Becoming Jesse's Father (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 5)

by Patricia Watters

  While Jesse was sitting on the sleeping bag, in his pajamas and surrounded by a few of his Christmas toys, contentedly playing, Emily stood in front of the iron stove stirring the reconstituted stew in the pot. As she stirred, she said to Adam, "You're lucky to have parents like you do. They're moralistic in a good way by insisting we not sleep together while at the ranch."

  "Dad hasn't always been that way," Adam said. "Sheridan's a small town and from what I heard, Dad was pretty loose with the women back in his bull riding days. He slept with his first wife the night they met, but after she smothered the baby, Dad changed."

  Adam looked at Jesse, who was on his hands and knees on the sleeping bag while pushing the little wooden engine over the hills and valleys in the bag, and it came to him, for the first time in his life, the kind of hell his father must have gone through when his son was killed. He also knew the pain had never gone away. Whenever his dad looked at Jack junior's photograph in the living room his face got sad, like he was remembering.

  Adam ran his hand over Jesse's hair, and when Jesse looked at him in puzzlement, he said, "I love you Jesse." Jesse smiled, like he understood.

  "Where is your father's first wife now?" Emily asked.

  "She moved away shortly after Rick's mother committed suicide. So I guess you weren't the only one with a dysfunctional family, but with me and my siblings, Dad got his act together before we were born, so things have been good for us."

  "Except for Marc," Emily pointed out. "Do you ever think about him?"

  "All the time," Adam said, feeling the old stab of guilt that seemed to come more frequently of late. "We thought he'd be back long before now, but when the first Christmas came and went, Mom started getting depressed, and Dad started getting on our cases about helping her with the house, and she still gets really down at Christmas… well, most of the year."

  "That's sad," Emily said. "I don't know what I'd do if Jesse left like that. I want to always make Christmas special so he'll want to come home, no matter where he is. What about your dad? Does he seem to miss Marc, since Marc wasn't his real son?"

  "Marc is his real son," Adam said. "Dad and Mom adopted him at birth. And yeah, Dad misses him too, but he doesn't talk about it. He keeps Marc's room like it was when he left and doesn't let anyone mess with Marc's things. But I've seen Dad in there reading Marc's notebooks and looking at the Indian artifacts and arrowheads and pieces of pottery Marc uncovered at the Indian mound and cataloged."

  "That's so sad," Emily said.

  But sad didn't begin to describe what Adam felt for his missing brother now. He felt empty for not putting out the effort to get to know him instead of always competing with him for their father's approval. But if Marc ever returned, things would be different. At least he'd try to get to know a brother he'd never given much thought to when they were growing up, other than to want to fight with him over anything and everything.

  Hearing the wind beating under the eaves and rattling the panes in their mullions, Adam stepped over to the window and saw only darkness beyond, but heavy flakes were hitting the glass and building up on the window sill. It was wishful thinking to believe a man like Erik would give up. He came after Emily for a reason, and from what she described, he'd be like a bloodhound on their trail, maybe holding his distance until he was ready to make his move, whether to carry out his threat to kill Emily and Jesse, or to take Jesse back for revenge. He could. He definitely had the law on his side.

  "He won't turn back," Emily said, reconfirming what Adam already knew. "He'll see this as a challenge and find the most logical passageway through the mountains, which will take him here. He'll figure it out."

  Find a place where the three of you can live... you need to be with your son and he needs to be with his mother... do what you have to do...

  "As soon as we get off this mountain we'll go to Mexico," Adam replied. "We'll buy a piece of property there and start a ranch."

  "We won't be able to cross the border," Emily said. "They're probably already looking for me."

  "They'll be looking for a mother and a child, not a couple on a honeymoon. We'll hide Jesse somewhere. He's so quiet they won't know he's there."

  "I'd need a passport," Emily said. "How would I get that?"

  "I don't know yet," Adam replied, "but people get false documents all the time to get in and out of this country, so I know it can be done."

