggyback.”

    “Oh, I don’t know, Connie. What am I going to do if I break your back?”

    He threw her a look over his shoulder that said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

    “Let’s think about this,” she said. “You don’t have to impress me. I know you’re very strong. If I could just lean on you...”

    “That’ll take too long. Besides, I have to be able to carry seventy-five pounds up fifteen stories to stay qualified. This will be easier, so let’s do it. Come on.”

    “All right,” she said. “It’s your funeral.”

    “That was unnecessary,” he said. He hoisted her up, settled her with a couple of bounces. “How’s that feel?”

    “I feel fine. How do you feel?”

    “Like we’re going for a long walk,” he said. “Hang on to Molly’s leash. I’m not chasing her. Come on, Beau! Let’s do it.” And off he went. After ten minutes or so, breathing harder than he had been, he stopped and lowered her to the ground. He was a little raspy. “Little rest. Water please.” He shook out his limbs, stretched his back, drank some water, crouched in front of her again.

    “Take a little more time,” she said.

    “I’m ready.”

    “Really, take a little more—”

    “Come on,” he said. “I don’t want to be doing this all day.”

    “All right, all right.” She climbed on. “Is there anything I can do to make this easier?”

    “Tell me a story,” he said.

    “A story?”

    “Tell me your story, then. When did you decide to move out here? And from where?”

    “A couple of months before I got here. Cal had been after me. He and Maggie wanted me to come. I wasn’t sure that was a good idea so I thought about it for a while.”

    “But you came. From where? And why?”

    “You’re very nosy,” she said. “I was living in Des Moines in a little house with some roommates. My parents live on a farm in the southern part of the state. I’d been through a series of dead-end jobs and I knew I needed to do something different. And I missed Cal. He’s my favorite sibling and we were really close growing up.”

    “What kind of jobs?” he asked.

    She sighed. “Seriously bad jobs. I had some college—about three years that took me about six to get because I had to work. I went to school in Michigan and when Cal’s wife died and he left the state, I—”

    “Wait! His wife died?” Connie asked.

    “You didn’t know that?”

    “No, I didn’t know that!”

    “Three years ago. They were married about eight years, I think. She was a lawyer, too. They were very happy, but she had scleroderma. It’s—”

    “I know what it is,” he said. “It’s awful, that’s what it is.”

    “Yeah, the poor woman. My poor brother. After she died and he left Michigan, so did I. About six months later. But he was off on some odyssey to find himself and there was no place for me in that. So, I went back to Iowa, kicked around for a few months near the farm, took a couple of jobs I hated but paid decent and had benefits. Over the last year and a half I waitressed, cleaned airport bathrooms, worked in a couple of nursing homes. The worst job was in a recycle center, separating stuff. Handling garbage, basically. It was awful. My life was going nowhere so coming out here to see if I could make sense of things didn’t seem like a bad idea. Cal made sense of his. I think it all came together when he found Maggie.”

    “Maggie’s cool,” Connie said. “Didn’t you have a guy?”

    She laughed. “Oh, Connie. No, there wasn’t a guy...”

    “Why’d you say it like that? Like it was a dumb question?”