The sun could not rise in a world without Haddie. Kade—and apparently God, too—simply wouldn’t allow it.

Kade sat outside the school, his back to the brick wall, under the eaves, watching the rain drip down in steady tears as the sky wept over Dawson.

No one had seen Haddie, and twelve hours after the fire, everyone else, with the exception of Dr. Lilligren and two patients, had been accounted for.

The all-grades school complex, situated on a hill a mile from town, overlooked the destruction. The refinery still smoked, despite the deluge, a steady rumble of thunder, lightning, and fire-suppressing rain since the wee hours of the morning. In the dour morning light and the heavy hang of clouds, the town looked desecrated. A black skeleton where the hospital once stood, surrounded by a pile of rubble and ash. Likewise, the fire had reduced the bank, feed store, old library, and grocery store to charred beams, scorched cement and melted electrical wire.

Half the town was consumed, not to mention a neighborhood of homes to the north—a subdivision of two-storied houses built on the Dawson boom. The temporary housing Dillon Oil offered—the dormitories—had also succumbed. Thankfully, everyone inside had responded to the sirens. No one...else...had perished.

Inside the school, displaced families gathered and circled around their meager belongings, shell-shocked, assessing the debris of their lives. The hospital patients took the classrooms, desks shoved to the side to make way for cots and a few gurneys that had made the escape.

The Red Cross had arrived with its first contingency of aid workers—armed with medicine, cots, blankets, food, and an incident control team—before ten o’clock last night.

About then, Kade had wandered outside, slumped down into the darkness, watching a red sun burn through the choking black smoke as it surrendered into the horizon.

He’d tried calling Haddie one last time before his phone died, clinging to a desperate hope. His call went to voice mail.

A chill crept through the prairie at night, found his bones, but Kade couldn’t move, even as the night closed in around him, and a thumbnail moon rose. The stars blinked in and out against the black swath of smoke, as if confused.

Nash came out to check on him after he got his family settled. Crouched beside him. Ran his hand across his cheek. “Erica is sure she went back in.”

Kade nodded. He had long ago stopped trying to push it down, hold back the wail, turn to Nash with accusation—You shouldn’t have pulled me away. In fact, it took all he had in him not to get up, return to the hospital, and by the wan light of a broken moon, dig through the timbers, calling her name.

“I walked away from her. Again. It’s all I ever did...walked away.” His voice had emerged reed thin, almost a moan rather than words.

Nash hung his head.

Grief hung its silent hood over them.

“I should have gone after her when she went to Minnesota. She left, and I ran the other way.”

Nash glanced at him.

“I just thought...I didn’t want to cause any more trouble between us.” He met Nash’s eyes. “I love her. I have since the day she walked into our classroom.”

Nash’s mouth made a grim line. “I knew that, and I asked her out anyway. I’m sorry, man.”

Kade stared away from him. “You loved her too.”

“Not like you did. Like you do.”

Like you do.

Nash left him there, the words stinging as night fell, dark and thick around him. Kade went inside around midnight, found an empty cot and a blanket, a cord to charge his phone, and tried to sleep, driven by the faint idea that if he woke, he might find a different reality in the morning.

But when he closed his eyes, she walked in, the smell of her hair against his, her laughter. Goose. He’d named her that for her crazy, delightful laugh, a high-pitched honking.

He had too much left unsaid.

With the night thick around him, Kade got up and stood at the door as the rain came, lifting a mist into the air against the fractured outside lights.

In the wan morning, families were waking. Children began to cry, as the smell of breakfast stirred from the cafeteria in the school, and Kade took his place sitting under the eaves, letting the rain do what he hadn’t the strength anymore to hold back.

He let the tears run down his face, silent, unhindered.

The door opened, and he glanced over to see Duke come out of the school holding two cups. He walked over to Kade and handed him one.

Kade considered it just a moment. Then he ran the heel of his hand over his face and took the proffered cup.

