by Emily March
“I am. We have to go the long way around to get there unless you brought belay devices in your pack.”
“No. Rock climbing is not my sport.”
“It’s not that far, and we won’t need ropes and pulleys going this way.” Jackson took her hand and helped her up an incline slippery with gravel, but dropped it once she’d successfully navigated the slope. They maintained a comfortable silence during the hike that took a little less than ten minutes. As they neared the viewing spot that was their destination, the wash of the falls began to drown out the chatter of the squirrels and the mockingbird’s squawks. Jackson wouldn’t call the sound a roar. These falls weren’t big enough to roar.
“I love that sound,” Caroline said. “The falling water.”
“What’s a step down from a roar?” he asked her.
“A rush? A rumble? A whoosh? It’s beautiful. I don’t see Enchanted Rock, though.”
“We’re not there yet.” He tightened his hold on her hand and gave her another tug. “Come along around this bend, and then we actually go downhill.”
“Lead on, Magellan.”
As he led her along a path that wasn’t much of one, he was vaguely aware of his anxiousness to share this unique spot in Enchanted Canyon. It was small, hardly bigger than a closet, and if he hadn’t happened to glance just the right way when he’d been walking past, he would have missed it. And yet every time he found himself in this quadrant of the canyon, he found himself wandering this way. Something about the spot called to him.
Caroline yanked her hand from his grasp and froze. “Is that a snake?”
He followed the path of her gaze and spied the four-foot-long black snake wrapped around a tree limb at eye level. “Yep. Bullsnake. Perfectly harmless.”
“Perfectly don’t care. Perfectly can’t stand snakes.”
“But you have such stylish snake boots.”
“I’m not wearing snake earmuffs.” She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Can you get him to move?”
He chided her with a look. “It’s his living room, not ours. Look at him, gal. He’s wrapped around that limb like a lace of licorice.”
“I don’t like licorice any better than snakes,” she grumbled.
Jackson rolled his eyes and walked beneath the branch into the clear, and then he turned and waved her through. Caroline drew a deep breath, and then dashed forward and into Jackson’s arms. Once there, she squealed and he laughed.
She was sweet as corn fresh off the stalk, and she melted against him like ice cream on a summer day. “Why am I thinking about Eve and the Garden of Eden right at this moment?”
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”
“Compliment. Definitely a compliment.”
“Are you the Devil, Jackson McBride?”
“Me? Ha. You are the one who is pure temptation, Caroline Carruthers.” She smiled slowly and so sweetly that it was all he could do not to take her mouth with his here and now. He’d back her against the tree and grind his body against hers and scratch this blasted itch—except the damn snake was still curled around the branch.
Her tongue slithered out from her mouth and circled her lips. “Maybe you should show me Enchanted Rock.”
Temptation. Pure temptation.
See that girl.
“Maybe I’d better.” He took her hand and led her down the final few yards to the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spot framed between two boulders that revealed all three horsetail falls and Enchanted Rock. He watched in quiet pleasure as her eyes widened and her mouth circled in a silent O.
“It’s magical. It’s like something right off of a postcard.”
“I know.”
She smiled at Jackson with delight. “Enchanted Canyon is spectacularly cool. It’s like we’ve stepped back in time. Everything is unspoiled and undeveloped. Nature at its most raw and real and powerful. It makes me feel small and insignificant.”
He saw her eyeing the flat-topped boulder to his right and surmised that she was considering a climb. “Here. Let me help.”
He put his hands around her narrow waist and lifted her. She scooted over, making room for him, and soon they sat side by side staring out at the waterfalls and the giant rock rising behind them. Though they were closer to the spring-fed falls than they’d been before, the canyon walls deflected the sound so the spot was eerily quiet. The upper and middle falls were above them, the lower one slightly below. They sat without speaking maybe fifty feet above the canyon floor where the river, narrow at this point, snaked its way south.
Almost five minutes passed before either of them spoke. “This is so peaceful. Thank you for sharing it with me, Jackson.”
