Just Enough Light by AJ Quinn

anymore—suggested since we were here, our adventure should involve something outdoorsy, like hiking in ice and snow. None of us had any real experience beyond things we’d done in college, but we all agreed and set out the next morning. Except none of us had bothered to check the weather forecasts, and as luck would have it, we somehow got separated just as a storm hit.” Annie shrugged as the memory sent a visible shiver through her. “Lesley and I had just gotten together during that trip. Finally admitted our feelings for one another. And when everyone got back to the lodge and they realized I hadn’t made it back, Lesley decided she wasn’t willing to take any chances.”
    “What did she do?”
    “She called my father.”
    “Oh Lord.” Dana bit her lip. “Have I told you I’ve met your father?”
    Annie smiled. “Then you can imagine the kind of stir the senator created when the SAR team called off the search for his only child, saying conditions were too dangerous and they needed to wait until the weather improved. He was in the midst of threatening hell and damnation when this skinny twenty-two year-old kid volunteered to go and find me. Everyone thought she was crazy, but she told my father she knew these woods like the back of her hand. She said she’d bring me back and then she just wandered off into the storm.”
    Dana shook her head. “She hasn’t changed much, has she?”
    “No. It took her a while to find me. I’d sprained my ankle badly and the storm was rather fierce, so she dug a snow cave just big enough for the two of us. We shared body heat, trail mix, and dreams until the winds finally let up. We were almost all the way back, with Kellen bearing most of my weight, when a couple of rangers found us. They quickly bundled me up on the back of a snowmobile, but Kellen refused a ride. Said she’d make it back on her own and then disappeared as quickly as she’d appeared.”
    “I don’t understand. She didn’t come back with you?”
    “No. And you should have seen my father when he discovered the rangers had left Kellen behind to return on her own. He had the secret service combing the woods, looking under every rock and tree until they found her. It turned out she’d been living in the woods while doing her degree at the University of Colorado, which is how she knew the territory so well.” Annie sat for a minute, thinking, remembering. “But she wouldn’t come back with them. Said knowing I was safe was all the thanks she needed. So the secret service kept an eye on her until my father could get there to meet with her. And as it turned out, he got there just in time.”
    “She was getting ready to take off, wasn’t she,” Dana stated softly.
    “You got it in one. She’d just finished packing and was none too pleased about doing it under the watchful eye of my father’s entourage when the senator got there. She also wasn’t too keen to come back to town with him, but my father didn’t get to where he is without learning a thing or two about persuasion.”
    “What happened next?”
    “He asked her to stay with us for a few days, and although it was clear she wasn’t comfortable around so many people, she agreed. On her last morning with us, my father suggested she should be passing on her backcountry knowledge and rescue expertise to train future generations. She said it was something she’d dreamed of doing. And then he offered to back the endeavor, on one condition.”
    Dana frowned. “What condition was that?”
    “He said she needed to take his wayward daughter on as a business partner and keep her out of trouble,” Annie said with a laugh. “I happened to think the idea was terrific. I had a degree in business I wasn’t using, and Lesley had found a cabin near town, the perfect location for a mystery writer to settle down in and write.”
    “So all’s well that ends well.”
    “Yes,” Annie responded with certainty. “Dana, I don’t give a damn what Grant