When Cord moved, it was to slide off the mare and land, silently, on rain-soaked earth. He stepped away from the animal and in a matter of seconds disappeared into the dense forest. She tried to listen, but there were so many sounds that she couldn’t begin to sort them out. She thought of how quickly the woods had swallowed Cord and how wonderfully wild he’d looked with evergreens framing him.
Cord hadn’t told her to follow him and she knew better than to infringe on his space. She waited, not knowing enough, and yet trusting that eventually he’d come back and tell her what he’d learned. She’d accept whatever it was, just as she accepted this raw and unwanted physical need for the man who’d turned her from a girl into a woman.
Her horse tried to lower its head to eat. She momentarily argued the point and then let it have its way. Cord’s mount was wandering away as it searched out fresh outcroppings on the pine needle-blanketed rocks. Shannon concentrated on wind, frogs, her limp and still-damp hair, memories of Cord’s faded and body-formed jeans, the wind again. The absence of rain.
How much time had passed? She’d just made up her mind to dismount when Cord’s mount lifted its head and snorted. Her horse followed suit, neck arched in interest.
There was no change in the rhyme of the forest, nothing for her ears to decipher. But the horses knew.
A moment later Cord came out of the woods leading Pawnee. Cord seemed to glide, so sure of his footing that he never once took his eyes off her.
Black eyes, dark as midnight. Forever eyes.
“That fast?” she managed around her heart’s furious beating.
“No,” Cord cautioned. “Nothing’s changed.”
“But you found Pawnee.”
Cord shook his head, his incredible eyes so sober that she couldn’t fight them, couldn’t hold on to her short- lived elation. “Only because Matt either let him loose or didn’t tie him well enough. Or-Shannon, on his own, would Pawnee be able to make his way home?”
With an effort, she pulled herself out of endless depths and wild hope and explained that more than once one of her rental horses had wandered back to the corral after an inexperienced rider fell off. Pawnee, however, was full of himself, not as accustomed to life’s routines, and as such, more likely to be sidetracked even with an empty belly and memories of food and water.
“I’ve got to find where Matt and Pawnee parted compant.”
“How long will that take?”
“As long as it takes.”
She bit her tongue to keep from telling Cord not to be flippant. An instant later she knew it wasn’t that at all because he was explaining that from the number of tracks he’d found around Pawnee, he knew the animal hadn’t been there long. “He’s been on the move, running, which means there’s no easy way of telling where Matt left him, or where he fell off.”
She felt her heart slow, then beat quick and erratic.
“Backtrack Pawnee.”
It was then that she noticed that Pawnee was wearing his saddle and bridle. The loose reins that had been trailing behind the horse were muddy from dragging. “Maybe Matt ground-tied Pawnee and left him for a few minutes, but something spooked Pawnee.”
“Maybe. Look at his legs,” Cord observed. “He’s been deep in the woods for a while, getting scratched up.”
“You said that when you found where the two of them parted company, you’d be able to really start tracking Matt. How are you going to get to that point?”
Cord stepped over to his horse and pulled on the reins, lifting the animal’s head. “I’ll have to go on foot.”
Without another word of explanation, he turned and slipped, silently, into the woods. After a momentary hesitation, she started after him, leading both Pawnee and Cord’s horse. She stretched over the neck of the one she rode so the thick-growing branches wouldn’t knock her off.
Ahead, Cord walked Indian style, his movements starting in his hips, eyes trained on the ground. She tried to make out what he was concentrating on, but for her there was nothing except the generations of pine needles that thickly carpeted the forest floor. Still, she trusted.
This was Cord’s world.
And their son was in it, somewhere.
Safe?
Chapter 8
Afternoon had become evening. The sun was setting. Although he all but had to double over, Cord continued to stare at the ground as he sought out the nuggets of information Matt had left behind. Several times in the past few minutes he’d placed his palm over a faint boot print and let his nerves absorb the silent messages.
Matt had slowed down, and there was no pattern or destination to what he was doing. Like a rabbit, the boy had hopped in one direction for a while before taking off in another. Yes, he continued to climb, but there was no efficiency, no purpose. Cord wasn’t sure whether Shannon was aware of how much crisscrossing they’d been doing. He’d explain why once it was too dark to see where he was going, so she wouldn’t have to pull the information out of him. If she sounded strong enough, he’d admit that their son was getting tired and toeing out like a fat man in his attempt to keep his body going.
What he wouldn’t tell her was that he was certain Pawnee had thrown Matt. The signs had been all too clear, a mass of churned hoof prints, at the middle of a steep slope and, in among those prints, two easily recognizable handprints and two indentations that he was convinced had been made by a pair of knees.
To him, the scenario was spelled out as clearly as if he had a video of the whole accident. Matt had tried to make Pawnee climb the hili and, panicking, Pawnee had begun bucking. Made awkward by his backpack, Matt had fallen off and landed on his bands and knees. Pawnee had run away while Matt had been left behind. Because the ground was rocky and Pawnee had done so much damage to it, it was impossible to know how long Matt had remained there before picking himself up and going on alone.
And maybe Pawnee had been startled by a rifle shot.
At least Matt hadn’t been injured enough by the fall that he couldn’t move, Cord reminded himself again. But the boy was disoriented. Lost. Were the poachers responsible? If they were…
Cord crouched low and extended a shadowed hand over a smear in the pine needles made by a toe dragging over the ground, studying not just the mark but his own hand. The last time he’d seen Matt, they’d shaken hands. Matt had seemed pleased by that, a growing-up boy wanting to say goodbye to his dad man to man.
Why hadn’t he clutched that slender yet muscled body to him? Ten wasn’t a man yet. Ten was a child. Just because he hadn’t thought of himself as one at that age didn’t mean he should subject his son to the same standards.
But he had. Somehow, unwittingly, he’d given Matt the message that it was time-past time-for him to become a man.
That’s why Matt was out here.
“Cord, please, give it up.”
For an instant, he wanted to order Shannon to be silent because he couldn’t rest until their son was safe, but she was right. He’d been going more by feel than sight for too long and if he wasn’t careful, he might talk himself into believing he’d seen something that wasn’t there. When he straightened, he felt a slight pull in the small of his back, but as he’d done many times over the years, he quickly assessed the inconsequential discomfort and dismissed it. It might be different for Matt. His fall from Pawnee might have left him bruised and sore.
“You’ve done all you can for one day,” she said softly. “Get some rest.”
“I haven’t done enough.”
“You aren’t superhuman-I’m not asking you to be. Besides, there isn’t any go left in me.”
