Stranded on the Prairie (The Original Mountain Man #3)

1. Riley

Riley

I draw in a deep lungful of the clean Colorado air, close my eyes, and feel a smile cross my lips.

Ah. This is what I’ve been waiting for...

When I flick my gaze open again, I cast it around the gorgeous landscape surrounding me – the greenery that stretches on as far as I can see, punctuated by trees that look as though they have been standing there for centuries.

I can hear the rush of water just out of sight, the steady flow of it a far cry from the usual rush of traffic outside the windows of my yoga studio. Checking my phone, I make sure that I’m not too far from the path, and then cut down to scoop up some fresh water from the river and catch my breath.

Mom would have loved this.

The thought, as it so often does, crosses my mind without warning – I do my best to brush it aside.

Mom would have wanted me to enjoy it, too, without beating myself up over everything.

But either way, she’s not here, and I have to make the most of this little adventure that I can.

As I pick my way down the hill towards the rushing water below, I feel a little twinge at the thought of having to go back to the city when this is all over.

Not that there isn’t plenty there I love, of course.

No oat milk lattes out here in the forest, that’s for sure.

But there’s something about feeling the soft earth under your feet and breathing in the clean, unpolluted air and drinking deep from the ice-cold river water that makes me feel like I’ve been scrubbed out, right down to my soul.

I need to start doing this more often. Hey, maybe I could even start holding yoga retreats out here – a hike out to the hills, and then a few savasanas when we got up here in the setting sun...

I stoop down to fill my flask from the river, the bite of the water rushing over my hand, and wonder if anyone would actually sign up for something like that.

I mean, if I like it here, I have to think that there would be plenty of my students who feel the same way. The release of being in nature, even just for a little while, forces you to consider your breath in a way that being in the city?—

"Shit!” I cry out, my voice echoing around the small valley that the river runs through. My foot skids on a mossy rock, and my shoes slips beneath the water, soaking my socks with freezing water.

I reach a hand out to balance myself, but, before I can get my bearings, a sudden rush behind me draws my attention. My head whips around, and, just like that, I feel the weight of the water against my legs as they are knocked out from underneath me, sending my flask flying into the air.

The last thing I see before I hit the riverbed is my pack flopping just out of reach, and then, a second later, everything goes black.

I don’t know how long I am out for, but when I break the surface of the water again, I gasp for air, groping and coughing as I expell the chill from my lungs. My clothes are soaked to my skin, and the air prickles with a discomforting cold all of a sudden.

I tip my head back, looking to the sky above – the blue’s been replaced by a sudden, threatening gather of clouds. Shit, how long was I out for...?

I glance around for my pack, praying to everything good and pure that my phone didn’t get drenched in the fall – but I can’t see it anywhere.

Shivering, I scramble out of the river and climb on to a large rock for a better vantage point, looking around for some kind of explanation.

What the hell...?

Did it get washed downriver? I didn’t think it landed in the water, but maybe I managed to send it flying when I tripped. Oh, crap, I don’t know if I can find my way out without my phone. My sense of direction has always been terrible, and-

Suddenly, a chill wind rushes through the valley, and I wrap my arms around myself – it strikes me that, without my pack, in drenched clothes, in a place I don’t know well, I could be in trouble.

Heaving myself towards the bank, I drag myself back up towards the path. If I just follow it back down to where I came from, then I won’t be?—

Wait. The path is gone. Or, at least, I think it is. It’s certainly not where I remember it being, cutting between the tall trees and the emerald grass.

My brows knit together in a panic as I cast my gaze this way and that, but there’s no sign of it, not here, not anywhere...

I mutter another curse to myself, then squeeze my eyes shut and try to pull myself back into the present.

Okay. No path, no pack, no phone, and the weather seems to have turned against me, too.

There has to be a way out of this, right?

The universe wouldn’t have dumped something like this on my head if I couldn’t cope with it, I just need to find a way through, one way or another...

I settle on a direction, and start to walk, my entire body practically seized from the cold. I wait for the clouds to part and show the sunshine that I saw beaming down before, but it doesn’t come.

If anything, they just grow more and more threatening, until, at last, a rain of sleet drops out of the sky.

I dive beneath a tree for cover, but it doesn’t do much to keep the cold off of me, dripping into my clothes and soaking in to my flesh to ensure that what little of me that isn’t frozen soon ends up that way.

I sink down to the ground, my arms wrapped around myself, my teeth chattering as I watch the sleet turn to snow in front of me.

Why the hell is it snowing in Colorado at this time of year?

I checked the weather before I came out, and it was meant to be nothing but sunshine as far as I could see. But this...

My eyes begin to grow heavy, and a sudden wash of exhaustion hits me hard. Maybe I just need to rest for a while, and then I can start back on to the trail again, try to find someone who can point me in the right direction...

But, before I can grow too comfortable, something catches my attention – the sound of footsteps cutting through the woods, a man’s voice, low, the rumble of it cutting through the tiredness in my body.

My gaze flickers open, and sure enough, there before me is a man who looks like he could have come straight from the front cover of some period-piece drama on a streaming service.

He’s got a crop of brown hair, streaked with a few lighter patches from the sun, and he’s wearing a heavy leather coat over what looks to be well-worn cotton pants and a matching shirt.

His brow is knitted together with obvious concern as he takes me in, and, as I part my lips to try and say something to him, he reaches down to pull me up.

"Come on. With me."

"I just got lost," I blurt out, my head kind of screwy from the cold and the tiredness. "I lost my phone back there, I don’t know how to get Maps on-"

"What are you talking about?” he mutters, as he slips an arm around my waist, drawing mine around his shoulders. Whatever protest or explanation that I might have had vanishes just as quick as I thought of it when I feel the warmth of his body against mine.

I guess I shouldn’t be letting some random guy carry me off into the woods, but it’s not like I have many better options right now.

"My phone," I try again, but my voice is weaker now, not exactly convincing. "I was just..."

"You need to warm up," he grunts to me, tightening his grip around my waist as he leads me further into the dark woods.

The blackness is spattered with white where the snow is falling quickly around us, and I lean on him for support, my legs barely grazing the ground as he carries me away from the cold.

My clothes are still clinging to my body, freezing against my skin, and I know he’s right. The cold is starting to feel a little too close to comfort for me right now, and if I don’t get out of the snow, I might be in serious trouble.

And besides...the warmth of his skin, the strength of his muscular body, and the glint in his dark brown eyes hardly leave me much room for argument, do they?