He didn’t say a word as Margaret walked away, shining the light on the ground, searching for tracks or anything that would give her a clue as to where Ryan had gone. Joe reached for her flashlight and tried to grab it from her hand. “Hey, stop it, Joe!”
“What are you doing?” he snapped.
Maybe she should have worried she’d gone too far with what she’d said, but she didn’t care, not right now. In fact, she felt a bit of fire that made her glad she’d been so sharp. Maybe he needed to hear it. After all, she wondered what part of his anatomy he’d been thinking with when he proposed marriage to Sara.
He reached again for her flashlight, this time snagging it in his hand and pulling her back to him.
“Joe, I’m trying to see the tracks!” she shouted at him.
He stepped around her, shining the light on the muddy ground. The rain puddled around the tracks, and she could feel a chill in the damp night air as she shivered.
“This way. Shine the light over here,” she said, pointing to the path that led around the corral. She kept up with Joe as he started following the tracks to the edge of the forest. It was a trail that had been used by her grandfather to lead the cattle to the grassy knolls where they free ranged. The trails went back into hundreds of miles of wilderness. Joe stopped just at the edge of the path and shouted, “Ryan!”
There was nothing but the sound of the wind and the rain pounding the ground.
Chapter Twelve
Joe left Margaret standing at the edge of the clearing with the flashlight as he walked away. He was still reeling from what she had said to him about Sara. He thought she was a spiteful, jealous bitch, but he was embarrassed to admit she had nailed part of her analogy right on the head. That pissed him off more than anything, as he didn’t want to admit that she could be right.
“Joe, where are you going?” she called out. He could hear her rubber boots slapping in the mud as she ran up behind him, but he didn’t look back. He couldn’t look at her, because she was making him think this was all his fault. He shoved her passenger door closed and strode around the front of his running truck.
“Joe, stop!” she shouted again, this time grabbing his arm and not letting go.
He glared at her, and she seemed to stand taller as she stood up to him. He knew his look should have had her taking a step back, putting as much distance between them as she could, but she was no pushover. She was about as different from Sara and Evie as any woman could get.
“Look, unless you’re going to let me take your horse and go after my son, I need to hurry home and get mine. I’ll be back, and then I’m going after my kid,” he said.
This time, she let go of his arm and stepped back. “Fine, go,” she said as she stepped away again.
Joe didn’t wait. He slid behind the wheel and spun the tires, swinging the truck around and skidding in the mud as he raced back down the driveway, cursing the entire way and wondering what foolish notion could have gone through his son’s head to make him believe this was a good idea.
When he pulled back in, the front door opened and Sara raced out with her jacket over her head. “Did you find him?” she called.
He slammed his door and leaped up the front steps into the house.
“Joe, you’re tracking mud on the floor!” she said as he hurried into his bedroom and took in the queen-size bed, the olive-green sheets left in a rumpled disarray where he’d spent a couple of hours easing his need in the most sexy, responsive woman he’d ever had the good fortune to bed. What had his son done while he’d been in here, rutting like an animal? He’d stolen away into the night.
“I don’t give a crap about the floor,” Joe snapped. “I only care about my son.” He pulled a wool sweater from his closet, dumped his slicker and hat on the bed, and pulled it on over his shirt. His jeans were damp from the rain, but he wasn’t wasting any more time changing.
Sara snatched the wet garments off the bed and made a face. He took the slicker from her and wondered if she was more concerned about the mud and dirt than his son. With that thought came the memory of Margaret’s cruel dressing-down, when she had all but insinuated that he was thinking with his dick instead of considering what was best for his son.
He set the damp hat on his head, and Sara sucked out her bottom lip. Every time she did that, it weakened his knees, and when she reached up on her tiptoes to kiss him, he gave her a light peck and then stepped around her.
“Joe, where are you going?” she said. She was on his heels, dogging him.
“To find my son. He took the horse from Margaret’s and headed out onto one of the trails in the dark. Fool kid! I’m going after him.”
“Joe, it’s too dark out. Wait until morning, until it’s light,” she said.
