They couldn’t have known how wrong that prediction would prove to be. They agreed that Tyler would search the woods behind the house, while Hailey called the Harpers and then looked along the lakeshore. When those expeditions proved fruitless, they got in the car and searched the backroads and the wooded areas lining them. No one at the lodge had seen Faith that morning and the man managing the electronic games area assured them that he had been there since opening and would have seen her had she come in.
“What does she look like?” he asked them again. “I’ll check around.”
“She’s eleven years old. Has brown pigtails and eyes the color of mine,” Tyler said. “Tall, thin, braces on her teeth.”
“What was she wearing?”
“Hell, man, I don’t—”
“She was wearing jeans and a blue-and-red-striped sweater,” Hailey interceded quickly.
Their search stretched into hours. With each passing minute, Tyler’s composure dwindled. Fighting her own growing panic, Hailey tried to reason with him, but he only grew
more impatient with her banal assurances, recognizing them for what they were. He blamed himself for Faith’s disappearance. Hailey’s own feeling of guilt was just as strong. And though neither pointed an accusing finger at the other, they couldn’t quite meet each other’s eyes.
When by mid-afternoon Faith still hadn’t been found, they called in the local police force, which began combing the foothills and lakeshore in a full-fledged search. Hailey heard one patrolman mention something about dragging the lake to another, and her blood ran cold. Luckily, Tyler had been giving a thorough description of Faith to another officer and hadn’t heard that grim possibility.
As the daylight faded, his belligerence increased. The patrolmen ignored his verbal abuse, knowing that it stemmed from the mind of a frantic parent. Hailey wanted to comfort him, but she couldn’t. She had no platitudes to offer, for the possibilities of what could have happened to Faith were limitless and terrifying. She was having a hard time keeping herself from giving way to hysteria.
Long after dusk, they were still awaiting word from the many who were out looking for the girl. The chief officer had commissioned Tyler and Hailey to stay in the house, should he need to call, or should Faith show up there.
For the thousandth time, Hailey’s eyes swept over the living room as she nervously dallied with one of her earrings. The silence was almost tangible. The telephone remained mute. The atmosphere was like that of a wake. No, worse, Hailey thought. It was like waiting for a surgeon’s report on a life-or-death operation. Not knowing was the worst part.
Tyler sat on the sofa, staring at the floor between his widespread knees. His head was bowed low. His hair was mussed. The lines around his eyes and mouth were deeply etched with worry. Mud and leaves clung to his casual shoes, reminders of his stubborn trekking through the woods behind the policemen.
It was heartrending to see a man of Tyler’s arrogance reduced to such a level of humility and abject defeat. All day she had resisted going to him, touching him, embracing him. His suffering touched her deeply because she loved him so completely.
When had it happened? Last night when he had claimed her body and she had given it so freely? When she decided to come with him on this mini-vacation? No, long before that. When? Or had it always been there, waiting for her to admit it? She didn’t remember consciously choosing to love him, she only knew that she did and probably always had, right from the moment he’d first spoken to her.
Is this who we’ve been waiting an eternity for?
Had she fallen in love with him even then, when his slate gray eyes had bored into hers with frustration and … what? What had she seen that day in Tyler’s face that had changed her forever?
Whatever had made her love him, whenever it had happened, it was there now, consuming her, filling her with such joy that she wanted to shout about it. Perhaps she did, for at that moment his head snapped up to look at her. She was appalled at the ravaged look on his face. The silent appeal in his red-rimmed eyes pulled at her heartstrings.
“Hailey…?”
The appeal was silent no longer. She heard it. And she knew what it had cost a man of Tyler’s arrogance to make it. By speaking no more than her name, he had uttered a plea for her help.
Without hesitation she rose from her chair and rushed across the space that separated them to fling her arms around him.
“Tyler, Tyler,” she whispered as his head was buried between her breasts. It wasn’t a passionate action, but one of desperation. An infant seeking solace, a human being needing the touch of another. His arms closed around her with unabashed need.
Tightly, she clutched him to her, stroking the tension out of his shoulders with loving hands. She bent her head over his and kissed his temples, his eyebrows, his silver hair. Whatever she had to give belonged to him.
Because she loved him so fiercely, she was giving him license to hurt and misuse her more than anyone else ever had, yet it didn’t matter. He needed her. It was within her power to help him. To deny him herself was unthinkable. Just as she had given him her body last night, she now gave him her soul and spirit without qualification.
“Tyler,” she said, laying her cheek on top of his head. “Tyler, I love you.”
She held her breath. For a long moment neither of them moved. Had he heard her? Was he shocked? Revolted? Thrilled? He raised his head slowly. Then, when she didn’t think she could stand the suspense any longer, she looked into those gray eyes that cut through her like a rapier.
Before either of them could speak, the back door opened quietly. The metal latch clicked shut. Tyler’s head jerked toward the sound as though to confirm he hadn’t been dreaming. Hailey came off the sofa, her hands clenched at her waist as she took two hesitant steps toward the kitchen.
Faith appeared in the doorway that connected the two rooms. She was dirty. Tears had left two muddy tracks down her cheeks. The knees of her jeans were filthy and threadbare. Leaves and twigs littered her hair. It wasn’t her appearance, however, that stunned them. It was the hateful glare in her eyes.
“Faith,” Tyler said. His shoulders slumped in relief. “Where have you been?”
“In the woods.”