  Emily got up from the sleeping bag and walked over to where Adam stood looking out the window, slipped her hand in his arm, and said, "Honey, I love you, but for tonight it's Christmas, so let's set everything else aside and have our little dinner, and play with Jesse and his toys, and go to bed early so we can leave at dawn. We're already miles ahead of Erik because we're on horseback and he's on foot, and we should be able to stay ahead of him since you know the mountain and he doesn't."

  Adam turned around, pulled Emily into his arms, and said, "Tonight we'll do what you said because we have no choice, but I promise you, Em, I'm going to get you and Jesse out of this." He kissed her and held her and prayed that Erik didn't have night goggles, because if he did, and he had the endurance, stamina and ability to go without sleep that Emily claimed, he could be there by dawn.

  After a dinner of stew and energy bars, Adam sat cross-legged, with Jesse on his lap, and while Jesse turned the pages of a picture book, Emily sat propped on one hip with her legs bent back and her body braced against her arm, and watched. After a while, she said to Adam, "I love seeing you with Jesse. I knew it would be this way with the two of you."

  Adam looked over at her and smiled, and she smiled back, and in the soft light from the lantern he could imagine Emily growing old with him, with a dusting of white in her hair, and tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and maybe a little deeper where her mouth tipped up with her smile, and possibly a pair of glasses for reading, and still beautiful, but in a different way.

  When Emily caught him watching, she said, "When you look at me like that you make me want to do things that would be confusing to Jesse."

  "You get that way just by me looking at you?" Adam asked, surprised that the sight of him could trigger that response.

  Emily nodded. "It also happened back in high school, but I thought it was a physical thing that happened because I was changing into a woman."

  "Then it must have happened with Erik too," Adam said.

  "Not the same way," Emily replied. "I never wanted to touch Erik the way I wanted to touch you, but I thought it was because you made me feel good and I'd never gotten any physical love from my parents. But it was confusing too, because I had thoughts of our being together. Then I'd feel guilty because I knew I shouldn't have those kinds of thoughts with Erik loving me and wanting to take care of me, and you just being a friend."

  "Are you having those thoughts now?" Adam asked.

  "I have them whenever I'm with you, and when I'm not," Emily replied, "but I know we can't do anything about it tonight. I just wanted you to know what you do to me."

  Adam leaned around Jesse, and said to him, "Daddy's going to kiss Mommy."

  Jesse looked up as Adam kissed Emily lightly on the lips, then said to Adam, "Daddy kiss too," and raised his face.

  Adam lifted Jesse from his lap, turned him around so they were facing each other, then kissed him on the cheek and held him in his arms. "I love you, Jesse, and Mommy loves you too. And now Mommy's going to get you in bed and Daddy's going to go take care of the horses and we'll all go to sleep, okay?" He felt Jesse's head bobbing in a nod.

  Adam snapped on the flashlight, and after fetching several buckets of water from a nearby creek to water the horses, and adding some of the grain he'd brought along to buckets attached to the fence, Adam checked the perimeter of the old corral to make sure the pole railings were secure, then returned to the cabin. He wasn't surprised to find both Jesse and Emily sound asleep. After tugging off his boots and stripping off his clothes, he banked the fire in the woodstove, doused the lantern and crawled into the
sleeping bag with Emily. Curving his body around hers, he pulled her snugly against him and tried to block out everything but falling asleep.

  Sometime during the night Adam awakened, breathing like he'd been running hard.

  A scream. It came then trailed away in a sustained, shuddering cry. But his arm had been curled up over his head, so the sound was muffled. For a while he lay listening, trying to decide from what direction it had come, and how far, but heard only the sound of icy snow hitting the window panes. And then it came again. A thin, plaintive sound. He pulled himself out of the sleeping bag and went to the window and looked out and saw the silhouettes of several deer running in a shadowy bunch, like something was after them.

  "What is it?" Emily asked.

  Adam glanced back, surprised she was awake. "I don't know. I heard a sound," he said, while turning back to look through the window into the darkness.

  "Like a shrill cry?" Emily asked.

  "Then you heard it too."

  "I thought I was dreaming. It was far away, like a high-pitched cry, but shriller."

