by test
Brady settled on his own blanket, but he stared at the limbs swaying over his head for a long time. Something profound had changed between them. What?
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Chapter Twenty-One
Cara was too tired to care when Brady put his hand on her behind and pushed. She frantically dug into a tiny crevasse with her fingers and pulled herself up a short distance on the sheer rock face. The muscles in her arms trembled with fatigue but letting go might send them both to their deaths.
The climb had been difficult and treacherous up until now when it became impossible.
The lower part of the avalanche had rocks that weren’t as stable as they looked and turned beneath one’s foot or tumbled loose when used as a hand hold. But until this point, they’d forged a slow, steady path. Now they faced a smooth rock face that stretched upward for no less than twice the height of a man.
“Can you reach the top?” Brady called from below her, his voice breathless and irritated.
She bit off a sharp comeback. He’d had nothing but glares and silences for her today after they had both had a restless night. She’d tried to convince herself it was the excitement of finding a possible path up the cliff that kept her awake. Hearing Brady tossing from side to side made her self-delusion obvious. She’d denied them both a night of pleasure and comfort in each other’s arms because she feared the pain of losing him.
“Cara, I can’t hold you here much longer. Try to find a hold on the top.” Brady clung to the stone with one hand and lifted her again with his hand on her bottom. He somehow managed to lift her a little bit higher.
She cursed herself. Not that many days ago, she would have carelessly and without regard to life and limb have let go of the fragile grip she had on the rock face and reached up for the next hold. Just like she had the day she jumped in the Watara River after Brady. Now, though her mind told her to let go and take the chance, something in her feared the risk to her life. Loving Brady had made her a damned coward afraid of dying. But if she didn’t try, they both might fall and be killed. Her fear for his life gave her the courage to take a chance with her own. She released her death clench on the rock and flung her hand up.
She pressed her cheek against the smooth rock and didn’t dare lean her head back to see what was over her head. But her hand found an edge, hopefully the top of this sheer part of the rock fall.
“Other hand too,” Brady grunted.
It was easier to let go with her second hand now that she knew there was something to grip. She found the top of the shelf with her other hand and pulled herself upward. Brady shifted his hand from her butt to the bottom of her foot. She levered herself off his hand and stepped up to a narrow ledge.
His hands gripped the edge. She knelt and grasped his wrists to help anchor him though her arms were so tired she wasn’t much help. He pulled himself up and sat down on the ledge with his legs dangling over the dangerous drop. She joined him, her feet hanging over the abyss beside his. She looked down and couldn’t believe they’d navigated the mountain side without ropes.
“I don’t think we can make it back down without killing ourselves. If we can’t make it all the way up, we’ll have to sit here and die of thirst.” Brady pulled the battered water bag from ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 117
his pack and offered it to her. He was lugging all their supplies on the climb. She might have protested she could do her share, but there was no argument that he was stronger and could carry the extra weight better than she could.
From their resting place they could see over the tops of the trees to the sea. It sparkled blue and purple until it met the sky on a distant horizon.
“Look!” Brady pointed out to sea. “There, just beyond the rock that looks like a bird.”
She squinted against the glare of the sun and saw it. A giant fish lifted most of its body out of the water, twisted with a grace improbable for its size and slammed back into the sea with a great splash. Even before the water settled around where it landed, another behemoth arched out of the waves. Then another and another.
“They’re playing.” A warm pleasant tingle of delight spread over her. This was surely a great wonder of the world. Had any person every witnessed such a rare thing. “They’re amazing.”
Brady put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. “They’re called whales. They swim together in herds.”
“You’ve seen them before?”
“Not like this. Maybe three times ever and always from the beach. I’ve never seen them from high up like this where I could see them coming so far out of the water. And there’s so many of them.”
The whales cavorted and splashed. They laughed when a particularly big one raised such a spray of water it seemed to touch the clouds. They tried to count and guessed there were more than ten of them including two that looked like young ones and a massively large one with a white slash that might have been a scar on its sleek body.
“The sea is so beautiful.” She stretched to see the whales as they moved slowly north.
“When we get back, I’m going to teach you how to swim better. I know a place at the beach a little south of the Realm where there’s a protected little inlet. It’s calm and the water is as clear as a mountain stream. It will be warm by this time of year.”
“If we get back.” She stood up carefully and looked up at the cliff towering over them.
Now was not the time to discuss their future.
“I don’t think it’s much further.” Brady stood up as slowly as she had. His ribs surely bothered him, but as usual he gave no sign of his discomfort. “See that cedar.”
She looked where he pointed. It was about thrice her height’s distance away and off to the right, but it sat on a slope covered with short tufts of grass. But it really was a slope, not a cliff. Was it the top of the mountain?
