Keeneston, Kentucky

---

The Blossom Café was quiet. Not a single sound except the sizzle of bacon frying could be heard. Cy was used to reacting instantly, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. All he could think about was his little girl. Was she dead? What happened?

“No reports to indicate she’s dead,” DeAndre answered. Cy didn’t know if he was a mind reader or if he’d spoken out loud. “As to what happened, I don’t know yet.”

Cy was up and out of his seat. “I have to get to her. Where did the plane go down?”

“Mountain View Airstrip,” DeAndre answered.

“Should we call her assistant to see if there were any mechanical problems or something?” Aniyah asked in a shaky voice Cy had never heard before. Most of the time DeAndre’s girlfriend was confident to the hilt. She was secretary for Reagan’s twin sister, and Cy enjoyed verbally sparing with her when he’d visit Riley at the capitol building in Frankfort. This worried voice of hers sent his heart dropping.

“I’ll call her now,” DeAndre said as Cy felt his wife gently tugging his arm.

“Let’s go. I’ll call Porter and Parker. They’re in Atlanta for a rodeo. They can meet us there. We’ll find her, Cy.” Cy looked at the determined face of his wife and nodded. It was him who should be coming up with a plan, but right now it was Gemma.

“Mo, Dani, can we borrow a plane or something?” Gemma asked as she walked a couple of tables away and hugged a tearful Kenna and Will Ashton. Damn, Cy had forgotten about Carter. The pale faces and tears in their eyes reminded him that Will and Kenna were going through the same thing he was.

“We’ll find them. I swear it. I’ll die before I stop looking for them,” Cy told his friends.

“Before we stop looking,” Will said, standing up. “I’m coming with you.”

“Then we’ll need the bigger helicopter,” Ryan said to Mo, also standing up. “Carter asked me to look into two men who owned a horse he was flying with today. I haven’t gotten a chance to do it yet, but I’ll do it on the way there and make sure the boots on the ground know there was some concern about these men. We’ll need to find them too.”

“Is one of them Mick Connors?” DeAndre asked. Ryan looked down at his phone where he’d taken notes and nodded.

“Yes. How did you know that?” Ryan asked.

“Because he was on the plane with them. He joined them at the last minute.”

“You can take our large helicopter. It’s at the airport. It’ll hold sixteen and will be able to make it there on one tank of gas. Nash, can you fly it?” Mo asked his second-in-command of security.

“Of course. I’ll head there now and get it ready.” Nash stood up and kissed his wife, Sophie.

“Bring my cousin home,” Sophie whispered as she ran her hand down his cheek. Nash nodded and strode out the door.

“I’ll bring Robyn,” Bridget said from her wheelchair. “She’s the best tracker we have. That is, if it’s okay with Sydney.”

“Of course it is,” Sydney said, holding tightly to Deacon’s hand on one side and her cousin Piper’s hand with the other.

“Sweetheart,” Ahmed said patiently to his wife. “You have a broken ankle. You can’t work Robyn through the woods in your condition.”

Bridget smiled up at her husband. “I said I’d bring her, not that I’d track with her. You are going to do that honor.”

“No. That dog scares me. She thinks she’s smarter than I am and it amuses her to see us humans working for her. And when she gets excited, she rubs her head though my legs and racks me every time she wiggles through. She does it on purpose. When I double over, holding my balls she smiles. Smiles, Bridget!” Ahmed’s hands went to his balls as if feeling phantom pain from the little rust-colored Vizsla.

“Ahmed,” Gemma said in a voice she usually reserved for when their kids had gotten in trouble. “You will get the damn dog. You will let her rack your balls. You will tell her she’s a good girl. You will scratch her butt to make her happy. And you will find my daughter! Do you understand me?” she asked, her voice rising with every word.

Ahmed’s head hung. “Yes, ma’am. Sydney, get me Satan’s Spawn.”

“If this Mick guy is the bad guy Carter was worried about, maybe the guys with badges and special privileges should go. Ahmed, Nash, Matt, DeAndre, and I can handle this,” Ryan said. “Remember, we won’t be in Keeneston so all y’all should stay here.”

Cy snorted. “That’s cute, nephew. Come on, honey, let’s go. My guns are in the SUV.”

---

Twenty-five minutes later Cy pulled up to the secure area leading to Mo’s helicopter hangar. It was next to the plane he also owned, but there would be no place to land a plane, considering the wreckage.

Cy parked the car, and Gemma was already out the door and opening the trunk. She opened the case hidden under the carpet and pulled out a handgun. “What are you doing?”

“That’s my daughter out there, and I’ll kill anyone who is trying to hurt her.” Gemma and Cy turned at the sound of cars pulling up behind them. “What are they all doing here?”

Cy shook his head. “I don’t know.”

The doors to Miles’s SUV opened and he, Cade, Marshall, and Annie stepped out with bags thrown over their shoulders. “You didn’t think we’d let you go alone, did you?”

“Guys, seriously. I’ve got this,” Ryan said, getting out of his FBI cruiser with DeAndre and Matt, the sheriff of Keeneston. “Matt, DeAndre and I have permission to be there. You all don’t.”

