thoughts clanging around in her head. “There’s probably a law somewhere that says kids are required to do the most illogical things in the most illogical ways so they can give their parents the maximum number of gray hairs.”
Cord said nothing. Only slightly aware of the sound the rain made as it sluiced through pine needles on the way to the earth, she blinked water out of her eyes. She probably should have worn her slicker instead of sticking it in her backpack, but it wasn’t that cold and too much clothing restricted her movement. She fastened her attention on her hands wrapped around the reins.
Finally they reached the first of the trees that marked the boundary of her property. Feeling slightly claustrophobic, she concentrated, or tried to concentrate, on the sounds the horses were making, the taste and feel of mountain air.
She couldn’t keep her eyes off Cord.
Her son’s father was painted in earth tones. Even his jeans seemed more brown than blue, a gentle fading of color until he’d become one with his environment. There were times when life took him out of the wilderness, but even then, she suspected, he carried his beloved world inside him. She’d never seen him in a suit; she doubted that he owned one.
Good.
He should always remain part of the elements.
But emotionally apart from her when what they were doing was taking every bit of self-control and courage she had?
The past seven years hadn’t changed anything. It was no different from when…
She refused to let herself finish the thought.
Chapter 5
Cord ran his left hand down his pant leg. For one of the few times in his life, he didn’t feel comfortable in his own body.
It hurt, not just being unable to reach out and touch his son today, but facing how much he was missing of Matt’s growing up. In truth, he hated that most of all the things that couldn’t be changed in his life-be hated the holes in his heart that he didn’t fully understand. Closing his mind to the pain had always ensured his emotional survival. But life seldom felt as raw as it did today.
If they kept up this pace, they’d soon have to rest the horses. Still, although Arapaho was already dead ahead, he couldn’t make himself slow down, and Shannon hadn’t said anything about conserving her horses’ energy. Shannon, with her long legs and active life-style, shouldn’t have any trouble keeping up with him today and longer if it came to that. When he’d first seen her this morning, with her rich brown hair braided down her back, his defenses hadn’t had time to lock into place and he’d come within a breath of telling her she looked like an Indian maiden, beautiful, desirable. But she wouldn’t want to hear that from him any more than he wanted to give voice to his thoughts.
If, in spite of the damage caused by the rain, he could locate Pawnee’s prints at the base of Arapaho, he would have a purpose, a plan, a goal. He’d no longer be susceptible to distraction, something that never happened when he was on a search. It had been dark much of the time he’d been here last night, which meant he could have missed his son’s signs. The other possibility, one he hadn’t told Shannon about but she must have considered, was that Matt wasn’t anywhere near Arapaho.
Experience had taught him not to let his mind tangle in the unknown. Still, it wasn’t easy to turn his thoughts from the very personal object of his search to what might happen today. If Matt intended to explore Arapaho, he would have to abandon his horse when the trail got too steep. Although the rain would wash away many of the signs the boy made, if he stepped where the ground was level and the dirt dense, he would leave footprints. If that happened and if Cord was very, very lucky, he might overtake his son before nightfall. He wouldn’t have to go on looking at Shannon, thinking about what they’d once had and shared-and lost. They would go back to their separate lives and he’d find a way to stop thinking about the body of the woman who’d carried his children.
What if Matt was trying to hide?
There was another possibility. One he hadn’t mentioned because he’d wanted to spare Shannon any more burdens. Lost people, especially children, typically zigzagged aimlessly through the woods, making it difficult to separate a path made earlier in the day from a more recent one.
He accepted that Matt might not understand enough about wilderness survival to know how to mark his trail so he would have a guideline in case he had to backtrack. And he wasn’t sure Matt would be aware enough of his surroundings to tell if he was going in circles. From a distance, climbing a mountain seemed like a straightforward objective but, surrounded by trees or rocks, the goal could be easily lost.
He should have taught his son more about how to be at home in the wilderness, how to control his environment, instead of the other way around. He’d planned on doing that this summer. But maybe-no, it wouldn’t be too late!
Straightening, he focused on what lay around him. The trees at this altitude grew in random, healthy clumps. In some areas, the pines were so close together that sunlight never reached the ground. Given the right motivation or camouflage, any animal or human being could blend into the dense shadows and even he might not see them. Still, every fiber and nerve ending in him said that his son wasn’t nearby.
Classroom learning was important; he knew that. A structured setting, friends, familiar surroundings gave a child a solid foundation. That’s why Cord hadn’t asked Shannon to share custody of Matt, though he wanted his son with all his heart. With his work, he couldn’t offer Matt true stability. How could a child keep up at school if his father constantly dragged him around the country, or left him with baby-sitters?
Shannon was a good mother. A wonderful mother. He had only to look into her eyes and see into her nurturing heart to believe that. She might be able to keep a great deal from him, but not everything.
Somehow he knew there hadn’t been many men in her life since their divorce. Maybe it was in the way she conducted herself, her awareness of, or rather, her disregard for, her physical body. When she spoke of “we” it was always about her and Matt and sometimes her parents. She’d had a single male wrangler last year, a man Matt thought fascinating because he’d once been on the rodeo circuit. Matt said that the man sometimes asked Shannon to go to a movie or dinner with him but she never had. After three or four months, the wrangler had moved on, and according to Matt, Shannon had said she was glad to see him gone.
But someday a new man would walk into Shannon’s life-and into Matt’s, as well.
When that happened…
Like a well-trained tool, Cord’s mind switched to his reason for being here and what he needed to see and hear and smell and sense. He was still aware of Shannon’s presence behind him, but his attention was now fully trained on the ground. Despite the effects of rain, he could tell horses had recently been along the main trail that ringed the base of Arapaho. Whether the prints were made by Matt’s mount or by any number of vacationers, he couldn’t say.
He would put his training and instinct to use when the mountain started giving up its secrets-if it had any-to him.
Because he’d done it before, he easily put himself in the mind of a ten-year-old. At that age he’d already spent more than a week alone in the wilderness, soaking dew from rocks with a handkerchief and wringing the moisture into his mouth to slake his thirst. He’d eaten wild rose hips, the inner bark from pine trees, pigweed, and returned to his grandfather, not full, but not hungry, either.
Gray Cloud had praised his accomplishment and then told him he’d come within a quarter mile of a lynx den. Had Cord seen the signs? He hadn’t, but by the time he slept under an old growth pine a month later, he’d trained himself to be aware of every predator and prey for a mile around.
Matt wouldn’t be, and that worried him. The big cats and few black bears who lived around here wouldn’t bother human beings, but although he’d taught Matt that, the lesson might not have stuck. After all, the boy had sat through a long, dark, wet night with nothing to do except listen and think. Who knew what his young, fertile imagination might have come up with? Somehow he had to give Matt peace.
