Morning Light (15 page)

As he continued to ready the horses, Loni came to learn their names. Uriah, a nine-year-old gelding, was a reddish brown horse with a black mane, tail, and lower legs. Clint said Uriah was a bay, which made no sense to Loni at all. Bay leaves were green. Then there was the gelding, Dagan, a flaxen chestnut, reddish brown of body with a blond mane and tail. The horse looked more like a palomino to Loni, but what did she know?

“Do you give all your horses biblical names?” she asked. “Dagan, god of the Canaanites. Correct?”

“That's right,” Clint replied. “You
are
up on your Bible.”

“Why the biblical theme?”

“My sister, Samantha, claims every horse breeder should have a theme. Her horses are all named after spices, barbecue sauce, or whatever else she can find in her kitchen. I aimed for something a little more dignified.”

“So what are the other horses' names?”

There was Ezekiel, a six-year-old dun gelding; Malachi, another flaxen chestnut; Bathsheba, an eleven-year-old buckskin; Delilah, a fourteen-year-old sorrel; Jemima, a seven-year-old roan; and Sapphira, a blue roan, thrown by Samantha's deceased mare Cilantro.

“Who was Sapphira?” Loni asked. “I can't remember reading about her in the Bible.”

“Sapphira was a woman executed by God for lying.” He winked at her. “What do you want to bet she had gorgeous blue eyes just like yours?”

Loni decided to let that pass, and a few minutes later Clint pronounced them ready to go. Loni was assigned Uriah as her mount. She was surprised and touched to see that her saddle was cushioned with gel pads. That was where all sentimentality ended, however. Her heart leaped into her throat when Clint interlaced his fingers to give her a leg up.

“I can't,” she squeaked.

“What?”

“I'm afraid of heights. I can't.” To Loni the horse suddenly seemed as tall as a skyscraper. “I just can't.”

“Uriah is a big old love, Loni. I handpicked him just for you. He's so calm and trustworthy I could lay a baby at his feet.”

Loni fixed him with a horrified look. “A baby? Are you out of your
mind
?”

He chuckled. “I wouldn't actually do it. That's just an expression among horsemen.” He unlaced his hands and curled an arm under the gelding's neck to pet him. “You can't walk. You've already got blisters starting on your heels. By the end of the day they'll be raw sores. Trust me. This horse won't hurt you.”

Loni wasn't so sure. But Trevor was out there, and she was wasting precious time. “All right,” she said thinly. “All right.”

Clint created a stirrup with his hands again. Loni placed her left foot on his interlaced fingers, then reached high to grab the saddle horn. The next instant she was on the horse.

“Oh, God.” Uriah sidestepped, making her grab his mane. “Oh,
God.
Why is he looking at me like that?”

Clint was adjusting her left stirrup. “Because he can smell your fear, and he's alarmed. In his opinion you can't possibly be afraid of him, so there must be some other danger.”

“He can
smell
my fear?”

“Yes, so stop worrying the poor fellow and calm down.”

Loni gulped and stared into the horse's soft brown eyes. “Are you sure he won't buck me off?”

“I'm almost certain of it.”

“Almost?”

Clint grinned up at her as he adjusted the other stirrup. “If a wasp flies up his nose, he'll buck. If he comes upon a rattlesnake, he'll rear. No horse on earth is absolutely guaranteed never to throw his rider.”

Hands still clenched in the horse's mane, Loni asked, “Are there very many bees and snakes out here?”

Less than two hours into the ride Loni felt as if she'd slipped on ice and done the splits, injuring every muscle and tendon from her ankles to her groin. The baseball cap Samantha had lent her was making her scalp sweat, but Loni was afraid to turn loose of the saddle horn to scratch where she itched. To make matters worse, she and Uriah were last in line, eating the dust raised by twenty-eight hooves clomping the dirt ahead of them. Even if she'd wanted to voice a complaint, Clint was riding at the front and too far away to hear unless she shouted at the top of her lungs.

