"Elizabeth?"
The girl's face was bright with excitement as she looked up at her mother.
"Mr. Archer's going to help with the search for Cassidy's mom!"
"Is that right?"
Bodhi straightened up, his eyes moving slowly over Sutherland's tired face. "It's the neighborly thing to do," he said. Then he gestured at a group of men standing nearby. "My employees all volunteered to come help."
"You didn't have to—"
"No, I didn't."
Her heart hurt as she looked at him. She wanted to say something more than thank you, something that would express how grateful she was for his unsolicited help. She wanted—hell, a part of her wanted to fall into his arms and taste his kiss again. But reality was standing in front of her, looking at her with big eyes that were so much like her father's.
"The sheriff is assigning grids to the searchers," she said, gesturing lamely over her shoulder. "You should go talk to him."
Bodhi nodded, moving around her. His hand brushed the back of hers as he did, out of sight of her child, a touch that said things he shouldn't be saying. She watched him go, admiring the line of his back, the shape of his ass under his tight jeans. But she wasn't the only one watching. Almost every woman standing out there—even the ones Sutherland knew were happily married—were watching, too.
"He's a nice guy," Elizabeth said breathlessly.
Sutherland nodded. "He is."
But as she watched Bodhi walk into Gray Wolf's offices, she caught sight of Cassidy standing alone on the wide porch, her arms wrapped around one of the support posts, tears in her eyes. She walked over and the child practically knocked her over in an attempt to hug her.
She'd told the girls last night that Becky and Lance had left the campsite to look for an injured horse. She said they were missing and that everyone was going to look for them as a precaution. But she knew Cassidy had read her words and was worried for her mother's safety. There just didn't seem to be anything she could say to make this better for the child.
"We'll find her," Sutherland said now, running her hand over the back of Cassidy's head, over the wild blond curls that lived in a constant riot on her head. "I'll bring her home to you."
Cassidy didn't respond.
Sutherland hadn't expected her to.
***
It seemed like they'd searched for days, driving back and forth over the rocky, dusty terrain. Sutherland hadn't spent this much time in the north pasture since she first came to visit the ranch, back thirteen years ago, when Mitchell brought her here to show her his legacy. He'd told her stories about grandparents and great-grandparents that only underscored the absence of her family history. It'd made her more determined to be with him, to marry him and to help carry on such a long and storied history. She wanted more for her child than she'd had, wanted her child to remember she was not alone in this world. It was why she was so stubbornly determined to keep this ranch up and running for Elizabeth. History was everything, but she didn't have a history to pass on.
What could she tell her daughter about her past? That she was abandoned in the middle of a Sutherland's Hardware store? That she moved from foster home to foster home until she finally ran away at seventeen and enlisted in the Army?
She'd had no family until she met Mitchell. And then she lost it all in the stretch of three months. His father. Mitchell himself. All she had now was Elizabeth. And Becky. And Shelby, and Hank, and Kirkland. The ranch was her family now, the people who lived and worked there. She'd be damned if she'd let anything happen to it, to any of them.
"We should take a break," Kipling said early in the afternoon.
"No."
Sutherland was driving. Kipling was studying the landscape through binoculars, as was Hank. But he wasn't looking now. She reached over and tipped the glasses toward his face.
"Sutherland, we've been at this for six hours. We need a break."
"He's right," Hank said from the backseat. "We might miss something if we don't rest for a few minutes."
She started to argue again. They hadn't seen anything since they left the Gray Wolf offices, but she had hope they would be the ones to find something, no matter how obscure. She needed to know that Becky was okay, needed to know that she was still alive. But they had yet to see anything. The ground was too frozen to show evidence of the horses going by even though they were large, heavy animals. There were no abandoned fire rings, no food packages left blowing in the wind. They had seen the occasional tire tracks from a small vehicle—evidence that someone had accelerated quickly in a few places—but they couldn't be sure it wasn't one of their own vehicles, or that they were even fresh. They could have been left from the fall movement of the cows from these pastures to the winter pastures south of the ranch.
Sutherland's cellphone broke the tense silence that had fallen in the mule. She tugged it out of her pocket and stared at the screen for a second. It was Steve.
"We found something."
She stopped the mule and turned it around, headed east. Most of the searchers had reached the area before they did, their vehicles parked in a rough semicircle near a wooded area. Sutherland jumped out of the mule and ran toward the group, pushing her way into the circle of humanity. Standing there was Bodhi, a look of sympathy on his face that she wanted to slap off.
"It doesn't mean anything," she insisted as she walked up to Lincoln, Becky's horse.
But the fact that the horse was here, her saddle still tightly fastened to his back along with a saddlebag filled with frozen water bottles and trail mix, was not a good sign.
"She's okay. There's a good explanation for this."
But even as she said it, she wasn't sure if she was saying it to convince the others, or herself.
Chapter 16
Becky
It was a little before noon when we found ourselves on the outer edge of MidKnight Ranch property. I climbed down off Charger and walked to the barbed wire fence, trying to remember how far we were from Kaycee. I knew it was close, but close enough to walk?
"What now?" Lance asked.
