An image formed in her mind of a little boy riding a big horse beside a tall man with Riley’s strong outline, and the burn of her own memories formed. Growing up on the ranch had been a wonderful place. Their father had been busy with the stock and his wranglers, but he’d taken time to teach his girls to ride. To love the adventure of discovering. She and Rosie had explored for hours at a time. They’d been older than five or six, though.
His mouth pressed in a painful-looking twist. “When I was six and we were on one of those rides, we got separated. A man and woman found me and told me they’d take me to my father, but instead, they took me home with them. They wouldn’t let me leave, no matter how much I cried. It was almost three weeks before my parents found me. I don’t remember much from that time, except crying for my family and begging to go home. They didn’t hurt me. I remember them feeding me. Later on, I pieced together that they had lost a son and wanted to raise me as their own. But I mostly just remember being so helpless and scared.”
A bit of hardness crept into his tone. “I was never so relieved as when I heard my father’s voice outside that cabin. He and some of our neighbors had been searching for me the entire time, and finally they found me. While the other men rounded up the couple who had kidnapped me, I ran to my father. I wanted to climb into his arms, to sit with him in the saddle on the way home and know we would never be separated again. I think he probably did hug me, but nothing felt right. It was like he changed during the search and put up a wall between us. I was only home for a few days before he left for his first surveying trip. After that, he didn’t come back very often, and we never went out riding together. Not ever.”
A lump of emotion clogged her throat and tears burned her eyes, though she swallowed them down. She would never have imagined he’d endured all that at such a young age. And then after he’d been found, why would his father begin a job that took him away from his family so much? It seemed like the man he described before would be overjoyed to have his son back.
Riley had already shared so much, maybe he wouldn’t mind another question. “Why did your father leave after he found you? I would think he’d want to stay even closer to protect you.”
He shrugged, as if the answer didn’t matter. It had to, though. She could see it in his eyes. “I think he thought me being taken was his fault because we got separated while I was riding with him. At least, that’s what my mother said once.” It sounded as though he didn’t believe her.
She studied him, doing her best to imagine how she would feel after enduring something so awful, then practically losing her father all over again. “At least you still had your mother. You two must have been close.”
Something shifted in his gaze, as though the shutters settled back over his eyes. Had she said something wrong? He’d said his mother was still alive, she was sure of it. She was living with his aunt and uncle.
“Mother is ... well, we’re not close. Her mind started to grow weak, and she became a different person. She hasn’t felt like a mother for a long time. I do have a vague memory of her reading to me, of sitting on her lap while she sang and played with my hair. But I was very young at the time.”
A new ache welled in her chest. “Did she change when you were kidnapped too?”
He shrugged again. “Maybe. I’m not certain, but when I was old enough to realize she didn’t always think clearly, I looked back and realized some of the changes started around the time my father began guiding the surveying groups.”
“And your father left you with her? Did you tell him what was happening?”
His throat worked, and his features seemed to harden. “She wasn’t dangerous. I was the man of the family, and it’s the man’s job to protect the women in his care.”
A surge of anger shot through her. “Yourfatherwas the man of the family. You were just a boy. Theirson, whomtheyshould have protected and cared for. Not the other way around.”
He gave her a tight smile. “I was older by the time things started to get hard with Mother. Twelve, at least. I was used to taking care of things. The next year was when my father went missing in a snowstorm. The spring after that, we received news of his passing.”
She shook her head. She’d assumed his intense protectiveness toward her and her sisters had been ingrained in him after his father died and he was left to care for his mother. She’d had no idea the extent of the responsibility he’d shouldered from such an early age. Six years old.
She reached out and touched his arm, letting her hand rest there. If only she could do something to make things better for him, to go back and erase the hard times and fear and helplessness he must have felt as he struggled to grow up so quickly. “I’m so sorry you had to experience all that. And with no siblings. Even when things were difficult in our family, when our mother died, I had Rosie and Lorelei and Faith.”
The darkest time in her life had been much earlier than Mama’s death, back in those months when Mama and Rosie left. She’d floundered without her elder sister and best friend, but that sounded like a trifle compared to Riley’s story.
She squeezed his arm. “You have us now too. No matter how hard things get, we’re here for you.”
His mouth tried to smile, but his eyes didn’t manage it. “For now, anyway. You’ll be going home when we find Steps Right.”
A new pain pressed inside her. He’d saidwhen, notif. And somehow, that confidence that they’d complete this mission only made her feel worse. How could she ever leave this man? Yet she and her sisters had a plan. A horse farm to purchase. A new life to build.
Feminine voices sounded, drawing her from the painful thoughts. When her sisters rounded the corner of the lodge, clothing bundles in hand, Faith was chattering about the upcoming horse race.
She flashed Juniper and Riley a smile. “Are you finished? We can already see the men lining up along the raceway.”
Juniper nodded as she glanced at Riley, but he’d returned his focus to the final bundle he was rolling. “You can go put your washing in your lodge. I’ll finish this last piece and walk with you up to a place we can watch away from the commotion.”
He didn’t look her way, and she had the distinct impression he was telling her to go with her sisters. The reminder that they would only have these few weeks or months together seemed to have made him pull back.
She should do the same. Yet the idea of closing herself away from Riley brought a physical pain in her chest. Her lungs ached.
She pushed to her feet and turned to accompany her sisters but couldn’t quite manage a smile as she fell into step with them.
Twenty
Juniper was just stowing her clean clothes in her pack when Riley tapped on their lodge door flap only a few minutes after they had reached it themselves. “We need to get moving so we can reach the spot before the races start. I don’t know which heat Dragoon’s mare will run in.”
They were ready, and Rosemary pushed back the door flap to step out. “Did he get that Slim fellow lined up to ride her?”
