Okay, he thought, Tyler might be gone, Trish and her family had abandoned him, but there was still Dylan. Michael comforted himself with that. This time at least he wouldn’t be out in the middle of nowhere without a familiar face in sight. And they’d left him with a working phone. He picked it up, listened suspiciously just in case they’d had the darn thing disconnected, then breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of the dial tone. He punched in his older brother’s number.
But Dylan—surprise, surprise—was nowhere to be found.
“Off on a case,” his wife said cheerfully. “Stop by while you’re here, though. Bobby and I would love to see you. And if you need any help at the ranch, give me a call. My medical skills may be pretty much limited to kids, but I can rally a few of the Adamses who actually know a thing or two about horses and cattle. They’ll be happy to come over to help out.”
Wasn’t that just gosh-darn neighborly, Michael thought sourly as he sat on the porch in the gathering dusk and stared out at the field of wildflowers that Trish gushed about all the time. Frankly, he didn’t get the fascination. They didn’t do anything. Maybe after a couple of glasses of wine, he’d be more appreciative.
He was on his way inside in search of a decent cabernet and livelier entertainment, when he heard the distant cry. It sounded like someone in pain and it was coming from the barn, which should have been occupied by nothing more than a few of those horses Trish was so blasted worried about. Not that he was an expert, but no horse he’d ever heard sounded quite so human.
Adrenaline pumping, Michael eased around the house and slid through the shadows toward the small, neat barn. He could hear what sounded like muffled crying and a frantic exchange of whispers.
Thankful for his brother-in-law’s skill in constructing the barn, he slid the door open in one smooth, silent glide and hit the lights, exposing two small, towheaded boys huddled in a corner, one of them holding a gashed hand to his chest, his face streaked with tears. Michael stared at them with astonishment and the unsettling sense that the day’s bad luck was just about to take a spin for the worse.
“We ain’t done anything, mister,” the older boy said, facing him defiantly. Wearing a ragged T-shirt, frayed jeans and filthy sneakers, he stood protectively in front of the smaller, injured boy. The littler one gave Michael a hesitant smile, which faded when confronted by Michael’s unrelenting scowl.
Michael’s gaze narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
“We just wanted someplace to sleep for the night,” the little one said, moving up to stand side by side with his companion whose belligerent expression now matched Michael’s. His fierce loyalty reminded Michael of the four Delacourt brothers, whose one-for-all-and-all-for-one attitudes had gotten them into and out of a lot of sticky situations when they’d been about the same ages as these two.
“Come over here closer to the light and let me see your hand,” he said to the smaller child, preferring to deal with the immediacy of an injury to the rest of the situation.
“It ain’t nothing,” the bigger boy said, holding him back.
“If it’s bleeding, it’s something,” Michael replied. “Do you want it getting infected so bad, the doctors will have to cut off his arm?”
He figured the image of such an exaggeratedly gory fate would cut straight through their reluctance, but he’d figured wrong.
“We can fix it ourselves,” the boy insisted stubbornly. “We found the first aid kit. I’ve already dumped lots and lots of peroxide over it.”
“It hurt real bad, too,” the little one said.
The comment earned him a frown, rather than praise for his bravery. “If he’d just hold still, I’d have it bandaged by now,” the older boy grumbled.
“You two used to taking care of yourselves?” Michael asked, getting the uneasy sense that they’d frequently been through this routine of standing solidly together in defiance of adult authority.
The smaller boy nodded, even as the older one said a very firm, “No.”
Michael bit back a smile at the contradictory responses. “Which is it?”
“Look, mister, if you don’t want us here, we’ll go,” the taller boy said, edging toward the door while keeping a safe distance between himself and Michael.
“What’s your name?”
“I ain’t supposed to tell that to strangers.”
“Well, seeing how you’re on my property,” he began, stretching the truth ever-so-slightly in the interest of saving time on unnecessary explanations about his own presence here. “I think I have a right to know who you are.”
The boys exchanged a look before the older one finally gave a subtle nod.
“I’m Josh,” the little one said. “He’s Jamie.”
“You two brothers?” Michael asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you have a last name, Josh and Jamie?”
“Of course, we do,” Jamie said impatiently. “But we ain’t telling.”
Michael let that pass for the moment. “Live around here?”
Again, he got two contradictory answers. He sighed. “Which is it?”
“We’re visiting,” the little one said, as Jamie nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. We’re visiting.”
Michael was an expert in sizing up people, reading their expressions. He wasn’t buying that line of bull for a second. These two were runaways. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind about that. Hadn’t they just said they’d been looking for a place to spend the night? He decided to see how far they were willing to carry the fib.
“Won’t the folks you’re visiting be worried about you?” he asked. “Maybe we should call them.”
“We’re not sure of the number,” Jamie said hurriedly, his expression worried.
“Tell me the name, then. I’ll look it up.”
“We can’t,” Jamie said. “They’ll be real mad, when they find out we’re gone. We weren’t supposed to leave their place. They told us and told us not to go exploring, didn’t they, Josh?”
“Uh-huh.” Josh peered at Michael hopefully. “You don’t want us to get in trouble, do you?”
Michael faced them with a stern, forbidding expression that worked nicely on the employees at Delacourt Oil. “No, what I want is the truth.”
“That is the truth,” Jamie vowed, sketching a cross over his heart and clearly not one bit intimidated.
“Honest,” Josh said.
Michael feared he hadn’t heard an honest, truthful word since these two had first opened their mouths. But if they wouldn’t give him a straight answer, what was he supposed to do about it? He couldn’t very well leave them in the barn. He couldn’t send them packing, as desperately as he wanted to. They were just boys, no more than thirteen and nine, most likely. Somebody, somewhere, had to be worried sick about them. Maybe he could loosen their tongues with a bribe of food.
“You hungry?” he asked.
Josh’s eyes lit up. His head bobbed up and down eagerly.
“I suppose we could eat,” Jamie said, clearly trying hard not to show too much enthusiasm.
“Come on inside, then. Once you’ve eaten, we’ll figure out where to go from there.”
In