Northern Lights

up?"
    "Yeah, putting in a lot of long nights, but I'm making up time. I wanted to come when I heard about Yukon." His voice trembled, and the fingers on his knees dug in.
    "I'm sorry."
    "I remember when we got him. I was just a kid, and he was this goofy
    ball of fluff. It's hard. Hardest on my mom. He was like her baby or something."
    "I don't know what I'd do if anyone hurt my dogs," Meg said as she came back into the room. She handed Nate one of the glasses of wine she had in each hand, then took the can of Coke under her arm and gave it to Steven.
    "I know you're doing all you can. Somebody told me you had some crazy guy around—Jesus, he shot Peter." He shook his head as he opened the can. "And some think maybe this guy did that to Yukon. But . . ."
    "You don't think so," Nate prompted.
    "Yukon was friendly, but he wouldn't have gone with a stranger. I just don't think he'd have gone with somebody he didn't know. Not without a fight. He was old, and mostly blind, but he wouldn't have left the yard with somebody he didn't know."
    He drank deep. "Anyway, that's not why I came by. I just wanted to get that out. It's about this."
    He hitched up his hips as he dug in the front pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a small silver earring in the shape of a Maltese cross. "It was in the cave," he said.
    Nate took it. "You found this in the cave, with Galloway?"
    "Scott did, actually. I forgot about it. I guess we all did. He saw this about a foot from . . ." He glanced at Meg. "From the body. Sorry."
    "It's okay."
    "He chipped it out. I don't know why, something to do. He put it in his pack. By the time we all got off the mountain, the shape we were in, the hospital and shit, he just forgot about it. He found it in his stuff and remembered and gave it to me because I was coming home. We thought it was probably your father's, Meg, so you should have it. Then I thought how it should probably go through the cops first, so I figured I should bring it to Chief Burke."
    "Did you show this to Sergeant Coben?" Nate asked.
    "No. Scott passed it to me right before I left to come home, and I wanted to get home. I thought it was all right to do it through you."
    "That's fine. Thanks for bringing it by."
     
     
    "I DON'T KNOW if it was his," Meg said when she was alone with Nate. "It could've been. He wore an earring. He had a few. I can't remember exactly. A couple of studs, a gold hoop. But it might've been his. It could've been something he bought in Anchorage while he was gone. It might have been . . ."
    "His killer's," Nate finished, studying the earring in his palm.
    "Are you going to give it to Coben?"
    "I'm going to think about it awhile."
    "Put it away, will you? Can we put it away for tonight? I don't want to be sad."
    Nate slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt, buttoned it closed. "Okay?"
    "Okay." She laid her head on his shoulder, laid a hand over the pocket. "You can show it to Charlene tomorrow. Maybe she'd know. But for now—" She set her hands on his shoulders, boosted herself up again. "Where were we?"
    "I think we were over there."
    "And now we're here. And look! There's a nice comfy couch behind you. How quick can you get me naked on it?"
    "Let's find out."
    He dropped backward, pulling her around at the last minute, so she fell, laughing, under him. Her legs were still hooked around him as she tugged his shirt out of his pants, scraped her nails up his back.
    "I expect you to ring the big bell tonight, since I'm an engagementsex virgin."
    "I'm going to work my way up to the big bell." He unbuttoned her shirt, taking his lips on a trail down the opening to the button of her jeans. "Ring all the little ones on the way up."
    "I admire a man with ambition."
    She felt his tongue slide over her, his teeth scrape over exposed flesh as he peeled the jeans down her legs.
    She was going to marry this man. Imagine that? Ignatious Burke, with his big, sad eyes and strong hands. A man just packed with patience and needs and courage. And honor.
    She brushed a hand through his hair. She'd done nothing in her life to deserve him. And somehow that made it all that much more wonderful.
    Then his teeth nibbled along her inner thigh, her system shuddered and she stopped thinking altogether.
    He worked his way up her and down her, over her, around her, washed through with the knowledge that she belonged to him now. To cherish and protect, to hold up and to lean on. Love for her was like a sun inside him, shining strong and