The outcry we heard boom out of the trees was from something alive - most definitely alive.
We arrived back at the lodge sweaty and dirty from the ride. As Kris led the two jittery mares to their post to tether them, I pulled the water hose from the side of the Recreation building, letting the water flow from the spout until the temperature cooled. One thing the horses both liked was being splashed with fresh water. With their saddles off, I hosed them down until clean streams ran off their flanks, and let them air dry. With the late afternoon heat, it didn"t take long for the liquid to evaporate. With a huge bundle of hay in between them, the mares calmed down and focused on one thing: food.
"Shower?" I asked Kris, who looked just as exhausted as I felt.
She shook her head, "Bath."
We took the trail leading down to the cabin slowly, our inner thighs sore from riding, legs trembling slightly, arms held limply by our sides. My whole rear-end felt numb but that changed by the time we reached the cabin. Groaning and grumbling with each porch step, the two of us entered the place looking like the horses had dragged us through the mountains, not carried us on their backs.
Zoey jumped up on us the moment we walked in the door. I bent forward, letting the small dog lick my face partially clean. I scratched behind her ears until she flopped down and rolled over, displaying her tummy for a rub. It took every muscle in my back to right myself when I was finished with the dog, and even more muscles to climb the stairs to the second floor.
Kris was standing on the landing, leaning against the banister talking to Connor. She mumbled something about the scream that startled the horses and Connor snagged my arm as I tried to squeeze past him.
"Are you okay?" he asked, as a look of concern wrinkled his forehead.
"We"re here, aren"t we?" I smiled up at him and pecked his cheek with a quick kiss before vanishing into the bedroom. I left a trail of dirty clothes on the floor from the door to the bathroom, stripping them off and dumping them as I walked.
Connor followed me in after Kris excused herself to her room. "Babe, what happened out there? Kris looked a little freaked out," he said, while I stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain closed around me. I flinched when the water came on - cold as ice - but I was too tired to step back and let it warm. When I opened up my bottle of spearmint and eucalyptus body wash, the smell alone was enough to make me sway in the shower, but not until the curtain pulled back and Connor popped his head in did I realize he was talking to me the whole time.
"Did you hear anything I said?" he asked with a smile.
"Nope. I"m in shower heaven, babe. Sorry, I"m exhausted; that was a stressful ride, however short it was," I mumbled back at him, as I ran shampoo through my hair. I pulled out a leaf, blinked at it, and sleepily wondered to myself how it got there.
"Okay, I"ll let you shower in peace. You look hot by the way," he said. With a wink, he released the shower curtain, letting it fall back in place and I watched as his shadow left the room.
The soap going down the drain was tinted beige from the dirt that covered my arms, neck and face, and no matter how hard I scrubbed, I still smelled like horse. When I was finally satisfied that I was clean, I stepped out and wrapped myself in a terry bath towel, twisting another one around my hair.
My intention was to get dressed and go downstairs for dinner but the bed beckoned me across the room and I collapsed face first onto it, burying my head in a pillow. Sleep took me instantly, and for the first time in weeks - I didn"t dream.
Connor sat downstairs at the counter, rearranging plates and cups and silverware until Kris begged him to stop. She downed three gla.s.ses of water since coming downstairs after her shower. Riley was still upstairs, and he was growing impatient waiting for her to join them. He had prepared dinner himself: a mixed veggie salad - all from their makeshift greenhouse. The lettuce and cherry tomatoes looked especially inviting and Connor had the urge to lean down and lick at his plate. Just before he did so, Zoey barked once and Connor rose from the kitchen island to look out the front windows. Winchester was standing on the porch, holding something in his hands.
"Hey man, how goes it?" he asked the impeccably groomed man.
"Oh, good...good. I just thought I"d bring this over. I know Kris and Riley were mentioning chocolate the other day." Winchester handed over a square container and Connor peered below the dishcloth to see a cooling batch of brownies.
"Seriously?" he asked, his eyes widening.
"Yeah, it was easy...just subst.i.tuted the eggs for applesauce. And we have plenty of that, right?" he laughed. That was true too, Riley had pureed a whole crate of apples they picked from a nearby orchard and packed the sauce up in jars. They would have applesauce through the entire winter.
Kris squealed when she overheard the word "brownies" and joined Connor at the door. He noticed that Winchester blushed when Kris leaned through the doorway and kissed his cheek. He rubbed at the spot as if he wanted to clean his face.
"Well, thanks man. I"m sure when Riley comes down, she"ll dive right in."
"Oh, sure. No problem. Okay, so I"m back to the cabin, I"m making pesto tonight for Jacks. I mean...for Jacks and Ana, Skip too, of course," Winchester laughed.
