A Texas Rescue Christmas. Caro Carson
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he saw you.”
He had a cousin named Emily, of course.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Just to prove that he knew something, he opened the correct cabinet to pull out coffee mugs. His brother hadn’t moved their mother’s traditional coffee machine. It sat on the same counter it had always sat on. Trey knew the filters would be in the cupboard above it.
“Can I make y’all some coffee?” he said, his voice sounding gruff to his own ears. He owned a third of the house, and he had company. He ought to make some attempt to be a host.
“That’s a good idea,” Emily said. “I need to warm up before I keep looking.”
And...he was lost again. The emotions of these three people were hard for him to keep track of. Everyone was happy one moment, worried the next.
“What are you looking for?” he asked, determined to make sense of the world. He started counting scoops of coffee into the filter basket. One, two, three, four—
“This girl named Becky disappeared.”
Six, seven—crap. He’d lost count. Trey decided the amount of coffee looked about right, shoved it into place and hit the power button.
“You gonna put some water in there, sugar?” Aunt June asked, laughing.
Damn it.
But everyone was happy again for a moment, chuckling about old age and forgetfulness.
Then, they weren’t happy. As Trey filled the carafe with water, his aunt started explaining who was missing. A young lady had arrived for the wedding, Patricia’s sister, or so she’d said. They hadn’t known Patricia had a sister.
“Just as sweet as can be,” his aunt said.
“Pretty as a picture,” his uncle said.
“She seemed nervous to me,” Emily said. “Then she stood in a corner, and I saw her listening to something on her cell phone. She just put on her coat and mittens and hat, and walked out the door. I thought she was going to her car to get something, but she never came back.”
Aunt June looked out the picture window above the kitchen sink, angling her head so she could cast worried looks at the sky. “It’s been hours.”
The coffeepot was brewing perfectly, making soothing noises. The scent of fresh coffee filled the kitchen. Trey knew where he was. He knew who everyone was around him. He ought to be content, but apparently, the part of him who’d been born a cowboy wasn’t dead. Someone on the ranch was unaccounted for, and that meant trouble.
“No one has seen her for hours?” he asked, and he looked at the sky with a rancher’s eye. The storm, as bad as it was, looked like it was just getting started. “You’re sure she didn’t leave for a hotel in town? Maybe hitch a ride with some other guest?”
“This is hers.” Emily held up a lady’s purse. Even Trey knew a woman wouldn’t leave without her purse. Emily handed him a Massachusetts driver’s license. “Here’s what she looks like.”
Her signature was neat and legible. Rebecca Cargill. A pretty woman. Brown hair, with thick, straight bangs. As Trey took a moment to let the image settle into his brain, something about the expression on her face resonated with him. There was strain beneath that smile, a brave smile for the camera. I know how you feel, darlin’. I was afraid I wouldn’t pass the damned exam, either.
She could have been stressed over any number of things, of course. It was fanciful of him to imagine he knew what the look on her face meant.
“I’m sure she’s found shelter by now,” Aunt Jane said.
Trey looked up from the driver’s license in his hand. “If she hasn’t, she’ll die tonight. It’s too cold to survive without shelter.”
Aunt Jane made a horrified little sound, and Trey cursed himself. He hadn’t always been so blunt. Hell, people had called him charming in high school and college. Now he had to work not to blurt out every thought that passed through his thick head.
His new uncle put a protective arm around his wife. “She’s probably fallen asleep in the hayloft in the barn, and she just hasn’t heard us calling for her. She’ll be fine.”
Emily darted a look at her mother, then pressed a cell phone into Trey’s hand. “Here’s her phone. It’s not password protected. I didn’t want to be nosy, but I thought there’d be more photos of her.”
Trey started sliding his thumb over the screen, skimming through the photos stored on the phone. They weren’t very personal. Seascapes of some rocky shoreline that looked nothing like the Texas coast. Distant children wading in the surf, silhouetted against a sunrise. A couple walking away from the camera, holding hands.
Finally, he saw a more typical snapshot of a woman holding a mutt. Trey was able to mentally compare this woman with the one in the driver’s license. Not Rebecca Cargill.
He slid his thumb across the screen once more. The next shot was also of the mutt, but this time, it was held by the woman on the driver’s license. Same pretty face. Same brown bangs. Same strain beneath the smile.
“She looks so young,” his aunt said, looking over his shoulder. “I can’t believe her license says she’s twenty-four, can you?”
Emily was looking over his other shoulder. “I thought we could use that photo if we needed to call the sheriff.”
That snapped Trey into action. He handed Emily the phone as he addressed his aunt and uncle. “You haven’t called the sheriff? Dark’s coming. There isn’t much time to get a search party out here.”
“Your foreman, Gus, he’s got the ranch hands doing the searching. They’ve been stomping all over the grounds. She couldn’t have gone that far on foot.”
His foreman? Trey didn’t have a foreman. Luke did. Trey hadn’t set foot on the ranch in a decade. With his parents traveling ten months out of the year as retirees, Luke was the Waterson who ran the James Hill Ranch. Luke had decided to promote their longtime ranch hand, Gus, to foreman. Trey had only agreed over the phone. He supposed it was just by virtue of being a Waterson that Aunt June addressed him as if he were still part of the James Hill.
Trey turned to Emily. “The sheriff’s got helicopters. We don’t. Call them.”
She ran to the house phone, the one that still hung on the kitchen wall as it had for the past twenty years or more.
His aunt patted his arm. “Honey, even the big Austin airport has been closed for hours now. They aren’t puttin’ anything up in the sky while ice is coming down out of it.”
“That may be true, but we’ll let the sheriff’s office make that decision. I’m not a pilot. I’m just—”
He stopped himself, then turned on his heel and headed back to the front door, past his father’s arm chair, past his mother’s lamp, the one he and his brother had broken and glued back together. He picked up his sheepskin coat where he’d left it and shrugged it on.
Aunt Jane followed him. “You’re just what?”
He chose a Stetson from the few hanging on pegs by the door. Whether his father’s or his brother’s, it didn’t matter. The men in the family were all built the same. It would fit.
“I’m the only Waterson around here right now, and I’ll be damned if a young woman is going to die on this ranch on my brother’s wedding day.”
He crammed the hat on his head, and headed out the door.
I am not going to die today.
Becky forced herself to stop