Once they left, I helped the ranch hands take care of the horses. That was when I discovered why I wasn’t hearing any chatter on my walkie—the batteries were dead. I should have known it had been too quiet.
Tom, the assistant ranch manager, was finishing up directing a couple hands on a task. When I walked up, he offered me a friendly smile.
“Nice ride?”
“It was. We were out longer than intended, but it was good. I noticed smoke up north. What’s going on with that?”
He nodded. “There’s a small brush fire. We sent a drone out to get images. For now, it’s nothing alarming. We’re keeping an eye on it, watching how it spreads. As long as it keeps reading farther north, it’ll run out of vegetation to burn and die on its own.”
I rapped my knuckles against the wall. “Knock on wood.”
That got him chuckling. “Of course. Wouldn’t wanna jinx it.” He glanced around the barn then back at me. “I expected to see Cormac with you.”
I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “I’m going to go hunt him down. He’s probably waiting for me in his office.”
Tom cocked his head. “No…he isn’t. He went out about an hour ago to look for you. Said you were running late. He seemed worried. You didn’t cross paths?”
My jaw loosened in confusion. “He was looking for me—on the trail?”
“Yep.” He scrubbed the white stubble on his jaw. “Took Dusty out. You really didn’t see him?”
My brow dropped low. “There was no one out there. You know how narrow the trail is. We couldn’t have missed him. Are you sure that was where he went? Maybe you misunderstood.”
“I didn’t.” He walked over to the wall, taking the clipboard down, and returned with it. “Right here. He signed Dusty out at six thirty.”
Cormac’s handwriting was there, plain as day. So why hadn’t I seen him?
“Can you call him on the walkie? Mine’s dead.”
“Sure.” Tom slipped the walkie from his belt, holding it up to his mouth. “Cormac? It’s Tom. You there?”
Dead silence.
“Again,” I pleaded.
Tom repeated his message. When he got nothing back, he fiddled with the controls then tried one more time.
“He might have the volume turned down.”
“Or maybe his is dead too,” I ventured, not believing a word of it.
“That’s likely.” Tom pulled the bill of his hat lower over his forehead. “Let me ask around on the channels, see if anyone’s spotted him.”
“Okay.” I staggered back until my heels hit a bale of hay, then I sat, my pulse roaring in my ears.
There was no reason to feel so panicked. Cormac was going to walk through those doors any minute. He wouldn’t stay out after dark. He’d lived here his whole life and knew how dangerous it was. One wrong move, and his horse could break a leg, he’d get thrown—
No. I wasn’t going to catastrophize.
He’d be back, and we’d laugh about how freaked out I got for all of two minutes. That was what he got for making me love him this much.
No one had seen him.
He hadn’t walked through the doors.
It was pitch black out. Countless ranch hands were out in trucks and UTVs with spotlights, searching for him. They’d tried to make me stay back, to wait at the Kellys’ house for word, but that wasn’t going to happen.
I couldn’t sit and wait helplessly.
