“It’s a word you’re going to forget and never mention again,” Dylan said cheerfully.
“Sef, come shoot!” Jason begged, promptly forgetting about his pursuit of the definition of bee-otch.
“But I wanna see the pony,” Sophie whined, pulling on the collar of his T-shirt.
He set her down on the ground. “We’re going to the petting zoo when we’re ready to leave,” he reminded her. “Because it’s all the way on the other side of the carnival near where we came in, remember?”
She pouted. “But I wanna go now.”
“Soon,” he promised, playfully pulling on her ponytail. “Right now, why don’t we shoot some chickens with your brother? It’ll be fun.”
“But I don’t wanna shoot chickens.”
He stifled a groan. “Then you can watch us for a bit.”
“But I don’t wanna—”
“Jase didn’t want to ride the Ferris wheel but I took you anyway, remember?” Seth said gruffly. “So now it’s your turn to let your brother do something he wants, and then we’ll all go to see the ponies together. Cool beans?”
After a beat, Sophie grudgingly said, “Cool beans.”
He lifted her up on the counter right next to the shooting station and handed her the bag of cotton candy. “You can witness firsthand what awesome aim I have,” he told her.
Seth gave the kid manning the booth a five-dollar bill and reached for a rifle. For the next ten minutes, he and Dylan showed Jason how it was done. The air was alive with metallic ping noises as BBs spat out of the weapons and collided with the targets. Jason was cheering loudly, having declared himself on Team Seth, while Sophie took pity on Dylan and rooted for him.
The two SEALs didn’t miss a single shot, so the contest eventually became about which spot on the chicken they could hit.
“Now hit the beak!” Jason ordered.
Seth pulled the trigger with ease. Ping. Perfect beak shot.
Dylan nailed it too.
“The feet!”
Ping. Ping.
After every shot, he’d glance at Sophie from the corner of his eye to make sure she wasn’t up to any funny business. Every quick look revealed a flash of pink—her T-shirt and the cotton candy she was stuffing in her mouth.
“Sef, show me how to aim better,” Jason demanded.
He squatted down. “First thing, you have to hold the rifle properly. We take this hand—” he reached for Jason’s right hand, “—and put it here, and your other hand here on the undergrip of the weapon. And we want the butt—”
Jason giggled.
“The butt of the rifle,” Seth said, rolling his eyes. “We want to rest it here, on your shoulder, and not in your armpit like you were doing before. Now…”
He gave Jason a few more tips about how to better aim, then stood up and watched as the little boy took a shot. Ping. Jason hit a chicken dead center.
“Sweet!” Dylan raved.
“Very nice,” Seth agreed. “Did you see that, Soph? Your brother just—”
Sophie was gone.
Seth had to blink a couple of times to be sure. But no. She wasn’t there. Only the bag of cotton candy remained.
His heart stopped, then started pounding.
“Sophie!” Panic clawed up his throat. “Dylan, Sophie’s gone.”
The other man instantly went on the alert. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No, I’m not fucking kidding you,” he spat out.
As his pulse shrieked like a whistle in his head, he scooped Jason into his arms, ignoring the kid’s startled yelp.
Holding the boy tight, Seth scanned the crowd for Sophie. Miranda had dressed both kids in the brightest colors known to man—a neon pink tee for Sophie, a neon green one for Jason. She insisted that as dorky as they were, the T-shirts would ensure the kids stood out like billboards in a crowd.
“Look for a pink shirt,” Seth ordered, finding it difficult to hear himself speak over the pounding of his heart.
He searched the mob of people cluttering the carnival grounds. Blue shirts, white shirts, black, red, pink—nope, different kid. He continued scanning and dismissing, his panic intensifying each time he struck out.
Holy Mother of God. He’d lost Miranda’s daughter.
Sophie was gone.
Everything got very, very quiet. The chatter of the families around them. The bells and whistles and clangs and dings in the game area. The happy shrieks and whoops echoing from the rides area. It all faded into a dull, muffled hiss.
And every single person in the crowd turned into Jarvis Henderson.
“Seth. Yo, dude, it’s fine, we’ll find her.”
Dylan’s voice found a way into Seth’s nightmare. He blinked, saw the visible concern on the blond SEAL’s face.
“Sophie’s gone,” he mumbled.
“It’s okay. We’ll find her.” Dylan’s brother’s fiancée stepped into his line of vision, her voice gentle, her hand even gentler as she touched his arm.
Jason was clinging tight to his shoulders, his face streaked with tears as he looked at Seth. “Where’s Sophie?”