To distract herself from the myriad discomforts, Loni tried to admire the scenery. Until they reached the area where Conklin believed the raft had capsized, they were following the river upstream at a steady pace. The incessant roar of the white-water rapids soon gave way to a peaceful woodland silence, allowing her to hear the songbirds and the breeze whispering softly in the ponderosa pines. At one point she saw another search party, hard at work dragging the river. Then the searchers were blocked from view, and she looked ahead again.

Occasionally, as they rounded a sharp bend in the river, she was able to see distant snowcapped peaks that jutted up through fluffy, white clouds to touch a powder blue sky, making her marvel that the first settlers had found passes through them to reach the fertile coastal valleys beyond. It was like being in a postcard wonderland, everything she saw almost too beautiful to be real.

Farther along, the trail grew frighteningly narrow and rocky, plunging sharply at some points, and then turning steep, often pitting both horses and riders against the rugged terrain. Following Clint's lead, Loni lay forward over Uriah's neck during the climbs and leaned back in the saddle during the descents. At times she so pitied her mount that she was tempted to get off and walk. Only Clint's warning about her blisters becoming raw sores forestalled her from trying.

Every once in a while he turned on the saddle to glance back and ask how she was doing. Determined not to whine, Loni's stock answer was, “I'm fine.” Only she wasn't. Even with the gel pads to protect her rump and inner thighs, she felt as if she'd been bouncing her butt repeatedly on a rock.

“Try to bear your weight with your legs!” he called back to her several times.

Loni tried, she truly did, but her thigh muscles weren't strong enough to support her weight very long without going into cramps. Soon she was bouncing on the saddle again.

Despite her constant concern for Trevor, she was inexpressibly grateful when Clint stopped around noon in a grassy clearing to rest the horses. As he dismounted, he called, “Sit tight for a second and I'll come help you dismount.”

Loni was too eager to get off the horse to wait. Pulling her right foot from the stirrup, she pushed up on her left leg, swung out of the saddle, and promptly found herself sitting butt-first in the dirt. Her legs had folded beneath her as if her bones were made of hot wax. Oddly, she felt no discomfort from the fall.

Clint came running. “I told you I'd help.”

“I didn't think I needed help.” She glanced up. “But my legs are asleep.” She wiggled one foot. “Correction. Even my butt's asleep.”

Uriah snorted and wandered away to eat grass. Clint hunkered down in front of her, his dark eyes twinkling.

“This is
not
funny.”

“I'm not laughing.” He extended a broad palm to her. “Come on. I'll help you over to a grassy spot.”

Too exhausted to argue, Loni placed her hand in his. As he pushed erect he drew her up with him, seeming not to notice her weight at all. Clamping a hard arm around her waist, he half carried her to a shady place under a pine. With every step Loni winced. It felt as if a thousand needles were pricking the soles of her feet.

She sighed with relief when he lowered her to the ground. She lay back, arms flung outward from her body, and groaned, far too battered to care what he thought.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

Loni tucked in her chin to stare up at him.
Sweetheart?
As she recalled, they were barely on a first-name basis. “I'm not sure,” she answered honestly.

“The first time in the saddle can be rough.” He crouched beside her. “I was hoping the gel pads would help.”

“It was very thoughtful of you to bring them. I can't imagine what shape I'd be in without them.”

He sat back on his heels, his muscular arms draped loosely over his bent knees. “Once I've tended to the horses I'll bring you some water and a protein bar. Maybe that'll perk you up.”

Loni doubted anything short of a long soak in a hot Jacuzzi would perk her up, but she didn't want to worry him by saying so. The moment he left she sighed and let her eyes fall closed, wishing with all her heart that they could camp there for the night. Not possible. They'd been riding for only about four hours. In order to catch up with Trevor they needed to keep going until dark. The thought made her groan.

Once Clint had watered the horses, he left them to graze while he went to check on Loni. She lay under the tree like a discarded rag doll, her head lolling to one side, the green bill of the John Deere cap shading her closed eyes. Depositing the canteen and protein bar on the grass, Clint hunkered beside her. Fast asleep. A sad smile touched his lips. Though she hadn't complained a single time, he knew the morning's ride had been hard on her. By tonight she'd be in a world of hurt.

