8. The Accident
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Accident
P aige had never been that high, not especially on the south rim, but Owen proved to be a steadfast guide. As knowledgeable as she was about the terrain, he seemed to know more. He also seemed comfortable riding in the saddle, whereas she’d always had a distrust of putting her faith in an animal to keep her safe. They rarely prescribed to the human laws of nature or physics, and though she could ride competently, she never did so with much confidence.
That afternoon, though, Owen led them up a serpentine trail that kept them alongside the cliff face for most of the ride. On her own, Paige never would have taken that trail, but she not only rode without worry behind Owen, she enjoyed the trip as much as she’d ever enjoyed a ride before.
She and Owen talked easily about his time in the service—though he only told her stories from the U.S, none from his time deployed. She shared about her time on the island, and about her parents.
When they weren’t talking to each other, Owen spoke to his horse, Justice.
It seemed odd at first, to hear his large, booming voice quiet and directed at an animal that couldn’t understand him. She watched, though, as the horse would react the same way she would have under Owen’s guidance.
He told Justice she was beautiful and strong, and she responded with a nuzzle against his hand both affectionate and deeply personal. He’d tell her to head up a steep course, to keep her head down, and she did just that with her head ducked to the ground, more compact against the terrain. Paige wanted to tell her horse, Ares, the same thing, to copy Owen’s calm directives, but he responded to his owner’s voice without additional command.
She’d been so focused on the trail in front of her she hadn’t appreciated the ride until they got to a flat, rocky outcropping wide enough that the horses could be side by side. Paige exhaled deeply, her arms trembling from holding the reins tight in her hands, and then lifted her chin as Ares lifted his.
That’s when she lost the rest of her breath in a gasp that made Owen chuckle.
“Not too shabby, is it?”
“It’s magnificent. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“That’s saying something for someone who grew up here.”
It was her home, but different.
So much so, that Paige moved towards the view like a magnet pulled her in. It was such a foreign feeling she almost didn’t recognize it at first.
“I have to say, as pretty as Banberry is in the summer, it’s never been this colorful. It’s usually an emerald green and makes me feel like I live in Oz or something. But this,” she said, getting choked up, “this is too perfect.” She sniffled, took some of the cooler mountain air deep into her lungs to regain her composure.
Though the entire state was under a drought warning, wildflowers blanketed the hillside, flowers she’d never seen before. Normally during the wet summer months in southern Montana, the mountains that wrangled the valley on all sides resembled a jade jewel, sparkling an iridescent green, the dew lingering past the midday sun, a beauty unique and its own. But now, the lack of moisture had allowed other, more resilient and colorful plants to thrive.
And that wasn’t all.
Voluminous, bulbous clouds built on the edge of the horizon, adding to the majesty. Too jaded to hope for rain, just the presence of clouds thrilled her, sent chills down her spine. God knew how much the valley needed it, how desperately the farms relied on it. She couldn’t wait to head down the path towards her parents’ farm to let her dad know what she saw from her unique viewpoint.
Owen smiled, adding to the stunning view. Damn, he was handsome.
He wasn’t her type at all, but the self-reminder didn’t hold as much weight as it did the first time she’d thought it at Julia’s party. Maybe it was the shirt Owen wore, the tight striations of muscles protruding against the fabric, the roped muscles in his thighs that pressed against his jeans. He was solidly built, that much was obvious.
But his face—with a jawline that screamed younger Brad Pitt, the coffee-au-lait skin that somehow seemed luminescent in the afternoon sun, his eyes like bourbon on ice—sent her stomach reeling towards her throat, made her warm in the most secret of places she wanted him to explore. She gulped, shook her head to bring herself back to the present.
Owen looked out over the valley. “I found this trail by accident a couple weeks before I moved in completely, and it did something to me. Convinced me I’d made the right choice for one thing, but something else as well. I guess it made me think about everything I’d done to get to this point, and how I wouldn’t trade the shit I’ve been through if this,” he said, sweeping his arm at the landscape, “is my new backyard.”
“Brad and I used to call those ‘this-is-why-we-run’ moments.” Her eyes stuck on a tall peak on the north slope, wondering what the view from there would offer. Could they see to the other side of the Elkhorns?
Owen’s brow quirked. It was her turn to laugh.
