Three sets of guilty eyes turned toward him, and fear suddenly stabbed him in the gut. "What?"
Vinia came toward him, and he didn't like the look in her eyes. "Where's Joey?"
"That's just it. We don't know."
"What the hell do you mean, you don't know?"
"Her horse is in the field. But no one has seen her for the last couple of hours. Apparently, when she left here, she just vanished."
Drake ran to his bedroom. "Then we need to go find her."
Once dressed, he hurried back out. "You checked the camper? The barn?"
Vinia nodded. "I had everyone looking everywhere. No signs of her."
"Where's Percy?"
She spread her hands. "Gone."
A terror like he had never felt before spurred him forward as he rushed out the door.
Chapter Nineteen: Forced to Run
Josephine “Joey” Preston
Joey felt like a chunk of her heart was being torn out as she hurried away from Drake's home.The horses have to eat,she reminded herself.You’ll only be gone for half an hour if you hurry.
Part of her heart had stopped when he was injured, and if it hadn't been for Sarah and Vinia, she didn't think that she could have held it together.
She headed for the barn first. Not even a tendril of smoke remained, and the charred damage had been contained to the one end. Luckily, the barn was open enough that not even smoke had damaged two-thirds of the building. The acrid smoke smell still hung in the air, so they wouldn't be able to put the horses back in the stalls. She made a mental note to muck them out before they left so that Drake and Colton didn't have to do it alone.
When she came to the propane bottles, she stopped. None of them looked like the ones on the campers. Three of them were split apart from exploding, and her heart skipped another beat as she realized just how lucky Drake had been. While the concussion of the blow had hit him hard, the bottles themselves had stayed within the stall when they blew. If the gate had been any wider, they would have missed the wall and hit Drake directly in the chest or head.
Clinton and Warren walked toward her. "What a day, huh?"
She eyed Warren with a shake of her head. "Captain Obvious? Has Percy said anything about leaving?"
Clinton snorted. "For the first time ever, I don't think anyone knows what the hell is going on. The arena is being taken down and loaded. Scarlet and Cheryl are over their helping. But we don't have to be in Denver until next weekend, so I think we're good for another day here, unless the Hales want us gone."
"I was supposed to tell everyone to get ready, but then the explosion happened." Joey sighed. "And I think they want Percy and his people gone, but we're okay. Are the horses all settled?"
"Yep," Warren answered. "They're fine. I think they're enjoying the free grazing. They don't get that much when we're on the road."
"I can't say as I blame them," Joey laughed. "I wish I had the freedom to just go hang out in the pasture for a few hours."
"They could probably use a couple bags of grain. We were headed to help with the arena, if you could fill their trough for us?"
She nodded at Clinton. "No problem. I'll go do that now."
She hurried back to her camper and crouched down and cussed as she struggled with the bag of feed. The sewn top, which usually unravelled with a simple pull, wouldn't budge, and she had no scissors. She didn't even have her knife that always hung on her belt. It was inside the camper with her phone.
"Piss poor planning prevents positive outcomes. Or some shit like that," she muttered to herself.
She wiped her brow. Common sense told her to just go inside and get the tool that she needed, but stubbornness had kept her right where she was. "All I want to do is feed the horses and then get back to Drake." Talking to herself didn't help her mood any.
Seeing Drake laying on his bed, motionless and injured, had done something to her psyche. She couldn't get the visions out of her mind of him rolling on the ground trying to smother the flames. Any normal person would have been killed, but Vinia had promised her that his dragon DNA would protect him and help him heal.
She gave the bag one more try to get it open. The horses whinnied from the paddock, and she knew if she turned, Journey would be leading the protest. The bags of feed that had been saved from the fire were stacked behind her camper, which was the closest to where the horses had been staged.
