Page 19 of Last Chance Cowboy
Though they had been talking about her resuming strenuous physical activity, and Cara didn’t really do strenuous physical activity. She was on her feet a lot, though, which was going to be an issue.
“I know that it was stupid,” she said as they loaded up into the truck.
“It wasn’t stupid. It was perfectly reasonable to think you could go out walking on that hiking trail. What a liability. Who knew that a rainstorm could cause that kind of an issue?”
Cody looked upset. “I should’ve known,” he said. “The water does rush down the sides of the hills, but I hadn’t seen a slide like that. I think it’s the combination of all the dry weather we had, making it so the ground didn’t absorb the water, and how hard it was raining. Still, this is the kind of thing we need to make sure that guests know about. Because it is a serious safety issue, and we’re just lucky that you’re all right.”
“I believe my thirst for adventure has been quenched,” she said dryly.
“Well, I hope not,” Marlowe said. “Because that would be sad.”
“It is kind of sad,” Cara agreed. “My one and only attempt at being adventurous, and I find myself buried in the mud. And sprained.”
She leaned her head against the strap of her seatbelt and looked out the window. She went back to Zane. The way that he had come riding up on his horse. The way that he had saved her.
It made her body feel warm.
Made her feel like it had almost been worth it.
Or maybe she was delirious because she had taken a painpill. Though, it was just an ibuprofen, so she supposed that was all her.
They dropped her off at home, and she was going to get her car later. She crawled into bed, feeling dizzy. She got texts from her employees promising that they were going to make sure that things were running okay at the bakery, so that she could rest for a day.
But she drifted off into sleep, and it was not dreamless. Because she was thinking about Zane, and when she drifted off, he was there too.
Chapter Four
“You looked heroic carrying her on the horse like that,” Lila said, looking up at Zane.
He scowled. “I am not heroic.”
“It was pretty heroic,” Lila said.
Everybody was being way too nice to him, and he didn’t like it. He preferred being treated like a stray dog that had wandered into the function. They offered him a plate, but they regarded him with a little bit of wariness.
Cody might be a friend, but everybody else was a mere acquaintance.
They didn’t know him, and he didn’t really want them to. He didn’t really want to be known by anybody.
He took a drink of his beer and walked over to grab another burger off the table. He had consented to come over for dinner, mainly because he didn’t know what the hell else to do. He wanted to go check on Cara, but they didn’t have that kind of relationship. He didn’t have that kind of relationship with anybody. If anybody was going to check on her, it should be Marlowe. He didn’t have anything to do with it.
He shoved one hand into his pocket and cracked hisknuckle. Because even lying like that in his head was uncomfortable.
Cody came over and slapped him on the back.
“Thank you for finding her. Marlowe was so worried.
Zane grunted. He really didn’t have any words for it. He hadn’t done anything. All he had done was follow his intuition. He was a tracker, a combat medic, and a wilderness skills expert, and had used those skills in the military, on battlefields. Applying them on a closed ranch to find one small woman who had given a general idea where she was going to be hadn’t been that hard.
Everybody else had gone more toward the trail, and they had found her car at the trailhead.
They had driven up toward the top of where she would’ve started hiking, and he had taken his horse down below, where vehicles couldn’t traverse.
He had started thinking about the weather, and about the possibility of her slipping off the trail. He’d been concerned as hell because he didn’t know how steep that got up there.
Then, he found her, leaning against the side of the hill, bare legs out in front of her. She was soaking wet, and he was worried she was unconscious, though it turned out she was only just asleep.
Her skin had been freezing. She had been soaked to the bone.