Connor nodded at him and smiled, watching as the other man left the porch and stepped back onto the trail to go next door. d.a.m.n, that dude is so weird, he thought.
CHAPTER ten.
The room was pitch-black when I opened my eyes and scanned the s.p.a.ce around me. For a moment, I had forgotten how I ended up on the bed in only a towel. My hair was splayed out around my arms, the waves tangled and wild. Connor wasn"t in the bed with me.
After dressing in a loose fitting pale pink top with aquamarine stripes and a pair of cut-off jean shorts, I attempted to calm my untamed hair by running my fingers through it but gave up and twisted the whole mess into a low bun. I knew standing in the dark hallway that Kris wasn"t in bed either. The door was open and her room was just as dark as mine had been before I flipped the pear-shaped table lamp on that sat atop my dresser. The face in the mirror was worn down. Over the weeks, the sun had given me a healthy glow; richly tanned and freckled but my eyes looked tired.
With my hand on the banister, I stood at the top of the stairs, listening for sounds of life from the first floor of the cabin. No one was talking, nothing was moving around; it was dead calm. Downstairs I found the rooms just as dark as upstairs had been, the only difference being that the porch light was on.
"Where"d everyone go?"
I whistled once - a long and low whistle that I used to call Zoey to me when we were out hiking and she got too far ahead on the trail. She didn"t respond, so I knew she wasn"t inside the cabin, or anywhere nearby for that matter.
After digging my slip-on canvas shoes out of the entry way closet, I opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, breathing the evening in greedily. I hadn"t realized how stuffy the cabin was until standing outside in the crisp air. It was the first time in weeks that I wasn"t stuck to my clothes with sweat. The weather was changing - finally. Fall was just around the corner, teasing us with the sporadic weather changes and the hope that the heat would soon ebb away.
It was time.
I went to each cabin, knocking on the doors and peering inside to see if anyone was home. Not even Ana seemed to be lounging indoors - which was odd for her. She never ventured out into the evenings unless it was to come over to our cabin with Jacks. Once the drama queen, with a knack for demanding the spotlight, she had become quite the mountain hermit.
Where the h.e.l.l did everyone go?
A sound at the top of the trail caught my attention and I jogged toward it, cursing myself for not bringing a flashlight. I heard it again; m.u.f.fled conversation, coming from somewhere ahead of me. I continued jogging, noticing that the ache in my joints was almost gone from my spill off the motorcycle. The new skin along the side of my jaw was shiny, taut, and bright pink, but Winchester had taken great care to keep the scarring at a minimum and I was certain his efforts would work.
I stopped halfway up the trail, straining to hear the voices in the distance. Standing alone in the dark, I could hear the smaller creatures of the forest moving through the trees. Larger birds flapping their wings in the sky and the crunch of dried leaves as something that was most definitely larger than a rabbit paced behind the trees. It was that sound that got me running again and seconds later, a moving light filtered through the tree line in front of me. I didn"t recognize it right away, not until I reached the head of the trail and saw the raging bonfire. Everyone from the group was sitting in a circle around the makeshift bonfire pit we built a few months before. The bouncing light was from the flames that shot up two feet into the air, throwing eerie shadows all over the lodge lawn and into the trees. The wind was blowing east, taking the scent away from me, which is why I hadn"t smelled the fire immediately.
The low pine branches reached out toward me as I walked by, moving quickly off the dirt trail and onto the pebbled one. It was only a trick of light but I flinched anyway as the limbs jumped and bent and moved around like they were alive; as if they wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h me and run off somewhere deep into the woods.
"Hey!" Connor shouted my way, waving for me to join them.
"Hi." I smiled as I crossed the gra.s.s and sat down on the blanket that Connor and Kris had laid out for Zoey. She met me with a series of sniffs and tail wags, eager to have my attention as I sat next to her and rubbed her belly. She had been spending so much time with Kris that I missed her.
The horses stood nearby, secured to their fence post, pushing their muzzles through a small pile of hay. I smiled at their improved appearance; Kris was taking excellent care of the creatures. Other than their long and stringy manes, the horses looked healthy. They had even put on weight since we found them. The fire shadows crawled across their backsides, making it appear as if the two were swinging their rumps around to some unheard beat and the visual of them dancing made me giggle out loud.
Skip and Winchester were going back and forth, telling a story about their construction of the new greenhouse earlier in the year. Though the story was a funny one, I had heard it enough to have it memorized. I tuned the conversation out but kept a smile plastered to my face and just watched them. We had become quite the family over the last year. Most of us were scarred by then...emotionally and physically. I fingered my jawline, feeling the thin layer of new skin beneath my fingertip and glanced over at Kris. From the angle where I sat, I couldn"t see the scars on her throat, but I knew they were there. At least mine weren"t inflicted by another person - not directly, at least. She had to look at them every day, knowing that someone put them there. Sometimes I thought she was the strongest of all of us.
