Page 29 of Cowboy in Colorado
Will smacks his thigh with his hat. “No fucking good at all.”
“What?” I demand, picking up on the sharp tone in his voice. Not fear, but something like it.
He gestures at the sky to the west. “That. That’s ugly, real ugly. If it ain’t a twister, it’s something bad. Gotta get under shelter, and quick.”
“There’s no shelter within miles,” I say. “Took me twenty minutes to get here.”
Will glares at me with irritation. “This is my ranch, Brooklyn. You think I don’t know where every last stick and twig and blade of grass is with my damned eyes closed?” He waves a hand the way I came. “Big House is too far. Even Alpha Camp is too far. We’re gonna have hail at the very least.”
“Hail?” I say, my voice squeaking, hitching. “If we’re out in the open and it starts hailing…”
“No shit.” He lets out a sigh, and then reins his horse around to face his men. “Boys, starting riding for Alpha. You get caught out in what’s coming, you’ll regret it.”
Clint surges forward from the line of hard-bitten ranch hands. “What about her?”
Will hisses. “You let me worry about her. You shoulda gotten her back to the Big House already, Clint, and we both know it. You let a city girl ride herd on you, and don’t think I’ll be forgetting it any time soon, bud. Now git. All of you. Ride hard and don’t slow till you’re at Alpha and your horses are seen to.” He reaches up and takes a walkie-talkie from the nearest person, hooking it onto his belt.
“What about me?” I ask. “I survived one crazy gallop across this ranch, I don’t think I have the strength to hold on for another. Just being honest.”
He shakes his head. “You’re not riding,” he says, his voice annoyed and pissed off. “Not alone, anyway.”
“Then what—?” I start.
I’m cut off by a piercing whistle from Will’s lips and his horse, the white one with black spots dappling her flanks, trots over to him, her reins looped around the saddle horn. Will swings up into the saddle, and extends his hand down to me. “Get on up here, girl.”
I stare up at him, realizing what he wants. “Oh, no. No way.” The hell I’m riding on the front of his saddle like a damsel in distress from some silly old Hollywood Western.
Will glances at the sky, dark and furious and seething. “Fine. Suit yourself.”
I glance to the side, where the ranch hands are, and realize they’ve gone—the howling wind and constant cracks of thunder drowned out their departure.
And they took Molly with them.
“You wanna be out here alone in this? Be my guest.” He has to shout to be heard, gesturing at the pen, the churning herd of horses, pointing at the stand of trees, a mix of aspen and pine—their trunks are bending in the wind, which has picked up now, violent, dangerous. “Your best bet is to hide in there. We built the pen around that stand of trees so they’d have shelter. You’ll have to share with them, but you oughta be safe enough.”
My hair is whipped out of the tight bun I had it in, and my clothing is pressed hard against my skin. Suddenly, I can barely stay on my feet, and I have to reach out and cling to Will’s stirrup to stay upright. I stare up at Will, hating this situation, and hating my hormones for secretly, desperately wanting to be up on that saddle, to feel his body behind mine—
At that moment, the sky splits apart in another peal of thunder so loud and so close overhead the very ground shakes under me, accompanied by a blinding flash of lightning striking so close my skin prickles and I smell ozone and taste metal. Rain sluices down, then, pouring in a river from the sky.
There’s no choice. Grousing under my breath, I reach up. Will’s hand is twice the size of mine, hard and callused and leathery and powerful. His grip around my forearm is gentle but unbreakable, and he hauls me up the side of his horse one-handed. I have to act fast, swinging one leg over as he plops me down on the saddle in front of him. I feel every inch of him pressed up against my back, his chest hard, muscular thighs crowding my hips. His arms reach around me, settling the reins in his left hand, his right arm wrapping tight around my middle, a very careful, calculated placement on his part.
“Hang on tight,” he murmurs.
“To what?” I breathe, panic boiling in my stomach.
The sky is flashing with strobes of lightning and shaking with thunder, the air itself turned green and is hazed with a solid curtain of driving, wind-whipped rain, each droplet stinging. I’m already soaked to the bone.
He guides my hand to the front edge of the saddle. “Hang on here, and with your legs.”
“Will—”
“And just trust me.”
Something white and round and hard pelts my shoulder, the size of the peppermints I gave Demon. “Will?”
“You thought the ride on Tinkerbell was rough?” He laughs, and I realize he’s adrenalized by the danger. “She couldn’t catch my boy Gopher on her best day.”
“Gopher?” I ask, laughing despite everything. “Your horse’s name is…Gopher?”