Читать книгу Rancher's High-Stakes Rescue - Beth Cornelison - Страница 10

Prologue

Eight-year-old Kate Carrington climbed the silo ladder, one rusty rung at a time, while her mother’s voice shouted in her head, Stay away from the old silo, Katie. It’s dangerous!

But Mama was a worrywart. That’s what Daddy called her, and Kate tended to agree.

If she were a boy, you’d call her athletic and adventurous. Don’t be overprotective just because she’s a girl, her daddy would say.

The rusty ladder creaked and wobbled as she climbed, and Kate paused. Looked down. She was pretty high. She cast her gaze around her family’s sun-drenched Missouri farm. The corn was waist high and bright green. The sky was clear blue, and the scent of tilled earth was heavy in the air after Daddy had plowed the west field, prepping it for a new planting. This kind of day filled her with the sort of excitement and curiosity to do and see and explore that Mama called recklessness.

She tried to be good for Mama’s sake. She didn’t want Mama to worry, but Kate figured she knew her limits. And today, Mama wasn’t home. She and Daddy had gone to chaperone a 4-H conference all weekend with Henry and his class. Grandma, who was her babysitter for the weekend, would never know she’d climbed up here.

And she wouldn’t be climbing the old silo if her brother’s new remote-controlled airplane, the one he’d just gotten for his birthday, hadn’t landed smack on top of the silo roof and gotten stuck upside down. Kate wasn’t supposed to be playing with it. If she lost it, she’d be in so much trouble! So she had to at least try to get it.

The ladder up the outside of the silo rattled again and swayed. She hesitated, wiping her sweaty hand on the seat of her shorts. Just a little farther...

When she finally pulled herself high enough to see the roof of the silo, she exhaled a sigh of relief. The plane was still in one piece. And it wasn’t that far in from the ladder. She could easily crawl out to get it.

She swung her legs over the top bar of the ladder and began scooting slowly up the rough slope of the sagging silo roof. She heard a snap, and her heart thumped harder. She stretched to reach the plane, but it was still just beyond her grasp. Swallowing hard, she edged farther along the rotted roof, inching her hand closer, closer...

In an instant, the roof beneath her gave way with a loud crack. Her stomach swooped as she plummeted down. The fall felt endless and lightning fast at the same time. Terrifying.

And then she hit the bottom. The abrupt stop rattled through her body with a tooth-jarring jolt. Pain worse than anything she’d ever known streaked up her leg. Her head smacked against something hard, and when she tried to scream, she couldn’t catch her breath.

Then everything went silent. Black.