is what you pay me for. Which one of us is the ex-Marine?”
“I can’t just wait here.”
The sentence made no logical sense, but emotionally, it was the truest thing I’d ever said. I couldn’t just sit around, hoping Gus turned up again.
And to be fair, I did know the grounds. Sure, Daisy had worked for me for a while, but I’d wager I still knew the property better than she did. I pulled open the front door and tilted my head down against a gust of wind.
“Holden, this is a terrible idea,” Daisy said. “Like, truly bad, on so many levels. At least take a rope, so we can tie it to the front railing, and you can find your way back.”
I shook my head, looking back at her. “You and I both know we don’t have any rope nearly long enough to let me make an effective search.”
“But Holden—”
“I’ll head toward the road, and double-back after half an hour if I don’t find anything. I can keep doing that in all directions until I find him.”
“But—”
“I’ll be fine, Daisy.” I gave her a gloved thumbs up, then tugged the door closed before she could respond, setting off into the snow, my heart in my throat.
I would find Gus. I would.
Stupid idiot, going off in a storm like this. Liable to get himself killed. And for what? To prove a point to me?
My stomach twisted. If Gus were out here, it was my fault. If he were hurt, if he were—no. I wasn’t even going to think about that. I was going to find him, and he’d be okay.
I knew it was possible he might still turn up in the house somewhere, but I couldn’t make myself believe it. He was out here, somewhere.
A thought struck me then. What if Gus were right, and there really were people after him? What if, somehow, they’d found him again. Traced him to Edgecliffe Manor. Grabbed him and taken him away. The fear inside my belly burned hotter.
Somehow, Gus had wormed his way into my heart. Those long lashes, those sweet lips, always curved into an impish smile, always asking questions. My chest seized at the thought of anything happening to him.
I set out down the driveway, following the curves of the asphalt without thought. I knew the road too well for my feet to do anything else, even in the foot of snow that had accumulated and the blur of flakes still torrenting down around me.
I was halfway down the drive when I stopped. There was a copse of dogwoods off to the left, just past the point where the driveway took a sharp turn to the right. In the spring, they burst into the prettiest flowers. In the winter, they were completely nondescript.
But did the snow underneath them look a little more broken up?
I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but I turned left, veering away from the drive, striding underneath the branches of a massive oak, and eventually making it to the trees. I paused there, the storm swirling around me and lifting the ear flaps on my hat.
What were the chances that Gus had left the driveway here? Hell, what were the chances Gus was even walking on the driveway to begin with? Any decision I made, any direction I went, could just as likely be taking me farther away from him as closer to him.
But something in my gut told me to keep checking in this direction. If you didn’t know the route the driveway took—and Gus had no reason to know it—you could easily walk off it right there and into the woods without knowing any better.
The land was broken up here, spurs of rock cropping up everywhere in this scrubby forest. My jaw clenched. It would be so easy for Gus—or me, for that matter—to twist an ankle, or worse, in this type of weather.
With a harsh exhale, I pressed on, following a slight indentation in the snow that might have only existed in my mind. It could have just been the natural contours of the land, and not mark the passage of a person at all. But I hoped it did.
I followed that whisper of a trail over rises and dips, underneath more trees and around bushes, scanning the countryside with every step, looking for any sign of him. After ten minutes, I had to admit that I’d broken my promise to Daisy. I’d been out here for forty minutes, at least. There was