“We used to run to places like this when we were teenagers. The trails would kick our asses, make us rethink our sanity, but when we got to the top of a peak, or the trail opened up to a lake we hadn’t seen before, we realized we wouldn’t have had those experiences without the pain it took to get there.”
Owen shook his head, took off his cap and ran his hands through his curls again, all the while smiling like she’d let him in on a secret. Her heart sped up again, this time her nerves emanating from another place entirely.
“You nailed it, Connors,” he told her, a grin stretched wide as the valley across his cheeks. “‘This-is-why-we-run.’ I’m gonna steal that,” he told her.
“I hope so,” she replied, her voice softer.
How was it possible she was letting herself fall for this stranger, this guy living in her hometown that she had no intention of staying long in? She cleared her throat, swallowed the wave of lust building in her abdomen. She was smart enough to know it was just a visceral reaction to his attractiveness.
“So, what now?” she asked.
“Does there have to be a next thing? Isn’t this enough for now?”
Paige watched Owen, with his backwards baseball cap advertising a beer she hadn’t heard of, small Shirley Temple curls peeking out of the bottom. He wore a relaxed smile on his face. In fact, he was the epitome of a chill cowboy.
Until he looked at her. He didn’t hesitate or turn away, just stared deep into her eyes.
It was an unspoken challenge, a question that meant more than what the day would bring. His gaze asked her to share all she was, not just what she wanted to put forth for the world to see.
When she broke the connection building between them and returned to the view of the valley below them, his silence asked her why she had to leave at all.
The thing was, she didn’t have an answer. That was the real reason she had to look away—there was nothing in her that could answer his challenge, either by issuing one of her own, or giving him something to cling to. Finally, after long enough of a pause, she gave him the only thing she could.
“It is enough. For now.”
That was the truth. She was happy, content, and oddly enough, hadn’t sensed the pull of the wild enough to even open an internet search for job listings. That had to say something.
Owen nodded.
“Good, then come sit.” He hopped off Justice, leading her to a felled log that looked like it had been used as a bench before by some other brave soul who’d ventured this high up in the range.
He laid out a blanket while Paige followed suit with Ares. She wasn’t the strongest rider, but she picked up enough after using a horse to get to work for the better part of a year during her residency in Southeast Asia. One thing she’d learned the hard way was not to tie the animals too close together or they’d get feisty.
“You’re good with them,” he remarked as he dug in his backpack, pulling out bags and boxes and laying them on the blanket.
“Thanks. I’ve had some experience.”
“It shows on the trail, too. That wasn’t one for beginners.”
“No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was the toughest trail I’ve ridden. How’d you know I wasn’t a beginner?”
“I watched you with them before we left. For a girl who doesn’t like farm life, you ride like a cowgirl. You’re damn good, Paige.”
Paige’s cheeks flushed with heat. They were like a barometer for how much he affected her, and right now, they were on fire.
“Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself. How long have you had Ares and Justice?”
Owen looked at them both, a paternal glow to his smile.
“Only a few months. I found them in piss poor shape at a chop shop and used a pretty hefty bit of my retirement severance on them. They’re part of the reason farming was more or less ordained for me. I needed land, for them and for me, and like working with my hands. Plus, I wanted to do something where I didn’t have to be away from them, where they could be a part of my life, not just a rescue project I shoved to the background while I did my own thing.”
Paige was stunned silent for a moment. Her body flushed the heat from her cheeks throughout her limbs, down into her belly and lower.
Shit. He was more than just a pretty face and body, then.
“That’s amazing. You’re their hero.”
He looked back at her, his cheeks pinking up a little as well.
“It’s working out so far. They’re pretty good for me, too. Help keep me grounded and not give it all up.”
Paige furrowed her brow, reached for his hand before she even realized she did it.
“You don’t mean that.”
It came out as more of a command.
He shook his head.
“No, not like that, sorry.”
Paige exhaled, but the hand sitting atop his trembled.
“At one point after this,” he continued, pointing to his shoulder with the hand not touching Paige’s, “I thought about it. But that was a long time ago, and the civilian world, here specifically, has made me realize that’ll never be an option. I meant more that I would disappear, head off into the great wide open and get lost for a while.”
