Jake and Ryan met her halfway. “What’s going on?” Jake asked.
She briefly filled them in on the situation. “It’s probably nothing, but they’re just making sure.”
Ryan nodded. “Let’s get the s’mores out in the meantime.”
Fortunately, none of the guests noticed that anything was wrong. They descended like vultures on the baskets of marshmallows and chocolate and crowded around the fire to enjoy their dessert.
Rebecca had no choice but to dutifully assume her role as entertainer. “So we’ll start some sing-alongs in a couple of minutes,” she announced as she joined the guests. “But first, I don’t think I’ve found out where everyone is from yet.”
While the guests took turns introducing themselves, she saw Shania emerge from the dusk and approach the truck. Only a few minutes later, Rebecca let out a silent sigh when Alec and Tommy also returned unscathed.
Her relief was short-lived, however. She watched in confusion as Tommy handed his shotgun off to Shania and retrieved his guitar from the truck. Then, before she could blink, Alec and Shania were gone.
*
Alec knew there was no time to waste. He led Shania into the forest and pointed to the ground, which was barely visible in the last of the daylight. “Is this your grizzly?”
Shania knelt to examine the massive tracks that circled the area. “Yes. These are the same ones I saw by the moose.” She rose to her feet and met his gaze. “We need to get everyone out of here.”
When they returned to the site, Alec was relieved to see that Tommy and Holly had the guests engaged in a campfire sing-along. Rebecca, Ryan, and Jake were huddled around the hood of the truck and looked up worriedly when they approached.
“We found grizzly tracks,” Alec said, nodding towards the grove of trees. “So we need to get moving. Tommy and Jake, let’s take everyone back in a single group. I’m going to put Bec, Shania, and Holly in the truck with Ryan.”
“You’re not putting me in the truck,” Rebecca said.
Alec let out a weary sigh. “There aren’t enough horses–”
“Didn’t Holly ride out here?”
His temples started to throb. “Rebecca, please don’t argue with me right now,” he replied, turning his attention back to his staff. “Let’s get everything loaded up. I want us back to the ranch before dark.”
To his relief, Rebecca didn’t fight him. She spun on her heel and followed Shania, who was already gathering the last of the garbage from the picnic tables. Alec joined Ryan and Jake in loading the coolers into the bed of the truck before he approached the bonfire and caught Tommy’s eye. There was a general groan of disappointment when Tommy announced the final song for the night, but everyone was quick to head for their horses when he was finished.
Once the guests were safely situated and following Jake’s lead, Alec approached the two horses that remained at the hitching post. He untied the reins of Holly’s mare, Sage, and was about to secure them to the back of Zack’s saddle when someone snatched them out of his hand.
“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m riding back in the truck.”
His temper flared as he met Shania’s gaze. “I have enough to worry about without adding you to the list. There are forty people out here that I’m responsible for–”
“And if we run into something, you’re going to need all the help you can get,” she replied, raising her voice to match his tone. “If your wife is fine with you ordering her around all the time, that’s her business. But I for one am sick and tired of you always telling me what to do!”
In all the years he’d known her, Alec had never seen her so angry. Shania resembled a rabid animal, poised and ready for an attack. One look at the rage in her eyes told him that this had nothing to do with riding in a truck.
“Seriously, Shania? You’re choosing right now to bring this up?”
“Well, if it were up to you, you’d never bring it up,” she retorted, turning to tighten the cinch on Sage’s saddle. “After all, why talk to someone when it’s so much easier to just shove them out of your life?”
Her accusation struck him with surprising force. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe the whole reason I did what I did was because I was looking out for you?”
“Looking out for me?” She whirled around to face him. “How the hell do you figure that?!”
Alec narrowed his eyes. “Have you stopped to think about how small your world would be if you’d stayed here? Look at all the places you’ve been and the things you’ve done. I would kill for what you have!”
“And I would kill for what you have!” she shouted. “You have a beautiful home and a family that loves you. You have the satisfaction of waking up each day and knowing exactly where you belong–”
“I have never belonged here. You know better than anybody that the only reason I’m still here is because I have no choice. I knew the day my father got hurt that I was going to be trapped here, and I didn’t want that for you.”
“Well, did it ever occur to you to consider what I wanted?” she threw back at him. “I’m sorry that you feel like you’re trapped here. And I’m sorry that life hasn’t been fair to you. But you weren’t fair to me, either.”
He flinched at her remark, but Shania wasn’t finished yet. “I trusted you, Alec. You were the only man I ever trusted. And I wanted to be with you no matter how many sacrifices I had to make. But you didn’t care. You didn’t care enough to stop for two seconds and listen to a word I had to say. And you know what? That shouldn’t have surprised me.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Shania matched his glare. “You’d already gotten exactly what you wanted, right? So what did anything else matter?”
His mouth dropped open. “Is that what this is about?”
She didn’t respond. He stared at her in stunned silence as she spun around and started to place her foot in the stirrup. “Shania, wait,” he said, reaching out to stop her. “Do you honestly think that’s the only thing I wanted from you?”
