Authors: Cerian Hebert
“Have you seen Marisol come through?”
The woman looked up, startled. “No,
haven’t heard a peep from her since she came home.”
She would have to pass the kitchen to
get out of her room. If she left by conventional means. She had climbed out the
window. Thank God the room was on the first floor.
“She must be out at the barn,” he said,
forcing his voice to remain calm,even though apprehension raged through him.
He ran down to the barn, ignoring the
way the sky had darkened as if night hovered on the horizon. A storm built out
there and it would be a wicked one. Inside the barn, he stopped dead in his
tracks, ice mixing in with the sick that filled his belly.
Sunny’s stall was empty.
“Marisol!” he called again. Nothing but
the grumbling sky greeted him.
No one was around in the yard. Hal and
Frank were still out, one repairing fence and the other at the feed store in
Falstad. No help.
He called Long Knife Creek Ranch. Though
he hadn’t had a chance to iron things out with Jacob, he needed a search party
and fast. Within ten minutes, he had help from Jacob, Thea, Jack, Lance and Becky.
They’d head out on horseback or four-wheeler and Thea would take the Jeep and
scour the roads. He called Quinn next. She knew the prairie like no one else
and she and Piper were fast and fearless. Marisol might not want to see Quinn,
but with a storm gathering itself to the northwest, Marisol might accept any
helping hand.
Instead of taking his horse, Craig went
out on his own four-wheeler. Before he drove out of the ranch yard, he called
Hal and Frank to recruit their help too. As he drove out under the heavy sky,
following a set of telltale hoof prints in the dirt, he tried to figure out how
long she could’ve been gone. Not too long. They’d only been inside for about an
hour. Hal had been gone for nearly that amount of time. Surely if he’d seen her
ride out he would’ve said something, tried to stop her.
Okay, so how far could a relatively
novice rider have gotten in under an hour? Which direction would she have gone?
The hoof prints went in the direction of both Emerald and Long Knife Creek. She
wouldn’t have gone to Quinn’s unless she intended to confront her, but he
doubted that. Long Knife Creek? She and Robby had a bond of sorts. Maybe she wanted
to commiserate with him over this whole mess.
The only other people Marisol knew in
Falstad were his parents and Bonnie. Those wouldn’t be easy rides.
He put another call into Long Knife
Creek. As he figured, Robby wasn’t around. No one knew where he’d gone but
they’d keep an eye out for Marisol in case she slipped by the searchers and
made it there.
While searching the endless terrain, the
nagging worry, tinged with panic, dug into his gut a little deeper. The black
sky that had settled like a beast on the prairie didn’t ease his mind or
nerves. Last night the storm had kept its distance. They weren’t going to be so
lucky this time. This particular thunderstorm was grinding slowly across the
land straight for them. He needed to find her and get her to safety. With each
passing moment panic lurched closer and closer to the surface.
Fear mingled with anger. Anger at
himself that this even had a chance to occur. If he and Quinn had been upfront
with his daughter in the first place then she wouldn’t have been out here. Of
course, she would be upset, especially if she witnessed the little show the
night before. If only they’d thought ahead, he and Quinn.
Not that he regretted falling in love
with the woman. That wouldn’t change. She represented everything he wanted.
Marisol would come around to see that, but damn it all, it had been her right
to find out from him, easing her into the idea he had to move on. Never had he
imagined, the knowledge would bring them to this moment. Thunder drowned out
the sound of the four-wheeler’s engine.
Fifteen minutes later, he still saw no
sign of her. The hoof prints she’d left behind all too soon disappeared into
the grass, leaving no indication of direction, except she’d started out heading
eastward, toward Long Knife Creek. He continued in that direction, hoping
someone from one of the other ranches found her.
His worry mounted with sickening speed
and weight. God, he’d let her down. He’d let Elise down. He’d promised her he’d
never let harm befall their child, yet here he was, trying to find her on this
vast prairie while a storm pressed down on them with relentless force. It let
itself be known with another deep rumble of thunder. Blue lightning danced in
the bellies of the clouds, jumping from sky to earth with jagged, searching
fingers. How long before the beast crawled on top of them?
