Heart of Texas Series Volume 1: Lonesome CowboyTexas Two-StepCaroline's Child

  Her eyes fluttered open and she gazed up at him with such longing he couldn’t possibly have resisted her.

  Caroline wrapped herself in his embrace the moment he reached for her. Grady was shocked by the intensity of his own craving. It felt as though he’d waited his entire life for this afternoon and this woman.

  His tongue danced with hers and he worked his fingers into her hair, loving the feel of it, clean and silky smooth. Fifty years of this, and he swore he’d never tire of her taste.

  “I suppose we’d better think about getting back,” he said reluctantly, feeling cheated that their magical time had come to an end.

  “How long have we been gone?” Caroline asked. Not waiting for a response, she glanced at her watch. She gasped and jumped to her feet. “Oh, my goodness, we’ve been away for over two hours!”

  “I know.”

  “But Maggie…”

  “She’s with Savannah.”

  “I had no idea we’d been gone this long.” She started cleaning up the area, her movements fast and jerky.

  “Caroline, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  She turned slowly to face him, obviously comforted. “Thank you, Grady. I do know that. I’m just not used to…any of this.” She made a gesture that took in their surroundings, the remains of their picnic and Grady himself.

  He helped her mount—because he wanted to, not because she needed any assistance. They rode back to the ranch, joking and laughing, teasing each other the way lovers do.

  As the house came into view, his eyes were drawn to its silhouette against the darkening sky. Solid, secure, welcoming. His home had always seemed a natural part of the landscape to him. It belonged there. And for the first time in years, he felt that his life was what he wanted it to be.

  It wasn’t until they neared the corral that Grady noticed something was amiss. He saw Laredo, and the minute the other man caught sight of Grady and Caroline, he ran into the house, calling for Savannah. She rushed out onto the back porch.

  His sister’s face was red, her eyes puffy as though she’d been weeping. That wasn’t like her.

  “What is it?” he asked as he dismounted.

  “Oh, Caroline, I’m so sorry.” Savannah’s voice trembled and she covered her mouth.

  Confused, Caroline looked to Grady. “What’s wrong?”

  Grady walked around his gelding and helped Caroline down from her horse. Her hands trembled as she held his arms.

  “Where’s Maggie?” she asked, her voice oddly calm.

  “That’s the problem,” Laredo said, moving to stand next to his wife. He slid his arm around Savannah’s shoulders.

  “You don’t know where Maggie is?” Caroline asked, and again Grady heard that strange calm in her voice.

  “I… She went outside, and the last time I checked she was sitting on the porch,” Savannah cried. “I’ve looked everywhere, called for her until my voice was hoarse. I don’t know where she could have gone.”

  “Apparently she’d come out to look for me,” Laredo said.

  “Did you see her?” Grady demanded.

  “No.” Laredo shook his head.

  “Oh, Caroline,” Savannah wept, “I’m so sorry! I should never have let her leave the house.”

  Caroline’s fingers dug into Grady’s arm. Her eyes were wide and filled with terror when she looked at him, seeking reassurance.

  Grady’s heart felt like a lead weight in his chest. “We’ll find her,” he promised.

  7

  THE CALLS LAWMEN DREADED MOST WERE domestic violence and missing children. Frank Hennessey was no exception. The report of a missing child made his blood run cold. He preferred dealing with a drunken belligerent husband any day of the week if it meant he didn’t have to see the face of a parent whose child couldn’t be found. Frank had never married, never had children, but he’d been a firsthand witness to the agony parents endure when their child disappears. All his years of law enforcement had convinced him there was no deeper pain than the loss of a child.

  The call that Maggie Daniels had gone missing came minutes before Frank was due to go off duty. Grady Weston phoned it in. There’d only been one other time Frank had heard Grady sound the way he did this evening, and that was the day his parents had drowned in a flash flood.

  “Are you sure she hasn’t fallen asleep somewhere in the house?” Frank felt obliged to ask.

  “We’re sure, Frank.” Grady’s impatience crackled over the telephone line.

  “Was she upset about anything?”

  “No, she was excited about visiting the ranch,” Caroline answered, apparently from one of the extensions.

  “Maggie didn’t run away, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Grady told him angrily.

  In fact, Frank’s questions had been leading to that assumption. It was the most common scenario, even with kids this young. He sighed heavily. He hadn’t been around children much, but he’d taken a real liking to Caroline’s fatherless child. She was a sweetheart, and the thought of anything happening to her made his insides twist.

  “Are you coming out to take a report or not?” Grady demanded.

  “I’m on my way.” Frank replaced the receiver. Grady sounded as worried and frustrated as he would if he were the child’s father. In situations such as this the families were often impatient and angry, lashing out at authority because of their own helplessness. Frank had seen it before. Some of the cases he’d worked on came with happy endings. The lost child was found safe and promptly returned to the parents.

  The other cases, two in his career, would forever haunt him. Missing. He’d come to think of it as the ugliest word in the English language. The first child had turned up dead; the second was never seen again.

