by Janet Dailey
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s something else.” She wasn’t sure what she’d accomplished by talking to Mattie about this, except to learn a little more about Creed. Nothing had been solved. There was a vague disappointment that her natural mother hadn’t been able to come up with the right answers for her. “It’s getting late,” she said. “I think I’ll turn in.”
“Good night, Layne. I’m sorry I wasn’t more help.” A wistful note crept into Mattie’s usually blunt voice.
“That’s okay.” A shoulder lifted in a vague shrug that indicated it didn’t matter. Then Layne headed for the stairwell and her bedroom on the second floor.
Hoyt stood at the half-door of the barn and gazed at the gray clouds scudding across the sky. His face wore a disgruntled look as he turned away from the door and approached the stall where Layne was saddling the roan gelding.
“Would you just look at the sky?” he grumbled. “And I thought sure spring was on its way. I could smell it in the air.”
Stoney came tromping in from the barnyard, a collection of mud and manure globbed on his boots. “Yeah and it walks like spring out there too.” But he lacked Hoyt’s enthusiasm as he stomped his feet in an effort to rid himself of the excess weight on his boots. “I can’t stand this infernal mud,” he grumbled.
“Well, it won’t be around long. We got another cold spell on the way. Instead of complaining about the mud, you can grumble about the ice,” Hoyt declared, wrangling with the older cowboy in their usual fashion. “Nothing ever satisfies you. It’s either too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry.”
With the pad properly adjusted beneath the saddle, Layne bent down to grab the cinch strap and string it through the metal ring. “Did either of you catch the forecast this morning?”
“Yeah, and they called for snow, but the kid here didn’t think they knew what they were talking about,” Stoney returned the good-natured insult to his young friend. “Why do you think Creed’s sending us out to bunch the cattle closer to home?”
He slapped the rump of the saddled horse in the adjoining stall to urge it to one side, then walked in to unfasten the lead rope from the headstall under its bridle. The roan snorted and lifted its head to gaze after the horse backing out of the stall.
“Git your horse and come on, Hoyt,” Stoney chided the young cowboy for his slowness as he led his horse down the concrete walkway to the door at the end of the passageway.
“I’ll be along shortly,” Layne assured when she saw Hoyt look at her and hesitate.
“We’ll wait for you outside,” he promised, and untied his horse to lead it out.
After winding the strap through the cinch ring in a loose figure eight, Layne made the first pull to tighten the cinch. The ringing of ironclad hoofs on concrete ended as Hoyt led his horse out the far door, and a set of footsteps took the place of that sound. She recognized that long, swinging step and felt an edginess take hold of her nerves.
When they stopped at her horse’s stall, she didn’t glance around. Instead, she gave another tug of the cinch strap and gained another inch. She was conscious of his gaze studying her. It was an almost physical sensation. Three days had passed since she’d sought him out at his home, three days that not even the premature spring thaw had been able to melt. It was the last time she’d been alone with him until now.
He stepped into the stall and laid a gloved hand on her shoulder to nudge her out of the way. “I’ll finish that for you.” The impersonal tone of his voice grated at her, as unsettling in its way as the pressure of his hand on her shoulder.
Layne shrugged away from the latter. “I can manage just fine, thank you.” It was a clipped answer, unaccompanied by even a glance in his direction.
She snugged the cinch up tight and reached for the stirrup hooked over the saddle horn. They both grabbed hold of it at the same instant. After a split-second’s hesitation, Layne drew her hand away from the accidental contact and moved to the horse’s head to unfasten the reins from the manger ring.
“What’s this? You’ve developed a rather sudden aversion to my touch, is that it?” Creed challenged tightly.
She turned to face him squarely, a faint glare in her look. “Excuse me, but I had the distinct impression that it was you who wanted nothing to do with me.”
For a long moment he held her gaze while a muscle flexed convulsively in his jaw. Abruptly he swung away. “Damn you, Layne.”
