Olivia frowned but decided to let her sister take the lead in terms of what she was ready to talk about and when. She set the table while Aunt Becky finished cooking, and the breakfast conversation switched to filling her aunt in on the daring rescue and answering a handful of questions about Gabe.

After a giant helping of fresh bread, hummus, avocado, the sausages, and roasted potatoes, Olivia cleared the dishes while Ava showered. Afterward, she jogged outside in her slippers and the fleece pants and thermal T-shirt she’d slept in to grab her phone.

It promised to be a beautiful day, sunny and springlike and not a cloud in the sky. The flooding she’d seen yesterday suddenly felt very far away even though Olivia knew most of the rivers—including the Mississippi—still had another day or two before they crested.

As she groped underneath the front-passenger seat of Ava’s Jeep, her thoughts went to the sweet pointer. Thank God he was safe. She felt like she suddenly had so much to pray for, including that his owner didn’t come forward to claim him if he was as neglectful as she suspected.

She wanted to see that sweet dog again almost as much as she wanted to see Gabe. But what was suddenly alarming her above all else was that her phone seemed nowhere to be found. She bent forward, sweeping her hair out of the way, and scanned the metal supports under the seat to see if it had gotten lodged underneath.

She racked her brain, trying to remember the last time she’d used the phone. Surely, she’d checked her texts or emails in the car on the way here, but she had no memory of doing so. The last she could remember was dropping it in her purse on the way back to the feed store with the pointer when she was still with Gabe.

Her heart thumped in her chest. Could it have fallen out when she was saying goodbye to him? Wouldn’t they have heard it hit the ground?

Attempting her best to keep panic from setting in, she jogged back inside and up the narrow steps to the tiny bedroom at the back of the house. She dumped her purse onto the dresser. A dozen or so receipts. Three ChapSticks. Enough pens to write a thesis. A mangled in-the-wrapper tampon. A wallet. The remaining keys on her key chain that she hadn’t left with the mechanic.

But no phone.

If she’d lost it, she’d lost the only means she had of Gabe contacting her. And worse, what if he was calling her and she didn’t answer? Please Gabe, don’t doubt how much you mean to me.

Olivia sank shakily onto the bed. If there’d ever been a time in her life when she’d wanted to lose her phone the least, surely this was it.

* * *