by Gina Wilkins
“We’ll spread out and look,” Bonnie said instantly. “Connor and Alicia, Chris and Serena, run upstairs and start knocking on doors. The rest of us will look on this floor. Feel free to look anywhere—even the attic. Maybe he’s exploring.”
Kinley and Dan shared a somber look and she sensed that he had the same thought she did.
“Dan and I are going to look outside,” she said quickly. She held up the phone in her hand. “Everyone has Eva’s number, right? So call her if you find him, and she’ll call me.”
Already fussing loudly about how she couldn’t depend on anyone to do anything, even watch out for her grandson, Eva dug her phone out of her purse as Kinley and Dan hurried out of the room. She led him into the kitchen, seeing no signs of the boy there or on the way, grabbed a couple of flashlights from a kitchen drawer and shoved one at Dan. The sun had set during dinner, and while the grounds were well lit, there were still a few dark nooks in which the boy could hide, if he wanted.
Without need for discussion, they headed straight for Logan’s cottage. If Grayson had slipped outside unnoticed, there was a good chance he’d made a beeline for Ninja. Even from the gazebo, Kinley could see that Logan’s truck wasn’t parked in his drive, so he hadn’t yet returned home from his rare evening out.
“I can’t believe no one watches that kid,” Dan said angrily.
“There was a lot of confusion with the wedding rehearsal and all the guests the family hadn’t seen in a long—” Hearing herself making excuses, Kinley stopped with a frown. “You’re right, of course. They should have watched him more closely, especially since they all know Grayson is prone to wandering off.”
“The least they could do is hire a nanny if they don’t want to take care of him, themselves. My parents at least kept a nanny around at all times.”
Hearing the old resentment simmering in his taut voice, Kinley wondered if Dan identified in some ways with young Grayson. It made her sad to think of Dan as a lonely, neglected little boy. Grayson wasn’t always watched closely, but at least his family was very affectionate with him most of the time.
Her heart sank when Ninja came running to the other side of the gate in Logan’s yard, with no sign of the boy in sight. “He’s not here.”
Dan made a slow, complete turn, carefully scanning the deepening shadows as far as he could see from that point. “No.”
Kinley’s phone vibrated in her hand and she let out a little sigh of relief. “Maybe they’ve found him. Hello?”
“We can’t find him anywhere in the inn.” Bonnie sounded genuinely alarmed. “People are still looking in every closet and cranny where he could be hiding, but nothing so far. Everyone in the inn is joining the hunt. We’re going to start searching the grounds now.”
Shaking her head in answer to Dan’s unspoken question, Kinley closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to think where the boy could have gone. She pictured the hiking trail entrance at the back of the property, framed by cascading wisteria and marked with a sign the boy was too young to read. There was a side path to the trail from Logan’s cottage. The trail wasn’t lit; surely the boy wouldn’t have gone off in the woods in the dark? “Maybe you should call Logan. Should we contact the authorities?”
“One of the wedding guests staying with us is a retired sheriff’s deputy. He said we should make a thorough search of the inn and the immediate grounds first and then call.”
“Okay. Dan and I are going to carry the search farther out. We’ll start down the trail, beginning at Logan’s. Have someone look from the trailhead there in the garden. Stay in touch.”
As she disconnected the call and started to direct Dan toward the path, she heard a rattle from the gate. She and Dan both looked around in time to see the dog push hard against the gate latch with his nose and one paw. Before either of them could react, the gate was open and the dog shot past them, his black-and-brown body disappearing into the darkening woods.
“Crap!” Kinley dashed after the dog, silently cursing herself for wearing a dress today. Underbrush scratched her bare legs as she plunged into the woods on the narrow path, but at least she’d had the sense to wear comfortable shoes when she’d left her house that morning. “Ninja! Grayson!” she called out.
Staying right behind her, Dan released an ear-piercingly sharp whistle. “Ninja!” he shouted.