The former sheriff slid down beside him, staring out at the dawn spreading like wildfire across the prairie. “I loved your dad like my brother.”

Kade glanced over at him.

“The night he died, I arrested him, not because he was wrong—but for his own protection. He’d beaten up his foreman pretty good, and the man had rounded up a posse, ready to go after him. I was afraid if your father went back to the house, you or your mom could get hurt.”

Kade said nothing.

“If I had known how hurt he was...” Duke looked away. “Every day I wished for a way to redeem my mistake, to go back and rescue your dad. The regret hollowed me out. It just about destroyed me. I...I wasn’t a good man back then.”

Kade nodded. He had vague memories of Duke showing up on their porch in the middle of the night, drunk.

“I remember one morning waking up on your mother’s couch, my head ringing, and she was standing there shaking her head. ‘Get up,’ she said. ‘And stop letting your pain win. You’re fighting a battle that’s already been won. It’s called grace. Either accept it, or get off my couch and don’t come back.’”

Kade’s mouth tightened into a line.

The sun crested the horizon now, and in the distance, a Humvee headed up the road, a black outline against the dawn.

Duke stared at his cup. Sighed. “I love your Mom, Kade. And I love you, as if you were mine. I can’t be your father—I never would try. But since that day, I’ve tried to stand in the gap. To believe that every morning gave me a chance to be a better man than the day before. It’s the best I could do to honor your dad.”

The Humvee turned into the parking lot.

“We can’t get through life without regrets, son. It’s a part of being human. We spend our lives reliving the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. But we have to turn the page, try to write a better story today than we did yesterday.”

Kade closed his eyes, pretty sure there was no better story than the one he’d just lost. “The first time I met Haddie, she was this skinny girl with long blonde hair and deer-in-the-headlight eyes—wide and bluish-green—and pretty skittish. She’d just lost her parents and had moved out here to live with her grandpa. When she sat in the desk across from me, she was doing everything not to cry. Biting her lip. Looking out the window. It killed me. So at lunch I found her and told her over fish sticks and applesauce that she didn’t have to be afraid. ’Cause Nash and I would take care of her. I remember Nash looking at me like I might be crazy, but I didn’t care. There was just something about her.”

“Love at first sight?”

Kade swallowed, his throat thick. “Maybe. Yeah. Probably. I just know that I knew what it was like to lose a parent, that sense that the world had just come unhinged, and...she’d lost both of them.”

“The protective gene runs deep in the Logan family.”

Hmm.

“Except I didn’t protect her. I walked away from her.”

“You kept her from marrying Nash.”

He guessed his mother might have filled Duke in on those details.

“That was jealousy.”

“Or you could say you stood up to protect her. As I remember, Nash beat the tar out of you.”

Kade lifted a shoulder.

“I’ll bet you didn’t fight back.”

“I thought I deserved it.”

“And she left to start the life she was supposed to live. And Nash found his way to faith—he told us a little of his journey as we took him to the hospital.”

Oh. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Kade ran a hand across his cheek, feeling brittle, Duke’s words stirring up fragile, sharp-edged memories. “We never had a story, really. I was just a subplot—she always only wanted Nash.”

Duke got up. “We either live our lives in regret...or in grace. Jesus stood in the middle of those two and said choose. Death or life. I promise you, Kade, you will always lose to regret. I know you’re in terrible pain, and I’m sorry. There is a way through the darkness, though. Just keep moving forward, reaching for grace. It’s there.”

Kade looked away, but Duke’s words burned through him.

Grace. Receiving what you don’t deserve. Yeah, well he hadn’t deserved Haddie and guess what...

He cradled his head into his arms, his body shaking.

The Humvee stopped in front of the school. Doors shut and he lifted his head. A team of people piled out—two men, one woman, a blonde with short bobbed hair, petite. One of the men was dark haired and wearing a hat with the Red Cross logo. The other wore a black moisture-wicking shirt with the same logo on the breast, his long blonde hair pulled back into a man bun, all tied up in a red bandanna. He came up the walk, glanced at Kade, then frowned, paused.