His gloved hand slammed itself against a sideboard of the stall, shaking loose minute particles of dust and debris. The roan shied at the sudden, loud noise, throwing back its head and pulling against the reins Layne held. She observed the rigid tension in Creed’s stance. His face was averted, but enough of it was visible for her to make out the twisted agony in its taut expression. She was too angry to feel sorry for him.
“I hope you’re confused, Creed,” she declared. “I hope to God you’re half as confused as I am.”
Maybe it was callous of her, but she wanted to hurt him. For the last three days she’d been harboring a kind of resentment. Perhaps it was natural for him to be wary of her, but she deserved a chance. She had turned the other cheek too many times to do it again.
She started to back her saddled horse out of the stall to lead it out of the barn. With a determined effort, she avoided glancing in his direction. But the minute she was level with him, his hand snaked out and caught her arm just above the elbow to pull her around so she faced him.
His teeth were bared, as if holding back all the feelings that were struggling behind his tightly controlled expression. So much was contained inside him that she was staggered by the invisible force of it.
“Layne.” He ground out her name like a man possessed.
Then his hands were tightening on her arms and hauling her roughly against his jacket while his mouth swooped down to hungrily bruise her lips. It opened her up and a swell of emotions tumbled crazily through her. She was hot and on fire, her body heated by some fevered rush that weakened her legs. She swayed into him, letting him support her full weight while she tried to satisfy this giant need that claimed her.
Her fingers unconsciously retained their clasp on the reins as the shaggy-coated roan impatiently reversed the rest of the way out of the stall and walked as far as the long reins would allow. Its ears were pricked in the direction of the door where its companions had gone.
The hinges creaked loudly as the door was opened, letting a long shaft of sunlight into the shadowed barn. Hoyt stuck his head inside. “Hey, Layne! What’s keepin’ ya?”
The voice, the intrusion, broke the kiss, but Layne didn’t immediately answer him. Her soft gaze was studying Creed’s face, not noticing its homeliness but taking in its profound strength. It was lean and raw, all blunt edges and harsh contours, but underneath he was devastatingly attractive.
“Layne?” Hoyt called again.
Shielded by the high sides of the stall, she wasn’t concerned about being seen, so she made no attempt to loosen herself from the circle of Creed’s arms, not yet anyway. Something warm and ardent was shining in his eyes. Her horse shifted, its iron shoes scraping across the concrete.
“I’ll be right there!” she finally called back.
Dragging in a deep breath, Creed withdrew his arms from around her and adjusted the scarf more snugly around her throat. “It’s going to get cold out there.” His voice was softly gruff as he pulled the knitted cap more fully over her ears.
Layne understood this indirect expression of concern for her well-being. It prompted a small smile. “I’ll be all right,” she assured him, then gathered up the reins to her horse and stepped away to lead him outside where Hoyt and Stoney were waiting for her.
Chapter 8
To facilitate the gathering of the herd, they split up to cover as much ground as possible and drift any cattle that had strayed back to the main bunch before the storm broke. In the past six weeks Layne had become familiar with the rolling land that edged the long valley where the cattl
e were wintered. So she rode out with confidence.
The menacing gray skies were no idle threat. By midday small flakes were drifting in the air, reminding Layne more of ice flakes than snow. The temperature dropped sharply, plummeting to the freezing level that allowed the flakes to accumulate on the ground.
Her shoulders were hunched forward inside her coat and her chin was buried in the folds of her scarf. Her legs were starting to feel numb despite the insulated underwear she had on, and she had stopped feeling her toes an hour ago. She had almost covered her section of the hills.
The red roan gelding followed the dip in the land, moving at a fast walk to indicate its own desire to finish with the job and return to the warm barn. A small ground blizzard swept the light snow in a white stream that raced hock-high at the horse’s feet. It almost made Layne dizzy to watch it rush past. It made a whispering sound, almost an eerie warning of the approaching storm. But there was something reassuring in the creak of the saddle leather.
