"Her sister?" he asked, glancing up.

"That's the reason she came here in the first place. She was looking for Presley, said she hadn't seen her all day. Knowing Presley, I wasn't overly concerned. You can't keep track of someone who's hell-bent on destroying herself. But I said I'd keep an eye out. Then she came back a few minutes later with that."

Joe needed to think about what Cheyenne had revealed, figure out how it affected what he felt for her. But now was not the time. Sandra was being too nosy. "Maybe I'll go by and see if Presley's back."

"That would be nice. Presley's troubled, but Cheyenne's sure a great person."

24.

Cheyenne's car was gone but Dylan knocked, anyway. She didn't answer, confirming his first guess. She hadn't found Presley. She was still out searching for her sister.

He wondered if she was doing it alone.

Maybe she had Joe, her knight in shining armor, to help her.

Despite his own sarcasm, Dylan hoped she did. He hated to think of her trying to cope on her own-frantic, heartbroken, vulnerable.

He lifted his hand to bang on the door again, just in case he was wrong and she was inside, asleep. It was eleven, certainly late enough for that. She could've left her car elsewhere and had someone drop her off.

The sound of an engine made him turn. The vehicle pulling into Cheyenne's drive wasn't the Oldsmobile or the Mustang, however. He couldn't determine the make or model, but the headlights blinding him were too high for either.

This was a truck-and once he could see it clearly, he realized who it belonged to.

Suddenly, Dylan wanted to be anywhere else, but he forced himself to stand on the stoop and wait until Joe turned off his engine and got out. If he was bringing Cheyenne home, at least Dylan would be able to reassure himself that she was okay.

But she didn't get out of the truck. It was only Joe who walked toward him. "She's not home?" he said, his voice clipped, not open and friendly like it had been at the Victorian Christmas celebration.

Dylan figured it was finding him on Cheyenne's doorstep so late that accounted for the change. He shook his head. "She's not with you?"

"No."

They stared at each other for several seconds, opponents for the first time, a subtle but unmistakable shift. Then Joe shoved his hands in his pockets and heaved a sigh. "She told me about you."

Instantly wary, Dylan narrowed his eyes. "Told you what about me?"

"That you two-" he shrugged, obviously looking for the right words "-were together," he finished with a wince.

Dylan frowned. "Telling you was a hell of a risk to take. But...somehow it doesn't surprise me."

Joe stepped closer. He seemed intent on seeing Dylan's face. "Why not?"

"She's been in love with you since she was fourteen, thinks you walk on water. Didn't she tell you that, too?" The jealousy he was feeling leaked into his voice, but Dylan couldn't help it. His chest was so tight he could scarcely breathe, let alone talk.

Joe stopped a foot or so away and toed the dirt between the dead clumps of grass. "She didn't say that, exactly."

"She's wanted you for a long time. So..." He met Joe's somber gaze. "I hope you won't let what happened between us get in the way."

A touch of confusion showed on Joe's face. "Something like that's hard to forget, Dylan."

Especially when he'd already dealt with a cheating wife. His background would make it even harder. "I'm just telling you it would be a mistake. What we did didn't mean anything to her. It was...an act of desperation, I think. I hit on her in a vulnerable moment."

"So...more your fault than hers."

"Definitely." He knew that should be an easy sell. People in Whiskey Creek liked to blame him for whatever went wrong. In high school, he'd deserved a lot of that blame. He'd broken into the school and vandalized it, he'd stolen a car and gone on a joyride, he'd started a bonfire in an abandoned building so they could roast hot dogs and gotten in more trouble for that than the car incident. So maybe blaming him had become a habit. Regardless of the reason, he'd been picked up three different times since then for shit he didn't do.

"Nice of you to take responsibility."

Dylan managed a cynical smile. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't want to stand in the way of true love."

Joe jerked his head toward the house. "So what are you doing here now? Hoping to get lucky again?"

Cigarettes. Dylan needed a smoke, but he patted empty pockets. He'd bought a pack, since his brothers had taken his advice and thrown out what they already had. However, he'd subsequently tossed that new pack, too. "I was just trying to check on her."

"Sure you were."

"I don't owe you anything, Joe. If she comes back to me, I'm going to take all I can get."

Joe's voice dropped low. "Stay away from her."

"It would be a mistake to try to enforce that," Dylan said, and walked off before the temptation to leave Joe writhing on his back could get the best of him.

Cheyenne had never been so cold. But she refused to go home to an empty house. She would find her sister first. She hadn't come this far to let her life fall apart now that Anita could no longer affect her.

"Presley!"

There was a movement across the river. She angled her flashlight in that direction, but succeeded only in startling several deer. They bounded away, snapping twigs and crashing through branches.

It took a moment to absorb this latest disappointment. She'd gone down as far as Carl Inera's and was on her way back following the river, but darkness, thick vegetation and rocks, both sharp and slippery, made the journey difficult. She'd already passed the swirling pool Presley favored. But she had to keep searching. She could easily imagine her sister getting high and wandering around out here until she either fell into the river or froze to death.

