She peered in surprise at the small, unreadable spark of warmth in his eyes. Amusement? Forgiveness? A peace offering?
“It’s not cold. I don’t need a jacket.”
“You will. It’s my concession.”
“To what?”
“To surviving on less than a fortune.”
“You don’t need to prove anything—”
“On the contrary. You’ve made it pretty clear, as have the police, that I need to stick to what I know. Time to prove that I can.”
She scrambled for excuses, not at all certain what his motives were.
“We can’t leave the filly.”
“We can. Andy is every bit as competent as I would be.”
“But Bonnie . . .”
“Bonnie and Dawson are going to a movie, and then Kim is having some sort of before-school-starts sleepover.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“My parents, Carter, and Kate are going into Minneapolis to eat and to pick up some last-minute things for Mum’s bash tomorrow night. I declined to go along. I have a different menu in mind.”
“I don’t know about this.”
“You don’t need to be nervous, but you will have to dredge up a little trust.” She studied him, but his eyes and voice never wavered.
“Fine. What else should I pack?”
“Oh no, there’s no packing. As I said, you can bring a jacket. Or a sweatshirt.”
She didn’t know how to react, but in a way it was a relief not to know. Maybe a few hours “lost” in the woods would get whatever was bugging them out of their systems.
Forty minutes later they rode from Bridge Creek in a direction she’d never gone. Aimed somewhere between town, the state park, and the little hunter’s cabin, they passed through grassland void of trees. She’d tied a sweatshirt to the saddle. Tully felt familiar and solid beneath her. The warm August air smelling of grass, clover, and sunshine enveloped her, and the swish of the horses’ legs and occasional snort that jingled their bridles filled her with a sense of adventure, so she stopped worrying about David’s plan.
He named the birds that fluttered out of the long grasses—redwing blackbirds, robins, meadowlarks. He showed her how to follow the trajectory of the sun and why it meant they were traveling southeast. The first hour passed in a pleasant haze of sunshine and late summer.
“How are you doing?” he asked when they turned from their pathless meander toward a thick woods. They beckoned with cool shade. “Need a rest?”
“I’m good for a while longer.”
He offered her a genuine smile. “Have to call you Iron Britches from now on, won’t we? I knew you were a natural horsewoman.”
“Thanks. That’s a big compliment coming from you.”
“Hey, you don’t get ’em if you don’t earn ’em.”
She took a fortifying breath and plunged into the waters that frightened her. “Are you still angry with me?”
“I’ve never been angry with you.”
“I didn’t stick up for you out loud yesterday.”
His face tightened slightly. “No. But you’re whole and safe, and that’s the only thing I care about. Cloth-headed detectives be damned.”
“David, I’m sorry. I was wrong. The police were wrong. What you did was the bravest thing anyone’s ever done for me. I just . . .”
He turned Gomer directly across Tully’s path and halted. Tully snorted and reversed a step. “Just what?”
“It’s stupid.”
“I don’t care.”
She hesitated another moment and sighed. “I was angry—at me for dragging you into the ugly world I grew up in, and at you for stupidly putting yourself in danger because of me. I wanted the police to be right so I’d have a reason to stay angry and selfish and hold on to my fear and embarrassment. I didn’t like that you’d seen the real me. I know it doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t. You think I haven’t seen the real you? The Rio who stood up to Hector is the Rio I’ve come to admire—tough, unafraid, spit-in-your-eye.”
“That’s lovely. A fantastic image.”
“You are fantastic. A woman of a thousand talents and I’m quite sure you don’t know it.”
“I could say the same about you.” They rode silently. A crazy stray tear she couldn’t explain threatened to expose her relief, her fear, her sadness. She wiped it surreptitiously with the back of a hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You were right yesterday. Hector might have dragged me with him. Thank you. The police should have heard me say that.”
He smiled softly. “Thanks.”
“Where are we going?”
“An hour further.”
“To do what?”
“To survive.”
He refused to give any other details. They stopped once to dismount and stretch and let the horses snuffle in the sparse grass beneath the trees of an ever-thickening woods. If someone had told Rio, the lifelong city girl, that her Minnesota had a place so devoid of civilization this close to a town she’d have written him off as crazy, but the place David had brought her barely had paths through the trees, much less a discernable destination.
