situation unless we make it such,” she said. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Gracie said, “I’m not sure I do.”
Rachel said, “You two are the most important people in his life. I recognize that fact and I admire it and I’d never try to change it. If we can’t accept each other and get along, I’ll step aside. I won’t force him to make a choice and he doesn’t need to. Most men are trying to do the right thing but they don’t know how. That I’ve learned. They don’t understand what we want and need and expect. They assume we think love is a zero-sum game-either he goes with you or he goes with me-which it isn’t. I know he’s attracted to me, and I to him. I could draw a line in the sand. But I won’t, because then I’d be with a man I don’t respect and you’d have a dad you resented. What I’m saying,” she continued, “is we’re not rivals. Not either/or. You’ve already got a mother and from what I understand she’s a wonderful woman. I look forward to meeting her as well. I don’t plan on disliking her or resenting her.”
Gracie said, “You talk to us like we’re adults.”
Rachel said, “And I plan to continue to do that. I’m too old to start playing games, and this…” she waved her hand over her head to indicate the situation they were in that morning, “is an incredible distraction. If we don’t talk now and talk bluntly, who knows when we’ll get the chance?”
Danielle said, “Hey, I’m here, too,” attempting to break up the two-way conversation.
“You are,” Rachel said. “And I’m sorry. I just had the impression you weren’t the one I’d need to convince.”
Danielle started to argue, then rolled her eyes and said, “I’m not, I guess.”
Rachel turned back to Gracie. “And what about you?”
Gracie hesitated and felt her sister and Rachel Mina looking at her. She said, “I need to think about it.”
“No,” Rachel said, holding up her hand to silence Danielle, which impressed Gracie because it actually
And with that, she turned and went back to her tent to pack up.
Gracie and Danielle watched her in silence until she was out of earshot.
Danielle said, “I have to admit, that was pretty cool. I like her, even though I still don’t see what she sees in Dad. I mean, I could live with her around, I think.”
Gracie nodded, although she wasn’t yet ready to agree. She didn’t want Danielle to think Rachel had won her over so quickly, even though she nearly conceded to herself she had.
Danielle giggled. “I was kind of hoping she would have said she
Gracie looked at her sister with disgust. “What planet are you
“Planet Danielle,” her sister said with a lilt. “It’s a good and happy place. And it has hot showers and cell phone service.”
Jed waited until everyone had dispersed before tracking down Dakota, who was picketing her horse with the others. His voice was tight and low. He said, “Why in the hell didn’t you keep going until you found them? Do you know what this might mean?”
She slid the saddle and pad off, leaving a sweaty matted square on her horse’s back. “No, what does it mean?”
He reached out and grasped her shoulder, preventing her from turning away from him. “It means he’ll go to the Park Service, that’s what it means. I could lose my contract, is what it means. Why didn’t you track him down? Why did you quit on me before you found him?”
She broke eye contact and let her gaze slip to his hand on her shoulder. She wouldn’t speak until he let go, so he did.
Dakota said, “I lost them, Jed. I followed their tracks for two miles and then the tracks just vanished. I can’t figure out why they left the trail or where they went. I rode another half mile to see if they got back on the trail, but they didn’t. I don’t know where they are, but I didn’t want to say that in front of our clients.”
Jed shook his head. “They just disappeared?”
She nodded defiantly.
Jed felt a weight lift. If Tristan and Wilson had wandered away from the route they might never get back to the trailhead.
“Should we notify Search and Rescue?” Dakota asked.
“No,” Jed said. “Not yet. Those two might realize the error of their ways and come back yet.”
He ignored the puzzlement in her face.
While they were packing, Gracie asked, “Did you hear anything last night?”
“No. I had a bad dream about something, but I forget now what it was about.”
“So maybe you heard what I heard.”
“I don’t know,” Danielle said. “Maybe. But who cares? He’s great, isn’t he? Justin, I mean.”
“You think they’re all great at first. This one is, but I’m sure you’ll screw it up somehow.”
Gracie cinched her sleeping bag stuff sack and started to carry it and her duffel toward the horses. On the way, she stepped off the path into the moist grass and bent down. The sod was churned up in several places exposing soft black soil. She looked up at her tent, which was twenty yards away. “This is where it happened,” she said to Danielle. “This is where the noises came from. Nobody tripped on a tent stake. It’s too far away from the tents.”
Danielle stayed on the path. She looked from Gracie back toward the camp. The adults were still milling around.
“So what are you saying?” she asked.
Gracie said, “I’m not sure. But there’s something really wrong going on. Something evil. Two grown men supposedly just left us in the middle of the night without a word to anyone. We’re supposed to believe that two guys who’ve known each other for a day get together and make a plan like that? Why didn’t anyone hear them or notice they were taking two horses? And did you see the way Jed and Dakota were treating each other? Or how Donna Glode and Tony D’Amato are acting?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“I know you didn’t. And why the big deal about taking another trail?” Gracie said. “We wouldn’t know what trail we’re on, anyway. Why does that matter?”
24
Cody Hoyt rode a tall gelding paint named Gipper behind Bull Mitchell’s black horse through a dark stand of lodgepole pine trees that seemed to have no end, on a trail that was so overgrown it barely existed anymore, and he called to Mitchell, “Are you sure you know where we’re going?”
It was mid-morning and up beyond the interlaced canopy of trees the sun was out and the sky was intense blue and cloudless. They’d been riding for four hours straight without a break and Cody felt quarter-sized spots on both inner thighs burn through his jeans into his flesh from leather ridges on the saddle. He knew little about horses except he’d never much liked them and he had the distinct impression Gipper thought the same about him, evidenced by the way the horse would drift off the path toward overhanging branches that, if Cody wasn’t alert, would have knocked him backwards out of the saddle to the ground.
It was still moist in the trees from a brief rain shower that came at dawn as they set out, and raindrops clung
