Chuck was not on bended knee. We were ice fishing and sitting on campstools with tennis balls on the feet, which Big John swore was safest when the ice began to show signs of weakening and could be punctured with sharp implements. Not that the ice was weak—of course not. But just in case, we should stay near shore and put tennis balls on our stools, eh.

I wasn’t supposed to be there at all, since this was a father-son outing, but Horace had been delayed in Seven Forks and Chuck had asked me specifically to come. We hadn’t seen as much of each other as we would have liked since he had become a roving agent for the RCMP, so I said yes even though ice fishing held all the appeal of a bath in snowmelt.

Chuck may not have assumed the classic position, but I recognized the look in his eyes. The last time I had seen this, it had caused terror in my heart. This time I was calmer. My Mountie was handsome, sober—mostly—and solvent. He came with a quirky father, but Horace was usually more blessing than curse. True, Chuck did work for a governmental agency we did our best to avoid, but as baggage went, he was traveling lightly compared to most of us in McIntyre’s Gulch.

Usually I am risk-averse, but Chuck and I had been to hell and back in the course of the last year, and he’d spent much of that time defending us—even at the cost of his position of trust—and I was confident that he could handle anything that life, or the Gulch, might throw at him.