Page 79 of Burning Secrets

So, no. Not okay at all.

A waitress—same girl as last time, Parker—came up to the table.

Again, Crew ordered a pizza—cheese, pepperoni, green peppers.

He wore a bandage over a cut on his cheek, his eye turning dark, but with the wind running fingers through his dark hair, the short beard, the way he turned to her, a gleam in his brown eyes…

Yes. Yes, she was falling in love with this man. And maybe it was risky and filled with what-ifs and vulnerabilities and chaos, but instead of being afraid…

Well, her conversation with her mother swept back into her head.I just needed to hear your voice, honey.

She’d walked out of the ER to the waiting room and sat on a chair.

“I woke up this morning with this sense that I needed to pray for you. And then I had the sense, right now, I should call you. Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. I promise.” And sure, maybe she should fill her mother in on the details of the past five days…

But perhaps she’d wait until she was sitting across from her in the kitchen of her Montana home so her mother could see that, yes, she was more than just fine.

She was agirlfriend.

But she didn’t say that to her mother. Not yet. She imagined her mother, standing in her kitchen, her view looking out over Yellowstone, the rising bump of the mountains to the west, the golden, undulating landscape etched by rivers and canyons, cut here and there with tall lodgepole pine and overlooked by an endless blue sky. An older version of JoJo, really, with long brown hair, tanned, lean, strong body from her work outdoors. The original alpha.

Who’d never found another mate. Maybe never would.

“Have there been a lot of fires?” her mother had asked.

“Some. The season isn’t over yet though.”

“The park is dry. It’s altering the migration patterns of the Wapiti Lake pack. I’m going to have to go into the bush for a few days, see if we can locate a couple missing males. I fear the drought has them outside their territory, maybe venturing into Bar N Ranch land. How’s your pack—Cleo and Brutus?”

Oh. “They were poisoned by some diseased salmon. I found the pups—two survived.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, that’s terrible.” A pause. “I’ll bet it reminded you of Dakota.”

“Yes.”

“Things that we love never really die. They live with us, awakened in our memory when we need them.”

“Is that how you did it?”

“Did what?”

“Kept going after Dad died. You just imagined him with us?”

“Oh no, honey. Your dad was in my heart, but, well, you were there.”

You were there.

“I know. One day at a time, with truth.”

“Yes, and you. You. were. there.”

Oh.

“It’s hard—grief. It feels like getting caught in a wave turning us over and over, and if we can’t break free, we just…lose our balance, and darkness and confusion take over. You have to fight it with truth. Bring God into the fight. And hold each other up.”

She saw a woman run down the hall.

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