another message with her eyes. “I’m going to need to check you out, okay? I need to see how badly you’re hurt.”
“Okay,” the boy said, his voice now a whisper. “I don’t feel so good, Katy. Can you get my mom now? I know she misses me.” He leaned back against the ridge, eyes fluttering.
Katy’s body stiffened. “Anything from the team?” she asked.
Gunnar shook his head, wishing he had another answer.
She pursed her lips and studied him. “I’m going to have to do something, and I don’t have time to explain it all to you.”
“What’s to explain?” Her tone made the hairs on his arms stand at attention.
“I’m just going to say this: Remember Tux?”
“The cat?”
“Yes.”
He peered at her. Had the stress softened her brain? Why were they talking about cats?
“Do you remember the day he was hurt?”
“Yes.”
“And then he wasn’t hurt?”
“Yes . . .”
She pursed her lips again. “That’s all you get for now. No questions and no interruptions, got it?”
He nodded slowly, though he had no idea what he’d just agreed to. He watched as Katy turned back to Shiloh, then bent down and placed her cheek against his. “I’ve got you, buddy,” she whispered. “I can help.”
Gunnar felt his mouth open, but he pressed it closed. No questions, he told himself. Just give her what she asks for. He stared as her eyes closed, then moved rapidly beneath her lids like she was dreaming. Awe enveloped him and suddenly, in a way he could not have explained if the future of the world depended on it, he knew—just knew—that all things were indeed possible.
After a moment, Katy’s eyes flashed open, the gray like molten silver. “I need your help,” she said.
“Anything.”
She smiled at him then, her face so full of love she almost seemed to shimmer. “Come closer,” she said. “Put your hands on my waist.”
His mind felt like one big question mark, but he shook it off and nodded. “I can do that.”
“No matter what you feel or hear, don’t let go,” she said.
“Never,” he promised and reached for her waist.
Together, they leaned forward again, Katy’s cheek against Shiloh’s, and Gunnar’s cheek resting on her back. A slow beat pulsed out from her body, syncing his heart with hers and blending the lines between them. He closed his eyes, and a rainbow of light appeared behind them, its colors so brilliant he had to lift his lids and disengage. His hands never moved, however, never left the firm base of her body, never broke the contact between the two of them and the earth below.
In that moment, Gunnar understood her every cell, her every belief, her every yearning. As she worked frantically to alleviate Shiloh’s pain, he glimpsed the shadows of her pain floating beneath. He felt her struggles and traumas, felt how hard she’d worked to handle what Brandon Fontanne had forced upon her and how she’d made peace with the boundaries of her obligation. In that moment, he understood that she’d saved herself by allowing justice to unfold in its own way. Not only did the fight not belong to him, it had, in fact, already been valiantly won.
A sharp screech cut the air, and behind him, the twins started leaping and shouting. “Telos. It’s Telos,” they called over and over.
The urge to look up clawed at Gunnar, but he could not, would not, move. Not until Katy said so. He closed his eyes again, let some part of him tumble into the light this time. The energy made him both dizzy and calm. Finally, the light dimmed, leveled off into a serene white glow.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You can let go now.”
“Do I have to?” he said and turned his head to softly kiss the center of her back.
“Careful, Chief,” she said with a chuckle. “There’s still work to be done.”
He gave a little laugh and sat back, now fully conscious of the uproar unfolding behind him. The twins, caught up in a happy dance, pointed and shouted at a crowd of searchers and rescuers on the ridge far above. Gunnar raised both thumbs in the air, hoping his team could see from their perch.
“What’s going on?” Shiloh asked sleepily. “Is my mom here?”
“She sure is, young man,” Katy said. “We have all the help we could ask for.”
The boy stared at the sky, then suddenly sat up and pointed. “It’s Telos!”
Katy smiled. “Looks like he was here all along.”
Gunnar got to his feet and reached down to help Katy stand, then pulled