True Love at Silver Creek Ranch(97)

Tyler stuck his head past the basement door and said to Adam, “When my brother gets here, could you send him down?”

When a half hour went by, Adam came out of the master bedroom closet to find Tyler standing in the window, looking out at the storm.

“He didn’t come yet?” Tyler asked, eyes narrowed, mouth pursed.

Adam shook his head. “Maybe he got held up by the weather.”

Tyler arched a brow, and said with sarcasm, “You may have been gone for ten years, but the rest of us are pretty good drivers in the snow.”

“And you with all your experience,” Adam said with a straight face.

But Tyler didn’t crack a smile.

“Give him some time.” Adam put a hand on Tyler’s bony shoulder.

The kid nodded.

An hour and a half later, everyone gathered in the kitchen to get in line for some of Grandma Palmer’s legendary ziti. Adam smiled at the jostling people, feeling far more comfortable than he had just weeks ago. And then he spotted Brooke in the living room staring out the window just as Tyler had.

Adam frowned. “Have you seen Tyler?”

Brooke shook her head. “He and Steph are gone.”

He tensed, looking back outside, where he couldn’t even see the other side of the street. “Are you certain?”

“Coach saw him leave, and didn’t think anything about it. Steph was driving. Do you think . . . ?”

“He went to find his brother,” Adam said with certainty. His stomach gave a twist. “It was my idea for him to bring Cody here, and Cody let him down.”

“Cody lets him down all the time, Adam,” Brooke said. “This isn’t anything new.”

He shook his head. “Something was different this time. Tyler seemed determined to help, or to stop Cody from ruining his life for good. And now he’s done something reckless—going out in this mess,” he said, pointing toward the window.

“Steph’s a good driver, with a solid pickup. But I’ll try her cell, just in case.”

Adam was standing close enough to Brooke that he could hear as it went to voice mail. He swore softly.

“They might have bad reception,” she said. “It happens all the time.”

They both knew the reception would be fine if the teenagers had stayed in Valentine. They were either deliberately not answering—or they’d left town in search of Cody.

“Adam?” Grandma Palmer called, limping into the living room. “You two should get in line before it’s all gone.”

“I’m going to find Tyler, Grandma,” he said, rooting through the coats tossed on an empty box until he found his. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I’m coming, too,” Brooke said.

“I already found your coat.”

Driving had gotten far worse in the last two hours, so he went as slow as he could, heading toward the Sweetheart Inn first, to look for Steph’s truck.

“You have a death grip on the wheel,” Brooke said. “Cut yourself some slack. You aren’t responsible for all the things that have happened to Tyler.”

“I wanted to give him the help I got,” Adam said between gritted teeth. “But maybe I made a mistake.” He told her about seeing Tyler joyriding one of the Thalbergs’ ATVs.

She barely reacted. “So? You offered him a second chance, and we were able to be of some help. He told you things he never told anyone else, right?”

He nodded, but it didn’t make him feel better. Tyler was out there somewhere, trying to stop his brother from doing—something. Cody’s posse had to be far worse than Tyler’s high-school friends.

When they didn’t find Steph’s truck at the inn, Brooke called the ranch, using a barrel-racing lesson as an excuse. They didn’t want to worry anyone just yet. But Steph’s mom said she was at the renovation project.

“Do you know where Tyler lives?” Adam asked Brooke.

She nodded.

“Guide me there.”

Steph’s pickup wasn’t in the parking lot of the apartment complex either.

He could have banged his head against the steering wheel in frustration. “Any idea where the bad kids hang out now?”

“Oh, hell, the town isn’t very big,” she said. “Let’s drive up and down the streets and look for her pickup.”

But it was as if Tyler and Steph had simply disappeared. There were few cars on the road with the snow so bad.

“They aren’t here,” Adam admitted at last, pulling over to the side of the road near the only McDonald’s in town.

“They wouldn’t have been so foolish as to go out on the highway in this storm,” Brooke said, pointing to Highway 82 just ahead.