“Oh.” The color burned hotter in her cheeks, and her gaze dropped to the pie plate in her hand. “Yeah. We’re looking at classes at the community college.”
“In Browning?”
“He’s not ready to go off on his own.” She licked the tines of her plastic fork, the dart of her tongue momentarily distracting David from the subject at hand. “Kylan is very…naïve. Easily led. He wants so bad to belong, he doesn’t see when people are using him. Ninety-nine percent of the time, if he gets in trouble it’s because he let someone talk him into doing something he shouldn’t.”
“He’ll have to learn to take care of himself someday,” David said.
Her mouth flattened into an obstinate line. “He’s got plenty of time.”
He was tempted to ask how long she planned to keep the kid under her thumb. The rest of his life? Or just until she found the right girl to take over baby-sitting duties? Starr, or someone like her, who craved a place to belong, someone who needed her, didn’t mind being as much mother as lover as long as she had a man who treated her decent. Nice plan, but David figured Kylan would eventually have other ideas, if he didn’t already.
When that happened, where did it leave Mary?
“You can have the rest.” Mary shoved her pie box toward David and jumped up, that firm little butt directly in his line of sight as she brushed the sand off her jeans with brisk slaps. David clenched his fists, fighting the urge to help her out.
“I should quit boring you with all our troubles.” She turned, avoiding his gaze as she reached for the empty sandwich bag. “I also have a bad habit of…uh…” Her eyes went wide. “Bear.”
David squinted at her, confused. Bear what? The responsibility for Kylan? Or did she mean bare, like her soul?
“Bear!” she whispered, making a jerky motion toward the trees with her chin.
David froze. Oh. Shit. “How close?” he whispered.
“Too damn,” she whispered back, her lips barely moving.
Ever so slowly, he turned his head to look over his shoulder. Less than twenty yards away, a bear stood at the edge of the trees. A big bastard, with broad, muscular shoulders and a head the size of a tree stump, sunlight gleaming off his blond coat.
“That’s not a black bear,” David whispered.
“Grizzly.” Mary breathed the word like a prayer. “What do we do?”
“You’re asking me?” David kept his eyes locked on the bear. “I’m the prairie boy. What do they teach you mountain people?”
“Mostly to hope I’m faster than you.”
David choked off a nervous laugh. The bear’s nose came up, twitching as he tested the air.
“He smells the food,” Mary whispered. “We have to get rid of it.”
David rotated his head inch by inch, eased a hand out to grab the paper bag and slide both pie boxes inside. The bear sniffed again, its beady eyes watching every move. David rolled the top of the bag to secure it, then in one swift move, pivoted onto his knees and heaved the whole thing as far as he could, toward but not directly at the bear. It flinched but didn’t give ground as the bag skidded over the rocky beach. The bear looked at the bag, then at David, head swinging side-to-side as it debated which it would rather snack on.
David grabbed Mary’s wrist and yanked her down beside him.
“Hush!” he said when she yelped in protest. He scooped one arm under her knees, slapped a hand on top of her head, folded her in half and shoved her into a space beneath the crossed logs. “Get under there.”
She pushed back, trying to resist. “No. We’ll be cornered—”
“We can’t out run him.” He gave her another shove, wedging her all the way under the logs and then dropped down behind her, still watching the bear, who stared back at him with what David hoped was a curious gleam in its eye as opposed to hunger.
“What about you?” Mary protested. “We won’t both fit—”
“I’m not snack-sized. And I’ve heard something about playing dead. Covering your head and curling up to protect your vitals.”
“Okay. Yeah. Good thinking.” She wiggled, working her way even farther into the crevice under the logs.
David eased his body flat, hating when he lost sight of the bear, praying it would lose interest when it couldn’t see him anymore. If it came around to their side of the log pile, they were screwed. David slid his arms around Mary and scooted his body as far under the logs as he could, curling his knees up and his head down until they were spooned so tightly together he could feel every shallow breath she took. Under other circumstances, it would be a real turn on, but right now all of his parts, manly and otherwise, were more concerned about staying attached.
