Jared’s thoughts about juicy steaks and brotherly companionship were suddenly interrupted when he felt something tugging on the hem of his jean leg.
Glancing down, he saw a red speckled pup chewing with delight on his leather workboot. “Well, where did you come from, little guy?”
The sound of Jared’s voice distracted the pup from his chewing. The dog looked up at him, then backed away and let out a croaky bark. Jared squatted on his heels and with an outstretched hand invited the pup to come closer. “Come here, fella. Let’s see if you have a name tag on your collar.”
Wary, but overcome with curiosity, the pup sidled closer, then wiggled with delight the moment Jared ran a friendly hand over his sleek head. Fastened to a black leather collar, a metal disc dangled at the front of the dog’s throat. Jared angled the silver gray disc so that he could read the letters. Fred was written on one side. A local phone number was on the other.
Rising to his full height, which was just shy of six feet, Jared’s gray eyes scanned the open fields around him. The nearest house was at least a quarter mile away. A long distance for a little guy like Fred to travel, he pondered. No doubt someone would be missing the dog soon and be out searching for him.
Jared’s cell phone was lying on the truck seat. The least he could do was call the number on the pup’s collar and inform the owner that the dog was safe.
He opened the truck door to retrieve the telephone, then realized he’d have to look at Fred’s collar again to get the number. Slipping the fliptop phone in his shirt pocket, he turned back to grab the dog, only to find the animal scampering off toward the maze of open trenches.
“Fred! Come back here,” he called.
The dog ignored him, so Jared tried whistling. The sound produced a bark, but the dog still refused to return.
Muttering a curse under his breath and wondering why he was taking the time to bother with the animal, Jared started after him. As soon as Fred spotted his approach, he began to bark with loud enthusiasm into the open trench as though he’d just treed a coon in a hollow log. Only this time the log was a smashed drainpipe.
“Okay, fella, I know you think you’re out on a hunt, but you’ve got to go home, wherever that is,” he said to the dog.
Ignoring him, Fred continued to bark and whine, forcing Jared to jump into the ditch to go after him. It was then he saw the little footprints in the damp earth. Tiny human imprints leading up to the drainage pipe.
If there had been a set of adult tracks alongside, Jared wouldn’t have thought too much about the fact that someone had been out here looking over the excavation site. Working this close to town, he was surprised there hadn’t been more people snooping around the diggings than the two teenage boys he’d chased away last week.
Uneasy at this sudden discovery of another type of visitor, he bent down and peered into the pipe. Nothing but a little mud and water settled at the bottom. He glanced behind him, hoping that the tracks would tell him that the little feet had turned back around and headed away from the work site. They didn’t.
Grim-faced, he jumped out of the ditch and followed the pipe until it ended and the ditch opened up again. The footprints reappeared in the mud, along with the pup’s.
Quickly, Jared followed the tracks until they disappeared into a slim cavity created between a slab of earth and another damaged drainpipe.
Oh no, he thought sickly. Surely the child hadn’t squeezed into such a dark, narrow opening. But from the looks of the tracks in the bottom of the ditch that was exactly what he’d done.
Sensing that Jared was finally on the right track and getting the message, Fred barked excitedly into the small opening while clawing at the damp earth. The dog’s actions said as much or more to Jared than the footprints. His little buddy had disappeared and he’d been waiting around for someone to help him find him.
Not bothering with the telephone number on Fred’s collar, Jared pulled out the cell phone and dialed the sheriff’s office.
“I need to speak to the sheriff,” he quickly told the female dispatcher, adding, “This is his brother, Jared Colton.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Colton, but the sheriff is out on an emergency right now. Would you like to leave a message?”
Jared silently cursed at the rotten timing. “No. I want you to radio him right this minute and tell him I think I have an emergency on my hands. A child has gone into a drainage system west of town.”
“A child? Oh. Okay, give me your location and I’ll radio him at once.”
Jared told her the location of the work site and also supplied her with the number to his cell phone. In just a matter of moments the telephone rang and his brother was on the end of the line.
“Jared, I just got your message. I have half my force out looking for a three-year-old girl right now. She’s been missing for nearly two hours. You think you’ve found her?”
A three-year-old girl! Somehow Jared had expected Fred’s young buddy to be a boy. The idea of a soft, sweet little girl exploring a muddy ditch with an adventurous bird dog had never entered his mind.
“I’m out here at the work site now, Bram, and I’ve found her dog and where she’s been, but not the child. I think you’d better get over here pronto.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” he assured him.
“Uh, 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