She wasn’t worried he’d push her into going all the way; Luke didn’t seem to have a pushy bone in his body. Camry smiled at the road ahead. He certainly would try nudging her, though, because for all of his civilized trappings, he was still a perfectly functioning male.

But then, she also loved a good challenge.

“According to my GPS, we’re going seventy-six miles per hour,” he said into the silence, glancing over at the odometer.

Camry kept her foot steady on the accelerator. “I’m just keeping up with what little traffic there is.”

A moan came from the backseat, and Luke glanced over his shoulder. “Um . . . Max doesn’t look so good. He’s drooling, and his eyes are watery.”

“He gets carsick. The pill I gave him in Freeport will kick in soon.”

“You intend to keep him drugged the entire trip?”

“Max won’t need his medicine once he gets in the snowcat; he’ll be too excited about being on an adventure. He only gets sick in cars because he worries he might be going to the vet.”

Luke started pushing buttons on his GPS again.

Camry swiped it out of his hand and set it on the dash on her side of the truck, out of his reach. “Okay. I didn’t make you go back to your hotel, and we’re on the road. So pony up, Dr. Renoir. If you died when you were twenty, how come you’re still breathing?”

“Because the raging river that killed me also slammed me into a rock and knocked the air back into my lungs.”

She scowled over at him. “From the beginning, Luke. And your intriguing little story had better explain what made you apologize to your mother.”

He started repacking everything that had come with the GPS. “You already know I have a kid sister named Kate. Well, when she was five, Mom and André and I took her to the pound on Christmas Eve, and she picked out a monster of a dog that appeared to be eight or nine years old. He was coal black with wiry hair, half of one of his ears was missing, and his eyes were clouded with developing cataracts. I tried to get her to choose one of the puppies, or at least something less pathetic-looking, but Kate claimed she wanted that one because it was the beautifulest dog in the world and she was going to love it forever.”

He shrugged. “She insisted on naming it Maxine, even though I explained it was a male dog. But on Christmas morning, when Kate took Maxine out to play, almost two hours went by before anyone realized they weren’t in the yard.”

“Two hours?”

“It was one of those ‘I thought she was with you’ things. Mom thought Kate had ridden over to check on our neighbor with André, and André had driven away thinking she was in the house playing with the toys Santa had brought her.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, and Camry realized that even though he’d promised to tell her his story, it obviously wasn’t going to be easy for him.

“When André got back and Mom realized Kate wasn’t with him, we all started looking for her. When we hadn’t found her an hour later, we went back to the house and Mom called our local conservation officer to start an organized search. André and I put on snowshoes and split up, and started searching in opposite directions.”

“But if you needed snowshoes, didn’t Kate and the dog leave tracks you could follow?” Cam whispered, suddenly afraid this wasn’t going to be any easier for her to hear than it was for him to tell.

He glanced over at her, then looked out his side window at the darkened woods passing by. “We’d had an ice storm two days before, and Kate and Maxine were light enough that they could walk on the crust, whereas André and I kept breaking through. We eventually moved far enough away from each other that I could no longer hear him calling for Kate. But I could hear the distant roar of the river.” He hesitated, then said softly, “That’s when I stepped under a giant spruce tree that had sheltered the snow from the rain, and found the tracks of a small child and dog.”

He looked out the windshield, but Cam knew he wasn’t seeing the road. “I started running in the direction the tracks went, which was straight toward the river.”

Camry tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “I know Kate survived, because you said she’s Fiona’s age. So I don’t want to hear any more of this story, Luke.”

“Yes, you do.” He reached over and patted her thigh. “Because this is when I learned exactly what I had put my mother through when I’d run away six years earlier.” He took a deep breath, but left his hand on her leg. “I had never before and have never since been so scared. I broke into a cold sweat, having horrific images of Kate being swept away by the river. I hated that damn dog for luring her into the woods, and swore that when I found them I would wring his ugly black neck.”

His hand on her thigh tightened, then was suddenly gone. “I still have nightmares about what I saw when I reached the river. Kate was dangling on the edge of the ice only a few feet above the rushing water. She was utterly motionless, and that dog—that beautiful, mangy pound mutt—had his teeth clamped on her coat, holding her back from falling in.” Luke looked over at her. “I have no idea how long Maxine had been holding her like that, but I swear that if Kate fell, he had every intention of going with her.”

Camry checked her mirror and guided her truck to the side of the interstate, braking to a stop all the way over on the grass before shutting off the engine. She closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands on the steering wheel.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, cupping her head in his broad palm. “I stripped off my snowshoes and carefully made my way to them. Maxine was quivering uncontrollably, and his mouth was bloody from the strain on his teeth. His feet were bloody, too, and I could see where he’d been gouging the crust, trying to pull Kate up over the lip of ice.”

Picturing the scene all too vividly in her mind, and fearing what was coming, Camry scrambled over the console and into his arms.

Luke cradled her against his chest and quietly continued. “As I approached them, I felt the ice shelf start to buckle. Just then I heard several shouts, and realized that André and some other men had spotted us. But it was too late. I grabbed Kate’s coat and pulled her up, yanking her out of Maxine’s mouth, then flung her as far as I could back across the crust just as the shelf gave way. The dog and I fell into the river.”

“Oh, God,” Camry whispered. “The water must have been freezing.”

“It literally took my breath away. The force of the rapids slammed me into boulders and held me under until I thought my lungs were going to burst.”

“And y-you died.”

His arms around her tightened. “I suddenly wasn’t cold anymore, and everything went . . . peaceful.”

“But then you came back.”

“The current must have slammed me into another rock, and I broke the surface and sucked air back into my lungs. But I was completely disoriented. Then something snagged the shoulder of my jacket, and I felt clawing on my legs.”

“Maxine.”

“Just like with Kate, that damn dog latched on to me and started swimming across the current. There was enough light left that I could see the river was frozen solid where it turned to flat water up ahead, and I knew that if we didn’t make it to shore, we were going to be swept under the ice.”

“You both made it.”

“I did.”

“A-and Maxine?”

“I spent the next three weeks searching for his body, but I never found him.”

“He died!” Cam wailed, burying her face in his shirt. She punched his arm. “I said I didn’t want to hear this story!”

“I’ve never told anyone what happened after I fell in the river; not about my drowning, nor what Maxine had done,” Luke murmured into her hair.

That surprised her. “But why? Wouldn’t you at least want Kate to know that Maxine died saving your life?”

“It seemed too personal to share with anyone. Or maybe . . . sacred is a better word. So I just let everyone be thankful that Maxine had saved Kate’s life.” He sighed heavily. “The dog hadn’t lured her into the woods; he had followed her.”