It was closing in on midnight when the recovery vehicle carrying Barrett’s team approached the hangar. An M924 bought at auction, the Army cargo truck had last seen service in Iraq. The bed was fourteen feet long. Bench seats lined both sides and a canvas tarp stretched over a bowed frame tall enough that no one had to duck when moving around inside.

At that moment, after ten plus hours of sawing, swinging axes and digging at hard ground, Barrett’s men weren’t thinking about whether they needed to duck. They were sprawled on the floor of the bed, their heads propped against their re-folded parachutes or their buddy’s shoulder. Only Barrett and Lake, the driver, remained awake.

His muscles and the tired buzzing in his head told him he should be sleeping, too. He was certain he would have been near comatose if not for the woman. He didn’t even know her name, but she had occupied his thoughts in the quieter moments of the mission. For all the fires he’d help put out, it was the first time he had a face to go with the property—a knockout face and a body that had him growing hard by the dashboard light.

Even standing in the middle of the road waving his arms to get the woman to stop, he had noted in a flash how beautiful she was. Fresh-faced, she had dark auburn hair that disappeared down her back. The big, thick-lashed eyes proved to be a chocolate brown when he got a closer look. From there, his gaze had swept down the graceful curve of her neck to the soft shoulders and abundant breasts. A discreet glance at the round swell of her stomach, plump thighs, and full hips, had birthed an immediate desire to see her naked so he could study every curve in detail.

Barrett shifted in his seat, grunting over the fact that he could remember so much about the woman but had so quickly forgotten his manners. He hadn’t even told her he was sorry about Jester passing. The omission was made worse by the fact that Jester wasn’t just some old man on the mountain. He’d been a lifelong friend to Dorothea Turk, Barrett’s grandaunt.

Reaching the hangar, he cast his gaze around the vehicles until he spotted the one he was looking for. At midnight, the sight of the woman’s pickup shouldn’t have made him happy.

The hangar had cots and a bathroom with showers. There was a galley kitchen, a coffee machine and vending machines for both snacks and drinks. But it wasn’t a place for women, especially considering some of the pictures Charlie, the twice-divorced pilot, liked to keep up on the walls.

Thinking in particular about the picture taped to the back of the bathroom door, he put his head in his hands and groaned.

“You should be sleeping like them boys back there,” Lake chuckled. “Guess you still have too much adrenaline rushing through you.”

“Something like that,” he agreed as the vehicle rolled to a stop. Grabbing his gear from the floor of the truck cab, he nodded at Lake. “Wake them up for me.”

“Sure thing,” he answered. “You need a ride back to your place? Heard you sheared an axle.”

“No. Winston will probably crash here. I’ll head back with him in the morning.”

Barrett carried his gear into the hangar and placed it on the cot furthest from the coffee maker and all the noise that came with the machine when a dozen caffeine deprived males descended on it all at once. Slipping into the restroom, he turned the water on in the sink and washed the soot from his hands and face so he didn’t look a complete mess.

He checked his phone one last time. Still no signal. He guessed the same was true for the woman’s phone. That likely meant she hadn’t contacted Siobhan, his cousin at the sheriff’s station in Willow Gap. He would have to break the news that Jasper’s cabin had burned to the ground.

Feet dragging, Barrett headed for the truck. There was just enough light from the hangar for him to see inside the cab. The woman slept stretched across the bench seat, her feet down by the pedals and her head by the passenger door. She had a sleeping roll under her head as a pillow. A jacket covered her torso.

The door windows on both sides were cracked an inch, but there was no sound coming out of the cab. She was a quiet sleeper, then—at least when she was camped out in a truck.

He tapped lightly at the window.

“Ma’am, can I talk with you?”

Barrett tapped again. “Ma’am.”

He really wished he’d gotten her name before he left. It would make it less like a complete stranger telling her the bad news.

Walking around to the passenger side, he tapped again, this time on the door and not the window.

She bolted upright.

Raising both his hands, he took a big step back.

“I tapped and called a couple times from the other side. Sorry I woke you.”

Rubbing at her eyes, the woman opened the driver side door. She stepped out, turning to face Barrett where he had moved to stand by the back of the truck.

He put the tailgate down and took a seat at one edge. She drifted over and sat at the other corner.

“Is your team okay?” she asked.

The question shocked him. It wasn’t the first thing landowners thought to ask. First they wanted to know how their stake fared. And if it hadn’t fared well, they forgot about everything—and everyone—else as often as not.

“Not even a splinter,” Barrett answered. “Thank you for asking. That means a lot.”

She nodded, brushed at the knee of her jeans for a second then looked at him, the building’s light at her back so that her face was all shadows.

“I wasn’t able to call your wife.”

“My what?” he asked, then laughed hard for a second before his overworked stomach muscles complained. “Siobhan is my cousin, not my wife. She works dispatch at the sheriff’s office while she completes her training for a deputy position.”

He edged closer to the center, stopping when the woman was in arm’s reach. It didn’t feel right telling her at a longer distance what had happened to Jester’s place.

