“Daddy, do you need to play the alphabet game?”

Max looked up from his contemplation of the windowsill, where his attention had been fixed for the last hour. “What’s that?”

His daughter took a pencil from out of her mouth and pointed it at him, eraser first. “That’s the face Elena makes when she’s nervous. We can play the alphabet game, if you want. It might help.”

For a full thirty seconds, Max considered it. There was something soothing in the idea of working systematically through the letters to list all the things troubling him.

A: Ace. That traitorous bastard couldn’t be counted on for anything. Oh, he’d keep Elena physically safe, Max was sure, but there was no telling what sort of stories he was telling her about their past or how thick he was laying on the flirtation.

B: Bigfoot. A crock of bullshit, he damn well knew, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other dangers out there. Including a misguided Team Delta pulling out all the stops in search of something that didn’t exist.

C: Cowardice. And he didn’t mean that in relation to Elena. That term was reserved for his sole use. If he’d had even a tenth of her nerve, he wouldn’t have let her walk out the door that morning.

“Daddy?” Tina asked.

Max shook himself off. “Thanks, Peanut, but everything is fine. Elena is with Uncle Ace. I’m sure they’re out having fun and just forgot the time.”

“Elena is not having fun.”

“Sure she is.” The lie tripped off his tongue. “It’s a beautiful day out there.”

Tina stared at him with another of those looks that reminded him so much of Quinn. “No, it’s not. It’s cold. And it’s snowing. A lot.”

“I love the cold and snow. As, I might add, do you.”

“Yeah, but Elena hates it. She says it makes her feel like she’s trapped in a snow globe and can’t get out.”

An apt description, and one that highlighted just how differently he and Elena saw the world. He could think of few things better than standing in the middle of a swirling, soaring mass of snow, determined to triumph over the elements.

“It’s her anxiety,” Tina said as she resumed her drawing. “It makes life scary for her, but that’s okay. Everyone has to do things they don’t want to sometimes. Especially for the people they care about.”

Now it was Max’s turn to stare. That was a thing Quinn had never said a day in her life. That was one hundred percent Elena Villanova, no question.

“Did Elena tell you that?” he asked.

Tina shrugged. “Probably. She hates a lot of the stuff we do, but she does it anyway. Because she loves me and because I love her right back.”

Max sat immobile, staring at his daughter for a full twenty seconds. It took ten of those seconds for her innocent chatter to penetrate; another ten for him to realize the implication. Only the worst kind of father would let his child’s beloved nanny stomp angrily out into the cold.

Only the worst kind of man would allow himself to be the reason why.

He was in the middle of surveying his options—to bundle up Tina and go out in search of the team, to sit still in hopes that of seeing Elena walk through that door any minute—when the kitchen door flew open. It brought with it such a strong burst of icy wind that their small, spindly Christmas tree fell over with a crash.

“Ace?” Max was across the room in seconds. “What the hell—”

He didn’t have to finish his own question. Years of assessing a scene at a glance had taught him that demanding answers of an injured man was second to making sure he was stable. Based on Ace’s ghostly pallor and the blood covering his hands and face, stability was the last thing that man had going for him.

“His leg is broken and there’s a huge gash on his head.” Elena stepped out from behind Ace, her own pallor closer to the spirit realm than the living one. Ace’s arm was slung over her shoulder, which provided almost all the support the larger man required to stay standing. “I tried to stop the bleeding, but it just keeps gushing. Why does it keep gushing?”

Ace’s knees weakened, leaving Max no time to reassure Elena about the nature of head wounds in general and, more specifically, Ace’s ability to withstand them. He rushed to his friend’s side, taking Elena’s place and accepting the two hundred pounds of weight on his own shoulders.

“How far did you walk?” he asked, unable to imagine this slight, shivering woman going any farther than five steps with a burden that heavy.

“A little over a mile, maybe more. I’m not sure. Is he—?”

“Tougher to kill than you think. See to Tina for me, will you? And then I’m going to need your help.”

She complied without a word, though her hands were shaking so much she could barely open and close them. Her voice didn’t shake, however, as she turned her attention to Tina and forced a smile. “Grab everything you need for a little while, sweetie. We’re heading up to the loft to build a fort while your daddy takes care of Uncle Ace.”

“A fort?” Tina asked, distracted enough to see the offer as a treat rather than what it was—a means of getting her out of the way. Something Elena was doing with impressive adeptness, despite the shaking hands. “Can I bring snacks?”

There was a firm no-food-in-the-loft policy in place, since vermin were a real problem out here, but Elena promised all the snacks his daughter wanted. That left him free to help Ace hobble to the futon, where the older man sank with a groan that spoke of much more pain than just the physical kind.

“Team Delta?” Max asked, pausing only long enough to grab the first aid kit kept by the door as well as a hunting knife. If Ace had actually admitted out loud to a broken leg, that meant it was probably severe. He was going to have to cut the boot off him.

