She glanced at the trees and the trail behind them. “You think they’re here—the deputies?”
“I haven’t seen any motorcycle tracks, but better to be safe.” He pulled the pistol from the waistband of his jeans and set it on the boulder beside him. He noticed Mariah eyeing the gun, something was obviously bothering her. “What?” he asked.
“I was just wondering. If you had the gun yesterday, why you didn’t...”
“Shoot them?”
She nodded.
“They surprised me,” he grumbled. “Jumped me when I stopped to rest. The gun was in the pack on the bike; I couldn’t get to it. One minute I was leaning over, scooping water out of a stream and the next they were on me.”
She looked horrified and fascinated. “How did you get away?”
“The jerks were enjoying their job a little too much. They toyed with me instead of finishing it Eventually I was able to make a break for the bike.”
“So you just took off?”
“What should I have done? Pulled the gun and shot them?”
“They could have killed you.”
“They didn’t.” He fingered the still-tender lump on his head. “Although I almost managed that for them, thinking I could still ride like I was sixteen.”
She didn’t laugh.
“I’ll use the gun, Mariah, if I have to, to protect you or to save my own life, but only if there is no other choice. I’m not looking for a showdown.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Disappointed?”
“That you’d rather avoid a fight than kill two men? No, I’m not disappointed.”
Her gaze felt uncomfortably warm where it met his. He lay back on the boulder, stretching his aching legs out in front of him, then tipped back off the far end of the rock, until he was looking at her upside down.
Contemplating her solitary smile, he asked, “What are you doing up here all alone, Mariah?”
“I’m not alone. I’m with you.”
“I don’t mean this ride, I mean your life. How come you haven’t found some country bumpkin to settle down with?”
“You mean, why don’t I have a man to take care of me.” She arched one eyebrow at him.
“I mean, why don’t you have a lover to share all this with. ”
Her arched brow fell. “Who says I don’t?”
He hesitated a minute, and then smiled. She’d almost gotten him that time. “You do. The way you look at me sometimes.”
“You’d better put a rein on that imagination of yours, city boy, it’s about to run off with you.”
“Is it?” He studied her as she brushed an invisible something off of her thigh. He waited for her to settle back down. “You were good with those kids today.”
A shadow of sorrow passed over her fine features, then disappeared as if it had never been there. “Thanks, so were you. I appreciate your help with Tucker.”
“Ever think about raising a brood of your own?”
“I have all the children I can handle.”
He got it. “All with four legs and furry ears.”
“They’re still my babies.”
“You don’t ever wish for anything more?”
She shrugged. “I have everything I need.”
“Yeah, but do you have everything you want?”
Silent, she screwed the cap onto her water bottle and tossed her apple core into the bushes for some wild critter to nibble. “I guess I’m just too busy to think about it.”
Answer enough, he supposed. He understood her fierce independence, even admired it. He just hated to see her dedicate her life to a ranch, a single ambition, to the exclusion of all of the other treasures life had to offer. But dreams could do that to you, he knew.
He sat up, dizzy as the blood that had pooled in his head drained in a rush. Mariah was fiddling with the saddles.
“How far up the mountain does your property go?” he asked to pass a little more time, hoping to delay having to get back on the horse. Assuming he could get back on the horse.
“About another quarter mile.”
“After that?”
“Government land. Almost two-million acres of the Dixie National Forest.”
“That much?” He remembered reading somewhere that the government owned something like sixty percent of the state, but it hadn’t sunk in until now how much open country that really covered. He looked over the valley, and the blanket of trees extending as far as the eye could see. “A man could get lost out there forever.”
“Don’t worry, city boy, I won’t let you get lost.”
“How far are we from Will Granger’s place?”
Manah stowed the empty water bottles. “The property line runs less than a half mile east.”
“That close?” He automatically looked east and noticed a small path, overhung by low branches, cut into the trees. The only other way out of the clearing seemed to be up the rocky cliff. And no one but a mountain goat would go that way. Which meant they would be cutting pretty close to Granger’s property.
“Will’s land runs parallel to the Double M but extends a lot higher up the mountain.” She finished fiddling with the straps and buckles on the horses and looked at him. “Ready?”
Eric stifled a groan as he followed Mariah’s lead and mounted his horse, but stopped when he saw the direction she headed.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he exclaimed. She had turned her horse toward the cliff.
“What’s wrong?”
“We can’t go that way!”
“Sure we can. Honey and Penny are the two most surefooted horses I own. They’ll be fine. Once we get to the top, we’ll be able to see Fannin’s Run. That’s where I was supposed to meet Mike.”
The horses might be fine, but Eric wouldn’t be. He looked at the trailhead leading into the trees. “What’s that way?”
“The opposite of the way we’re going?” she said impertinently.
Something about the look in her eyes gave him pause. “What’s down that trail, Mariah?”
“Nothing.” She worried Penny’s reins between her fingers. “Just an old cabin,” she finally blurted. “No one’s been there in years.”
He turned his horse toward the trees.
