Tall, Dark, and Determined (39 page)

All right, all the partridge
he'd
bag. The little pearly pistol she packed wouldn't hit anything, but Chase didn't have time to teach her how to use a shotgun before they set out. He might've if it weren't for the picnic looming the day after tomorrow.
Maybe I'll show her the next time we go
.

The idea crept into his thoughts and hit him unawares. Before they'd headed out, Chase would've laid odds that Lacey Lyman would find hunting a miserable pastime and never ask for another lesson. Since then, she'd proven surprisingly adaptable. It looked more and more likely that she'd want to learn more.

Then the time for thinking was over. They crested the ridge and crept several hundred yards westward before Decoy began wriggling his back end and sniffing toward the edge of the cliff. Birding behavior, as far as Chase ever heard, was only ever ascribed to retrievers or pointers. But hounds were good hunters, and few people ever came across an Irish wolfhound. Decoy might well be the only one trained in bird hunting.

Chase made the gesture, moved toward the edge of the overhang, and lowered himself onto his stomach. Peering down, he spotted piles of droppings and an occasional feather.
Promising
. He started to slide back so he could gesture to Miss Lyman, but found her already at his side, shimmying down to lie on her own stomach and peek over the side for herself.
Good enough
.

He made the motion for Decoy to scent and hold the birds, and off the dog loped, picking his way carefully down the steep decline. Time stretched while he lay beside Miss Lyman, waiting, but snapped into high gear the moment he saw Decoy stiffen, locked up and staring fixedly at a point Chase couldn't see. After holding still for a moment, he tilted his head back, searching for Chase's signal. Chase got to his knees, still looking over the edge, and gave the silent command for Decoy to flush them.

In a heartbeat about thirty startled partridges burst from the shelf in the rock. Some sprang high, most dropped low in effective, gravity-assisted escapes. Chase focused on the ones to go up and started shooting, dimly aware that Miss Lyman had risen to her feet and was doing the same with her handgun.

After the long walk, difficult climb, and restless wait, the whole thing finished in five minutes. One bird lay at their feet. Chase immediately spotted two more on nearby outcroppings as Decoy made his way back with a fourth between his jaws. He dropped it at Chase's feet. Tail wagging and tongue lolling out to the side, he enjoyed some well-deserved praise and scratching behind his ear. On Chase's signal, he headed back down for more.

Only then did Chase turn his attention to Miss Lyman. There she stood, silhouetted in the afternoon sunlight, a smile on her face and a partridge dangling from her right hand. There was a fierceness in her victory, and it made her even more beautiful.

“My first bird!” She thrust it toward him, and it dangled close enough to hit him if he didn't take it. “Look at it!”

Chase looked. Sure enough, the bird Decoy had brought up bore a wound too small for his shotgun to inflict.
Well, I'll be … She hit something after all. And it's the right thing
.

He gave a solemn nod of acknowledgment and handed the bird back. Decoy maneuvered between the two of them to drop another kill at his feet. More praise, and he sent the dog off again. Belatedly, he realized he'd given the dog more encouragement than the woman.

“Most men I know don't bag a partridge like this one the first time they try.” Any man would be proud at the compliment

Miss Lyman's brow furrowed. “So … you didn't think I'd be able to do it? Then why did you bother bringing me along?”

Chase knew he'd been run to ground, and he couldn't think of a way to escape telling her the truth. There wasn't even a way to make it sound better, so he told her plain and simple: “You didn't leave me any choice.”

    THIRTY-TWO    

A
sk a foolish question …
Lacey berated herself for forgetting, even for a moment, that Chase Dunstan didn't want to be saddled with her. Whether he went hunting or stayed closer to Hope Falls, the man couldn't be more eager to see the back of her.

“Turns out you're better company than I expected,” he offered. Dunstan didn't give false compliments. In fact, he didn't give compliments at all, so she could trust he meant it.

Silly though it was, his words gave her something to grab hold of and pull herself from the sadness threatening to swamp her.

“It's easier to exceed expectations when they're set low.” She sent him a small smile to show she wasn't haranguing him. Then she went about picking up another one of the partridges and stuffing it into her now-empty game bag. Lacey let him carry their lunch on the way up; she didn't plan to make him carry the fixings for the picnic all the way back without help.

“Up here it's easier to remember God has higher expectations for all of us.” Dunstan adjusted his hat brim to better take in the vast panorama laid before them. “The lower you go, the less you expect to see people trying to match them.”

“But the more chances you have to meet someone who's living that way,” Lacey encouraged. “It's incredibly beautiful up here, but I'd imagine it becomes lonely with no one to talk with.”

“Not all of us are as fond of talking as you.” His murmur held no rancor as he made the observation. “Sometimes words can't do justice to what's displayed all around us in nature.”

