“And she’ll get a lot from you in return. But she isn’t your keeper, and you aren’t on a monitoring anklet. I’m proud of you.”
“You are?”
“Always. It was nice hearing you take no guff about this. Cecelia Markham is a grown woman, and she’ll survive. If she’s helping you for the art, then this will blow over. If she’s in this for herself, then you’re right to tell her you have to rethink things.”
“You don’t think I was rude?”
He touched the corner of his mouth with one finger. “Kiss me.”
She huffed out a laughed and leaned over. He turned his head to meet her lips and kissed them with a quick, loud smack. He looked back to the road.
“You apologized multiple times. You promised to fulfill your duties the best you can. I do not think you were rude. Forget about Cecelia for now. Let’s go help find a little girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I DON’T HAVE the heart to yell at her now.” Harper whispered to Cole, and he nodded his agreement as Melanie moved robotically around her big kitchen, putting on hot water for tea, wiping away tears at measured intervals.
“Not that you should yell at her anyway.” He kissed her forehead.
“I know. I feel awful for her. Where could Skylar have gone?”
It was a useless question, but Cole didn’t point that out. Obviously if anybody knew . . . He sighed helplessly. An hour after their arrival, he and Harper, along with Melanie, Aiden, and Grandma Sadie, were the only ones not actively searching. Bjorn, Leif, Mia, and Raquel, along with Neil and Rico and their families, were scouring the ranch on horseback and by truck as they’d been doing for two days now.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t go get changed and help?” Harper asked.
“Leif will be back soon,” Melanie replied. “He’s going up in the plane with your dad, Cole.”
His stomach sank further. If they were resorting to air searches . . .
“How do we know she’s on the ranch?” Harper asked. “Couldn’t she have ridden off to somebody’s house? One of the other kids?”
“We aren’t sure,” Melanie said. “We’ve called everyone Skylar knows. Nate and Lily have been trying her cell phone since last night.
“The pond in the south pasture? The drivers’ shacks out along the trails? The river bottoms?” Harper reeled off one Paradise landmark after another. Melanie nodded at each suggestion. They’d looked everywhere.
Mel stifled a quiet sob. Harper rose, the peasant-style flowered skirt she’d worn for traveling flowing to the tops of her worn cowboy boots. Over it she wore an extra-long cardigan sweater. Everything was fluffy pink and dark maroon, and Cole wanted to gather her to him like an armful of baby goose down or sweet cotton candy. She took Melanie’s defeated form into her arms.
“They’ll find her,” she promised.
“I can’t believe you came all the way back for this.” Melanie sniffed and wiped her nose on a sleeve. “You’re so good to us. To Sky. This is my fault. She was furious with me.”
Cole braced for Harper’s rebuke, but it didn’t come.
“There’ll be plenty of time to talk to her about why she did this.”
“Oh, I pray so.”
Bjorn returned to the house first, looking like a man who hadn’t slept in thirty hours. He accepted Harper’s warm hug and shook hands firmly with Cole.
“Anything? At all?” Melanie asked.
Bjorn shook his head and scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “Dad’s meeting with Russ now.”
“My dad has flown a lot of search missions,” Cole said. “If someone can be found, he’ll do it.”
“Either of you want to go up with them?” Bjorn raised his brows, and Cole looked at Harper.
“I don’t,” she said. “I had a thought. I’d like to go talk to Betty Hodges, the high school art teacher. She probably talked to Skylar a fair amount during the competition, since she coordinated the exhibit and the judges. Maybe there’s the smallest chance she overheard Sky say something that would give us a clue.” She looked at Cole with smoky eyes and touched his cheek. “But you feel free to go. I’ll be fine.”
“I hate to leave you.”
“No. Don’t worry a bit. I’ll check on Grandma and then take a run to the school. It’s what, Friday? I have no problem interrupting Betty even if she’s in a class. After that I’ll canvas all the businesses in town in case she stopped in somewhere before heading out to wherever she went.”
“Dad could use another set of eyes . . . ”
“Absolutely. Go. I’ll be back before you’re done. Promise.”