“I like having you here.”
She smiled up at him again, and this time he couldn’t resist. He leaned over and kissed her. It was a steamy kiss, a thorough kiss, but ultimately, a safe kiss because he couldn’t exactly lay her back on the rock and have his wicked way with her. One wrong roll would send them plunging to the canyon floor.
With a sigh, he ended it, taking one last taste, and then murmuring against her mouth, “You taste like butterscotch.”
“Maisy gave me candy.”
“I like butterscotch. I’ll have to hit her up.”
“Good luck with that,” Caroline said with a chuckle. “I don’t know that Boone will give you a chance. She said he’s been hitting on her since the second the weekend started.”
“Yeah.” Jackson grimaced and added, “I hope she’s not taking him seriously. He’s just having some fun. I think he’s being obvious about it. He thinks he’s being obvious about it, but sometimes men can read women wrong. Boone has a lot of baggage.”
“No worries. It’s perfectly clear and besides, this is right up Maisy’s alley. She has plenty of baggage herself.”
“Oh yeah?” Jackson couldn’t help but be curious, but he wasn’t nosey enough to ask. Was he? Before he’d quite decided, a sound that was definitely out of place caught his notice.
“Did you hear that?” He turned his head and listened intently.
After a moment, Caroline softly asked, “What am I listening for?”
“I’m not sure. Something’s crying.”
“Someone is hurt? Maisy? Gillian?”
“No. No. Not human. Not that direction, either. I know the wildlife in the canyon pretty well by now, but this one is different.” He closed his eyes and leaned forward.
Faintly, ever so faintly. Mewl mewl whimper mew mewl.
“I hear it!” she said. “It sounds like—oh, Jackson—it sounds like a baby. What if someone is down there?”
Not a baby. “That’s not human. That’s an animal. One that’s hurt. Probably a coyote. It’s below us.” He leaned as far forward as he was able without falling off the damn rock and studied the ground below.
“Can you see him?”
He shook his head. “View of the ground is limited.”
“We have to go down. We have to find him.”
Jackson hesitated. An injured animal wasn’t anything to play around with. Not only were they dangerous themselves, they attracted predators ready to take advantage of the weak.
“We could at least try to spot him, couldn’t we?” Caroline asked. “We wouldn’t have to get close. If it’s dangerous, you could put it out of its misery.”
Jackson couldn’t stand to hear animals of any type suffering, but still, he hesitated. “I’m not sure how we’ll get down to the canyon floor from here, Caroline. It’s not exactly a marked trail.”
And yet, even as he said it he knew he was going to try. The animal’s cries were no longer haunting him, but now he heard whispers. It was as if the canyon itself was talking to him. Telling him to go … to look … to seek … something.
He heard Angelica Blessing’s voice echo through his mind, “Enchanted Canyon is where troubled souls come to find peace.”
He shivered and slid down from the boulder. “But I guess it won’t hurt anything to try.”
Jackson helped Caroline down from her perch, and taking her hand firmly in his, he scanned the area for a possible path down. He thought of the old saying about not seeing the forest for the trees even as a pathway became obvious to him. “This way,” he said, to himself as much as to her.
A switchback slope brought them to the canyon floor more quickly and with less effort than he ever would have guessed, bringing them a short distance downstream from the lower waterfall. Jackson motioned for Caroline to stay safely in the cover of the trees as he stepped out onto a flat, narrow riverbank clear of trees and shrubs. About five yards ahead of him the river stretched probably fifteen yards wide with a sheer cliff wall on the far side. From this position the waterfalls did roar. No way would they be able to hear the animal’s cries. If they didn’t see him, they’d never be able to find him.
He looked up, trying to coordinate their current position with that of the boulder where they’d been sitting.
Caroline moved from the trees to stand beside him and raised her voice, the note of sadness obvious. “The water is so loud here. How did we hear anything before?”
“Maybe we didn’t,” Jackson suggested. “Maybe it was the wind whistling through the rocks and playing tricks on us.”
