Gideon's Bride

by Amelia Autin

  “It’s not your fault. Gideon doesn’t blame you and neither do I.”

  “If anything happens to her, he won’t be able to bear it.”

  “I know. That’s why I have to find her.”

  “You?” Emily’s confusion was obvious.

  “Me.” Rennie put her hand on Emily’s arm. “Where would she go? Think, Emily. Nicki was hurting. Where would she go?”

  “I don’t know.” But there was a flicker of something in Emily’s face.

  “I think you do. It’s someplace special to her, isn’t it? Someplace where she went with her father or her mother. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “She wouldn’t,” Emily whispered. “Not in the dark.”

  “Where?” A sense of urgency came to her out of nowhere, and she grasped the other woman’s arms tightly. “Where wouldn’t she go?”

  Emily’s frightened eyes focused on Rennie’s. “The Top of the World.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a place...oh, I can’t explain. It doesn’t have a real name, but that’s what Jo always called it. Jo loved it. Gideon...Gideon proposed to her there.”

  “Does Nicki know that?”

  “Yes. And she’s been there before. But, Rennie, it’s almost twenty miles from here! Nicki couldn’t possibly find her way in the dark.”

  “Maybe not, but I’ll bet that’s where she headed.” Rennie was already running toward the barn before she’d even finished the sentence. Emily was right behind her.

  Jim Holden was just leading out a freshly saddled horse when the two women reached the barn door. They both spoke at once.

  “Mr. Holden!”

  “Jim!”

  The women stopped and looked at each other, then Emily signaled for Rennie to go first.

  “Mr. Holden, we have to bring Gideon back. We know where Nicki went.”

  “We think we know,” qualified Emily. “But it’s worth a try, Jim. Where’s the phone? I have to reach Gideon.”

  Jim didn’t hesitate. He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out one of the cellular telephone units they used on his ranch. He punched in a series of numbers, then handed the phone to Emily.

  Anxious seconds ticked by. Emily held the phone so that Rennie could hear the unanswered rings with her. Their eyes met over the receiver, and Emily shook her head.

  “The phone doesn’t always work in these mountains. Sometimes the signals get lost. Where was Gideon’s search party heading?” This last was directed at Jim.

  “Blackridge Wash.”

  “Damn! That explains it, then.” Emily let the phone ring futilely a few more times, then disconnected it and handed it back to her father-in-law.

  “You mean we can’t get through to Gideon?” Rennie looked from Emily to Jim.

  “Looks that way. When the phones are carried into narrow ravines like Blackridge Wash,” he explained, “the steep walls prevent the signals in or out from gettin’ through. As long as they stay in Blackridge Wash, the only way to reach Gideon and the others is to go after ‘em.”

  “I can’t wait for that.” Rennie’s gaze returned to Emily. “I can’t, Emily. We can’t.”

  Emily nodded. “I know. Jim, can you ride after Gideon? Tell him we think Nicki’s gone to the Top of the World, and we’re going after her. He’ll know the place.”

  “The top of the world? Where’s that?”

  “You know the ridge that runs along northwest of Carter’s Junction, just this side of Drover’s Creek?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s a lookout spot near the top of the southernmost peak. My sister called it the Top of the World. Gideon will remember.” She turned to Rennie. “You used to be able to drive right up to it on the old logging road that winds around the mountain, until a landslide wiped out a couple of miles or so of the road. The only way to reach it now is on horseback.”

  Jim looked dubious. “That’s a far piece to go and not easy to get to. What makes you think she went there?”

  Rennie answered. “It was her parents’ special place, and Nicki knows it. Emily says Nicki’s been there before.”

  “Jo and Gideon used to take the kids up there for picnics sometimes,” Emily confirmed. Then she turned to Rennie, her eyes suddenly alight. “And I just remembered something. There’s another way to reach that ridge, and Nicki might know it. If she followed the new highway toward Carter’s Junction and turned off just past the K-Bar-H Ranch road, she’d save at least five miles. She could pick up the old logging road from there because the highway cuts right across it at the bottom of the ridge. That would take her at least halfway up the mountain. She probably thought she could find her way from that point by using the old hiking trail.”