He kissed her. The effortlessness of their decision making together warmed him. She’d known exactly what he wanted and needed to do to help and exactly what to say. They would work easily together. If only . . .
He wrapped his arms around her for a last hug. It reminded him of the night that had been cut short, but he placed his lips against her ear. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s good to be here.”
“It is. Thanks for not saying out loud that I’m insane.”
“Well, you’re not . . . ”
They were interrupted by a rapping at the back door. Melanie’s head jerked toward the sound, her eyes hopeful. Cole strode to the door, pulled it open, and found a somber-faced Nate Swanson on the stoop.
“Hi,” the boy said. “I’m . . . I’m here to do more than try to call Sky’s phone.”
Harper rushed past Cole and threw an enormous hug around Nate, looking small against his gangly frame. “It’s wonderful of you to come,” she said. “I’m sure the group will take all the help they can get.”
“I had a cool time with her at the retreat,” he said. “We got to talk, and I—” His cheeks deepened in color and he shrugged. “I hate thinking something happened to her.”
Cole hid a sad smile. Harper was right. There was something budding between Nate and Skylar. Well, damn, that was good.
“You haven’t heard or seen anything about where she might have gone, Nate?” Melanie stepped forward.
“No. I figured if she hasn’t been found, then she wasn’t up the mountain, right?”
“The mountain?” Cole asked.
“Wolf Paw.”
“They’ve looked up as far as she could take a horse,” Melanie said. “She wouldn’t go farther and leave Bungu. Besides, she’s not allowed to climb higher alone.”
Nate caught Cole’s eye, skepticism in his face. Even Cole heard the breakdown of logic in Melanie’s words.
“She really loves that mountain,” Nate said. “All she told me was that one of her goals was to summit by herself.”
Melanie’s jaw went slack. Harper clamped onto Cole’s upper arm. “Do you think . . . ?”
“What exactly did she say?” Cole’s heart rate had doubled, but he forced his voice to stay calm.
“That’s all,” Nate replied. “Except, that’s why she had so many sketches of the peak. It’s her favorite.”
“It has to be the answer!” Harper squeezed his arm tighter. “She has to be up there.”
“Nate, how’d you like to take a flight around Wolf Paw Peak?” Cole asked. “We’re about to head up—sounds like that’s a good place to focus.”
“Sure!”
“We have to get permission from your folks,” Harper said. “I’ll call your mom if you like.”
“Yeah, okay.” Nate nodded. “Thanks.”
“And I might wait here, then,” Harper added. “Let’s see what you find before I go running into town.”
“WE’LL GO ANOTHER half hour, then set down to regroup.” Cole’s father banked the Cessna 172 left and headed for another pass across the face of Wolf Paw Peak.
Two hours into their search, the three men and the teen in the plane hadn’t given up hope, but they fought off frustration without saying so out loud. Weather luck was with them. Colder temperatures had ushered in a cloudless blue sky with clear visibility. Unfortunately, the scrub juniper and cottonwoods of the lower mount
ainside turned into thick stands of Douglas fir that obscured most of the ground until the tree line gave way to scree and bare rock near the summit. They’d scoured the landscape but had seen nothing.
Cole glanced at his dad, taking in the beloved tanned face with its burgeoning crow’s feet and neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard. Far more, even, than on the back of a horse, Russ Wainwright was truly in his glory while at the controls of his plane. He could forget what he’d lost and escape into the freedom of flight. His hazel eyes switched between scanning the surrounding terrain and his engine instruments, eyes sharp and focused as a hawk’s. Behind them, Leif and Nate pressed their foreheads to the small back windows, old and young, quiet and subdued.
“You all got what you need back there?” Cole asked. “Water, another energy bar?”
“Look.” Nate’s one word broke the cheerless atmosphere in the cabin.
“What?” Leif turned to him.
“A flash of something kind of bright blue.”
“Marcus told us his pup tent is blue and that it was gone from the shed,” Leif said.
“I’ll turn her tight and let’s see if we can spot it again,” Cole’s dad replied.
“In a little bit of a clearing,” Nate said.
