Escape to Morning (24 page)

His throat thickened. It would have been nice to know her longer, to see where their friendship led. …

Or maybe it was better this way. He didn't have any room to disappoint her. He could hang on to that sweet smile, that trust in her eyes.

He'd never have to tell her that their friendship was based on a lie.

Chapter 14

DANNETTE FOLLOWED KIRBY through the forest, trying to read the dog and become more sensitive to Kelly's SAR dog. She missed Missy's sweet brown eyes and fought to trust Kirby's responses. Missy's absence felt sharp and raw the farther they progressed with the search.

Dannette used Kelly's clicker to encourage Kirby as the dog sniffed the shoreline. She'd left at 4 a.m., as sunrise pierced the night, turning it silver, and by the time she'd worked her way up the forest-service road into Tom Lake, the sky was mottled with glorious shades of pink, lavender, and cinnamon.

The breeze lifted the collar of her jacket and wove the smells of pine and lake water through the morning air. Birds called to her and water lapped the shore, disturbed only by an occasional plop of a feeding trout.

She missed Will. But she pushed him out of her mind as she trekked across shore. Sarah's suggestion that she call Will, albeit a rash and unwise one, had tempted Dannette sorely as she had driven into the lonely forest.

She liked him. It didn't take off a slice of her heart to admit that. Yes, he was a reporter, but he was a guy with morals, and she had a sneaky suspicion he was also a Christian, although yesterday she hadn't had a chance to really dig. She couldn't seriously consider him anything more than a friend until she got a fix on his beliefs.

She smiled as she hopped another boulder
. Okay, Dani, you're getting past yourself
. Will probably wasn't interested in her. Yes, he'd held her hand and even sat in a stinky kennel with her, but he'd been just as kind to Sarah. He'd been a good reporter, the way he'd listened with his eyes, his hand on hers. She simply wasn't used to having a man's full attention.

Except he called her Dani, which made her feel … cute. Attractive. Maybe she'd start thinking of herself that way … once in a while.

Even though she hadn't liked the way Will had barged into her life, once he was past the outer perimeter, it felt slightly appealing to have him hovering inside the borders, calling her a pet name, and smiling in her general direction.

Kirby's ears suddenly flicked back. Dani's pulse lurched. “Good boy, Kirb! Find!”

A smart dog for being only three years old, Kirby had picked up the trail and now threaded through the rocks. Kirby and Kelly would have no problem with certification.

And right after that, Dani would be leaving Moose Bend. For good. Which meant she shouldn't linger too long on the image of Will's beautiful eyes or the feel of his hand on hers.

Then again, Moose Bend wasn't so far from Kentville, Iowa, right? Twelve hours?

She wanted to smack herself upside the head. She had known Will for only three days, and most of that time had been spent not liking him—or trying not to like him. She shouldn't be calculating mileage and gas costs.

It would help if she didn't trust Will so much. It felt like an eternity since she'd ever let a man this close … mostly because she'd seen what loss did to a family, to a marriage.

She refused to let herself become her father.

Besides that, risks and long hours comprised the SAR lifestyle. Hence the reason she hadn't even considered the outdoor adventure jockeys she'd met as fair and eligible game. She wanted a nice, safe man, who came home at five o'clock and stayed all weekend. Who considered mowing the grass or painting the house his version of adventure, volunteering in the church nursery his contribution to saving the world. A guy who would be there for her to return home to, perhaps with a couple of steaks on the grill and a tossed salad on the counter. Yes, it felt like a double standard, but since trauma and catastrophe were the fabric of her life, she needed normalcy behind the scenes.

Maybe she needed a guy like Will. A guy who enjoyed small-town coffee shops, who made friends with the café owner, who fished with the local sheriff. Of course, that didn't totally define Will, but he seemed down to earth. Perhaps a little zealous and over the top when it came to SAR, but then again, what guy didn't have dreams to be a Rambo type and save the world?

Dani stopped, a soft smile on her lips. Will
had
been Rambo in real life. Maybe not like Micah, but Will had done enough time in the army to be proficient with a weapon. In fact, he still carried one, if she'd seen that correctly. Only … how did a guy go from being a soldier to writing the police beat in a backwoods smudge on the map?

Kirby disappeared behind a wall of rock. Dannette moved quickly, wanting to keep him in her sights. Even though Missy and Kirby were trained to never stray farther than twenty-five to thirty feet from their handler, Dani didn't know Kirby that well. She climbed over the rock and dropped down.

Kirby had found a long trail leading to a cabin overlooking the lake. Deeply shadowed by towering black pine and ancient birch trees, the cabin had no electricity lines running to it, and the windows still had winter boards over them.

Kirby ran to the door, pawed it.

Dani's pulse rushed in her ears while she ran up the porch steps. She fought her breath and knocked on the door.

Nothing.

She tried the handle. It didn't budge. Crouching before Kirby, she gazed into his honey-colored eyes. “What do you scent, pal? The place is locked up.”

Suddenly, Kirby wrenched out of her grip. He growled, his lips pulled back, his ears flattened against his head as he backed away from her.

Dani stiffened. Turned.

Screamed.

