No Mae.
Annie stomped her foot, part in frustration, part to make noise to get Mae’s attention.
If she was hiding...
If she’d heard Annie and was hiding and not coming out...
Oh, she’d be in trouble.
Annie would find a way to scold her somehow.
She called for Mae again, more coaxingly now, hoping to call the little girl out of thin air. She covered her mouth again, trying to breathe, to calm her racing pulse. Her heart kept hammering away, the swish of blood pumping wildly the only sound in her ears.
Where was she?
She had to find her.
She was just a little girl.
Alone.
Annie knew what it was to be alone and afraid. She wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
And Jem—she’d have to tell Jem.
If it came to that.
If she didn’t find Mae soon.
Annie checked everywhere.
No one was in the pantry. No one was in the sitting room. The front porch was empty. The whole house was empty, just as she’d felt.
She was alone. Mae was gone. Somehow, she was gone and the puppy was gone with her.
As she prowled through the kitchen yet another time, Annie’s gaze fell on the screen door. In her mind’s eye, she could see Sugar pushing through it, like she did—thwap—and Mae chasing after her. She looked closer, finding the door open slightly, the wobbly wooden frame resting against the door jamb.
Like it hadn’t closed properly.
Or it had closed and bounced back open again.
Outside.
They’d gone outside.
Where the horses were. The oxen.
Wild animals. Places to fall. Danger.
Annie pushed through the screen door, letting it close with an angry slap behind her.
TWENTY-FIVE
“Mmuh!” Annie didn’t care if any of the men had stayed back—didn’t care if they heard her ugly sounds. In fact, she hoped they did hear her. She hoped someone would come running to help her. Someone to send off to find Jem and the other men.
Unless she found Mae first. Unharmed. Whole. Perfect.
She stood for a moment on the porch steps and looked all around. There were the stables, the paddocks, the tall yellow grasses, and the stony gray mountains in the distance. The land looked too big, full of dangers. Holes to fall into. Snakes?
Were there rattlers on the property?
The grasses on the hilly slopes were tall enough to swallow Mae and Sugar whole.
They could be anywhere. Trampled. Lost.
Annie walked up and down the dirt driveway, spinning around, looking first in one direction then another. There was no one. No men moving about. Just the horses in their fenced-off paddocks. The two oxen grazing in theirs.
There was no little girl in a dress—no flash of pale blue fabric. No black dog darting about.
No Mae. No Sugar.
Where would the puppy have gone?
She was constantly underfoot these days.
Annie tried to imagine what had happened. Mae awoke and came downstairs. Sugar would’ve followed. She could see Mae peeking through the back door to see if Annie was outside. Then...then Sugar had seen a rabbit or something and charged straight out the door. Mae would’ve followed, running after her, desperate to catch Sugar. Frustrated because the pup was faster.
Sugar was still the wily pup, getting loose, enjoying wild spurts of freedom and disobedience. Snatching clothes off the line.
And Mae had gone after her. She must have. They were both gone.
Annie strained to hear the noises of a rambunctious dog and small girl running about as she hurried around the side of the house, to where they hung out the wet laundry. The only sound she heard was the snorting of one of the horses in the distance. Even so, she could almost see Sugar getting into the clothes on the line again, nipping at the hems of her skirts and petticoats. But the puppy wasn’t near the laundry. There were no clothes hung out at all—the thin ropes just drooped lazily from pole to pole, empty. A basket of clothespins lay spilled in the dirt. Annie must have dropped it earlier. She’d folded all the linens before she went up to check on Mae, hadn’t she? So, even if Sugar had wanted to grab something and take off with it, there would’ve been nothing to grab.
Annie wouldn’t care now if the puppy had. She didn’t know what she was feeling...
Terror.
Blame.
She shouldn’t have left them for so long. She shouldn’t have left them alone.
She shouldn’t have gone into Jem’s room at all—she had no right to be in there.
She shouldn’t have snuck around like a thief. Touched his things.
So many shouldn’ts.
And now Mae was gone.
Annie gathered a breath and let out a sharp whistle, the one Mrs. Ruskin had taught her, using two fingers in her mouth. It had been their warning alert, a way to communicate across an entire cornfield if necessary. Now, Annie was glad she’d learned. It was loud and sharp, and sounded like someone in trouble who needed help. Or, to a small girl, someone who needed to be listened to. The dog would even come to investigate the sound, surely. The horses lifted their heads and twitched their ears in her direction.
She should have taught Mae her whistle.
She should have trained Sugar to come at the sound.
Annie hadn’t thought of it until now, when she needed it.
She stumbled over a rock and righted herself, heading for the outbuildings now.
Annie searched through the stables, peering over stall doors, looking behind hay bales. She searched every outbuilding and shed within sight of the house. Mae was nowhere to be found. Annie whistled again and again but no one answered.
No one.
Where were all the men? Not a single hand came running out of the stables. No one.
They must’ve all gone to help find the mare.
She gripped the top rail of one of the paddock fences, needing something to hold onto. The sensation of roughhewn wood under her palms anchored her as panic fought to sail her mind away. Somehow she had to stay calm.
