by Joanna Sims
They rode out together as the sun was rising over the mountain peaks. They were lucky—it was slated to be a clear day. They reached the herd positioned near the base of the mountain. Many were lying down while others walked slowly, grazing as they moved, their tails waving back and forth like windshield wipers to shoo away the flies. It was going to be tricky to move the cattle through the lightly wooded area to the pasture that was more plentiful with grass and foliage. There were trees and boulders to avoid and Skyler would have to not let her mind be distracted for thinking of pictures she could capture to show everyone back home this latest leg of her journey out west.
They both took their positions and began to move the cattle to the east. Down a small hill, they followed an overgrown path toward the destination. They carefully crossed the creek, wider here and more rocky, then let the horses and cows break to drink. A horsefly was trailing her, trying to land on Dream Catcher’s rump. Skyler spun around, waved her hand at the large black flying insect, trying to stop it from landing on her horse.
“Let it land.” Hunter rode up beside her.
She stopped waving her arms and let the horsefly land. Hunter waited until the horsefly latched on to Dream Catcher’s rump and then he slammed his hand down on the bug, killed it and then flicked it with his finger.
“Thank you,” she said, taking note of how to kill the nuisance insects. Next time she would take care of it.
Hunter tipped his hat to her, his focus centered on the herd. It was a slow, often monotonous process, moving the herd. But there was also something very poetic and romantic about riding through the woods on horseback, just the two of them, with the sound of intermittent mooing mingled with the chirping of birds in the trees overhead.
“There’s a calf breaking from the herd.” Hunter pointed to right.
Skyler nodded. She had been trained on this and she was confident that, with Dream Catcher’s skill and her ability to hold on, they could get the wayward calf back in line with the herd.
She trotted over to where the calf was curiously sniffing around a nearby tree and then Skyler saw that the calf had found some wild clover to sample. Skyler blocked the calf, whistled and waved her hat so the calf would be persuaded to abandon the clover and head back to the herd.
“Come on, little one,” Skyler called out to the calf that was determined to get one more clover before heading back.
The calf suddenly spun around, heading in the wrong direction away from the herd. Dream Catcher naturally, instinctively, blocked the calf and lowered down, moving to the left. Skyler hung on, remembering to relax her body, not stiffen it against the feeling of just being along for the ride. This was what Dream Catcher had been trained all of her life to do.
The calf turned around and jogged back in the direction of the herd. Skyler patted the mare on the neck. “Good girl.”
“Nice work,” Hunter said to her when she returned to her position at the back of the herd.
“All the praise has to go to Dream Catcher,” she said, but she did feel proud.
Skyler settled into the saddle, letting her hips rock with the motion of the horse, keeping a watchful eye on the herd, focusing on the job, following Hunter’s example. They were an hour into the job when Hunter pointed to a small incline.
“It’s going to get pretty narrow up ahead.”
She nodded.
“How much farther?” Skyler called out to him.
“Just on the other side of that ridge.”
Her butt was starting to feel numb and she needed to relieve herself. She had learned early on in her trip that learning how to tinkle in the woods was a necessity and that public restrooms were, in fact, a luxury she had never truly appreciated.
“Just on the other side of the ridge” took another thirty minutes with the slow-moving herd meandering through the trees. As promised, there was an open field past the ridge where the herd stopped to graze.
“This is it?” she asked.
He nodded. “We can head back.”
“I’m going to make a pit stop,” Skyler said, and after she knew that he heard her, she trotted Dream Catcher back over to the woods.
Like a pro, she got her business done quickly and was back in the saddle in record time. She spotted Hunter up ahead, waiting for her while Tricky Dick nibbled at some leaves on a nearby tree. Skyler closed her legs and asked Dream Catcher to canter; she loved to canter.
Skyler was smiling broadly, sitting in the saddle, directing Dream Catcher, feeling like a real, authentic cowgirl. She had really grown in her time in Montana—in fact, she felt pretty certain that she could ride out her own without Hunter and feel perfectly safe.
Hunter turned Tricky Dick to face them—no doubt he’d heard the sound of hooves approaching. She caught his eye and smiled broadly, imagining how impressed Hunter must be with her riding skills, when she misjudged the height of a tree limb. She had to duck forward, wrap her arms around Dream Catcher’s neck, in order to avoid being scraped off the horse’s back. Just beyond the tree limb, Skyler sat upright, accidentally pulled back on the reigns, and Dream Catcher did what she was trained to do—she stopped.
Skyler fell forward, once again wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck, screamed as she lost her balance, and fell out of the saddle. The horse stood stock while she dangled precariously, her arms wrapped around Dream Catcher’s neck. She felt for the ground with her feet, relieved and a little shocked that she hadn’t fallen.
“Thank you, Dream,” she said, letting go of her grip on the horse’s neck.
As she stepped backward, her heel caught on a jagged rock and she fell down.
“Owww!” She winced.