Paige glanced at her hand on his, delighted he hadn’t moved his yet, that he had actually wrapped his thumb around the top of hers.
She belonged there, holding his hand.
“Now you’re speaking my language,” she said, laughing lightly. “Seriously, though, I can’t imagine what you must have been through to ever feel that way.”
He sighed and looked back at the horses as if they might overhear what he was about to tell her.
“It was dark, Paige, I won’t lie to you. In one shitty moment, I lost everything I ever had going for me, or at least that’s what I thought at the time,” he added when he saw her mouth open, ready to refute him.
“You have so much here,” she said, surprised to realize she’d included herself in that support, even if he didn’t know that. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him yet. There was too much on the line and too much she was still unsure of.
“I do,” he replied, using his thumb to squeeze hers.
Well, there was another plan of hers shot to hell. Apparently, she was as transparent as Saran Wrap.
“What about your folks?” she asked him. His hand tensed beneath hers, twitched like she’d stung him. His gaze wavered from hers. “Do you get to see them often?”
“No,” he said, his voice gruff like it’d been that morning when he’d been preoccupied with his fencing. She was starting to notice a pattern.
“Well, they’ll be proud of everything you’ve done so far,” she ventured, searching his eyes for anything to give her a clue about why he’d shut down so suddenly. When he didn’t say anything, she squeezed his hand. “Owen?” she asked, getting his eyes—now a dark brown like the bark of a fir tree after a strong rain—back on hers. “What’s up? We can go if you want.”
He shook his head, smiled weakly in a way that didn’t reach his eyes.
“No, I’m sorry. They died when I was little. I just don’t talk about it that much.”
“Oh, Owen,” Paige said, her voice a scant whisper as tears welled up in her eyes and her throat constricted. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head again, cleared his throat.
“No, it’s fine. It’s been fine a while, anyway, but you’re right. Every now and then it hits me how much they missed. They’d love this,” he said jutting his chin towards the valley floor below them.
It was canvassed in gold and violet. The sun cut through the stone-gray clouds across deep blue sky, sending down striations of light that bathed the rugged terrain in swathes of yellow.
Paige nodded her agreement. Not many people on this earth wouldn’t appreciate the perfect display of Mother Nature showing off below them.
“When did they pass?” she asked, hesitant to dig too deeply.
If she let it go now, though, it would indicate to him that she didn’t care. And she did, oh how she did.
“When I was six. Car accident.”
Paige put her hand to her mouth, not sure what to say. He was so young when he’d lost them. His whole life ahead of him, and theirs cut violently short. What an incomprehensible loss. She couldn’t imagine life without her mom and dad, couldn’t picture who she’d be without their influence over her. Even that morning, she’d put two Splendas in her coffee, tossed the tops of the packets in the bottoms before she threw them out, then stirred the whole thing with the fork she’d used to cut her eggs. The whole routine she’d picked up from her dad, much to her mom’s chagrin.
Owen hadn’t had time for any of that.
“Where did you live after?”
“An uncle,” he spat out, his voice an octave deeper. The muscles in his jaw went tight and restrained, keeping something in that Owen clearly didn’t want out.
Paige shivered. This man had been to war more times than she could count, had narrowly survived death on more than one occasion, and still, whatever he kept from her seemed to loom more terrible than anything else he’d shared so far.
“You can talk to me, you know.”
He looked out to the north, his eyes watering in the corners.
“That’s not as much fun as teasing you,” he said, his mouth relaxing into a smile that seemed too easy to Paige.
He winked, blowing her a kiss to top it off. He was dangerously close to her now, and her body remembered in vivid detail what it was like to kiss the lips that were now only centimeters away from hers.
He’d blown her off with the serious talk, but they had time. A little, anyway.
“Owen,” she said, pulling back from him, sitting up straighter so her lips didn’t feel as drawn to his. “I’m still leaving.”
He smiled that infuriatingly adorable crooked smile of his that let her know he was up to something. That all-serious talk was off the table for good.
“That’s what you keep telling me.” He laced his fingers with hers. “You start the job search yet?” he asked her.
“I will. I just haven’t had time,” she lied.
“Um-hmm,” Owen chided. “It looked like you were up all night searching when I saw you this morning,” he teased.
