distant future.
'Go back to bed, you two,' Colby advised, 'it will be sunup soon enough.'
'You don't have to tell me twice,' Paul said gratefully. 'And, Colby, you really are nuts to be getting up now. Come on, Ginny, it's embarrassing enough to have one crazy sister, I don't want to admit to having two of them.'
Colby was laughing as she stumbled her way sleepily to the shower and drenched herself with hot water, hoping to clear the cobwebs. She actually felt weak and listless. It was no wonder after such bizarre dreams. Rafael De La Cruz sneaking into her bedroom, kissing her… his hands touching her breasts, her body. Instantly heat swept through her, her breasts aching with need. Colby groaned and closed her eyes against the humiliation of such an erotic dream and its aftermath. She allowed the water to cascade directly onto her face, hoping to wash the scent of him from her body, his taste from her mouth, the feel of his hard strength against her skin.
She wiped at the fog on the mirror then wished she hadn't when she saw herself. She was so pale her eyes looked enormous, vividly green. As she pulled the thick mass of red hair back to braid, she noticed the strange mark on the side of her neck. It looked like a strawberry, or a teenager's hickey. When she stood on her toes and examined it closer, she thought there were two tiny pinpricks in the center of it. It burned, not painfully, but intimately, so that she covered the mark with her palm as if to hold it close to her. She had no idea what it was, but it made her uneasy after her strange dream. As she stared at her reflection, she caught sight of the second mark. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart began to pound. The mark was on the swell of her breast, a vivid red standing out starkly against her white skin. How had it gotten there? It was no insect bite. Worse, as she looked at her hand, pressed tightly against her neck, there were faint smudges on her wrists that looked suspiciously like fingerprints. She snatched her hand down, breath catching in her throat. He
Had she really allowed Rafael into her bedroom? Kissing her. Touching her. She forced herself to look at the all too real marks. A brand on her skin. Was it his brand of possession? She groaned aloud, her face flaming crimson. She preferred to believe it was an erotic dream. She shook her head and dressed hastily, unwilling to think too much about what seemed like a hazy dream.
Domino was a large horse, and always restless when she saddled him. She worked quickly, her movements deft and reassuring. All the while she crooned endearments to him. She took Domino up the narrow trail leading into the mountains.
He was difficult to handle; she could never sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Domino had more tricks than most rodeo broncs. The narrow trail made it almost impossible to bolt, effectively eliminating one of his favorite bad habits.
Colby had literally pulled the rifle from his previous owner's hands, saving Domino's life. Half crazed with pain and fear from the ugly beatings he had received, the horse had lashed out at anything and everything that came near it. She still couldn't remember exactly what she'd said or done to convince the owner to sell her the horse, or even how she had managed to load him for transport in his terrible condition.
It had taken three years of patient love, hundreds of hours spent sitting on a fence rail talking soothing nonsense. He looked for her eagerly now, thrusting his head toward her, trumpeting a welcome when he saw her. But to ride him… Colby shook her head, smiling to herself. Riding him was never easy, but it was exactly what she needed. It would keep her mind away from Rafael De La Cruz.
Forty-five minutes up into the mountains she dismounted, preferring to lead Domino and enjoy the tranquility of her surroundings while she looked for signs of Pete. The Cascades were seven hundred miles in length, stretching from California through Oregon and Washington into Canada. The range had been born of fire then carved of ice. Along with a chain of volcanoes, the mountain range boasted heavy forests, a multitude of waterfalls and cataracts along with miles of snow-fields. The Columbia River literally cut the mountain range in half. Guarded by three towering volcanoes, white-water rapids ripped through its steep rocky gorge with dizzying speed. Lava cliffs, lakes, streams, lush evergreen forests, the Cascades were unequaled in beauty or potential ferocity.
