Chapter 12
Delaney was settled on the ledge, her feet dangling, breathing hard, her heart racing from the long, fast climb.
Owen swung his legs around so that he was sitting side by side with her. Clive lay facedown beside them, fighting the ropes Owen had tied tightly to constrain the man.
“If you wiggle much more, Duncan, you’re gonna fall off this cliff. Lie still. I’m in no mood to grab you if you start tumbling.”
Clive quit his wiggling and instead started yapping. “I told you, I don’t deserve to hang. I shot that man in self-defense. You should just let me and my family go and—”
Owen yanked the kerchief off Clive’s neck and gagged him.
Delaney approved of Owen not using his own kerchief. And she approved of the silence.
“Have you got any idea how to get down from here?” he asked.
Actually, while Owen had been dealing with Clive, she’d given it some thought. “Sure, I’ve got a lasso on my horse. He’s down there grazing.” She pointed at her horse, standing near Owen’s and Clive’s horses. All of them were settling into a meal.
She went on. “I’ll climb down, fetch the lasso back up here. We’ll tie it tight around Clive’s waist and lower him to the ground. Simple.”
Owen leaned out enough to see how high up they were. “Got any better ideas?”
She turned to smile at him. “We can lower him enough that a fall won’t kill him.”
“You’ve got a little bit of a cruel streak, Miss Bridger. I like it.”
She laughed.
“I’d like to catch my breath a little longer, but Morgan, Tex, and Marley might be worrying about us by now.
“The ledge right there.” She pointed down about halfway.
“That’s within reach of my lasso. And behind you, that scrub pine growing out of the rock, it looks sturdy enough.
We’ll use that to lower him to that ledge.
I’ll wait down there for him and watch over him while you climb down.
Then we’ll lower him the rest of the way. ”
“It might work. But it’s a narrow ledge. It’ll be hard to keep him on it.”
“It’s close enough to the ground that if the coyote starts wiggling around again, I’ll just have to let him fall. That’s up to him.”
“If he falls from there, it probably wouldn’t kill him. And that plan will get him down to the ground while leaving him tied up. Yep, it’ll work. I’d offer to climb down and fetch the rope and climb back up here, it’d be the gentlemanly thing to do.” He turned to her and smiled.
She smiled back. “It’s not gentlemanly to leave me up here with a killer.”
“There’s no real mannerly way to solve this. If you’d rather rest a few minutes before going after the lasso . . .” Owen paused and looked at her hands.
When he did, Delaney looked too and saw she’d ripped a fingernail below the quick, and it was bleeding. She hadn’t paid it any mind before, but now she noticed how much it hurt.
Wincing, he reached for her hand and held it up for a better look. “Can you still make the climb, you think?”
She studied his hand holding hers. His hands were bleeding worse than hers. They were callused and battered and darkly tanned from his life lived outside. “Your hands are torn up, too. You climbed the same cliff I did.”
Then she closed her hand over his and looked back at him.
“Yes, I can do it. This sure has been a trip marked by pain, but the pain of fearing Boone was dead makes everything since then seem unimportant. I don’t mind waiting a few more minutes to catch my breath, though.
” She touched his raw, bleeding index finger. “You’re hurt too, Owen.”
“I’ve gotten so I don’t pay much mind to pain unless it’s bad enough to stop me from moving forward.” He lifted his right hand, revealing that the palm had been scraped practically raw.
“Lowering that worthless Clive Duncan is going to hurt as well and take plenty of strength.”
Their eyes locked, and she smiled. She saw strength, kindness, and courage in his blue eyes.
He was the kind of man who did what needed to be done and didn’t shirk responsibility.
He was a man who was used to being in charge and snapping out orders, usually to strong, highly skilled lawmen.
Men who wouldn’t take an order that didn’t make sense to them, and yet they obeyed him.
“You’re a strong, capable woman, Delaney, and a real pretty one to boot. Thank you for your help. I admit I wasn’t happy to see that you’d followed me. That’s mainly because I see it as my job to keep you safe.”
“And now?” She arched one brow, amused.
“And now I’m glad you’re here,” Owen said. “I’m grateful to have your help. I’m also happy to have your company.”
“I’d like to sit a little longer, until my heart stops pounding so hard I can feel it in my ears.”
He nodded. “We’ll take a bit of time then.”
