by Vella Munn
“You’re going to go to jail,” Chuck insisted. “And take me with you. Damn you, I—”
“Enough.”
Cord’s voice was like a cold wind on a hot day and instantly commanded her attention. How she couldn’t have noticed that he’d picked up Chuck’s rifle, she didn’t know. He held it with the barrel aimed at Chuck’s chest; despite what was wrong with the side of his head, he’d found the strength to keep it level. Something terrible and wild and dangerous came to life in his ebony eyes, and for the first time in her life she understood how fine the line could be between civilization and the law of the wild. By the other men’s reactions, she knew she wasn’t the only one aware of how close Cord was to crossing that line.
“You don’t want to do this, man,” Elliott said. At the same time, he released Chuck and stepped away from him, leaving the poacher to face the rifle alone. “You don’t want to kill him.”
Cord didn’t answer, but then she already knew he wouldn’t. He was aware of nothing and no one except Chuck. Although Owen had been the one who’d nearly hit their son, Chuck had shot at Cord and her ex-husband obviously held him responsible for everything that had happened. The same need for revenge that pulsed inside Cord lapped at her, and for a moment she wanted to be the one to put an end to Chuck.
But if she did—if Cord did—their son would know.
“No, Cord, no!”
His attention flickered toward her. When he blinked, she knew she’d reached him. “You can’t,” she said, speaking more softly now. “It doesn’t matter what he’s done, you can’t lower yourself to his level.”
“He’s been killing wild animals for years.”
“Let the courts deal with him. They might not be perfect, but they’re all we have.”
“I have this.” Cord indicated the rifle.
“If you use it, you’ll lose your son. You might spend your life behind bars.”
“My son,” Cord whispered as if the possibility of prison meant nothing to him. Then, while the others waited without breathing, he handed the weapon to her. She still had to fight her own desire for revenge, but the words she’d thrown at Cord were for her, too. After unloading the rifle, she tossed the bullets into the brush, grabbed the weapon by the barrel and swung it as hard as she could against the nearest boulder.
“What the —” Chuck began.
“Shut up.” Cord spoke without emotion. “Just shut up.”
Although he continued to glare, the fight went out of Chuck. Still, she was glad the men had grabbed his arms; that way she could dismiss him and concentrate on what really mattered.
Cord wasn’t staring at the men or her. He still looked as angry and untamed as she’d ever seen him, but after a few minutes, a little of the tension, or maybe it was his strength, seeped out of him. He no longer reminded her of an elk ready for battle. He was more like the man she might spend the rest of her life trying to understand.
“You need help.” She whispered because she could barely get her voice to work. “A doctor.”
“I’m fine. I hit my head on a rock, that’s all.”
“You’re not fine.” Ignoring the others, she gently pushed aside Cord’s hair so she could look at his injury. A ragged gash bled freely from his scalp; she could only pray he hadn’t sustained a concussion. With sudden, sickening clarity she understood that if the bullet had hit him, it would have killed him since it had been designed to bring down an animal weighing several times what he did.
“I’ll call Dale back and tell him to send along a paramedic,” she told Cord.
“I’m a paramedic,” he said with the slightest of smiles. “It stunned me, that’s all.”
Then, to her concern and relief, he sat on the nearest rock and lowered his head. With trembling hands, she rubbed the back of his neck until he straightened and looked at her. His eyes were clear, his pupils normal size. Still, more emotions than she could possibly contend with threatened to explode inside her, but until they did, she would act in a calm and responsible way.
She continued to watch the men out of the corner of her eye, but what they heard and saw and thought didn’t matter. If Chuck made a run for it, the others would either recapture him or not. If they didn’t, he might spend the rest of his life up here on the mountain because he didn’t dare come down to where law enforcement waited.
The primitive, vengeful woman who’d nearly lost the two most important people in her life hoped he would take off—unarmed and without so much as a match or handful of trail mix. He wasn’t Cord Navarro. He’d starve in country that could sustain Cord for as long as he needed it to.
“Mom?”
Matt had joined them and was carrying his father’s first-aid kit. With less than steady hands, she took it from him and removed what she needed to clean the gash. Much as she wanted to shield Matt from the sight of all that blood, it was too late. Besides, Matt wasn’t a little boy to be protected from reality.
“Dad? I’m sorry. You almost—”
“I’m all right,” Cord said softly, and she could tell that Matt believed him. “What about you?”
“Me? I was scared. When I heard that sound, I—”
“You did right,” she reassured him. Cord didn’t so much as move a muscle as she started working on him; maybe he wasn’t aware of his body, of her. “Exactly right.”
“You had no idea they were around?” Cord asked.
“I felt like, you know, someone was watching me. Maybe—maybe I knew you were coming.”
“Maybe you did,” she whispered when Cord didn’t speak.
Cord continued to stare at Matt, his face all but expressionless. She’d seen his fury at the men who had risked Matt’s life, his need for revenge, a raw moment of unadorned relief when he realized his son was all right. Now he was doing what he must think was expected of him—letting his son believe this had been nothing more than another search for him, one with a successful ending.
