Rain Shadow
Book 4 of 5
The Barringer Brothers Series
Tess Oliver
Rain Shadow Book 4
Copyright© 2014 by Tess Oliver
Cover Design by: Avanti Graphics
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All Rights are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Tess Oliver
Chapter 1
Angel
The jagged bolt of light split the charcoal sky in two. Swollen black clouds had floated in so quickly, it almost seemed as if they’d just formed spontaneously over Gage’s ranch. I heard Luke stirring in the bedroom. He’d slept later than usual. I’d gotten up with Gage. Now he’d left for work, and I stayed in the small living room wrapped in a cotton throw and nursing my coffee. It was definitely colder up here.
The first drops plunked down on the roof like someone drumming a table with fingers, but another bolt of lightning and clap of thunder brought a deluge that was so heavy rainwater came down in sheets off the porch portico.
I gasped. “The horses.” I raced into the bedroom. Luke was sitting on the edge of the bed looking groggy. He still suffered from long bouts of insomnia. The nightmare with Dex had permanently screwed up his sleep. There were times when it didn’t seem to affect him much and times when he looked bleary eyed and tired. This seemed to be one of those days. I squirmed out of my long johns.
Luke watched me with undivided interest. “I was just going to suggest you get naked.” I yanked on my jeans.
“That was not going to be part of my suggestion.”
“I’ve got to get the horses into the barn.”
“But it’s pouring.”
“That’s why I’ve got to get the horses inside. And there’s lightning and thunder too.” I sat on the bed and pulled on my boots. “Chance is a total chicken when it comes to thunder. Besides, it’s not safe for them out there. Too many trees.”
Luke swung his feet to the floor. “I’ll get dressed and come out to help.”
“That’d be great.”
Gage’s dogs looked up from the large floor pillows in the front room. Then, obviously uninterested in going out in the storm, their big heads dropped back down. I pulled my sweatshirt hood up over my head in a ridiculous attempt to keep it dry. A cotton sweatshirt was a pathetic excuse for rain gear. It was soaked twenty feet into my journey across the yard. My boots sucked into puddles with every step.
The raindrops were as big and heavy as hail. Lightning cracked the air and thunder followed seconds later. It had gotten closer. When I was younger and Aunt Gracie came to my cabin, afraid of the storm, we’d always count Mississippis to see how far the storm was. I couldn’t have counted more than two this time.
Gage’s three horses looked miserable and wet. Rain poured down off their withers and backs, and they stared at me with a plea to get them inside. I was pretty sure that if I opened the gate, they’d run voluntarily to the barn. Unfortunately, Chance was going to make that too hard. My massive horse paced the fence like a crazed beast. Nervous steam puffed from his flared nostrils, and his white feathers were covered in mud.
Lightning lit up the dark gray sky just as I reached the gate. The thunder that followed caused all the horses to startle, but my brilliant, brave steed was no longer waiting around to see what else Mother Nature had in store. He charged toward the fence, and at seventeen hands, he easily jumped it. Off he went, with no real idea where the hell he was heading, but he’d obviously convinced himself he could outrun the scary noises.
“Chance!” I yelled, knowing full well it was futile.
Gage’s horses lined up obediently at the gate. I snatched a halter off the post, but, as I’d assumed, they led themselves out of the pasture and straight into the barn. Gage’s horses were obviously a bit more Montana savvy, but there was no excuse for my silly animal. We’d had plenty of thunderstorms in Nevada.
I followed the horses into the barn. It seemed the lightning had slowed some. Hopefully, Chance, who was generally not big on spending energy, had stopped once he reached the shelter of the trees.
Gage’s horses milled about the barn aisle, waiting for me to open up stalls. Only one, a mare, seemed to wonder if she should have followed the big dumb horse instead, but I managed to corral her into the stall. Footsteps sounded behind me.
“Wow, you sexy cowgirl, you’ve already got them all in,” Luke said.
“Not quite.” I waved my hand around the barn. “Notice any super big head missing.”
“Where is he?”
“Out there somewhere.” I tossed the halter over my shoulder. The thunder and lightning had subsided, but the clouds seemed determined to rid themselves of every drop of moisture. Luke followed me out. Dry swaths of dirt were now rippling rivers of mud, and a fierce wind had picked up. It pushed the tall trees into an evergreen belly dance as it whistled across the fields.
I pointed in the direction Chance had dashed. “He ran that way but I couldn’t see him once he disappeared over the ridge.” We jogged to the top of the small slope. I was as wet as if I’d been standing in a shower, and water sloshed inside my boots. I looked over at Luke. Like me, he’d pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head and rain dripped over his face like a curtain. I pointed to our soaked clothes. “We’re just a dopey pair of city folk,” I said.