Out of the corner of her eye Layne caught a movement. She swiveled her head in that direction and glimpsed the dully rusted coat of a Hereford as it trotted quickly away from the horse and rider. She checked her horse and reined it around to pursue the cow and chase it in the right direction.
The strange ground blizzard concealed an iced-over pond until Layne’s horse was nearly on top of it. It was one of those long, skinny ones, shaped to the hollow of the ground, she discovered when she halted the gelding to look for a way around it. She didn’t want to waste the time to make a long detour around it, so she nudged the roan with her heels and directed it across the narrow body of frozen water.
The red roan snorted nervously and eyed the hard surface with distrust, resisting her urgings. After several prodding kicks it moved skittishly onto the ice. Halfway across it there was an ominous groaning sound beneath them. Suddenly apprehensive, Layne tried to hurry the gelding, but the groaning sound was followed by a loud pop and crack.
The gelding panicked and half reared. Layne’s legs were so numb she couldn’t keep her grip on the saddle, and her feet slipped out of the stirrups. As she grabbed for the saddle horn Layne saw the ice breaking up under the weight of the horse’s hind legs. At the same instant the roan lunged forward and bolted for the shore. Layne had no chance to recover her balance and stay in the saddle. She was thrown sideways, falling heavily onto the already cracked ice.
It collapsed under the impact of her weight. She felt herself land hard, then suddenly she was completely immersed in icy water. The shock of it nearly paralyzed her. Instinctively she kicked for the gray surface, the only patch of light in the murky, cold water. She came up sputtering and gasping for air. Her hat was gone, lost somewhere in the depths of the pond, and her chestnut hair was streaming down her face in clinging wet strands.
Layne had one glimpse of the roan horse galloping over a white hill, the stirrups flopping, then it disappeared. The broken edge of the ice was only a couple of yards away. She struck out for it and felt a sudden panic at the sucking drag of all her heavy, wet clothes trying to pull her under. It seemed to take all her strength just to keep her head above water. And the water was freezing cold. She wouldn’t last long in it.
Sobbing with the effort, she fought for every inch of that small distance to the ice. But when she reached it, she couldn’t find anything to hold on to so she could haul herself out of the water. Her hands were so wet they kept slipping off the ice. With all the weight dragging her down, Layne didn’t have enough strength to lever herself out of the water. About all she could do was hold on.
“Help!” she shouted, although she didn’t know of a soul who would hear her. She was frightened and growing colder by the second. “Help!”
Stretching her arms onto the ice as far as she could and clawing for a hold with her fingers, she tried again to pull herself onto the solid ice. She heard something crack. The ice wasn’t strong enough to take her weight. The thaw they’d had the last few days had weakened it.
Defeat sagged through her. She rested her head on the corner of the ice and sobbed quietly, certain she was going to die. Her body felt so wooden that she couldn’t even make her legs move to tread water, yet her fingers refused to give up their tiny grip on a ridge of the ice’s rough surface.
“Help me.” It was a pathetically weak call that she didn’t expect to be heard by anyone. She was so cold, so very, very cold, that it didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Her mind was drifting. Far, far away she thought she heard someone call her name, but it wasn’t possible. Her hand lost its hold, and she groped instinctively to regain it. But her fingers were so numb.
The ice cracked again and Layne sobbed out loud. “No.” She didn’t want to die.
“Hang on, honey.” That gruff, urgent voice—it sounded so near.
“I … can’t,” she answered, certain she was hallucinating. “I’m so … cold.”
There were more ominous cracking sounds. Slowly she was losing her grip and slipping away from the edge. The heaviness of her body was pulling her down. As the numbly cold water climbed up her neck, Layne tipped her head as far back as it would go, desperately struggling for that last breath of air. Her hands and wrists were held by something, and Layne wondered if they had become frozen to the ice.
“Come on back to me, honey,” the same gruff voice urged her roughly.
