Rebecca (Angel Creek Christmas Brides #15) - Lily Graison Page 0,46

stepped into the room and the sound brought his mother’s head up.

“Any luck?” she whispered.

“No.”

He crossed the room to the fireplace and added a piece of wood, shifting the coals until it caught fire. His hands and face felt frozen. The warmth from the fire filled him with a strange sort of guilt. Was she warm wherever she was?

The day had been long, and he was exhausted, mentally and physically. Every second of every day that had passed since he saw her step off that stagecoach all those weeks ago had been playing in a loop inside his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about her and fear drove him on when his body demanded he stop.

“Where would she go?”

He rubbed a hand over his face and sat back on his haunches. “I don’t know. I checked every house, every business ... and then I did it all again.”

“Has anyone seen her?”

“No. No one.”

“Then she’s hiding.”

Obviously.

“Did you check the chicken coops and outhouses?”

The thought made him grimace.

His mother’s lips pressed together. “Don’t look at me like that. If I didn’t want to be found, I’d be in the last place anyone would look.”

He nodded. He would too. Standing, he reached for the lantern on the fireplace mantel and checked the oil level. He topped it off, then lit it and headed back to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To check the outhouses and chicken coops.”

“It's near midnight, Caleb.”

“And she’s still out there alone with nothing to protect her from the snow and wind.” He stopped at the door and turned back to face her. “I’ll not stop until I find her.” He glanced at Amanda.

“She cried herself to sleep,” his mother said. “What will you do if you find her?”

“When I find her,” he corrected. “I will find her, even if I have to walk every square inch of this valley to do so.”

“And when you do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, mother. Find out who she is. Ask her why she lied about being Diana. How she came across the train ticket?” The list of questions he had was long but at the moment, none of them mattered. Finding her and making sure she was safe was all that did.

He left the house again, holding the lantern up to see where he was going and rounded the back of the house. As his mother suggested, he checked their outhouse and the chicken coop. Then he checked the neighbors and the next and the next until he’d looked in them all, then headed across the bridge back into town to check all of those.

It was well into the morning when he sat down on the bench in front of the mercantile. The town was quiet, the only sound he heard was the ting of sleet hitting the building. He rubbed a hand over his face, his thoughts racing. He’d checked every single structure in town. She just wasn’t here.

Maybe she’s not in town.

He straightened. The closest farm was an hour away. Would she have left town?

You’ve checked every house, building, and chicken coop in Angel Creek. There isn’t anywhere else for her to be.

Heading toward the livery stable to saddle a horse, he stopped when he saw three of them sitting in front of the Saloon. He took the reins of the first one he got to and climbed into the saddle, making a mental note of every home place she could have walked to in the past few hours while trying to block out the image of her in some drafty building, freezing with no protection from the cold.

He was riding out of town when a thought struck him. He pulled the stolen horse to a stop, tightening his hold on the reins as it danced in a circle and he stared down the street toward the bridge. He couldn’t see it. Nor could he see the trees that lined the end of the road he lived on but he could see beyond it in his mind’s eye.

“The line shack.” His heart thumped so hard in his chest, it took his breath. He turned the horse and headed him toward the woods, the old line shack filling his mind's eye. The day they’d gone after the Christmas tree, she’d seen it and asked what it was. Hope surged through his veins as he raced through town. It was the only place within walking distance that he hadn’t checked.

The trees were far enough apart the horse had no trouble picking a path through