O Lord, help me find her. Open my eyes so I can see some sign of where she went.
Annie tasted the coppery sting of blood and realized she must’ve bit the inside of her cheek.
Where was Mae? Where were the men?
Annie looked across the sea of yellow grasses beyond the paddocks. Mae and Sugar could be anywhere. Anywhere.
Were the grasses more flattened there?
She ran to the spot, skirting the edge of the largest paddock. Was it her imagination or had this patch of overturned dirt been made by an animal? It looked freshly dug up. Perhaps Sugar had been digging? The marks certainly wouldn’t have survived the last rain.
She whistled again, louder than ever.
“Mmuh!” she cried, panicked.
At the sound of horse’s hooves beating the ground behind her, she spun around.
Jem.
He was practically flying toward her. On the horizon behind him, the bold amber-colored outcroppings called the Garden of the Gods. He appeared in the gap between them, though he was much closer, practically upon her.
“Where’s Mae?”
Annie spread her arms wide, her hands empty.
Jem was off his horse. He faced her, the reins still in his hand. An urgency like she’d never seen tightened his features.
“Where is she? Where’s Mae?”
She shook her head, wishing she could say everything. Wishing she could go back and do everything over again differently.
Wishing Mae was here.
TWENTY-SIX
Jem looped his reins over the hitching post near the back porch and bounded up the steps, calling out, “Mae!”
Annie hurried after him, making a worried noise that he couldn’t understand.
“Where is she?” he demanded, not turning back to look at her, but searching through the kitchen.
It was empty.
He swung to face her. “Where is she?” He’d heard Annie whistle while he was still far off. The slice of alarm that sent him into motion was still thrumming through his veins. That same alarm had sent him into a gallop, straight back to the ranch house. He could still picture Annie standing out back behind the house. How there’d been no sign of Mae. He’d known right off—Mae was missing. What he didn’t know was how. How could that have happened?
“Where?” he repeated.
She shook her head, showed him her empty hands again. I don’t know. An unacceptable answer.
He ran up the main stairs two at a time, to Mae’s room. Her bed was empty. The wardrobe door was hanging ajar, the contents dumped out, evidently by Annie. Mae’s clothes were strewn on the floor.
There was something disturbing about the sight of her clothes on the rug...tossed there in a panic.
Her little white pinafores seemed so much smaller than he remembered.
He sped from room to room.
Annie had looked everywhere. Everywhere, chest lids were open, wardrobe doors swung wide.
Everywhere. And his Mae was nowhere.
Ice filled his chest.
No.
The door to Lorelei’s old writing room was closed as always, but the key was in the lock.
He looked at Annie and found her standing behind him, twisting her hands together as if she was wringing out a wet rag. Her eyes were fixed on the door, anxious.
It seemed more to him than her searching for Mae anywhere and everywhere.
Had she been in there? Why?
“You been in there?” he asked.
Her guilt-stricken face confirmed it. She’d been inside.
He entered the room and looked around, poking his head under Lorelei’s small desk to make sure Mae wasn’t hiding there.
Nothing else seemed disturbed. Perhaps Annie had just been searching after all. Maybe she just looked guilty because Mae was missing.
“Mae!” he called out, ready to race to Ben’s room and then back downstairs, looking wherever Annie might’ve missed.
Annie grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“Where’s Mae?” He held her shoulders and shook her. Heard her let out a sound of distress.
He let her go, thrusting a hand through his hair. His hat went flying backwards.
She couldn’t speak. Of course she couldn’t speak. He knew that. If only she could.
And with all his yelling and shaking her—he was only scaring her. And that wasn’t going to help them find Mae. They needed to be calm. They needed sharp eyes and clear minds.
She made a bunch of hand motions, sweeping motions that made no sense at all.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” he said, trying to keep the anger and frustration out of his voice and failing.
She scooted around him further into the study.
“What are you doing? Where’s Mae? Where’s Sugar?”
She was standing over Lorelei’s typewriter, putting her fingers on the keys.
“What are you doing? Leave that alone.” He reached to pull her hands away, angry. There was something about her actions that left him feeling violated. Why did she want to touch Lorelei’s things? Why now?
It wasn’t like she could write, or read for that matter.
Could she?
No, he knew she couldn’t write. He’d seen for himself.
He should just leave her, go out to his horse, and start searching. He’d check Ben’s room first. Mae wouldn’t have gone there, but he had to look. She wouldn’t have gone outside. She knew better. She was too small. But...what if she had?
Annie pressed on the keys. When he reached for her hands to stop her, she stomped her foot and pushed his hands away.
“Nuh,” she said angrily, making her “no” sound, her face frightened and urgent.
“What? Hurry.”
She pointed at the typewriter then at the stack of paper beside it.
It was fruitless. They were wasting time. But he did it. He threaded the paper into the mechanism.
“There,” he said. “Happy?” On one level, he could hear himself—heard the patronizing tone creeping into his voice. He also recognized it for what it was: his panic leaking out. He had to find Mae.
