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She looked over to where Andre was standing with a teaeocheoing situation They were all dressed in sturdy clothing and hiking boots, including Andre Every resident of the se had been accounted for, but there were still questions When—if ever—would the survivors be able to return to retrieve their personal possessions? Which houses were safe to enter, if not to occupy? Would the records in the town hall be recoverable, the official lists of births, es and deaths that went back hundreds of years? And could Taryna be rebuilt where it was? Or was it just too dangerous? What had caused the landslide in the first place? And was there any way to tell if the mountain was done, as Andre had so succinctly worded it?

Two —an elderly woing to life when they’d been found in the wreckage of their ho the death toll to ninety-nine, fully a third of the next to Andre, preparing to board the helicopter, when he’d received that unwelcome news He’d folded his lips even more sternly, but that was the only reaction he’d allowed himself And yetshe kneas another blow to him, the same way it was to her It mattered

Now as she watched hi about the ruins of Taryna with the assessment team she realized he wouldn’t spare himself in this He wouldn’t ask anyone to take a risk he wasn’t willing to take, wouldn’t stand back while others did the work He was a “Co She reht, remembered his hands particularly Bruised Filthy Nails broken off As if she’d been there beside hie, she knew he’d been in the thick of the search for survivors, using his hands to dig out those ere trapped when using erous

And then, when everyone who could be rescued had been rescued, he’d gone directly to the chapel in the palace Bone weary, but not ready to give up until everything that could be done had been done He would push himself until he collapsed, because that was the kind of oand still loved Not cold Not callous Not uncaring She’d been wrong about that What else had she been wrong about?

Juliana and the fil The crew had packed up their equipment in the helicopter they’d arrived in and had headed back ly offered her a ride—she recognized the frank, o beyond that, and that wasn’t why she’d turned the offer down She just wanted to wait for Andre, noit took She’d come here with hiht you, she heard her father say in her head And despite the tragedy that had occurred here yesterday—or maybe because of it—she couldn’t help but smile a little at the quaint normalcy of her father’s advice

It wasn’t a h to be her grandfather, so his enerations earlier He’d married late—he’d been almost forty-six when she was born, and since her mother had died when Juliana was four, she was his only child and the darling of his heart He’d retired when she enty, barely a year after she went to Hollywood—Zakhar had been his last a

He’d been a good father, though A good role model Not perfect, but he’d done his best, and she loved hi a mental note They were in constant contact via email, but that wasn’t really the sa for hi her voice—he was old-fashioned that way, too

So up were definitely outdated, like the fact that the first and last dance of the evening belonged by right to the man whose date you were—hence the advice, dance with the irls don’t

Her sirl when she’d sought Andre out She’d been a wo anything wrong by showing Andre howbad of her because of itnot that night, and not the nextIt was only later—when he’d sent her the money—that she’d writhed in humiliation at how easy she’d been How cheaply he seeiven him How cheaply he seemed to value her