“Eric, no,” she called. “Don’t go there.”
He stopped under the bough of the first fir. “Why not?”
“There’s nothing there... just...” Her voice sounded far off and wispy.
“Why not, Mariah?” he asked more firmly.
“Because that’s where it happened,” she whispered. “That’s where my parents died.”
Eric’s heartbeat slowed to a dull, painful thud. “How did it happen?”
“It was an accident,” she said after a moment’s pause. “My dad was cleaning his rifle. They said it looked like he shot my mom by mistake, then turned the gun on himself because he couldn’t live with what he’d done.”
Eric flinched, unable to stop the sudden physical reaction to her words and the rush of empathy he felt for her. What a horrific, violent way to lose a loved one. But his loss of Mike was no less horrific. No less violent or sudden.
He needed to ride down that trail. To see for himself what had happened there. To see for himself that it had nothing to do with Mike.
Looking into the shimmer of her eyes, though, the urge to stay with her, to watch over and comfort her, also surged strong in his blood. And that, he thought, was the essence of his fear.
With every hour that had passed, his motives for staying with Mariah became less clear. Somehow the search for the truth about his brother had become twisted with a need to protect her.
Ironically, if Mike was dead, she might yet prove to be responsible. Even she couldn’t say for sure that she wasn’t, although he didn’t believe it in his heart.
Was that why he’d relented and agreed to this ride? Not to prove to the world who was responsible for Mike’s disappearance, but to prove to himself who wasn’t?
Careful to avoid her wounded gaze, Eric
made up his mind. His duty to Mike came first. He couldn’t afford distractions. Especially distractions with the most appealing and, at the moment, vulnerable violet eyes he’d ever seen.
“Please don’t go there, Eric. I hate that place. It’s...evil.”
He heard again his brother’s voice, as if Mike were there, whispering in his ear.
“She’s to die for. ”
He gathered up his reins and turned his horse toward the trees. “There are no ghosts on this mountain, Manah.” For either one of us.
Leaving Mariah behind, Eric went down the track out of the clearing.
He found the cabin easily. It turned out to be a shack. Crouching behind a bush at the edge of the wood surrounding the little hut, he forced himself to concentrate on the weathered paneling and sagging stoop. His mind, however, had other priorities. He looked at the shack, but he saw Mariah, waiting alone in that clearing.
God knew what would happen if he didn’t get back to her soon. The woman had a knack for attracting trouble. Still, he had a feeling about this place. A feeling that there was more to Mariah’s story than she’d told, and that bothered him.
He swatted at the insect biting the back of his neck. A twig snapped behind him and he whirled, his fists already up for a fight.
Mariah.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Even as he hissed at her, he felt a grateful rush of warmth that she had come. At least now he could keep an eye on her.
“I thought it would be safer if we stayed together,” she whispered, her eyes round as she looked past him to the cabin.
The area leading up to the front stoop was overgrown. One shingle hung drunkenly next to the front window, looking as if a hint of a breeze would break it free.
“See,” Mariah whispered. “No one’s been here in years.”
“Then why are you whispering?”
The scurry of rodent feet greeted him when he opened the door. Cobwebs hung around the frame like lacy curtains. He swept them away with his hand and stepped into the cabin. The air inside smelled dank and unused.
“It’s just like when we left it,” Mariah said behind him.
“How long since you’ve been here?”
“More than twelve years.”
He stepped farther into the room. Sunlight filtered through the single grimy window and illuminated a room that might have been homey twelve years ago. A couch that looked like it doubled as a foldout bed sat against the back wall, the spread covering it, probably once bright orange, faded to dull rust. A wood-burning stove took up one corner. A rough pine table and four chairs took up the other. Two ceramic mugs still hung neatly above the tiny sink that had a pump for a faucet.
Turning, he saw Mariah had walked into the kitchen. She was standing near the table, her hand clenching the back of a chair in a white-knuckled grip. Her complexion had paled to a deathly hue. A large dark stain marred the floor at her feet.
“Mariah? You okay?”
She swallowed hard, swayed. Her eyes were wide, distant. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought she was sleepwalking.
“This is where it happened.” Her voice drifted across the room like fog on the night.
He walked toward her, but her eyes didn’t track him. She didn’t seem aware of him any longer.
“Where my parents died.”
“I know. You told me.”
“Oh, God. There was so much blood. And it was loud. I put my hands over my ears. And then I ran. I ran and I ran.
Enc’s heart did a double-whammy against the wall of his chest. As he stood in front of her, he felt the horror radiate from her in palpable waves. “You were here when it happened?”
He hadn’t realized. Why hadn’t he thought to ask?
“It wasn’t really an accident, you know. My dad never cleaned that gun. He never even touched it. He was a pacifist, a naturalist. I’d never seen the rifle out of the closet before that night.” Her face grew tight. Care lines etched themselves around her eyes. Her lower lip wobbled as her eyes drifted closed. The whole room seemed to pulse with the strength of her pain. Outside, a bird shrieked a shrill call to its mate.