He turned halfway toward the door and stopped at the sound of keys tapping. He turned back and rolled the paper higher, startled to see a string of letters.
PUPPYGOTOUTMAEWENTAFTER.
Puppy got out. Mae went after.
She could write, he thought, stunned. How?
“Where are they?” he asked, quickly showing her the space bar.
CANT FIND THEM
So Mae had gone outside. She’d gone out with the puppy.
He raced outside for his horse, images flashing through his mind that sent chills of terror down his spine.
How long had she been gone? Minutes? An hour?
Where would they have wandered off to?
Had Annie checked the stables? She likely had. He’d found her outside by the paddock, hadn’t he? She’d been whistling for him. She given up her search and was calling to him, to anyone who would come. It all made sense now.
She was following after him now, close on his heels, gesturing.
He glanced at her, prepared to dismiss her, tell her to wait here.
She pointed to his horse, to herself. She made the motions of holding the reins and pointed into the distance. I can ride. Take me with you.
She pointed to her eyes and again to the vast country surrounding them. She wanted to search with him. More eyes could only be better, he reasoned, so he quickly saddled one of Ben’s more docile geldings.
Annie showed him a patch of dirt, and he looked thoughtfully out over the swaying sea of grasses. They could be anywhere.
A sense of otherworldly calm settled over him.
His vision sharpened.
They’d find Mae. They’d bring her home. Even if they had to search from here to the Garden of the Gods.
Ray and the ranch hands rode up then, followed by Ben. The pregnant mare trailed after him on a rope.
Jem quickly explained the situation, and soon, they split up into pairs, fanning out from the house. The sounds of “Mae!” and “Sugar, come! Here, girl!” rang out from the fields.
They searched until the sky darkened with rain clouds.
The howls of coyotes rang out, chilling them all, Jem suspected. He squared his shoulders and sat taller in his saddle, searching behind another outcropping of rocks.
He’d ride all night into morning if he had to.
* * *
Annie rode her mount, peering into the growing darkness, trying to see something, anything, that would lead them to Mae and Sugar. In a flash, she saw the pond in her mind’s eye.
The pond really wasn’t much more than a large puddle, one the horses drank out of when they were let out to graze. There was a stand of aspens there too, casting shade, a place to cool off from the summer sun. Surely, it was too far from the house for Mae to walk on her short legs. But what if she had? Sugar loved the water.
The pond.
Had they fallen in?
Once Annie thought of the pond, she knew. Sugar loved to roll in the swampy mud on its banks.
She gestured wildly to Jem, and he followed as she took off at a brisk trot in the direction of the pond. The ground was cast in purpled shadows now. A child the size of Mae could easily get swallowed up in the smallest of crevices. Annie hoped her horse was taking extra care with his footing. From what she could tell, he was. Mr. Ruskin always said horses could see better in the dark than people did. She hoped that was true.
Jem rode in an almost eerie silence by her side, his expression heavy with worry.
When a swampy odor struck Annie’s nose, she knew they were close. Jem took the lead. His horse parted the reeds surrounding the pond. Annie followed him, spotting Mae and Sugar immediately. They were lying in the mud with Mae flopped ag
ainst Sugar’s side, both of them sleeping.
Jem leapt from his horse and ran toward them. In seconds he had Mae up in his arms, cradled against his chest.
The poor lamb must’ve fallen asleep, exhausted from fear.
“Mae,” Jem said, “I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re safe. Daddy’s here.”
She and Sugar both were covered in a film of tar-black mud.
“Dadda,” Mae murmured, then startled fully awake. “Daddy! Annie!” She flung her arms around Jem’s neck and squeezed.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” Jem hugged her tight. He buried his face into her hair.
“Daddy, too tight,” Mae protested, but he hugged her all the closer it seemed. He only loosened his hold finally to kiss her head, her forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose.
“Daddy! Stop!” Mae giggled, a delightful sound that lit up the evening air.
Annie dropped her face into her hands and let out a sob of relief.
She couldn’t not look at them though, so she uncovered her face and stared unabashedly at Jem. Jem—who kept himself behind a thick wall—was holding Mae close.
Annie felt a surge of happiness to see his open affection for Mae. How free he was with his kisses and hugs.
He loves her.
Of course he loves her. There’d never been a question of that. But to see him now. This was a different Jem. Perhaps this was how he’d been before. Before he lost his wife. Alive. Fully, completely here.
She hated that it had taken an incident like this to stir up this side of him, but she felt...happy. Happy to see it.
Mae needed a father like this Jem. She needed him. And here he was.
It was like the whole earth just shook. Annie wondered if he felt it too. Did he realize?
And then in an instant he was all business. He handed Mae to Annie and warned them to cover their ears before he shot off a signal for the other men. One if they found her. Another to say they were safe.
That done, he took Mae back and cradled her close.
“Sugar,” he called. She was still lying on the bank, her tail thumping madly.
Sugar? Annie slipped out of her saddle and rushed to the puppy’s side. Jem crouched close beside her, running one hand over the dog’s head, back, and legs. She whimpered.
The Bartered Bride (The Brides Book 3) Page 17
