“You know better.”
She raised a hand to stop his protest. “Would you just listen for a minute? You saw the way I was in high school—desperately in need of attention and love and willing to go to any lengths to find it.”
“I came to grips with that years ago,” Nathan said gently. “You’d lost your mother, and your father wasn’t home with you much. Your sister tried to make it up to you, but that was impossible. Why don’t you give yourself a break?”
“And why won’t you at least let me complete a thought without interrupting?” She kept her voice gentle, but she needed him to hear her out.
“Sorry.”
“During nursing school I dated a drug addict, and after graduation I married him. How stupid is that? I’m talking illegal street drugs, Nathan. And I used them myself. You think God wants to give a gift to someone like that?”
“I think you’re making judgments you should leave to God. Sure, you got carried away and blew it badly a few times. But you aren’t the same person you were then, so stop with the guilt complex and tell me what you were experiencing a moment ago,” he said.
“Oh, come on, Nathan, you sound like an overeager newspaper reporter. What do you think I was feeling?”
“I don’t have your gift, but you looked very concerned about something.”
“You got it.” Her voice caught. She cleared her throat. “Very concerned.”
“But about what?”
“Carissa. It’s urgent that we find her quickly. But we all know that.” She focused on the familiar features of his face, at the unusual cedar-green of his eyes. “You really think this is a message from God?”
“Yes I do. Your gift has returned.”
She watched for some break in his gaze, some hint of doubt. There was none. “I’m not some holy saint, Nathan. If this is a gift, there are many far more worthy recipients who—”
“Worthy?” he interrupted, impatiently. “A saint is simply someone who has put faith in Him. You’ve been a believer since you were six.”
“But you know I haven’t—”
“He can use anyone He pleases for whatever work He wants done, with or without that person’s help,” he interrupted again. “With you, I think He gives you special knowledge that you need to know, not something you conjure for yourself, because He’s the one in control, not you. When you dreamed about your mother before she died, I think He was preparing you.”
Noelle nodded. “Okay. So what’s He giving me now?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? Obviously you need to search for Carissa.”
She nodded, watching the tension in his expression. “You don’t look too chipper,” she noted. “I thought you dealt with this kind of thing before in your pastoral duties.”
“This kind of thing? You’re kidding, right? This is not your normal, everyday counseling session or grief process.” He slid back behind the steering wheel, shifted into Drive and eased forward along the lane.
“Okay, then if these episodes I’m having are connected to Carissa, why can’t I see where she is? Why didn’t I receive some brilliant flash of understanding, some mental map about where to go to find her?”
“Because you aren’t writing the script. God is. He’ll guide you when it’s time.” He glanced at her briefly. “So were there any other impressions a moment ago?”
Noelle gazed at the ceiling of the truck, reluctant to accept that this was even happening. But still…“I felt she was alone in the dark and frightened of some unknown threat.”
“Something? Or someone? Or just the dark itself?”
“Someone.” That much Noelle knew, though it was still a mystery to her how she’d reached that certainty. “But that doesn’t make sense. I can’t believe anyone would kidnap Carissa.”
“Could be revenge. You know Cecil. He has a way of—”
“Making people angry,” she finished for him. “I know. He’s always been quicker to engage his mouth than his brain. But still, only a nutcase would try to take that out on Carissa.”
“Excuse me, but a ‘nutcase’ is exactly who we’re talking about here.”
“Okay. Fine.” Noelle gazed out the window at the bright-red sumac bushes along the edges of the lane, at the red Virginia creeper vines outlining tree limbs, threaded among the canopy of green leaves. “Come to think of it, we sound like a couple of nutcases ourselves. If anyone were to overhear us talking—”
“They won’t. We’ll be careful.”
“Good. So that means you’re not going to go blabbing this to anyone?”
He raised a brow of affected disdain. “You can’t possibly believe I would do something so audacious as to sully my own good name among the locals. My livelihood depends on my reputation.”
She grinned, flooded with relief at this glimpse of her old friend. “Okay, fine. You don’t tell them I’m psychic—”
“You’re not psychic, you’re gifted. They’re two totally different—”
“—and I won’t tell them about the stray marbles you’ve apparently been losing because you believe me. Has Cecil fired someone at the mill or the ranch recently?”
“Not in over six months, and the last man wanted to get fired so he could draw unemployment insurance.”
“No motive for a kidnapping, then. Could Carissa have gotten lost?”
“That’s very possible. Cecil found her flashlight in the mud last night. He’s thinking that she might have gotten turned around and panicked.”
“But Carissa doesn’t panic easily,” Noelle said.
“And besides, you have a definite impression that someone is a threat…”
“I’m not willing to put my faith in some stupid impression,” Noelle said.
“Not stupid,” he insisted. “Let’s not dismiss any possibility.”
Nathan pulled up to the sawmill. The paved parking lot surrounding the huge, barnlike building was crammed with cars, trucks, SUVs and trailers, which had apparently carried all-terrain vehicles.
Ordinarily, Cecil wouldn’t thank anyone for tearing up his pastureland and traumatizing more than a thousand head of cattle and horses, but if the volunteer searchers found his little girl, he would most likely be willing to give them permanent rights to the land—if those rights were his to give. Though he managed all of the Cooper enterprises, he hadn’t yet inherited.
Nathan parked between a van and another truck, then turned to Noelle again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I told you, I’m fine. A little rattled, but what would you expect? I want to focus on finding Carissa.”
“We’ll do that.”
Noelle stared at the corrugated aluminum siding on the huge building. Even after ten years, the sawmill brought back the memories of the accident that had killed Dad and Grandma and Grandpa. Carissa’s disappearance only resurrected those memories more distinctly.
“We might as well walk from here,” she said. “We’ve got to start looking somewhere.”
They climbed from the truck to be greeted by the music of the crickets and the scent of moist earth. Noelle took a deep breath, her gaze traveling over the mossy green of the cedar trees, the splashes of orange and apricot on the tips of maple trees and the rippling green of the hay field, punctuated by huge, silver-gold bales stacked