He almost reached the Long Knife Creek
fence line when he saw them. Quinn did it once more, found his daughter. He
wasn’t surprised, just grateful.
Both were dismounted. As he closed the
distance, he saw Marisol clutching her side as Quinn attempted to help her.
Marisol wasn’t having anything to do with it. Quinn held out her hand, but
Marisol knocked it away. Quinn didn’t give up even when Marisol turned her back
on her. He couldn’t hear the words being said but they were heated. Neither
noticed his approach, they were so wrapped up in their own drama. When he was
close enough, he could see the hurt on both faces. Marisol’s mixed with hate,
despair and pain, and Quinn’s with regret.
Finally they saw him, but the
expressions on their faces didn’t change.
“She’s hurt,” were the first words out
of Quinn’s mouth. “Took a fall off Sunny. I don’t know how bad. She couldn’t
mount up again.”
Craig went to his daughter. “Let me
see.” He looked at her right arm. Her shirt was covered in grass stains and
ripped at the elbow.
“Stay away.” Her words were so icy cold
that he drew back in surprise.
“Honey, I need to look.” He took a step
closer.
“No, I don’t want you to. I want you
both to stay away from me.” Her voice held fierce reproach. The sky overhead
darkened with dirty charcoal-gray clouds. The storm would be over them in
moments.
“Can you ride? If I get you back up onto
Sunny, do you think you could get back to the barn? We can talk this out, but not
here. You understand that, right?” Damn. All he wanted to do was to take her
into his arms, but she wouldn’t allow that.
“I don’t think she can.” Quinn, who’d
been standing away from them spoke up, took a step toward them. “I think she
really hurt herself. Her ribs maybe.”
Craig swore softly. “Got your cell
phone? Thea is out on with the Jeep. If she can make it, we’re not too far from
the access road between the Shady H and Long Knife Creek. She can bring her
there and we can take the horses back.”
“What, you’re going to leave me and go
with her?” Marisol turned on him, her face dark with anger. Tears streamed
down, leaving a trail in the dust that covered her cheeks.
“Honey, it’s just until we get the
horses back. We’ll go to Long Knife Creek and meet you there.”
“I don’t want her around me.”
“Marisol—”
“No. No! I don’t want her. I don’t want
her to be with you. Dad, how could you want someone like her after Mom? It’s
not fair. You loved Mom. How can you love someone like Quinn?” Her words flew
fast and frantic, catching with the sobs that wracked her chest.
Craig was stunned by her ferocity and
the look on her face, crumpled with tears yet, with a blaze of hatred in her
eyes. “Marisol—”
“Mom hasn’t even been dead for that
long. Have you forgotten her?” Then she turned her attention onto Quinn. “You
could never be good enough, not for my Dad. Not for me. I don’t want anything
to do with you or with that horse or with this place. I hate it!”
The rage inside her shocked him. Never
had he seen her like this. He went to embrace her, ward off the pain, but she
slapped him away. “Please Dad, let’s go back home, to Washington. I don’t want
to be here anymore. I just want it to be the two of us. Mom would never want me
to live with her and she’d never ever want
her
to take her place.”
“Quinn’s not trying to take Mom’s place,
Mar. No one would do that.”
He tried again, to reach her through her
pain, to take hold of her and embrace her, even if just absorb the hurt, but
again she shoved him away with her good arm. He heard her suck in her breath in
pain.
“She would. Doesn’t matter to her that
she’d never be good enough. Even Uncle Robby thinks that.”
Damn Robby. If he’d kept his mouth shut,
they wouldn’t be here, his daughter wouldn’t be hurt and her eyes wouldn’t be
filled with hot loathing directed at Quinn. Quinn who hadn’t done anything
wrong bore the brunt of all this anger. He glanced back at her and grimaced.
