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right for dropping on Mel’s doorstep with only a few days’ notice. It wouldn’t hurt Nicole one bit to rough it for a while. It kind of made her look forward to her sister actually showing up.

C HAPTER T HREE
But all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
~HEBREWS 4:13
    Cache gazed out the small window of the 737. Snow-topped mountains stacked as far as the eye could see. Gray-blue glaciers ran like silent, frozen rivers down majestic mountain valleys. Why hadn’t he ever traveled to Alaska before? He sure as hell had seen the rest of the world, many times over.
    He’d swapped his crutch for a cane, his leg not strong enough to walk without aid. The doctor had told him it mightnever be. He’d let the knowledge poison him into thinking he’d never hike, run, or ski again. It was a lot to give up. It meant a different way of life for him.
    It might mean a different job.
    Others could have filled in for him on this assignment, even though Tom had said only he could do it justice. Cache agreed. He’d broken Amelia Bennett’s story when he’d been green, right out of college. That one snapshot had powered his career.
    They’d be touching down in an hour, and it couldn’t be soon enough. His leg flamed with pain burning up his thigh and into his hip. He’d tried to get up and walk, but the airplane wasn’t made for strolling. Tom had arranged the itinerary so they would have the shortest layover time between flights. He would have appreciated a night over in Seattle before this final trek to the Last Frontier.
    Tom leaned over and pulled Cache’s attention away from the formidable landscape thirty thousand feet below them. “Before we land, there’s something you need to know.”
    Cache had been waiting. The closer they’d gotten to Alaska, the more Tom had fidgeted. At first, Cache had thought Tom’s new designer duds were bothering him. Who knew Versace carried an outback line?
    “What’s up?” Cache asked.
    “Amelia Bennett doesn’t know we’re coming.” Tom looked back to the magazine he’d been thumbing through as though what he’d said was no big deal.
    A feeling of dread sunk into Cache’s bones. “She didn’t agree to a story?”
    “Well, not exactly.”
    “Either she did, or she didn’t. Which is it?”
    “She didn’t respond to my offer at all.”
    “So why the hell are we traveling five thousand miles to see her?”
    “For the fishing?” Tom tried for the funny, but it only resulted in Cache wanting to smack him.
    “Cut the crap, Tom.”
    “I figured once we got there, you’d be able to sweet-talk her into it.”
    “How do you figure that?” He was in no shape to sweet-talk anyone.
    “Remember Achmed what’s-his-name? You got him to give you an exclusive when he refused to speak to anyone else.”
    “That egotistical maniac wanted his picture in the magazine. We promised to give him a four-page spread. If any of the other magazines had promised that or more, he’d have spoken to them.”
    “Right. Forgot about that.” Tom clicked the end of the pen he’d been using to jot down notes in the margins of the magazine. “Well, you’ll figure out something.” He cleared his throat. “The starched shirts are counting on it.”
    “You told them the story was in the bag before you got an okay from Amelia Bennett?”
    He shrugged. “Who would have guessed she wouldn’t have jumped at the opportunity?”
    “Anyone who knew anything about what the press has already put her through. What possessed you to take the chance, and the expense, to fly us up here?”
    Tom crossed his legs and bent closer to Cache. “Listen, she’s already sent home a few enterprising journalists. One she even dumped twenty miles from the nearest village, making him walk out. The man barely made it out alive.”
    “Bears?”
    “Oddly enough, no. Mosquitoes. I guess they were so thick there was hardly enough blood left in him to get him to a hospital.”
    Cache