Hunter had galloped to where she was sitting. He dismounted quickly and was at her side.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “What hurts?”
“My butt.” She winced, rubbing her backside.
“Anything feel broken?”
“My butt,” Skyler said, irritated.
She didn’t cry, but she wanted to cry. This moment was a metaphor for her trip to the Big Sky state.
“Do you think you can stand?” he asked, sticking by her side.
She nodded, holding on to his arm. She was going to be stiff, that was for sure, but she could tell that nothing was broken.
“I’m okay.” She let go of his arm.
“Will you be able to ride?”
She nodded her head again, biting her lip and hobbling forward.
“You’re a real cowgirl now,” Hunter said as he adjusted his stride to keep pace next to her.
She winced as she leaned down to pick up Dream Catcher’s reins, which had fallen over her neck when she lowered her head to graze and were now lying on the ground.
“How do you figure?”
“Sure you fell off. But you’re gonna get right back on. Can’t get more cowgirl than that.”
Chapter Thirteen
He didn’t want to be too obvious or appear to be hovering, because he knew that Skyler didn’t like that, but Hunter kept a close watch on her as they headed back to camp. That was a fall that could ruin a person’s life. She was lucky—no, they were lucky—that she had walked away with a bruised backside and a hurt ego. It could have been a heck of a lot worse.
Hunter knew from experience that the best thing for a fall like that, as long as there weren’t any signs of severe trauma, was for Skyler to keep moving—do little jobs to keep herself from stiffening up. She was going to be sore, no doubt about that. But her body would do better if she didn’t baby it too much.
After they took care of the horses, Hunter gave her some ibuprofen for the aches and pains to come and then had her jump into a hot shower while he fixed them some lunch. He knew Skyler felt bothered by her fall; he had learned her expressions and her behavior quicker than any other person he’d known in his life. Perhaps
he had just paid closer attention to Skyler than he had others.
“How are you feeling now?” he asked when she emerged from the tiny bathroom, her short pixie hair slicked back from her lovely face.
“Better.” She sent him a small smile.
She took a seat at the table and waited for him to join her.
“Hope you don’t mind grilled cheese,” he said, putting a plate down in front of her. “Not much room to bring anything fancy.”
“I’ve never needed fancy,” she said, picking up a half of the sandwich he had made for her.
He’d been thinking a lot about what Skyler might need in her life. And if he was honest with himself, he still hadn’t figured it out. When he started this romance with her, he hadn’t been thinking too far in the future. It was new and exciting and he acted with his heart, not with his head. But, as summer’s end approached, he began to realize just how deep in it he was with Skyler.
“You know...” he said after he finished one half of his sandwich. “When I was a kid, I was all dressed up in my new cowboy boots. My new hat. I had on this gun belt with two plastic sharp shooters. I thought I was John Wayne from those old Westerns my father used to watch.”
He made her smile with that image of him as a young boy and that let him know that he was on the right track telling her this story.
“My father had gotten me a pony—her name was Goldie. Now, Goldie lived up to the reputation for ponies—she was mean and ornery and didn’t take too kindly to being ridden. Jock did that on purpose, because he wanted me to get a challenge right off the bat. My first ride on Goldie, I got on just fine, I got started just fine, but when I went to canter, she decided that was enough of me. She darted to the side, caught me off guard and I fell off.”
“You did?” Skyler said in between bites.
He nodded with a smile at the memory. “But I didn’t fall off clean like you did. My new boot got caught in the stirrup and she dragged me through a bunch of buckthorn. Man, did that hurt.”
He continued while she listened attentively. Hunter wanted her to feel better and his story seemed to be doing the trick. “Goldie finally—and I would say deliberately—scraped me off on a tree.”
Skyler smiled. “That’s terrible. I don’t know why I feel like laughing about it.”
“Because it’s frickin’ hilarious.” He laughed. “But, man, did I hate Goldie for a second or two after that.”
“But you became friends?”
Skyler had a tender heart for all living things; it was something that he genuinely appreciated about her.
“Yes. We became friends.”
“That’s good.” Skyler’s eyes had a little bit of that sparkle back in them when she looked down at her empty plate. “Is there enough for another?”
* * *
After lunch, Hunter helped Skyler stretch her muscles, putting her through the same exercises and stretches he did personally whenever he got bucked off a bull. It wasn’t going to fix everything that was heading her way over the next couple of days, but it would go a long way to soften the blow.
“When are we going back?” she asked after they stepped out of the trailer.
“I asked Bruce to take care of our workload until tomorrow.”
Skyler squinted against the sun, her eyes turned toward the mountain. “I want to go up to that peak. Do you know a way up there?”
“You want to ride up there now?”
“When am I ever going to get another chance?” she asked.
He picked up a twig from the ground, snapped it between his fingers and tossed it away from him. “It’s up to you. Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“You said that exercise is good for me and sitting around babying myself will make things worse.”