Kinley turned on her flashlight. Beneath the canopy of trees, it was hard to see more than a couple of feet ahead. She didn’t want to think of young Grayson possibly wandering around the woods in the darkness. He could fall in a hole or off a ledge, encounter less-than-friendly wildlife, or tumble into the spring-swollen creek that ran down the hillside not far from the inn. “Grayson! Ninja!”
Her phone buzzed again, raising her hopes, but it was only Bonnie reporting that there was still no sign. Search teams had been sent down the road toward the cafe, and were organizing into grids to cover as much ground as possible. The authorities had been contacted, and a search-and-rescue team was being dispatched.
“We’ll keep looking out here,” Kinley said grimly. She called the boy’s name again after disconnecting, taking only a moment to listen fruitlessly for an answer before pushing on.
A sharp stick scraped her right calf and she gasped in pain. Dan caught her arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m wishing I’d worn pants.” She pushed her hair from her face with the hand holding her phone, aiming her flashlight ahead with the other.
Dan pointed his light down at her leg. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a scratch. I’m really worried about Grayson, Dan. If he wandered off the trail, he could be in trouble. There are several places he could fall, and there’s a creek that’s deeper than usual because of all that rain we had earlier this month. It runs downhill, pretty swift in spots.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll find him.”
“Do you think Ninja is looking for him? Or is with him now?”
“I think that’s a good guess. He sure seemed to have a goal when he lit out of there.”
Kinley turned to shout into the woods. “Ninja! Grayson!”
She held her breath as she listened for a response, sensed Dan doing the same. All they heard were other voices calling out the boy’s name from the direction of the inn and the hiking trail.
“Does the dog ever bark?” Dan asked, moving with her when she started walking again, hoping she was still going in the direction the dog had run.
“If he does, I’ve never heard him. Only that funny sound he makes. Grayson!”
“At least we know how he’s been getting out of the fence. The dog is smarter than you’ve all given him credit for.”
“I hope so,” she said sincerely, praying Ninja was taking care of the child even now.
As comfortable as they were, her shoes were not made for tramping through the woods. She stepped carefully as she regularly called out the boy’s and the dog’s names, but when a loose stone rolled beneath the smooth sole of one of her shoes, she went down hard. A choked cry escaped her when pain shot through her, but she gritted her teeth and struggled to her feet with Dan’s help.
“Are you hurt?” he asked urgently, holding her forearms.
She pushed the pain aside. “No. We’re getting close to the creek, Dan. If he fell in…”
He slipped an arm around her shoulders to give her a bracing hug. “We’ll find him, Kinley.”
She leaned against him for one weak-kneed moment, both of them looking around the now-dark woods, trying to decide which way one curious little boy might have gone. They weren’t on the hiking trail, though they could hear voices calling from that direction, so there was no clear path for them to follow. The ground beneath the trees was covered with leaves and needles and clusters of spiky brush. Kinley and her siblings had played in these woods as children and she knew how easy it was to get lost in them. She and Dan were plunging blindly through the trees, with no clear direction, no plan of action. And even wors
e, fog was beginning to roll in, wispy tendrils winding through the trees and hovering over the ground. What if…?
Something moved at the corner of her field of vision to her left, and she turned quickly in that direction. Dan turned, too, so he must have seen it, as well. They both aimed their flashlights in that direction, sweeping the hillside with the narrow beams. Dan’s beam stopped abruptly, then rapidly backtracked. Kinley followed the direction of the light, then gasped. She would have sworn she saw a feminine form almost hidden by the trees, beckoning to them. For just a moment, she saw a face in that ring of light. A woman’s face. Smiling at them.
The light jerked in Dan’s hand. By the time he steadied it, the…whatever it had been was gone. A thin line of fog snaked around the undergrowth in that area, but beyond that was nothing but darkness.
Kinley looked up at Dan with widened eyes, telling herself that pain and panic must be causing her to see things that weren’t there. He couldn’t possibly have seen what she did, right?