She took a few moments to study the expanse of broken rocks and boulders smoothed by weather that littered the way from their tiny ledge to the cedar tree. She found a toe hold on the side of a man-sized boulder. Brady’s hand lightly touched her waist as she stretched for a hand hold. Knowing the strength of that hand comforted her when only a short month ago it would have sent her heart racing with a fear so deep she’d believed it could never leave her.
After the first trembling holds, she found her next grip easily and then the next. Her hand touched grass. She looked up and saw saplings and not far away, the thick trunks of trees that could only grow on a stable piece of land. She pushed off with her toes until she had her hips over the last steep edge. She was up on a steep slope that seemed nearly flat after what they’d climbed.
She crawled away from the edge and turned. Brady’s hands appeared first, strong, tanned and covered with scratches and dirt from their climb. She put her hand over his, noting how thin ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 118
and fragile her bones looked compared to his. Again she gave him all the puny help she could muster. He pulled himself up, his shirt damp with sweat. For a brief moment his hand dropped to his injured ribs, but a grin lit his face.
“I think we made it. Easy as spitting into the wind.”
She laughed. How could he be so flippant about the terrifying climb? They wasted no time scrambling up the bank. Though it was steep, there were plenty of trees and many bushes finding purchase on the thin dirt and gravel of the mountain. They didn’t suddenly burst into an opening or reach a peak and know they were at the top. After climbing for a while, they came to a boulder filled gully. They picked their way over the stones that tended to roll from under an unwary step. After climbing out the other side, they came to more dips and rises in the ground that slowed them even more. Cara looked over her shoulder and couldn’t see the sea anymore.
The top of the mountain blocked her view. They were over it. Thereafter the way became steadily downward.
Brady stopped and pointed west. “Do you recognize that peak? I think I know where we are. If we keep going west,
we’ll run into the trail to Parlania. I think we’re about halfway between that twice-cursed Watara River crossing and the outpost.”
Cara had only traveled to Parlania once and ended up staying there for nearly a year. She didn’t remember the peak he pointed at but she remembered the outpost quite well. Juston Steele had threatened to leave her there if she couldn’t learn to work with the men.
They picked their way down the mountain while their shadows grew long behind them.
“We should make camp soon,” she said. “It’s too steep to travel here after dark.”
Brady agreed with some reluctance. “I hoped to find some water before we stopped.
Let’s go just a bit longer and veer south as best as we can.”
It seemed less steep as they angled across the mountain side. Brady’s idea brought them luck. They found a thin stream, barely more than a trickle, but they still had their cooking shell to catch enough to use for cooking.
It didn’t take long to start a fire and put water on to heat. Brady stripped off his shirt and boots after sprinkling the last of their oats in the water.
“What are you doing?” There was enough late day sun filtering through the trees to see the fading bruises on his ribs. And enough for her to see the ripple of his abdominal and chest muscles. He grinned at her and went to the little gurgling stream.
“I need to clean up.” He splashed water over his hair and face. Drops trickled over his shoulders and down his back. He scrubbed his torso and shivered with dramatic exaggeration.
“This is torture.”
Cara laughed but she didn’t know why. One moment she felt an irrepressible giddiness that they might soon be home. Her next thought would pull her into gloom that her time with Brady was nearly at an end. For one insane moment, she wished they could have stayed on the beach, just the two of them, for the rest of their days.
Brady came back to the fire, his wet skin gleaming as he took up his pack. The water in their cooking shell bubbled already. He stirred the meager oats and searched deep in his pack to find less than a handful of nuts to add.
Cara left him to his cooking and went to the icy stream for her own quick bath. She unlaced her worn shirt but didn’t take it off. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed Brady watched her with a familiar glint in his eyes. He smiled at her.
The meal was the most relaxed since they’d been captured by the Savages. They both wondered about home.
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“I wonder who stepped into my position,” Brady said. “There are only a few men at the rank below me and none of them have much experience.”
“I didn’t know you were so irreplaceable,” she teased him. “Do you think they had a large memorial ceremony for you?”
He didn’t laugh as she’d expected. Instead his clear eyes clouded with sadness, a rare emotion to see in his expression. “I can’t wait to let my parents know. They’ve been through too much already.”
Cara waited, letting the quiet grow. It was so unlike Brady, this solemn contemplation.
“I’m the youngest of three boys. Our ranch is beside the Steele homestead. My older brothers, Sean and Todd, never wanted me trailing along especially when they went to visit their best friend, Juston Steele.”
“I didn’t realize you and Juston were friends as children.”
Brady shrugged. “We weren’t really. I was the pesky little brother of his friends. Juston actually tolerated me better than Sean and Todd did. One day they were headed over to Juston’s to do some fishing and didn’t want me dogging them. They locked me in the barn and set off.