He tossed her a wink that made her stomach flip like she was on a roller coaster. In a sense she was. At times, this man made her crazy and furious, and the rest of the time, she oscillated between wanting to hug him while both their clothes lay at their feet.
“Ha, ha. I’ll get to it. For the first time, I’m actually enjoying being home,” she admitted. “I’ll look when I’m ready. I just wanted to remind you it’s inevitable.”
“I can help if you want,” he said, letting his fingers play in and out of hers. They were calloused, showing the hard work that made up his days, but gentle at the same time.
His restraint made her pulse quicken.
“You want me gone that badly,” she teased, a statement rather than a question.
“No. Not at all. That’s the opposite of what I want, Paige.”
She opened her mouth to tell him she was kidding, but before the words could form, his mouth was on hers, open and urgent. She opened for him, unsure of why or what it meant, just that it…
Feels so good.
His tongue trailed her lips, and she moaned with delight. That was all it took for him to abandon any restraint she’d prided him in having earlier.
In seconds, his hands wrapped around her neck, pulling her closer to him. Before she could do anything to stop it, she was on her back, Owen on top of her. Not that she’d have stopped him if she could. Not for all the money in the world.
His movements grew more impatient as he kissed her.
His hands fisted in her hair.
The heat of his breath on her ear as he ran his lips along her earlobe, suckling on the end and making her wet and hungry for him.
The growl that sprung from his chest when she moaned with pleasure.
She responded in kind, ripping the hat from his head and tossing it to the side so she could finally run her hands through his seductive curls. As the locks of hair threaded through her fingers, shivers chased down her spine. This was more— different —than she’d expected. In a good way.
One of his hands slid south to her neck, his thumb massaging her skin as it moved. She arched her back, thrusting her pelvis into his. Her hands migrated as well but didn’t stop until they reached his lower back. She untucked his flannel shirt and slid her hand beneath his jeans, cupping his buttocks and pulling him into her.
She didn’t know if this was what he’d intended, nor if it was what she needed, but she sure as hell wanted him. That much was evident in the small pool of moisture building in her panties. She wanted him in a way she’d never wanted any man before and didn’t stop to think about what having him might do to her when she eventually left again. This could be good, great even, if only she’d get out of her own way.
He broke away for a moment, a devilish smile playing with the corners of his full lips, his eyes oscillating between gold and chocolate brown as he took her in with his gaze. He wanted her.
She wanted him back. Wanted him pressed against her.
He finally laughed, a full explosion from his chest that rang out over the vista before them, echoing off the cliffs, and shook his head, diving back into her.
That laugh only increased her desire ten-fold.
Cupping her neck with one hand, Owen deftly used the other to slide her shirt over her head. Once she was exposed, he took her breast in his mouth.
He sucked and pulled, making her nipples hard, her breasts full with desire. She experienced every inch of her tender bud in his mouth, the sensation racing down her sides to her sex, warm and ripe for more.
The wind followed where his mouth had left a trail of moisture, cooling her skin against his heat. He teased her nipple with his tongue, and she gasped in surprise. Her eyes shut tight as his teeth grazed her bud.
Jesus. He nibbled on it so softly, she almost came right then and there. Her whole body screamed for him, and she bit her bottom lip to keep from actually crying out.
She opened her eyes to find him staring down at her. His lips parted, a look in his eyes like she was prey, and he the mountain lion.
She trembled in anticipation. She wouldn’t stop until she had this man in her bed, and she didn’t know how she would quit even then.
He’d calmed, but the fire in his eyes remained. He unbuttoned her jeans slowly and with purpose. A glance asked if he should continue.
She nodded to him, yes .
She kicked her boots off while he slid her pants down around her ankles. She made to kick those off as well, but he reached behind his back and stopped her, shaking his head.
Wordlessly, he used his thumbs to hook her panties and slide them down around her ankles as well. With just enough force to cause Paige to gasp and bite her lip again, he spread her legs and knelt between them.
Dust swirled around them, enraged by their activity and the wind that had picked up force, both acts of nature shielding them from the valley below.
Paige had been with her share of men before and after Paulo, some of them competent lovers that had left her satisfied and content, but she’d never met anyone who seemed so perfectly designed for her body, and her body alone.
