ear, she plucked his Stetson off from his head and slid back down, then ran back across the circle to the girls, holding it aloft. “Let’s make Cole find his hat!”
Jess laughed. Perfect.
—
An hour later, Jess gathered the girls around the outdoor fire pit, checking the fabric bag full of items they’d collected so far. The older girls had started the hunt reluctantly, but as they’d uncovered items and began checking things off the list, they’d started to actually enjoy the activity. It didn’t hurt that half the items Ma had hidden contained sugar, but whatever worked, right?
She peered into the big bag as the boys streamed out of the stable and ducked around behind the adjoining corral. “All we have left to find is the fire-bellied toad. Where should we look?”
“Down by the creek!” they chorused as one, then started jogging down the path that led to where Whisper Creek cut closest to the stables. As Jess slid carefully down the bank to join the girls at the edge of the creek, she wondered how big a fire-bellied toad was, anyway. And how exactly one went about rousting one out of its favorite hiding place, which was—she had no idea where.
Twenty minutes later, they’d uncovered a biology book’s worth of critters, but no fire-bellied toad, and the girls were starting to get frustrated. Jess was just about to suggest maybe it was time to give up the hunt when her foot—which had been placed on a nice, stable, rock-ish sort of rock—moved.
She looked down. Water was flowing in the creek, but not fast enough to dislodge a rock the size of the one under her foot.
Then it moved again. The other way.
Jess looked down, feeling her eyes go huge, and then let out a screech she didn’t know she was capable of. One second later, she was sitting in the creek, soaked to the skin, watching the turtle she’d thought was a rock go ambling upstream.
Ma came sliding down the bank, a mystified expression on her face. “You okay down here? I was out looking for you gals. Thought you’d all fallen in the creek.” She tried to hide her smile behind her hand. “I guess just one of you did, though.”
Ma crept closer, holding her hand out as Jess struggled to get her footing in the muddy water. “Let’s get you out of here, hon, before you end up with a snapping turtle attached to your butt.”
Jess took a deep breath, trying to step out of the creek without losing her shoes. “I think I just met one.”
Once Jess was on dry land, Ma looked her over from head to toe, still trying not to laugh. “I don’t see any permanent damage.”
“Go ahead. Laugh. It’s all right.” Jess took off her boots and dumped them out. As the water streamed out, she tried not to think of the creatures living in the creek, or how many she might have picked up while sitting in the mud.
Ma looked from her to the girls, suspicion taking over her face. “Why are you down here, anyway? I’m pretty sure I told you gals that everything on the list is up by the lodge and the stables.”
“We’re looking for the fire-bellied toad. The girls thought the creek would be the best place to look.”
“Fire-bellied what?”
“Toad,” Jess said, narrowing her eyes. “Cole added it to our list.”
“Did he, now? He include a ticket to Paris, too? Because Europe’s the closest place you’re going to find one.”
Jess narrowed her eyes. “That little—”
She turned to the girls, trying to wring out her shirt. “Where did we hide Cole’s hat?”
“In the stable!” Ella piped up. “I put it in the grain bin.”
“Let’s go see if he found it yet. If he didn’t, we’re making a new plan.” She looked at Ma. “Think you could help us?”
Ma rubbed her hands together and motioned the girls back up the hill. “Oh, you betcha. I love doing this kind of helping.”
Thirty minutes later, Jess and the girls were all sitting around the fire circle, and Hayley had just ambled down from the main lodge.
“He looks like the Pied Piper.” Hayley laughed as she sat down on a log with Jess.
“That he does.” Jess smiled as she watched Cole come up the driveway from the stables, a herd of boys bobbing around his waist.
Hayley looked behind Jess and the girls, who’d formed a human wall on the logs so that Cole wouldn’t see the laundry baskets of water balloons lying