Her voice was choked with tears. “Alec, let me go.”
“No. You can’t just say something like that and then–”
His words were lost when she lifted her hand and slapped him squarely across the face. Instantly he shut his mouth and relaxed his grip, and she wasted no time ripping her arm from his grasp. His cheek throbbed as he watched her mount her horse, but Shania didn’t give him a second glance as she wheeled Sage around and urged her into a canter across the clearing.
Chapter 35
Thankfully, the ride home was uneventful.
Alec joined Tommy behind the long line of guests, and they kept a watchful eye on their surroundings as they rode back to the ranch. Rebecca and Holly were waiting by the corral when they arrived, and everyone fell into the familiar rhythm of helping the guests dismount and returning the horses to their stalls. He passed Shania more than once as they carried the saddles back to the tack room, but she didn’t acknowledge his presence.
After the horses were cared for, Alec joined Rebecca and Tommy in the office. His mind was hardly on the bear right now, but he knew they needed to formulate some sort of plan.
“We should bump up the dinner ride to five,” Rebecca suggested. “That way we’re back before dark.”
“And maybe we should move the location, too,” Tommy added. “If the bear knows that food is there, he’ll keep going back to the same spot.”
Alec nodded. “Let’s keep the trail rides away from the area, too. Maybe head out through the front pasture and across the road where there aren’t any trees. That way there’s no chance of sneaking up on him.”
Rebecca frowned. “Should you call the game department again?”
“I don’t know what else they can do. The traps are out there and we’re taking as many precautions as we can. We’ll just have to hope that he decides to move on.”
Tommy placed his hand on his shoulder. “Summer’s almost over, Alec. It’ll
be fine.”
His friend’s eternal optimism amazed him sometimes. Then again, Alec worried enough for all of them.
Rebecca fell into step alongside him as they made their way up to the farmhouse. “So what happened with Shania?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she didn’t ride home in the truck. Did she take Sage back?”
“Yeah. She rode up front with Jake.”
He was glad when she didn’t press him for details. Not that he would have elaborated on their argument, anyway. At the end of the day, it didn’t have anything to do with Rebecca.
That night, for the first time since the spring, sleep eluded him. It didn’t help that he was lying in his bedroom and could perfectly picture those final moments with Shania. He could see the two of them plain as day–him standing beside the window, kissing her forehead, and telling her to go. He replayed the scene over and over again, just like he had in the months after it happened.
Back then, he’d managed to convince himself that he’d done the right thing. After all, he was busy renovating the farmhouse and making plans to expand the business, while Shania had settled in Oregon and thrown herself into grad school. He knew he’d hurt her, of course, but whenever he spoke to her she sounded genuinely happy with the direction her life was going. That image had given him a measure of comfort over the past nine years; the knowledge that a little bit of pain had ultimately led to her greater benefit.
Now he saw that same scenario in a whole different light.
What was it Ryan had said? The guy who messed her up.
Alec had never thought about it that way, at least not when he considered her secular achievements. How could a woman as accomplished as Shania possibly be messed up? If anyone seemed to have it together, it was her.
Yet she was all alone, and Alec realized then and there that it was entirely his fault. All these years, he’d imagined that he’d done her a service by setting her free, when in reality he’d done just the opposite.
Something else was bothering him, too. Rebecca was already downstairs making breakfast when he descended the staircase the following morning. He paused in the foyer to watch her, admiring the graceful way she moved through the kitchen.
Was Shania right? Did he really order his wife around all the time? Was Rebecca, too, compiling a long list of unspoken resentment that she’d one day throw in his face? He’d always thought of himself as a good man and a good husband, but after last night he wasn’t so sure.
“Bec?” he managed to say.
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever wish that I treated you differently?”
She glanced up from her mixing bowl. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…do you ever wish that I treated you better?”
His throat constricted when he saw the genuine confusion in her eyes. Instantly she set down her bowl and turned to face him. “Why on earth would you ask me that? Why would you even think it?”
He felt dangerously close to losing his composure as Rebecca stepped over to him and slid her arms around his waist. “Alec, you’re shaking,” she whispered. “What’s the matter?”
He was too distraught to respond. He held her close for a moment before he drew in a deep breath and took a step back. “I’m going to go work Onyx. I’ll be back for dinner.”
Before she could respond, he spun on his heel and marched for the door. He could picture her standing there in bewilderment, but he was in no frame of mind to explain himself. He didn’t even know what he would say.
All he knew was that last night was the first time he’d seen the depth of Shania’s hurt–the hurt that he had caused her–and he was suddenly consumed by the need for her forgiveness.
He’d hoped to catch her alone in the barn, but she and Holly were already in the middle of morning feed when he stepped into the aisle. “Morning,” Alec greeted.
Holly glanced up and gave a friendly smile, but Shania ignored him. He stepped up behind her and quietly cleared his throat as she poured grain into Zack’s feed bucket.
