The massive animal kept moving, sheer momentum keeping it going, then its front legs buckled and it skidded to a halt not ten feet away.
She stood there staring at it, the unbearable stench almost making her gag, but her feet were rooted to the ground and she couldn’t make herself move.
Dare struggled to his feet and staggered toward her, swiping at the blood that had turned his entire face into a red mask. “Angie.” His rough voice was as gentle as it would ever be, could ever be. “Nice shooting, sweetheart.” Very carefully he took his rifle from her, propped it against the rock, then eased his left arm around her.
Her knees buckled, but he was there, his powerful body providing support. Her head swam, and she clutched his coat, afraid she might pass out. She couldn’t faint; she refused to faint. But now that it was over, she could panic. She deserved a little panic. Her vision swam a little, her heart pounded. The temperature was still cold, but her palms were sweating. She’d almost lost Dare. That was all she could think. He’d been bleeding and the bear had been going straight for him, and she’d almost lost him. She’d just found him, and that damn bear—No, she couldn’t even complete the thought, not after watching what it had done to Chad.
She tried to say something, but couldn’t. Dare wrapped both of his arms around her, even the arm that was bloody, and pulled her in close and tight, and she sighed. She cried, but just a little, because she wasn’t a crier. Taking a page from his book, she cussed a blue streak, and felt better for it. She tried to stop shaking, but couldn’t. Finally she simply allowed herself to tremble. She’d earned it, damn it.
When she could think, she said, “Damn it, Dare, you’re bleeding all over me. If you bleed to death I’ll never forgive you.”
He said, “Yeah, I love you, too.”
There were things to do, things she had to do. Afterward she couldn’t be certain exactly when she forced herself from the shelter of his arms, but she did. She made him sit down. She wiped at the blood on his face until she could see the gash above his right eye; it would definitely need stitches. When she questioned him, he admitted that he had a little bit of double vision, so he’d probably given himself a mild concussion when his head hit the rock. She helped him take off his coat and both shirts, so she could examine that wound. It was actually bleeding less than the cut on his head, but it was an ugly wound, purplish and jagged, tearing through the pad of flesh just under his arm. She washed it with some of their drinking water, then tore his T-shirt into strips and tied a thick pad over the wound, then did the same for the cut over his eye.
When she was finished, he said, “If we don’t move away from that stinking fucker, I’m going to choke.”
The smell was overwhelming, but she’d ignored it by focusing instead on taking care of Dare. Now that he’d mentioned it, though, she suddenly found herself gagging, and they moved farther downhill as fast as they could.
Her mind hummed with details, unable to settle on anything. Her rifle hadn’t fired, and she couldn’t figure out why. Dare had cleaned it, reassembled it. The firing pin had worked; she’d heard it.
She’d never handled his rifle before. She hadn’t known at what distance he’d sighted in his scope, she hadn’t thought about it, she’d simply aimed and fired.
The bear had spooked the horse, of course. That was why—
The horse.
“Hey,” she said, “we have a ride.”
“If you can catch it.”
She gave him a withering look, trying to act normal even though it was an effort. Her insides felt like gelatin. “Of course I can catch it. It’s my horse.”
“Then you do that, while I figure out why your rifle wouldn’t fire.”
He needed to be sitting still, conserving both strength and blood, but she didn’t waste time arguing with him because she knew it wouldn’t do any good. They needed to know why her rifle hadn’t fired; Chad was dead and the bear was dead, but that didn’t mean there would be no more danger crossing their path. They had his rifle, sure, but what if something happened to it? The wilderness wasn’t forgiving; for safety’s sake, they should have a backup.
She couldn’t let herself think too much about either Chad or the bear, at least not now. Maybe later, when the carnage wasn’t right there, both physically and mentally. Instead she focused on what needed doing right now, which was catching the chestnut. It hadn’t completely bolted, the way Dare’s horse had done. She could catch a glimpse of it below them in the tree line, but the animal was moving nervously. The wind was blowing toward her so it was carrying the scent of the bear away from the horse, which should make it possible for her to calm it down. It knew her scent, her voice; other than that, horses were herd animals that didn’t like being alone. On the other hand, Dare’s blood was on her, and when she got close the chestnut might not like that. She’d told Dare she could catch her horse, but she had to admit to herself that, with her bad ankle and the other factors, it might not happen.
Getting her walking stick, she carefully picked her way down the sloping meadow and into the trees, talking calmly the whole time, using the same words she often used when she was feeding or grooming them. The chestnut shifted around, pawed the ground with one hoof, but it didn’t shy away as she got closer.
Still, instinct made her stop in her tracks, sensing that if she moved any farther she might frighten it into running again. With her bum ankle she didn’t want to pursue the chestnut even one foot more than necessary. She even backed up a couple of steps, let the horse eye her, let it shake its head as it considered the situation by whatever horsey standards it used.
Several minutes ticked by. She remained in place, still calmly talking. The chestnut took a couple of steps toward her, then stopped to nose a bush, looking for something to graze. Angie took a step forward and the chestnut abruptly raised its head. She stopped again, and crooned to it. The horse stood and watched her, but didn’t come any closer.