His face looked a little pale in the periphery of the flashlight beam, his expression quite grim. Because of his worry about Grayson…or because he, too, had seen something he couldn’t quite explain?
By unspoken agreement, they moved in unison toward the area where she thought she’d seen someone.
“Call them again, Dan,” she gasped, stumbling over a stick but righting herself without his assistance. “My voice is giving out.”
He cupped his hands around his mouth and gave another shrill whistle, followed by the boy’s name and the dog’s.
Kinley started to move forward again. Dan stopped her. “Wait.”
She opened her mouth to question him, but he shushed her quickly, then whistled again, the sound spearing through the heavy shadows. “Ninja? Grayson!”
She heard it, too, this time. A faint, rusty-sounding bark from somewhere north and downhill from them. “Ninja?” she called eagerly.
Stumbling and sliding, they followed the occasional bark, flashlight beams waving wildly as they moved with as much haste as safely possible. Kinley heard the slap of a branch, heard Dan mutter a pained curse, but she was afraid to slow down and check on him. It didn’t sound as though Ninja was moving, but she was concerned about finding him. She didn’t even want to think that Grayson wouldn’t be with the dog. She and Dan were putting a lot of faith in Ninja’s tracking abilities, considering they really had no idea if he’d run after the missing child or a stray cat. Her phone was being stubbornly silent, indicating that the boy had not yet been found, so she and Dan had to follow this lead, no matter how tenuous.
She skidded to a stop with a choked sob when her light fell on a pale little face and a pair of glittering canine eyes.
Dirty and disheveled, Grayson sat on the ground, his arms around Ninja, who sat beside him now making his usual rumble-sound. Grayson wasn’t crying, perhaps because the dog had given him courage, but his lip quivered when he looked up at Kinley and Dan.
“I saw a deer,” he said. “And then I got lost.”
Every muscle in Kinley’s body seemed to sag suddenly in relief. The pain she’d been trying to ignore flooded through her, but she tamped it down again.
“Call it in,” Dan advised her, then moved past her to kneel in front of the boy. “Hey, sport. Ready to go see your mom and dad?”
“Can the doggie come?”
“Sure, he can come with us. Let’s go, Ninja.”
Straightening, he scooped the boy into his arms, cradling him close in visible relief. The dog wagged its stubby tail and grinned up at them.
Kinley put in a quick call to Bonnie, figuring it would be best to let her sister break the good news to the family in person. Reassured that the child was safe and unharmed, Bonnie let out a gasp of joy, then promised to start calling in all the search teams.
“So,” Dan was saying to Grayson. “A deer, huh?”
His arms looped comfortably around Dan’s neck, the boy nodded. “A big deer. It had horns.”
“Yeah? Well, next time you’d better tell someone before you chase after anything, okay? Your family was really worried about you.” Dan looked at Kinley. “This way, right?” he asked, nodding toward his left.
Roused from the overwhelmed immobility that had briefly gripped her, she swallowed, nodded and limped in the direction of the inn. Though she concentrated fiercely on the light ahead, and on carefully placing her feet so she didn’t stumble, she couldn’t help but look rather nervously out of the corners of her eyes at every curl of mist, every breeze-rustled branch. To her relief, she saw no more faces in the fog, which only proved in her mind that she’d simply let her fear for Grayson play tricks on her imagination.
What else could it have been?
* * *
Kinley hobbled into her house less than an hour after returning Grayson to his frantic family. They seemed to realize how very fortunate they were with the outcome of this particular incident that could all too easily have ended in tragedy. She hoped that in the future the family would be more vigilant with the child.
Bonnie had wanted her to stay and let her tend to the scrapes and scratches Kinley had sustained in the search, but she’d begged off, saying she just wanted to go home and take a hot shower. She had slipped away during the chaos after the boy’s return, not wanting to stay and rehash the search. She was still badly shaken—only by the awareness of what could have happened, she assured herself. Not by anything she’d imagined she saw during the hunt.