That didn't explain where her car was. But Cheyenne had to at least look in their own backyard, had to be sure.

"Presley!" She was getting closer and closer to Dylan's house, but she didn't care if he or his brothers heard her. She didn't care about anything except finding her only family. "Answer me!"

She smelled cigarette smoke before she realized she was no longer alone. Stopping not far from Dylan's barn, she closed her eyes and inhaled. That scent reminded her of Presley, but she knew it wasn't Presley smoking out here tonight. She used her flashlight to scan the woods ahead of her until she saw Dylan leaning up against a tree at the edge of his property.

"No luck?" he said, shying away from the light.

She wondered how long he'd been there, listening to her call out. He wasn't even wearing a coat. "No."

When he pushed off the tree and came toward her, she noticed that he was carrying a bottle of hard liquor in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "Joe came over to your place tonight. Thought you'd like to know. If you call him, you might be able to catch him before he goes to bed, get him to come back."

Because it was rude to do anything else, she pointed her flashlight at the ground, but that made it impossible to ascertain his expression. He looked like nothing except a tall, dark shadow. "How do you know he came over?"

The whites of his teeth flashed in a smile, but she suspected it wasn't a happy one. "We bumped into each other."

Her heart was pounding. She wanted to believe it was due to the physical exertion but knew there was more to it. Seeing Dylan did this to her. "I told him about us."

He drank from the bottle, then wiped his mouth. "So he said."

Dylan's words took Cheyenne by surprise. "He mentioned it to you?"

"Point-blank. You went for full disclosure, huh?"

When she folded her arms, hugging herself against the cold, he offered her a drink.

She caught a whiff of whiskey as she pushed it away. "I didn't want to feel as if I'd been sneaking around."

"Gutsy move. Admirable, considering how much you care about him."

Was he being sarcastic? She couldn't tell, but she was now convinced he was drunk. "You need to go inside, Dylan. It's too cold out here."

"You're telling me that?"

"You don't have a coat on."

"I don't need a coat." He took a long drag. "I don't need anything."

"Least of all me?"

He didn't respond.

"Come on." She held his arm so she could tug him toward his house, but he jerked out of her grasp.

"Aaron saw her, you know."

She let go of him. "He what?"

"He saw Presley last night."

"That's not what he told us."

He kept smoking but didn't say anything.

"Dylan?"

"Apparently, he wasn't entirely honest." He shrugged.

Mouth dry, she steadied herself by placing a hand on the closest tree. "What happened?"

"He was an asshole to her. Just like you're afraid I'll be to you. Should make you glad you never gave me the chance, huh?"

She couldn't let their personal problems enter into this. She had to find Presley. "Does he know where she is?"

"No. She came by when he was asleep. He didn't want to see her, so he turned her away and then she asked for drugs."

"And..."

"He gave them to her. See? You can't count on an Amos to do the right thing."

But Aaron was as screwed up as Presley. Cheyenne couldn't judge Dylan by Aaron's actions, any more than Dylan could judge her by Presley's.

Again, she thought of the possibility of a baby and felt heartbroken for her sister. She might've felt heartbroken for herself but refused to contemplate whether or not she might be pregnant, too. "He doesn't care about her?"

"The ironic thing is-" he dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out "-I think he does."

He didn't offer an excuse as to why Aaron might've reacted as he had, but Cheyenne could guess. He'd lost his own mother; why would he want to be involved in losing hers?

"They both need to go into rehab."

"Aaron says he's ready for it. I'm taking him down after Christmas."

"Good. It might be his last chance to get his life turned around." She hoped Presley would have the same chance, hoped it wasn't already too late.

"I'm sorry for the way he treated her," he said softly.

"He's the one who should be sorry. Come on, let's get you inside."

"I'm fine!"

"Please?" she said. "I don't want to worry about you, too. I can't..." When her voice broke, he tossed away the bottle and stepped up to frame her face with his hands.

She stared at him, waiting for him to kiss her, hoping he would. The way he made her feel when she was in his arms could overcome the pain. But he didn't.

"Go out with me," he whispered. "Just to dinner. I don't pretend to be perfect, or even as good as Joe, but I can love you twice as much. If you don't have a good time, I'll leave you alone."

She wanted his arms around her so badly. Rising up on her toes, she tried to press her lips to his, but he stopped her.

"Just a date. That's all I want."

No, he wanted her to legitimize their relationship. To make it public. She understood what that dinner signified. It would put her at odds with almost everyone she knew. It would also put a decisive end to anything she had going with Joe, if the note she'd left him hadn't already done that.

"I'm obsessed with you," she admitted.

"Then say yes."

She couldn't see his expression, but she could hear the entreaty in his voice, feel the hopeful tension in his body-and couldn't refuse. "Will you go inside if I do?"

"I want to help you find your sister. That's why I came out here."