Curiosity battled with Lacey's newfound ability to keep silent. The curiosity won. “What do you see, Mr. Dunstan?”

“Power and majesty. A humbling, constant reminder of the verse in Deuteronomy.” Dunstan left off appreciating the view to stare at her with unnerving directness. He quoted, “ ‘He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.' ”

It felt to Lacey as though the air itself grew thinner. The breaths she drew did little to fill her lungs as she contemplated the meaning behind the verse.
“All his ways are judgment
.” The phrase seemed to resound, caught in the rock around her and hammering into her heart.
And how far will I fall short of His perfect judgment on the day I stand before Him? Will He look at my selfishness? My thirst to prove myself? The way I led my closest friends to an abandoned town, only to fill it with unscrupulous men posing as suitors? Or will He go straight to the worst of it? So many ways I've failed….

“Striking, isn't it?” His eyes hadn't left her face.

“Unsettling,” she admitted. “Since my mother's death I've devoted less and less time to the study of scripture.”
Since Braden's death, I avoid it altogether
. But she couldn't very well admit that to a man who'd recited a verse from memory.

“I've always liked to read how God is my Rock. His constancy is a comfort when the world and people around us change.” His intensity grew. “He's the one thing that will never fail.”

Lacey was eager to end this conversation. “Somehow, I find little solace in the constancy of His judgment when I'm one of those who fails far too frequently.”
There. I admitted it. Let that be one less black mark against my character
.

Dunstan looked flabbergasted. “We all fail. It doesn't say our work is blameless; we celebrate the perfection in His.”

“And He judges us for falling short,” Lacey finished. As far as she was concerned, this conversation had finished, too. She turned to start walking back down the rocky incline they'd climbed up. If Dunstan planned to sermonize, she wouldn't wait for his help going back home. Lacey longed for solid ground and trees—staying up here in the wide open left her feeling exposed.

“He's merciful if we confess our faults.” Dunstan's words made her freeze, as though stuck to the stone beneath her. “Just where did you fall so far short you're afraid to trust Him?”

He can't know
. Panic clawed its way up her throat as Lacey started walking again. Faster. “That is none of your concern.”

It concerns me very much. A woman so afraid of righteous judgment is guilty of something
. Chase broke into long strides, determined to begin his descent before the foolish woman started down ahead of him. If she took a fall, he'd be there to break it.

“I can respect that.”
Until I find more information
. For now he'd change the subject and try to sneak back around to the things he needed to know. “A woman who bags a partridge first time out deserves that much consideration. I don't know of a man who could bring one down with anything less than a shotgun.”

“Men get more opportunities to practice,” she retorted. “It doesn't mean they possess greater skill, Mr. Dunstan.”

“True.”
Occasionally
. “Even with practice and skill, there are times when no amount of preparation changes the outcome.”

“If the bird gets away, you try again.” She didn't acknowledge any deeper meaning behind his statement, and Chase wondered whether it was because she didn't notice or was avoiding it. “I find success is often measured in steps. Today, for instance, we bagged five birds. This success will lead to more when tomorrow we collect another seven for an even dozen.”

We?
Chase had no intention of taking her with him tomorrow. Nothing could be left to chance when one day remained.
This isn't the time to mention it
, he decided.
Besides, she'll awake in the morning with more aches than she anticipates
. He'd had full-grown, burly men who'd opted out of a second day of trekking with him after the first tested their strength. Granted, he'd not led her through terribly difficult terrain, but the vast majority had been uphill. That was unavoidable.

Instead of acknowledging her intent to join him the next day, Chase focused on the numbers she listed. “Seven at least.”

“At least?” The swift patter of sliding rocks tattled that she'd halted. “They're large enough that we won't need more than one per person. Evie will be bringing some accompaniments, too.”

Chase didn't stop walking and was gratified to hear her footsteps resume. It was time to spring his trap. “It occurred to me that since we can't bring Mr. Lyman to the picnic, we could at least bring a part of the picnic to your brother.”

A faster skittering of rocks, a heavy footfall told him Miss Lyman slipped a bit at the mere mention of her brother. Turning to face her, he saw her arms extended in the act of adjusting her balance. She hastily put her arms at her sides, but her mouth held a pinched look telling of her displeasure.

“We're not all going to picnic in Braden's sickroom.” This wasn't a protest with room to negotiate. It was a flat denial. She still didn't want Chase to meet her brother—perhaps didn't want anyone to meet him. Her reticence raised his suspicions.

“Of course not.” His agreement immediately relaxed her, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “I highly doubt we'd all fit, and that many people would be tiring. My idea was more that we could bring him a partridge after we returned to town.”