Lanie was about his age. Of medium height and build, she lived in riding clothes and kept her thick black hair tied in one long braid that reached halfway down her back. She had a round face dusted with freckles, and bright-blue eyes that sparkled like sunlight on blue water. She was open and honest with her thoughts and feelings, and when she was in a temper, it was best to stay out of her way. Quino trusted her implicitly.
Luke was her complete and total opposite, and yet, like Lanie, Quino also trusted Luke absolutely. Luke was a big man with a thick head of dark red hair and a robust beard. He rarely spoke, but when he did it was worth listening to. He had an innate ability to understand the horses in his care. He knew before a mare when she was carrying and he could tell from a half mile away if one of the horses was coming up lame. Quino had never seen anyone, not even his father, so horse smart. About women, however, Luke was as dumb as the fencepost he was standing beside.
Everyone who worked at Shadow Pine knew that Lanie had been crushing on Luke since the day he arrived four years ago, everyone except Luke. Even now, Quino could see she was looking at Luke from beneath her thick dark lashes with a longing that made Quino’s chest hurt with sympathy pangs. Luke, per usual, didn’t seem to notice. What a dumbass.
“Lanie, Luke, how’s it going?” he asked.
They exchanged a look that immediately put Quino on edge. It was the sort of look that told him they’d been preparing for him to come home so they could tell him something, and he was betting it wasn’t something good.
“What is it? Are the horses okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Luke said right away. “The horses are fine.”
“Okay.” Quino glanced between them. They said nothing. “Can you give me a hint?”
“It’s Desi,” Lanie said. She held up her phone and showed it to Quino. It was a text message from his sister to Lanie.
It read: Take care of Quino for me. I’ll be in touch when I can.
Quino shook his head. What could that possibly mean? He glanced up and both Lanie and Luke were looking at him as if he knew what the hell his sister was talking about.
“What does she mean?” he asked.
Luke cursed. “We were hoping you knew.”
“That’s it?” Quino asked. “She didn’t say anything else.”
Lanie shrugged and took back her phone. “No. And when I texted her back, she didn’t answer.”
“What does that even mean?” he asked. “Take care of Quino? Like for dinner tonight? She knows I know how to cook. And what does she mean she’ll be in touch?”
Quino pulled out his phone and checked his messages. There was nothing. Not a text. Not a voice mail. Nothing. He glanced up to find Lanie and Luke watching him—their expressions were grim.
“What do you think she meant?” he asked.
“I’ve got nothing,” Luke said. “Sorry.”
“I don’t know, either,” Lanie said. “Maybe she was just letting me know she was going to be late tonight.”
“Why wouldn’t she text me herself?” Quino asked.
“Maybe there’s a dude involved,” Luke said.
Quino thought he might have a heart attack. Not that his sister might be on a date. She’d been on dates before, but rather because if she was on a date and hadn’t told him, it could be that she’d hooked up with a bad guy. This was the one thing he worried about above all others. After the accident that had left Desi in a coma, she’d had months of physical therapy to relearn how to walk and talk and write. Much of it came back to her very quickly but there were a few things, like her ability to accurately assess people, that had been lost for good.
Being so bighearted, she’d never been a great judge of character to begin with, but after the coma, the damage she had sustained to her right frontal lobe had made her even more vulnerable. She believed every sob story she heard and had once even tried to give her car to a man whose car had just been repossessed because she felt sorry for him. Quino felt a light sweat break out on his forehead. He could feel the panic coming but then he reminded himself that Desi had come a long way and it was still light out. Text messages were easily misinterpreted and he was not going to freak out. Not yet anyway.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said.
Both Lanie and Luke looked at him in surprise. In truth, he was surprised himself but he had agreed to let her drive to Asheville by herself. He wouldn’t have if he didn’t believe that she could handle it. She’d been in therapy for years just to get to this point and he wasn’t going to doubt her until he had proof positive that bad decisions were being made.