Something began building inside her. She couldn’t put a name to the emotion; neither could she fight the growing storm. “You knew that man’s name. How long have you known they were up here? How long, Cord?”
“Days.”
“Days? And you didn’t tell me? Why not?”
In the distance a crow squawked. The hard sound echoed what she heard in her voice.
“Why not?” she repeated.
“You had enough to worry about.”
“Enough?” The rolling wave of emotion expanded and became more than she could control. “You didn’t think I was strong enough, did you? Cord, what you did —” Matt was staring at her with alarm in his eyes. Still, she couldn’t stop, didn’t even try. “You don’t have any idea how much I hate your damnable silence, do you? The strong, silent Indian. Keeping emotions, if you have them, from your wi—from me.”
“I wanted to spare you.”
“Spare?” She threw the word back at him. How dare he sit there with the wind tossing his hair and sunlight glinting in his beautiful black eyes while she worked on the injury that held proof of...of what? “Spare?” She didn’t care whether the men or Matt heard; she had no control over what came out of her and didn’t want it back until she’d said what she had to. “I survived Summer’s death, our divorce, days and nights of looking for Matt. Don’t you have any idea how strong I am?”
“You couldn’t have done anything if you’d known.”
“You and I searched for Matt because he’s the most important human being in both our lives. At least, he is in mine. I’ve been honest with you about everything I’ve felt. Every emotion. But you—what the hell does it matter?”
“Mom?”
Matt shouldn’t hear his parents fighting—hear her yelling at his father. But she and Cord had made love deep in his beloved wilderness. How could he not know her heart?
Cord said nothing; she didn’t expect or want anything from him, couldn’t imagine ever wanting to speak to him again. When, after an awkward moment, Cord told Matt to take off his
boots and sit down so he could see his foot, she simply stood back, watching father and son.
There were no words between them. Only touching.
There were things she had to do, like keeping pressure on the wound so it would stop bleeding. Her parents deserved to know what had happened since her desperate call. She should ask Dale when she could expect the helicopter and tell him how many prisoners—was that what they were?—there were. Maybe Matt needed something to eat. But he was looking from her to his father and then back again, clearly uneasy.
Feeling both dead inside and more alive than she’d ever been, she concentrated on her son. “Your dad said... he said he didn’t think you were afraid. We found where you slept, you barely moved.”
“I wasn’t scared, not after a while.” Matt tried to rub some dirt off his hand by scrubbing it along his jeans. “Dad, I remember you telling me there wasn’t anything to be afraid of in the woods.”
“I — I’m glad you remembered,” she whispered.
Ignoring his bare foot, Matt kicked at the ground and then stole a glance at his father. “I wanted you to be proud of me.”
“I am.”
“I should have gotten unlost without your help.”
She didn’t feel like laughing. Still, she heard herself do just that. “That’s what your dad said, that you wanted to prove you could climb Copper all by yourself. That’s what made tracking you so hard.”
“Not so hard. You found me. Dad, I wanted to be like you.”
No, you don’t, son.
Chapter 14
The helicopter’s whirling blades kicked up dust and debris as it took off with a full load consisting of the pilot, Dale, and the four poachers, Chuck in handcuffs. Dale had been concerned about Cord, but he’d assured the sheriff that he didn’t have so much as a headache and seeing a doctor could wait. As the screaming sound eased, Shannon faced the fact that she, Matt, and Cord would be alone until it returned.
If only she and Matt had gone down first; that way she wouldn’t have to speak to Cord, could put off telling him that he’d destroyed something inside her because, as too many times before, he’d hidden behind silence.
Matt hadn’t seemed to mind. Had he been too distracted to notice how little his father said to him, or did he somehow know something she didn’t?
No, that couldn’t be.
Cord had known the poachers were up there, but he hadn’t told her because he believed she couldn’t handle it.
Despite everything she’d been through in life, he didn’t believe she was strong enough—either that, or communicating with her hadn’t been that important to him. She hadn’t wanted to be spared; she would never want that.
Over and over again she’d told Matt how much she loved him, held him until he grew restless and embarrassed because others were watching. When he and his father talked, it had been about the fight with Chuck, how fast the helicopter could travel and how much weight it could carry, tracking techniques. Cord hadn’t said a word about a father’s fears, his love for his son.
That’s all she wanted, for Cord to tell Matt how much he loved him. If he could at least do that...
And if he couldn’t...
Matt was asleep. It took her several seconds to realize her son was no longer simply resting by leaning against a rock. Because he’d slid over to one side and was slowly sinking to the ground, she helped him the rest of the way. Only then did she acknowledge that Cord was watching her.
Although she wanted to stay with Matt, she walked away from him, left him to his peace. “I don’t know what those men are going to be charged with,” she said when she’d gotten as close to Cord as she dared, not that the words mattered. “Whatever it is, we will probably have to testify. Of course, if you’re off on another rescue...” She felt a sharp pain in her left forearm and realized she’d been gripping it with all the strength in her.
“I’m proud of you,” he said.