“Kade Logan?”

It clicked then, the stir of familiarity. Pete Brooks, friend of his boss, Ian Shaw, and former team member on the PEAK Rescue team in Mercy Falls. “Pete.”

Kade wanted to rise, but Pete crouched in front of him.

“You okay?”

Kade shook his head.

Pete considered him a moment, then pressed his hand on Kade’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

Kade looked away, nodded as Pete got up and walked into the building.

The door opened. Nash barreled through, out onto the sidewalk. Skidded, and rounded on Kade. “You got a text!” He shoved the phone at Kade. “It’s from Erica’s phone.”

Erica’s... “What?” Kade grabbed it.

Stared at the text, his gut cold, his pulse thundering in his ears.

SOS. This is Haddie. Alive with 3 others. In bunker under hospital. Help!

“She’s alive.” He met Nash’s eyes. “She’s alive!”

“Maybe. That could have been sent—”

“She’s alive, bro. I know it.”

Nash held up his hands. “Okay, we’ll go with that.”

Kade pushed past him, opening the door to the school. “We need blueprints of the hospital—especially into this bunker.”

Nash caught up with him. “What does she mean by bunker?”

The Red Cross had turned the principal’s office into HQ, and he charged in, found his mother standing with Duke and a group of emergency response personnel, including Pete, with a map of the town spread across the table. They’d circled the areas destroyed by fire.

In her mayoral capacity, his mother looked up when he came in. “The Red Cross is going to provide temporary housing, and we’re thinking of putting—”

“Haddie’s alive!” He set his phone on the table, right in the middle of the blueprint. “And she’s buried under the hospital.”

Silence as his mother read the message, passed it to Duke, then to Pete.

Concern streaked her expression.

“What—?”

“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up,” his mom said.

“Oh, my hopes are more than way up. They’re on Mt. Everest. Mom, she’s alive, and I’m going to go get her.”

Pete nodded. “Let’s get moving, because we took a look at the hospital, and it’s still smoking. Which means that below all that rubble, the hospital is still on fire.”

It took Kade just a second to catch up. But yes, Pete, SAR, showing up felt a little like God being on his side. Like grace.

Kade picked up the phone. And, as Pete and the others tracked down a blueprint, he texted her back. “Stay alive, Haddie. I’m coming for you.” It only took a heartbeat for him to add, “I love you, Goose.”

No one was coming to save them.

Haddie sat on the table, her back to the wall, her eyes gritty in the dusky air, and fought the urge to curl into a ball and weep.

They’d die down here, slowly baking to death. Because the temperature in the room had risen at least twenty degrees, a fine layer of sweat coating her back. She’d managed to stuff the cracks in the doors with the blanket Dr. Lilligren had taken from Ryan’s bed. But the air supply that remained in their tiny tomb would run out eventually, and she’d either have to remove the sheets or, well, suffocate.

Her eyes burned, and she blamed the murky layer of smoke. She’d long ago turned off her light, not wanting to waste the phone battery. The phone had died anyway over an hour ago.

She tried to keep a grip on the barest, feeble hope that Kade had gotten her message.

Now, her entire body ached and a headache, probably smoke-induced, pounded at the back of her head, and with it, the tiny whir of ringing in her ears.

She had a migraine in the making.

A light flicked on. Dr. Lilligren rose from where he’d parked himself next to Ryan’s cot. He took Ryan’s pulse. Ryan roused, groaned, and Haddie realized that without pain meds, he had to be in agony.

Adam slept, but she got up and checked his pulse, too. Found it regular. She sat on the floor next to him.

Her stomach growled, her throat parched.

“Still no luck sending that message?” Lilligren asked as he flicked off his light.

How she hated the pitch, nearly choking darkness. “I don’t know. It said sent, but there was no reply.”

Silence, just her pulse in her ears, a steady thump of despair.

