“Come sit down,” he said, tugging her gently toward his truck. She resisted. “Come sit down before you fall down,” he amended. “Because if you fall I’ll catch you and carry you over there, and you’ll be even madder at me.”

He had a point. But before they had taken three steps he stopped, lifting his head. She barely had time to wonder before she heard it, too, another vehicle approaching, slowing.

“Foxworth,” he muttered.

She looked up, saw Quinn at the wheel of the big SUV. He maneuvered it to the other side of the car—Dad’s car, she thought, her eyes stinging with tears—and angled his to guide any oncoming traffic around the scene and flipped on his flashers. Hayley was already out of the vehicle and running toward them, Cutter at her heels.

“Amanda! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“She’s bleeding. I think she hit her head,” Adam said.

“Paramedics are on the way,” Hayley said.

She blinked. “They are?”

Quinn nodded as he came up to them. “We called the minute we saw the car.”

“Did you call the sheriff, too?” Adam asked. “It was a hit-and-run.”

Amanda blinked. “It was?”

“It was,” Adam said flatly.

Amanda heard a whine that sounded as worried as Adam’s eyes had looked. She instinctively reached to pet the dog who was nudging her hand. She vaguely heard Quinn saying yes, a deputy was also on the way. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Adam pull out his phone and make a call.

“You all right?” Quinn asked her.

“Fine, I think. Just shaken. You just happened along?” she asked as Adam put his phone away and came back.

“Nope. It was this guy,” he said, gesturing with a thumb at the dog.

“What?” She realized both she and Adam had said it simultaneously, but it was the logical question.

“He made us come,” Hayley said. “About five minutes after you left he just started barking his head off, headed for the car and wouldn’t shut up until we got in.”

They both stared at Cutter’s people. “He...” She stopped, not at all sure what to ask.

“We’ve been through it before,” Quinn said, rather wryly.

“But how did he get you to come here?” Adam asked, which Amanda had just been wondering.

“Volume,” Quinn said, rubbing at his right ear. “Silence, we’re okay, barking, we’re supposed to make a turn, trumpeting and we missed a turn. I missed one on the way here, and he about took my eardrum out.”

They both shifted their gazes to the dog.

“You kind of get used to it after a while,” Hayley said cheerfully. “We’ve learned to just go with it.”