White Dove's Promise Read Online Free

discovered propane was leaking inside their house. All Tommy did was turn off the valve at the tank. And as for Jared Colton, he’s an engineer, Mom. He’s been working on these pipes and he knows allabout which way they run and how deep they’re buried. I trust him. More than anyone down there.”
    Surprised by Kerry’s remark, Enola studied her daughter. “I don’t have to tell you he’s a rounder, Kerry. The man is in his thirties and he’s never been married or had a child of his own. He couldn’t know what Peggy means to you or what you’re going through right now.”
    Normally Enola was an open-minded woman. Kerry couldn’t see any reason for her mother to be saying such nasty things about a man who was risking his own life to save her granddaughter’s. Unless Enola was simply too upset to know what she was actually saying.
    â€œYou’re wrong. He does understand. A person doesn’t have to be a parent to value a child’s life.” Besides, Kerry thought, she’d heard the caring in his voice when he’d promised her to get Peggy out, felt it for those brief moments when he’d held her against his hard chest. It didn’t matter if he was a still a playboy or married with three kids. He was the man she was counting on to save her daughter.
    Enola was about to make a reply when a flurry of activity caught Kerry’s eye. A mixture of hope and relief flooded through her as she spotted Jared standing at the mouth of the pipe. Although the late afternoon sun was casting long shadows over the group, she could easily see that he was covered with mud. Streaks of it slashed at an angle across his cheek while parts of his short black hair were splotched with brown. In spite of his bedraggled condition, he was wasting no time in relaying information to Bram, and from the quick hand gestures he made back toward the drainpipe, he was a man just starting a mission rather than ending it.
    â€œThere’s Jared,” Kerry said to her mother with a breathless rush. “Maybe he’s found Peggy!”
    Not waiting to see if her mom was following, Kerry pushed her way through the crowd until she was standing next to Jared and Bram, who’d now been joined by their younger sister, Willow, who ran the Black Arrow Feed and Grain store. There was also Gray, a tall, dark-haired Colton cousin, who was a local judge. Apparently the Colton family believed in banding together in times of crisis, she thought, and in this case she was deeply grateful that their help was being extended to her and Peggy.
    Focusing her attention on Jared, she begged, “Tell me. What did you find?”
    Jared’s gray eyes locked with Kerry’s pleading brown gaze. All the while he’d been crawling his way through the maze of drainpipes, his mind had been consumed with thoughts of the agony he knew this woman was going through and of the little girl who must surely be feeling trapped and terrified by now.
    Stepping forward, he took her hand and gently folded it between his. “I’ve located her, Kerry. As I worked my way deeper into the pipe, I kept calling her name. She didn’t answer me directly, but I picked up on the sound of her crying.”
    The relief of hearing that her daughter was alive flooded through Kerry and in the process nearly buckled her knees. If Jared hadn’t been holding onto her hand, she would have crumpled right there in the mud.
    â€œThen she must be okay! But—” she stopped abruptly as another thought struck her. “If you could hear her, why didn’t you go after her and bring her out?”
    He shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s not going to bethat simple, Kerry. Your daughter, Peggy—or Bram told me you sometimes call her Chenoa. Which name does she usually go by?”
    â€œChenoa is her Comanche name which means—”
    â€œLittle dove,” Jared finished for her. One