  Although the highway was deserted, Frank ran the lights on his patrol car as he sped toward the Yellow Rose Ranch. The entire forty minutes it took him to drive from town, he kept hoping against hope that by the time he arrived, Maggie would’ve been found. He wasn’t a superstitious man, nor did he believe in intuition, but his gut told him that wouldn’t be the case.

  He was right.

  No sooner had he pulled into the yard than the door opened and Grady hurried onto the porch. Caroline was with him, looking paler than he’d ever seen her. Grady’s eyes were dark with anxiety.

  “Thank you for coming,” Caroline said, her voice determined. She was a strong woman and Frank deeply admired her grit.

  Grady held the door open for him. “Savannah’s got coffee brewing,” he said, leading the way into the kitchen.

  Frank looked around at the small group assembled there. Laredo had his arm around Savannah, who seemed on the verge of collapse. Her eyes were red and swollen, testifying to the tears she’d already shed.

  “It’s my fault,” she said.

  “No one’s laying blame,” Grady told her, his eyes softening. He brought the coffeepot over to the table where a number of mugs had been set, and he filled each one.

  “But I was supposed to be watching her,” Savannah explained as Frank doctored his coffee with milk.

  “It doesn’t matter who was watching her,” Caroline said, her voice shaking slightly. “What matters is that we don’t know where Maggie is now.”

  “We’ll find her,” Wiley Rogers, the foreman, insisted. “Don’t you worry about that. Not a one of us will rest until Maggie’s found.”

  Frank had heard words like that before, and he’d watched as families invested every penny of their life’s savings in the effort. He’d watched them invest the very heart and soul of their existence in tracing a missing child, sometimes to the point that the entire family was destroyed. He’d assumed when he moved to Promise fifteen years ago that he’d never have to deal with this sort of agony agai
n, but he’d been wrong. It was staring him in the face this very minute.

  “Savannah, since you were the last person to see Maggie, why don’t we start with you.” He withdrew a small notebook from his shirt pocket. “You were the last one to see her, right?”

  Savannah nodded and Laredo moved closer to his wife’s side as if to protect her. Frank pitied her, understood the grief and guilt she must feel. He glanced away and surveyed everyone else in the room.

  It was then that he noticed one family member was missing. “Where’s Richard?” he asked, interrupting Savannah.

  “In town, I suspect,” Grady said.

  “Driving what?”

  “My pickup’s missing, so I guess he has that.”

  Frank walked over to the telephone. “I want him here.”

  “Of course,” Savannah said.

  “You don’t think he’d take Maggie with him, do you?” Caroline asked, looking to Grady and Savannah for the answer. “I mean, we assumed he left earlier, before Maggie turned up missing, but…” She let the rest fade.

  “It isn’t a good idea to assume anything.” Frank walked over to the wall phone and lifted the receiver. He barked out a few orders, then instructed his deputy to drive through town and find Richard Weston. If Richard wasn’t there, Al was to find out the last time anyone saw him and report back to Frank as soon as possible.

  While he waited for Al to return the call, Frank finished the interview with Savannah and Laredo. An hour passed before the phone rang. Caroline leaped from her chair and her eyes grew wide and hopeful when Grady reached for the receiver. Without a word he handed the telephone to Frank.

  Richard Weston was nowhere to be found. Neither was Grady’s truck. No one had seen him, not that day or the day before. Al reported that he wasn’t the only one looking for Richard, either, but Frank decided these people had enough trouble on their hands. He didn’t intend to add to it.

  “You don’t honestly think Richard took the child, do you?” Savannah asked after he’d relayed the details of Al’s findings.

  “At this point I won’t discount any coincidence. Maggie’s missing and so is Richard.”

  “But I’m sure he left long before Maggie disappeared,” Savannah said.

  “I’m not.” This came from Laredo. “I saw the truck. And I saw it while Maggie was in the house with you.”

  * * *

  UNABLE TO SLEEP, Caroline sat on the dark porch, her arms wrapped protectively around her middle. Frank had left several hours earlier. There was nothing more he could do; he’d already alerted law-enforcement officers across Texas and in the adjoining states to keep their eyes open for Maggie. Savannah had given the sheriff Maggie’s school photograph and he’d taken it into town with him. Soon Maggie’s likeness would be seen in every law office in the Southwest. The search was on for Richard, too, with an all-points bulletin issued for his arrest. Caroline knew that had something to do with information the sheriff had received, information about a crime Richard had committed back East. She didn’t know what it was, and right now she didn’t care. Finding Maggie was the only thing that mattered.

  With nothing further to be done at the moment, everyone had turned in for the night. Frank had offered to follow her home, but Caroline refused to leave. If Maggie—she paused and rephrased the thought—when Maggie came back, Caroline wanted to be right here at the ranch waiting for her.

  Although everyone had gone to bed, she knew no one would sleep well. She accepted one of Savannah’s nightgowns and made the pretense of going to bed, too, but the room felt suffocating. Within minutes she’d dressed again and made her way through the house and outside. She sat on the porch steps and stared into the bleak darkness.

  It wasn’t long before Grady joined her. Wordlessly, with barely a sound, he sat down on the step next to her and clasped her hand. Her fingers tightened around his.

