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Nothing.
My heart throat punches me again as I glance around, looking for a missing tiger. Half ass wondering if I should whisper, “Here kitty, kitty.”
Not.
But hell, I have to see if he’s still alive, still here.
With grave caution, I make my way to the barn like I’m back in Fallujah with enemy snipers crouched around every corner, constantly checking all directions with an attentiveness I haven’t needed since Iraq.
The service door is barely attached by the hinge, and I carefully enter, stepping up on the tongue of the trailer to peek inside.
Mother-fuck.
Empty.
Of course it’s empty.
I shoot back out the door and search the grounds, furiously splashing through huge puddles and throwing my gaze everywhere, wishing I could grow six more eyeballs.
Sure as shit, near the side of the barn, I spot them.
Tiger tracks in the mud. Extremely fresh ones, I hope.
Like a bat out of hell, I bullet over to the house, bellowing Willow’s name before I damn near rip the door off.
She comes flying upstairs, still pulling her dress on over her head.
“Grady? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Bruce. He’s...fuck, he’s gone.”
“What?” She looks at me like she’s just been shot.
Her soft, tight body zips past me, dashing out the door before I have a chance to tell her what happened. Noting the flip-flops she must’ve dropped on her panicked way out, I grab them and chase her out the door, beelining it to the barn.
“Brucey? Bruuuuce!” she screams, both hands cupped around her mouth for volume.
“He’s not here!” I say, answering her shouts.
“Ugh, yeah, I can see that...”
“It was straight-line winds. Had to be. That shit snapped the security light and blew the door off one hinge.” I point at the ground near the side of the barn. “See there? Tiger prints in the mud.”
She flies past me for a look. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you keep doing that, toots. Running around like a hen on fire before I can get a word in. Look, darlin’, we gotta calm both our asses down.” Still holding her shoes, I follow her outside and stop next to her. “Here. Put these on.”
She takes the shoes, drops them to the ground, and steps into them while ignoring the mud already caked to her feet. She goes back to examining the ground.
“They go this way, down along the fence, almost to...the road. Oh, no. Oh, shit, Grady! He...he could’ve left the farm. And if he was scared by the storm, he could make it all the way to town in no time. He can run over thirty miles an hour.”
I don’t have the energy to groan. I just slap my thigh, digging in my pocket for my keys.
“We need to move,” I growl.
She grabs my arm. “Wait. Give me a minute to think. We’re going to need the trailer if—no, when—we find him. And look at that door! The way it’s bent...we can’t get the trailer out!”
“Dad! Willow! What’s wrong?” The set of tiny voices calling out behind us gives me a whole new reason to shudder.
“Get inside, girls! Right now. Lock the door. This is not the time for questions,” I shout to Sawyer as she steps on the porch. “Go on!”
“Wh—what happened?” She stops as Avery points at the barn. “Is...is Bruce okay?”
“Dad!” Avery shouts. “Your phone’s ringing!”
Willow looks at me, her blue eyes ablaze.
I know she’s thinking what I’m thinking.
Dammit all. We both run to the house.
Avery hands me my phone as soon as I’m inside, taking a second to make sure both girls are in and they’re not going back out.
“It’s Drake,” I tell Willow, swiping at the Incoming Call icon.
“Grady,” Drake says, sounding out of breath. “Dude. Please tell me your tiger’s in your barn? I just...first I got a phone call from Dean Coffey while he was out storm chasing down the highway. He swore he saw something big and orange on four legs, black stripes, mean-looking scowl before it ran off in a cornfield. Then, an hour ago, Thelma Simon said she saw the biggest cougar she’d ever seen creeping around her fence. Please tell me they’re seeing things, man.”
Sonofabitch.
I clear my throat before I drop the bomb. “Yeah, Drake, they are seeing things...like a goddamn tiger, for one!”
“Fuck!” Drake growls. “Oh, Jesus. Shit. Okay.”
“Exactly,” I say into the phone, looking at Willow, whose sweet face has turned paler than driven snow.
While Drake was talking, I heard Sawyer tell Willow that Drake is with the Dallas Police Department. He actually is the police department, mostly, or at least by far the most active and skilled deputy around these parts with nothing but a skeleton crew and an aging sheriff.
“Grady...I wasn’t done with the bad news,” Drake says. “The storm tore a hole in our fence. Edison and Edna are missing, too.”
Shit, shit, shiiit!
We just went from an emergency to a dick-on-fire panic.