Mentally she kept fighting against the numbness, struggling to retain consciousness. There was a nightmarish unreality to it, as though none of it was really happening to her. Layne had the oddest sense of being pulled out of the icy water an inch at a time. It was a slow, disbelieving discovery when she realized her shoulders were out of the water and her arms were stretched flat on the ice, held by something. She made the effort of lifting her head. A large figure lay on the ice, not far from her. She stared, afraid it was another part of her nightmare and he wasn’t really there.
“Creed?” she whimpered.
“Thank God you’re alive,” he muttered thickly.
“Help me, please.” Her head sagged onto a wet arm, lacking the strength to support itself.
“Layne, listen to me,” Creed urged. “This ice isn’t strong enough to support both of us. I’ve tied a rope around your wrists. I want you to grab hold of it with your hands. Do you hear me, Layne?” he demanded.
All she could do was weakly nod her head. Her hands fumbled awkwardly for the rope, hardly able to feel anything. She made a puny attempt to grasp it, twisting it around her hands.
“I’m going to pull you out slowly,” he told her. “Help me if you can.”
Layne tried, but her body was so numb there was little she could do to aid him. She was a dead weight that he had to virtually drag out of the water and across the ice. Layne could feel it cracking and giving under her, nearly breaking. With each small crunch, she expected to plunge into the frigid waters again.
“You’re going to make it, honey,” Creed insisted and steadily pulled on the rope. There were more encouraging words, spoken with a grim determination. It was the sound of his voice she believed in more than the words he spoke.
When she was finally within reach, his hands grabbed her shoulders and hauled her the rest of the way to safety. Layne wanted to thank him, to say something, but all she could do was look at him.
His gaze bore into her while he hurriedly shrugged out of his coat and peeled off his shirt. He used it to partially rub dry her wet hair and stimulate the circulation in her face and hands. His hat was pushed onto her head, an odd thing to do, she thought at the time. Without regard for her jacket or its buttons, he began to rip it open and push it off of her. The jacket was already turning stiff.
Violent shivers began to rack her body and set her teeth to chattering. As soon as her coat was off, Creed wrapped her in his large jacket and lifted her bodily into the cradle of his arms. Layne kept thinking how cold he must be without his jacket, and only his insulated undershirt to protect him. The jacket didn’t seem to be
doing her much good, since it brought no sensation of warmth.
Everything was hazy to her. She was conscious, yet she wasn’t. His hat sat down around her ears, its brim shutting out the sight of his face. Layne knew she was being carried somewhere because she remembered that he had picked her up, but all that registered in her mind was how terribly cold she was.
The world around her seemed gray with specks of white floating in it. There was an almost dreamlike quality about it and she wondered if she was dead. But that couldn’t be, because Creed was here. She wanted so desperately to be warm again that she almost cried.
There was a loud wrenching sound, and she was jostled in his arms. An inarticulate murmur of fear came from her, certain they were back on the pond and the ice was giving way. Suddenly she could see Creed’s face and the puffs of steam coming from his mouth. She was moving away from him. It seemed to confirm her terror that she was falling through the ice again, and her eyes wildly appealed to him not to let her go.
“It’s okay, honey.” His husky voice was riddled with the sound of his heavy breathing. “You’re safe now.”
A second later Layne realized she was propped on the seat of a pickup truck. It was true; she was going to be all right. Her eyes fluttered shut with relief. When she opened them to look at the man who had saved her, Creed was bending down, doing something with her legs. But her body felt so wooden that all sensation was dulled until it was almost nonexistent.
A boot thumped on the floorboards of the truck, followed by a second, plus a double pair of wet socks. She was conscious of her foot being shaken, and guessed that Creed was trying to stimulate the circulation by rubbing them, but it was difficult to feel anything. Her nerve ends were too cold to transmit any sensation of her skin being touched.
The jacket was a constraining cocoon around her. Creed straightened and swung her legs inside the truck, then shut the door. Her eyes watched him walk around to the driver’s side, briskly rubbing his bare hands and hunching his wide shoulders. There was a stiff, cold look to his features when he climbed behind the wheel.