  “I’m so afraid.” It was the first time she’d verbalized her fears.

  “I am, too.”

  She pressed her head against his shoulder and he placed his arm around her, drawing her close.

  “Do you think she’s with Richard?” Caroline couldn’t shake the thought. They’d both disappeared around the same time, but that made no sense. Richard might be a lot of things, but a child-snatcher wasn’t one of them. Caroline could think of no plausible reason for him to take Maggie.

  “I can’t imagine that even Richard would do anything like this,” Grady said, his voice little more than a whisper.

  Caroline reminded herself that Frank believed there might be a connection between Maggie’s disappearance and Richard’s. She just couldn’t understand what it might be.

  “You should try to sleep,” Grady urged.

  “I can’t.” Every time she closed her eyes her imagination tormented her. She couldn’t bear the thought of her daughter hurt and crying out for her. But that was what filled her mind and heart and made sleep impossible.

  “I can’t, either.”

  “Oh, Grady,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Where can she be?”

  He waited a moment before he answered, and she knew he was experiencing the same frustration she was. “I wish I knew.”

  As the night wore on, it became more and more difficult for Caroline to hope. When she couldn’t stand the silence any longer, she buried her face in her hands and cried, “I want my daughter!”

  She tried to be strong, but she didn’t think she could hold back the tears. Hysteria was edging in on her. She could feel it pushing her closer to the brink.

  All at once she was completely wrapped in Grady’s arms. She clung to him, shaking almost uncontrollably as she muffled her sobs against his chest. His hold on her was firm, solid, and she needed him as she’d rarely needed anyone in her life. She wept until there were no tears left.

  “This might be the worst possible time to tell you this,” Grady whispered, his mouth close to her ear. “I love you, Caroline.”

  “Oh, Grady,” she sobbed.

  “I know it’s new, and it might take some getting used to, but let my love be your strength for now. Lean on me if you can. Let me help you bear this. I’ll do everything in my power to get Maggie back.”

  She was holding him, clutching his shoulders, like a lifeline. “I love you, too,” she whimpered, but didn’t know if he’d heard her.

  “We’ll get through this,” he promised. “We’ll find Maggie.”

  He sounded confident and sure, and she clung to the promise of his words.

  “It’s going to be all right, understand?”

  She nodded, desperately wanting to believe him.

  Oh, God, she prayed, please bring my little girl home.

  But God seemed far away just then.

  * * *

  MAGGIE’S EYES were sore from crying, but she didn’t want Richard to hear her because he’d already gotten mad and yelled at her. She huddled in the corner of the old stone building that used to be a store. It was getting dark, but there was still some light coming in through the open door. Richard had told her not to leave the room and then he’d disappeared. Maggie didn’t like Richard anymore, even if he could do magic tricks.

  He was mean and he said bad words and he threw things, too. After he found her hiding in the back of Grady’s pickup, he started acting like Billy Parsons when he had a temper tantrum at his brother’s birthday party. The only thing Richard didn’t do was throw himself down on the ground and start kicking.

  Her stomach growled, but Maggie had already looked around for something to eat and hadn’t found anything. She wished she’d gone horseback riding with her mommy and Grady. She was afraid of horses after last Sunday—but not nearly as afraid as she was now.

  “Richard,” Maggie said, risking his wrath by walking out of the store.
“I want to go home now, okay?”

  “Yeah, well, you can’t have everything you want.” He was sitting outside and he had a big bottle in his hand. Every now and then, he’d take a drink. Her mother had told Maggie it wasn’t good manners to drink out of a bottle, but she didn’t tell Richard that because he’d only yell at her again.

  “Can we go back to the ranch?” she asked.

  “No.” He growled the word at her and laughed when she leaped back, frightened by the harsh sound of his voice. “I’ve got an idea,” he said, leaning toward her. “Why don’t you go fall in an empty well and save me a lot of trouble?”

  Maggie hurried back into the old store and sat down on the lone chair. When it grew dark, she ventured over to the stable where he’d parked the truck. There was enough moonlight to find her way, but she walked very carefully, afraid of holes in the road and snakes…and Richard. Climbing into the bed of the pickup, she curled up with the sleeping bag she’d found earlier. She was cold and hungry and more afraid than she’d ever been in her whole life.

  Every once in a while she could hear Richard singing. He played his guitar and sang, but his voice didn’t sound right. It was like he’d mashed all the words together. She used to think he had a good voice; she didn’t think so anymore.

  Soon she fell asleep and didn’t awake until light peeked through a crack in the stable door. She was so hungry her stomach hurt.

  She clambered out of the truck and walked back to the main street. The early morning was very still.

  Richard was asleep in the rocker. His guitar lay on the wooden sidewalk, and he’d slouched down in the chair with his feet stretched out. His arms dangled over the edges of the rocker until his fingertips touched the ground close to the empty bottle. His head lolled to one side.

  “Richard,” she whispered. “I’m hungry.”

  He opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times.

  “I’m hungry,” she repeated, louder this time.

  “Get out of here, kid.”

  “I want my mommy,” she said, and her lower lip wobbled. “I don’t like it here. I want to go home.”