“A man,” Phoebe sobbed. “He was in the path. He tried to take me. Sarah jumped on him.”
Kit shook his head. “Sarah…”
“She told me to run,” Phoebe choked, her sobs hitching her breath. “I ran as fast as I could.”
“You did wonderfully, sweetling,” Diana soothed, taking her from Kit’s arms gently. “You must have been so afraid.”
As Kit got up, Lucas exchanged a look with him. “Hannah left. All my sources said so.”
“Well, all your sources were obviously wrong,” Kit barked. “There is no way this isn’t related. We have to go now. We have to find Sarah.”
“I agree,” Diana said. “I will take Phoebe up to the house, make sure she isn’t harmed. And I’ll send for the magistrate and as many men as the village and household can spare.”
“Thank you,” Kit called over his shoulder before he and Lucas started down the path from where his sister had appeared. “I don’t even have a weapon.”
“I do,” Lucas said, pulling a small pistol from his boot.
Kit shot him a side glance as they ran. “Always?”
“Always,” Lucas said. “Now, you must listen. We have no idea what we are walking into. You cannot let your emotions overtake you. You must remain calm, do you understand me? It’s the best thing you can do for Sarah.”
Kit’s stomach turned. The kind of man who would attack and try to abduct a child was the kind of man who could do anything. And Sarah was in terrible danger. He’d already nearly lost her once at the lake. The very idea that he could lose her again, this time permanently, made his blood run cold. She was his future. His life.
He loved her. And he knew that and he hated himself for not telling her earlier. For not listening to Lucas and Diana’s advice and not letting the confusion of recent events keep him from giving Sarah everything she deserved, including his heart.
Why had he waited so damned long?
“Stop thinking of regrets,” Lucas snapped. “You must focus. For her.”
“For her,” Kit repeated.
They ran for what felt like an eternity, then careened around the corner in the path, and he stopped. In the distance, there was a slipper in the middle of the road.
“Sarah!” he screamed out.
He and Lucas rushed to the shoe and Kit snatched it from the ground. “It’s hers,” Kit breathed as he clutched it.
Lucas pursed his lips and took it from him. He turned it over looking at it closely. “There’s a little blood on it,” he said. “Hers or the attacker’s, I don’t know. But since she isn’t here, we must assume she was taken. It took us a quarter of an hour to get here. It could have taken Phoebe half an hour to get back. So this man, whoever he was and whatever his purpose, might have as much as a forty-five-minute head start. He could have gone anywhere.”
Lucas looked around, and as he did so, Kit jolted. “There’s another shoe,” he said, pointing to the edge of the woods. They rushed to it together, and Lucas smiled.
“Clever girl,” he said. “She’s making a path for us. And there are footprints here, too. Big and fresh.” He knelt and looked at the imprint in the soil. “Very big. We must be prepared.”
He pulled out a handful of bright ribbon from his pocket and tied one to a branch. Kit shifted, ready to go, and stared. “What is that?”
“Diana will bring the men once Phoebe is settled and they can be roused. This is how she will find us. Now let’s go.”
Kit shook his head as he followed Lucas along the trail the kidnapper had unwittingly created. “So you just carry that around?”
Lucas glanced at him over his shoulder. “You asked if we’re still spies. There’s your answer. Focus, Kit. Sarah may need you.”
His stomach dropped as his mind trailed off on stories of what horrors Sarah might be experiencing at the hands of her attacker. He could only hope she would reveal that she was engaged quickly. If the bastard thought she had value to Kit, as much as his sister, he might not hurt her.
Kit could only pray that would be true. And that he would reach her in time to tell her everything that was in his heart.
Sarah’s mind was finally beginning to clear as the ogre who had taken her stepped into a clearing at the far end of the property and unceremoniously dropped her into the clover. She winced as she hit the ground and glared up at him.
He paced away and she scrambled to get up and run, but found herself staring down the barrel of a rifle that was being held by Hannah Beckett. The woman glared at her, then at her attacker.