Delaney leaned forward and looked down. “You ever think about all the twists and turns your life has taken to get you to this spot, sitting on a ledge on a mountain with a woman and a killer?”
Owen smiled. “Nope. I usually think about what’s ahead, not what brought me here.”
“It does seem like an unlikely place to end up.”
He squeezed her hand but gently, being careful not to hurt it further. But his hand, his gentle strength, made the hurt seem like nothing somehow.
“Are you from Colorado?” she asked. “Were you born here?”
“I grew up on a farm in Iowa. Pa went to fight the war, and then when it looked like my family could manage without me, I traipsed after him. Figured the war would last a few months at the most. Pa had said so before he left when Ma kicked up a fuss about his leaving us.”
“Did she fuss over you, too?’
Owen was silent for so long, Delaney wondered if she’d asked him a question that opened up painful memories.
“She cried over me. Mad at Pa, terrified for me. But I was too manly, too sure I had to fight for my country, to let her tears stop me.”
“How old were you?”
“Nearly seventeen. A full-grown man—at least to my way of thinking.”
“Ma said Bowie took off when he was about that age. Jedediah and Crockett weren’t much older. I reckon you were a man by then, but a ma wouldn’t see it that way.”
“She sure enough didn’t.”
“So how did you end up all the way out here?”
He seemed to be staring into the far-distant past. Quietly, he said, “I went home after the war for a spell, then left. And I’ve never been back. I wonder if they moved on west or if they’re even still alive.”
“The train makes a trip real easy, Owen. When we get to Cheyenne, you can jump on the train and go see them. You could be out there and back in a week’s time.”
Owen turned to look at her. He wasn’t looking into the past now, but right into her eyes. “I should go see them. I guess I’ve never considered the train.”
“I’ve never met Bowie. I’m told he still lived at home when I was real young, but I have no memory of him. He headed out west with plans to settle there, try fur trapping or who knows what, and I’ve not seen him since.”
Owen nodded. “Why do you think your brother left and never returned?”
Delaney heard the question he didn’t ask.
He was wondering why he’d done the same thing.
She leaned her shoulder against his. Instead of answering his question, she said, “It’s strange to miss a man I’ve never really met.
I’ll wager your ma misses you. Your pa too, but he’s probably too tough to admit it. Even to himself.”
She turned to him and realized how close she’d gotten. She was letting him bear her weight when he was more exhausted than she was. At least she slept at night, while Owen stood watch for part of it. She should probably move away, but she didn’t.
Their gazes held for much too long a time. A mountain breeze blew a strand of hair across her eyes, and Owen lifted his hand and gently brushed it away, then drew one rough finger down the side of her cheek. He leaned forward, just an inch. She closed the space between them another inch.
His lips touched hers, and it was nothing she’d ever thought a kiss could be. The warmth and the emotion it awakened in her was a deep and wonderful surprise.
Then Clive squirmed and kicked Owen, and Owen moved fast to keep the varmint from falling off the ledge.
He was busy enough, so she found the grit to turn away before she was even close to done being kissed. “I’ll get the lasso now.” She started her downward journey before she got the reckless notion to stay and look some more, hold his hand some more, kiss some more.
They really did need to get back to the group. She sure hoped Tex and Morgan were having an easier time fetching their prisoners than she and Owen were with theirs.
“Everyone should be back by now.” Morgan poked a smoldering stick into the fire as the sun sank beyond the horizon. He raised his eyes so that they met Boone’s.
Boone rose to his feet. “We should’ve gone hunting for them right when you got back. I’m going. I don’t like the idea that Delaney is still out there.”
Morgan shook his head impatiently. “You’re right. But you’re not going. I can track a rattlesnake over solid rock, sneak up behind him and slap him on the head, then get away before he so much as rattles.”
A mighty bold claim, and one he hoped to never have to prove.
“I’ll keep watch over the prisoner.” Boone rolled his eyes, then looked over at Sly. He was sitting up, bound hand and foot, and besides that he was tied to a tree.
“I’m going too,” Roz announced as she stood.
Morgan gritted his teeth. “No, you’re not. You stay here with your son and Boone.”
“Jesse will be fine with Boone. And I can out-track you any day.”
“Shouldn’t take much tracking.” Boone jabbed a finger to the south side of the trail. “That way goes up. From here it looks like it’s heading for solid rock. They’ll be stopped soon enough. Go get my sister back.”