The Color of Forever: Book Two: Forever Cowboys Series (9 page)

That being the case, she had long endeavored to make the best of the situation and enjoy her single status to the max. If she was destined to be always a bridesmaid and never a bride, so be it. She’d make the most of what happiness life offered her.

Oh well, enough introspection, Samantha decided, and headed inside to spend the morning writing. Her writing went well for the most part, but she found her wayward thoughts often straying to Ben and their horseback ride later today.

Everything about the quietly sexy Ben Connors turned her on. His hot bod didn’t hurt matters any, of course. Nor did his gorgeous face and remarkable eyes that despite her best efforts, refused to be labeled as one definite color. But it wasn’t just a physical attraction.

Samantha found his gentleness, courtesy and kindness combined with a low key confidence extremely attractive, too.

He seemed to be almost perfect. Still, once bitten twice shy and Sam had been bitten many times. It was hard for her to believe that a man as wonderful as Ben could be real. She gave a mental shrug. Did it really matter if he was truly nearly perfect? She wouldn’t be around that long, anyway, so what did it matter if he turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

Best to keep things in perspective. Ben would be a delightful diversion until she could go back to the city.

Nothing more.

Ben arrived right on time, as usual. That was yet another of his stellar qualities, Sam had discovered. He was punctual. She had had her share of inconsiderate dates who were either late or worse yet, no-shows who stood her up completely.

Once a girl has experienced a few of those, a guy like Ben who was as good as his word about what time to expect him made a refreshing change.

They saddled up the horses together, Ben giving the cinch on her horse an extra tug just to be sure it wouldn’t slip. Taking the lead, he rode at a sedate walk toward the forested area behind Marielle’s land. Samantha followed along on Taffy, thanking Mari mentally for having such a sweetheart of a horse available for her to ride during her stay.

Soon they turned onto a trail that led through the trees, climbing steadily upward. It was a perfect day, in Samantha’s opinion. Blue sky, not too hot or too cold, a light breeze and surrounded by the unique fragrance of the resinous evergreens that surrounded them. Ben occasionally turned around to point out something of interest to her.

“Look there, Samantha. See that bird?” Ben asked, stopping his horse and pointing to a colorful bird perched on a large fir tree to the right of the trail.

Samantha heard a rat-a-tat-tat as the bird pecked at the tree. Okay, she hadn’t seen one in the flesh before now, but she did know enough about ornithology and had watched cartoons enough to deduce that this bird was a woodpecker.

“It’s a woodpecker, right?”

“Yes, more or less,” Ben replied. “It’s in the woodpecker family, anyway; a Yellow Bellied sapsucker, to be precise.”

Sam looked at the brightly colored bird. It was mostly black with white on its wings and back, a brilliant red head and a yellow belly that she supposed was what gave the bird its name. “Are there a lot of woodpeckers here?” she asked.

“Thirteen different types, altogether. Some of Wyoming’s most beautiful birds are rarely seen because they stay way up in the tops of the trees. I’m not a dedicated birdwatcher,” he went on, turning to smile at Samantha. “But I do enjoy their presence and hearing them sing. The spot we’re heading to is a large creek where I often see our one and only native species of Kingfisher. They only live close to water and watching them catch dinner is pretty interesting.”

Sam had heard of Kingfishers but that was the sum total of her knowledge about them—just the name. She didn’t think it sounded all that interesting but didn’t want to be impolite so murmured her approval of their bird watching activities.

The pale sun was warm on her back and shoulders and as she plodded along on docile Taffy, she felt herself relaxing by degrees. This horseback riding thing was okay, much better than she had anticipated. She found herself enjoying the scenery and the view of Ben riding along in front of her, as well.

He sat tall in the saddle but was obviously very much at ease. No doubt he had been riding all his life, she thought. His shoulders were broad and manly, his waist and hips slim and from back here she got a good look at his cute backside. She admired his hands as he held the reins loosely … strong and manly with long, nicely shaped fingers.

Hands were important to Samantha. She simply couldn’t feel attracted to a man with stubby fingers or delicate, womanly hands. To her it was a deal breaker. Okay, she conceded that maybe it was shallow, but she liked men with manly hands. Ben certainly fit that description and had every other attribute she preferred in her men, too.

At least as far as she knew up to this point, she reminded herself with a naughty little inner chuckle. He might have other, hidden attractions that she didn’t know about yet. But she fully intended to rectify that situation as soon as possible.

The sunlight was dappled as it streamed through the canopy of the giant trees surrounding them on each side of the trail. The mountain air was clean and crisp on this early Spring day. There was a hint of the cold winter that had just passed, but it was warm enough to bring Sam to a state of somnolent relaxation. She gave herself a mental shake to wake up before she fell asleep in the saddle.

It was rather funny, she decided. A couple of weeks ago the thought of even being in close proximity to a horse had her quaking in her shoe soles and now she was so relaxed on one that she could almost doze off while riding.

Just then Samantha saw movement off to the side of the trail. The next instant she saw that it was a very small bear cub. The baby bear spotted her about the same time she saw it and their eyes met. It seemed friendly to Samantha, so she impulsively dismounted and ran close to it. “Oh look, Ben!” she called. “A baby bear. Isn’t it sweet?”

Ben jumped from his horse immediately and tied the horse’s reins to a low hanging branch. “Samantha,” he said in a low but serious voice, “Come away now.”

