ELIAS
Itrack a young buck through the underbrush, noting his movements in my field journal. Healthy male, probably two years old. Good rack developing. The kind of deer that brings hunters to these mountains, and the kind I'm determined to protect from poachers and over-hunting.
But my mind isn't on the wildlife. It's back at my cabin. With Riley.
I pause by a stream to refill my canteen, the mountain water ice-cold and pure. The morning sun filters through the pine trees, warming my shoulders as I crouch by the water. It's a perfect spring day in the Montana wilderness, exactly the kind of solitude I usually crave.
Today, it feels hollow.
My radio crackles, breaking the silence. "Elias, you copy? It's Sawyer."
I unclip the radio from my belt. "Copy. What's up?"
"Just paid a visit to your cabin. Thought you should know."
My grip tightens on the radio, pulse quickening. "Riley okay?"
There's a pause before Sawyer answers. "She's fine. But Cooper filed assault charges this morning. Claims she attacked him without provocation."
White-hot anger surges through me. "That son of a bitch put his hands on her. She's got the bruises to prove it."
"I saw." My brother's voice is grim. "Suggested she file a counter-report. Gave her Maggie's number in Helena."
Maggie helps women get restraining orders, find safe houses, rebuild their lives. The fact that Sawyer thought to connect them tells me he's taking this seriously.
"Cooper's father's involved," Sawyer continues. "Pushing for charges."
Of course he is. Ronald Cooper owns the biggest hunting outfitter in the county, brings in half the tourist revenue during season. His entitled piece of shit son has been causing trouble since he was in diapers.
"I'll be back early," I say, already calculating the quickest route down the mountain. "She shouldn't be alone."
"She's safe on McKenna land," Sawyer reminds me. "No one's dumb enough to come looking for trouble up there."
He's right, but it doesn't ease the primal urge to get back to her. To see with my own eyes that she's okay.
"One more thing," Sawyer adds, his tone changing. "She's young, Elias."
The implication is clear as day. He knows. Hell, probably all my brothers know. My brothers have always been too perceptive for their own good.
"I'm aware," I reply stiffly.
"And Bill was your best friend."
My jaw tightens. "I made a promise."
"I know you did." Sawyer sighs. "Just... be careful. With both of you."
The radio falls silent, leaving me with a familiar weight on my shoulders. The weight of expectations. Of duty. Of promises I made to a dying man.
I finish my rounds on autopilot, checking the usual poaching hotspots, marking wildlife sightings on my map. By mid-afternoon, I've covered my assigned area for the day, doing the job I love with half my attention at best.
When I finally turn my truck back toward home, the sun is still high in the sky. I've cut my day short by hours, something I've never done in fifteen years as game warden. But the pull toward my cabin, toward Riley, is stronger than my sense of duty today.
I spot her truck first, still parked where she left it last night. Then movement on the porch catches my eye. Riley sits on the top step, laptop open on her knees, hair lifted by the mountain breeze. She's wearing a blue sweater that makes her skin glow, and for a moment, I just watch her, letting the sight of her sink into my bones.
She looks up as I pull in, a smile spreading across her face that hits me square in the chest. That smile has always been her weapon, bright, genuine, lighting up everything around her. She used to flash it at me when she was a teenager, asking for driving lessons or permission to stay out late, knowing I'd cave every time.
Now it feels like a different kind of weapon entirely.
