“Oh, he noticed you. Noticed how you stood up to him on the playground, ran faster than him, and could beat him up.”
“I never beat him up. We just sort of wrestled.”
“Right.” Echo finger-quoted her next word. “Wrestled.”
Harley rolled her eyes. “Please. We didn’t even kiss until our senior year. And by then it was too late.”
Shoot, those words did hurt, and she took a sip of her coffee to match the bitterness in her heart. How unfair was it that the one guy who’d shattered her was also the standard for every other possible romance? No wonder she never said yes to a date.
She set down her coffee. “And by the way, as I recall, I wasn’t the only one on our state champion hockey team.”
Echo laughed. “Yeah, well, I don’t care why you’re back. Just that you are. You’ve always thrived on trouble, Harls. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
Harley shrugged, leaning forward, elbows on the scarred table. “Trouble I can handle. Diapers and tantrums? That’s your territory.” She put her hands up to play peekaboo with Chase.He laughed and put his own hands on his eyes. Almost made her want to—
Nope. Never. Marriage, children, family—she’d said goodbye to all of that long, long ago. She leaned back in her chair. “Five years away is a stretch though. Sorry for the radio silence. Catch me up. What’s the word in Copper Mountain?”
Echo took a sip of coffee. “Where do I start? Dodge is flying every day. The snow has socked in the homesteaders, so he put skis on his plane and is delivering food and mail to the bush. He also flies for Air One Rescue. Moose Mulligan runs an outfit out of Anchorage and Dodge answers calls up here, mostly Denali drama. He pulled a hiker off Windy Corner last summer. Guy brought a Walmart sleeping bag into the bush and canned beans for dinner. They had to airlift him off the mountain after a couple climbers found him almost dead. Dodge came home muttering about wannabe mountain climbers.”
Harley snorted, shaking her head. “Sounds like Dodge.”
“He’s good—tired, though.” Echo patted her stomach, barely a bump under her flannel shirt. “His brothers are all over the map. Ranger and Noemi are in Minneapolis—baby’s due any day. Colt and Tae are in Florida—he proposed on the beach, very romantic.”
“Seriously? Colt?”
Echo nodded. “And Larke is expecting again too. She and her SEAL hubby live in Virginia.”
“Wow. And Barry?”
“He’s lost most of his sight, but the guy—you just can’t slow him down. He runs dispatch for Sky King Ranch and still cooks dinner nearly every night.”
“I didn’t know that.” Harley finished her roll. “Hard to let go of something you love like that.”
“I think he’s happy being a grandpa.”
Harley glanced out the window, taking in the changes—thenew Starlight Pizza across the street, neon sign flickering in the window, and the Bowie Mountain Gear nearby.
She refrained from asking about it.
Except, “You’re quiet,” Echo said, tilting her head. “Thinking?”
“Just soaking it in,” Harley said. “Place looks different. Pizza joint’s new. And ...” Aw, she couldn’t stop herself. “The Bowies seem to have landed on their feet.”
“That’s mostly Hudson. He and Malachi took over the resort in town and they’ve grown it. Malachi opened up the outfitter’s store a few years ago.”
Harley ran a finger around the rim of her mug.
Echo picked up Chase’s sippy cup. “Okay, yes, I saw Jericho in town last summer. He’s out of the military. Runs some K9 SAR training school in Montana.”
Harley took another sip of coffee.
“Not that you’re interested or anything.”
Harley’s throat tightened. Jericho. Of course the name thumped, a heartbeat, soft, ever present despite her efforts to shut it down.
“I haven’t seen him since the funeral.” She lifted a shoulder. “I was a mess.”
“We all were.”