And yet, he didn’t believe that. The wind whistling through the rocks was telling him to keep looking, that it was important to keep looking, that he had something important to find in Enchanted Canyon. He turned his head and looked at Caroline and was struck by a sensation so intense that it was as if the ground beneath his feet had shifted.
She stood in a beam of sunshine surrounded by a rainbow mist. Her eyes were wide and luminous with emotion. Her lips still swollen from his kiss. The waterfalls roared.
A dog barked.
Music flowed into his head and his heart and back into his soul.
See that girl, she’s your last chance to dance.
“I hear it! Do you hear it, Jackson?”
He laughed aloud. He heard it all right. Not an acoustic guitar. Not a trio of strings and a drum. Not an effing orchestra. What he was hearing was a three-hundred-member marching band.
“Where is it coming from, Jackson?”
He looked up at the canyon walls surrounding them. “Here. It’s coming from here.” He looked back down at Caroline Carruthers. “You. The music’s coming from you.”
“Music! What music? I hear barking!”
Arf. Arf. Arf. Arf.
Jackson grabbed Caroline around the waist, picked her up, twirled her around once, twice, then kissed her hard and fast before setting her back down.
“Jackson! What in the world!”
“It’s Enchanted Canyon. We have to go with it. Now, look!” He gestured across the river to where just above the waterline he could just make out the golden snout and big brown eyes of an animal that definitely wasn’t a coyote and just might be a golden Lab.
“Oh wow. It is a dog! How did he get there?”
“No telling, but he appears to be stuck.”
“Poor thing. How do we help him? We swim across, I guess?”
“I swim across. Just because he’s a dog doesn’t mean he isn’t seriously injured and seriously mean. He could have tangled with a boar or a bobcat or a rabid raccoon for all we know. Besides, I might need you to rescue me.”
Arrf. Arrf. Arrf.
Jackson eyed the river as he slipped his backpack off and lowered it to the ground. Hard to gauge the water depth up against the canyon wall, but it was certainly over his head. He leaned against a nearby boulder for balance, and then bent over to unlace his boots. He pulled them and his socks off, grabbed his T-shirt by the hem, and yanked it up and over his head. It was only when he reached for his belt that he hesitated and glanced up.
Caroline was looking at him with avid interest. He arched a brow. Color stained her cheeks, but she shrugged before she turned around. “Can you blame me?”
He shucked out of his jeans, left on his drawers, and waded into the refreshingly cool, gently flowing water, wincing when his feel caught the sharp end of stones a time or two on the rocky river bottom.
Arf arf arf arf arf arf arf!
Jackson lifted his legs and began to swim. A dozen strong strokes took him a few feet away from the cliff face. He pulled up to get his bearings. He couldn’t see the Lab.
“The current carried you a little below him!” Caroline called. “He’s behind the rock at your ten o’clock.”
Jackson corrected course and moments later, approached the dog.
He’d been right. It was a golden Lab, full grown, but on the small side. At first glance, it appeared that he’d had somehow managed to get both hind legs wedged between a rock and the canyon wall.
Arf arf arf.
“Hey, boy. Poor fella.” Jackson saw raw, bloody skin. “How the hell did you end up in the middle of nowhere stuck between a rock and a hard place?” And how the hell was he going to get him loose?
Arf. Arf. Arf. Arf. Arf.
“I’ll bet you are tired. Looks like you’ve been fighting this for a while.” He swam closer, took a better look. Adding an extra bit of soothe to his voice, he asked, “Gonna let me get near you, big guy?”
Propping one foot on the rock, one against the cliff wall, he slowly reached for the Lab and hoped he wouldn’t get bitten for the effort. Couldn’t budge him one bit.
Arr … arr … arr. The dog whimpered.
Jackson swallowed a sigh. The dog’s legs were already wet, so slicking them down with water wouldn’t solve the problem. They’d managed to get in, so they should come out, but all the tugging had made the Lab’s flesh swell. Crap. “We’re gonna need to move that rock just a little bit, fella. Too bad I don’t have a Caterpillar in my pocket.”
