A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)(69)

“Thanks,” he said weakly. “I think they’re better off here.”

“For now,” Mel said. “I guess Marcie will have to head home, but in case you’re around Christmas Eve…”

“I heard,” he said. “A town thing. I don’t know…”

“Well, the town’s kind of easy—no RSVP required. If you get the itch.” She shrugged and smiled.

“That’s nice,” he said. “I have to go. There’s an old guy, neighbor of mine, who doesn’t have a plow…”

“Good of you to look out for him, Ian.”

“I don’t really, I just—”

He stopped abruptly at the sight of Jack, Preacher and Mike coming out of the bar in a big hurry, jacketed up, carrying rifles and duffel bags.

“Jack?” Mel asked.

He continued toward his extended cab truck. “Travis Goesel wandered off yesterday. Didn’t make it home. Family’s been looking all over their farm and grazing land.” He threw a duffel in his truck bed. “David’s with Brie.”

“Wandered off?” Mel asked. “Travis wandered off?”

“He was tracking a cat. Mountain lion killed his dog, so he grabbed his rifle and he went after it. Kid’s a good tracker and excellent shot. And too smart to be out all night in this snow.”

“Where’s the Goesel farm?” Ian asked before he could stop himself.

“You know the Pauper’s Pond area?”

“Sort of. The river that runs past my place feeds a couple creeks and a pond out there. I’m east of their property a few miles. That cat’s been around my place.”

“What makes you think it’s the same cat?” Jack asked.

“Aggressive one—he didn’t run off like they usually do.”

“That a fact? You must know that area. Any chance you could lend a hand?”

Ian wanted nothing so much as to get back to the girl. Especially if that cat was out there with blood lust.

“The kid’s sixteen,” Jack went on. “He’s big and strong. But I agree with his father—this isn’t good. I don’t know what’s worse, the mountain lion getting him or the cold.”

“Okay,” Ian said. “If the boy’s smart, he’s not walking uphill toward my place. I can start at the base of the mountain and work west. You can start in the west and work east. Will that help? A kid that age could walk miles.”

“His father, brothers and some neighbors are all over that farm—we can work the outside acreage.” Jack pulled his duffel out of the truck bed. “Preach and Mike can go together on the west side of Goesel’s farm, I’ll go with you on the east.”

“I don’t have hardly any heat in that truck,” Ian said.

“Yeah, but you got a plow. I love the plow. That could come in real handy. I’m gonna get one of those to mount on my truck. I have myself a long road into our new house.”

Ian looked at Mel. “I left Marcie early this morning when I went to deliver firewood. She won’t know why I’m not back. If she tried to get to town in that car of hers…”

“When David lies down for his nap, I’ll run out there and tell her what’s going on. Would that help?”

“Tell her she’s going to want to stay in. She doesn’t like that. She doesn’t like making do and not traveling to the outdoor facilities. You’d better tell her about that mountain lion, that he’s around and he’s not getting any more shy.”

“I’ll do that. You just be real careful out there. Jack!” she yelled. “You be careful!”

Jack grinned at Mel. “I’ll be back real soon, Melinda. Travis has presents under the tree—we have to get him home. You just keep that little bun in the oven warm. Come on, Buchanan. Let’s do it.”

The men left town in two trucks—Ian took Jack and Preacher took Mike. They headed out the same highway, and then at a fork that led to the farm, Mike and Preacher took their truck off to the left while Ian and Jack kept going past the farm. “How much land you have sitting under that cabin?” Jack asked Ian.

“Six hundred and sixty acres,” Ian said. Jack whistled. “It’s all mountain and trees in a restricted-logging area. So it’s a lot of nothing.”

“Nothing but quiet and pretty.”

“There’s a stream,” Ian said. “Good fishing. Good hunting. And I harvest the trees for firewood, a little here and there. I think the old man, Raleigh, homesteaded.”

“How’d you know him?” Jack asked.

Ian laughed. “I was wandering around the mountains, camping, hunting rabbit, on a fool’s mission, when winter hit the mountains real sudden. Raleigh was older than God already and couldn’t hardly chop his own wood, so he gave me a roof for some help on the land.”

“Good deal for you!”

“Yeah, the joke was on me. He got real sick and what he needed was a nurse in addition to everything else.”

Jack grinned at him. “You must’ a stuck it out if you’re in the cabin.”

Ian shrugged. “I never saw that coming—he wrote some kind of will that old Doc had to witness. If he hadn’t done that, I might’ve figured out what to do with myself by now.”