Bram,” he said, before his brother had a chance to hang up, “does the little girl belong to someone we know?”
“Yeah. You probably remember the WindWalkers. It’s Kerry’s daughter.”
Surprise jolted him. The last thing Jared had heard about Kerry WindWalker was that she’d gone to Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia. No one had told him she’d married or that she’d returned to Black Arrow. But then he’d not asked anyone about the young Comanche girl who’d once snubbed her nose at him. Proud, prim and very beautiful. That’s the way he remembered Kerry WindWalker. He wondered if marriage and motherhood had changed her.
The persistent buzz in his ear finally made Jared realize his brother had hung up the phone. Disgusted with himself for letting his thoughts stray, he snapped the instrument shut and slipped it back into his pocket. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about the one woman in Black Arrow who’d resisted his charms. At the moment, he had a smaller female to worry about.
Three minutes later, Bram’s pickup truck arrived, followed by several deputies in squad cars. Immediately behind the lawmen, local residents began to pour onto the scene in cars and on foot.
Jared climbed out of the ditch and hurried to meet his brother, but halfway there a petite woman dressed in a slim beige skirt, black blouse and black high heels raced up to him and frantically grabbed his arm.
“Where is she? Where is my baby?”
Jared stared down at Kerry WindWalker’s desperate face and wondered how the added years had somehow made her even more beautiful than he remembered. Shiny crow-black hair, high molded cheekbones, honey-brown skin, and eyes the color of sweet chocolate suggested she was half Comanche like himself. While her dusky pink lips reminded him she’d been the one girl he’d always wanted to kiss, but had never been given the chance.
“Kerry—” For a moment her name was all he could manage to say until the fear widening her brown eyes forced him to continue. “I’m not sure where your daughter is. I’ve followed her tracks and from the looks of things she’s entered one of the drainage ditches and hasn’t come out.”
Jared watched her mouth fall open. At the same time he could feel her small fingers tightening in a death grip around his forearm. She was terrified and rightly so. Yet she was holding herself together with the courage of a Comanche warrior. Admiration flowed through him, along with the desperate urge to help her.
“What do you mean? Hasn’t come out of what?” she flung the questions at him.
Before Jared could explain, Bram, dressed in a tan uniform and sheriff’s badge, joined them. The oldest of the five Colton siblings, Bram was only an inch taller than Jared and shared the same athletic build and black hair. Yet the similarities stopped there. Where Jared’s eyes were gray and usually full of playful mischief, Bram’s were black and serious. At the moment, the two brothers were both tight-lipped with anxiety.
“You’d better show me where she went in, Jared,” Bram said, then to Kerry he added, “You can come with us. But tell your mother and the rest that they must stay back and out of the way.”
Nodding, Kerry left them momentarily and hurried over to briefly explain the situation to her mother. As the two men waited for her, Jared said, “I don’t like the looks of this, Bram. The girl has ventured into a spot where we haven’t started working yet. It’s a safe bet to say that the drainpipes have probably broken and shifted into all sorts of directions and turned the whole thing into a treacherous maze. She’s probably crawled inside one of them and can’t find her way out.”
“Damn it, why wasn’t someone out here? Where’s your work crew anyway?”
Jared didn’t allow Bram’s sharp questions to get under his skin. His older brother took the responsibility of his sheriff’s position very seriously and he was committed to keeping everyone in Comanche County safe.
“It rained yesterday, remember? I let the crew off,” Jared explained. “As for someone guarding the place, that responsibility lies with the gas company and they apparently didn’t want to be out the extra expense. The yellow tape is supposed to keep people away from the danger.”
Bram’s lips twisted with disapproval as he eyed the yellow caution tape that roped the perimeter of the well site. “Yeah,” he said with sarcasm. “That’s sure going to keep the kids out of this accident waiting to happen.”
“Believe me, Bram, I tried to warn the gas company. Right after we started digging up the place I asked them to supply a night watchman at the very least, but they refused. His salary would have been a hell of a lot cheaper than the lawsuit that might come out of this.”
Kerry rejoined them just as Jared finished speaking. Her expression was grave, but hopeful as her gaze encompassed both men.
“Mother will keep the friends and relatives back,” she assured Bram.
The sheriff nodded at her, then motioned for Jared to lead them to the spot where the child had entered the drainage pipe.
Instinctively, Jared took Kerry by the arm. “The ground is rough and slippery,” he gently warned her. “So watch your step.”
Kerry realized she must appear ridiculous in her skirt and high heels, but she couldn’t help it. Ever since she’d raced home from the bank, she’d not had time to draw a deep breath, much less change her clothes. Already her panty hose were lined with runners from searching through a clump of blackberry vines. Coppery-colored stains smeared the front of her shirt and skirt from leaning over the rusty pieces of an old car that had been junked not far from here. But what she looked like to this man or anyone else didn’t matter one iota. Getting her daughter back safely in her arms was all she cared about. And she had to believe that was going to happen. She had to. Otherwise, she would simply break apart.
“How long has it been since you found the dog and the tracks, Jared?” Bram asked.
“Not long. Ten minutes, maybe. Couldn’t be much more than that.”
The three of them had reached the point where the footsteps had finally disappeared. Fred was still there in the bottom of the ditch. Apparently the pup had worn himself out and was now stretched out on his belly, his muzzle resting on his paws as he diligently watched the small crevice for a sign of Peggy.
The moment Kerry spotted the dog, her composure cracked. Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the sob that was burning her throat.
“Oh God—is she—is she down there? In that?”
The agony in her voice tore a hole right through Jared. The need to comfort her crowded everything else from his mind, making him instinctively reach for her shoulders and pull her lightly against his chest. “She’ll be all right, Kerry. We’ll get her out. I’ll get her out. I promise.”
Above her head, Jared met Bram’s bleak gaze and he knew they were both thinking he’d just made a promise he might not be able to keep.
More than an hour later, the excavation site was littered with fire trucks, emergency vehicles, rescue crews and paramedics. Generators and bright outdoor lights had been set up in preparation for the night to come. The fact that the emergency people anticipated it might take that long to recover Peggy from the pipe tunnel only added to Kerry’s worry.
For the umpteenth