Marshall snickered and shook his head. “You’ll find that by the time we get down there, we will. Now, come on. Nash is starting the helicopter.” Marshall paused as he looked past Ryan, DeAndre, and Matt. “Is that leash sparkling?”

Cy turned and saw Ahmed walking toward them with Robyn walking happily next to him. Her short tail was wagging with excitement as her pink glitter collar and leash sparkled in the sunlight. Ahmed had his badass face on—the one that caused soldiers to piss themselves in fear. But it lost much of its effect due to the sparkling pink leash.

Cy shook his head and Ahmed’s jaw tightened. “Um, are you Ahmed?” a woman asked.

“Yes,” Ahmed ground out. Cy was worried the woman would start crying out of fear.

“Here are the two items you asked for,” she told him, holding out two Ziploc bags. “The blue one is a fleece Reagan had sitting on her chair. She wears it all the time in the air conditioning. The red one is a T-shirt I found in the car. I assumed it’s Carter’s.”

“Thank you very much, Jane. These will be vital to the search.” The woman looked relieved as Ahmed called out to Will and Kenna to verify that was in fact Carter’s shirt. Once they told him it was, the large group boarded the helicopter.

Cy hating the feeling that the clock was ticking down. He worried if he didn’t find Reagan and Carter soon enough, it would be too late and the thought of that was too much to bear.

“You taught Reagan well. Remember that,” Miles said, squeezing Cy’s shoulder as the helicopter took off. Yes, he taught her well, but was it enough?

---

Reagan dropped into the creek as soon as the water was deeper. Her ankle throbbed, and if she had to guess, it was still twenty miles to the town she’d seen in the air. She wasn’t quite sure she’d make it. She sat on the rock bottom of the stream as the water rushed around her and thought about their plan. Was it really better to head to the town than to try to get back to the airstrip?

Carter took a seat next to her and let out a deep breath. “Do you think this is a mistake?”

“I was thinking that. I think it’s risky. At the same time, maybe it’s the safer bet. Mick will assume we’re going back toward the airfield and will hopefully stay there, looking for us. It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t hurt my ankle. It’s slowing me down. And twenty miles . . .” Reagan took a calming breath. “I’ll make it. We’ll make it. This gives us time and distance away from him.”

“I wonder if our parents know the plane went down?” Carter asked softly. Reagan felt her heart constrict at the thought of her parents thinking she was dead or injured.

“Probably.”

“They’re going to lose it. I wish there was a way to let them know we are okay.”

Reagan’s head snapped up, and she smiled. “We can.”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s the first thing my dad will do when he hears?”

“He’ll race down here.”

Reagan nodded. “And will he come alone?”

“Not likely. But I still don’t see how we can let them know we’re okay.”

“They won’t come alone. They’ll come with help. We just need to leave them clues.”

Carter shook his head. “But any clues we leave, Mick will be able to track.”

“There’s one he won’t be able to.”

“What’s that?”

Reagan grinned as she scooted over toward the shore. “What do police do when someone goes missing in the woods?”

“They search for them with dogs. Dogs!”

Reagan reached out and rubbed her hand along the grass. She made sure she didn’t leave an impression, but she rubbed hard enough to leave a scent. “We’ll leave our scent.”

Carter stood and leaned as far over the bank as possible and rubbed his hand against the small trunk of a sapling. “We’ll do this every so often. They’ll follow our scent to the stream, and surely your father will understand what losing the scent means. He’ll walk with them downstream and pick up our scent again.” Carter leaned down and kissed her. “You’re brilliant.”

Reagan felt hope fuel her aching body. They may not be able to make it to safety today, but they could hide from Mick long enough to make it to the town or for help to arrive. “I’m going to go down on my stomach. My ankle needs a rest.”

Carter looked up at the sky. “It’s after noon already. I wonder how far we’ve gone.”

“I would guess five miles or so. And we need to make it another five miles before nightfall if we want to make it to the town tomorrow.”

“Then let’s go. If you get too tired, let me know. I’ll carry you.” Carter stopped her from lying in the water. “I haven’t had time to tell you, but I’m so proud of you. I can’t believe you landed that plane. I love you, my soon-to-be wifey.”

Carter kissed her again, only this time it was slow, gentle, and full of emotion. Reagan looked down at her left hand and the ring sparkling like the clear water of the creek. “It seems like a lifetime ago you asked me to marry you.”

“As long as we have a lifetime ahead of us, then that’s all that matters. Come on. Let’s celebrate our engagement by outrunning a madman.”

Reagan laughed as she lay on her stomach. With the water closer to two feet deep now, she was able to mostly float down. Rocks would hit her chest and stomach, but she used her hands to help her crawl when she needed to. Every so often she or Carter would reach out of the stream and leave their scent on a tree in hopes someone would enlist a search-and-rescue dog.

Reagan wished they could spend the time talking, but they were both worried about Mick finding them. So they kept quiet, kept their ears open, and kept making their way downstream as quickly as possible.