Time was running out for Ryan Porter. The storm that had struck Seabrook was only getting worse and his missing horse, Little Dipper, was nowhere to be found. She had bolted from their ranch and led Ryan on a frantic chase—but three hours had passed since he’d last caught sight of her and he didn’t have a clue where to search next.

“Come on, Lil’ Dip, you’ve got to be out here somewhere . . .”

Ryan tugged the reins of his own horse and took cover by a nearby tree, one of the few that hadn’t been pulverized by the wind. Sheltering beneath a mangled mess of half-naked branches, he cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed as loud as he could over the roar of the rain.

“Please, Little Dipper!” he cried out. “Tell me where you are!”

The sky answered with an almighty growl, a sound so fierce it snatched the air from Ryan’s throat. His steed, Bella, cowered against the trunk of the tree and thrashed her head, equally frightened.

“Easy, girl,” he whispered, stroking her neck. “It’s only thunder . . . just a little bit of thunder.”

It must have been close to midnight, but Ryan couldn’t be certain. He didn’t have a phone on him. He had no way of calling for help, no way of knowing where they were. All he had was a flashlight, but its batteries were drained and the beam was pitifully faint, nowhere near strong enough to punch through the gloom. The situation seemed hopeless. There was no chance of picking up on a trail, if Little Dipper had even left one, or any way of knowing which areas they had already searched. Visibility was so poor, Ryan couldn’t even be sure which way was home. But what frightened him the most was the fact that he had no clue how far they were from the edge of the cliff. Somewhere in the darkness loomed an unnerving drop, a two-hundred-foot plunge straight down to the ocean.

“Come on, Bella, we have to keep moving. If we stay here, we’ll never find her.” But Bella must also have sensed the danger they were in because she wasn’t budging. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But we can’t give up. Lil’ Dip needs us!”

But then, a miracle! Just as Ryan was smacking the flashlight against the palm of his hand, willing it to turn on, he glimpsed something in the distance: a shadow shifting in the rain. He lunged forward and fixed his gaze on the dark shape, certain his eyes were deceiving him, but then the shadow moved again, this time more erratically, and it was all Ryan could do not to leap out of his saddle.

I can’t believe it! We found her!