When fire captain Jack Barnes, riding shotgun in the Engine One fire truck, saw the slender bundle of a woman standing alone up ahead, shivering on the side of the highway, his heart went out to her. Wrapped in a red sleeping bag, she looked tiny and in danger of being blown over by a strong gust of wind.

“Dispatch, this is Engine One.” He kept his eyes on her as he radioed in, wondering why she wasn’t flagging them down. People usually did, even when completely unnecessary. “We’re on Highway Thirty just past mile marker forty-six, and we see the vehicle and one patient standing on the road. No police on scene yet.”

The dispatcher came back. “PD’s still en route. Sure there’s not a second patient? The trucker thought there were two people in the SUV.”

“We’ll investigate,” Jack said. “We’re pulling up now.”

“Minus twenty-two out there. Hell of a night to be out on the road,” said Sean Kelly, the engineer, as he slowed the fire truck and steered carefully onto the shoulder of the road, pulling to a stop a safe distance from the woman.

Jack was the first to jump out of the rig. He bristled against the bitter wind as he began to approach her, but, struck by the image before him, he had to stop for a moment.

At the age of thirty-six, he knew that some scenes from the job would stay with him forever like paintings in his brain, to be studied time and again, and he knew this would be one of those scenes—a woman entirely alone on a highway in Alaska’s dark, cold winter in the dead of night. The flashing red lights of the fire truck, help on the way. Snow assaulting her from the side. An SUV angled nose-down in the ditch. He’d call the painting “Brutal Alaska.”

“I’m Jack Barnes from the Golden Falls Fire Department,” he called, approaching. The woman, slender and of average height, looked to be in her mid-twenties … and very, very cold. Her prominent cheekbones and big blue eyes gave her a gentle, doe-like look that made Jack want to protect her like one would a motherless fawn. She merely stared at him and said nothing. Was she in shock? “Ma’am? Are you okay?”

Her nod was barely perceptible.

“Is anyone with you? We got a call there were two of you in the vehicle.”

“I’m alone,” she said, in a way that broke his heart a little bit.

“Not anymore you’re not.”

Now that he was right in front of her, her summer-sky blue eyes revealed fear, maybe even panic. He put out a hand behind him to tell the rest of the crew to halt their approach.

“Can you tell me your name?” Jack asked the woman gently.

“I’m Elizabeth,” she said.

Her eyes were the sort a man could drown in. Big. Blue. Expressive. Midnight black lashes. And not surprised to find herself in a bad spot, not surprised at all.

“Are you hurt, Elizabeth?”

She looked familiar, with her long blond hair that weaved into black at the bottom. Ombre. He recalled the term from the magazines he flipped through at the Golden Touch Barber Shop, owned by Andrew Blake, his former captain. He thought it was a cool look, but it hadn’t made its way to Golden Falls, that was for sure. And yet here she was, and he’d seen her before but couldn’t remember where.

Thankfully, Sean Kelly did.

“Hey, Elizabeth,” Sean said as he came over and wrapped the sleeping bag more tightly around her. “Rough night, huh? You’re a long way from the Sled Dog.”

That’s right, Jack thought. She was a bartender at the most popular craft brewery in Golden Falls. He’d never spoken to her, but he’d noticed her from a distance on a few occasions while out with friends.

“Is it just you out here?” Sean asked.

“It’s just me,” she said, adding, “But why are you here? I didn’t call for help.”

“A trucker was ahead of you and thought he saw you drive off the road,” Sean said. “He wasn’t sure, but he called it in just in case.”

Normally, Jack would expect an expression of relief or gratitude for the trucker’s actions, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Elizabeth asked if the police were coming. When Jack told her they were on the way, her eyes took on a look of impending doom.

“Sean, go ahead and help Dylan inspect the vehicle,” Jack said. Dylan Hart, one of the firefighter-EMTs, was already making his way down the ditch to the Bronco. Cody Bradford, the other firefighter, was grabbing medical boxes from the fire truck.

“Sure thing,” Sean said.

