“Should I take a number so you can return the call later?” Jama asked.

Ruth leaned back in her chair and tucked her ink pen through strands of her tightly woven hair. “Since Chelsea may become a part of this team, I can save time by telling you both right now that I will accept no personal calls during office hours. Africa has no connection with this clinic, Jama. I am refusing the call.”

Jama blinked, looked at Chelsea, who studied Ruth with curiosity.

“You’re giving me the job?” Chelsea asked hesitantly.

“If you have the skills I need.” Ruth turned back to Chelsea, apparently dismissing Jama. “If I read your résumé correctly, you’ve had experience both as a lab tech and as an X-ray tech. We need that combination-”

“Excuse me,” Jama said, “do you really want me to tell this man who is calling from the other side of the planet that you choose not to take personal calls on company time?”

“I didn’t stutter.” Ruth didn’t look at her.

Jama shrugged and turned away. She didn’t have time to argue. “We have a patient coming in.”

“I said no more patients,” Ruth called after her.

Jama turned back to the doorway. “A local farmer had an accident. We can at least check him out and stabilize him before sending him on to a hospital. He’s driving himself.”

For a moment, their gazes collided.

Ruth didn’t look away. “Who is the director here?”

“You are, but he’s coming by here anyway, and it wouldn’t hurt for me to take a look at his foot.”

Ruth sighed. “Take a look, but that’s it. Nothing more.”

“I’ll tell Jack to call back after business hours.”

“Tell him not to call at all,” Ruth said, her voice growing sharper, warning Jama not to push further.

Jama returned to the phone, only to discover that the line had disconnected.

The smell of pine needles used to be one of Doriann’s favorite scents. She would pick them from the tree outside their apartment, and rub them between her fingers. Sometimes she’d even placed crushed needles beneath her pillow so she could imagine she was sleeping in a tree house, or camping out in the woods on a fishing expedition with Grandpa.

As she huddled near the top of this tree, though, she wondered if she would ever love the smell of pine again. She hadn’t realized, until she was up and settled on a branch she hoped was strong enough to hold her, that she could be stuck up here for a long time.

It was colder up here, and it was supposed to get colder tonight. Would she be frosted over in the morning, along with the trees and crops?

Footsteps…the sound of shoes scrabbling over the rocky creek bed below.

Her nose itched, then tickled, then before she could stop herself, she sneezed. Froze. Listened.

The footsteps stopped.

Please, God, please, God, please, God, please!

She squeezed the branch and took slow, silent breaths.

A rustle of leaves.

Doriann closed her eyes tightly, pressed her lips together and waited.

More footsteps. And then heavy breathing.

She couldn’t help it. She peered down through the thickly covered branches of the tree.

Clancy had light brown hair, and he wore a black-and-red plaid shirt. The black-red-brown pattern blurred beneath her. All he had to do was look up. The least sound from her, the slightest movement, and she could be captured again…or die.

Good thing he didn’t have a gun.

He passed beneath the tree, then out of her sight. She listened to his footsteps disappear into the woods, brush rustling every so often until all she heard was her own breathing and the trickle of a thin stream along the creek bed.

Too, too close.

She couldn’t see anything from this tree trunk, just green needles in every direction, and other treetops, a small cliff above the dry creek…

She studied the cliff more closely. A crevice halfway up the side of the rocky wall looked big enough for somebody to hide for a while, almost like a small cave.

She’d already fallen asleep outside the barn, and couldn’t take the chance she’d fall from this height. Also, it would be colder up here in the tree than down on the ground. She would wait for a few minutes, until she was sure he wouldn’t hear her, then climb down. There were better places to hide, and if possible, she might even find the river and start following it to River Dance.

Tyrell ran his hand gently along a grapevine. The air was about fifteen degrees colder than when he had left for the clinic, but the weather could change at any time. He didn’t want to ruin a single one of these expensive bales unless it was necessary.

“Clouds are still covering the sky,” Daniel said, joining Tyrell at the end of the row.

Tyrell pointed to the western horizon. “But they’re moving out. You can see sunlight spreading toward us. I figure by nightfall the sky will be clear. We’ll get our frost. Below freezing temperatures.”

“It’s so unusual for this time of year.”

Tyrell gave his brother a humorless grin. “This is Missouri. Expect the unusual.”

“That’s why I’m not a farmer. You always did like to gamble.”

“I’ve never gambled in my life.”

“Maybe not on the riverboats, but you gamble, just like Dad. How much does this ranch stand to lose if the freeze happens?”

“Hard to tell. We’ll see the impact on the vines and trees for years to come.”

“And yet you’ll keep doing it,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “Just like Dad.”

“He did okay, didn’t he? He has no outstanding debts, and he has enough to retire comfortably, and soon.”

“He worked his tail off to get it all done.”

They were both silent for a moment, and Tyrell wondered if Daniel had the same thought he did. Dad could have died today. What if he still didn’t make it? Then there would be no retirement.

“He taught me as much as, or more than, I learned in college,” Tyrell said. “He thought this freeze could hit after the unusually warm March we had.” The sunshine and seventy-degree weather had coaxed the shoots out early. Right now, he could knock into one of those shoots accidentally, and it would fall off.

Tyrell studied a row of Vignoles vines. “You’re right, life is a gamble. That’s one reason Dad diversified years ago. The cattle aren’t going to freeze. And besides, stressed vines often make the best wine.”

“That’s an interesting thought, Tyrell, but a stressed Dad doesn’t make for good healing. The guys are wanting to know if we should do something about the fruit trees down around the lower forty.”

“No. Let’s stop here. There’s no guarantee we’ll save the crops anyway, and we need to save a few more bales for the cattle. We could lose the grass for a while.”

“Great attitude, there, brother.”

“I’m not being pessimistic, I’m just saying-”

Tyrell’s cell phone beeped. Caller ID showed it was their sister Renee.

“Tyrell?” Though not as characteristically serene as her twin, Renee nevertheless knew how to keep her cool most of the time. She didn’t sound cool now. She sounded as if she’d been running. “Mark and Heather have an FBI agent at their place. They got a call just now. A motorist reported seeing an old brown pickup suddenly leave the right lane of eastbound I-70 and bounce down an embankment. It matches the description of the vehicle driven by the abductors.”

Tyrell felt his gut clench. “Where on I-70?”

“Just east of Columbia. It’s estimated that this happened about the same time the all points bulletin was issued on the truck.” She paused for breath. “There was a report of a stolen vehicle that matches the truck’s description. Want to know where from?”

He really didn’t. “Where?”

“Swope Park area. And that truck had a scanner. Which means the kidnappers were probably listening to the scanner when the bulletin went out. That’s likely why they stole that particular vehicle. Tyrell, this is…this is-”