"What"s going on in that mind of yours," Connor breathed into my ear.
I smiled silently with my face up for a kiss. After our lips parted, we pulled away from each other aware that the conversation had ended since everyone else sitting around the ring of fire had quieted down.
Skip laughed before taking a swig of something from a can, "I would say for you two to get a room but hasn"t stopped you before."
Connor"s eyes widened and he tossed an empty can at the older man. Beer, they were drinking beer. "You"re just jealous, old man!" Connor shouted playfully over the popping of the fire. After the group had settled down from a series of chuckles, Ana pointed behind me to where the charred remains of the main lodge house stood.
"It feels different - doesn"t it?" she asked quietly. None of us were sure who she was asking exactly but since she had pointed just over my shoulder, I was the one that eventually answered her.
"Do you mean the lodge?" I asked. The long and thick pleat of her hair shifted on her shoulder as she nodded. "What do you mean?"
"It"s just...don"t you feel it?" Her voice was quiet, barely audible over the roar of the bonfire.
Winchester smiled as he gazed over my shoulder. "Yeah, I do. Like the heaviness is gone."
"Exactly. That"s what I mean. Like...like whatever was trapped there is gone now." Ana smiled shyly and shifted on her blanket, stretching her curvy legs out before her. Jacks brushed his knuckles up against her bare arm and then her pregnant belly and she smiled at him. It was a brief, loving exchange that the rest of us weren"t privy to seeing on a regular basis.
I felt Connor squirm beside me and glanced over to see that his expression was unreadable. I wasn"t sure if he was upset or tired. "What is it?" I whispered.
He shrugged, letting out a heavy sigh. "It might feel better up here but not in the cabin, that"s for sure." He gulped down several swallows of his beer and tossed the can into the fire, causing the flames to sizzle around the metal.
"What do you mean?" Skip asked him.
Connor and I exchanged weary looks before his eyes flicked over to Kris, who sat quiet and motionless with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped tightly around them. "I think it"s getting worse," he said.
I didn"t look at him. I could tell by Connor"s voice that he wasn"t thrilled to talk about the dreams we had been having or the dark shadows that hovered in the corners of our bedroom in the middle of the night. But as I looked from one person to the next, it was obvious that only Kris and I understood what he had implied.
"Haven"t you seen him?" I asked the group.
Jacks raised an eyebrow and Winchester leaned forward, placing his slender elbows onto his knees. The slight movement made his camping chair squeak. "Who?" he asked slowly.
"Fin."
Ana inhaled sharply and Skip"s mouth dropped open but Winchester simply held my gaze, his expression not changing one bit. "Just you, or are all of you seeing...Fin?"
I rolled my eyes and sighed dramatically. "I"m not losing my mind."
"You just took a hard fall, banged your head, remember?" He stood from his chair to drop his beer can into the fire. The flames licked hungrily at the can and spit with fury at the remnants of alcohol.
"It"s not her head, Win," Connor grumbled. "And it"s not just her...Kris and I have seen him too," he said.
"What?" I looked at Kris, still with her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. "For how long?" Instead of answering me, she tucked her face down between her knees, hiding like a young child.
"She"s been having nightmares," Connor said flatly.
"Haven"t we all?" Jacks grumbled. He stuck the toe of his boot into the fire and kicked at a log until it rolled over and embers burst into the air. The crackling sound made us all jump.
"Not just dreams. Riley and I have seen him in the cabin," Connor said.
"And in the woods," I added quietly.
"Well, s.h.i.t. Here I was thinking that the fire sort of cleansed this place and now you tell me that ain"t true at all?" Skip asked.
"I think he wants something from me," I said. Everyone turned to look at me, including Connor. His eyes locked with mine and when he spoke, his words dripped with irritation and concern.
"And what"s that?"
"I don"t know what he wants exactly, but there"s only one thing I can think of to make him go away." I paused and looked away from Connor. I stared hard at the fire until the heat made my eyes water. "I have to leave this place."
With everyone talking at once, it was impossible for Connor to hear Riley"s voice over the others but it was obvious her mind was made up. Nothing anyone else said made her resolve change. It was time to go to L.A. and she wanted to leave...tomorrow. It was the last thing she said before she pushed up off the ground and walked away from the rest of us. Back to the cabin, she said, to finish packing. She and Kris had their small bags of clothing and supplies ready days ago, but the food was still stacked on the counters, waiting to be shoved into the saddlebags and packs that we were supposed to carry. It was all the two of them had talked about over the last week. Horses. Trails. Los Angeles. He was already tired from the journey and they hadn"t even started it yet.