Slowly, keeping her movements measured, Angie lowered herself to the ground, sitting as comfortably as she could without bending her ankle.
After a few minutes of watching her, the chestnut blew out air that sounded like a big human sigh, and began ambling toward her. When it was close enough it dropped its head down and snuffled her hair, then along her shoulder. She held her breath, waiting to see if the smell of blood spooked it, but it continued to check her out. “Good boy,” Angie said softly, reaching up to grip the trailing reins. “Good boy.”
She led the horse out of the tree line and started up the slope with him, but Dare motioned for her to stay where she was and not bring him any closer, where the smells might spook the chestnut again. Dare shouldered all their supplies and both rifles, despite the wound in his shoulder, and made his way down to them.
“Bad ammunition,” he reported tersely. “The whole box. I tried some shells in my rifle, and not one of them would fire. I’ve reloaded both rifles with my shells.”
Bad ammo. It happened. It had never happened to her before, but her dad had gotten a bad batch once. If Dare hadn’t been there, if he’d been wounded so badly he hadn’t been able to toss his rifle to her … but he had. There was no point in thinking about what might have happened.
What mattered was that they were alive, they were together, and they were going home.
Chapter Thirty
Of course they argued about who would ride and who would walk. Dare had been shot, and she was hobbled by a bum ankle. Dare wasn’t a lightweight and the chestnut wasn’t a big horse like Samson, so riding double wasn’t a really good option. In the end, he won the argument because even though he was woozy, he was still faster on his feet than she was. He ate two protein bars, drank two bottles of water, and pronounced himself good to go. She pronounced him too thick-headed to be anything other than half-Neanderthal, with maybe a little troglodyte thrown into the genetic mixture, then she’d completely humiliated herself by getting teary again and telling him that she loved him.
He just l
ooked smug and said, “Yeah, I know.”
They made it to Ray Lattimore’s place in the nick of time, just as twilight was giving way to complete darkness. Not much got by Ray—he kept an eagle eye out, not just on his own property but on that of the people who parked their equipment there—and the porch lights came on before they were halfway up the driveway to his house. Ray came outside, flashlight in his hand. “Who’s there?”
“Dare Callahan and Angie Powell,” Dare called back.
“What the—?” The powerful flashlight beam went over them. They had to look the worse for wear after everything that had happened. After continued applied pressure had stopped Dare’s head wound from bleeding she’d wiped away as much of the blood as she could, but he still looked as if he’d escaped from a slaughterhouse. She wasn’t wounded, but she figured she looked like some wild woman who’d never seen electric lights before. “What the hell happened to you two?” Ray asked, coming down off the porch and heading toward them as fast as he could move, which was still pretty fast even at his age.
“Short story, one of Angie’s clients murdered the other, then a bear got him, and Angie got the bear,” Dare replied in his growly voice, condensing the events into fewer than twenty words. She stared at him, her mouth open.
“Not to mention Dare’s been shot!” she snapped. “But he’s too butt-stubborn to ride.”
“Angie sprained her ankle. We made better time with her riding instead of walking,” Dare returned, and damn if Ray didn’t nod his head in agreement. Dare clasped his hands around her waist and bodily lifted her off the horse, even though there was no reason why she couldn’t dismount on her own. He was taking care of her, and her throat clogged up. She might never get used to this feeling of being treasured, but damn if it didn’t get to her.
“You two come on in, let’s get you taken care of,” Ray said. “I’ll start making calls. You ran into a man-eater, huh? Gonna be a lot of questions about that.”
Ray’s wife, Janetta, came out on the porch just in time to hear what Ray said, and caught her breath when she saw them. “Angie! Dare! Oh, my lord,” she said, rushing down the steps. “A bear did this?”
“No, the bear didn’t get us,” Angie replied. “I sprained my ankle, is all, but Dare got shot.” She slanted him a gimlet look. “The stubborn ass needs taking care of,” she added with grim triumph, because Janetta’s reputation for commando nursing was known all over the area. If you didn’t want a poultice, splint, stitches, or any number of other remedies applied to you, then it was best not to let her know about any ailment.
Dare shot her a quick look that promised retribution, then Janetta was on him, and he was swept up on the tide of orders she issued. Angie smiled in satisfaction. She’d come in for her own share of Janetta-style attention, eventually, but a sprained ankle was boring compared to a gunshot wound.
Things happened fast after that. Ray made his calls, and soon his place was swarming with law enforcement and wildlife management types, as well as medics. The medics didn’t have a lot to do, because by then Janetta had done a lot of cleaning and bandaging. Angie and Dare were both transported to Butte for medical attention. Her ankle was X-rayed, just to make sure she didn’t have a simple fracture, but Dare not only had to be stitched up; he was put on an IV round of heavy antibiotics, which meant he had to stay overnight, which massively pissed him off.
There was a mountain of absolutely necessary reports that had to be filed, and an endless supply of questions that had to be answered. Angie and Dare were kept separated, questioned separately, but though it was annoying she wasn’t alarmed, because when the authorities got up to the three kill sites they’d find exactly what they were told they’d find.