It took two more passes to spot it again, but when they did, there was no mistaking that the blue wasn’t a natural part of the surrounding geology.
“Okay I have the GPS coordinates,” Cole’s dad said, reading them off the flight display attached to the center of the yoke. “Let me climb up to ten-thousand feet to radio this in, then we’ll head back. Good eyes, there, Nate.”
The teen grinned self-consciously, and Cole laughed with relief as Leif ruffled the boy’s hair and the Cessna ascended to a good radio reception height. His dad keyed the mic.
“Casper radio this is Cessna November Six One Eight Papa Juliett. We’ve spotted a possible tent on the west rise trail, about a half mile from the tree line. I have GPS coordinates when you’re ready to copy. Over.”
“Cessna One Eight Papa Juliett, ready to copy those coordinates.”
“Can we get back in time to go with them?” Nate asked when the transmission was complete.
“Probably,” Russ replied. “Depending on how long it takes us to get back.”
“And if we’re on the ground when they get some news?” Cole asked.
“I’ll call them and give my cell number. Don’t you worry. Everybody strapped in and ready to land?”
“Let’s go,” Leif replied.
MELANIE BURST INTO tears when Bjorn raced into the kitchen bearing the news that something blue had been spotted in the trees along one of the main hiking trails up the mountain. Harper hugged her, too, and then did the same to Aiden. She’d changed from her skirt into her standard ranch uniform of jeans and sweater and was ready to go.
“What can I do?” she asked. “Do you want to ride with them, Mel? I’ll stay with the kids.”
“No. Of course I want to, but it would be best if I stayed by the radio. I’m not the strongest rider anyway. But would you go, Harper? You know the mountain almost as well as Marcus does.”
“Of course.” Harper didn’t tell Melanie how excruciating staying back would have been.
“Marcus has been to the summit most recently of anyone,” Bjorn said. “He’ll come. I’ll go and so will Rico. Sounds like Cole and Nate are on their way back as well.”
Harper’s pulse bounced in relief.
“We’ll take anyone who wants to come,” Bjorn added. “Once we’re close to the area we’ll need to spread out to actually find her. The coordinates aren’t exact.”
“We’ll find her.” Harper nodded with certainty and hugged Aiden again until he squeaked.
“SHE’S GOT A good memory if she came this way,” Marcus said, riding ahead of Cole at the line of ten searchers now three-fourths of the way up the mountain. “I took her with me here once, probably a year ago. It’s one of the only ways you can get this far on a horse, but it’s not that easy to find.”
“Skylar is nothing if not intrepid,” Bjorn said. “Stubborn and smart. But why would she not come home? It’s been almost three days.”
The afternoon sun hung low in the sky as it approached three o’clock. It was slow slogging up the trail, which had wound through multiple switchbacks for the past two hours.
“We won’t get a lot farther,” Marcus said. “Maybe a mile. If she’s camping past there, I don’t know how she got the horse up with her. If she did.”
“Doin’ okay?” Cole looked over his shoulder, and Harper smiled. He’d kept an eye on everyone the entire trip, as she’d known he would, but she savored the times he asked her especially. It was overprotective and unnecessary, but the chivalry gave her chills of pleasure.
“Doin’ great,” she replied. “You?”
“Yup.”
Harper rode Wheeler and looked behind her at the line of riders. Bjorn, Nate, Rico and his son, Neil, Raquel, and Amelia. Mia had been the nicest surprise, showing up ready to ride with an enhanced emergency first aid kit in her saddle bags. “I pray you don’t need a doctor,” she’d said. “If I come maybe I’ll be unnecessary.”
Exactly what Harper had said to Cole about coming back to Paradise in the first place.
Another half hour passed, and the trail grew steeper and rockier. Conversation ceased as the group concentrated. At last Cole held up a hand to halt their progress. Marcus had stopped twenty feet ahead and twisted left and right in his saddle, searching for landmarks.
Or a tent.
“We can’t ride any higher,” Cole said. “It’s going to have to be on foot.”
“There was that tiny little spur back about a mile that headed to the north,” Bjorn said. “It’s at the wrong altitude, but maybe a couple of us should go back and follow that.”