This was really happening. She was really leaving. It was a fool"s errand and she knew it, but her eyes lit with pa.s.sion and guilty determination when she spoke of her desire to find Mariah. Connor watched her figure disappear onto the forest trail and knew it wasn"t Mariah she was doing this for. It was her amends for putting a bullet into her brother"s skull.
Even though it was in self-defense, she had killed a man. She quite literally had blood on her hands. Her conscious wasn"t built for murder. He hoped letting her act out her fantasy of locating the missing Mariah would give her the peace she so desperately sought.
Doubtful, he thought. Survival was a basic instinct for all of them. But finding peace...would any of them ever feel that again?
CHAPTER eleven.
The tandem saddle creaked softly beneath our weight as Kris shifted behind me and Foxy lifted each of her front feet and stretched her long neck out. With a flick of her ears, her telltale sign that she was ready, I tightened my grip on the rope that served as her harness and backed away from the fence post.
Connor sat upon Sunny with a resigned look on his face. The gentle early morning breeze lifted his hair off the back of his neck, threatening to blow off the cowboy hat he wore as a joke. As soon as he mounted the straw-colored mare, I had a hard time taking my eyes off of him. We all wore jeans but his were a faded washed-out color that went perfectly with the pale blue of his eyes. The long-sleeve Henley shirt he wore was rolled up to his elbows, showing off the chiseled shape of his tanned forearms and a small tuft of dark and silky chest hair that peeked out above the top b.u.t.ton. I knew the hair was silky since I helped lather him down in the shower earlier that morning. I replayed the events of our frantic lovemaking under the warm water spray and a smile stretched out my mouth. Those strong hands. Those long fingers - d.a.m.n, what he could do with them.
"Riley?"
I was snapped back from my wet daydream as Winchester placed his slender hand lightly on top of my left knee. After clearing my throat, I pulled the brim of my hat down to hide the blush that spread across my cheeks.
"Sorry, Win," I said with a nervous smile, as if he could read my very thoughts.
"Riley, just one thing - be safe. Don"t try to be a hero and do something stupid, okay? We need you...all of you to come back." My smile faltered a bit when I saw the tears building up in his eyes. The summer sun had streaked parts of his brown hair a natural blonde and if it weren"t for his OCD compulsion to stay constantly clean and groomed, he could almost pa.s.s for a beach b.u.m. Almost.
"Win, I"ll be fine. We all will. Hopefully we"ll be back soon with Mariah, or at the very least...with answers."
Kris put a pet.i.te hand on top of her matching cowboy hat and leaned over to give Win a quick kiss on the cheek, followed by a little wave to the others. We already said our goodbyes, but they followed us up to the horses anyway, even Ana as pregnant as she was. Before I had mounted Foxy, she wrapped a string of blue and brown braids around my wrist and tied them in a knot. A single charm hung from the roped bracelet - a small silver heart. "Make sure you find your way home," she said quietly.
Goodbyes have never really been my thing, so I nudged Foxy with my heels and pulled on the bone-white harness rope until she turned to our right - away from the group. With a final wave and smile, we left them behind with the knowledge that it was possible and maybe even likely, that we would never see their smiling faces again.
As if Mother Nature herself approved of our departure, the wind came in from the west and pushed against our backs, urging us east toward the highway. I looked back only once to send a final wave at the small huddled group of people that had become my family. But more importantly, to send what I hoped was a silent and final goodbye to Fin.
After the lodge was out of view and the highway was laid out before us, something a rusty red color stood behind a crooked pine tree. It didn"t move as the horses clopped down the drive and even though we were a good fifty feet away, I saw that it was a tall and lanky fox. With his head hung low, his snout seemed impossibly long. It was half-starved with an expression of longing that I knew all too well. It occurred to me then, that what we heard screeching in the woods was probably the lone and desperate pleas of that very creature.
The sun beat directly down onto the ground, with not even one cloud between the earth and the solar rays to give us a reprieve. By late morning, we had stripped out of our layers and down to our undershirts. The cowboy hats that Connor had given us kept the sun off our faces and necks but I was constantly swiping at my brow to keep the sweat out of my eyes. We followed the highway north until we reached Julian, where we stopped and raided a general store for buckets and water for the horses. When they had their fill, we turned west and followed the winding highway toward Ramona, walking the horses on the soft shoulder where possible. Mile long chunks of Highway 78 were empty of all vehicles but then there would be random cl.u.s.ters of stalled cars and trucks clogging up the road. The horses were able to maneuver around the metal cl.u.s.ters easily and I took every opportunity for the first half of the day to remind Connor about how sensible it was, bringing the horses instead of riding motorcycles.