LITMIR.BIZ

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Jillian gritted her teeth over the delay, working to keep her temper in check. Not that she had much choice.

      When she’d discovered Drew was gone, she couldn’t think of anything else to do except appeal to the sheriff for help. She had given the dispatcher all the information. And then she had repeated it for the sheriff as soon as he’d shown up, almost thirty minutes after she’d called the emergency number.

      And she had searched the ranch herself before she’d called. Once she had, she had realized there was just too much very empty territory surrounding it for her to investigate alone. Besides, she couldn’t be sure how long Drew had been gone.

      “A little after ten,” she said, trying to hold on to her patience. “He was playing a computer game.”

      “And you didn’t see him after that?” Ronnie asked, carefully writing something in his notebook.

      “That’s right,” Jillian said, taking a deep, calming breath.

      “And you think he might have gone out exploring?”

      “I said it’s possible. We just moved in a couple of days ago. I thought maybe… I don’t know. Maybe he just decided to take a look around and got lost.”

      “Uh-huh,” the sheriff said, still writing.

      “But…”

      She hesitated, hating to confess the strained relationship with her son this move had caused. Ronnie’s blue eyes had lifted from his notebook at the pause. They held hers, waiting.

      “He might have run away,” she said softly.

      “Run away from home?”

      She resisted the urge to state the obvious, nodding instead.

      “Got his dander up about something?” Ronnie asked.

      “He wasn’t too thrilled about the move.”

      The sheriff’s eyes drifted over the buildings clustered around the house before they came back to hers.

      “Could be hiding,” he said. “Lots of hiding places around here for a boy.”

      “I called him. I went inside every one of the outbuildings and called.”

      “That don’t mean he’s gonna answer,” Ronnie said, smiling at her. He flipped the top of the notebook over whatever he’d written and stuck it back in his jacket pocket.

      “And why would he do that?” Jillian asked. “Why would he not answer? Exactly what are you implying?”

      “That maybe the kid don’t want to be found. He’s got himself a mad on, and he’s trying to rattle your chain. Seems to be working, too.”

      The smile widened, and Jillian, the most nonconfrontational person in the world, wanted to slap it off his face.

      “There’s a storm coming,” she said. “I don’t want my son out in it. I called you to help me find him.”

      “I expect he’s curled up somewhere watching us right now. He probably liked the idea of you calling the county out to look for him. Liked seeing the cruiser coming.”

      “You can’t know that.”

      “Best guess,” Ronnie said, seemingly unaware of her anger. “Based on eight years’ experience in this business.”

      “And you aren’t going to do anything to find him,” Jillian said flatly, finally realizing that he wasn’t.

      “I’ll take a look around. Drive out a ways.”

      “I’ve already done both of those things.”

      “But you’re his mama. I’m the sheriff. Kids react differently to a uniform. To somebody in authority.”

      “I thought you’d decided Drew was enjoying watching this.”

      “One or the other. Let’s start with the barn,” Ronnie said.

      He began to walk in that direction without waiting to see if she was coming. As a child, the barn had always been her refuge, Jillian remembered. Its horse-scented darkness had given her a sense of safety unmatched anywhere else on the ranch. Reluctantly, knowing this was nothing but a wild-goose chase and a waste of what might be valuable time, she turned to follow him.

      As she did, she realized that the sheriff had stopped, seeming to study the clouds to the north. As she glanced in the same direction, she became aware of a sound disturbing the prestorm quiet.

      Helicopter, she identified automatically. She put her hand up, shading her eyes from the swirling, wind-driven dust more than from the sun, which had been dimmed by the clouds.

      The chopper grew larger as she and the sheriff watched. After a minute or two, it became apparent that it was preparing to set down in the yard. Now that it was this close, Jillian could see it wasn’t any kind of official aircraft. There were no markings that would indicate it belonged to law enforcement or to the military.

      It was small and sleek, its body white with bright-red numbers. There was a logo of some kind on the door, but Jillian couldn’t quite make it out from here.

      She shielded her eyes again, this time from the dust the rotor was stirring up. Whoever was flying the chopper set it down with hardly a bump and shut off the engine. The sudden silence made her realize how noisy the thing had been.

      “Co-op,” the sheriff said.

      “Co-op?”

      “Outfit that owns most of the land around here. They wanted this place, but I guess you beat ‘em to it.”

      She had been told someone else was interested in the property, which had helped her make up her mind very quickly that this was what she wanted to do with Violet’s money. Once she’d made that decision, writing the check for the full purchase price was all that had been required to close the deal. That and signing her name on the bottom line.

      Foolishly, she had done that before she had approached Drew. Because her childhood here had been so idyllic, she had never expected that he’d react the way he had. After all—

      The door of the chopper slid open and the pilot climbed down. Head lowered a little, he walked around to the other side and opened the passenger door. By now, Jillian had begun to suspect what this was all about. Still, her heart leaped into her throat when Drew came running around the nose of the chopper.

      She fought the maternal instinct to shout a warning to him to be careful of the still-rotating blades. Biting the inside of her lip, she simply watched as he approached, so relieved to see him that her knees felt weak.

      His steps slowed the closer he came, especially when he noticed the sheriff. You know you’re in trouble, Jillian thought, when you find out your mom’s called out the law.

      “Hi, Mom,” Drew said, his tone wavering somewhere between apprehension and excitement.

      The latter she could credit to his recent ride in the helicopter, something he’d never done before. And the former was self-explanatory. Drew knew from experience that she wasn’t going to put up with this kind of nonsense.

      He knew that, and yet he had done it anyway, which proved exactly how upset he was about the move. And she felt like a fool and a failure for not having any idea about how he’d react.

      “Where have you been?” she asked, giving him a chance to tell his side of the story. Besides, listening to his explanation would give her a few seconds to decide what she was going to do about his disappearing.

      “I was leaving, but…I got turned around.”

      “You were running away?”

      “I was going back to Fort Worth,” Drew said.

      He sounded almost as determined as he had when he told her how much he hated the ranch. She wished she’d listened.

      “And you

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