Samantha was puzzled. It was just a baby. It couldn’t hurt her. Why was he looking so grim? She moved a bit closer to the little bear, holding out a hand. She didn’t want to disregard Ben’s wishes but as someone who had ignored nature all her life, she was now finding herself fascinated by it and had a strong urge to pet the adorable little creature in front of her.

“Samantha—” Ben’s next words were cut off as an angry roar pierced the stillness of the forest.

Samantha heard the snap of brush as something large approached. Then her heart stopped and she froze in terror as the ‘something large’ revealed itself to be a huge and obviously unhappy adult bear. It stood up less than fifty feet away from her and she was stunned to see how tall it was; at least eight feet. It towered there, swaying slightly and looking at her with a distinctly menacing expression on its face.

“Samantha,” Ben said softly in her ear, having come up behind her while she was staring at the enormous bear, “
Don’t move
.”

Don’t move? Her instinct was to turn tail and run like hell as fast as and as far as she could to escape this monster bear! But she obeyed Ben, somehow sensing even in the midst of her mind-numbing fear that he would save her from the slavering jaws of this bloodthirsty beast.

She didn’t turn around to look but saw out of her peripheral vision that Ben had raised a rifle and was taking careful aim at the bear who loomed not far away from them.

In the next instant, the bear dropped to all fours and charged toward them. Samantha was shocked at its speed! Simultaneously, Ben fired and she heard a soft
pffftt
from the gun. She expected the bear to drop in its tracks but it kept on coming.

“Now we run!” Ben told her and holding her arm, he sprinted toward the trail with Samantha in tow. She could hear the bear breathing noisily behind them and expected it to reach out a massive paw and swipe her at any second. Instead, she heard a loud thump.

Looking back, she saw that the bear had collapsed and lay in a large mound of honey brown fur behind them. The baby bear was obviously distressed and let out a cry that reminded Sam of a human baby crying. The little creature walked around the fallen adult bear, crying and nudging at it as though to make it get back up.

“Ben,” Samantha quavered, still almost too frightened to speak, “What happened?”

Seeing her state of shock and that she was trembling in reaction, Ben put his arms around her and held her tightly. When he spoke his voice was low pitched and soothing.

“Samantha,” he said, “one elemental rule out here or anywhere bears live is that you never, ever approach a baby bear or get between a bear cub and its mother. The mothers are fiercely protective and will attack in an instant if they perceive a threat to their offspring.”

Oh yeah. Somewhere in the dim recesses of her memory, Samantha remembered hearing this in the past. She hadn’t paid much attention to it at the time because she couldn’t imagine the warning ever applying to her since bears didn’t roam freely around downtown New York.

“It was only trying to protect its cub,” Ben went on. “But a mother grizzly is one of the most dangerous animals on the planet and she would have killed us both to eliminate the threat to her baby.”

Sam shuddered and felt big, hot tears well up and start trickling down her face. Her heart was aching with remorse at what she had caused … the death of this beautiful wild animal who was bravely defending her young.

“Oh Ben, I’ve caused you to have to kill that poor mother bear. Now what will happen to the baby?” She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “Can you find it a home somewhere?”

Ben tightened his grip on her as he rubbed her back in rhythmic circles, soothingly. “Shhh, now” he said in a comforting tone. “I didn’t kill her. I shot her with a tranquilizer dart. She’ll be fine. In fact, she won’t be out long so I need to get a tracking device on her in order to monitor her movements and make sure she doesn’t suffer any ill effects from the dart.”

“Stand here,” he directed.

He wouldn’t have to ask her twice, Sam told herself. No way was she getting close to the bear again, even the darling little baby bear that was the start of all their trouble. She watched as Ben removed a large collar from his saddlebag and then fastened it around the neck of the mother bear. The baby continued to squawl and cry. Even now that she knew its mother wasn’t dead, Sam felt terrible about causing the baby to be so upset and surely frightened.

Apparently she had a lot to learn about the wilderness and nature. Samantha went weak at the knees thinking of what would have happened to her if Ben hadn’t been with her today. Ack! She’d have been killed. Killed and worse yet … eaten! It was a sobering thought and she resolved to rein in her impulses in the future when dealing with things she knew nothing about. Like bears, for instance.

The collar securely fastened, Ben strode back to Samantha. “We need to get on out of here. I don’t want to still be here when she wakes up.”

He looked around. “Your horse is gone. The bear spooked him and since he wasn’t tethered, he cut a trail. You’ll have to ride with me.”

Now Samantha felt even worse. She hadn’t thought about tying the horse and now he was gone. He could have been killed by the bear or hurt himself in his headlong flight to get away from the grizzly.

“What will happen to him? Shouldn’t we try to find him?”

Ben laughed. “Nah, not to worry. He’ll beat us home, I’m sure, and be waiting at the barn for his oats and hay. Animals have a better sense of direction than most people. So he won’t get lost.”

After untying and mounting his own horse, Ben reached down a helping hand and swung Samantha up into the saddle behind him. “Just hang on,” he said. “We’ll be home shortly.”

“Ben, how does that collar work as a tracking device for the bear?”

“It’s a process called GPS Wildlife Tracking. It uses the Global Positioning System similar to what you find in cars and when plotted against a map of the area, will allow me to track her movements in real time. That way if she does have a reaction to the anesthesia in the tranquilizer dart I can find her and provide assistance.”

Samantha was glad Ben would be able to keep an eye on the mother grizzly, even remotely. She felt awful about the incident and still shaken from what was a near-death experience. If Ben hadn’t been with her, or if he hadn’t had a real rifle or the tranquilizer dart handy, there would have been a very different and very horrifying outcome.