“And your horse is a dopey city horse too, apparently,” Luke’s voice was nearly drowned out by the downpour.
“Let’s split up.” I handed him the halter and I kept the rope. Now that the thunder had stopped, I was sure Chance would follow with just a rope around his neck. “His hoof prints have already been washed away.” I spoke loudly over the wind and rain. “You go that direction, and I’ll go this way. Chance doesn’t like to move much. He probably stopped once he realized how much energy running off in terror was taking him.”
Luke nodded and turned down toward a copse of trees. I sprinted off in the opposite direction. My boots slid several feet down a rain drenched slope of grass, and once I regained my footing, I raced toward a line of tall pine trees. Once inside the small forest, the smoky daylight dwindled, and it was hard to see anything but the maze of massive tree trunks directly in front of me. “Chance!” I called hoping that there wasn’t some grizzly bear amongst the trees with the same name as my horse. The trees were close together, and it seemed too tight inside the thicket for a very large, slightly unhinged horse.
I left the shelter of the trees. The rain had lightened some, but it was still
coming down at a faster rate than the earth could absorb. Every narrow gulley became a gurgling stream. And my attempts to jump over them all became almost comical. My boots and jeans were so soaked, I realized it was rather ridiculous to waste the energy, and I began to just plow through them.
In the distance, I heard a snort, and I crossed my fingers that it was my horse and not some other animal with big enough nostrils to make the same sound. I ran in the direction of the noise and stopped at the edge of a river bank.
Chance stood in the middle of the river up to his knees and hocks in rushing rainwater. He shook like a scared puppy and didn’t seem inclined to move out of his predicament. Without any forethought or, what would have been more logical, a moment of hesitation, I plunged into the icy rippling water. The current was stronger than I’d predicted, and I fell right to my knees. Chance stared down at me with a look that fell somewhere between curiosity and boredom. I stood up and stomped through the rushing water toward him. He didn’t even have the sense to realize I was pissed at him. He stuck his nose against my shoulder as if to say thanks for coming on this adventure with me.
I tossed the rope around his neck and started walking but was snapped back as if I held a bungee cord. “Chance!” I shouted, “move”. The water level seemed to be rising with each passing minute, and the water now circled midway around my thighs. My teeth clacked together as the cold began to seep into my bones.
I pulled again, but Chance lifted his head and fought the rope. There was no way to out muscle a Shire horse, so I dropped the rope from his neck and circled behind his giant horse butt. His ears turned back to follow my movement, and sensing that I was about to snap him one with the rope, he flicked his long, wet tail out and whipped me across the cheek. I lunged forward and pushed against his butt. He didn’t budge an inch. His tail was swinging furiously now. Something wasn’t right. Chance was stubborn but never had he been this ornery.
Using all my weight, I shoved him hard again. Only one back leg took a tentative step. I went to the other leg and reached down below the turbulent surface. His fetlock and heel were jammed between two large rocks, and the strong current kept the large stones securely in place around my horse’s leg.
I crouched down, submerging myself all the way to my neck, and pulled at the rock. I was working against rushing water. I raced back to shore to look for a sturdy branch. Chance, panicked, thinking I was leaving him to a watery grave, and he tried to follow but then snorted in distress. His front hoof came up, and he pawed at the water.
I found a flimsy branch and returned to the river, worried that Chance might hurt himself more if I stayed out too long. The water was to the top of my thighs. I went back to the stuck leg and shoved the branch beneath the rock. I leaned down on it. It snapped in two, and I fell back into a nasty pile of rocks. My head went beneath the water, and I shot up with a gasp. Pain shot through my tailbone and tears stung my eyes.
As I pushed to standing, large feet plunged in next to me. Fingers wrapped around my arm and Luke helped me to my feet. “What are you doing, Angel? It’s freezing in here, and the water level is rising.”
My shoulders shrank in exasperation. “But it’s so much damn fun.”
He looked confused and a little disappointed at my angry retort.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be bitchy, Chance’s leg is stuck between two rocks. Can you move them? I couldn’t.”
Luke waded over to the horse. Chance twisted back to sniff Luke. The water was high enough that when Luke crouched down it flowed over his head. He disappeared for several long tense seconds and then came up with a grunt. Chance flew toward the bank and trotted up it. His back leg looked sore and running was probably not an option, so he decided to take the opportunity to graze on the fresh blades of grass growing along the water. Luke and I climbed up onto the bank.
The rain had stopped completely, but a bitter wind had kicked up. A shiver went through me.
Luke grabbed my hand. “Your lips are blue. Let’s get you back to the cabin.”
“No argument from me. Thank you for moving the rock.” I stared down at my hands. “I don’t know why I’m so damn weak. I always did a lot of work and gardening at the compound, but I’m still a wimp. I couldn’t budge that rock.”