As Sean followed after Dylan, Jack studied Elizabeth, whose eyes kept darting off to the side of the highway opposite from where her car was.

“The truck driver said there were two people in the SUV.” He stepped closer to her. “Were there?”

She gave a small shake of her head.

“How much did you have to drink tonight, Elizabeth?” Asking the question, Jack had a flashback to his one year as a cop before his career pivot into the fire service.

“Please.” Tears welled in Elizabeth’s eyes, and he could smell the alcohol now, confirming his suspicion. “It’s not what you think.”

He never could stand to see a woman cry—his long-ago ex-wife, Jolene, had used tears to great effect—and this woman, in particular, got to him for some reason. A bit heavy on the makeup for his tastes, Elizabeth’s black eyeliner was streaked. As she wiped away her tears with her mitten before they could freeze, he could see her embarrassment, her anger at herself for crying, and her shame—and he appreciated the fact that she wasn’t crying only for effect.

“Then tell me what I should think,” he said.

Elizabeth clamped her mouth shut.

“Blood on the steering wheel,” Dylan called up to them, peering through the Bronco’s driver side window. He pulled open the door. “Blood on the window and the seat. She’s gotta be hurt somewhere.”

Jack gave Elizabeth a visual examination. He saw no blood and no visible injuries, major or minor. No scrapes, no contusions. He did, however, notice the softness of her pale skin and the sensual bow shape of her lips. He sternly reminded himself to focus on patient care. “Where are you hurt?”

“I’m not,” she said.

“You might not realize you are, but the blood must have come from somewhere. Here. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

Instead of letting him check her, she pulled the sleeping bag tighter around her, which tried Jack’s patience.

“Are you refusing treatment?” he said. “Would you prefer we wait for the cops to do a breathalyzer instead?”

“No, please!” She gripped his arm. “Please, don’t. The cops won’t be fair to me, I know it for a fact. Could you call them and tell them not to come? Not to bother coming because everything’s all right here?”

“I can’t do that,” Jack said, nor would he if he could. “You’ve been in trouble with the law before?”

“Not exactly,” she said.

“Then tell me what happened. Based on your lack of injuries, I know you weren’t the one driving, and all I can say is that if you’re covering for a boyfriend, don’t.”

“I’m not.”

Her voice trembled, and he didn’t believe her.

“No guy’s worth lying for in a situation like this.”

Fresh tears welled in her eyes.

“He’s not worth it,” he said again quietly, hoping this time it would get through. “No guy is worth losing your job over or going to jail for. It’s obvious someone else was driving, and they ditched you here, and they’re trying to force you to take the blame. Don’t let them. Let us help you. Let me help you.”

As Sean and Dylan started to climb out of the ditch from the vehicle, headlights appeared in the distance. Jack expected it was the police but realized it wasn’t when there were no flashing lights. As the vehicle neared, he saw it was a large pickup truck.

Relief crossed Elizabeth’s face. “That’s my lawyer,” she said, looking at Jack with an apology in her eyes.

He studied her, annoyed now. “You called a lawyer.”

He glanced at the other guys on his crew. After years of working together, they were often able to communicate without words. And it was evident they all agreed—the fact that she’d called a lawyer just about guaranteed she had something to hide.

“I told you, the cops would throw the book at me.”

“She’s right about that,” Dylan said. “Jack, this is Elizabeth Armstrong. She’s Nate Armstrong’s kid. Remember him? Dirty cop. Stole all that money from the evidence room.”

Armstrong.

The name pounded through Jack’s brain. It was a name he tried never to think about.

“I remember,” he said, feeling suddenly lightheaded.

The Nate Armstrong situation had gone down while his mother was dying of ovarian cancer, about a decade and a half ago. At the age of nineteen, Jack had just finished up at the police academy and was in his rookie year, planning to make a career out of it like his old man and his hero—Bruce Barnes. The man he now couldn’t even be in the same room with, so thick was the animosity.

“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said again.

“Don’t apologize.” Jack was reeling with the new knowledge of who she was and what family she came from. “Never apologize, Elizabeth. Especially not to me.”