Daisy
thirty-four
I’m on the porch just before sunrise, closing the door behind me and mentally revisiting the email I sent Charlie five minutes ago.
I stayed up all night finishing my business plans for the glamping tours.
Pages and pages of profit projections and cost estimates, capital investment reports and marketing plans.
An entire proposal for Beau’s appointment to operations manager for the stable, with his years of experience and a long list of his skills set out in black and white so there’s no question he’s qualified.
I’m talking to myself, rehearsing the in-person pitch I plan to make later this morning, when my phone rings. It’s Beau.
“Hey, you.” I put the device to my ear as I make my way over to the stable. “What couldn’t wait the twenty minutes before your shift starts?”
“Ollie’s missing,” he says, breathless. The sounds of boots falling on gravel, then a truck door slamming, float through in the background.
I freeze. “What?”
“He’s not in his bed. He’s not anywhere in the cabin. He’s nowhere nearby.”
Beau’s voice is pitchy with panic. I’ve never heard him panicked, and my heart lurches painfully. “I’m sure he’s not far.”
“His backpack is gone,” he says as his truck engine turns over. “So are his clothes. We had a few granola bars left, but they’re missing, along with two bottles of water and the flashlight. Fuck. Fuck. I knew something was wrong last night. Why didn’t I push him on it? Why?”
“This isn’t your fault,” I say as firmly as I can, but I’m choking on fear. “Maybe he’s up at the house?”
“Can you call someone?” he asks. “And it’s so fucking dark. He could be anywhere.”
“Where are you going now?” I ask.
“I was coming to you,” he says.
“Meet me at the house,” I tell him. “If he’s not there, we’ll start searching the property.”
The engine roars in the background.
“Beau?” I ask. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” he says tightly. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
I throw myself behind the wheel of my truck, trying to ignore the way my heart races as I start the engine and dial Poppy’s number. She answers on the second ring.
“What is it?” she asks groggily. “What’s wrong?”
“Ollie’s run away,” I tell her. “Is he there? Please tell me he’s there.”
I hear her feet hit the floorboards. “I don’t know.” Her voice grows muffled as she says, “Dylan? Dylan! Wake up. Ollie’s missing.”
The sounds of bodies scrambling reach me through the line, people walking, then running, doors flying open.
I guide my truck down the drive and onto the dirt trail to the house, concentrating with extra effort before terror takes over, waiting as Poppy carries me around the house on the phone, straining my ears for a sign that Ollie’s been there the whole time.
Finally, as I pull up to the house in a cloud of dust, warm yellow light spilling from every window in a way that feels wrong for this early in the morning, she says, “He’s not here.”
My chest tightens so hard and fast, I can’t catch my breath. “I’m outside,” I tell her. “I’m coming in.”
By the time I’ve unbuckled my seat belt and flung myself from the truck, Beau’s pulled up beside me.
“He’s not here,” I tell him.
His face is hard and pale, and I take his hand as I rush up the porch steps and through the back door.
The kitchen is bright, and coffee has been poured, but Charlie, Dylan, and Poppy have all been clearly dragged from their beds, phones in hand as they pace the floorboards in their rumpled pajamas and mussed-up hair.
“What now?” I ask.
“Chord and Finn are on their way,” Dylan says as the back door flies open and Chord strides in with Violet at his side.
My oldest brother looks larger than usual, determined and focused. “Anything?” he asks.
“Not yet,” I reply.
Chord sets a heavy hand on Beau’s shoulder. “We’ll find him,” he says. “I promise.”
Beau swallows and gives him a short nod. “I appreciate that.”
Violet glides into the kitchen to pour coffee as Finn and Rosie arrive with Violet’s dad Luke close on their heels.
“We’ll get a search party started,” Finn says without preamble. “It’s almost light out, so we’ll start at the cabin and split into groups. Rosie, you stay here—”
“Absolutely not,” she says. “I’m pregnant, not incompetent. I can help, and I’m not sitting here while Ollie’s missing.”
Finn hesitates, then nods. “Fine. Anyone got a map of this place?”
“I do.” Charlie leaps up to retrieve a rolled-up piece of paper from the living room and hands it over to Finn with a couple of thick markers.
Finn cuts Silver Leaf into even wedges, with Beau and Ollie’s cabin at the center, then assigns us all a piece. He circles places that might make good hiding places for a little boy and notes areas where he can’t reach.
“Can he swim?” Finn asks Beau.
Beau’s jaw hardens and his eyes grow glassy. “I don’t know.”
Finn gives Beau a solid, supportive stare. “Let’s ask him when we find him, okay?”
Beau’s nod is sharp and terrified.
It doesn’t take long for everyone to lock into their tasks, adrenaline and fear fueling every word and every movement, and I’m grateful for the action even as my mind races with questions and worst-case scenarios.
“I’m calling the police,” Beau says as everyone sets out to leave. “I’m grateful for the help, I really am, but we need to find him, and this place is huge.”
“I know,” I reply. We don’t say out loud that calling the police might impact Beau’s guardianship suit, and my heart breaks that, even knowing it might jeopardize his chances, Beau’s willing to risk it to find his nephew.
I tip my head toward the living room. “Let’s make the call in here.”
The room is empty, and if it wasn’t for the way she squeaked on the stairs, I might not have noticed Izzy watching from behind the newel post. Our eyes meet, and she squeaks again, then scurries upstairs and away, her bedroom door slamming behind her.
A sinking kind of relief hits my stomach, and I grab a hold of Beau’s arm.