Forcing down the lump that had formed in his esophagus, he took her hand. Her fingers held his in an icy grip. He pulled her into an embrace, ran his hands over her shaking back, warming her.
The lump he’d been forcing back in his throat grew larger, harder. Mariah had told him her parents died when she was fifteen. Even at eighteen, losing his father had been tough on Eric. And he’d still had his mother and Mike. To lose everything, be left totally alone, at an age that’s tough under the best of circumstances, he couldn’t imagine. He didn’t want to imagine it, not for Mariah.
If it wasn’t an accident... “Did you see your parents die, Mariah?” he asked as gently as he could manage. “Did you see what really happened?”
“I—I don’t know.”
He waited. Her breathing gradually grew slower, deeper. “I mean, yes, but...I never remembered before now.”
He froze. “You mean you blocked their deaths out, too? You’ve had amnesia before?”
She stepped into the room and sat in a pine chair at the kitchen table. “I should have told you.”
His compassion for her and what she’d been through warred with his anger. “Why would you hide something like that?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“Not relevant—the fact that you have a history of amnesia? Particularly hysterical amnesia? Or did you have an accident then, too?” He tamped down his impatience. “What were you doing here?”
“We came camping every year when school let out.” She frowned, and the little crease of worry appeared between her brows. “That year I didn’t want to come. Pitched a big fit about it.”
“Why?”
“There was an end-of-the-year dance at school, and I wanted to go. They said I was too young. I sulked around the cabin all week. I’m sorry. It was so long ago. I just didn’t see that it had anything to do with what happened to Mike.”
She shook her head, kicked her toe at the floor and then raised her gaze to his again, her jaw set in that familiar stubborn pose. “You should know it all now. Some people thought—that is, there was always speculation—that I killed my parents.”
“Was there any proof?”
“The only prints on the rifle were mine.”
He sucked in a sudden breath.
“But there was no gunpowder residue on my hands,” she added quickly. “The evidence was...inconclusive. So no charges were filed.”
“And you never remembered anything about it?”
“No. Until just now.”
“What did you remember?”
“Blood. On my hands and my clothes. And running through the woods. I tripped and fell and when I got up, dirt and pine needles stuck to my hands. To the blood on my hands. And noise. It was loud.”
“What was loud. Gunshots?”
She nodded, then her eyes widened. “But not just the gunshots. There was another noise.”
“What?”
“Motorcycles. I remember the sound of motorcycles.”
Eric’s heart stopped beating, the ice water in his veins finally frozen solid.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head, forcing his lungs to expand, his heart to beat once again. “Maybe you’re confusing the two—Mike’s death with your parents’.”
“Maybe.”
A feeling of doom settled over Eric’s shoulders like a physical weight. The skin on the back of his neck turned clammy and prickly. Mariah was right. This place was evil. But she was remembering. Maybe if they pushed on, she would remember more.
His heart pinched at the thought of putting her through it. In restoring her memories of Mike, he might be leading her to relive her parents’ deaths, also. He was no expert, but he figured those memories would be extremely traumatic.
“Mariah, have you ever tried to recove
r your memories of what happened that day?”
She sniffed and laughed bitterly. “Only every day of my life since then.”
“I mean with professional help.”
“I know what you mean.” She wiped her face with her shirtsleeve. “I stayed at the hospital for several weeks. I know the doctors that saw me weren’t all medical doctors. And once I came home I saw a shrink in St. George a few times. She was nice. She made me feel better. But I still didn’t remember anything. Not even under hypnosis. It was as if the harder I tried, the farther away the memories got. Sometimes I feel them, so close. I think I could just reach out and grab them.” She clamped her lips in a hard line. “That’s why I like to bring Jet up here, because he’s so fast. Sometimes I think I could catch the memories, if I could just ride fast enough.”
She blinked up at him through her tears. “Stupid, huh?”
“No. Not stupid.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and let his fingers linger on her nape.
He knew a thing or two about running. Except while Manah had been running headlong toward her fears, trying to face them, he’d been running away from his.
“Do you want to go home?” The question burned in his throat. How could he turn back now, when they were so close?
She stood up, her back straight, her eyes alight. “No way.”
He probably shouldn’t listen to her. He probably should take her home and tuck her in bed, but they’d come too far. He had to think of Mike.
He took her hand and tugged. “Then let’s get moving,” he said, his voice rougher than he would have liked.
Her hand fit neatly inside of his, she followed without a word.
Within the hour, they’d crested the last hill, and Mariah pointed west. “Well, there it is. Fannin’s Run.”
Eric’s gaze traced the dry gorge from where it first came into sight near the peak of the mountain to where it petered out in the valleys below.
“I found this really cool gorge way up high, ” he heard Mike’s voice say. “I’m thinking I could jump it.... ”
“That’s no gorge, it’s the goddamn Grand Canyon.”
A few minutes later, Mariah led Eric along the edge of the Run. “This is it. This is where Mike was supposed to be that day,” she said, watching his face.
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