He checked his phone again. Still nothing, because had he really expected to hear from her in the last five seconds? He sighed. He glanced up at Lanie and Luke and saw the same worry he was feeling etched in their faces. Desiree was very close to both of them and he knew they had to be feeling as worried as he was.
“I’m going to go visit Daisy,” he said. “If you hear anything from her, call me.”
“Will do,” Luke said. His voice was low on a normal day; today it sounded as if it was coming from the bottom of a well. It did not make Quino feel any better.
“We promise,” Lanie said. She gave a closed-lip smile, the sort of smile people used when the news was bad but they were trying to make it seem not so bad.
Quino walked around the corral, enjoying the crunch of the earth under his work books. The air smelled of fallen leaves and woodsmoke. He glanced up and noted the sky was a gray shade of blue that indicated the temperature was going to drop tonight. He tried not to worry. Desi never made him worry on purpose. She was always thoughtful, always kept in touch when she went places. Maybe the battery in her phone had died and her message to Lanie was a last-ditch message to keep him from stressing. Maybe she couldn’t text him directly for some reason.
Yeah, and maybe she was lying dead in a ditch somewhere and her last text had been to Lanie because her name was listed higher up in her contacts than Quino’s. He felt his heart rate increase and his palms were sweaty. He was light-headed and thought he might throw up. Maybe he should drive to Asheville and see if he could find her. No, that was crazy.
He’d likely just pass her on her way back home and then she’d dog him for getting worried and being overprotective. She’d gotten a lot pricklier lately about her privacy. Quino frowned. Oh, man, was Luke right? Was there a man involved? Had Desi gotten hooked up with some guy who was trying to convince her that he was the one? Who was just romancing her for her savings account?
Quino waved to a few of the stable hands who were cleaning the stalls and tending the horses as he made his way into the large stall in the back. Daisy was there. She would calm him down. She always did. He heard her whicker and he could see her toss her head, happy to see him.
Daisy had been a racehorse rescue that he’d found five years ago that he’d determined was being neglected by her owner. Quino had spotted her in a pasture in Kentucky. He’d been struck by how lonely she looked in the field all alone and then he’d noticed she was limping. On impulse he’d pulled over his pickup truck and approached the pasture where she stood in the snow. Her brown-and-white coat had been dull, her head hung low. The white spot on her forehead that was in the shape of a daisy caught his eye and he’d thought there was no way a horse with such a whimsical marking should be out in bad weather, looking half-starved and depressed.
He immediately tracked down her owner and bought her, bringing her home with the bay he had just bought at auction. Desi had laughed at him for being a marshmallow, but rehabilitating Daisy became a project for the entire stable and while Daisy loved everyone, it was clear that Quino was her special human.
Daisy’s head appeared over the door of her stable. She eyed Quino with an intelligence he always found engaging as if she knew just by looking at him how he was feeling. He opened the door, swinging it out, and stepped in
side, closing it after him. Daisy pressed her head against his shoulder. Unlike Esther, Daisy wasn’t giving him cupboard love. She nuzzled him because they had a bond.
Despite growing up with horses his entire life, Daisy was the first horse he’d ever felt a spiritual connection with, and he genuinely believed that there had been some divine intervention at work the day he’d found her. To begin with, he’d gotten lost and wasn’t supposed to be on that road. The odds of Daisy being by the fence rail where he’d see her were a thousand to one. But there she was and he did stop. People always said the horse needed him, but Quino had always felt that he needed Daisy.
“How’re you doing, girl?” he asked.
He ran his hands along her neck, shoulders, and flank. She was so much stronger than the day he’d found her. He marveled at how she’d battled back from such brutal neglect. He remembered when he’d bought her, how hard it was not to put his fist in the face of the asshole who’d let her suffer. He’d happily called animal control on his way out of town just to be certain that the guy wasn’t abusing any other animals on his farm but he still wished he could have punched him out just once.
