Summer was gone.
His pulse kicked hard once.
Pope scanned the nearby crowd, checking the line that was twelve people deep. Pulse pounding harder, he whipped around to scan the livestock pens.
No Summer.
The blood drained out of him.
He searched harder through the shifting crowd and the trailers baking in the afternoon sun.
Still no Summer. Adrenaline slammed like a bullet.
“Summer!” he hollered over the noise, but the auction swallowed his voice.
She didn’t pop up from between ranchers or dart around a stand.
Heart hammering, he strode through the crowd, checking aisles and pens as the worst-case scenario slammed through him.
He reached for his phone and dialed Summer’s number. It rang several times and went to voicemail. He called again and when the same thing happened, he reached out to the only person who could help him now.
As soon as his boss answered, Pope choked out, “Carson.”
“What’s wrong?” The severe tone made fear spiral through him faster.
He shoved through another cluster of people. “I lost her.”
A beat of silence.
Then Carson’s voice came out even sharper. “Explain.”
“She was right here, a few feet away from me.” Panic clawed under his skin, and he wildly scanned the heads in the crowd.
“How long has she been out of your sight?”
“Three minutes, tops.”
“Does she have her phone on her?”
“She’s not answering.”
“Stay calm.”
Easy for him to fucking say. Every nightmare Pope carried from Baghdad—of failing to protect the man he was supposed to be guarding—crashed violently into the present. Sweat rolled down his spine and the crowded auction grounds suddenly felt too big, too loud, too impossible to search fast enough.
Carson was still talking to him.
“Colt is closest. Do you hear me, Pope?”
His senses dragged back into place hard enough to hurt. “I hear you.”
“He’ll meet you at your truck. In the meantime, keep looking.”
“I will.” Pope shoved through another cluster of people, scanning frantically for her brown hair or the denim top she’d worn—anything. “But Carson, I swear to God, if something happened to her on my watch—” His throat worked hard against the tide of panic climbing into it.
“Pope.”
But he barely heard him anymore.