Ace winced as Max handed him a cloth to press against his forehead. The head wound would need to be cleaned and bandaged more thoroughly than that, but his first concern was removing the boot before the swelling made it damn near impossible.

“Trapped,” Ace said.

Trapped? Max’s glance was sharp. So was his knife as he plunged it into the boot’s rubber sole.

“On a ledge about a mile and a half northwest of here. There was a cave opening halfway up the rock face, and— Jesus fuck. Do you have to wiggle my foot like that?”

“Yes.” In fact, he was tempted to wiggle it harder. Stupid Ace and his stupid fucking greedy Bigfoot hunt. “What happened? You better give me the short version, because you’re not going to be able to talk by the time I’m done getting this damn thing off. Your leg is almost doubled in size.”

“Figured as much.” Ace groaned as he stretched more comfortably on the futon. “It was the damnedest thing. The whole side of the cliff came off.”

Max looked up—not at Ace, but at the loft, where Elena’s low, murmured voice and the flutter of sheets indicated she was hard at work. “A rockslide?”

“One of the wedges must have been driven into a fissure or something—I don’t know, man. The Georges made it up just fine, no problem. Then Wilcox and me. He… It all just started to go. The Georges managed to grab him before he went over, but there was a lot of swinging. I couldn’t keep my hold.”

“You fell?”

“I cut myself loose. It was either that or bring Wilcox down with me.”

Max nodded. It wasn’t the most ideal outcome, but it was what he would have done in the same situation. Winter climbs always carried that risk—the ice gave a false impression of solidity. If the rock underneath couldn’t support their weight, then there was always a chance their wedges could pull out entire parts of a mountain. They were lucky the ledge holding the other three climbers was still intact.

“Where was Elena when this happened?”

Ace groaned again, though Max wasn’t sure if it was because he felt guilty about taking Elena out or because Max finally managed to get the boot off. With a quick slice of the knife, he had Ace’s pants open to the knee. Sure enough, the misshapen bulge of his shin indicated a break very much exacerbated by a long walk in the snow. Fuck. Setting and splinting his leg wasn’t going to be easy.

“She didn’t join the climb, thank God. She was at the bottom—saw the whole thing go down. I wouldn’t have been able to make it here without her.” Ace paused while Max prepped the gauze. “She’ll have to show you the way back.”

“I know.”

“She’s not going to like the walk. It’s not stable enough for the snowmobile.”

“I know.”

“She was doing okay up until then, I swear. I’m really sorry, Max.”

He knew that, too. But he didn’t bother saying so, because there was no need. Regrets were for people who had time on their hands and their bones in one piece. “Hold tight,” Max warned his friend. “This part is going to hurt.”

“It already hurts, you bastard,” Ace replied, but was silenced as Max placed one hand firmly on his friend’s thigh and the other on his ankle. And then twisted the tibia back in place.

If Tina and Elena hadn’t been up in the loft, Max was sure Ace would have let loose all manner of screams and curses. Max had suffered a similar break nine years ago and knew firsthand what it felt like once the initial shock started to wear away. It wasn’t just pain; it was a visceral reaction that turned your organs inside out. But Ace managed to keep relatively quiet while Max finished his hasty field-quality first aid. His friend needed a hospital and some serious painkillers, but he’d live. More importantly—he’d be able to keep an eye on Tina while Max and Elena went back up the mountain in search of the three Bigfoot hunters.

“Elena?” Max called, but was cut short when Elena appeared at his elbow.

She was still pale and shaken, but her voice was calm. “I’m ready.”

He doubted it. As difficult as it had been to carry a one-legged Ace all this way, finding a way past a crumbled cliff to reach the stranded climbers was going to be much worse. Especially since she wasn’t going to like the way he planned on doing it.

But he didn’t have a choice. There was no promise that the ledge would hold long enough for him to get to town and pull together a real rescue team, and Ace needed medical help sooner rather than later.

“If we aren’t back by dark, do you think can you find your way down to Ione?” he asked Ace as he handed over the keys to the Blazer.

“Sure,” Ace said with a wince. “I’ll give the little lady her first driving lesson. It’ll be fun.”

He called up to Tina next. The makeshift fort was thrown together with sheets and pillows, and he doubted it would last very long, but the floral-printed walls seemed to bring her comfort. That was all that really mattered. Elena had known exactly how to normalize this situation.

“I’m counting on you take good care of Uncle Ace, okay?” he said. “Don’t let him move around too much, and remember that what he says is the law, no matter what.”

“Check,” Tina said and peeked over the edge of the loft to catch Elena’s eye. “That’s what we say when we prepare for a disaster, right, Elena?”

“Exactly right,” Elena replied.

Check? Max had his doubts. It was all well and good for a child to be comforted that way, but what were you supposed to say when disaster had already happened?

Max nodded once at Elena and grabbed his things. “Let’s go” was the best he could come up with on such short notice.