Page 16 of Burning Secrets

“Dunno.” In fact, she’d gotten a buzz on her phone right before they’d deployed. She reached into her leg pocket now and pulled it out. Thumbed open her text.

Peyton.

Peyton

Picked up Cleo’s track. Her patterns suggest a den nearby. I dropped a pin.

JoJo clicked on it. The pin spun and spun, loading.

“No signal.” She showed Skye.

“They have cell service at base camp on Denali. Stand up.”

“I look ridiculous.” But she stood, held the phone in the air.

And then, just like that, it loaded.

“Huh.” She sat and showed Skye. Stilled. “That’s not far from here. South, like a few miles past Whisper Creek.” She zoomed out. “There’re no roads into there.”

“You’d have to take a four-wheeler.”

“I could have the chopper drop me off, then hike to the river.” She pointed to a dirt road along the river.

“And who is going to pick you up at the river road? Some lumberjack?”

Lumberjack Batman?

Aw.

“I’ll pick you up,” Hammer said, grinning, white teeth against his sooted face.

“Really?”

“Just give me a call when you’re ready.”

Overhead, a chopper beat the sky, distant, carrying in reinforcements.

She climbed to her feet. Looked at Skye. “Why not? I’m already packed.”

He should have eaten that last piece of pizza.

And wasn’t that a strange regret lifting out of the stew of so many regrets? The most recent being his promise-breaking. But he just couldn’t stop thinking about…

Well, what if.

He didn’t know where to start with the what-ifs, really.

Maybe it started with the moment he’d ended up in camp, late and in trouble, with Viper asking him where he’d been.

He’d told him the truth—wolf attack, disposal of the body, and did he know that maybe the wolf had eaten poisoned salmon?

Not a hint of remorse from Viper. But it’d worked, and he’d managed not to go a couple rounds with the alpha jerk and climb into his bunk in the communal sleeping room.

His brain stuck on JoJo, of course.

JoJo and her beautiful hazel-green eyes, that long brown hair, her laughter.

Sheesh, his chest hurt, even now.

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