  "The mountain lion," Adam said. "I need to check on the horses. They could get spooked."

  "No," Emily sat up. "Please don't go out there. You don't have the shotgun."

  "I have the Winchester. But the lion's not around here," Adam said. "That sound came from away, maybe the next ridge over. I'll be right back." He tugged on his jeans and boots, shrugged into his parka, grabbed the Winchester on the shelf, and left. The snow had quit and the night was silent. Eerily so, like it was waiting for something.

  Making his way to the corral, he saw the silhouettes of the horses bunched together, heads up, ears alert. They too had heard the sound. Climbing between the pole railings, he walked up to the horses and ran his hand over each while talking to them in soft soothing tones, then returned to the cabin.

  "Are they okay?" Emily asked.

  "They are for now," Adam replied. Stripping off his boots, pants and parka, he crawled back into the sleeping bag.

  Emily moved into his arms, and said, "I'm so afraid for Jesse. If something happened to you and it was just me, I don't even know how to shoot the gun."

  "Don't talk like that, Em. We'll make it out of here," Adam said.

  "Then what? We can't go to Mexico because I can't get a passport, and I don't have any money, and you can't keep running with me and—"

  "Honey, stop." Adam kissed her, a long slow kiss to take her mind off of all the things that had been foremost on his mind. But he too needed a reprieve from the worry. Then he pulled her closer to him and tried to sleep. Emily settled back against his chest. He pulled her to him and tucked his knees into her bent legs, and she tipped her head back some so her face was resting against his jaw, and he breathed in the slight cinnamon smell of her hair and covered her breast with his hand, and it would have to do for now.

  At dawn, Adam pulled himself out of the sleeping bag and dressed quickly then went to check the horses. He'd heard the sound again during the night, much closer than before, but didn't want to worry Emily, so he stayed where he was and hoped the horses wouldn't spook.

  But as he approached the corral, to his alarm, the old poles were busted and down, and both horses were gone. Two sets of hoof prints trailed together in the direction of the ranch. The horses had been on that trail many times, and he had no doubt they'd make it back to the ranch. But now, he and Emily were miles from either the ranch or the hunter's cabin, and he was certain the lion was in the vicinity. The sounds he'd heard were unmistakable, and close.

  CHAPTER 12

  When Adam turned around, he saw Emily standing on the porch, wrapped in the sleeping bag, her eyes on the broken corral fence, a desolate look on her face. "Do you think the horses will come back?" she asked.

  "Depending on what scared them, maybe," Adam replied. "If it was the wind from the snowstorm they could be a little ways down the trail, but if it was something else, they'd probably head for the ranch."

  "Something else like... the lion?" Emily asked.

  Adam gave a vague nod, not wanting it to be definite yet, and said, "I'll follow their tracks and see if I can spot them."

  "No, please don't," Emily said quickly. "What if the lion goes after you?"

  "I'll be fine. I'll take the Winchester," Adam assured her. "If the horses were spooked by the wind they won't be far, but if it was something else, I'll know from their tracks if they hoofed it back to the ranch." Seeing the worry on Emily's face, Adam walked over to where she stood and took her in his arms, sleeping bag and all, and said, "The horses are probably just over the hill. Go inside and get dressed and get Jesse up and dressed too. When I return with the horses we'll leave. If we keep a steady pace we'll get to the cabin and have a warm place to stay and a regular bed to sleep in, and make up for what didn't happen last night." He kissed her soundly and left.

  New snow was falling in big silent flakes, coming straight down, building up on the already snow-laden trees, threatening to cover the horses' tracks, but as Adam made his way over the rise, where he could see far into the distance, the tracks were still clear enough to know that the horses had traveled over the next rise. Whether they'd stopped to collect themselves, he wouldn't know for another thirty minutes.

  As he plodded through the snow, he worked his shoulders inside the parka, feeling stiff from laying all night on one side, with his body curved around Emily's because he hadn't wanted to break the contact. He also felt weary from lack of sleep. With his arm curved protectively over her, he found himself running his hand over her even as she slept, wanting to know she was safe in his arms, wanting to know she was still his, and during those times she'd squirm some, as if she might be awake, or maybe just reacting to his touch, but it kept his body on full alert and needing a relief that wouldn't come. Now he felt the full force of having little more than short snatches of restless sleep. He was also becoming dehydrated.