“No,” he snapped, and he gave her only a passing glance as he shook his head, pulling open the hall closet, where he kept his backpack and some gear for when he went into the bush. He froze and took in the neat and tidy shelves. The towels, sheets, and blankets that had been shoved in there were now folded neatly and sorted in an orderly fashion. He started rummaging. “Where’s my backpack? I had a tarp folded in here, too, and my pocket saw…”
“Joe, stop. I just organized and moved all that junk out. I put it in a box in your garage. I can’t believe you would have stuff like that inside,” she said.
Right now, Joe wanted to wrap his hands around her neck and give her a shake. “I don’t have time for this!” he snapped, striding to the attached garage, which was filled with junk and an old 75 Chevelle he planned to restore one day. “Bag up some food for me,” he told her. “I don’t know how long it will take me to find Ryan.”
As he strode to the garage, he didn’t miss the hiss of something, whether it was irritation or annoyance, from Sara as she stomped into the kitchen, hopefully to do what he’d asked.
It took Joe twenty minutes to grab his backpack, tarp, flashlight, pocket knife, and some rope. He tossed everything, including some blankets, into the horse trailer, loading his palomino, Mercedes, in. Sara came out as he closed up the gate and handed him a bag.
“There’s a couple sandwiches, a bottle of water, and some snacks,” she said. She touched his arm. “Joe, I hope you find Ryan. Hurry home.”
“Thank you,” he muttered. He set the bag on the front seat and climbed in, driving away without another word.
Chapter Thirteen
It was pitch black when he drove back down Margaret’s driveway over the ruts, hauling the trailer in, and his headlights flashed on her horse, saddled with what looked like gear or a tarp tied behind it. There was a light on outside the barn.
He shoved the truck in park and went around to open the trailer, leading out Mercedes and tying him to the post close to Margaret’s horse.
“What are you doing?” he said as Margaret went around her horse, tightening the cinch.
“I’m going with you,” she said.
“Woman, I don’t have time to be babysitting you out there. I’m going to be moving fast,” he snapped as he stomped away, opening the side trailer door, carting out the blanket and saddle for his horse. He just about stepped on Margaret when he turned around.
“I’m still going with you. For one, I’m the last person you’d have to babysit. Neither you or Ryan should be around Storm. I still can’t believe Ryan took him and saddled him all by himself. He must have been desperate as all hell, Joe, to stoop to that. He’s still terrified of that horse, and that tells me a lot about his state of mind. No, Joe, I know these backwoods very well.” She reached inside the trailer and snatched the bridle for the palomino. Neither said a word as they saddled his horse.
When he climbed into the saddle, his backpack on his back and his gear wrapped in a tarp tied behind him, he faced Margaret in the dark as she walked her horse forward. “You want to take the lead? It’s pretty dark still,” he said.
She extended the large beam flashlight, and he took it.
“Stay close,” he said. Then he turne
d his horse and guided it to the trail, the light bouncing on the ground as he looked for any sign of tracks. The pouring rain was quickly washing away any traces of where his son had gone.
****
Margaret followed Joe for what felt like hours. She could sense his frustration, his worry, and could hear the hoarseness in his voice as he called out to Ryan hundreds of times.
His horse slipped a couple times in the mud when they went up the slope of one of the trails that headed higher into the hills. Light had just begun to tip over the horizon, and shades of red cut through the clouds as the rain started to taper off. Margaret could feel the mist from all the wet, and she listened to the early morning sounds of life in the forest.
“Joe, there’s a stream up ahead. We need to give the horses some water and a break.”
“No, we need to keep moving,” he snapped. She could see that he’d easily run that horse into the ground unless someone reasoned with him.
“Joe, that horse is going to drop unless you give him a break, and then where will you be? Let them graze for a bit, and we can figure out where to go from here. I haven’t seen any tracks for a while.”
