Page 101 of Promised to the Cowboy

“There was already one by the barn,” Maggie says. “Utility truck. I assumed he’d brought it.”

Daniel is out of the stall before she finishes.

“Which truck?”

“I don’t know. One of the dark-green ones.”

Daniel pulls out his radio. “Get me an inventory of the ranch vehicles. Find out which one Falcon signed out.”

I grip the stall door hard enough that the wood creaks.

Chance flinches. I let go immediately.

“Easy,” I tell her.

The word breaks.

I make myself lower my voice. “You’re all right.”

She is. But Evie isn’t.

Daniel comes back down the aisle. “Truck seven is missing.”

“Falcon?” Ethan asks.

“Not answering radio or phone.”

Ethan curses. “His cabin?”

Daniel nods toward two veterans, Wire and Viper, arriving at the barn. “Check it. Don’t touch anything you don’t have to.”

They turn and go without questions.

Maggie has both hands pressed to her mouth. “He’s been here for months,” she whispers. “He’s eaten at our table.”

A man we trusted came before sunrise and used a frightened horse to take Evie away from her family.

The barn blurs around me.

“Gabriel.”

Ethan’s voice.

I look at him.

“Breathe.”

“I am breathing.”

“Not properly.”

I drag air into my lungs. My heart beats once, hard and wrong, then settles into something fast but regular.

Ethan watches until he’s satisfied I’m not about to drop in the aisle, then turns his phone toward me. “Truck seven’s tracker went offline eleven minutes ago.”

“Where?”

“Last ping was east of the lower pasture.”