Three and a half hours into the ride he stopped, looked around their tangled surroundings, and nodded. “This’ll do.”
“That’s it. No more games. Do for what?”
“Our restaurant, hotel, and entertainment rolled into one.”
A jolt of excitement rippled down her spine, followed by a shot of terror. “Hotel?”
“Told you this required a little trust.”
“How about a little blanket?” The slightest sarcasm crept into her words as reality sank in. “Or water? You know, the stuff you can’t live without?”
“You just have to be a little tougher and meaner than the woods. Or wherever you’re lost. I can be tough and mean, that’s the point of this.”
“What if I just say I believe tough, mean you can get us through this and we simply go home?”
“I’d say, you’re welcome to mount up and head back. I’ve stayed alone in the woods. But I’d miss you.”
“And you know I won’t because I’d be lost within twenty feet.”
Once again he simply smiled.
They spent the first hour getting the horses tethered to trees and scouting an area about a hundred feet around them for types of plants, trees, and ground smoothness. He explained why he’d chosen this spot—for its handful of full-canopied trees that would offer some shelter if it rained, combined with taller pines that left a carpet of soft needles on open ground smooth enough to sleep on.
“What about animals and cold?”
“Fire, sweatshirts, and, if necessary, body heat.”
“There’s the first line that might be worthy of a travel poster.”
Following his instructions, she cleared the ground and made a bare circle for a fire. She gathered tinder and kindling and delighted in the fragile little white flower blossoms she uncovered. The last of the summer anemones, he told her.
“Do you honestly not know where we are?”
“We’re in a privately owned, two-hundred-and-sixty-acre woods between a wetlands preserve and the state park. I know the owner.”
“So you aren’t lost, but I am.”
“Pretty much. Come on, let’s take the horses for a drink. There’s a stream nearby as I recall.”
The stream tumbled clear and pristine through the shade, the same one that wound through the Glen Butte State Park and eventually created the actual Kennison Falls. Rio hadn’t thought once about thirst until she watched Tully and Gomer swallowing their huge draughts of the cool water.
“Can’t we just dunk our noses in and drink, too?”
“No. It’s fairly clean, but there’s still bacteria that make it unsafe.”
“It doesn’t hurt the horses?”
“Different makeup in their guts.”
“So what do we do, tap trees?” She scowled.
“Under dire circumstances. Or we wait for morning and find dew-covered leaves to suck on.”
“Very funny.”
“All right, you can also cheat again and bring along a little device like this.”
From his belt, he unhooked a mesh bag Rio hadn’t noticed and took out an eight-inch-tall cylinder with a clear tube attached. He filled the cylinder with creek water and a few minutes later handed her a little nylon cup full of cold, crisp, filtered water.
“Wow!”
“Nice gadget, ’eh?”
“Who knew water could be so delicious? Can it squeeze out a nice, juicy burger?”
He laughed. “Sorry. But if you want to eat, we can go hunting.”
“Hunting? For what?”
“Squirrel or rabbit maybe. Gophers aren’t really worth it.”
“Kill bunnies? No way!” Her stomach twisted at the thought. To her chagrin, he laughed again.
“You didn’t complain about the steaks we’ve eaten or the roast you cut up to put in the stew.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t have to kill it.”
“That’s hypocritical.”
“I don’t think so. I can’t build roads, but I drive on them. I have someone else make my clothing—I don’t go naked. So what if I prefer someone else to catch and kill the meat?”
“Fair enough. But would you starve to death rather than do the hunting?”
“I won’t starve in twelve hours.”
“It’s the principle.”
“Fine.” She frowned. “How are you going to hunt this rabbit and/or squirrel? Do you have a gun tucked somewhere, too?”
“Just a MacGyver bit of string and my pocketknife.”
“No fair. How come I didn’t get tools?”
“Because your job this trip is to learn how to use them.”
She should have been thoroughly put off by his attitude. Instead the tug of attraction hit harder than ever.