“I’ll go,” said Raquel.
In the brief silence that followed, as everyone gathered his and her own thoughts, a shuffle of leaves and a tiny sound, like the yip of a fox or the whine of a coyote pup drew Harper’s attention to the left of their trail. She stared into the undergrowth but saw nothing. Giving Wheeler a touch with one heel, she squeezed next to Cole who sat on Paco studying an old Wyoming geological survey map he’d pulled from his pocket.
“Hey,” he said.
“Over there.” She pointed. “I swear I heard something.”
“What?”
“An animal? Leaves rustling. Probably a squirrel or a rabbit.”
They watched, and then Harper heard it again. Definitely a whine. She swung her right leg over her saddle and threw her reins over Wheeler’s head and toward Cole.
“You be damn careful,” he said, grabbing the reins.
She ducked beneath the lower branches a tall fir tree, stepping as quietly as the needle-and-fern-covered ground would allow. Six steps in, a shrill bark made her jump. Her heart pounded in hope.
“Asta?” she called softly. “Puppy?”
Another bark followed, and Harper delved three more steps into the woods. She found the border collie tangled by one foot in a patch of vines and roots.
“Oh, baby!” She cooed at the dog. “Look at you. What happened? Where’s your owner, girl?”
She pulled her pocket knife from her jeans, silently thanking her father for teaching her never to ride out without it, and cut through the winding tendrils of fern and weeds that had wound around Asta’s paw. Once free, the dog crawled into Harper’s arms, licking and whining and covered with burrs, but otherwise apparently unhurt. She carried the pup out of the woods.
“Look who I found,” she said.
Bjorn was off his horse in three seconds. He grabbed the dog and held it fiercely. “Oh Lord,” he said. “She is here. Skylar!” he shouted. “Sky, it’s Dad. Can you hear me?”
For a few minutes they all took turns calling her name with no luck.”
“Put Asta down,” Harper said quietly. “Maybe she knows which way to go from here.”
&nbs
p; Almost reluctantly Bjorn set the dog on the ground. “Where’s Skylar, girl?” he asked. “Smart dog, you can find her.”
At first Asta did nothing but wiggle and sit. But Bjorn pointed away from their group. “Find Skylar. Where were you going when you got stuck?”
All at once, as if she understood, Asta stood and trotted past the line of horses, continuing up the trail without looking back.
Cole took charge. “Bjorn, Nate, Mia, Harpo, come on, we’ll follow on foot. The rest of you, search this area. See if you can find anything more around where the dog was found. Rico, Neil, you have walkie-talkies?”
They both nodded.
Harper knotted Penny’s reins and looped them over the saddle horn. She took the rope attached to the halter beneath Penny’s bridle and tied a quick release knot to the sturdiest tree branch she could find. The others did the same, then they headed up the trail after Asta, who’d already disappeared around a bend.
“I saw her duck into the woods to the left up about thirty feet.” Cole pointed.
“I saw!” Harper stepped up her climbing pace until they reached the spot. “Asta!” She called for the dog.
The dog barked.
A second later they came across Bungu in a small opening between trees. He was staked and grazing contentedly on the sparse grasses and weeds. From the eaten-down state of the circle, it was clear he’d been there a while. The gorgeous Appaloosa whinnied when the humans appeared. Bjorn approached him, gave him a thorough check by running his hands over every inch of his body and legs, and patted him hard.
“He’s okay. Clearly Skylar did this intentionally. I wouldn’t think she’d be far from her horse.”
They left Bungu and chose a direction based on a few broken twigs and some stomped-on brush. It took five minutes to find the blue tent.
“Skylar!” Harper raised her voice another notch. “Sky? Are you here?”
Bjorn charged up behind them to the door of the tiny, two-man tent. Asta came from behind it and scratched on the nylon. Harper scooped the dog into her arms.
“Skylar did everything right,” Cole said, his gaze roaming the makeshift campsite. “The door is away from the prevailing wind. The fire pit is cold, but she dug it deep into the wet ground. There’s no food in the open . . . ”
The Bride Wore Denim Page 29