She squirmed, twisting her head and using one hand to carefully scoop away the coarse gravel. “There’s a gap under this log. I can see him.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Nothing. Yet.”
They waited, every second an eternity, every sound magnified. The shush and splash of the waves. Distant voices calling out, too far away to hope for help even if any of the tourists had witnessed their dilemma. The bear snuffled and grunted, grinding rocks under his weight as he moved.
David’s lungs ached with the effort to corral his panic into slow, silent breaths. His heart pounded so hard he was sure Mary could feel it. He fought the rising swell of adrenaline that urged him to jump up and run, tried to block the image of claws raking his exposed back, those huge teeth clamping down on his leg, his shoulder, his neck…
“He’s moving,” she whispered. “Oh, God, he’s coming this way.”
Go for the pie, dammit. Weren’t bears supposed to be crazy about huckleberries?
Mary whispered a jumbled mix of profanities and prayers as claws clicked against the rocks. “Wait. He stopped…he’s turning…” David felt her body tremble. “He found the pie.”
Paper crumpled and tore. Styrofoam crunched as the bear helped himself to their dessert. There was slurping and the smacking of very large jaws, then David jerked, smacking his head on the log as the sound of a car horn blasted into the evening air, long and loud. The bear snorted. Rocks scattered under his retreating steps when the horn sounded again.
“He’s gone.” A shudder of relief racked Mary’s shoulders, her body going limp as the horn blared once more. “Some guy in the parking lot must’ve seen we were in trouble. And there’s a park ranger headed this way.”
David let go of Mary and rolled out from under the logs, flopping onto his back to gulp in air. “Holy shit. That was…” He slapped his free hand onto his thundering chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”
Mary’s laugh climbed the scale into the hysterical range as she squirmed free of the logs and rolled over, David’s arm still pinned under her. “Lucky for you, I know CPR.”
He turned his head, intending to make some kind of joke, and found her nose only inches from his. They both froze, awareness sizzling through the tiny space between them.
“Oh, hell,” she said. And then she kissed him.
Shock paralyzed him for a beat. Then he curled up his arm, dragging her against him while their mouths tangled, hungry and hot, adrenaline and desire crashing together and exploding into white-hot flame. He angled his head, intending to go deeper with the kiss, until he heard a shout.
Mary jerked away, pushing herself upright as footsteps rattled down the beach, coming fast.
“Are you okay?” a woman called out.
“Yeah.” Mary skimmed an unsteady hand over her hair and scrambled to her feet. “We’re fine, thanks to that guy and his car horn.”
David sat up, propping his elbows on bent knees and taking long, deep breaths, not sure whether the fear or the kiss had made him dizzier.
The ranger was a tall, bony woman, her brown hair pulled back into a neat braid and her finger on the trigger of a canister of bear spray. “Qu
ick thinking with the car horn,” she said, nodding her approval. “And smart of you to get down and lie still.”
“Not bad for a prairie boy,” Mary said, flashing David a smile that melted what was left of his brain cells. She jerked her gaze away, brushing at the dirt on her clothes. “We should get out of here, in case the bear decides to come back for seconds.”
They gathered their wits and the remains of their dinner and quick-stepped with the ranger back to the parking lot. A cluster of onlookers had gathered, eager to hear the story and offer back slaps to their rescuer. With every word, every moment they spent working through the crowd, David could feel Mary retreating, putting distance between them.
Finally, they escaped to the pickup, closed the doors and sat in shell-shocked silence for a few beats.
“Don’t say anything,” Mary warned, her eyes fixed on the mountain in front of them. “Just…don’t.”
“Okay.” Like he had any idea what to say anyway.
