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I caught myself trembling and clasped my hands, pressing them into my lap, locking my arms as my eyes scanned the tree line in the valley below. The creek ran through there, cutting into rocks to make a small ravine.
Frantically, silently, we searched without finding them.
“Where do you want to look?”
“Down by the creek,” I answered with terror clawing my throat, my brain weaving sick visions of what we might find, the worst case, and though I tried to hush them, the effort was wasted.
He drove along the bed of the creek, careful to follow the muddy, rocky bank.
My eyes combed lines of trees, searching for a patch of white or tan, whispering nothing, nothing, nothing with every shallow inhale and exhale.
In a break of trees, I caught a flash of movement, then another, a blur of white and brown.
“There!” I pointed in the direction, and he hurried toward them as they bolted through the trees.
I rolled down the window, squinting against the rain, calling her name. Her head whipped in our direction, her eyes ringed with white, but Gretchen slowed, bringing Ginger with her.
Keaton knew what to do, hurrying alongside the trees to get ahead of them, pulling to a stop. We burst from the cab, running toward their path. Still I called her name, hands in the air, moving toward her, and she slowed a little more, rearing when she reached me.
I approached her from the side as she came down, stroking her neck with shaking hands as she skittered. Remembering Ginger, I whipped around, one hand full of Gretchen’s mane. But Keaton had her still, though stamping. Relief washed over me.
“There’s a barn nearby,” I yelled over the rain. “Can you ride bareba—”
Before I could finish, Keaton grabbed a handful of mane, steadied the other hand on her back, and swung up and over, settling himself and comforting Ginger as I watched with my mouth open. When he looked down at me, I got to mounting Gretchen. I didn’t have his height and had to plant a knee in her hip for leverage, but she was unbothered by that. The lightning flash was another story.
I was barely seated before she reared and whinnied, and I hung on for life. When she came down, I was somehow, gratefully, still seated, and as she took off, I guided her toward the barn, clinging to her with my thighs as my skirt whipped my legs. I kept lock on the sound of hooves behind me as we rounded a bend in the creek where, nestled in a copse of trees, was one of our many ancient barns.
I pulled her to a stop in front of the barn door and slid off, throwing it open and calling them in. The horses ran into the familiar warmth, and once we were inside, I closed the door again with a slam and click of the bar.
The rain pinged and rolled distantly off the roof far above, the wind gone, the barn still. It was an older barn, left to nature. Old piles of gray hay lay in corners, the dirt floor dusted with more. The horses nickered, standing close to each other for warmth and comfort.
I leaned against the door panting, my head against the old pine planks and my eyes on the rafters before they closed. I heard the soft pat, pat, pat of water dripping from every angle of my body, heard my heaving breath and thundering heart. Heard a crash of thunder, then Keaton speaking softly to the horses when they stomped.
They were safe, I told myself. We were all safe.
But my body wasn’t ready to listen, still trembling and sharp from adrenaline and fear. Every hair stood on end, reaching for warmth, for danger.
When my eyes opened, they found both in Keaton.
He searched me with eyes and hands, checking for injury. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Looking up at him, I was anything but. His eyes were dark as they scanned me, his brow low. Fat droplets of water clung to the ends of his wavy locks, dripping on my hands as he inspected them and my arms as he turned me and squeezed. Plaid fabric clung to his chest, to his arms, a perfect cast of his body. Rain and safety clung to him, though he was perhaps the most dangerous thing I’d ever come across. Like lightning thick air, he smelled of shocking heartbreak and electric longing. I couldn’t have him, but I couldn’t seem to stay away.
“I …” It was a word inside of a breath, the only sound I could muster.
His eyes met mine, and no longer could I move. Breathe. Consider anything but the depths of those eyes, which were a brown so deep, you could only see his pupils for the occasional fleck of gold. Those pupils were wide, and he couldn’t seem to move, to breathe, either. His square hands held my arms, their blazing heat radiating from the point of contact. The tip of his nose was only inches from mine, his lips close enough to feel his breath when he exhaled. My eyes slid to those lips, on the wide planes, the curve of his bottom lip just above the line of his beard.