The worst part was that she’d never get to tell Kade that...what? She loved him?

Oh, how. She’d probably loved him since the day she met him...but she’d chosen Nash. Or rather, Nash pursued her. And Kade hadn’t.

She wiped her hands across her eyes. But how could she blame him? He was Nash’s best friend—he’d hardly get between them. The first time he did, he’d not only paid for it, but she’d sent him out the door and turned to Nash.

Always Nash.

Even at the end, she’d left him with Nash’s fury and fled.

No wonder he kept walking away.

“We’re going to be okay, Haddie.” Lilligren’s voice, soft, patient, the tone he gave a panicked patient. “They’ll find us.”

He must have heard her rippled breath, her choked-back sobs.

“I know.” She tried to school the disbelief from her tone.

It was just...why hadn’t she chosen Kade? After everything Nash had done...

“I’m starting to think that coming down here wasn’t such a great idea. No pizza delivery.”

It took her a second, but she gave a tiny laugh. “Yeah, I’m not thrilled with the decor either. Very early Cold War. We could probably use Chip and Joanna.”

“My wife loves that show—Fixer Upper? She’s constantly rearranging our furniture, repainting, buying new curtains. I blame them for the fact I’m still working in my sixties.”

“Oh please, you’re never going to retire, we all know it.”

He emitted a noise—could have been laughter, maybe rueful agreement. “I used to dream of buying a sailboat and touring the Caribbean, but, it’s true. Life has a way of changing our plans. Dot doesn’t want to leave the grandkids, and apparently I can’t live without Dawson Medical.”

“Or they can’t live without you.”

A pause then. “Or you. You’ve been an answer to prayer these last few months, Haddie. I’m sorry you lost your grandfather, but the blessing has been your skills as a trauma nurse. I hate to see you leave. You could stay...there’s a place here for you.”

The irony of his words sank into her, and maybe him also because he added, “Well, there was.”

“You’ll rebuild. And hopefully with new technology.”

“We could use your help with that, too.”

Here he was, talking her out of her despair, sparking ideas into her mind.

What if she stayed? “I have a position waiting for me down in Minneapolis.”

“So what. Change your mind. Circumstances have a way of interfering, moving us into a direction we might never have considered. A better direction. I know you’re a Christian, Haddie—you might consider that God brought you back to Dawson to give you another choice.”

Another choice. Like Kade?

You. Didn’t. Want. Me. His words echoed back to her, a drumbeat in her head.

Yes she did. Oh, yes she did. But how could he want her, after...well, she’d always thought she’d end up with Nash. Had made her choice to be with him. Stepped across a line she could never undo.

“No, I can’t come back to Dawson.”

“Why not? Don’t sell your grandfather’s place. Settle in here, get married—what about Kade Logan? You two were always together. I remember he brought you in for stitches once. I’ll never forget the way he held your hand, tried to make you laugh. What did he call you?”

“Goose. He says I honk when I laugh.”

A chuckle through the darkness.

The memory twisted a smile onto her face. “It was his fault I got stitches. He spooked my horse.”

And she’d fallen nearly into his arms.

In fact, Kade had always been around to catch her, it seemed. She hadn’t really noticed that before. Or maybe she had and simply didn’t want to acknowledge it.

“I heard he came to the hospital this morning.”

Oh. Wow. Small towns. “Yeah, he’s here. He’s the one I texted.”

“See? Settle down with Kade. Start your life here.”

She drew in a breath. “No. We have too much bad history.”

“You’re talking about Nash and the big fight with Kade?”

Seriously? “How—”

“Kade was in rough shape that night. His mother brought him into the ER, and I did some patching.”

“It was my fault.” She wasn’t sure where those words came from, but, “I should have broken up with Nash a long time before that. Not waited until the night before we were to get married to finally admit that Nash was a cheater. Kade just helped me see it.” Something she had never really thanked him for. “And Nash made him pay for that.”