Her hands clenched the steering wheel. “I overreacted, all right? It’s not every day a man puts himself between me and a grizzly bear. I was…grateful.” She nodded once, then again, as if satisfied with that explanation. “I got carried away. I do that sometimes. Doesn’t mean anything. So we’ll drive back to town, I’ll drop you off and we’ll pretend this never happened, okay?”
No. Not okay. But a whole lot smarter than any of the ideas running wild in his head. “Mary—”
“Don’t.” She gave a quick, hard shake of her head. “It was a huge mistake. If Kylan knew…”
Her words brought David back to earth with a bone-rattling thud. Of course. It was all about Kylan with her. Always would be. Something David would do damn well to remember, not that he intended to stick around long enough to risk forgetting.
Fatigue rolled over him in dense gray wave, blurring his mind. He slumped down in the seat, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Just take me home.”
She did, and left him standing beside his cold, dark trailer to watch her taillights disappear into the dusk. Just as well, he told himself.
And he damn near believed it.
Chapter Seventeen
David woke up at eight the next morning, sweaty and irritated. The nose of the trailer was stifling because he’d gone to the Town Pump and filled the propane bottles when he got home, then cranked the thermostat too high because he was chilled through and through. Even after he’d kicked off all the blankets, he hadn’t slept for shit, his mind too full of Mary and bears and where he could possibly find a horse for Kylan in less than forty-eight hours.
He showered, shaved and then checked his phone for missed calls. Rusty had left a message while David was at Two Medicine dancing with grizzlies. He’d promised to call back after he’d had a chance to look into a couple of likely prospects for Kylan. Sure enough, the missed-call icon was lit up on the screen, but the number wasn’t Rusty’s.
David stared at the phone, trying to line his thoughts up into some kind of order before he returned his dad’s call. The smart thing would be to ask him to co-sign on a loan, but everything inside David balked. He couldn’t exactly say why. He just knew he wasn’t ready to give in. Not yet. He didn’t have to leave for Reno until Thursday morning. That gave him until tomorrow to figure out another way. And two more evenings he could possibly spend with Mary.
Right. Like she was gonna go for that. She’d made her opinion crystal clear the night before, when she’d booted him out in the cold without so much as a backward glance.
He splashed water on his face to rinse off the shaving cream, rubbed it dry with excessive force. Forget mooning over a woman. He’d wasted enough years and tears recovering from the last one. He had to keep his head on straight, take care of business. The first order was to tell his parents about Muddy before they found out on their own.
His dad must’ve had the phone in his hand, because he answered before the end of the first ring. “Hey, David. How’s it going?”
“Well, um, I have news. Good news.” Weird, how hard it was to get the words out. His throat went painfully tight, and his heart pounded as if this was the moment that finally made it true. “Dad, you’re not going to believe—”
“What?” his dad demanded, alarmed.
David drew a shaky breath. “I found Muddy.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then a sharp intake of air. “You’re kidding.”
“No.” David gave a shaky laugh. “Would I kid about this? It’s him, and he’s…” No, not fine. Better. “He looks great.”
Their words jumbled together, questions and answers running over top of each other as David explained where and how and as many of the details as he knew. His father’s silences grew longer and more thoughtful when David told him about Kylan.
“Hell of a thing, having to take a horse away from a kid,” his dad said. “What’s he going to ride at nationals?”
“That’s why I’m still here.” David sashayed right past the part about Mary kidnapping Muddy and the ransom demand and on to the next excuse. “His uncle asked if I’d help them find another horse.”
His dad considered that for a long moment. “Frosty would probably work great for him,” he said slowly. “But you know how Adam feels about that horse, and how he tends to fret. He’s okay as long as Frosty is with you, but I don’t think I could ask them to let you leave him with someone Adam doesn’t know.”
“You shouldn’t,” David said. “If I’m going to leave a horse here, it should be my own.”
