From his spot at the table, Jericho watched the door. The evening was nearly spent, and Ivy still wasn’t home. All around came the usual noises: the clank of silverware against plates, the chatter of the children, and the occasional rattle of the house frame from the wind.

No one else seemed to notice or care about her absence. If the family wasn’t concerned, then why was he?

He pushed the last of the potatoes and gravy around on his plate, took a final bite, then washed it down with a gulp of coffee.

“Yep, the fire cleaned out the whole area, not a building left.” Wyatt gave a nod of thanks to Astrid as she finished pouring him another cup of coffee.

At some point during the last part of the meal, Jericho had lost track of Wyatt’s conversation about the forest fires burning to the north. There wasn’t anything unusual about summer fires. The Utes had the custom of setting fire to areas overgrown with brush in order to clear out the land and make room for more grazing. And there were always prospectors and settlers accidentally starting blazes from unattended campfires or flyaway sparks.

With the lack of rain, however, they’d been getting reports that the fires in the mountains to the north of Fairplay had been burning for longer than a week and the flames were spreading with growing intensity.

As Astrid rounded the table and tipped the coffeepot toward Jericho’s mug, he placed his hand over the top. “Thank you kindly. But I’m done.”

The petite girl gave him a shy smile and then turned away to return to the kitchen. If anyone would know where Ivy was, Astrid would.

He watched her retreat, his anxiety mounting until he couldn’t contain it. “Astrid?”

She spun so fast she would have sloshed the coffee out of the pot if it had been full. “Yes?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Ivy is, would you?”

At his query, her expression fell.

Jericho replayed the question in his mind. What about it bothered her?

“I’m sorry, Jericho. Ivy’s much too wild and independent for me to keep track of.”

Astrid’s emphasis on wild and independent held a note of frustration. Or derision. Jericho wasn’t sure. But he did know the girl wasn’t about to be of much help.

“She’s probably over at Flynn’s,” Greta cut in from where she sat in a rocker by the open window with Ryder on her lap—or at least the portion of lap not taken up by her protruding abdomen. A breeze fluttered the curtains and brushed against Greta’s flushed face. “She often stays with him for days at a time. We never know when she’s coming or going.”