“Well, you were working against a pretty rambunctious current.” He took my hand and rubbed it between his palms, but it did little to warm my numb fingers. “Besides, these are a surgeon’s hands, right? They’re meant for more important things.” He tugged at his crudely stitched earlobe.
I took the wet halter from Luke’s shoulder and the soaking rope from mine and put them on Chance. The small adventure that had nearly gotten everyone, including the horse himself, killed, had given him a hearty appetite, and I had to yank his big flapping lips away from the grass. I lifted his large head and pressed my face toward his long nose. “Now you’re going to give yourself a major stomachache to go along with that swollen fetlock, and then we’re just going to shoot you between the eyes and put you out of your misery.” Chance snorted in disappointment at having to leave behind his personal patch of grass. We headed back toward the ranch.
A rainbow curled down out of the clearing sky, and it seemed to end right behind the farmhouse. We reached the hillside that led down to the barn. Gage’s truck was sitting in the gravel driveway.
“They must have called work off,” Luke said. Chance was hardly putting any weight on his back leg. Luke caught my concern. “Gage knows a lot about horses. I’m sure he can look at Chance’s leg and see if we need to call a vet.”
“I don’t have money for a vet,” I said.
“I have some. But let’s see what Gage says first.”
Chance was relieved to see the inside of his stall. I gave him a flake of hay, and he settled right into munching on it. Luke and I headed up to the house. Jericho stood on the porch. He stared down at us with his arms draped over the crutches.
“I was keeping watch from here, making sure nothing washed away.” He looked at Luke and me. “Although, it looks like you two might have washed away anyhow. It was really coming down, eh?”
“This is mostly from the river.” I sidled past Jericho to get inside and get dry.
“Why the hell were you two swimming in the river in the middle of a rainstorm?”
“Ask the horse,” Luke muttered as he followed behind me.
Jericho hobbled in behind us. He leaned on one crutch to free a hand and shut the door. The second crutch fell to the floor. He hopped over to it and bent down to pick it up. “I’m officially tired of these damn things. I almost got permanently stuck in between two loose floorboards on the porch.”
“Then when you’re done limping around on those things, I can set you up with a tool belt and you can fix those loose boards.” Gage filled the doorway between the front room and the kitchen. He was holding a carton of milk in his hand. He looked at both of us. “There’s a bunch of rain gear in the hall closet.”
Luke sighed. “Yeah, well that information is a little late. The work day is over?”
“Yep.” He looked out the front window. “It’s wet out there.” He looked pointedly at the puddles forming around our feet. “And in here too. But thanks for getting the horses in. Anyone give you trouble?”
“Only my stupid knucklehead of a horse. His leg got caught in some rocks in the river, and he’s looking pretty lame from it.”
“I’ll bet.” Gage sucked down some milk. “I’ll go out and take a look.”
“That’d be awesome,” I said.
“No sense in sitting around here, and the foods getting kind of low,” Gage said. “If you guys are up for it, we can head down the road to the Raven’s Nest and get something to eat.”
“Haven’t been there in a long time. Is Russell still running the place?” Luke asked.
“Nah, the old g
uy died last year. The place is in limbo right now. Apparently, he was no longer speaking to his daughter, his only kid, so he willed the Raven’s Nest to his granddaughter. She’s some flighty Hollywood type, trying to make it in show business or something like that. I’m just waiting for her to put it up for sale and then I’m swooping in to buy it.”
“What?” Luke asked. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope, I’m dead serious. I’m tired of logging. Not getting any younger.”
A laugh spurted from Luke’s lips. “You’re twenty-six.”
“Yeah, and logging makes you age three years for every one year of life, so I figure I should be celebrating my thirtieth birthday next month. Just like there are dog years, there are logging years too.”
“Who knew.” Luke said. “We’ll be up for some lunch after we get warm and dry.” We walked into the bedroom, and he closed the door behind us. “I’m thinking you and me and a long hot shower, preferably at the same time.”
I rolled my wet jeans down. My skin was bright red from the cold. “I won’t say no to that.” Water still drained from the sweatshirt as I lifted it over my head. “Shit, even the water in my clothes is wet. I can’t believe that silly—”
I hadn’t finished my sentence before Luke had me in his arms. His skin was as icy cold as mine but the heat between us fired up in seconds. He led me into the bathroom and turned the shower on. While we waited for the water to warm to a comforting steamy mist, he rubbed the skin on my back and shoulders. “You’re like the world’s most enticing popsicle,” he said.
I laughed and leaned into his arms. “That could be interpreted in so many ways.” I peered up at him. “Tell me this can last, Luke. This unbelievable happiness, tell me it will always be like this.”