"You take Charger and head back that way," I said, gesturing vaguely in the direction we'd just come.
"And you?"
"I'll walk this way," I said, gesturing past the fence, "and find a car."
"Then?"
"Then I disappear."
I could hear the surprise in Lance's reaction even though I was looking at him. I was afraid to look at him, afraid he'd try to talk me out of my plan. But the more I turned it around and around in my head, the more I knew it was the only option.
"What about the ranch? Your job? What about Sutherland?" He fell quiet for a second, clearly absorbing what I'd said slowly. "What about Cassidy?"
That's what hurt the most. What about Cassidy?
The thing was, Kennedy didn't know about Cassidy. That was the whole reason I left him, the reason I ran. I couldn't bring Cassidy into that world, couldn't let him corrupt her with his loose morals and corrupt friends. I couldn't raise Cassidy in the same world I'd grown up in.
Nothing had changed about that.
"Becks," Lance said, grabbing my upper arms before I could climb over the fence. He pulled me back against his chest, held me there without the slightest hint that he planned on ever letting me go. "You can't just walk away."
"What choice do I have?" I leaned back against him for a second, loving the feel of his strength against my body. I wished... I wished so many things I couldn't begin to list them all. I wanted to stay, wanted to have the future that his touch promised me. But it wasn't possible. "He'll find me. If not this time, then next time or the time after that. And I can't..." I bit back a sob. "Please don't make this harder than it already is."
"I'll go with you."
"Lance," I moaned, a part of me so excited at the thought, but the feeling tamped down immediately by the reality of what that would mean for him. "You'd lose your job. You'd have to change your name, live like a transient. You
wouldn't be able to talk to your family, wouldn't be able to ever go home again." I shook my head. "And there's no guarantee it would end well. What if you start to resent me? What if this doesn't work out the way you think it will?"
He turned me, forced me to look up at him with a hand under my chin.
"I'm not going to let you do this alone."
"I've been alone for eleven years."
"You have me now."
I sighed because I really did want to rely on him, I really did want to believe in him. But what would that mean, really? Over the long term, what would that look like?
It wouldn't be pretty.
Running might seem pretty to some. It might seem romantic and dangerous, but it was scary. It was never knowing if you were safe. It was never knowing when you might have to pick up and run, even after you've made friends, after you've found a job you like. It was never knowing when someone might figure out who you are, someone might say the wrong thing to the wrong person and cause the past to suddenly catch up to you. It might be standing proudly in an arena, accepting first place in a horse show after weeks of hard work, and being spotted by the last person in the world you expected to be there.
I couldn't do that to Lance.
I touched his face, drew his lips down to mine. It was a sweet, heart wrenching kiss.
"I love you for wanting to do this."
He shook his head. "Don't do that. Don't say goodbye."
"Lance..."
"Just for now. Just until the current danger is over. Okay?"
Did I have a choice?
I nodded and he kissed me again, his touch reassuring despite everything.
We tied the horse to a fence post—tight enough to keep him from getting free, but loose enough to allow him to nibble at the grass. I knew Sutherland was out here looking for us, knew she'd been looking since Lance sent that SOS over the sat phone. I knew she would eventually find the horse and he'd be okay.
I only wished I was that confident in mine and Lance's safety.
***
We walked a long time, hours probably. He could have asked so many questions, but he never did. I supposed he'd guessed things and made assumptions. He probably thought Kennedy had beat me, and that's why I ran. If only it was that simple.
We stumbled onto a shopping mall that sprang up on the edge of a new suburb of the growing town. Kaycee was about thirty miles north of MidKnight, situated right on the interstate. It was a town slightly larger than Midnight, surrounded by the same sort of ranches. It was named after the KC brand used by the owner of the Nolan Ranch that once stood where the town was later established. It was a historical town, like so many here in Wyoming, but it was growing just like any other modern town.
I led the way through the parking lot, looking closely at each car we passed. Kennedy had taught me how to hot wire a car, but that had been eleven years ago. I needed a car that was at least that old in order to use the technique. We lucked out when I spotted a vintage, 1970s era Volkswagen Bug. I moved up to the driver's side door and found it unlocked—which was not surprising in this town where no one locked their doors—and slipped behind the wheel, quickly reaching under the dash to manipulate the ignition wires.
"What are you doing?" Lance hissed from his position above me in the doorway.
"What do you think?"
The car came to life a second later, the trademark whine of the bug engine filling the air around us.
"Get in!"
Lance looked around, acting more suspicious than I would have liked, before climbing in on the passenger side. I threw the car into gear and we were gone before anyone came running out of one of the nearby stores. The interstate was less than a mile away and we were headed south before we'd been in the car more than five minutes. I kept checking the rearview mirrors, convinced a cop would come out of nowhere and pull us over, but none ever did. We were out of Kaycee and rushing toward Midnight, my heart pounding as I realized we'd done it. I'd done it.
"How many times have you stolen a car?"
I laughed, tossing my hair back away from my face as I pressed down hard on the accelerator. "This is my first."
Lance stared at me a moment, then began to laugh. "You are insane!"