Under other circumstances, he’d get a tree branch and use it as a lever, but the angle here made that impossible. There wasn’t enough purchase for leverage. He was going to have to do it with his legs. At least give it the old college try. If he could nudge it even the slightest little bit and the dog had any sense, he’d wiggle loose.
Well, the rock probably weighs a ton, and if the dog has any sense he wouldn’t be trapped between a rock and a hard place in a river in the middle of nowhere.
Whimper … whimper … whimper.
“Sorry. I’ll try to think positive, fella.”
Maybe they’d both be lucky, and the rock would be easily shifted. Maybe that’s how old river dog got trapped in the first place. “Okay, buddy. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to get my Hercules on and when the boulder budges, you skedaddle.”
Jackson got into position with his back against the wall and his feet against the rock and his knees pretty close to his chest. Three times, he filled his lungs and exhaled. Then he took a deep, bracing breath and pushed.
Movement. The boulder moved. Didn’t it? It did. He knew it did.
The dog didn’t move. Dammit. “When the rock moves, you’ve gotta go, fella.”
“Wait!”
Caroline’s voice sounded close because she was close. Just when she had decided to jump into the river, Jackson hadn’t noticed, but here she was. “Dammit, Caroline. What are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing? This is a two-person job.”
He couldn’t argue with her logic. “If he starts to snap at you—seriously—he could be sick. Be careful.”
“I will.”
It took them four tries, but when he pushed the boulder that fourth time, Caroline was able to free the dog. Jackson breathed a sigh of relief at the same time he held his breath and prepared to dive into the water ready to assist Caroline if the Lab reacted poorly or started to sink. Thankfully, he took off swimming across the river and emerged onto the bank beside their backpacks and piles of clothes where he limped out and plopped down.
Piles of clothes. Huh. Caroline had stripped down to her bra and panties before jumping into the river. He must really have been distracted to let that salient fact escape
him.
Well now. Jackson let his feet drift to the riverbed when the water was about waist deep, and he watched with undisguised interest as Caroline approached the shore. Hot pink bra straps. The lady liked color in her lingerie, did she? He grinned in appreciation.
She looked at him and slowly shook her head in disgust that he was pretty sure was feigned. “Perv,” she said, loud enough to be sure that he could hear over the sound of the waterfall.
“Hey,” he called back. “I caught you looking earlier. What’s good for the goose and all.”
“Fair enough. However, why don’t we both keep our eyes to ourselves in this instance?”
“I don’t mind if—”
“Jackson, quit teasing me,” she interrupted. “Be a gentleman and promise to keep your eyes to yourself. We need to get dry and dressed and see about getting our new friend to someone who can doctor his legs.”
“All right. I promise.” Keeping his gaze averted, yet very aware of the figure moving beside him nevertheless, he waded from the river and stepped toward his clothes. He peeled off his wet drawers—hey, if she cheated, let her get an eyeful—and used his T-shirt to dry himself before pulling on his jeans commando-style. He sat in order to dry his feet. “Be sure to dry your feet thoroughly. The hike back won’t be any fun if you rub blisters.”
“True, but luckily I came prepared. I have extra socks and blister bandages in my pack.”
“Good girl.”
“I try to be,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t always succeed, I’m afraid.”
A guilty note in her voice had him shooting her a look. She had her jeans and T-shirt on, and she was petting the dog that’d rested his head on her thigh.
Lucky dog. “Did you peek?” he asked with aggrieved accusation in his tone.
She went for an innocent look, but she didn’t quite pull it off. Jackson scowled, rolled to his feet, and met the dog’s brown-eyed gaze. “Word of warning, river dog. You have to watch out for this one.” Addressing Caroline, he said, “Have you been able to get a good look at his legs?”
“Not really. He scooted over here, instead of walking, and I haven’t tried to touch more than his head.”