Daisy moved her head toward the shelf where he kept her curry comb. His girl did like her special treatment and Quino chuckled as he patted her side. “All right, princess, I’ve got time.”
He stepped around her to get to the shelf. When he went to grab the comb, he saw a folded piece of paper with his name scrawled in marker across the front. He recognized the handwriting as Desi’s. He felt his heart sink as he reached for the note. Had she run away with a man?
He would kill him, Quino thought. If some guy had gotten it into her head that she needed to run away with him instead of coming to Quino to tell him she was in love, he would hunt the bastard down and choke the life out of him with his bare hands. His hand shook as he flipped the paper open and read the note penned in his sister’s familiar loopy script.
Hey, Bro,
Don’t get mad (too late, Quino thought), but I’m on my way to Kenya.
(What?!)
I applied for and was accepted as an intern for the Kenya Elephant Rescue and Rehabilitation Institute. By the time you get this message, I will be halfway to my new home in Africa.
(Quino felt his knees go weak. Africa? What the hell?)
Please know that I love you and that I would have told you, but I know you would have forbidden me to go and we would have had a big fight and I would have gone anyway because this is my dream and I am finally living it. Be happy for me. I will be in touch as soon as I land.
Love you forever, Desi
Quino felt a hard shove to his back. It was Daisy. He spun around and hung on to her as if she was the only thing that made sense in his world right now. His sister was traveling to Africa! Alone!
Chapter Eight
HOW many miles away was Kenya from North Carolina? He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember from his high school geography class. Panic made his breath short and eyesight fuzzy. His little sister was out there, half a world away, on her own.
Daisy shook her head and he realized he was holding on too tight. “Sorry, girl.”
He loosened his grip but threaded his fingers through her mane. He leaned hard against her while he read the note again and again. He took his phone out of his pocket and on the off chance Desi was still in the States waiting for her flight, he called her number. It went right to voice mail. He hung up before he started yelling.
What should he do? Charge to the airport? He didn’t even know where she’d flown out from. How did she pay for a flight to Africa without him knowing? He took care of all of her expenses. Did she even have any money? His heart was thumping so hard in his chest, he thought he might have a stroke. Daisy nudged him with her nose.
He loosened his grip on her mane. “Sorry.” He patted her neck. “I have to go.”
He slipped out of her stall, latching the door as he strode back through the massive barn, which presently housed twenty horses but had room for up to thirty. He figured the best way to track his sister was to get online and check to see if there’d been any activity in her bank account.
“You all right, boss?” Luke called after him.
Quino nodded. He didn’t have time to explain. Luke and Lanie were looking at him like he was nuts. He was sure he probably looked half-crazy with worry. He continued up to the house, where he kept an office. He jogged across the front porch and went inside. The house was dark and quiet, too quiet. Desi was a music lover and there was always music playing. As soon as Thanksgiving was over, she put on the Christmas tunes and cranked them all the way through to the New Year.
His office was the made-over front parlor. He turned right and approached his desk. There were no notes here from Desi. She had known to leave it with Daisy, as if she’d known that was the first place he’d go when he started to worry. He fired up his laptop and began checking their accounts. He monitored their joint account, then he checked her individual account. Neither of them had been touched. No withdrawals, no deposits, no transactions of any kind.
He opened up the browser and looked up the website for the Kenya elephant rescue and rehabilitation place she mentioned in her note. A baby elephant was the very first image that popped up. Quino closed his eyes. This was exactly the sort of thing that would hook his softhearted sister in: a baby elephant drinking from an enormous bottle of milk was stupid cute. He frowned. He looked at more pictures. It was a huge facility. There were loads of people working there, from caretakers to veterinarians to men with guns. Ack!
Quino looked for a phone number. He used his cell phone to call. After four rings, it switched over to voice mail. He glanced at the clock. Damn it. How many hours ahead was Kenya from North Carolina? Six? Seven? It would be late at night there. He slammed the lid of his laptop shut.