Owen’s tongue and lips parted her sex and licked the rim of her so that her body convulsed with desire. He didn’t stop there.
When she purred under his touch, he slid the tip of his tongue in between her folds and licked them each top to bottom. He stopped at the place where all of her desire pooled, flicking it with his tongue, sucking simultaneously. Good god, maybe staying in Banberry wouldn’t be all that bad.
Paige cried out this time, a primal keen that sent Owen over the edge.
He ripped her shoes and pants from her ankles and threw her panties aside. Her eager hands tore off his own clothes as if he was on fire, the flames devouring him. Only she could save him. And in doing so, save herself.
He went to the corner of the blanket and Paige shivered with unmet need. She was so turned on, so desperate for him that it was as if her body lay atop nails. He returned what seemed like days later, naked and hard. For her.
It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time, the wanting that coursed through her.
She groaned in anticipation. He was most certainly worth the wait, today and every day it seemed she’d waited for him to come into her life.
Paige motioned for him to come to her with a single finger in the air. He nodded, eyes wide as his gaze devoured her naked body.
He took the small package she hadn’t seen before, unwrapped it, and placed a condom on. She smiled, glad he’d had the forethought and wherewithal to think about protection. Only for a split second did she consider how presumptuous he’d been.
Maybe he felt the electricity between them and didn’t try to force it away or into something other than what it was. Maybe he understood her desires better than she did her own.
She wasn’t complaining.
Owen climbed on top of her this time, kissed her deeply. His tongue reached inside her mouth, exploring her. He tasted like maple and bacon. If she could have eaten him whole, she would have.
His hands slid tenderly down her body, grazing her skin with a delicate touch she hadn’t thought him capable of. Her skin was ablaze, branded by his touch, marking her as his. The warmth within her grew to a fever pitch.
She lifted her pelvis again, rubbing her sex against him. He nibbled on her neck as he slid inside her with a single thrust.
Paige gasped; her eyes opened wide.
She’d seen how well-endowed he was. She had wanted him to fill her completely—had imagined it in quite a few dreams the night before, actually. But she didn’t think for a moment that he would find places inside her to touch that she hadn’t known were there before.
She called out his name as he rode her, slow at first, then faster as her hands guided his muscular backside to move to her rhythm.
“Paige,” he whispered in her ear, his breath hot and moist on her neck. “I want you so badly.”
All she could do was moan with pleasure and pull his hips into her. She rocked, moving with him as he used one arm to brace himself on the blanket, the other to massage her breast.
Her nipples responded to him, becoming diamonds that could tear through glass. He bent down to take one in his mouth. Paige fought her body that wanted her to find release in that moment—she wanted more, wanted all of him and nothing less.
“Yes,” she breathed with desire. “Yes, please.”
He nodded again, seeming to understand her perfectly, with so few words needing to be spoken.
She groaned with injustice when Owen slid out of her as easily as he had found her, until he flipped her on her stomach with a swiftness and a gentleness that left her breathless. Without missing a beat, he was back behind her, filling her again, this time even deeper than before.
Paige screamed, her cry of exquisite pleasure ricocheting off the cliffs on the other side of the valley.
Owen moved hard and fast within her. With her pelvis against the ground, Paige succumbed to her desire quicker than she had hoped. She wanted him, surprised at how the desire fanned a flame she wasn’t sure she could name. Wasn’t sure she should name. It came dangerously close to being too much, these feelings that encompassed so much more than sex, than the joining of hungry bodies.
“Slow down,” she cried softly into the blanket. “I’m close.”
“No,” he whispered above her. “I want you to come.”
If she came for him, that would shatter her resolve. Fear threatened her orgasm until…
He rocked his hips, driving into her with a steady rhythm that built the yearning inside her until it crested. Powerless to stop it, she rode the wave as it took her over, spilling her moisture around him.
She shuddered and screamed into the blanket her delight.
Owen didn’t let her slip off the edge, though. Instead, he kept her there, thrusting faster and deeper, her ass cupping him, holding him in place when he came close to sliding out. He tensed above her and with a moan, he collapsed on top of her, shaking from head to toe.
Though he outweighed Paige by a hundred pounds easy, she didn’t feel crushed by him, only comforted as he rolled her to her side without leaving her, using his hands to gently massage her breasts. His thumbs traced them, and finding her nipples, drew circles around them as well. She trembled, but didn’t dare move in fear of breaking the trance that locked them together.