Colby stood on the edge of the cliff, not looking down but up the sheer mountain wall rising above her. Commanding respect, these mountains were the very foundation of legends. Thousands of miles of untamed wilderness, rarely did man penetrate the deep forbidding forests, the treacherous canyons, the slopes rising mile after mile. Horror stories were repeated around campfires of the howling which reverberated from the interior, of the legendary Bigfoot carrying off intruders, never to be seen again.
Colby gave a small sigh and bent to pick a wildflower struggling valiantly to survive among the boulders. She loved the stillness of the mountains; she could sit for hours just absorbing the feeling. That didn't for a moment mean she allowed herself to be careless. Even Colby, who was familiar with more miles of mountains than almost anyone in the area, didn't become complacent. Having a ranch nestled in a small valley on the fringes of the rising mountains, she was all too aware of mysterious unexplained happenings. A smell rising out of nowhere, offensive, noxious. The strange silences even the insects respected. So many times one felt watched, an eerie feeling occupied by the sensation of skin crawling.
Most of the ranches were further down the mountain, several thousand feet down from the Chevez ranch. Clinton Daniels's property bordered Colby's to the south, but only Sean Everett's twenty thousand acres stretched beyond Colby's property, with the state land behind him. Everett had wrangled with the state over most of the land, buying up the rest from small-time ranchers. Like Colby, he seemed to prefer the mountains, leading a fairly self- sufficient existence. His fleet of vehicles, not to mention the small Piper and helicopter, made her green with envy.
The Everett hands who lived in the ranch's comfortable cabins with their families stayed mainly to themselves although she knew all of them by name and could call a few of them friends. They seemed to work hard. Everett's ranch had definitely prospered, his cattle remaining fat even through the harsh winters. Some of his hands, most of whom had never worked on a ranch until Sean had given them a home, were becoming interested in rodeo competition.
Colby smiled to herself as she gathered up Domino's reins. She spent a great deal of her time doing business with men, earning her reputation as a reliable and shrewd rancher with an exceptional talent with horses. It had given her a quiet confidence in herself, a joy of life. She was one of those lucky people who accepted her way of life and simply lived it to the best of her ability.
She swung easily into the saddle, liking the familiar creak of leather. Pulling her hat to a better angle to shade her eyes from the sun's rising rays, she turned her mount toward the farthest corner of her property. The fence had been sagging for some time and, unlike Colby, the cattle favored this rugged, remote area. Perhaps Pete had come here to repair the fence. She rubbed her eyes several times. The sun wasn't high, yet her eyes felt sore, unduly sensitive to the light.
As Domino picked his way carefully over the loose rocks, his hooves the only sound in the utter stillness, Colby alternated between anxiously scanning the ground for tracks and scowling nervously up at the jutting remorseless mountains. The unrelenting steep rock guarded the series of dark, forbidding caves winding into the very bowels of the mountain. She disliked this section of property intensely, avoiding it with every excuse possible. There was a sense of evil, a dark somber dread as if the land were alive, waiting patiently, relentlessly to reclaim her. She was never able to approach it without her heart rate doubling, her stomach churning, and a terrible sense of foreboding overtaking her, a leftover bogey from her childhood. She would never forget being trapped in the old abandoned mine shaft, a primitive affair, a hundred years old with rotting timbers. It had all come crashing down, smothering her nine-year-old cries, nearly suffocating her. She had been buried alive, trapped in the damp rotting earth for eleven hours and twenty-two minutes. It had been an eternity. Even with her special gifts, she had not been strong enough to move the mounds of earth and rock by herself. She had waited alone and frightened in the terrible darkness for her stepfather to rescue her.
Something had moved in the dark bowels of the caves, something not human. She had seen red flames in glowing eyes and smelled dead flesh. The thing had taunted her, its voice gravelly, skin stretched taut across its skull. She had seen jagged teeth stained with blood and long, razor-sharp talons for fingernails. Her parents had sworn to her over and over, when she woke screaming in the night, that it had been her imagination. Colby still had a difficult time believing she could have conjured up the hideous creature.
Armando Chevez had closed up the mines and she hadn't gone exploring there, feeling the place was like a