Word spread fast. The next day Dare was released from the hospital, without so much as even a low fever. A small group of friends gathered at Lattimore’s and went with the authorities up into the mountains to search for their missing horses. The group returned that afternoon with her three, which had been found fairly quickly—they’d pulled their reins free but remained together, which wasn’t all that surprising.
Angie almost burst into tears when she saw them; she had to get over this sudden inclination to let things make her teary-eyed, but the truth was it would take time for her emotions to settle down. Samson nudged her, hard enough to almost knock her off her feet, as if he was admonishing her for not taking better care of them, and she briefly laid her head against his muscled neck. They were in pretty good shape—hungry, some scratches, but no damage other than that. Some of the tension drained away from her, now that she had them back and they were okay.
Dare’s buckskin wasn’t found for three more days, miles to the north. When the animal was finally trailered back to Dare’s barn, he called the horse every name in the book and then some, all the while gently patting its neck and calming down the nervous animal.
“My horses are evidently smarter than yours,” Angie told him, just to take a jab, because she’d been taking it easy on him—after all, he’d been shot—and enough was enough.
“He’s not much more than a baby,” Dare had countered. “Give him a couple more years, and he’ll be a damn good trail horse. I’m a patient man. I can wait.”
That about said it all, though she’d have described it more as stubborn than patient. He simply didn’t give up.
After about a week, they’d settled down to serious discussions. Somehow, by then, there hadn’t seemed any doubt in either of their minds that they’d be getting married, so much so that he never actually asked. They simply started talking about property and making wedding plans, and that was it.
They got married late in the spring, after the heavy winter snow had finally melted and the flowers were blooming. Angie would’ve been happy with a judge and a few friends, but Dare had insisted, in his words, “If we’re going to fucking do this, we’re doing it fucking right.” She hadn’t argued with him.
So here they were, in church on a bright Saturday afternoon. There were flowers and candles, well-dressed friends and neighbors who had gathered for the day. Her old friends from Billings had even made the two-hundred-plus-mile drive to be there, and she wasn’t even embarrassed that they’d witnessed her first fiasco of a wedding. That was then, and this was, well, this was Dare. They had even celebrated with her—by e-mail, and completely without sarcasm—when she announced that she’d fallen in love with the man she’d previously referred to only as The Asshole. Only true friends would do that.
Dare hadn’t bought her property; she felt guilty about Harlan not getting the sales commission, but he didn’t seem to mind. Her property remained in her name, because taking out a new mortgage on it would just add more to their debt load, which didn’t make sense. With their guide businesses combined, financially they were in good shape; they could have afforded a bigger wedding, but that wasn’t anything either of them wanted.
She wore a white gown. It was nothing fancy, just a simple sheath dress. Her shoes were awesome. Normally she didn’t get all excited about shoes, but this was her wedding day and she wanted to be able to show her kids—there was a shocker, Dare wanted kids, and when she thought about it she wanted them, too, with a ferocity that surprised even herself—her sparkly and beautiful shoes, especially if one of those kids was a daughter. She wore her hair down, sleek and heavy, the way Dare liked it, and carried a bouquet of spring flowers. Harlan was going to give her away.
Dare had gotten more and more testy as their wedding date got closer, because the one thing she hadn’t done was move in with him, no matter how he argued and growled. Their little community was too small, the values too traditional. They seldom spent a night apart, either at his place or hers, but she insisted on keeping a separate household until they got married.
And that day was here, finally.
Angie held on to Harlan’s arm, her heartbeat hammering as her gaze roamed up and down the aisle of the small church. People had already turned to look at her, but the music hadn’
t yet begun for her to begin the long walk. At the altar, the preacher waited along with Dare. There was no best man, no bridal attendants, just Dare and her. There were familiar faces turned toward her, but all she could see was her soon-to-be husband—in a suit. Damn, he looked good, tall and hard and tough. He was the reason her heart was hammering, and those damn butterflies were swarming in her stomach.
Angie looked up at Harlan, broke into a grin, and abruptly forgot about bridal dignity; exuberantly she threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Again?” Harlan huffed, obviously a little embarrassed even though he gave her an encompassing hug in return, rocking her back and forth. “You’ve thanked me probably once a week for the past six months.”
“Then you should be used to it by now.” Just because, she kissed him on the cheek, too. If he hadn’t sent Dare into the mountains to keep an eye on her, she might not be alive today. And just as important … she wouldn’t have found what she’d found with Dare: both love and a partner in all ways. And he’d been right under her stubborn nose the entire time; if it hadn’t been for Harlan, who knows what might have happened? Anything was possible, but she doubted she’d be as happy as she was at this moment.
“I thought you might be mad at me for, you know, worrying that you couldn’t handle things on your own,” Harlan confessed, as if he hadn’t already told her the same thing every time she thanked him.
“Some things aren’t supposed to be handled alone.” She resumed her dignified stance, with her head held high and her smile in place, her gaze locked on Dare. “You saved my life as surely as he did, and I won’t forget that. Not ever.”
Harlan pressed his lips together, lifted his chin. “Don’t you make me cry, young lady. This is an important duty, filling in for your father, and I won’t do it blubbering like an old man.”