45. Sage
sage
Zenith raced through the trees while Kale led the way on his horse.
In my periphery, Chuck and Reed were catching up on either side of us.
Rain pattered against the new spring leaves.
Silence followed us now. I strained my ears to hear the repetition of rifles, but there was nothing. I hoped that meant it was over.
Then there was a crack of thunder — or was it a gun shot?
— echoing off the mountainsides. My shoulders tightened as if to brace for the invisible impact.
The horses’ hooves clomped over the forest floor while we ducked and swerved through the trees.
I gripped the reins, my hands numb from the cold rain.
My skin felt like it was on fire with how cold I was, my clothes and hair now drenched.
Kale began to slow and I saw two trucks with horse trailers parked below the tree line, not far from a hunting trail. Jude hustled to the back of the open trailers, ready to load the horses.
I pulled up on the reins, squeezing my heels to slow us down, my eyes darting around.
Chuck and Reed came up beside me, quickly dismounting and jogging their horses to the trailers.
Kale had hopped off his horse and he was suddenly at my side, helping me off Zenith.
Everything was moving too fast. My sluggish brain, thick with the surge of adrenaline, was having a hard time keeping up.
Nausea hit me like a wave.
Everyone was here, but him.
I whipped my head around to the men loading the horses. “Where is he?”
Kale still held me steady and I pushed him away, turning to look back from where we came.
But the trees were empty.
Panic scoured my limbs. He wasn’t here. My chest tightened and my throat seemed to close. I couldn’t breathe. “Where’s Christian?”
No one was talking.
Not even the trees. They just stood there taking the fucking storm like they were its little bitch.
“Where the fuck is Christian?” I asked again, swinging around to look at Kale.
He just stood there, his eyes staring at me like he was so sorry. Why was he fucking sorry?
I spun around again. “Christian!” I yelled into the woods.
I searched the trees frantically for any sign of him. Shallow breaths left my lungs in little spurts. The only movement was the sway of branches. The only shadows were those cast by the pine boughs and spring foliage.
There was no horse riding out of the trees. No Christian.
“Sage,” Kale said, reaching out to me.
I shook him off, shaking my head. “No. Where is he?”
Kale was the only one who could look at me. Reed, Chuck, and Jude cast their eyes down while they continued loading the horses and rifles in their gun totes.
“He wanted us to get you out of there,” Kale explained softly beside me.
I pushed him. Hard. Nearly knocking him off his feet. “You left him?”
That fear I felt seeing Christian knocked unconscious and kicked nearly to death in the arena came barreling back. I couldn’t lose him.
“We needed to get you out of there,” Kale rationalized. His voice was too fucking calm.
“You fucking—” My voice broke, tears clogging my throat and blurring my vision. “—left him?”
Kale wrapped his arms around me like a vise, holding me against his solid chest. I struggled against him. “No,” I cried. “You just left him. You left him there. What the fuck? He’s your best friend! Why? Why would you leave him?”
Sobs wracked my body. My knees buckled. Kale’s arms tightened around me, holding me up, keeping me from falling.
But I was falling. I was crumbling. Deteriorating. Breaking apart.
“No. No. No.” I sobbed over and over again.
“We took out the other two. He wasn’t outnumbered,” Chuck offered, as if it would reassure me.
I shook my head. That wasn’t fucking better. Clayton would kill him. He was reaching his car right when Kale pulled me away. He’d have his pistol by the time Christian reached him.
He could be already dead.
“That gunshot!” It wasn’t thunder I heard. “No. It can’t be. Christian. No.”
Kale held me to him.
But my heart was shattering to pieces.
“We have to go,” Jude insisted.
I pressed against Kale’s chest, peering up into his face. Tears were falling silently from his big brown eyes. “We can’t leave him.” I shook my head. “I’m not going to leave him. I just can’t.”
“Sis, we have to. We can’t stay here.” Kale’s voice broke on the last words.
I shook my head furiously. “I won’t go any further. I won’t. I’m not leaving until he’s here. He has to be on his way. He was coming. He was right there. We can’t just leave him.”
An echo of thunder ricocheted off the hills.
Or was it another gunshot? I didn’t know anymore.
“Christian,” I cried. “No!” I pushed Kale off me, running back to the trailer to rip Zenith’s reins from Reed’s grasp.
“Sage! You can’t go back there!” Kale demanded, following after me.
“Law enforcement could arrive at any moment,” Chuck explained. “You’re going to need to grab her.” The last part was directed at Reed.
“No!” I shot Reed a scathing look through my tears, hoping it looked deadly enough to stop him in his tracks. “I’m not going anywhere,” I bit out.
I pulled Zenith closer to me, backing up a step, preparing to remount. I swiped angrily at the tears. “I’m not going anywhere until I have my husband back.”
