I sniffed the air, but all that hit my nose was the stale scent of animals. Even in the cold air the scent was all pervasive. The ground slushy underfoot, I strode across the yard, trying to ignore the painful clenching in my gut.
Bounding onto the veranda, I tried the door.
“Eve?” The handle gave easily, but then, she had never locked it, as far as I could tell. One of the advantages of living so far out—but also one of the deficits, especially when there was no one else around to see it all crumble.
I wondered at how much Suzy might have guessed.
I strode through the large, open plan living room, noting the significant lack of garlands and freshly cut Christmas Tree from the previous season that I remembered. Not even a fairy light winked at me. Alongside gingerbread coffees that I had a love/hate relationship with, I knew they were Eve’s weakness.
“Evie?” I yelled up the stairs, the tightness growing in my chest with every step.
I should have checked here first.
Fuck, please let her be okay. Please, fucking God, please.
It’d been a long time since I prayed, and I doubted he had anything to say to me, but right now I’d take any help on offer.
The oven was cold under my hand. For any midafternoon just a week out from Christmas, I knew just how wrong that made the situation. The confirmation hit me as a sucker punch in the solar plexus as my steps quickened. I hadn’t taken off my boots, but I no longer cared about house rules.
“EVE!” I hollered again, my voice straining at the end of her name, knowing it was no use.
The enormous ranch house was empty.
I dialed her number anyway, cursing when her phone buzzed uselessly beside the coffee machine. Cute that it had charge, so at least she’d been about recently.
Clenching my teeth, I hit the front door at a fast pace, taking the stairs to the veranda at a run.
The only thing that stopped me from sprinting to my truck was a similar one to Eve’s pulling into the yard. I wondered for a second if Travis had finally upgraded his beater of a vehicle to something newer, until I spotted the decals.Wiseman & Co.branding was plastered down its glossy white side. The truck looked as though it had never been off the black top, until now.
I halted at the bottom of the stairs, folding my arms across my chest. I didn’t recognize the name, but not having been around the ranch for so long, that didn’t really mean much.
A broad set of shoulders appeared in a blue, branded shirt from the driver’s side. My own tensed in response. A dark hat pressed to his head as he turned, but the face that I read beneath the dark brim was nothing like the one I expected.
“Jude!” I shouted, striding to the stocky foreman, relieved to find a familiar face at last.
And maybe some answers in the middle of this clusterfuck I’d walked into.
I pulled him into a hug, which was no small thing for the barrel chested introvert.
“Archer.” Jude’s weathered face split into a grin. “I wasn’t expecting to see you! Eve’s been whining on about when you were going to come up. You took your damn time.” His words were soft and packed with the emotion that fueled them.
“Has she?” I raised my eyebrows. Eve and I had been planning this trip down to the finest details—details which were swept away in the face of holiday traffic—for the better part of three months, and now I was here, I wondered how much of that planning had been one sided, or a facade. “I just pulled in. The house is empty. Do you have any idea where she is?”
Jude’s gaze settled on my face while I tried to keep it smooth of the inner turmoil that consumed me. I pressed the heels of my boots into the slush beneath me, willing myself to remain still beneath his assessment.
If there was a single person I trusted at Red Hart above Eve, it was Jude. The foreman was more of a brother to her than anything else, and he had even less a propensity for bullshit than Eve did. The Ranger in me appreciated that. If it had been Travis who had pulled up, I might have had different reservations. Her twin, despite his age, was as flighty as a flight attendant on her first job.
Jude ignored my question, gesturing to someone in the cab I hadn’t spotted, engrossed in the mirage of the man who had tortured Eve.
A small, chocolate haired woman climbed down from the truck. I blinked at the mirror image and shook my head.Not Eve.A bright smile lit her face as she approached me, dark eyessurrounded by heavy lashes sparkling in the afternoon light. Dressed in blue jeans that fit just right and a striped, red and white button down shirt, she did a better job of resembling the woman I’d driven fifteen hundred miles to find than her brother did.
“Hi. I’m Natalie.” She stretched out a small hand, shaking mine firmly. Her hair was a little straighter than Eve’s, curling only at the bottom, not the full head of glossy chestnut waves that made my hands itch to run through it.
My gaze slid to Jude. I’d long wondered at the foreman’s attachment to Eve. Looking at the woman he had chosen for himself solidified that concept.
“Nice to meet you.”
Jude slid an arm around Natalie’s waist, tugging her into his side. His attachment to her was obvious in the glow between them. “Nat and I met when Travis sent me down to the auctions a while back. She’s been helping us stock the ranch. Had a bit of a rocky start but,” —he grinned down at Natalie who tipped her head back, her smile softening— “it’s alright now.”
