Free Falling by Susan Kiernan-Lewis Read Free Book Online Page B

that. She did used to do that. What an odd, endearing habit, lost now in her love affair with her Kindle.
    On the very bottom shelf of the bookcase, she found it. And when she did, she literally whooped with delight. Not just a recipe, but a cookbook. And not just any cookbook but Joy of Cooking —a cookbook from her very own kitchen library, and one she knew as well as a beloved novel. Finding it felt like the first real stroke of luck since the crisis. Like a turning point, somehow.
     
    An hour later, with the dough rising under a thin, worn dishtowel she had found in another kitchen drawer, Sarah walked outside into the sunshine. She felt like she had accomplished something no less significant than whatever David had been doing to shore up their physical defenses. As the mother, she felt she’d done her job to tend her nest  and protect her hatchling. She was surprised by a stack of wood outside the kitchen door. John had collected and stacked the wood without being told. She scanned the vacant courtyard between the barn and the house. Maybe , she thought, just maybe there’s some little good to all this mess .
    David came out of the barn, wiping his hands on his jeans.
    That’s not good , Sarah thought sourly. We don’t have an automatic washing machine any more. Unless you count me.
    “Hey,” he said, walking toward her and smiling. “I think I’ve done as much as can be done to secure the place. They’ll have to take crowbars to get in next time.”
    “Great,” she said. “Horses okay?”
    He looked over his shoulder toward the pasture.
    “I turned them out,” he said. “They were getting really skitterish in the paddock.”
    Just the thought of the horses “skitterish” made Sarah’s stomach clench.
    “Do you know for a fact that the pasture is fenced?” she asked.
    He looked at her in surprise. “I thought all pastures were fenced.”
    “Maybe we’d better do a perimeter check, to be sure,” she said. “Where’s John?”
    “I thought he was in the house.”
    Sarah literally vibrated with the anxiety that pulsed through her at his words. For a moment, she felt like she might hyperventilate. Instead, she found herself turning toward the pasture at a run.
    “Grab the halters,” she said. “And catch up with me.”
     
    They walked and called for forty minutes before Sarah turned back. They found all three horses but not John. She led Dan and the pony. David led the big bay he called “Rocky.” Both Rocky and the pony had nameplates on their stalls but unlike Dan’s theirs were in Gaelic. After a day of struggling to pronounce their names, David and John rechristened the two “Rocky” and “Star.”
    There was no fence.
    “This isn’t Mandarin,” she said to David, referring to the neighborhood in Jacksonville where they lived. “You can’t just let him go do his own thing. He’s only ten years old.”
    “I thought he was with you,” David said. “I’m sorry...”
    “We were broken into last night! What if those people are still around? What if they have him?”
    “Look, I know—”
    “No, you don’t know! You don’t know, David!”
     It took every ounce of emotional strength she had not to physically or verbally launch into David. Some part of her knew he wasn’t to blame for John being missing. She had never felt so powerless, so ineffectual, in her whole life, especially now when the stakes were so high. She was so upset she didn’t even think about the fact that she was leading a horse on either side of her. Her focus was on getting her boy back. She turned to walk back to the house, praying that John was there.  
     “You keep looking for him out here,” she said. “I’m going to see if he’s back at the cottage.”
     “We’ll find him, Sarah,” David called after her, the panic and fear in his voice belying his words. “I’m sure he’s just exploring.”
    Sarah didn’t bother replying. She was angry and afraid, a combination of which she had felt