7. brooks #3
I sure hope so. I bought Bunny for Emmy the day after Harriet and Dean broke the news that she was pregnant.
It was the first “baby” item I saw when I was in Farrow, and even after looking around the entire store and filling my cart with groceries, I couldn’t stop thinking about its perfectly symmetrical, perfectly sweet little face and its long, floppy ears.
I went back to grab it; a last-minute addition to my shopping cart.
It sat in a little gift bag on a shelf in my closet right up until Dean called me to announce Emmy’s birth.
And my perfect little niece has been attached to Bunny ever since.
“Okay, so, I guess first of all we walk the route Dean and Emmy walked with the dogs this morning?”
“They probably would’ve taken the direct path back, but Dean said they walked the long way out here. Through the wildflower meadow and past the thicket and the pond.”
Everett starts walking away from my parents’ house and I follow.
Within minutes, we’ve lost sight of the house and we’re following a winding, tree-lined path where the ground is worn to dirt.
Eyes down, scanning the ground for Bunny.
A moment later, the tell-tale sound of hooves begins to fill the air.
“Never answered my text, demon!”
Three horses trot toward us—Garlic in the middle, Ashton on his back, flanked on either side by Solly and Big John on their own horses.
Ashton is a sight for sore eyes, tan skin glowing even beneath the shadow of the tree canopy.
She’s not wearing a typical cowboy hat but a baseball cap instead; denim blue to match the jeans flared out over her dust-caked boots, and embroidered with the words boots, class, & sass.
Her dark hair is hanging in twin braids over her shoulders.
I’m too distracted by how good she looks—how perfect she looks back home on the ranch—to answer her.
It’s not like I’ve never seen her as a grown woman before.
She’s only been gone two years, and she’s come home once or twice in that time.
She’s as close as a little sister to me.
But this feels like the first time I’m really seeing her, and something about that unsettles me even more than Bunny being missing.
“So, you gonna tell me what we’re actually looking for?”
She walks Garlic all the way up to me until his nose is level with my chest. And then she grins down at me. She’s definitely enjoying this height differential. I run my palm over Garlic’s nose, letting the rhythmic action provide both of us some comfort.
“Here,” Ev says, holding out his phone. He’s found a picture of Emmy with Bunny. It’s old—Emmy was barely two in that picture, and she’ll turn three right after Christmas—but Bunny looks the same, give or take a grubby stain or two.
“Oh my gosh, she’s so precious. Okay. Solly, take the patch around Harriet and Dean’s house up to the thicket.
Big John, you and I will split the thicket and the meadow.
” Ashton hands Everett’s phone back after sharing the picture with Solly and Big John.
Her braids flip over her shoulders as she turns to take stock of our exact location, and damn, it’s not the jeans or the tee or the cap.
It ain’t even the braids, although they’re somehow both cute and sexy as all hell.
She could make a goddamn sack look like some red carpet ballgown.
She just has that way about her. She always has.
And seeing her take charge so easily? It really doesn’t help the unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I don’t know how to feel about that, either.
“Boys, you focus on the area between here and the meadow.”
“Jody’s on his way over, too.”
“Where’s Ruth?” Ashton asks.
“Working. Got a video meeting about some contract review or advice or something, I don’t know. She used some big words and it was impressive and hot as fuck and I didn’t understand any of it.”
Ashton rolls her eyes.
“Too much info. Just… go find Bunny. If you see Jody, tell him—”
“Tell ‘im yourself,” Solly speaks up as the sound of a buzzing engine fills the air. “That sounds like Fisher’s scrappy little dirt bike.” He leans forward to run a comforting hand along his horse’s nose.
The horses he’s been working with Ashton and Big John today are young and new to the ranch, and they’re still getting used to the sights and sounds.
Solly’s horse looks unsettled and a little skittish, and Big John must notice too, because he guides his horse in front of Solly’s like a protective barrier.
It works, because all three horses remain calm.
A few seconds later, Jody skids to a stop a few feet back from the horses, laying his bike down and jogging over. He greets us all with a fist bump as Ashton barks more orders.
“Jody, you take the straight path between Ms. Josie’s house and Harriet’s. Let’s go, boys.”
Ashton turns Garlic around and the pair follow Solly and Big John to their assigned search patches. Jody blinks at me, bewildered.
“What’d I miss?”
“Ashton just gave us marching orders. Bunny is missing. EJ is freaking out. Harriet is about to lose it.”
“The little yellow thing with the ears?” Jody asks. Holds up two fingers and bends them like floppy rabbit ears. I nod. “Got it.” He jogs back to his bike and swings his leg over the saddle. As he speeds off on his bike, Ev turns to me and nudges me with his shoulder.
“C’mon. We got a bunny to find.”