Book: SCENT OF HOPE
Character: Jericho Bowie
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
(runs hand through hair) My family… we were the Bowie brothers. Four of us - me, Sully, Hudson, and Malachi. We grew up running the family resort in Copper Mountain. Dad was a state senator, too, and loved this small town. Mom kept us all from killing each other. (slight smile) Dad used to drag us all into different parts of the business - I handed him tools in the workshop, Sully climbed under cars in the snow, Hudson worked the front desk. He wanted us all to take over someday.
We were happy. Close. Until tragedy struck. He and Mom were killed in a plane crash with Sheriff Tatum and his wife not long after. Sully took off. Hudson and Malachi have been running the resort ever since. It’s been hard to come home.
What was your greatest talent?
SAR work. Search and rescue. I can read terrain, track movement, coordinate complex rescues. Did two tours in Afghanistan in combat SAR - got good at bringing people home alive from situations that should've killed them. I'm also a decent climber. Dad taught me that. And I guess I'm the guy people want around when things go sideways in the wilderness.
Significant other?
(jaw tightens) There was… is… Harlow Tatum. We grew up next door to each other - well, as "next door" as you get in Alaska. Her parents had this geodesic dome overlooking the lake. (voice softens) She had this daisy lamp in her window, and when she'd turn it on at night, I'd turn mine on too. Stupid thirteen-year-old stuff, but…
We had something. A "summer inferno," my brothers call it, right before I left for the military. But I left. Had a fight with my dad about not coming home to run the resort, then shipped out and never looked back. She… we never got to finish what we started. And now she hates me.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
I leave. That's what I do. When things get hard, when people want me to stay, to commit, to choose them over… whatever I think I need to do… I run. Told myself it was duty, honor, protecting them by keeping distance. But the truth? I was protecting myself. Easier to leave than to risk failing the people I love.
Orlando, my SAR avalanche dog ha's been teaching me different. You don't abandon your team. You don't leave your post. But old habits…
Where do you live?
(slight laugh) Good question. I had a SAR training center in Montana until recently. Before that, I was deployed. Now I'm… I guess I'm back at the family lodge in Copper Mountain. My brothers kept my room for me all these years. Left all my stuff in boxes, like they knew I'd come home eventually.
Not sure if I'm staying or just passing through again.
Do you have any enemies?
The Sorros gang. Mars, Brand, Conan, Jago, Sloan - whole family of them. Drug traffickers, murderers. They terrorized Copper Mountain when I was growing up. Mars and his crew actually jumped me and some friends when we were teenagers, beat us pretty bad. My dad and Harley's dad - he was the police chief - vowed to shut them down. Then my parents died, and… well, the Sorros brothers are still out there. Still hurting people.
Now Mars is in the wind after being arrested and we're hunting him before he kills again.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
(looks away) Copper Mountain is… complicated. It's home, but it's also where I failed everyone. Where my parents died while I was deployed. Where I left my brothers to handle everything alone. Where I broke Harlow's heart and never came back to fix it.
But it's also… (voice quiets) it's where I learned what it means to rescue people. To run toward danger. My dad's words are everywhere here - in the lodge, in the mountains, in the way my brothers carry themselves. He believed in me. Believed I was "made for this." And I spent ten years proving him wrong by staying away.
The mountains, though - I'm attached to those. They don't judge. They just are. And when you're climbing, when you're searching, there's clarity. Purpose.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
Orlando. My Bernedoodle. (softens visibly) He was the runt of his litter - undersized for a SAR dog, but smart. Sturdy. I trained him as an avalanche rescue dog, and he was brilliant. Then we got caught in a slide during a training exercise in Montana. Trapped for four hours. He hasn't been the same since - spooks at loud noises, freezes up when he should be working.
I brought him to Alaska hoping a new environment might help. But honestly? He's teaching me about not giving up on the ones you love, even when they're broken. Even when they're scared.
No kids. Hard to have a family when you're always running.
What do you do for a living?
I'm a K9 SAR handler now, joining Air One Rescue here in Copper Mountain. Before this, I ran a training center for search and rescue dogs in Montana. Before that, I was military - combat SAR in Afghanistan. Basically, I've spent my whole adult life running toward danger to pull people out of it.
Which is ironic, considering I run away from everything else.
Greatest disappointment?
(long pause, jaw working) Not being here when my parents died. They were flying with Harley's parents - my dad was piloting - and they went down in a storm. I was deployed in Afghanistan. Came home for two weeks of leave, went to the funerals, and… I showed up at Harley's parents' funeral, planning to talk to her. But her brother Gabe told me she blamed my dad for the crash. So I left again.
Never said goodbye to my dad properly. We had this fight right before I left for boot camp - he wanted me to come home after my service, help with the resort. Told me I was "made for this." I told him I had my own life to live. Those were basically our last words.
And I never told Harley… anything. Just left her standing there.
Greatest source of joy?
Orlando when he's working well. When he finds someone. When his training kicks in and he remembers who he is, what he's capable of. That moment when he alerts and you know - someone's going home alive because of him.