  She gripped Rennie’s arm and added, “The more I think of it, the more I’m sure you’re right. That’s where Nicki went.”

  “But damn it all to hell and back,” Jim said, “why would she do such a damn fool thing, anyway?”

  “Gideon broke a promise,” Rennie said softly.

  “Well, hell, men have broke promises before.”

  “Not Gideon.”

  Emily cut in. “Jim, it doesn’t matter why she did it. All that matters right now is finding her. Can you hook up the double horse trailer to the truck before you go after Gideon? It’ll be faster if Rennie and I drive as far as we can before switching to horseback.” She glanced at Rennie for confirmation.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  “What about them kids sleepin’ in the house?” Jim interjected. “Who’s gonna watch ‘em?”

  “Call Reba. She phoned earlier and asked if there was anything she could do. She’s only ten minutes away.”

  “Okay. And I’ll try to raise Gideon on the phone once more while I’m at it. Maybe they’re outta Blackridge Wash by now and the signal will get through.”

  “Right. Come on, Rennie. Let’s get the horses.”

  * * *

  They drove out of the barnyard eleven minutes later. Beyond the circle of light surrounding the ranch house and the outbuildings, the night enveloped them. The pickup truck’s headlights cut a swath, bisecting the darkness as the truck jounced over the gravel road.

  Emily flicked on the heater switch. “It’ll warm up in a minute or so.”

  “I’m fine.” Rennie huddled inside the sheepskin jacket Emily had loaned her. It was two sizes too big for Rennie’s size seven figure, but she wasn’t complaining. The temperature outside couldn’t be much above freezing, and the fleece-lined jacket’s protection was welcome.

  “I keep thinking of Nicki out there in this cold,” Emily said. “Lost. Maybe hurt.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I should have kept a closer eye on her. I knew she was terribly upset about Gideon not coming home when he said he would. And I saw the look on her face when he didn’t call, either. I should have suspected something like this might happen.” Emily sighed. “Gideon trusted me to watch over his children, and I let him down.”

  “Gideon blames himself,” Rennie said quietly, “because he broke a promise. You blame yourself because you think you betrayed his trust. And I...” She paused for a moment before continuing.

  “Of the three of us, I guess I’m the most to blame. I should have predicted how Nicki would react, because I went through the same thing myself. When my mother remarried after my father died, I felt the same sense of betrayal that Nicki’s probably feeling now.”

  “Did you run away, too?”

  “In my own way I did.” The memory flashed briefly through Rennie’s mind, and her next words came straight from the heart. “There’ve been so many changes in Nicki’s life in the past two years, and she’s particularly vulnerable right now. Gideon was the one constant in her life. When he abandoned her, as she saw it, she needed her mother desperately. So she went searching for her in the only place she knew to look.”

  Silence followed, the silence of shared thoughts. The tenuous bond forged earlier toni
ght between Rennie and Emily with the recognition of kindred emotions was rapidly developing into something stronger. And despite their relationship’s strange beginnings, they both realized how easily they could become friends.

  Emily slowed the truck at the entrance to the highway, but didn’t stop before pulling onto it. The darkness within the truck’s cab stripped away the usual boundaries between relative strangers, and she found herself asking, “Did you know you cared about Gideon when you married him?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you marry him, then?”

  Rennie hated to lie to Emily. She searched for an answer that would be truthful without revealing her past. “I wanted a certain kind of life,” she said finally. “I wanted children, which I can’t have myself. And I truly believed I could win the children’s love, given time. I thought that would be enough.”

  A sad little laugh preceded Emily’s response. “I could have told you that it wouldn’t be.” Suddenly she braked sharply and turned off the highway. The truck bounced over a cattle guard, and the horse trailer rattled behind. “Hang on,” she advised.

  Hang on was about all Rennie could do. The noise in the cab as they drove over bone-jarring ruts in the winding, uphill road precluded conversation. And Emily had all she could handle just keeping the truck on the road and avoiding the worst potholes.