Tears streaked down her face too. She tried to hide her hurt behind a set jaw
and tight lips, but he saw the pain.
God, what a mess.
The two women who
meant the world to him were immersed in their own grief. How in the world could
he set this to rights?
He turned back to Marisol. She was his
priority. Quinn knew that. If he could smooth over the pain with her everything
else would fall into place. “It’ll all work out,” he told her and reached out,
just a hand to stroke her wet cheek. She flinched away, but he made contact and
wiped away a tear, leaving a streak against her cheek. “When we get home you
and I will talk about this. Right now, we need to get you to Long Knife Creek.
Don’t worry. I’ll be there in no time.”
“I just want to go home. To Washington.
I don’t want to run a ranch,” Marisol replied, her voice broken from tears.
Craig hadn’t realized how dark it had
become until a set of headlights cut through the gloom. Thea arrived in the
Jeep.
“I’m not far from the access road,” she
said and pointed behind her. “It’ll be a little bumpy until we get there, but
then we’ll be fine. Hey there Marisol, why don’t we get you in the Jeep so we
can take you back and look at what’s going on?”
For a moment, Craig thought his daughter
would refuse. Marisol tipped up her chin a fraction and gave Thea a hard look.
After a moment’s hesitation, she walked by Craig without another glance and
climbed into the passenger side of the Jeep, with Thea’s help. She winced as
she settled and Thea pulled the seatbelt across her lap. Damn, how much pain
was she in? Maybe they should take her straight to the hospital.
Thea returned, before getting back into
the driver’s seat. “We’ll give her a once over. If there’s anything serious
we’ll take her straight to the hospital, okay? You two get off this prairie.
That storm could be holding a bit more than rain and lightning. They’ve stuck
us in a tornado watch. Okay?”
Just what he needed. He nodded and
followed her over to the Jeep’s passenger side where Marisol sat stonily,
staring ahead, probably at nothing at all.
“I love you,” he told her. “We’ll be
okay.”
She didn’t reply, just turned her gaze
in another direction. Pain etched hard lines on her face. He could see her
fighting against it, as if she struggled not to let him see.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he
told Thea when she put the Jeep in gear.
As soon as they pulled away, the rain
started. Heavy, fat drops and more loomed on the horizon, building with the
thunder that rolled along the hills. He grabbed Sunny’s reins from Quinn and
mounted up.
“We should make Long Knife Creek in
about fifteen if we move it.”
“I’m going back to Emerald.”
Craig was about to put the horse into
motion when Quinn’s words stopped him. “What are you talking about? That’s
another ten minutes away.”
That stubborn look crossed her face,
with furrowed brows and subtly jutting jaw. “Not for me. I can make it in
twenty.”
“Don’t be foolish, Quinn, I have to go
to Long Knife Creek. We need to get this straightened out.”
Quinn shook her head and mounted.
Underneath her, Piper danced nervously as the rain picked up its beat. “There’s
nothing to straighten out, Craig. Not now. Marisol needs you and I’m the last
person who’s going to help matters.”
Even though heat from the day lingered
in the air, he suddenly got a cold feeling Quinn’s words held more than she let
on. More than telling him to take care of his daughter.
Damned weather.
The storm was
nearly on top of them and with each moment they lingered it got more dangerous.
But they needed to talk. “We’re going to talk. Come back to Long Knife Creek
with me. Please.”
She reined Piper
in the direction that would take her back to Emerald. In one quick move, Craig
whipped out his hands and grabbed Piper’s reins. If she wasn’t going to come on
her own he’d damn well drag her. He had half a mind to let her do what she
wanted, but he hung on to his good sense long enough for them to head in the
direction Thea had gone, down to the road that would lead to Long Knife Creek.
If he had to, he’d lead her the entire way.
Quinn had no idea Craig Lynch could make
her so blindingly, spitting mad. Rain coursed out of the sky, coming down in
buckets, followed by thunder and lightning. He clung to Piper’s reins as if she
was some kind of little kid who couldn’t control her own horse.