  Removing his gloves and dropping them to the ground, he scooped up some snow and compacted it between his palms, making an icy ball, then put it in his mouth. While the snow slowly melted against his tongue, it had a musty taste, like fir needles mixed with dirt, but it would serve its purpose.

  But as he followed the tracks left by the horses, his breaths were coming quicker, and he was beginning to feel lightheaded and shaky from lack of sleep. He couldn't lose focus though, which was following the zigzag path of the horses as they made their way up the side of the ridge and over the same snow-covered trail they'd traveled the day before, and as he looked in the distance and saw no let up, he knew the horses had returned to the ranch.

  Then to his alarm, a scream rang out, shrill and piercing, sending a rush of adrenaline through him. But it was somewhere in the distance. While standing near the edge of the narrow ravine, he looked across to the opposite side. High up near the ridge he caught sight of a dark silhouette against the snow, standing like a statue, watching him. There was no mistaking what the figure was. The lion was also within shooting range. Lowering himself to one knee, and bracing his elbow on the other, Adam positioned his eye in the sight, and after making a calculation for wind, he drew a breath, held it for a moment, then let it out slowly. Aiming just above the lion, and slightly ahead, he squeezed the trigger. The lion lunged backwards as if hit, then gave a sudden leap and was gone.

  Adam was fairly certain he'd hit him, which would make the big cat that much more dangerous. A lion out for revenge. So he had to keep the lion moving, keep the pressure on him because if he stopped, the lion could circle back. Even then, the lion could be waiting somewhere up on a ledge. He'd be wiser now, so getting another shot would be a matter of outwitting him.

  Moving along the crest of the ridge, he found a deer path zigzagging down the slope. Trudging through foot deep snow he made his way across the trough of the ravine and up the other side to where the lion had been standing. There, he saw flecks of blood dotting the snow, not enough to be a hindrance, but enough to make the lion angry and reve
ngeful. Just ahead was a cluster of lion tracks, and a short distance further were more. But then the slope declined, and the tracks became closer. Adam quickened his pace to catch up with the lion and finish him off. By now the tracks were evenly spaced, so he knew the injury wasn't slowing the lion down.

  Gripping the Winchester in both hands, ready to take aim, he followed the tracks toward the bottom of a gully where the snow was deeper, and saw where the lion had floundered in several places, leaving troughs where his belly dragged and deep holes where his feet sank into the snow. In a couple of places the lion had gone down, and when he got up, Adam could see where one foot was dragging slightly, and he wondered if the injury was slowing him down. Still, the tracks moved up the other side of the gully in a zigzag pattern.

  It was harder trudging uphill than when Adam started out, and he was getting increasingly weary and knew his reflexes would be slow to respond if he needed to suddenly sight the rifle, so he kept it raised and pointing ahead of him. But then the tracks turned and disappeared among the trees. He pushed his hood back so he could see, and as he watched for movement, his father's words came to him...

  If you've ever been in the wild doing anything at any time, you've been watched by a mountain lion…

  He also knew the lion's eyesight was far better than his, and the lion could hear prey over a mile away. He'd heard stories of lions doubling back and waiting in the underbrush or above the trail or somewhere on a ledge, maybe working his hind end right now, preparing to leap. But up ahead, he saw the tracks again. He continued up the slope, wanting to get to the top of the ridge where he could get another shot at the lion, but on reaching the crest of the ridge, he saw his own tracks and knew he'd circled back, which didn't make sense.

  Crouching on his heels he studied the footprints, wondering how he could have gotten so turned around. But when he took a closer look, he saw, to his alarm, that they weren't his tracks. They were the tracks of combat boots with heavy treads, and they were heading in the direction of the line shack. But a short distance further, he saw imprints of the lion trailing in the same direction, like the lion was tracking Erik. Then the lion tracks moved away into the forest.