  By the time the truck finally stopped, Rennie felt as if every bone in her body had been rearranged. She peered out the windshield and saw a barricade across the road. The headlights didn’t carry much beyond that point.

  “This is it,” Emily said, jumping out of the truck. “Let’s get the horses.”

  Emily and Rennie let down the back of the trailer, then Emily slipped inside and backed the horses out one at a time, tying them to the trailer. Rennie fetched the saddles and horse blankets from the back of the truck.

  As they saddled up, Emily asked, “You ever done any night riding?”

  “Some.” Rennie hooked the left stirrup over the saddlehorn and tightened the cinches, then pulled the stirrup back down and adjusted the strap a couple of notches. She ducked under the horse’s neck and checked the right stirrup leather.

  “How long has it been since you’ve ridden?”

  Rennie laughed wryly. “This morning.”

  “On your honeymoon?”

  “Um-hmm. It’s quite a story.” Satisfied with the condition of the pinto mustang called Barnum, who belonged to Emily’s son, Seth, Rennie untied the reins and came back around to the left side again. “Ask me about it when we have more time and I’ll tell you what happened.”

  “It’s a deal.” Emily finished saddling Mariah, her roan mare, and glanced over at Rennie. “Do you need a leg up?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think so.” To prove her statement, Rennie fitted her foot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle, ignoring the stab of pain in her hip.

  Emily returned to the truck and came back juggling an armful of gear—a couple of battery-powered flashlights, two coils of rope, a cellular phone and a rifle. She dropped the ropes on the ground and handed both flashlights to Rennie. “Hold these for a minute.”

  Emily fitted the rifle into place, tucked the phone in her saddlebag, then picked up the ropes. She looped one of them around her saddlehorn, the other around Rennie’s. She mounted up, then brought her horse over to Rennie and retrieved one of the flashlights. “Let’s go.”

  They started out side by side, but the trail they took was too narrow to ride abreast, so Rennie fell back, letting Emily take the lead. When the trail split into two, Emily stopped for a moment to get her bearings, then chose the left fork. Rennie followed. The trail led upward at first, then veered down into a ravine.

  Rennie lost count of the ups and downs on the steep mountain trail. The sparse undergrowth and overforested pine trees gave mute testimony to the cause of the landslide that had wiped out the logging road they’d left behind.

  Night riding in the mountains, she soon discovered, was different from night riding anywhere else. There were times when the trail was so narrow she didn’t dare look down. She wasn’t afraid of heights, she reminded herself. Not really. She was just afraid of falling. Somehow the distinction was cold comfort.

  Jagged peaks loomed above them, snow still clinging to their tips. As they made their way up the mountain, the moon played hide-and-seek with the clouds, occasionally casting a ghostly glow to guide their way. But they mostly relied on the powerful flashlights they carried in their left hands. They made slow progress for that reason, and because they frequently paused to call Nicki’s name, casting their flashlight beams to each side, searching for some sign of her.

  Forty-five minutes later they stopped in a tiny clearing to rest their horses. Leather creaked as Rennie shifted in the saddle, uncomfortably aware that her body had been subjected to a great deal of physical strain in the past forty-eight hours. Her hip ached. Her thighs ached. And she ached in private places, as well. She adjusted her position as best she could, and tried to put her various aches out of her mind.

  “How far have we come?”

  Emily looked over at her. “I’m not sure. A couple of miles, maybe.”

  “Is this the only way to get there? I mean, is this the way Nicki would take?”

  “I don’t know. There are a couple of other routes, but this is the shortest way I know. I haven’t seen anything to confirm that she came this way, though. Have you?”

  “No. But it’d be easy to miss something in the dark.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “How much farther is it?”

  “A mile. Maybe less. But the hardest part is ahead of us. You ready to go on?”

  “I’m ready.” Rennie started to gather up the reins when the pinto’s head came up suddenly. His ears pricked back, then he snorted nervously and danced sideways. Rennie controlled him and looked over at Emily, who reached for her rifle.

  “What—”

  “Shh!”