Before waking her he allowed himself a moment to admire the delicate lines of her heart-shaped face—the arch of finely drawn brows, the feather of long, dark lashes against her cheeks, the fullness of her rose pink mouth. He especially liked her small, straight nose. She was a beauty, no question about it.

With the back of his hand, he nudged her shoulder. She jerked awake, her lashes fluttering as a yawn stretched her mouth wide. “I'm sorry.” She moaned softly as she struggled to sit up. “I didn't mean to drift off.”

“Take these.” He caught her hand, cupped her palm, and dropped in two ibuprofen. “They'll take the edge off.”

She popped the pills into her mouth, chasing them with water from the canteen. “Thank you.” She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “The water is wonderful.”

“Help yourself. I have a filter. We won't run short.”

She tipped the canteen to her mouth again, her larynx bobbing in her slender throat as she gulped. When she'd drunk her fill, Clint found himself staring at her lips. The shine of moisture made them look far too kissable for his peace of mind. They'd only just begun their sojourn into the wilderness, and already he was thinking about things he shouldn't. Not good. They had a mission to accomplish, and he needed to keep his mind strictly on business.

He sat beside her to rest while she nibbled on the protein bar. She took small bites, flicking the pink tip of her tongue over her bottom lip to catch the crumbles of chocolate. He couldn't recall ever having seen anything so sensual, and wondered if she was doing it on purpose to drive him crazy. The suspicion no sooner crossed his mind than she stuck half the bar into her mouth and slowly withdrew it, skimming her teeth the length of it. Watching her made his stomach clench.

He'd been too long without a woman, he decided. Normally he kept busy at the ranch and put in long, hard days. At night he was usually too spent to think much about sex. But he wasn't tired now—at least, not tired enough to be around a beautiful woman without wanting her. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, determined to ignore the ache that was forming low in his belly.

“Headache? You should try some of the ibuprofen.”

It would take a hell of a lot more than a couple of pills to cure what ailed him. Clint sprang to his feet. “Time's wasting. You about ready to mount back up?”

She finished the bar in two big bites, brushed her fingers clean on her jeans, and tucked the wrapper in her pocket. “As ready as I'll ever be, I guess.”

For the remainder of the day, except for brief rest stops, Clint pushed the horses and pack animals ever deeper into the wilderness. In some places the man-zanita grew so thick on the hillsides it looked almost impenetrable. In the ravines snow lay in blue-white patches at the bases of the trees, giving testimony to the fact that winter temperatures still held the mountains in their frigid grip at night. Even so, spring grass shot up in yellow-green bunches, and hardy wildflowers lent splashes of pink, blue, and yellow to an otherwise green-and-brown landscape.

As they rode, Clint pointed out Western tanagers, chipping sparrows, yellow warblers, red-breasted sapsuckers, robins, a pair of harlequin ducks with a half dozen ducklings, and, at one point, even a gorgeous bald eagle soaring above them.

In all Loni's life she'd never seen such an abundance of wildlife. Lodgepole chipmunks and golden-mantled squirrels scrambled over the rocks, chattering angrily at the invasion of horses and mankind into their territory. Mule deer, startled away from the river by their approach, bounded into thickets and disappeared. A mother raccoon, leading a queue of waddling babies, cut across the trail in front of them. Late in the afternoon Loni even glimpsed a mountain lion in the distance. The sighting left her feeling chilled and more than a little uneasy about the coming night.

Clint seemed constantly on guard, sometimes stopping to search a hillside, other times cocking his head to listen. The rifle from his truck now rode in a leather boot just behind his saddle, and as the sun began to set Loni saw him unfasten the strap of the gun holster at his hip. With mounting dread she realized there were dangers all around them that she couldn't fathom. As exhausted as she was, she had no idea how she would sleep with only the thin nylon walls of the tent as a barrier against nocturnal predators.