She turned on her bedroom light, then winced when she spotted her reflection in the cheval mirror standing in the corner. Her hair was a mess. A smudge of dirt streaked her cheek, probably from where she’d wiped her face after picking herself up from her fall. Her formerly spotless coral dress was dirty and badly wrinkled. Dried blood smeared her right leg from the deep scrape that ran diagonally beneath her knee toward her ankle. Her knees were filthy from her fall, and a dark bruise was forming on her right shin.
None of the injuries were serious, but she would most definitely be sore tomorrow—and she didn’t even want to think about what her legs would look like once all these bruises bloomed. She’d planned to wear a pretty spring dress for the wedding, but now she thought she’d choose a nice pants set, instead. And perhaps she would suggest the best man keep Grayson on a leash during the ceremony.
The thought of a long, hot bath crossed her mind, but she was too tired to wait for the tub to fill. Instead, she took a quick shower, lathering carefully around the cuts, scrubbing her face and hair while trying not to think about anything that had happened during the past twenty-four hours. She suspected her dreams would be haunted by visions of glittering blue eyes, roguish smiles, missing children and unnerving amorphous shapes in the trees. No need to dwell on any of those images any sooner than necessary.
She wrapped a soft green terry robe around her and towel-dried her hair, wondering if she had enough energy in reserve to make a cup of tea. She was still too wired to sleep, but she didn’t want to obsess about…things, either. Maybe she’d just slip into some comfy pj’s, turn on the TV and watch something fluffy and mindless.
Her doorbell rang just as she opened a drawer to pull out a cami and sleep shorts. She bit her lip. She wasn’t expecting anyone, but somehow she knew who was at her doorstep. After only a moment, she sighed and tightened the front of her robe.
Like her, Dan must have taken a quick shower. His thick, dark hair was still just a little damp around his face. An angry red scratch striped his right cheek, alarmingly close to his eye. He wore a clean gray T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans, which he’d obviously thrown on quickly with a pair of sneakers. He’d been in a hurry. His gaze swept her quickly and she was suddenly, keenly aware that she wore nothing but a thin terry robe.
His bright blue eyes rose, held hers captive. “Do you want me to leave?”
She knew she should send him away. Knew what a mistake it would be to invite him in, especially tonight when her emotions were so raw, so close
to the surface. Her legs ached, her raw palms stung, she was already feeling the throb of sore muscles…and yet, all she wanted to do was drag him inside and wrap herself around him.
Still looking at her, he took a step backward as she remained silent, obviously prepared to go. She felt her heart jump into her throat, and she spoke huskily around it, her voice little more than a whisper. “Stay.”
Two steps forward and he was inside, the door closing solidly behind him. One step more and she was in his arms, his mouth on hers, her arms around his neck. His tongue plunged hungrily into her mouth, fusing them together, stoking the heat inside her until she felt as though she would spontaneously combust against him. Every time they kissed her reactions to him grew stronger, more urgent. Maybe she could find the strength somehow to call a stop now, before this went any further—but she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Who knew when she would feel this way again, if ever?
His hand slipped between them, easing into the wrapped front of her robe, fingertips just brushing the swell of her breast. She moaned softly into his mouth, letting the last of her resistance slip away. A shift of her weight, and her breast was in his hand, his thumb slowly rubbing, circling, sending her pulse rate skyrocketing, her thoughts whirling.
Her robe fell open. His T-shirt was soft against her breasts, his jeans rough against her thighs. She could feel his heat through the fabric, feel his arousal pressing urgently against her abdomen. Her fingers clenched in his hair, holding his mouth against hers as their tongues tangled, sparred, caressed. He cupped her bottom in his hands and hauled her even closer, so that not a breath separated them.
His clothes were an annoyance now. She tugged impatiently at the neckline of his shirt, aching to feel him against her. Dan drew back from her just far enough to grab the hem of his shirt and sweep it over his head. Even as he tossed it aside, her hands and lips were on him, gliding over ridges and planes, tracing, touching, tasting. Savoring.