“Why didn’t you break up with him?”

She blew out a breath. But it was dark, and frankly, it felt a little like talking to a wise uncle. “I slept with Nash.”

She winced because she was talking to Dr. Lilligren, a man she respected.

“After that, I realized that I’d made my choice. Even if Nash and I didn’t get married, that was it. I’d given myself away, and there was no getting me back. When I left, there was nothing left for me but to try to hold onto the only thing I had left—my job.”

Not Kade.

“So I made a plan, got my degree, my license, and my training as a trauma nurse. And a job in Minneapolis.”

Quiet. Then, “Oh, I see. When you say bad history, you’re not talking about between you and Kade, but between you and yourself.”

She frowned, shook her head even though he couldn’t see her.

“You let yourself down and decided you needed to be punished. You decided you didn’t deserve better than a man who wouldn’t cheat on you. Who told you through his actions that you weren’t worth changing his life for, and you believed it. You felt dirty on the inside, so you made sure you were miserable on the outside, to match it. You decided you didn’t deserve a happy ending.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “No...”

“Yes. It’s why people lean into their addictions. Shame. They feel like they can’t break free of their mistakes, so they punish themselves. Drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, cutting, anorexia, even overspending—it’s all a way to make themselves feel better, for a moment. But they know they’re not living in freedom. And you made the same choice with Nash. And have been in prison ever since.”

Stupid smoke. It made her eyes well, and she blinked tears away.

“But you don’t have to live your life trapped in shame, Haddie. Jesus stood between you and sin so you could be clean on the inside—and live in freedom on the outside. You don’t have to punish yourself or pay for your sins or even feel shame over them, because Jesus has cleaned you and put new clothes on you. Living in shame after you’ve been forgiven is like putting your filthy clothes on after you’ve taken a bath. You don’t have to live in those rags anymore. You’re free.”

Free.

“You’re free to make a different plan. Choose a different life.”

Free to choose Kade.

Haddie touched her forehead to her knees, wishing the words to be true. But it had been so long since she’d attempted anything but a desperate, ER and CCU-induced prayer that...

No, she didn’t know how to live in freedom. She had a plan, and it kept her safe, kept her...

Except she wasn’t safe. Her plan had backfired, led her back to Dawson. Back to Kade.

Back to her mistakes...

You might consider that God brought you back to Dawson to give you another choice.

Adam moaned. When she pressed her hand to his forehead, a light sweat had broken out, evidence of his returning fever. “I think Adam has an infection.”

“Could be sepsis, with those burns. Who knows what kind of latent bacteria is lurking down here.”

And they had nothing with which to help him.

Haddie pressed her cool hand against his forehead. “Hang in there, Adam.”

Her headache had found its way to her frontal lobe, and with it, the ringing inside deepened. She closed her eyes, tried to calm her breathing, rubbing her temples with her fingers.

The doctor’s voice split the silence. “Do you hear that?”

“All I hear is my head about to explode.”

“A buzz, or...a drill. It’s a drill!”

He flicked on his light, shined it around the room. “It’s coming from above.” He got on the table and pressed his hand to the ceiling. “It’s vibrating. They’re drilling down.”

Even as he spoke it, the sound thickened, echoing into the room, grinding against cement.

Then, suddenly, the drill hit metal, the screech deafening.

Haddie pressed her hands to her ears, her head about to implode with the sound, the pain.

A drill head popped through, right where Lilligren aimed his light, sending a shower of dirt and metal shards into the shelter.

She threw herself over Adam, the debris pinging onto the floor.

And then there was light.

Real light. A pin prick of it, yes, but enough that the tiny dot on the floor betrayed sunshine and the real world, someone reaching down from above to save them.

The drill disappeared. Silence.

“Haddie, can you hear me? Are you down there?”

Kade. She got up, stood under the light, peering up. “Kade! We’re here!”

“Hang tight. We’re going to dig down the side entrance. I’m coming for you.”

I’m coming for you.