“I think Izzy knows something,” I tell him. “Give me three minutes to find out what before you call the police.”
Beau looks like he’s been hit by a bus, and he exhales loudly as he drags a hand down his face. “Hurry,” he says. “Please.”
I dart into the kitchen to collect Dylan first, then tug him through the living room and up the stairs.
“What?” he asks. “What is it?”
“Methinks your daughter might know what’s going on,” I explain as I hurry down the hallway. “And I need your help to wheedle it out of her.”
Dylan looks stunned at first, then disappointed, and at my brisk knock on Izzy’s bedroom door, he pushes it open and goes straight to her bed.
She’s under the covers with a pillow over her head.
“Izzy?” He sits beside her and lifts the pillow, then gently turns her around. “Do you know where Ollie is?”
She covers her face with her hands and shakes her head.
“Izzy?” I say, crouching down beside the bed. “You’re not in trouble, but if you don’t tell us where Ollie is, he might get himself into trouble. The kind of trouble that leads to danger, and if there isn’t a grown-up there to help, Ollie might get hurt. You understand, don’t you?”
Behind her little hands, she nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“You know how much I love you, right?” I ask, and she nods again. “That’s how much Beau loves Ollie. Beau is very sad now, because Ollie is the only family he has. Without each other, Beau and Ollie are all alone. It’s important we find a way to bring them back together.”
Dylan’s watching me, and when I meet his eyes, he drops his gaze with something that looks like guilt.
“Izzy?” I try to draw her hands away from her face. “I need you to do the right thing and tell us where we can find Ollie before something bad happens. Please?”
When she still won’t come out from behind her hands, Dylan steps in.
“Isobel. You’re not in trouble for helping Ollie run away, but you will be in trouble if you don’t help us find him. You make me so proud, Little Bee, because you always do the right thing. We’re asking you to do the right thing now.”
“But it was my idea,” she says, muffled between her fingers.
“What was your idea?” I ask hurriedly.
She lowers her hands, and her eyes are wide and frightened. “Ollie said he never wants to leave Silver Leaf, so I said he should hide until it’s safe to come out, and then he could move in with us.”
“Izzy?” I say slowly. “Where is Ollie hiding?”
She looks scared as she says, “In the stable. In the hayloft. All the way at the back where nobody can see him.”
I release a breath, but the worry isn’t entirely gone. “Thank you for telling me, Izzy.”
With a grateful glance at Dylan, I’m on my feet and bolting to the living room.
“He’s in the hayloft,” I shout as I rush past Beau, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Beau’s hot on my heels, and I fling myself into the passenger seat of his truck before he tears out of there.
The drive to the stable takes less time than it should, and also forever.
Beau doesn’t even cut the engine before he’s racing to get through the stable door, down the aisle, and up the ladder to the loft.
My legs are shorter, but that only makes me run harder, and Beau’s at the top of the ladder when I set my foot on the bottom rung.
“Ollie?” he calls, pacing to the closest nook and sticking his head around a stack of hay. “Hey, buddy. Where are you?”
I pause at the top of the ladder, watching to see if Beau has found Ollie’s hiding place at first look, but when he straightens and keeps searching, I dart to the far end of the space to help him search.
Thanks to the recent renovations, the loft is as open and airy as modern architecture and machinery could make it, with beamed, vaulted ceilings and a wide void looking down to the stalls below.
That we have a hayloft at all is because we had one when I was a kid, and I liked the idea of keeping it to honor my mom.
But a hayloft means dust, and no amount of technology can prevent that.
So when someone sneezes to my left, Beau and I pause and look at each other, foxhounds who stumbled across the scent.
The tension leaches from me as Beau rushes past and around a neat stack of hay bales.
“Ollie!” he exclaims, and when he falls to his knees, I let go of my breath in a rush.
My phone is in my hands before I realize I’ve reached for it, and I shoot off a text to let my family know we found him.
By the time I join them, Beau has Ollie gathered in his arms, the little boy on his feet and tucked in against his chest. Beau’s eyes are closed, but his relief is palpable.
“Ollie,” Beau says again, holding him at arm’s length to scan him for injury, then running his hands over his arms and stomach, his knees and his ankles. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“No.” Ollie glances at me guiltily. “I’m fine.”
Beau crushes his nephew to him again and buries his face in his hair. Ollie’s arms come around his uncle’s much larger chest in a hug that brings me to tears.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Beau murmurs, voice cracking, and I set a hand on his shoulder. “You scared me. When I couldn’t find you, I thought—”
Beau clears his throat and lets Ollie go, but he doesn’t get up from the floor, and he holds on tight to Ollie’s arms, like his nephew might still try to slip away.
“Why did you do it? Why did you run away?”
Ollie blinks fast, his chin quivering, and looks at me again as a tear slips down his cheek.
Beau sweeps it away. “Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?”
Ollie clenches his jaw, his little hands ball into fists, and a wall of saltwater rises in his eyes, but he won’t talk. Maybe he can’t.
“What’s going on, cowboy?” I squat to meet his eye level. “Do you want me to go so you can talk to your uncle in private?”
He shakes his head.
“All right. Then I’ll stay.” I sit cross-legged to make it clear I’ve got nowhere else to be. My legs are shaky anyway, and I drop to the floor with relief. “If you’ll talk to us.”
When he still doesn’t offer an explanation, I exchange a look with Beau, then prod him with a gentle nod. Beau returns it in silent agreement, then with a sigh that’s part grief, part release, he turns his full attention to this broken little boy.