“Soooo, what’s going on?” Morgan asked as she walked out of the house and found Shiloh and Beau in deep discussion. It was afternoon, the sky blindingly blue, the smell of freshly cut hay from the neighboring property heavy in the air. And Shiloh had been telling Beau that it was crazy, just plain nuts, to think they could ever repeat their lovemaking of the night before.
“What do you mean?” asked Shiloh.
“I meant, what’s going on between you two.” She looked at Beau, who was leaning against the railing. “You sound like you’re fighting.”
“Discussing,” he clarified.
“Discussing what?” The girl swept her gaze to Shiloh. “Like if you’re staying or leaving?”
“I’m not leaving,” Shiloh said, and she meant it. She planned on calling Carlos in the morning, then the ranch owner, to tell them she was pulling up stakes. Permanently. Well, at least for the next decade. She had already decided that she was going to stick like glue to Morgan. Shiloh might not be the most exemplary mother figure, but she’d give it her best shot, and, it seemed, Beau had already stepped into the father role.
Crossing her arms over her chest, Morgan couldn’t hide the defiance in her voice. Shiloh considered herself at Morgan’s age and then during the following years, how her rebellion had grown until she’d finally left town. Yeah, the next few years, dealing with a teenager who had already stated she didn’t like her older sister, were not going to be a damned picnic, but too bad. Shiloh wasn’t known for backing down from a challenge.
Bring it on.
“I’m sure.”
Morgan rolled her eyes, and Beau stepped in. “Look, Morgs, we’ve got to stick together.”
“So now you’re on her side?” Morgan did her best to appear crestfallen and disappointed.
“I’m on our side.”
“Like we’re all together?” the girl asked, staring at her half brother as if he’d changed his name to Benedict Arnold. “Oh come on.”
He reached out to rumple her hair, but she jerked her head away.
“Don’t!”
He pulled back. “I’m just asking you to do the same.”
“You’re not my father!”
“Nor is Shiloh your mom, but hey, we’ve got to find a way to make this work.”
“And how are ‘we’ going to do that?” she asked, making air quotes.
“By taking one day at a time and eventually maybe adding onto the house, so I don’t have to camp out over the garage.”
“You have a place.”
“Yeah, I know, but I think I’ll move here. To be closer.” He threw a look Shiloh’s way, a glance that Morgan didn’t miss.
“What is it with you and her?”
His smile stretched wide. “We found out we have a lot in common,” he said and pulled Shiloh closer. She let him tug her to his side but wasn’t comfortable with it.
Morgan’s mouth dropped open.
“You know Shiloh and I are your guardians. Both of us. Together. So we’ve decided to work together rather than separately.”
“You’re getting married?” she practically shrieked.
“What? No!” Shiloh took a step away from Beau. This was getting way out of hand. “No,” she repeated. Marriage? God, they weren’t even a couple. Or were they? “What he means is that instead of fighting about how to help raise you, we’re going to be on the same page. We will take care of you. We will put you first.”
“And we won’t let you get away with anything,” Beau said, his eyes glinting. “Anything you can think of doing, well, we’ve already done it, so don’t think you can buffalo us or work one of us against the other.”
Morgan glared at him. “This is weird. All I asked was if something was going on. Geez!” She stalked back into the house and let the screen door slam behind her.
“That went well,” Shiloh said.
“She just needs to know where we stand.”
Shiloh almost laughed. “I don’t even know where we stand.”
Beau’s eyebrows raised a little. “That makes three of us.”
*
A few clouds had gathered in the afternoon sky as Kat drove out of town. Bugs were splattered across her windshield, and the heat in her vehicle was intense. She rolled down the window, letting in a stream of summer air and trying to set aside the sense of unease that had been with her ever since Debra Donovan strode into her office and fell apart in the visitor’s chair.
After a last, and surprisingly fruitful, meeting with Hal Crutchens—the families of the teens had upped the remuneration, and Crutchens had finally taken the offer and dropped all charges, a fact Kat herself had reported to Paul Byrd, who’d merely grunted a response—Kat had spent most of the day making inquiries about Addie Donovan. What she had wanted to dismiss as an overly protective mother’s concerns now struck her as serious. Something had happened to the girl. The horse returning without Addie hinted that there had been an accident, but when Addie couldn’t be found on the fenced property and the surrounding acres, Kat had called in the troops, and the search had widened. An Amber alert had been posted, and the sheriff was currently calling in local law-enforcement agencies to assist in an organized search that would include manpower and helicopters with infrared scanners.
She rounded a corner on the country road and found herself behind an old John Deere tractor chugging along at about twelve miles an hour. At the straight stretch, she passed the farmer, who sat huddled at the wheel, the bill of a faded trucker’s cap shading his face.
She had checked on everything the girl’s mother had said, and Deb was right. None of Addie’s friends knew what had happened to her. None copped to her having secret plans, and the idea of the horse being sent back to the barn as a camouflage for some other plan was tossed out.
Dean Croft had returned and seemed genuinely upset.
Stunned, he’d answered Kat’s questions without any apparent guile.
Yes, he’d been with friends.
Yes, he’d had a few beers the night before.
No, he hadn’t seen or heard from Addie since leaving.
And yes, oh God, yes, Dean would do whatever he could to help find her!
Kat had believed him. The innocence and concern on his eighteen-year-old face had been convincing.