Chapter One

      “Help! Help … She’s … I need help!”

      The shout came from outside Ranger Station Fourteen, followed seconds later by the sound of someone running flat out, skidding on the loose gravel of the trailhead.

      Matt Blackthorn bit off his briefing mid-sentence and strode from his office, his pulse kicking and then leveling off as he went into crisis mode: six feet and two inches worth of black-haired, green-eyed competence, laced with the determination of his part-Cherokee forebears and the killer instincts that had once been his trademark.

      Grizzled park service veteran Bert Grainger was right behind him, while young charmer Jim Feeney veered off to put the dispatcher on standby in case they needed outside help. The station’s fourth ranger, a clever brunette named Tanya Dawes, was already out in the field. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need her.

      As Matt headed through the station’s front room, he mentally reviewed the hikers who’d checked in at Station Fourteen—the most remote and isolated of the Bear Claw Canyon ranger stations—over the past few days. He fixed on the newlyweds who had come through earlier that morning. They had been too busy mooning over each other—and their new city-bought hiking gear—to really pay attention to his spiel on backcountry safety precautions.

      Muttering a curse, he stiff-armed the door leading outside. Damn it, I told them to head back down toward Bear Claw. Station Three, with its brightly marked trails and pre-planned walking tour, would’ve been a better fit for those two. Fourteen was no place for city softies.

      They hadn’t listened, though. And sure enough, Mr. Newlywed—Cockleburr? Cockson? It was cock-something, anyway—was pelting toward him across the dirt parking lot, eyes frantic enough to have Matt’s gut twisting.

      “Oh, thank God you’re here.” Newlywed’s words tumbled over each other as he staggered to a halt and sucked in a ragged breath. “She’s hurt, unconscious, and—”

      “Stop!” Matt said firmly, using his cut-through-the-panic voice. When Cochran—that was it, Cochran—quit babbling, Matt said, “What happened to your wife? Did she fall?” The trails were dry as hell and starting to crumble in places.

      But Cochran shook his head furiously. “Tracy’s fine. The woman we found is one of yours.”

      “One of—” Matt’s stomach did a nosedive. “A ranger?”

      Cochran patted his chest, near where the men and women who oversaw Bear Claw Canyon State Park wore their badgelike name tags. “Tanya. Her name’s Tanya.”

      “Jim!” Bert bellowed back toward the station. “Get out here!”

      “That’s—” Impossible, Matt started to say, but then bit off the word. Arguing was a waste of time.

      His mind locked on Tanya as he’d seen her last—pretending to ignore pretty-boy Jim while blowing a kiss to divorced, old-enough-to-be-her-father Bert as she headed out to one of the Jeeps. Her dark hair had been tied back, her dark eyes laughing as she had joked with the two men: one her self-proclaimed partner in meaningless flirtation, the other her friend.

      Matt hadn’t been part of the bunkhouse horseplay that morning or any other time. He had his own place