I turned Zenith around, pointing her back in the direction we came. Pointing us in the direction of where my heart was left behind.
A distant noise that sounded like a whooping whistle swept toward us on the wind gusts. I stalled in my steps, straining to hear. More whooping whistles gradually converged together to fall one into another until they seemed never ending.
“Sirens,” Kale confirmed what we all feared.
“Shit! We gotta go!” Jude and Chuck hustled to load up the trailer.
“Sage!” Kale pulled at my arm.
They were coming closer. And it sounded like there were multiple with the way the sirens seemed to surround us, bouncing off the hills.
“Reed,” Chuck commanded.
I was numb. Frozen there. Not sure what to do but knowing I didn’t want to leave without him.
“Get in the trucks!” Jude’s voice rose.
Big arms wrapped around me, hoisting me up off the ground and breaking my hold on the reins.
“No!” I cried, kicking and squirming. Doing anything I could to get Reed to put me down, but he was too big and too strong.
Then I was being pushed into the back seat of the truck, the doors closing and locking behind me. I scrambled over the seat to reach the door, pulling frantically at the handle.
“Fucker! Let me out!” I pounded at the door, yanking at the handle again and again hoping it would budge. “Ugh! Your fucking child locks!”
I stared out the window, still searching the trees. Pounding on the window. Sobs wracked my body.
Reed and Kale jumped into the truck after loading Zenith.
“We can’t leave him. We can’t,” I cried over and over again.
Reed put the truck into drive, pulling away from the trees. The truck bounced and jostled as we went over uneven ground, turning onto a gravel road.
We were moving away, further and further from Christian.
I leaned my forehead against the window. It felt like ice against my damp skin.
“No. No. No,” I cried.
I was shaking, my teeth chattering as I bawled. My eyes were so, so heavy. Exhaustion was quickly winning. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the trees. Even as rain ran in rivulets down the glass, distorting my view, I would not avert my gaze.
Kale wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. But it did nothing to warm me.
My eyes blinked heavily, tears still streaming down my cheeks.
Just as I thought my eyes may close and never open again, a horseman came streaming out of the woods, running at breakneck speed toward our truck. His Thoroughbred, a sire of champion racehorses, was bolting toward us.
I shot upright in my seat. “Stop! Stop the truck!”
“Shit! It’s Riggs!” Reed pumped the breaks until we came to a rolling stop.
“Christian! Let me out!” I pulled on the handle a couple of times, before Reed flipped the locks, and the door sprung open.
The rain drenched me, but I was already soaked through.
My boots pounded on the gravel road as I ran toward him, crying out to him. “Christian!”
Christian started to pull up on the reins, General coming to a skidding halt a few yards away from me.
He swung down from the saddle and started running toward me.
I did a quick mental inventory of his limbs.
His jaw was clenched like he was grinding his molars, one of his dimples popping.
He wore a vest over his black hoodie. Water dripped from his cowboy hat. But there was no blood.
“Sage!” he called out, reaching me, and gathering me in his arms, his face burying into the crook of my neck.
“I thought I lost you!” I told him over the downpour.
Lightning streaked across the sky.
“I almost lost you,” he whispered against my skin, pressing his lips down the column of my throat.
Thunder rumbled the ground.
Sirens dimmed as the police must have reached the cabin.
I pulled back, holding his face. “Why would you make us leave without you?”
His emerald eyes glistened as they looked into mine. “I needed to make sure you were safe. I needed to make sure you weren’t looking behind you for the rest of your life.”
“Christian,” I said his name like an admonishment, but it came out on a weak heart wrenching breath.
Leaning down, he kissed me. I closed my eyes wanting to memorize the feel of his lips, to absorb his warmth, and his love. To make this last, if only for a moment.
He braced my face, his fingers intertwining with my messy, wet hair. “You don’t have to look behind you ever again.”
Tears gathered in my eyes, blurring my vision. I bowed my head, resting it on his chest. His arms wrapped around me again. He was so warm, so solid, so comforting. My shoulders shook as sobs once again overtook me. This time out of so much relief. He was safe. I was safe.
“Hey!” Reed yelled as he ran over to grab General’s reins. “Get in the truck!”
With his arm still wrapped around me, we hustled to the truck while Reed loaded General.
“Bro!” Kale said as soon as we slid into the backseat. “Don’t ever pull that shit again.”
Christian removed his hat, wicking off the rain, a slight smile on his face. “I had to finish it.”
Kale returned a weak smile, reaching into the backseat to grip Christian’s hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too,” I said, pulling the blanket over us and snuggling into his side. I kissed his cheek, brushing my lips against the shell of his ear. “I love you, rodeo star.”
He pulled away slightly to look at me. He looked like I’d just knocked the wind out of his lungs.
Reed jumped back into the driver’s seat and we were back to rumbling down the road.
“I love you so much, star fire.”