Questions pelted her brain now that her body was sated. Did he feel the same? Did he notice the unnamed emotion that spread like fire across her chest, her pleased smile?
She glanced around, noticing how open their outcrop of land was, but how isolated they were still. They could have been in another country, they were so distant from the valley below.
She reached behind her and rested her hand on Owen’s hip.
His lips brushed her shoulder as his hands moved south, played at the opening of her secret spot.
She was wet still, and he used the remnants of their lovemaking to slide his finger in and out of her. Paige opened up to him, lifting her leg against his hip, allowing him to access her. He added another finger.
Her breathing grew shallower, quicker. He teased her clitoris, still delicate. Paige arched her back and ran her hands through Owen’s hair as his kisses on her back grew more intense.
He nibbled on her neck again, drawing goose bumps onto her skin, and at the same time, he pressed his hard length against her. She marveled at a man who could recover so quickly and let herself imagine a world where their lovemaking didn’t have to end. A world where they could please each other day and night.
She wouldn’t mind living there for a while.
He moved between her legs and the tip of him teased the entrance to her sex. She shifted down so that he slid inside her again. They moved that way, not hurried or frantic, but explorative, passionate, and desirous.
After only moments, he tensed again and she breathed out a whisper that she wanted him to come with her this time. She let herself fall, not caring about how loud her scream rang out, or how good it felt to ride into a place of pure pleasure with Owen.
Her eyelids closed as he massaged her, his body shaking behind her.
“Goddamn,” he muttered into her hair, one hand tangled in it, the other wrapped around her like a protective blanket.
“I agree,” she purred. Something wet landed on her forearm. “Hey, are you drooling?” she asked, her eyes shooting open.
Sure enough, a drop of water beaded on her skin.
“What?” he asked, lifting on his elbows to look at her. “What do you mean—” he cut off as the drops came more frequently. “Shit.”
They looked up at the same time to see the clouds that had previously just been warnings along the horizon now threatening them directly with a deep gray that promised a torrent if they waited any longer.
As if on cue, the sky opened up on them, a sheet of water falling around and on their picnic. Paige lamented not having had time to enjoy the spread.
At least they got to have their dessert first.
In a matter of seconds, her hair became a matted, wet mess. She squealed and jumped up, Owen copying her every move. He ran to his clothes, threw them on like he’d been caught by his girlfriend’s mother, and sprinted to the horses, who seemed nonplussed by the sudden moisture falling around them in sheets.
Paige’s white shirt was now see-through, which no longer mattered since Owen had just gotten an up close and personal view of the goods underneath. Her skin, though chilled from the cool rain that doused them, burned underneath as Paige watched Owen very ably care for her, the horses, and their unenjoyed picnic.
His body, the one that had been on top of her just moments before, had made her come twice in quick succession, moved like he was made of water, fluid and graceful, not the bones and muscles that always tripped her up in her own body.
“This is insane,” Owen yelled over the cacophony of rain pelting the ground.
“This is a monsoons. Thankfully it’s just rain right now. Do you think we’ll be safe on the trail on the way down?”
“We’ll be fine. Ares and Justice are good on their feet, but I’d like you to ride behind me so Ares and I can navigate. Are you comfortable enough to do this, to take Justice? I think she’ll be better following than leading.”
He stopped what he was doing, set his backpack down and held her cheeks in his hands. He kissed her lightly on the lips and her knees buckled. She nodded, her chin against his chest. His heartbeat quickened against her skin and hers sped up to match.
“I am.”
Strangely enough, Paige wasn’t nervous about going down the steep terrain, not after what she and Owen had shared. She trusted him, trusted that he would never let her come to any harm, that if he said it was possible, he meant it.
“I do think we’d better leave now, though,” Owen said, wiping a line of water from his forehead that was just replaced immediately by another waterfall cascading off his brow. He shook his head, sending the drops flying from each of his errant curls.
“It’s hopeless,” she giggled, wringing her hair out.
A clap of thunder sounded off in the distance, echoing off the peaks. The horses spooked, and even Paige, used to the inclement weather the summers brought, shuddered. The exposure spelled danger up there along the ridgeline more than it did down in the valley.