“You can’t do that.” His dad’s voice hardened, the sympathy leaching out. “I feel bad for the boy, but Muddy is worth too much. And I don’t need to tell you what it could mean, having him for the Fourth of July rodeos.”
“I know.” But it was good to hear his dad confirm that David wasn’t just being a selfish bastard.
Female voices sounded in the background, followed by a burst of laughter “Your mom is back from the bakery, do you want to tell her yourself?”
“You go ahead.”
“Figures. You know she’s gonna cry.” His dad blew out a gusty breath, sounding a little choked up his own self. “Send us a picture, would you? I’m not gonna believe it’s him until I see his ugly little mug.”
David laughed. “He hasn’t gotten any prettier.”
“I don’t imagine, but he’ll still be a beautiful sight. And David…don’t beat yourself up. All considered, it’s damn good of you to do what you can to help the boy out. No one can expect any more.”
His dad was wrong about that. Mary expected a hell of a lot more. So did Galen, even if he did feel bad about it. And David…well, he’d rather not take any chances. If the rodeo gods were determined to whittle out one last pound of his flesh, he’d pay up, one way or the other. Then he’d move on, free and clear, with nothing more than the memory of one heart-rattling kiss to tug at his sleeve at odd moments.
He tried Rusty’s number but got the answering machine. Hilary would be in the same teachers’ training as Mary, he supposed, and Rusty was probably out doing chores. No sense sitting in the trailer, staring at the walls. David’s phone worked just as well outside, and as long as he had time to kill, he might as well put it to good use.
Frosty’s shoes were due for a re-set, so David pulled his portable anvil out of the tack compartment. Then he stopped, considered and shoved it back in, slamming the door behind. Hell with it. Muddy belonged to him and that shoeing job was driving David crazy.
He jumped Frosty into the trailer, unhooked the water and electrical lines and headed west out of the fairgrounds. Within minutes, he was turning into Mary’s driveway. As expected, her pickup was gone, but the sound of David’s engine brought Kylan out of the barn, pitchfork in hand, hair sticking out every which way from under a backward baseball cap. Out in the pasture, Muddy raised his head long enough to give the rig a brief, dismiss
ive glance, then he went back to grazing.
David climbed out of the cab, debating how best to approach Kylan. The kid didn’t give him a chance to open his mouth. He gripped the pitchfork in one hand and held up a cell phone with the other, his voice quivering.
“You better not try to take him. I’ll call JoJo and they’ll pick you up before you get a mile down the road.”
David raised both hands. “I’m not gonna steal him back.”
“Then what are you doin’ here?” Kylan demanded, waving the pitchfork with enough menace to make David decide he’d best keep his pickup door open.
“I want to re-set his shoes.”
Kylan’s eyes narrowed, suspicious. “He don’t need shoeing. We got it done right before I went to State.”
“I don’t like how he’s set.”
“Why not?”
David stifled a growl. “Get him in, I’ll show you.”
“Uh-uh. You’re tryin’ to trick me.” The pitchfork wobbled again, the tines long, shiny and very sharp.
“It’s not a trick. Here…” David reached into the pickup, pulled the keys out of the ignition and heaved them across the yard. They chinked onto the ground in front of Kylan. “Take my keys. Then I can’t leave.”
Kylan stared at the keys for a moment. His gaze bounced to his phone, then the pitchfork, then back again, stymied. He had to put something down in order to pick up the keys, but what?
David breathed a sigh of relief when he chose the pitchfork, jabbing it into a nearby bale of hay. Kylan snatched up the keys and stuffed them in his pocket, his expression still skeptical. “You really just want to shoe him?”
“Really.”
“And you’ll show me why before you do anything?”
“Yes.”
Kylan considered, then nodded. “Okay.”
While the kid went out to catch Muddy, David unloaded Frosty and tied him on the shady side of the trailer out of habit. Then he realized it was damn chilly there and moved the horse around into the sun. Criminy. Did they ever get actual summer here?
The Long Ride Home Page 11