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easily imagine him riding out with Liane to keep her from searching for her family alone.
    As Harry hurried back toward his SUV, he suspected he was deluding himself to even consider that this break-in was coincidental. Still, he prayed it was possible that Jake and all the Masons would somehow get back home safely. Foolish as it might be, he couldn’t help hoping his earlier wishful thinking would prove true, and his old friend’s delay in returning with his grandchildren would prove to be no more criminal than a broken radio and a horse with colic or a thrown shoe.
    And above all, he prayed it would have nothing to do with his own failure to warn Deke and Liane that this might happen.
    Passing the corral on his way back to his vehicle, Harry went still at the sound of whinnying, then slowly turned his flashlight on the horses.
    A dozen or so had crowded near the far end of the enclosure, their attention on another animal shambling into view. As Harry approached, he saw the white foam of exertion on the sweat-soaked chestnut hide, along with a grayish coating of dust.
    No, not dust, he realized, his breath hitching as he registered the acrid odor. Ash—and the horse’s tail was singed, the long, brown hairs all crisped or missing. Which had to mean that there was fire between here and Elk Creek Canyon.
    “Where the hell are you, Deke?” he murmured, more worried than ever.
    Then his gaze found the saddle, and his stomach lurched as he took in the stirrups, which had been shortened for a child’s legs. Even worse, he saw dark splotches marring the brown leather.
    Bloodstains, he was certain, and so large they indicated a serious, if not mortal, wound.
    “God forgive me,” he murmured, raising his light at the sound of approaching hoof beats. A cloud of dust preceded Deke’s big black mule, Waco, as it came hobbling from the brush. Like the horse, the mule was saddled, but Waco’s tack included a special holster Deke had had made to fit over the pommel.
    Deke’s revolver remained in place, the sight of it adding to the nausea swirling in the sheriff’s stomach.
    After letting both exhausted animals into the corral, he used a handkerchief to pull the weapon from its holster. A sniff of the muzzle and a check of the chambers confirmed that whatever had happened, his old friend had never even gotten off a shot.
    But he wouldn’t give up hope. He couldn’t, so Harry broke into a run, heading back toward his Yukon and his radio, a radio he would use to call in backup from the state, the hotshot fire crews, the search and rescue teams—whoever the hell he could think of—to save whichever of the Masons might still survive.
    * * *
    Sizing up the crashing sounds from above in a split second, Jake grabbed Liane, holding her firmly in spite of her struggle to run from the avalanche.
    “We’re okay here,” he shouted as the slide rocketed past, smashing down more trees with an earsplitting racket that far outstripped the thunder.
    She held on to him for dear life, her nails digging into his back. Within seconds it was over, leaving her breathing hard.
    “There, you see?” He was breathing just as hard as he gave her a squeeze before releasing her. “But we’d better get out of here before the next one comes.”
    “I can’t—can’t believe we’re still alive,” she said.
    His senses heightened by their near miss, he grew hyperaware of the warmth of her breath against his face, the way her stiffness slowly dissolved into trembling. The sweet familiarity of her body pressed against his surged through his veins, along with the pell-mell thumping of her heart against his chest.
    On more than one occasion he’d dreamed of holding her this close again, a fantasy crafted from stolen glimpses of a woman who treated him as if he were some stranger. A woman whom Deke Mason had warned him needed space.
    Jake stepped back from her, heat rushing to his face. A man, especially a man who’d been without female