Page 15 of The Mountain Man's Determined Bride
After dialing the familiar number, he waited for an answer. “Hey Ty, its Luke. Have you seen your sister?” After a few seconds, he shook his head.
“Yeah she showed up too, that’s what started the trouble. Margie said you had a run but you’d be there later. Your sister took off right after your girl walked in. She got a decent lead but I followed her as fast as I could until the trail closed down from downed trees. I had to take a small detour that turned into a huge loss of time. Bill said she hasn’t been here.” He could feelhis blood pressure rising and panic was itching to rear its ugly head.
“That’s not what Margie said but we don’t have time to go into detail now. She was less than thrilled at the company you’ve been keeping. Can you just get here already?”
Tyler said something ridiculously Tyler and Luke rolled his eyes, displaying little patience.
“Whatever. I don’t care about your love life. Just hurry damn it. She knows that mountain better than anyone and unless she’s just being stubborn, she could really be hurt.”
He slammed the cordless down on the counter and turned to Bill.
“Tyler’s on his way. He hasn’t seen or heard from her and we all know she wouldn’t have gone anywhere else so we’re going out to look for her.”
“Well here then.” Bill led the way to the kitchen, pulling out four radios that looked brand new along with extra battery packs for each.
Shaking his head, Luke glared at Bill as he picked up the first radio. “If you had new radios, why did you send me that cheap piece of shit that went dead five minutes after I left here?” He made quick work of turning the radios on and switching them all to the same channel while he waited for Bill’s response.
“Guess I forgot about these new ones and there wasn’t nothing wrong with that radio I sent you. Maybe you need to learn to use it.” He could tell Bill was trying to keep from laughing.
“Whatever old man. You did it on purpose. You and I both know it.” Before Bill could mouth out a retort, Tyler burst through the back door.
“Alright, let’s go. We need to find my sister.” He started to grab the radios but stopped when neither of the other two men moved.
“What are you all standing around for? We need to go. Uncle Bill, do you have any extra flashlights?” He didn’t wait for an answer and started pulling open cabinet doors and drawers.
“Oh I’m sure he keeps those right where he keeps the new radios he conveniently forgets about.”
“That’s enough out of you two. Now get out of here and find my niece!”
Chapter Thirteen
What…where am I?
Morgan stirred, an acrid smell lingering in the air as her eyelids tried to flutter. Had she been sleeping? And why did she feel like she’d been tackled by a 400 pound wrestler? Had to be that fall in the living room still trying to keep her down. She must still be dreaming because it was awful difficult to open her eyes and her body felt like it’d been through a meat grinder and every muscle had been pulverized.
There was movement beside her so she forced her face muscles to pry her eyelids open, even just a sliver to give her some idea of what was going on. Her pupils didn’t have trouble adjusting because it was dark outside, almost black. She could see the trees hovering above her, towering hundreds of feet. The ground was moist as Morgan positioned her hands beneath her chest, careful not to increase the pain she was already feeling.
“Oh Pepper, no!” Her poor horse lay on his side just a few feet away.
A surge of energy pumped through her at the sight of her loving and constant companion, causing her body to launch from the ground only to realize she wouldn’t be going anywhere when pain surged like electric sparks all through her body. She fell back down, her face smashing into the dirt.
“Ahh!” Her screams of agony echoed around her in the dense forest as she maneuvered to look at her broken left leg. Tears crested her eyelashes and a bundle of stress invaded her chest.
“What am I going to do now?” She looked toward Pepper, who unfortunately was no help, then back to her leg.I need to do something. We can’t sit here all night or we’ll both die.
Positioning her hands back under her chest again, she pushed on wobbly arms and propped herself up. If she could turn over, the surroundings would be a bit more visible.
“Oh my god that hurts!” She screamed into the night sky as she carefully rolled to her right hip. Grabbing a stick and biting it between her teeth, she reached for the bloody material covering the protruding bone and lifted as she rolled over to her backside, lying flat on the ground again.
If she weren’t in such a sticky situation, the view she had might be enjoyable because what she could see of the starry night through the trees was beautiful. Slowly sitting herself up, every move nowhere near tolerable, she tried to assess her break.
In her line of work, she’d seen this very thing many times and while it was never an easy situation, puttingherselfin the position of needing rescued,everythingwas different. Panic smoldered at the recesses of her brain and her blood pressure spiked a notch. She knew right where her two-way radio was and it wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good on the table at the cabin. Another glance at Pepper told her she’d been in such a hurry to escape, she didn’t grab the saddle bags either. She wouldn’t be able to call for help without those radios and stupidly she hadn’t let anyone know she was leaving the cabin so her Uncle Bill wouldn’t be expecting her.
Seems her only other hope was Luke. Did he really care like he said? If so, would he have come after her when she stormed out? At this point she sure hoped so. However, on the off chance he wouldn’t, she needed to find a way to help herselfand Pepper too. Scooting on her butt trying to use only her arms, she inched closer to Pepper hoping things didn’t look worse for him. The fact he hadn’t gotten off the ground yet was troubling.
Positioning herself right at the nose on her horse’s head, she felt for the bridle which was a little twisted and off-center because the reigns somehow had gotten caught on a branch from a downed log. She couldn’t shake them loose and working to pull himself free had exhausted her horse. At least she hoped that was all. Acquiring a stronghold on the leather straps, she pulled with as much strength as she could muster. The twig holding the lines gave way throwing her backward, but effectively releasing Pepper at the same time.
Free of restraint, Pepper wasted no time catapulting himself up off the ground.