She could see the way he tensed and then spurred his horse toward the stream that was bubbling ahead of them. He said nothing as he dismounted, letting his horse drink, and Margaret joined him. She took in the tightness in his expression. He wiped some water over his face and cupped some in his hands, taking a drink. His face was dripping when he glanced over at her. Margaret reached into her saddle bag, which was filled with some bottled water, dried nuts, and fruit, and pulled out two granola bars. “Here,” she said, reaching over Angel’s saddle to extend the bar to him.
“No, you keep it.” He waved it away.
“Joe, eat something. We need to stay sharp if we’re going to find Ryan. If you let your blood sugar fall, it’s going to slow us down.”
He let out an exasperated laugh. “Always the doctor, are you?” he said. His words felt more like a sharp slap, and maybe that was mirrored on her face, because he took the bar, ripped it open, and shoved it in his mouth in two bites. “I’m not going to apologize to you every time you misread what I say, Margaret,” he said, gazing across the stream and then around him. “Any idea which way to go?” he asked.
She took some comfort in what he had said, realizing she was being too sensitive. He was prickly, though, too, which wasn’t helping the situation any. “I don’t know if Ryan would cross the stream. Storm is…I never tried him around water. When you and Ryan would go out on the horses, where would you go?” she asked.
Angel finished drinking from the stream and brought her head around to Margaret, who led her over to the edge of the bank, where there were greens and small shrubs she could graze on. Joe followed.
“Haven’t gone out with Ryan for a long time. It’s been a few years, but I took him camping one time. We rode up on the horses to a small lake, pitched a tent, fished, and spent the night. It was the same lake me and my brothers used to go to as kids.” He was staring off into the hills with a wistful look.
“How many brothers do you have, again?” she asked. She remembered the Wilde brothers, the holy terrors of the county, all damn good looking, too.
“Four: Logan, Ben, Samuel, and baby Jake.” He glanced back at her. “Didn’t think you remembered them. Logan enlisted in the Army the day he turned eighteen. I was twelve then. That was the year you showed up here.”
She flushed, because she remembered too well being dumped by her mother, who was too interested in fast-tracking her corporate career and dating her boss to take care of a daughter. Margaret wondered whether her mother knew how much she had figured out before that fateful afternoon. Her mother had come storming through the door and made Margaret pack everything she owned all because a teacher had called her at work to talk about Margaret’s surly attitude and use of “the F word” in class. “I didn’t exactly fit in,” she said, trying to make light of her awkward years. “What about your other brothers? They were younger,” she said. She needed to get the light off her, get him talking.
“Ben is one of them swanky oil execs. Jake and Samuel all took off to the big city, Seattle. Jake was always into football, and I know he was coaching for a while. Samuel is finishing up law school down in Boise. I’m pretty sure we were responsible for turning Mom gray long before her time. Man, I miss them,” he said wistfully.
“I envy you,” she said, and he gave her an odd look that had her stammering. “I mean, having brothers, growing up together. It was just me and Grandpa, kind of lonely.”
“It wasn’t always great. There wasn’t enough room, with five boys bunked into a small three-bedroom house. We were crammed in pretty tight, no privacy. It led to lots of fights, bloody noses.” He chirped and pulled his horse from the long grass. “Let’s go. That spot I was talking about is about a three-hour ride north.” He mounted his horse, and the leather of the saddle squeaked.
“Come on, Angel. Thatta girl,” Margaret said. She led her horse over beside Joe and climbed up into the saddle, resting her hand on the saddle horn and taking the reins. When she looked up at Joe, he was watching her in a way that was far too familiar.
Chapter Fourteen
Every time Joe looked behind him as they wound their way deeper into the forest, Margaret was right there. Her horse picked its way through the slick, overgrown brush. The trail was starting to widen, and the trees weren’t as thick. The light from the clear sky was starting to filter through.
“Ryan!” he shouted again. He kept calling every five minutes. His throat was dry, and he coughed.
“Joe, I’ll call him. Give your voice a break,” Margaret said. Her horse stumbled. “Easy, girl.”
“You okay?” he asked, catching the way her horse tripped and then quickly righted itself.
