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He sucked in a breath. “I need help, Nic.”

“What you need is a towel.” She pulled him inside and turned to go get one. But he grabbed her arm before she could even take a step and pulled her back.

“Jeremy’s gone,” he blurted out.

She stared at him. “Gone? I sent him up to your place when I got back to the barn, so he’d get there before the storm hit.”

“He did.” Jackson was still breathing hard. “But he hit the middle of the storm inside the house. I heard him on the porch, but I didn’t realize it was him. I thought it was the wind again.”

“I don’t—”

“I think he heard us. Me and Swiff, I mean. The noise came when he was telling me, loudly, that I had to come back or I’d be in legal trouble.”

She felt a little shock. She’d barely thought of that, only a passing curiosity if there could be legal ramifications of him walking away. Enough to make him go back? The very thought gave her a chill. But right now, that didn’t matter. Only Jeremy mattered, and she fought down a wave of nausea at the thought of the little boy she’d come to love out in this storm.

“Look,” Jackson said, sounding desperate now, “all I know for sure is I can’t find him. I’ve looked all around our place, the house, the shed, clearing out back, all of it. Then I came down here, figuring he might be in the barn with Pie, but not only is he not there, neither is Pie.”

She shoved aside all the frantic emotions that were battering her, told herself however she felt, Jackson felt a hundred times worse. “Come with me,” she said, grabbing her rain slicker and hat as she belted over to the interior door without waiting to see if he followed. She yanked the door open, calling for her father. He must have been in the living room and heard her immediately, because he was there before they even stepped into the adjoining residence. She explained hastily.

“How long ago?” her father asked sharply, looking at Jackson.

“Nearly an hour.”

“Should have come to us sooner, boy.”

“I never should have come here at all,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “I’m not tough enough for this, I’m just a guy who fakes being—”

“You want to stand here blaming yourself or find your boy?” Without waiting for an answer, he called out Mom’s name, only to turn and find her already approaching.

“I heard,” she said, then looked at Jackson. “We’ll find him,” she said reassuringly.

“Chuck and Mike are in the bunkhouse. I’ll roll them out,” Dad said.

“I’ll make the calls, get things started,” Mom said, spinning her chair around and wheeling quickly toward her computer setup.

Nic nodded. Her father grabbed his own rain jacket, looked frowningly at the drenched Jackson, and pulled another one off the rack. “It’ll be a little short on you, but better than nothing.”

“We’ll start at the barn,” Nic said. “The rain will likely have wiped out any tracks, but we might be able to tell what direction they headed out.”

She put a hand on his arm and squeezed gently. Then looked at her father. “We’ll take the northwest corner.” She knew Jeremy liked the grove of pecan trees out that way, because of all the critters that tended to hang out there. “Since there’s the road all the way to the fence line, we’ll take my truck and check that first, then come back for horses if we need to.”

Dad nodded. “The hands will take the southeast and southwest corners. I’ll take the northeast.”

Mom was already back. “The tree’s activated.” Jackson looked blank, but she’d explain about the phone tree of Last Stand, a way for a network of locals to reach each other in an emergency, later. “Shane’s mounted up and on his way, coming from the north side, and Kane’s bringing Lark in their car in case she can help. I spoke to Maggie, and she said Chance got back home this morning, so she’ll come with him, and they’ll bring one of the dogs that might be useful.”

“Let’s get,” Dad said.

*

Jackson was reeling.Panic about Jeremy threatened to overwhelm him, so he tried to focus on the information Nic’s mom had poured out as he and Nic ran down to the barn. Pie’s stall door was still open, and Nic thought to do what he hadn’t—check the tack room.

“He didn’t saddle him up,” she said. “Just the bridle’s missing.”

Great. He’s out there riding bareback?

“Don’t worry about that too,” Nic said, as if she’d read his thought. “We haven’t done a lot of bareback, but we’ve done some and he’s getting the feel of it. And,” she added, “we know now he went that way.”

She was gesturing toward the far end of the barn, which faced north. “We do?”