  They both heard it at the same time. Hoofbeats. Coming down the trail in front of them, fast. Then a riderless horse burst into the clearing.

  Emily recognized the gelding. “Whoa, Cheyenne!” she yelled as she tried to stop him, but she was hampered by the rifle she held.

  Rennie reached for the horse’s reins as he bolted past, and just missed. “Damn!” She watched in frustration as the horse disappeared into the darkness beyond the clearing. “Was that Nicki’s horse?”

  Emily nodded. “Something sure spooked him. It doesn’t look good, but at least now we know we’re on the right trail. Come on.”

  They left the clearing single file, with renewed urgency. Almost immediately the path narrowed and the incline steepened, making passage difficult and footing unstable. Emily’s mare stumbled once, hooves slipping. Rennie held Barnum up and waited. Absently she turned her flashlight to the left and glanced in that direction.

  She almost missed it. Her eyes passed over it at first, then swung abruptly back as something registered. It wasn’t much as clues went, just a shallow depression where a rock had once lain. But the dark, moist patch it left behind was out of place in the seemingly undisturbed area.

  Rennie urged the pinto closer to it and saw the indentation of fresh hoofprints all around. Her eyes widened. She kicked free of the stirrups and slid out of the saddle, clutching the reins tightly. She inched closer to the dangerous edge and shone the flashlight beam downward. Her breath caught in her throat. The powerful beam picked out a narrow ledge about thirty feet below. And precariously positioned on that ledge lay the body of a child. Nicki.

  Chapter 10

  “Oh my God!” The fervent whisper was torn from Rennie as she frantically swept the flashlight beam over Nicki’s body, praying for some sign that Gideon’s daughter was still alive. The slight figure never stirred.

  A horse snorted, and suddenly Emily was dismounting to come to her side. “Rennie, what—oh, no! Nicki!”

  Rennie thrust her horse’s reins into the
other woman’s hands, and laid herself flat on her stomach, disregarding the dangerously crumbling cliff edge. “Nicki! Nicki, can you hear me? Nicki!” She dropped the flashlight and cupped her hands around her mouth for added carrying power. Emily’s voice joined hers as they called Nicki’s name repeatedly. But there was no response.

  Rennie picked up the flashlight and again played it over the little girl’s body as it lay facedown on the narrow ledge. Nothing. No movement, not even the tiniest indication of life.

  She stood up. “I’m going down there.”

  “But I should be the one—”

  “I’m smaller than you. There’s no telling how stable that ledge is—it could give way under any more weight. We can’t chance it.” She grabbed the coils of rope slung around her saddlehorn and began unlooping them. “Besides, it’ll be easier for you to lower me than the other way around.”

  Emily hesitated only for a second. “You’re right. Here, you hold the horses. I’ll do that. I’ve climbed in these mountains before.” She stripped off her leather gloves and tucked them in her back pocket, then took the rope from Rennie. She retrieved the other coil of rope from her own horse and fastened the two ropes together. “One won’t be long enough,” she said by way of explanation. When she was done, she tied one end to her saddlehorn and quickly fashioned the other end into a sling.

  While she was doing that, Rennie led the pinto out of the way and tied him to a scrub pine. She stole a few seconds to bury her face against his neck, uttering a prayer for courage. The thought of going down the cliff in the dark, dangling on the end of a rope, terrified her.

  “I don’t have a choice,” she whispered. “Nicki needs me.”

  Emily was finished by the time Rennie returned, and was tugging her gloves back on. She efficiently fitted the sling around Rennie, then, with coaxing words, she backed her big roan mare up the trail a few steps and ground-tied her. She took hold of the rope, positioned herself a safe distance from the edge of the cliff and pulled the rope taut.

  Emily looked at Rennie. “Have you ever done this before?” Rennie shook her head. “Well, I have. Hold the rope with both hands. Keep your toes pressed against the cliff face if you can, and lean out. But don’t look down. You have to trust me—I won’t let you fall. I’ll walk you down nice and easy. Okay?” Rennie nodded. “Are you ready?”