“I did say that.”
She turned back to him, her lavender-blue eyes pulling him in and captivating his attention, as they always seemed to do.
“Do you know a way?” she asked.
Hunter always felt compelled to make Skyler’s wishes come true. If she wanted to get up to that peak, then he was going to find a way to get there as safely as humanly possible.
He winked at her. “There’s always a way.”
They packed some supplies and tacked up the horses. This was familiar territory to him and he had ridden to the peak many times. In fact, in his youth, this was one of the spots Chase, Dustin and he would go to drink beer until they were almost too drunk to ride. He didn’t miss the hangovers, but he did miss the close friendship he had with Chase and Dustin back when they were all together filming Cowboy Up!
Hunter took it nice and slow, picking each path forward carefully with Skyler in mind. It didn’t surprise him that she wanted to get back in the saddle and go to the peak. In fact, he had figured out pretty quickly that Skyler was one of the most single-minded, goal-oriented, determined women he’d ever met. He had let her petite, almost fragile appearance fool him in the beginning. He had learned not to underestimate Skyler Sinclair after spending some concentrated time with her.
“We’ll tie off the horses here.” Hunter found a safer place for them to stop and dismount. “It’s too rocky for the horses to go up to the peak.”
He was at her side when she dismounted, guiding her down. When she needed help, she was the type of woman who would accept the help, another character trait he found admirable.
“You take the lead,” he told her, wanting to stay behind her and catch her if she lost her footing. “Just follow this little path right up past that boulder.”
Slowly, and more stiffly than she would have moved before the fall, Skyler hiked the short distance to the peak. He knew the moment when her view became unobstructed because she breathed in and then gasped with pleasure. It was a moment like this—a moment when she was surprised and delighted by her discovery—that he enjoyed the most. It was, he believed, what he would remember most fondly about his time with Skyler.
“Oh, wow.” She took out her phone and began to take pictures of the expansive view from the top of the mountain. “Just look at this!”
Hunter stood back and watched her. It pleased him to see her happy. She turned her head to look back at him, to see what he was doing.
“Come here and look at this view!”
“I’m enjoying the view I have right now.” He smiled at her. Whenever he complimented her, she would smile a bit shyly at him, her eyes shining, a pretty blush staining her cheeks.
She finished grabbing the images she wanted to add to her story, put her phone away and then carefully walked over to where he was standing, took his hand and led him back over to where she had been standing.
“I want to share this moment with you,” she said honestly.
Hunter found that he just couldn’t deny her anything. He stood behind her, wrapped his arms around her and held on to her. She leaned back into his body with a happy sigh and held on to his forearms so they were completely connected.
“I love you,” she said simply.
It was so soft, so quiet, the words being swept away from him on a quick gust of wind, that he almost thought he had imagined it.
He turned her gently in his arms; he wanted to look down at her face.
“And I love you.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her on that mountain peak. It occurred to him that she was the first woman he had ever kissed here and he was glad for it. He wanted this moment to be special—a moment just for them. He kissed her again, knowing that he would never stop wanting to share kisses with this woman. And yet he couldn’t seem to take the leap that Chase had taken. Chase could see himself in the city with Molly; no matter how hard he tried, Hunter couldn’t see Skyler living full-time out west. And he knew, without any doubt, that he could not make his life in New York. Sugar Creek was his lifeblood; he was bound to this land and could not leave it.
They had
packed a snack so they could sit at the top of the mountain and enjoy the view for a while. Together, they found a flat spot on the mountain face and sat down. Skyler said her tailbone still ached and that she had a feeling that she was going to sport a serious couple of bruises, but she had been in pain before—she had suffered before. The discomfort she was feeling now paled in comparison to the enjoyment she was having and he was glad to hear it.
After she finished her snack, she stood up, allowing him to give her a hand, and then walked over to the edge of the peak.
“Careful.” Hunter was right on schedule with his warning.
“I will be,” she promised.
Hunter was protective by nature, but Skyler, in particular, he felt the need to protect. Not only because she was an accident-prone neophyte, but also because he loved her so damn much.
She stood with her arms open wide, held back her head and shouted as loudly as she could, “I’m on top of the world!”
She turned around and smiled broadly at him. “Look at me, Hunter! I’m on top of the world!”
“I see you.”
This Skyler was entirely different from the woman whom he had met in the airport at the beginning of summer. She had put on weight—she had built muscle naturally from lifting bales of hay, mucking stalls and riding horseback. She was still petite but built more like a gymnast at the height of their training. Her hair had grown back shaggy and messy and she was always pushing at it, but he liked how wild and crazy it was. She reminded him of a wood nymph in a fairy tale, mischievous and full of life. Her skin, once a gray, pasty hue, had turned golden with a rosy undertone. Standing with her hands on her hips, a sweet, shy sparkle in her eye, her feet planted apart with a small smile on her face, Hunter knew that he had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.