“You are? For keeping up with you?”
“For not falling apart.”
“Apart? I—”
“I know. You aren’t a woman who caves in. I shouldn’t have tried to protect you the way I did.”
“No,” she said, surprised at his admission. “You shouldn’t have.”
“But you wanted me to.”
“What?”
“Don’t deny it, Shannon. The things you said, the look in your eyes, I knew.”
She had; she couldn’t lie to him about that. “But for you to have to weather what you did alone, why?”
“Because looking for Matt is the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”
“No, Cord.” Her arms dropped by her side. She couldn’t make them move. Couldn’t let him go this easily, couldn’t stop the words inside her. “Not the hardest.”
Although he stared at her without blinking for the better part of a minute, he said nothing. Nothing. “Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”
He took a long, deep breath. “Summer.”
Now it was her turn to stare. Cord looked weary and she wondered if he might collapse, but he simply widened his stance and went on meeting her gaze. “I remember what you were like then,” he said softly.
She didn’t want this conversation. Not now and maybe not ever. “Thank God, things ended the way they did for Matt,” she blurted. “I think he’s going to look back at it with a sense of pride. I couldn’t have stood it if...if—” Stop babbling.
“If you’d lost Matt, too.”
“Yes. Summer...”
“What about her?”
“She—I never got to hold her, Cord, not really.”
Despite the turmoil of her thoughts, she was aware that he’d taken a few steps toward her. “Finally.” He breathed the word.
“Finally, what?”
“We’re going to talk about our daughter.”
After everything she’d been through, she didn’t know how she could handle this, but before she could escape, he continued. “We should have said more before. So much more.”
When? What was he talking about? She tried to think how to ask the question, but he was so close, and despite her exhaustion, she wanted him, wild and unthinking.
Oh, yes, unthinking. Unwise.
“I felt Summer’s spirit all the time we were following Matt,” he said. “I’d like you to know that.”
Summer is in the wilderness with Gray Cloud. That’s what he had said years ago when she desperately needed him to mourn with her. “I’m glad you did.”
“Shannon, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Shut me out.”
Stop this conversation, now! Before it’s too late. “That’s how you felt? Shut out?”
“Yes.”
He scared her, or maybe it was herself she was afraid of. “I didn’t know. You never told me.”
“Neither of us told the other what we should have.”
His words rocked her, forced her beyond herself. Had she failed him as badly as he’d failed her? “Maybe...maybe we didn’t. There weren’t any guidelines, no one telling us how to say goodbye to our baby daughter.”
“Tell me now. What was it like for you?”
He was wounded and weak, maybe as tired as Matt. If she told him that, maybe she could back away from what stirred and simmered between them, but if she did... “Do you remember what the doctors said, that she didn’t have a chance? That we were lucky she lived such a short time.”
“I remember.”
“They were right. She would have never really known what it was like to be alive. She’d...she’d never ride a horse or go hiking with you or trail after her big brother.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Cord, do you remember what you said to the doctors the day she was born?”
Instead of answering, he simply looked at her until she felt the words boil out of her. “You said that some things weren’t meant to be.”
“Sometimes they aren’t.”
She wanted
to lash out at him. If she could feel anger, maybe saying this would be easier. But he’d given her back Matt, and they’d made love last night and she could never hate him. “I carried her inside me, Cord. Before we knew what was wrong with her, I’d lie there at night feeling her move. I had so many dreams—so much...I felt her being born. Me. Not you.”
“I gave her a name.”
She felt bombarded and off balance. Felt like crying all over again. “I...yes. You did. A beautiful name. And you took that picture of her, the one you carry. Why didn’t you show it to me before?”
“Shannon, you were locked up inside yourself. I didn’t know how to reach you, didn’t even know how to begin. I was afraid that no matter what I did or said, it would be the wrong thing.”
Because we were so young? Because neither of us knew how to communicate, not just you? She started to touch him, then pulled back, afraid of the risk.
“I held you when she died,” he told her in a tone that sounded as hollow as the wind racing across a barren plain. “It was the only thing I could think to do.”
“I cried. You didn’t.”
“I didn’t need to.”
“Didn’t need...”
“I tried to tell you that. Tried and failed. I know that now. Through Gray Cloud, I found peace, something I was unable to give you. I wish it could have been different, that your grief hadn’t scared me.”
“Scared? Peace?”
“Shannon, I went into the woods right after she died because I needed answers, a way to deal with what had happened. I asked Gray Cloud to take care of our daughter. He told me she was in the air, the earth, water. She would always be in those places, always be safe and happy.”
It hurt to speak. “You told me Summer was with him and I shouldn’t be sad. Cord, I didn’t have your belief in Gray Cloud and his world. I needed more than words about her being with her great-grandfather. I needed you.”
He looked as if she’d slapped him. Still, he didn’t lean away. “I had-”
“I know. You had to work so you could pay the bills. I understand that much better now than I did then. But—”
“But I shouldn’t have let it take me away from you. I wanted to talk to you, wanted to help you start talking, but I was afraid that whatever I said, it would be the wrong thing.”