"I am."
We drove for a good hour, not really talking, both of us lost in our thoughts. I was wondering where Kennedy was and how long it would take him to figure out what my plan was. We'd have to get rid of the car quickly. He'd have access to the police databases. He would know the moment someone reported the car stolen.
Cheyenne was two hundred and fifty miles away, a three-hour drive. Casper was closer, only seventy miles. But Casper was a small city, too close to MidKnight to be safe. So, Cheyenne it was.
"We need food," Lance announced as we passed a bunch of fast food restaurants as we passed through Casper.
"We'll have to do drive-thru. We can't risk drawing attention to ourselves."
"No problem."
We picked up tacos and pulled over at the back of a truck stop to eat. I sank my teeth into the crunchy shell and was so happy to have some real food cross my lips that I closed my eyes and sighed.
"It's good," Lance said, surprise lacing his words.
"You don't eat fast food?"
"Not often. My mom was of the opinion that it was the root of all evil in America."
I smiled, nodding in agreement. "My mom would turn up her nose every time she passed a fast food restaurant. We'd sit in the back of the car and beg her to stop at McDonald's, but she would tell us it was pedestrian food and we were too good for that."
I hadn't talked about my mom in a long time. It was kind of strange, the shape of the words in my mouth. I think Lance knew that because he reached over and touched my knee, his hand lingering for a long moment.
"What was it like, being on the run all these years?"
I shrugged. "Hard. We never stayed in one place longer than six months, usually only three or four months, just long enough to save up enough money for the next place, the next security deposit."
"I can't imagine."
I leaned my head back against the headrest of the driver's seat, a sigh escaping my lips. "I knew I was going to leave a few months before I did it. I would save money from the allowance he gave me to go grocery shopping, putting away twenty dollars here, fifty there. When I had enough—at least, I thought it was enough, but I had had no idea—I staged a car accident. Put on a big show in front of the neighbors, made sure they saw that I was confused, that I had a cut on my forehead." I turned to him, pulling the hair away from my forehead so he could see the jagged scar. "When they were distracted talking to 911, I grabbed this bag I'd hid in the hall closet for the longest time and ran. I stopped at a gas station, changed my clothes, cleaned up my head, and cut my hair. Then I was on a bus, headed as far from him as I could get."
It was a memory that had haunted me for a very long time, but now it almost seemed like it happened to someone else.
"I would stop for a few days, then buy another ticket, always convinced that he would be right behind me, that he'd knock on my motel room door and force me to go back with him. I ended up in San Diego. I stayed there for a month, long enough to have Cassidy. Then I moved up to Portland, then Seattle, then Denver. I'd work in small diners, leave the baby with neighbors I barely knew, take my pay under the table so that I wouldn't have to give them my social security number." I laughed a little at the memory. I lived nearly six years, using my real name. It wasn't until I got to MidKnight that I adopted a fake name and it was there that he found me."
"You were pregnant when you left?"
I nodded, glancing at him. "He doesn't know. I never told him."
I saw a cloud move over his face, see that male ego rear its ugly head. He didn't agree with what I'd done. I didn't care. I wasn't going to raise Cassidy in that environment and I knew if I told him, he never would have let me go. He would have searched until he found me, then... I had no idea what he would have
done.
Lance unwrapped another taco and bit into it, his eyes clouded with the thoughts clearly whirling in his mind.
"Sutherland never asked for a social security number?"
I thought back to the day I met Sutherland and a small smile made its way to my lips.
"I was working in Casper, another diner where the owner was more than happy to pay me under the table so he wouldn't have to pay taxes or health insurance. This woman came in one day and sat in my section, talked about the MidKnight Ranch and how they were looking for someone to run the horse stables. She said she would have loved the job, that she knew Sutherland was focusing mostly on the cattle, but she didn't want to get rid of her husband's beloved show horses. I had no idea who Sutherland was, didn't know her story. All I knew was that I'd had horses as a child and I missed being around them. So, on a whim, I drove out to MidKnight on my last ten dollars of gas."
I glanced in the backseat like I could see my daughter there, like she was still five and full of excitement at the adventure Mommy was taking her on. It had been a good day despite everything, a day filled with hope. It was the first day like that I'd had in a long time.
"I knocked on the door of the house, but no one answered. I wandered over to the barn, impressed with it. I hadn't been on a ranch in such a long time, but it all came back to me like no time had passed. I felt like I'd come home. And then we could hear a horse screaming and carrying on inside. I walked in and found Trouble—he was just a pony then—fighting the vet as he tried to examine him. Sutherland and the vet's assistant were trying to keep him still, but he wasn't having any of it. So, I walked over, touched his nose and spoke to him. He calmed right down.
"'Don't let this one go, Sutherland,' the vet said to her. She stared at me, both amazed and a little concerned, and said she wouldn't. We went into the house a few minutes later, she offered me the job and started going over all the paperwork we'd have to fill out. And then... I guess I must have had a panicked look on my face because she just dropped it. Said the paperwork wasn't important. And then she showed me the apartment and told me Cassidy and I were welcome to move in immediately."
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