Knowing he was about to crush the faint smile playing across her face, Barrett tried to stall the inevitable.

“Why didn’t you head to Willow Gap?”

She shrugged. “No hotel there. I’d have to head closer to Billings to find a room.”

Barrett smacked his palm to his forehead, his cheeks flushing with how abrupt he had been in all his dealings with the woman before hopping on the plane.

“I didn’t clarify why you should tell her you were Jester’s kin. My family’s got plenty of spare beds around Willow Gap. She would have made sure you were put up proper.”

He extended his hand. “I’m Barrett Turk, by the way. I’m sorry I had to run off on you like that. Sorry about scaring you half to death to start with.”

She slipped her hand into his, her touch cool from sleeping in the truck at night with the windows cracked for ventilation.

“I’m Quinn Whitaker,” she said. “And I’m sorry I almost ran you over and made you jump into a ditch…”

She trailed off, a long moment of silence threading between them as she withdrew her hand and folded it against her lap.

“The news isn’t good, is it?”

“No,” he rasped, the sudden anguish her voice carried twisting in his gut like a hunting knife. “Most of the timber is still standing, but the cabin is gone.”

Hearing Quinn’s sniffle, he scooted closer, his big hand patting gently against her back. Her shoulders shook with a sob. Instinctively, he pulled her to him, her face sheltered against the crook of his neck as he wrapped both arms around her.

“I know,” he whispered. “It’s like losing him all over again.”

Her shoulders shook harder. She pushed away and swiped ruthlessly at her eyes.

“No,” she answered. “I didn’t even know I had a grand uncle until the estate attorney called.”

She pulled her feet onto the tailgate, her legs tightly drawn to her torso. Burying her face against her knees, Quinn sobbed some more.

“I’m not a terrible person,” she promised. “I wish I had known about him, known him when he was alive. But I didn’t—and I really needed what he left me.”

“There’s still value there.” Barrett rested his palm on her shoulder, knowing he probably shouldn’t keep touching Quinn but unable to control his need to comfort the woman. “The cabin wasn’t really worth anything. It was built before Jester was born. But the property is a real jewel. Two streams, a stocked pond.”

She lifted her head long enough to violently shake it then hid her face once more, her words muffled as she spoke.

“I only get the land and timber if I live on it every day for ninety days—starting tomorrow. I was supposed to meet the attorney there, get the keys and work out the verification details.”

With her hands wrapped around her head, she pulled at her hair. “We were supposed to use my phone’s GPS and a tracking app. The attorney would check it at six in the morning and again at ten at night. With the cell tower down…”

Barrett slid off the tailgate to stand in front of Quinn. Slowly, he eased her fingers out of her hair, his hands enfolding hers and squeezing lightly.

“Who is this attorney?”

She lifted her head, the track of her tears catching and reflecting the light from the building.

“Ch-Charles Cross.”

“Okay, we can work with that. I know ole Criss-Cross doesn’t want to haul himself out of a cozy bed or comfortable recliner twice a day to drive out to Jester’s. You and I will go together in the morning and talk with him. He’ll be sensible.”

He hoped his words would bring at least a ghost of a smile to Quinn’s face.

“It’s not just the attorney. The state gets the land if I default.”

“How about we worry what the state says in the morning. For now, you need real sleep, we both do. There are cots inside. No one would bother you anyway, but you can sleep on the cot next to mine if it makes you feel any safer.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t understand why you’re being so kind, but thank you.”

Giving her hands a final gentle squeeze before letting go, Barrett kept a growl buried inside his chest. There was more to Quinn’s story that she wasn’t ready to tell yet. Someone in her past had twisted her life around so much she had learned not to expect any kindness from strangers.

“I wasn’t raised to turn people who need help away, ma’am. And you’re Jester’s kin. He meant a lot to my family, especially my Aunt Dotty. That means you do, too.”

She didn’t reply, at least not with words. He heard the sob she tried to keep silent, felt it, too. For everything he had just said, it was more than how his parents raised him or his fondness for the old man who had lived on the hill. Something about Quinn Whitaker struck a chord deep inside Barrett.

“I’ll take your suitcase and bag in, give you a few minutes alone,” he offered.

“Yes, thank you. Your team has had enough to deal with. They don’t need a wailing woman.”

“I…I didn’t mean—”

Surprising him, Quinn reached out and touched his arm. “I know you didn’t, but it’s the truth. I’ll be along shortly.”

“Right, I’ll grab your things then.”

Barrett scooped the suitcase out of the back and grabbed the sleeping roll from the cab. Inside the hangar, he placed them on the cot next to his. With Quinn’s stuff in place, he walked a quick line to the bathroom, growling as he went.

“There’s going to be a lady on deck for the night, mind your manners.”

He entered the bathroom to a chorus of snickering assent and lighthearted taunts. Rolling his eyes, Barrett shut the door, ripped the poster off and stuffed it far down in the trash can before checking the stalls for more pin-ups.

Finished policing the bathroom, Barrett sat down on his cot and waited, heart galloping in his chest, for Quinn Whitaker to come inside.