Griffin garbed up, and they headed out into the swirling snow, the beginnings of the second blizzard. “Where would she go?”
“I don’t know. She’s a city girl. She doesn’t wander around in the snow.” But the words stuck inside him.
And maybe even Griffin felt them, because he glanced at him. “For a city girl, she seems pretty tough.”
Indeed she did. So maybe he’d misjudged her.
“I’ll check the barn. Let’s grab the snow machine. We’ll take it out to the field and see if you spot any tracks.”
Dawson trekked up to the shed, opened the door. The snow machines sat quiet, and he found the one he’d fixed, the key in the ignition, fired it up.
He motored it out into the snow, and Griffin came running up. “Nothing in the barn.” He got on behind Dawson, who stood on the running board and took off up the street. A plowed area led out of town, but snow had dusted it over, and in the shadows, he couldn’t make out any tracks.
They reached the end of the street, and he gunned the snowmobile to push it up over the crest and into the snow. It roared across the top of the snow some twenty feet, then sank in all the drifting.
Griffin slid off, got behind to push.
Dawson gunned the machine again. It spit up snow and ice.
And then, died. A bloom of gasoline puffed out, and Griffin stepped back. “Too much snow. It packed the engine!”
Aw. He rocked the machine back and forth, tried to start the engine again.
Nothing.
Dawson got off and dug around the engine to clear it. Then he and Griffin pulled the snow machine back along the tread path.
Dawson got back on, rocked the machine again, and this time, the engine sputtered to life, then roared, a cloud of smoke puffing up to clog the brisk air.
Dawson sat and looked out into the field. “Do you have snowshoes?”
Griffin nodded. “Let’s turn this around.”
Dawson got off, and together they picked up the back of the machine and turned it around. Then Dawson got on, and with Griffin’s weight, he gunned it.
The machine broke free of the snowpack, spitting up snow as he motored it back to the shed.
Griffin hopped off and grabbed snowshoes from hooks on thewall. Alloy frames, double binding, sturdy. Dawson stepped into them and took the poles Griffin offered.
The man followed him out, wearing his own snowshoes, his head down into the wind.
Keely,where are you?
Dawson had half a mind to check the lodge again—maybe he’d missed her sitting by the fire or playing with Wren.
Wren.
He hadn’t seen her inside either. He looked at Griffin. “What if she’s with Wren? Where would Wren be?”
Griffin met his gaze. “Right. I heard her and her dad arguing about going sledding today, right before he went out to work on the genie.”
“Where would she go sledding?”
“There’s a hill not far from here. It was cleared years ago.”
The wind had picked up, turned angry by the time they reached their mess in the meadow, but the snowshoes held them aloft, and Dawson followed Griffin toward a dent in the forest wall.
And as he stepped into the quiet shelter of the forest, barking sounded.