And… (quiet) being back with my brothers. Hudson's kept the lodge going, Malachi runs the outfitter's store, Sully's… well, Sully's got his own problems. Seeing what they've built without me - it hurts, but it's also… they're good men. Better than I gave them credit for.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
Climb. Train Orlando. Work. I'm not great at the whole "fun" thing. Used to be different - used to fish with my brothers, hike, hang out with Harley. But I got serious somewhere along the way. "Always took myself too seriously," according to an old photo I found.
Guess that's what happens when you make protecting people your entire identity.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
I run. From commitment, from conflict, from anything that requires me to stay and fight for something that isn't a stranger in danger. I'm the guy who'll carry you out of an avalanche or pull you from a burning building, but ask me to stick around after? Ask me to choose a person, a place, a future? I'm gone.
And I justify it. Tell myself it's noble, that I'm protecting them, serving a higher purpose. But really, I'm just scared. Scared of failing the people I love the way I failed my dad, my brothers, Harley. Easier to rescue strangers than to let the people you care about depend on you.
What keeps you awake at night?
The fight with my dad. (voice rough) Two weeks before I shipped out, he told me this resort was my legacy. That I was made for this - to rescue, to save, to come home and help build something. And I… I lost it. Told him I had my own life, my own plans. We never reconciled.
Then the plane went down and he was gone.
And all I can think is - I never came home when it mattered.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
Finding Mars Sorros before he kills again. He's out there in the bush, armed and dangerous, and there are innocent people in his path. We've got a search grid planned, and Orlando needs to perform despite his trauma from the avalanche.
And… Harley's on the team. (runs hand through hair) She's a PI now, works for the state prosecutor, determined to bring down the Sorros gang because of some personal vendetta. She's brilliant and stubborn and furious with me, and we're about to spend days together in the wilderness tracking a murderer.
I told her I'm not watching her get herself killed. She told me she doesn't need a hero. We're off to a great start.
Is there something that you need or want that you don't have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
I want… (pause) I want my dad back. I want five minutes to tell him I'm sorry. That he was right - I was made for rescue work. That I understand now what he was trying to tell me about legacy.
I want my brothers to forgive me for leaving them to handle everything alone.
I want Orlando to not be afraid anymore. To trust himself again.
And Harley… (voice drops) I want her to look at me without that anger in her eyes. I want a chance to explain. To apologize. To see if there's anything left of what we had, or if I killed it completely by leaving.
But mostly, I want to figure out where I belong. Montana? Here? Somewhere else? I've spent ten years running. I don't know how to stand still.
Why don't you have it? What is in the way?
My dad's dead. Can't change that. Can't apologize to a ghost - though I've tried.
My brothers… they're welcoming me back, but there's this gap. Years of absence, years of them handling everything while I was off playing hero elsewhere. I don't know how to bridge that.
Orlando needs time, patience, and confidence I'm not sure I can give him when I'm doubting myself.
And Harley? (bitter laugh) I'm in the way. My history of leaving is in the way. The fact that her brother told me she blamed my dad for her parents' deaths - that's in the way. Ten years of silence is in the way. And my absolute certainty that I'll eventually leave again, hurt her again, because that's what I do.
I want to be different. I want to be the man my father prayed for - the one who trusts God with his life, his heart, his future. But I don't know if I know how.
So yeah. What's in the way? Me. I'm always what's in the way.
Call of the Wild #2
Action and Adventure-Packed Romantic Suspense Thriller in Alaska with K-9 Rescue Dog and Workplace Romance
Two broken hearts. One deadly mission. And just one avalanche dog standing between them and a killer.
Harley Tatum made a vow to never return to Copper Mountain, Alaska, where a drug dealer destroyed her family and the man she loved walked away. But when that same criminal escapes and justice calls her name, she has no choice but to face everything she buried.
Jericho Bowie remembers things differently. She left him. And he's spent years wondering why. Now Harley needs his search—and—rescue dog, Orlando, to track a fugitive through treacherous mountain terrain—and Jericho refuses to let her go alone. Not again.
But as they push deep into the frozen wilderness, the hunter becomes the hunted. Old feelings resurface at the worst possible time, and survival depends on two people who don't know if they can trust each other—or their own hearts.
Susan May Warren packs action and heart—pounding suspense from the rugged wilderness of Alaska into a nonstop adventure where the greatest danger might be opening your heart again.
This gripping suspense is filled with pulse—pounding action, second—chance romance, and a heroic K9 rescue dog from Alaska, sure to thrill fans of Lynette Eason, Dani Pettrey, and Natalie Walters.
Fiction Adventure | Christian Mystery | Christian Romance [ Baker Publishing Group, On Sale: June 2, 2026, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781493454051 / eISBN: 9781493454051 ]
Susan May Warren is the USA Today bestselling author of more than 85 novels with more than 1 million books sold, including the Global Search and Rescue and the Montana Rescue series, as well as Sunrise and Sunburst. Winner of a RITA Award and multiple Christy and Carol Awards, as well as the HOLT Medallion and numerous Readers' Choice Awards, Susan makes her home in Minnesota.
No comments posted.
© 2003-2026