“A snowstorm.” Tucker laughed. “It’s just my luck tonight. Hey, Betty, do you think—”
Betty lurched underneath him, her back arching, a powerful force moving through her. She stepped wrong, Tucker thought, and then he was airborne, body hurtling through the air. He had one moment of heart-stopping panic—where is the ground?—before the impact. It didn’t hurt hurt, but it did knock the wind out of him. The world around him went black.
Tucker shook his head, once, then twice, blinking into a cloud of white.
What was that?
He lifted his head from the ground. It protested, aching, and when he got himself upright, the cold scraped across his skin. Tucker reached for his face with gloved hands and swiped away a layer of snow. A layer? It covered his coat, his pants, everything. What had happened?
Thoughts moved languidly through his mind, refusing to pick up the pace. Nearby, in the whipping wind, a horse stood with her head near the ground, searching for grass.
“Betty.” He’d been riding, he remembered that. But where had he been going? Probably to shoot some photos for one of his brothers. That sounded right, only…where was his camera? Tucker stood up gingerly, pain ringing through his head. He stumbled on the way over to Betty but righted himself at the last minute. His body felt disconnected from his brain somehow. His arms and legs lagged behind. He got one foot in the saddle, but Betty shied away the moment he tried to put his weight on her. Fine, then. Tucker grabbed the reins and swiped at his eyes again. So much snow.
No matter which way he looked, there was no seeing through the snow.
“Stay calm,” he told himself. “You’ve gotta keep moving.”
It wasn’t an option, on a cold night like this, to stand around shivering until the snow stopped. He wasn’t dressed for that. So he tugged on Betty’s reins, picked a direction, and walked. The fence was the first landmark they passed. He couldn’t say which fence it was, but its existence was a good sign—they were on someone’s property. It looked vaguely familiar, too. Maybe it was his own fence, back home.
He took Betty through the gate and closed it behind him. The wind kicked up again, clearing a path through the snow, and—there. A house. A house and some outbuildings. Oh, sweet relief—Dr. Oates’ house. Everybody knew Dr. Oates, the veterinarian from town.
“Thanks be,” Tucker murmured. Smoke came from the chimney, which meant the old doctor was home. Lucky. He made so many house calls that his own bed was hardly slept in.
He and Betty made cautious progress down the side of the ridge, picking their way across the Oates property. Surely, Dr. Oates wouldn’t mind if he put Betty up in his barn for a few minutes, just so she could warm up? It was a little weird, yes, but the veterinarian would understand. Tucker led Betty into the barn, put her in a stall, and rubbed his hands together.
“I’ll be back,” he told her. “Real soon. Don’t worry.”
But the vague sense of worry that dogged him didn’t belong to Betty.
Tucker climbed up on the front porch, drinking in the light that poured from the big picture window in front. He just needed a minute to warm up, that was all. Then he’d go back to—
Where had he come from, again?
He raised a hand and knocked on the door.
Fast footsteps sounded behind it, and it swung open a moment later to reveal a girl.
A girl with the same blue eyes and dark hair as his girlfriend.
“Wow.” His mouth had let the word out into the air without consulting him. “You look just like Avery.”
She cocked her head to the side, a curious glint in her eyes. Then the girl turned. “Hey, Mom? There’s a guy at the door.”
Tucker laughed out loud. “A guy. Wait ’til Avery finds out that you said…” Something else about what she’d said hit him full force. “Wait. Mom?”
Avery stepped out from another door down the hall, and Tucker’s heart flip-flopped down into his shoes. She looked older than he remembered. How could she have gotten older, when he’d seen her just the other day? But wow, was she ever beautiful. Heat washed over his skin at the sight of her, followed quickly by another wave of shock.
“Avery, what’s going on? I didn’t know you were working here this vacation.” Something didn’t compute in his brain.
She came up next to the girl—her daughter?—and put a hand on the doorframe, looking at him with such emotion in her eyes that it made his mouth go dry. “Doc Oates retired. What do you want, Tucker?”
What did he want? What kind of question was that?
“I don’t understand.” Nothing quite fit together, like a puzzle with all the wrong pieces. “Why don’t you live with your parents?”
Avery arched an eyebrow, the way she always did when he was being deliberately obtuse. “Because they sold their house and moved.”
“But why—” He put a hand to one temple and rubbed at the pain pulsing underneath. “Why would they have moved?”
Avery’s face went cold, and he saw all the old signs of irritation creeping in—the tension in her jaw, the slightly flared nostrils. She’d just opened her mouth to speak when he took his hand away from his temple and found it covered in blood.
Oh. Blood.
“You mad about something, Avery?” He wanted to understand so badly that he didn’t bother with the blood. It would stop, or it wouldn’t. “Tell me what it is. I’ll do better.”
Her face softened, concern coming into her eyes.
“Why don’t you come in a minute, Tucker? Let me take a look at that.” Avery ushered him inside, the warmth in the house feeling as good as winning the lottery. “This way. Right through here, to the kitchen. Did you come here by yourself, or did you ride here?”
“I put my horse in the barn.” His