There was a path through the hills we always used to walk to the Steele’s.”
He paused again, pushing a few sticks into the fire. “That was the day the Savages attacked the Steele’s home. They killed Juston’s parents, raped his mother first. He killed a bunch of them though he was still a boy himself. The Savages came upon my brothers on their way to the ranch, ripped out their throats and left them to bleed out.”
Cara swallowed a lump in her throat, but her eyes were dry as ever. Now she knew why Juston understood her need for revenge. The same desire burned in his heart. But what about Brady? Though he’d grown up to become a hunter of the beasts that had hurt his family so deeply, he didn’t carry the same vicious lust for vengeance. How did he live with such infinite optimism?
“Your parents must be heartbroken, thinking you’re dead.”
“They’re strong people, but I’d like to get word to them as soon as possible. I’m sure your mother is no less devastated.”
“She’s already suffered losing me once. I hope she can handle me coming back from the dead again.”
They sat quietly, enjoying the fire and watching the sparks snapping and flitting into the dark. They shared the cup for drinking, perhaps for the last time. Again the gloom of something lost filled her. After a while, Brady rose to clean their shell. He packed it away though they might not need it again.
He was still without his shirt when he lay back on his blanket. He opened his arms to her, and his warm, smooth skin welcomed her touch. Their lovemaking was eager and a bit desperate. When she finally mounted him, her orgasm overtook her after only a few strokes. He joined her with a groan of surprise. After that they lay in each others arms.
She stared into the flames long after his breathing slowed to that of sleep. Her body yearned for rest, but she fought it. She took deep breaths so she might lock his scent into her memories forever. She rubbed her cheek against his chest and savored the feel of his skin. She listened to his deep, slow breaths and the beat of his heart. She loved him so much yet what was she to him?
She tilted her head so she could look at his profile. He liked her and treated her with respect and kindness. Like a good friend. A good friend he enjoyed having sex with as often as they could.
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And though they were friends, he’d never mentioned love. She wasn’t positive what she felt was love, but she knew when they parted ways, her heart would be ripped out. She’d thought that organ destroyed years ago when the Savages had nearly killed her. But Brady had healed her and awoke that part of her. When he left her, she would go back to that hollow person she’d been. How was she going to survive this time?
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Chapter Twenty-Two
Brady worried about Cara as they drank their first real cup of tea in over twenty days.
She’d been quiet since they rose in the early morning and walked through curtains of mist to find their way down off the mountain. They’d arrived at the outpost well past dark, exhausted, hungry and foot sore.
There was only rough barracks built to house the half dozen men who stood watch on the northern trail. The building still smelled pleasantly of fresh cut lumber and sawdust. The shocked Realm men were all awake now. One of them prepared the tea and another sliced bread and warmed up a vegetable soup flavored with meat.
Brady’s mouth watered at the scent of meat and spices. There were fruit preserves for the bread. Nothing had ever tasted so good. Cara ate with less enthusiasm, adding to his concerns for her. She’d always been thin, but their recent meager diet had reduced her to nothing but muscle and bone.
They both wore borrowed clothing. The man’s shirt hung loosely on Cara so she appeared a child playing dress up in her father’s clothing.
“Everyone thought you were dead. Steele and Turan had teams out there for days searching for a way down that mountain,” Tom Flinn said. “I’m sorry, Captain. We should never have given up.”
“You probably would never have found the way down, Flinn. We searched nearly every hour of daylight we had and couldn’t find anything. It was only after the river went down and crossed to the other bank we lucked upon a way up. From the top, it probably wouldn’t even look like a possible climb.”
“Zeke Oman will be glad you’re alive, sir.” Flinn shook his head. “The poor guy retur
ned to the Realm and hasn’t worked a day since.”
“It wasn’t his fault.” Brady took another sip of tea. It had sugar in it, the stuff of dreams.
“It was nothing but pure bad fortune that the tree sailed down on the flood at the right moment to take me out.”
“Diving in after him was the bravest thing I ever saw, Cara.” Flinn turned an admiring gaze on Cara.
“Or the dumbest.” But Cara looked pleased by the praise.
“And maybe the entire debacle wasn’t such bad luck. Us getting washed over the falls might have changed the world.” Brady and Cara filled the incredulous men in on their encounter with the Vitans and their level of civilization.
“You’ll think we’ll go back?” one of the men asked as he ladled out hot soup for Brady and Cara.
It was odd to not have to share his spoon. He took a sip of the soup and moaned his pleasure. “I promised them we’d be back.”
The men had a lot more questions, but the food and a promise of a warm bed was too much. The bunks were sturdy and simply made. The cotton-stuffed mattresses were thin protection from the thick wire bracing them. After sleeping on rocks and dirt for so many nights, ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 122