Fadima froze, hearing the sounds of footsteps on the porch outside. She slowly lowered her spoon into the open can of pork and beans, listening past her roaring heartbeat for more sounds, signs that she'd been discovered.

Another footstep.

Her heart lodged in her throat as she grabbed the can and scooted behind the hanging curtain in front of the sink. She'd been fortunate to find the small cabin, even more lucky to discover the unlocked back bedroom window and locate canned goods in the pantry. Despite the dust, the peaches, tuna, and cold pork and beans tasted just fine in her empty stomach. She was even beginning to warm, feel her toes, dry her clothes. The sunshine squeezed between the cracks of the borded-up front windows, and she hoped whoever or whatever crept in the grass outside wouldn't see the stump she'd used to hoist herself up to the window.

She pulled her knees up tight to her chest, kept her breaths low, tight. Hope had felt tangible this morning, especially after surviving the night in her hideout, after the flashlight beams of the Hayata searchers stopped just inches away from her.

She might even believe that she could be the person her father told her she was.

She heard another creak, then a bang. Her heart leaped right out of her chest, and she made a fist to hold back a cry. Were they coming in? She closed her eyes.

Silence. It stretched on painfully, filling every moment with dread.

Nothing. No footsteps, no hand reaching through the curtain to grab her by the throat.

She knew they were out there. She'd heard their heavy stomping through the forest this morning, shivered at the contempt in their voices. Heard their commitment in their sharp words, their hot anger.

Still, she stayed tucked away, holding her knees as hope started a slow bleed.

“Dani, it's okay,” Will said, trying to keep his voice low, scanning past the cabin into the dark fold of forest.

“What part of you scaring my skin off is okay?” Her voice shrilled, matching the white panic that hued her face. “And why do you always dress like a mercenary when you're in the woods? Good grief, Will, who do you think you're going to get in a fight with—a great horned owl?”

He couldn't hide the smile or his emotions, it seemed. When he'd seen her sneak up, he totally turned off the common sense screaming in his head. No, he'd been propelled by sheer panic. “I checked this cabin. She's not here. And neither should you be.”

Her expression told him exactly how odd his words sounded. “And why is that?” Her eyes widened and she reached for the cabin door, as if to brace herself. “Is that an
assault
rifle?”

He slung it off his shoulder, set it away from him, from her. Why couldn't he have let her simply knock on the door, find nothing, and leave? He could have stayed hidden.

And then he'd have two women to protect—Dani and Amina, if he ever found her. “I'm just being prepared.”

“To what, shoot and skin your own deer? With a … what's that, an M16?”

“A Colt Commando rifle, sort of an American version of an AK-47.”

“Oh, right, my mistake. I have one of those in my truck, because, you know, every good woodsman
should have one
.” She had real fire in those eyes, and she didn't look in the least amused by her own joke. “I think you've taken this search-and-rescue thing too far. This is not a top-secret, special-ops mission.” She turned and held her hand out to the scenery. “What part of this says bad guys?”

Whoa, she was cute when she was sarcastic. But at the moment he couldn't give in to the desire to laugh, because she was so utterly wrong it hurt him right in the middle of his chest.

“Dani, please trust me. You need to go home and let me find this girl.”

She frowned at him, pointed to her orange jacket, then the shabrack vest on her dog.

Now where had she found a new K-9 so quickly?

“See these little white crosses? They mean we belong out here. Our job is to
search
and rescue. Do you, by any chance, see a difference between, say, my outfit … and yours?”

He smirked but reached for his weapon and took her by the arm. “Okay, just yell at me when we get off the porch and back into the woods.”

This day had started out dark and was only worsening as he moved into daylight. He'd driven to the rest area and to his dismay had seen that the Hayata truck had moved. That feeling turned to sickened dread when he found the vehicle parked on the forest-service road he used to wind in to Tom Lake.

Not good. Not good at all.
Please let it be some tenacious hikers
, he'd thought. Sadly, he'd seen no sign of Dani, which meant she'd taken the long way in, and he'd surprised her.

She was too smart and determined for her own good.

“What's going on, Will?” Dani said as she yanked her arm out of his grip. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”

What was he … ? “Well, I'm not rabbit hunting.”

“Ha-ha. See, the thing is, you look like you might be hunting very
big
rabbits … and how did you know the girl was still missing?”

He was doing some fast math and came up with the obvious—she too had found out the report was bogus. “The sheriff told me.”

She shook her head. “I thought so.”

He hid a grimace. His last chance to send her packing, blown.

“Oh no.” Dani dug into her pocket and fed Kirby some kibble. “Don't tell me you were the scent Kirby found?”

“I don't know. But I do think that this girl is somewhere in one of these cabins, and I can find her by myself.”

She gave a harsh laugh. “Somehow deep in my heart I truly believe that. But just for kicks, why don't we use the K-9 that we've spent a year training?”

He shook his head, turned, and headed for the tree cover, with a bittersweet hope that she'd follow. Because he didn't really want to throw her over his shoulder and haul her out of danger, like a
real
Boy Scout.

Okay, maybe a little.

But the fact that Little Miss SAR was back—and obviously fully charged—meant trouble.

And even more dangerous were the little feelings of happiness that were exploding all over his heart.