“Got a minute?” he asked.
At last she met his gaze. “For what?”
Her expression was so pained that he had to force himself not to look away. “I thought maybe we could talk in the office.”
Shania gave an apathetic shrug and pushed past him. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
A steel trap. Ryan had certainly been accurate in his description.
Fine, he decided, turning to head for the staff barn. Obviously she was still angry with him. The difference between last night and this morning was that today he was angry with himself, too.
When he entered the aisle and Onyx popped his head over his stall door to greet him, Alec managed a smile. “You know my favorite thing about you, buddy?” he said, giving the stallion an affectionate pat. “You’re not a girl.”
*
If Rebecca was perplexed by Alec’s behavior, she was downright mystified by Shania’s.
She joined Shania and Holly in the corral to conduct the morning riding lessons, and for the first time, she noticed that Shania was having difficulty connecting with the guests. She fumbled over the simplest of instructions; she forgot to adjust the stirrups for an unusually tall man; and she kept glancing over her shoulder, as if she were looking for someone. Rebecca watched it all in curious silence, trying to put the pieces together.
It was obvious that something had happened between her and Alec…but what?
Holly was quick to head up to the lodge at lunchtime, but Rebecca found Shania at the end of the main barn, leaning her arms against Zack’s stall door. She remained where she was for a moment, debating whether to talk to her or stay out of her way.
At last she gathered her courage and started down the aisle. “Are you going to go get lunch?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“In a little while,” Shania replied, keeping her eyes fixed on the gray gelding.
Rebecca stopped beside her. “You should come up to the farmhouse again sometime this week, before you leave. Walter would love it.”
Shania finally met her gaze. “Really?”
“Yeah. Maybe Tuesday? It’s Lucy’s day off, so I usually make a big dinner.”
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’d like that.”
When she turned her attention back to Zack, Rebecca could see that she wanted to be alone. “Well, I’ll plan on it, then,” she said, taking a small step back. “I’ll see you up at the lodge.”
She started to head down the aisle when Shania spoke again. “Rebecca?”
She turned back towards her. “Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“A lot of things. But mostly for being so nice to me this summer when you had every reason not to be.”
Rebecca was startled. “Because of your history with Alec?”
She gave a little nod.
“Well, I could say the same about you, you know. You have every reason to hate me for being married to him.”
Shania leaned against the stall door and ran her hand down Zack’s nose. “That’s just it. I never wanted him to be alone. I’ve hated the idea of him being in the farmhouse by himself, trying to do all of this on his own.” She turned to Rebecca again. “I didn’t think he’d ever open himself to the possibility of loving somebody. So as strange as it might sound, it makes me happy to know that he’s finally experienced that.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened in realization. “That’s it, isn’t it?” she said aloud.
“What?”
The words tumbled out before she could stop them. “You think Alec didn’t love you?”
One look at Shania’s dumbfounded expression was all the answer she needed.
“Of course he did,” Rebecca assured her. “That’s the reason he let you go.”
*
“You’re being awfully quiet today.”
Rebecca glanced up at Tommy. “Am I?”
&nbs
p; He nodded as he pulled a gigantic tub of Biotin from the shelf. The two of them had been up in the hayloft for most of the afternoon, pouring through the end-of-the-month inventory for August. Usually Tommy handled the task on his own, but yesterday’s lengthy preparations for the cookout had set him behind. Rebecca hoped that helping him would get her mind off of Alec and Shania, but apparently it wasn’t working.
Tommy opened the lid and peered into the tub of supplements. “We’ve got about a third left. Go ahead and order two more.”
Rebecca jotted down the numbers in the appropriate slot. “Did you see Alec at all today?”
“Nah, he was gone before I got down here.”
“He was acting strangely this morning.”
“Strangely how?”
She sighed and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know. Something was really bothering him, though. He wasn’t himself.”
Tommy glanced at her sideways as he replaced the Biotin on the shelf. “Shania didn’t seem too happy with him last night,” he said, reaching for the stack of de-wormer. “Think that has anything to do with it?”
“Yeah,” she admitted, staring blankly at the numbers on the sheet. “I’m pretty sure they had a fight. I just…”
Her voice trailed off when she heard a set of rapidly approaching hoof beats. Jake and Ben had taken the last trail ride out earlier, but they weren’t due back for another hour.
Tommy looked bewildered, too, as he strode over to the window. “Who on earth is that?”
Rebecca rose to her feet to join him, and when she pressed her nose to the glass her heart lurched into her throat. Onyx was galloping at breakneck speed towards the barn, but that wasn’t what startled her.
It was the empty saddle on his back.
Chapter 36
An icy wave of panic coursed through Rebecca’s veins. Automatically she turned and raced for the ladder, taking the steps two at a time. Onyx slowed to a trot as he entered the barn, his reins dangling uselessly from his mouth. Rebecca could do nothing but stare as he skid to a stop and reared up, slashing his forelegs through the air.
Indian Summer Page 24
