Chapter 48 Bridget
Bridget couldn’t believe how far it was to the ground.
They rode through the dark, Red in front and Bridget clinging to the back of a long-legged mule.
If she fell off, she’d break a bone, maybe even hit her head on a rock and sustain a concussion.
She started to slip and jerked the reins.
The mule sidestepped into the brush. She teetered and grabbed the saddle horn.
Red glanced back. “Loosen your hand on the reins and try to relax.”
Try to relax? He had to be insane.
Red had saddled the pretty golden horse for himself while Bucky put a saddle on this mule he called Flick. It had long black ears and very large yellow teeth. “She’ll take good care of you,” Bucky said as he boosted her into the saddle.
Bridget didn’t believe that for a minute.
If Frannie was here, she’d probably say something about how this was just like one of Bridget’s hospital romance novels, where the intrepid nurse is thrown into an adventure and gets the handsome doctor in the end. Frannie would be wrong.
This was all too real.
Her bottom hurt, her hands were cold, and she didn’t feel like a heroine. The only thing that kept her from turning this beast around and going back to the destroyed ranch was the thought of Claire and Jenny and Frannie and Beth. Also, she didn’t actually know how to turn the mule around.
Red made his horse stop and waited for Bridget to catch up.
“It takes about half an hour for a horse’s eyes to get accustomed to the dark,” he said as she reached him. “When Marigold can see better, we’ll move faster.”
Faster? Weren’t they already going fast? Then the other thing he said dawned on her. “That’s Marigold?” Wasn’t that the horse he’d given Claire for her wedding present—the one she said something about in the letter?
He ignored her question. “This trail goes around Mount Hebgen.” He pointed to a dark hulk of mountain at their left. “Then we’ll follow the creek to the lake. We should come out on the upper side of the dam in a couple hours.”
Bridget forced herself to loosen her grip on the reins as Red clicked his tongue at his horse and moved into the dark. She’d stay on this animal all night if it meant she’d find Claire and Frannie.
The darkness closed around them, and Bridget began to breathe normally again.
With only the clop of hooves breaking the silence, she considered Claire’s letter to Red.
How had she not known how Claire felt? They were sisters and best friends, at least until recently.
But they never talked about their mother.
Bridget didn’t remember very much about the day Mother had left. Claire had put her to bed that night, helping her brush her teeth and say prayers, even tucking her in just like Mother did. Claire had told her everything would be fine.
How did she not know how much Claire had been hurting?
As if Red could read her thoughts, he twisted in his saddle. “Why didn’t Claire tell me about your mother?”
Bridget didn’t know how to answer him. Why wouldn’t Claire tell her husband about Mother leaving them? “Dad never wanted us to talk about it,” she said.
That night after her mother left, Bridget hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d snuck downstairs for a cookie, but when she got to the kitchen Dad was there.
He was crying.
That’s when Bridget realized something terrible had happened.
She’d run back upstairs and snuck into bed with Claire.
It had scared her, seeing her strong dad bowed down in such pain.
She never wanted to see her dad cry like that again, and so she didn’t make him talk about Mother.
But that didn’t explain why Claire didn’t talk to her husband about what happened.
Bridget gripped the saddle horn as Red’s horse sped up and Flick followed.
“Maybe she was ashamed,” she answered him, as she bounced on the saddle.
Red turned in his saddle, not even looking where they were going. “Ashamed?” he said, like he didn’t believe her. “But she’s so—” He seemed at a loss for words. “So confident and . . . perfect.”
A lump rose in Bridget’s throat. “She wants everyone to think that.” Claire, model-beautiful and confident, getting married and moving to Montana, learning to ride a horse and shoot and cook.
I decided Claire Wilder would be a new person .
. . I couldn’t leave Claire Reilly behind, Red, even though I wanted to.
That little girl is still a part of me. Oh, Claire.
Bridget’s heart ached for her sister. “She always says she’s fine—insists she’s perfectly fine.
” Hadn’t Claire told Bridget that a dozen times in the past few days? “So no one will know she’s not.”
“I’m fine,” Red said thoughtfully. “Claire says that a lot.”
In the dark, surrounded by trees and the light of the stars, Bridget felt like she could see the past more clearly. Her sisters, her father. Herself.
Bridget wasn’t brave like Claire. She knew better than to put herself—or her heart—in danger.
It was better to be alone than risk getting hurt like Dad had been that night she saw him crying.
Better to break up with a suitor before she let herself care too much.
Better to be hard-hearted—oh, how she hated that Dr. Sampson!
—than brokenhearted. A caring heart is the best medicine, Sampson had said. But Bridget knew better.
A caring heart was an invitation to pain.
She took care of other people’s pain—broken bones and abrasions, illnesses and disease—but did whatever it took to avoid any pain of her own.
Physical or mental . . . or heartbreak. The worst pain of all.
Bridget was doing just fine. But it didn’t take a genius to see that Claire and Frannie weren’t.
I’m the reason Mother left us. Did Frannie act out because she really thought it was her fault Mother left?
It would explain a lot.
Red’s horse broke into a trot and Bridget clamped her hands on the saddle horn as Flick followed suit.
Suddenly, the line of trees next to the trail swayed wildly and the ground bucked and heaved.
Bridget shrieked as Flick staggered. She bent over the saddle horn, clutching the mule’s short black mane for dear life. She closed her eyes—Lord, make it stop.
The quaking stopped.
Bridget stayed where she was as the crash of rocks and the crack of falling trees echoed in the dark. She was still on the mule. Thank you, God. She heard Red speaking in a low voice to his horse. Carefully, she opened her eyes.
“You okay?” Red asked.
No, she was certainly not. Her heart was galloping and her blood pressure was probably sky high. “I’m fine,” she said, and could have bit her tongue.
Red reined his horse back toward the trail. “Let’s go, then.”
Bridget’s legs quaked as they started out even faster than before. She was going to die on this trail. She’d be hit by falling rocks or get pinned under a tree. She’d be thrown from this mule and break her neck before she ever found her sisters.
This wasn’t like one of her novels, no matter what Frannie would say.
This story had no guarantee of a happy ending.