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Cole wouldn’t mind a little numbness right about now.
Cringing at a particularly bad spike of pain, Cole rounded the last, long curve before the trail headed up toward the break in the rock above. He didn’t see any sign of Jeremy or Madeline yet, or the horses.
Thunder rumbled, and after the violence of the lightning strikes, the sound was almost soothing. But as he rode higher and higher toward the summit of the trail, Cole began to worry again. He’d expected to find them just at this point, sheltered beneath the overhangs of rock nestled in the aspen.
Lightning struck again, farther away this time, and Cole dared to urge the mare all the way to the split in the rock that the trail edged through.
He fought the urge to close his eyes against the pain in his hip. Every step the mare picked out was a brutal reminder that he was doing more damage. He reached the split in the rock and tightened his fingers just the smallest bit. The mare still knew him, and his sense of her was coming back. Cole patted her neck and sat as straight as he could.
A small valley spread out below. They used it for grazing in the early spring, but the cattle were higher now, eating grass that didn’t green up until late June. Rain sheeted in the wind, but it wasn’t so heavy that he wouldn’t have been able to spot two riders. No one was there. Where the hell were they?
There was nothing down there but a grove of aspen and an old sheep-camp trailer. The wind gusted, blowing the rain toward him for a moment. He ducked his head and let it drip off his hat, then tried again. Despite the wind, the rain was dying off again. Cole squinted into the valley, then caught a hint of movement. He looked again, back toward the old trailer. Something moved beneath it.
No, not beneath it. Behind it. A horse shifted and poked its head around the corner.
“Bingo,” Cole breathed, and urged his mare past the rock and down the trail. He was a quarter of the way down when he realized maybe this was none of his business. If they wanted to snuggle up in a broken-down love hut, they were welcome to it. But Jeremy should’ve known better. He was on the clock, and Cole would be damned if he’d let the boy get paid for sex.
When he got to the bottom of the trail, he almost kept riding. There was a creek at the mouth of this valley, and he could just follow it down to a dirt road that crossed it a mile up, then circle back to the ranch. But he’d still only seen one horse. There was a chance there was a problem. A small chance.
Cole set his jaw and rode across the grass. The sharp agony had faded into a strange buzzing numbness around the edges of the pain. Probably not a good sign, but it was a relief. He still kept the horse to a walk.
When they got close, the mare snorted and whinnied to the gelding hobbled behind the little camp hut. A few seconds later, the tin door of the hut flew open. “Cole!” Jeremy called. He seemed fully clothed, but his shirt was wrinkled and matted to his body.
“Is Madeline in there?”
“Yeah, her ankle’s pretty swollen, though. Her mount spooked in the storm and took off. Luckily, she was already off and just holding the reins. Got yanked off her feet. She should be fine, but I didn’t want to risk riding through the storm.”
Cole glanced at the sky. “I think it’s letting up.”
Madeline hopped into the doorway as Jeremy stepped down to the grass. “I need to get back, Cole. Is it safe?”
Aside from the foot she held off the ground and some damp patches on her clothes, she looked totally unaffected by the adventure. Smoke puffed from the tiny chimney of the stove that heated the trailer. Jeremy had played the gentleman, it seemed.
“Hey!” Jeremy said. “You’re riding!”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to take Ms. Beckingham back while I look for that horse?”
“I—” Cole cut himself off. No, he didn’t want to ride back with Madeline tucked against his back, but he couldn’t trot around for an hour or two looking for a lost horse. He met Madeline’s eyes. He didn’t know what she and Jeremy had been doing in front of that stove in the camp hut, but the good news was that he didn’t care. “Hand her up,” he said tersely.
Madeline grabbed the fur-edged vest she’d been wearing and shrugged it on, then Jeremy tossed her up to sit behind Cole’s saddle. Her arms went around his waist. She put her chin to his shoulder. “Thanks, Cole,” she said softly. She didn’t offer a farewell to Jeremy.
“Come back along the creek,” Cole ordered, then headed that direction himself.
For a while, he was so aware of this woman pressed against him that he forgot his hip. It felt strange to have her touching him. She’d once been his lover, and then he’d hated her. Now it just felt like a stranger was embracing him. He shifted and cleared his throat.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Fine. You?”
“I’m good.” A few heartbeats passed before she spoke again. “How badly were you hurt?”
He hoped she didn’t notice the way his muscles twitched at her question. The woman was too quick by half. He didn’t answer.
“You said you’d hurt your leg, but the limp, the way you favor that side… Jeremy seemed surprised to see you riding, which made me realize I haven’t seen you on a horse once since I got here. You were glued to one on that first set.”
“This isn’t a set. It’s my life and my work.”