“Joe, how close are we, do you think?” she asked, holding her reins in one hand and resting the other on her leg. Her dark slicker covered her jeans, and her hair was tucked under her wide-brimmed hat.
“Can’t be much farther. I don’t understand why we haven’t seen any sign of him.” Joe squinted and couldn’t hold back his frustration. “Dammit, that kid…why?” He didn’t realize he had said it out loud until Margaret came up beside him.
“Joe, don’t be so hard on yourself. It won’t solve anything.”
“Why? You blamed me, and you were right. I asked Sara to marry me for selfish reasons. I just told myself she’d start to get used to Ryan and she just needs time to be a mother. It’s new to her. I knew Ryan was frustrated, but I thought it was because of all the women I’ve dated.” Joe didn’t look at her, because all the women he’d dated and met for coffee over the past few years were starting to run together in his mind. What did that say about him?
“Wasn’t there a schoolteacher in there?” she said in such a cheeky way that he realized she knew a lot more about his love life than he was comfortable with.
“Ryan told you, didn’t he?”
She inclined her head and smiled. “Yeah, apparently he liked her. He told me you got scared after she spent the night.”
“What?” He pulled up his horse. “Why, that little shit.”
“Don’t be mad at Ryan. He told me there was something like twenty women, and you had signed up for online dating. Was that how you met Sara?”
He tightened his jaw. He couldn’t believe Ryan thought he had that many women walking through his door. He started to deny it, thinking back to the number of women he had been emailing in the beginning. There were a couple dozen, to the point that he had been getting confused. It had been like a drug, all those women available online, like a candy store. He had started meeting them. Some hadn’t matched their profiles, listing the wrong ages. Some had been overweight, and some had been so different from their profiles that he wondered why they had bothered. Then he’d met Julie, the schoolteacher. She was pretty, sweet, and she had liked Ryan. She had scared the crap out of him with how serious they had become. H
e hadn’t been ready for commitment then. Margaret reminded him of Julie: smart, caring, and tall.
“Yeah, I met Sara online,” he said. “She emailed me, and we met for coffee, started dating. She was the first one who made me laugh. So, what about you? Are you dating anyone?” he asked. He didn’t know why, because he was pretty sure she didn’t have a guy stashed off somewhere.
She shook her head and flushed, appearing to stiffen. Maybe he had hit a sore spot.
“Leave anyone behind in Seattle?” he said.
“No, I didn’t leave anyone. He left me,” she said. She allowed her horse to fall back, but he didn’t miss the shadow of hurt that only a relationship ending badly could cause.
“I’m sorry. What happened?” he asked, glancing back. He stopped his horse until Margaret looked up at him, and the sharp brown of her eyes, which usually made him feel like she was in control, showed a self-doubt he’d never seen before.
“Keith,” she said. “He was an intern, like me. I chose neurology for my residency, and he chose general surgery. We were together for two years, roommates for the last six months. He got an offer from Boston and didn’t hesitate. He packed up and left, sent me a Dear Jane email. He wished me all the best, told me to have a great life.” Her voice caught, and he saw her swallow hard. She forced a smile to her lips. “Ryan!” she called out.
Joe listened but heard nothing: not a horse, not a rustle, not a sound.
****
They rode in silence, taking turns calling out for Ryan. Margaret still couldn’t believe how Joe had pulled the story of Keith out of her. It had happened right before the surgery, and she had spent days hurt over his desertion of her, as if she were nothing but someone to warm his bed at night and share the rent with. Obviously, the two years they had been together meant nothing to him. She had felt worthless, unlovable, and then her grandfather had died, all at the lowest part in her life. After the botched surgery, she had emailed Keith, believing he’d at least provide support as a friend. Instead, he had emailed back to tell her he was getting married and his fiancée wouldn’t appreciate him keeping in contact with her. It had been cold, heartless, and he had seemed disinterested in her plight. That had been the final nail in her decision to hole up alone at her grandfather’s.
The One (Book 1, of The Wilde Brothers, A Contemporary Western Romance) Page 8