Freddy sighed in irritation as she continued searching the bushes and overhead branches with the beam of her flashlight.“No, but go back to camp.I don’t want to have to worry about you, too.”
“No dice.”
“Look, you know nothing about the dangers out here.You— where do you think you’re going?”
Ry pushed past her and limped over to Mikey.“Shine the light on his hind leg.”
She did, and gasped.It was dripping blood.“Oh, my God.”She hurried over and crouched beside the horse, whose flanks were heaving.“Easy, Mikey.Easy, boy.Ry, hold his head so I can check this out.”
While Ry stroked Mikey’s nose and murmured to him, Freddy took a bandanna from her pocket and dabbed at the blood until she could see the wound, a jagged cut just above his fetlock.A little deeper and Mikey would have been crippled for life.As it was, he couldn’t be ridden back down the mountain.“I’m going to look Maureen over,” she said, moving carefully around the quivering Mikey to her own horse.
The whites of Maureen’s eyes showed, and she tossed her head when Freddy reached for her, but after a few moments, the mare settled down.She was unhurt, which meant Ry could ride her down while Freddy led Mikey.
“Let’s take them back to camp and tether them to a tree,” she suggested.“I’ll lead Mikey if you’ll take Maureen.”
“I’ve got Mikey.”Ry coaxed the horse forward and the animal complied with an air of trust that astonished Freddy.Both man and horse limped back to camp.
He just might make a cowboy, at that.He was stubborn enough.And gutsy.After a few hours of being immobilized in sleep, he must have stiffened up considerably, yet he’d torn himself from his bedroll and snatched a weapon before she was fully awake.She had a gun.He had nothing but a stick, and he’d assumed the role of protector without thinking.Definitely the sort of thing a cowboy would do.
After they secured the horses to an oak tree, she cleaned Mikey’s wound with water and applied an antiseptic ointment from her first-aid kit while Ry soothed the horse.
“What do you think happened?”Ry asked after they’d built up the fire and were sitting across from each other on their bedrolls, both too keyed up to sleep.
“I’m not sure.I suppose a snake or a cougar could have spooked them, and Mikey might have ripped his leg open on a jagged rock or broken tree limb lying on the ground.”
“Another rogue cougar, maybe?”
Freddy shook her head.“A rogue would have killed at least one of the horses.We’ll probably never know what happened.”
“Is the injury serious?”
“It could have been.As it is, I’ll have to lead him down and you’ll have to ride Maureen.”
“I’ll lead him down.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.You will not.”
“Yes, I will.It can’t be any worse to walk that trail than to ride it again.”
Freddy chuckled.“And here I was beginning to think you were turning into a cowboy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“A real cowboy will saddle up to ride from one side of his front yard to the other, rather than walk it.”
“That may be true, but if he has to walk so his woman can ride, I’ll bet he’d do that.”
His woman.She was certain he’d only used the expression to make a point, and it was a chauvinistic thing to say, anyway.So why did she feel a little glow of pleasure?Why did she turn the phrase over in her mind, listening to it again as if it were a refrain from a favorite song?The pressure of the impending sale must be getting to her.Perhaps, deep in her heart, she longed for a white knight to rescue her and give her back the True Love.Maybe she longed for a white knight, period.Being alone all night with an attractive man reminded her of a seldom-acknowledged emptiness in her life.But if she imagined a commodities trader from New York was the answer to her prayers, she must have accidentally dropped a sprig of locoweed into tonight’s supper.
ChapterSeven
Ry dozed fitfully while leaning against the granite face of the cliff.The rock retained heat from the sun that had bathed it during the day, and the warmth soothed his stiff shoulders.An owl hooting in the gray light of dawn brought him awake, and he glanced across the embers of the campfire to where Freddy lay with her boots still on, her gun within reach.The owl hadn’t disturbed her sleep, probably because she was used to the sounds of wildlife in the desert.
Her hair had come free of the clip and lay spread over her outstretched arm, her lips were parted, her expression relaxed and open.He used to love watching Linda sleep, because it was one of the moments when he glimpsed her soft, vulnerable side.The other was when they were making love.
Linda.She would have hated this trail ride, he realized with a smile.Born and bred to big-city life, she’d barely tolerated outdoor cafés, let alone picnics.Freddy, on the other hand, would feel imprisoned in an office, flail her wings against the walls of a hotel room.In that way, the two women were total opposites, and yet Freddy had that same iron will that had drawn him to Linda.And rarer still, the same sense of fair play.She hadn’t been able to pull off her diabolical scheme without confessing, without trying to right the wrong she’d done.She could have pushed her plan to the limit, and without the whiskey and horse liniment, he might have checked out of the True Love today and never looked back.
He was still tempted to give up the whole crazy idea.God, he hurt.He’d become used to the smell of the liniment, but even the slightest movement was agony.Walking the entire trail sounded like torture, but the prospect of riding down wasn’t much of an improvement.Freddy deserved every pang of conscience that pricked her, he decided.