The only person who might know what the heck was going on was Desi’s occupational therapist, Reyva Kumar. He left the house at a jog and barreled into his truck. He glanced at the corral but both Lanie and Luke were gone. He’d have to tell them what was going on later—right now he needed answers.
He tried not to speed. He really did, but he was in full-on crisis mode and he wasn’t processing very well. The old Victorian building in the center of town that housed Reyva’s practice was just a few streets over from the bookstore. For a nanosecond, Quino thought about stopping and sharing his freak-out with Ryder, but he didn’t. Again, he was in too much of a hurry.
He parked in the one remaining spot by the big beige house with bright-blue trim. He took the steps two at a time and banged through the front door. The receptionist, Ann Ryan, glanced up at him in surprise and then smiled.
“Hi, Joaquin,” she said. “What brings you by?”
“I need to talk to Reyva about Desi,” he said. He didn’t return her smile and he knew he sounded as upset as he felt.
“Oh, okay,” she said. “Why don’t you go ahead and sit down, hon? I’ll get you some sweet tea and let Dr. Kumar know you’re here.”
Ann Ryan was a soft-spoken gray-haired woman with kind eyes and gentle Southern manners. Quino’s upbringing made it impossible for him to completely lose his temper on her and demand to see Reyva right now. He sat.
Ann disappeared through a doorway that he knew led to the offices. He bounced his knee up and down in impatience. He just needed to ask her if she knew about this. If she’d encouraged this. And if so, why hadn’t anyone told him?
Yeah, sure, he knew that Desi was right in her note that he would have discouraged this globe-trotting elephant-nanny nonsense. Desi was fragile. She was easily manipulated by strangers and she was now out there with a lot of them. He remembered the time she’d felt so bad for a kid selling magazines because he wasn’t going to reach his goal that she bought subscriptions to all of his magazines, even one called Potato Review that, yes, reviewed potatoes.
> “Here you go, Quino,” Ann said. She handed him a glass of sweet tea. He took it, not feeling thirsty, but downed half of it in one gulp. Her eyes went wide. “Reyva is just finishing up with a patient and she’ll be right with you.”
“Thanks,” Quino said.
He continued to jog his knee. He could hear the clock on the wall ticking. Ann resumed her seat behind her desk and put on her reading glasses as she went back to whatever work she’d been doing on her computer.
Quino forced himself to sit and not get up and pace. The waiting room featured a small bubbling fountain with a Buddha statue in the middle. The leather seats were comfortable but not so much that a guy would want to nap. Several magazines were scattered on the glass coffee table. He pulled out his phone, checking for any message or e-mail from Desi. Nothing. Radio silence was all he was getting.
A door behind Ann opened and a woman and her teenage son walked out of Reyva’s office. The mother had her hand on her son’s shoulder. They both wore a look of relief as if whatever was ailing him was on its way to being cured. Quino knew that look. He’d worn it the same day he and Desi had come for her first appointment with Reyva.
As the woman and son left, Reyva appeared in the doorway of her office. “Joaquin, it’s good to see you. Come in.”
He practically jumped out of his seat he was so eager to ask questions but he forced himself to slow his roll. Reyva was dressed in her usual office attire, tailored slacks, a blouse, and a long knit cardigan. Just the sight of her reminded him of her open-minded, encouraging presence. She was not a woman who got ruffled or hurried or impatient, which made her the perfect occupational therapist.
“It’s good to see you, too, Reyva,” he said.
“It’s been too long,” she agreed. She glanced at Ann. “Please see that we are not disturbed.”
Ann nodded.
Reyva Kumar had streaks of gray in her long dark hair, which she wore in a ponytail tied at the nape of her neck. Her dark brown skin was weathered by years passing, but both the hair and the wrinkles added to her grace as they were a testament to a life of acquired wisdom. Quino trusted her implicitly as he had watched the magic she had worked with Desi over the years, helping her get her speech, reading, and fine-motor skills back.
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