“Yep, time to go. Now.” Owen’s voice, thick with concern, drove a wedge of fear in Paige’s previously calm demeanor.
He helped her into her saddle that was slick with moisture, and hopped into his effortlessly.
“Follow me, and stay close, Paige,” he commanded.
She could only nod in reply as he gave a nudge to Ares and started down the slippery terrain. The path now included a small, brown rivulet of water along the inner edge of the trail from the runoff. She imagined, as all the water poured downhill, that the trickle would worsen as they descended, and worried about the entire trail washing out.
They rode in silence, the thundering clouds and the water it threw at them as if from buckets the only sounds. Still, they roared loud enough to drown out Paige’s thoughts, even those of Owen, naked above her, a look of lust on his face.
All she could think about now was making sure Justice kept close enough to her brother to mimic his footsteps and get them all down the mountain safely. She wondered how the poor animals could see in the torrential downpour, since she could only see four feet in front of her. Owen looked steady, but his shoulders tensed, each muscle taut and strained.
What was he thinking? Was he as concerned as her? Even if she wanted to ask him, she couldn’t yell loud enough over the storm to be heard. That small bit of knowledge frightened her, sent a shudder down her spine.
About halfway down, Paige’s fears were confirmed. The line of water sliding down the trail at the base of the rock had turned into a small river, all but covering the path.
Owen and Ares had slowed to almost a saunter, except there was nothing relaxing about their pace. Paige understood it was necessary to keep Ares’s footing solid, and could only hope Justice was as steady. She patted Justice’s neck, spoke to her without leaning down. She assumed keeping her tall center of balance was better for the horse, and by extension, her.
This was so out of her comfort zone, she prayed it was the right move.
Out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning struck the rock above them, where they’d been riding not ten minutes before.
The light was blinding, and Justice trembled. Ares and Owen both flinched but continued moving forward. The thunder cracked almost immediately afterwards, though, and Ares stopped short. Justice, thoroughly spooked, reared up, sending Paige toppling back, legs over her head. She landed hard on her side, water rushing and spilling over her.
A scream of agony tore from her chest.
She saw spots. Though she was pretty sure she didn’t hit her head, a searing pain pulsed in her side when she tried to move, to get up.
Above her, Justice whinnied and bucked. Paige wanted to get out of the way, get up and help restrain her, calm her down, but she couldn’t move.
Her breathing was heavy, labored. Each time she inhaled, a sharp jolt of pain shot up her side. The rain mixed with tears streaming down her face, and her eyes burned.
I’m not going to make it down the mountain. As she cried, dread filling her chest and her ribs aching with each sob, an arm wrapped around her, tucked under her shoulder, another linking under her knees. She was lifted off the ground, and the pressure released ever so slightly on whatever screamed at her from the inside.
Paige’s vision went in and out for a few moments. Justice shook her head and whinnied, her tail whipping them as they walked by.
Then… blackness .
When she opened her eyes again, she was staring up at Owen who had a stern look on his face, his eyebrows touching, sending the water that refused to stop falling cascading down the sides of his face.
She laid across his lap, that much she could discern.
Then more blackness. Longer this time.
When she opened her eyes again, she was being lifted off Ares by her brother, Owen right behind them. She overheard her brother yelling over the rain that fell softer down there, in the valley, but just as steady.
“What the hell did you do to her?” she heard Brad scream.
Paige wanted to tell him it wasn’t Owen’s fault. She’d been the one to disobey all her riding instincts and lean back instead of in.
“She fell off Justice when lightning struck right above us. The horse spooked and tossed her. She’s a good rider, Brad. But she hit hard.”
“Jesus. What were you two doing that high on the ridge in this weather? And this late?”
Late? It took a moment for her to process that it was dusk, that the day was over, and somehow, she was off the mountain.
Thanks only to Owen.
“We went up earlier. Right after lunch. It was clear then. We didn’t see it.”
Paige heard the hurt in Owen’s voice. She desperately wanted to tell him it was okay, to thank him for getting her home safely, but her words wouldn’t come. She was fading. Her words died inside her as her vision faded completely, rendering her mute.
Owen, she wanted to scream, thank you for saving my life.
Instead, blackness .