Once they returned to their camp spot, David knelt, and for the third time in her life, Rio watched him build a perfect fire. He left her alone for almost an hour afterward with instructions on how to keep the fire going but not let it get too big. She stuck to her task diligently and found the solitude with only the flames’ crackle to keep her company to be a deep joy she’d never imagined. It only confirmed the thought that she was meant to be a pioneer woman somewhere with no city craziness encroaching on her. Her old vision of a small solitary ranch somewhere in Wyoming surfaced for the first time in weeks. If only she could drag David with her . . .
Whoa.
She shook the thought away and tried to ignore the heavy desire settling into her body like a sudden flu. Whether it came from thinking about leaving him or just plain thinking about him she couldn’t tell . . .
“You ready for dinner?”
She turned as he came through the trees like Daniel Boone with a rabbit hanging upside down in his hands.
“Oh gosh.” She covered her mouth in surprise and stared despite herself.
“C’mon,” he said. “You faced down a gang member with a knife. This is just an old rabbit.”
“How do you
know
he’s old?”
“Because he’s big, a little gray in the paws, and slow enough that he fell for my snare. Want to help me skin him?”
“No!”
“I think this is the first time I’ve seen you remotely squeamish.”
“I think this is the first time I’ve seen you remotely . . .”
“A killer?”
“No. A caveman.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. If you don’t want to dress the rabbit, you can go scout us up two long, sturdy sticks that we can sharpen for roasting the meat. I’ll take care of this.”
In the end, pride and a little shame at her weakness made her stay and watch the cleaning process. After David made the first slits Rio’s squeamishness dissipated, and she marveled at the way he shucked off the fur and skin with neat, efficient strokes of his knife point and then cut the meat into long strips.
Twenty minutes later Rio held her first strip of roasted rabbit tentatively in front of her mouth. For the first time since she’d seen the dead animal in David’s hand, she quailed just a little. She felt like she should say a prayer of thanks to the animal’s spirit like the American Indians did.
“Thank you, rabbit,” she said out loud, expecting David to laugh again.
“Amen,” he said.
He took a bite of his and closed his eyes. His lips, full and sensual, pursed with pleasure. Rio licked her own lips in preparation and took a generous bite. The meat was a little stringy and slightly gamey but still moist and sweet. David searched her face expectantly.
“It’s not bad,” she admitted.
“A little different from hamburger.”
“A lot different, you mean.”
They finished their first pieces. David took her stick and skewered another raw strip. It sizzled immediately when she held it over the coals.
“Did you have to kill things and eat them in Iraq?” she asked absently, turning her stick.
When he didn’t answer, she looked up from her stick and found him staring into the flames, every feature tightening as if he was attempting to shutter out the question and any that might follow.
She studied him silently. Here he was in self-described tough and mean mode, yet the vulnerability wrapped around him nearly cried out to be acknowledged. As often as she’d been annoyed at his indulgence toward his family, she’d never seen him fragile. She’d made him tell her about Iraq the other night, and ever since then . . .
She laid her stick and its partially cooked meat aside. Scootching across the pine needle floor, she grasped his arm.
“This trip tonight,” she said slowly. “This sudden need to prove you’re tough. It’s about Iraq, but it’s not about the discharge. It’s the part of the story you didn’t tell me in the cabin, isn’t it?”
He relaxed as if he’d come unstuck. His sad smile held multiple other emotions: gratitude, ruefulness, but mostly resignation.
“I guess it is at that. I don’t tell the story anymore.”
“Well, buster, you do tonight.”
Amusement tinged the light in his eyes. “That was rather unequivocal.”
“Just gotta be tougher and meaner than the survivalist.” She laughed at his scowl. “Come on, get on with dinner and start talkin’.”
He picked up his roasting stick, nodded for her to do the same, and when the meat sizzled again, he took a deep starting breath.
“You know ninety percent of the story. I did disobey orders, and I did get dishonorably discharged.”
“But what really happened?”
“I was a quiet kid, sensitive my mum said, and observant, but it drove my father crazy that his son didn’t have the killer instincts he thought it took to get ahead in life. So, when I was a teen, for a while I tried to cultivate Da’s no-bullshit personality. And, maybe for a while, he thought I might make it.”