Chapter Sixteen
Delaney sat up on the couch,
disoriented. The screen on her e-reader had gone dark and her
cellphone had slipped off the cushion and onto the floor. She
hadn’t intended to fall asleep. Clara had closed herself in her
room hours ago, and Delaney had curled in front of the fireplace to
read. The old mantel clock read eleven fifteen. Callie, who’d been
sprawled on the floor at her feet, had her head up, ears perked.
Delaney listened, and then heard the sound that’d woken her: a dog
in the distance, barking frantically.
Without giving herself time to think,
she rose to her feet, grabbed her coat from the wall hooks, and
shoved her feet into a pair of mud boots. “You’re staying here,”
she told Callie firmly when the dog followed her to the door.
Pleased to find a flashlight in her coat pocket, she grabbed her
phone and went out the door.
She paused on the top step of the
porch.
While the day had been warm, nighttime
mountain temperatures dropped quickly and she zipped the front of
her puffer coat against the chill. The vast swath of the Milky Way
glittered overhead, but with no moon she’d need the
flashlight.
After a fast internal debate, she sent
a quick text to Walker. See? Letting him know what she was doing
was proof she was being careful. Then she jammed the phone back in
her pocket, all the while listening carefully.
Over the sound of a light breeze
rustling through the leaves of nearby trees, she again heard the
pitiful crying of a dog, the sound coming from somewhere near Mill
Creek Road. Figuring she’d be faster on foot than if she detoured
to the barn for the side-by-side, she started walking.
The farm road rounded the hill, then
skirted the fields planted in boysenberries. Using the flashlight
to guide her way, she trotted along, the sound of the crying dog
guiding her. She cut across the fields, using the walkways between
sections of berries. An owl glided overhead, a shadow against the
dark night sky.
Mill Creek separated the fields from
the road, the creek bed not nearly as deep at the farm as it was
closer to town.
In addition to the crossing at the
turnoff to the farm from Mill Creek Road, there was a seldom-used
footbridge spanning the creek. Following the sound of frightened
whimpering, she reached the footbridge. She’d thought maybe the dog
had been hit by a vehicle and was by the road, but now it sounded
more like it was coming from the creek itself. She scanned with the
flashlight until she found the path that led down the embankment to
the water.
The trail was steep and she moved
carefully, watching her step to avoid tripping and reaching the
bottom quicker than she’d intended. Maybe that was why she didn’t
see the dark figure standing at a turn in the path.
“What the hell are you
doing?”
Surprise had her stumbling, the
flashlight spinning out of her grip as she was grabbed and hauled
up against a hard chest.
“Jesus, Walker. Why don’t
you just shoot me and be done with it? You scared me half to
death.” She held on to his shoulders for balance, her heart
hammering in her throat as he wrapped an arm around her waist to
hold her snug against him.
“You shouldn’t be out
here.” His voice came from next to her right ear and sounded
tightly controlled.
“I’m looking for a dog. I
texted you.”
“As I didn’t get the text,
that’s not good enough. You should have called me, or better yet,
stayed put. Regardless, you’re not to be wandering around at
night.”
She pulled back and he loosened his
hold only marginally. “Look, I wasn’t wandering around like I was
taking an evening stroll. There’s a hurt dog and I couldn’t very
well leave it out here suffering.” As if on cue, the dog renewed
its cries, close enough she was sure it was somewhere near the
creek.
It was too dark to see his expression,
but Walker’s tone carried an undercurrent of urgency. “I’ll take
care of it. Go back to the house.”
“I won’t go back to the
house until that dog is safe.” Bracing her hands on his biceps, she
pushed back until he released her. “Let’s go find the poor
thing.”
He seemed to give the situation an
inordinate amount of consideration, until finally swearing softly.
“Damn.” Her flashlight was still emitting light where it had
landed. He retrieved it and clicked it off before handing it to
her. “Okay, but hold on to me. I don’t want you sliding into the
creek. Put your flashlight away, mine’s got a stronger
beam.”
He grasped her hand and they scrambled
down the path with his light shining the way. “It’s
Bud.”
“What? How’d he get down
here?”
“Don’t know. I’d been at
Sawyer’s. Got home and he was gone. Someone’d been in my cabin.
Broke through the window in my back door. My guess? They were
looking for the box from Mrs. Watkins and when they didn’t find it,
took Bud. I was looking for him when I heard him
barking.”
“Oh no. Mrs. Watkins could
be in danger if someone knows she gave you that box of papers.” A
feeling of dread formed an oily ball in the pit her
stomach.
“Already on it. I called
Sawyer immediately. He’s calling her daughter, and a unit will be
stationed at her house until she’s safely away.”
Delaney felt marginally better, but
the increasingly frantic cries of the little dog worried her. The
path took them to the edge of the churning water. The creek was
running fast as it did in early summer, fed by snowmelt higher in
the mountains. Walker swept the banks with his light. Whimpering
sounded from beneath the footbridge.
“Shine the light over
there,” she urged. She pointed to the darkness under the
bridge.
“Damn it all to hell.”
Cursing, and with Delaney’s hand still in his, Walker pushed
forward, the beam of his flashlight fixed on a dark shape in the
water. The little dog sat huddled on a rock about three feet from
shore, fast-moving water swirling around him. The beam of the
flashlight picked up his desperately pleading dark eyes. As they
got nearer the whining increased, then abruptly ceased.
“He fell in.” Walker
shoved his light into her hand and surged into the current. Delaney
followed, the water coming to within inches of the top of her
boots. Bud surfaced, scrabbling against the rock as he tried to
climb back onto it.
“He’s got something tied
around his neck.”
She kept the light steady as Walker
reached the little dog, scooping him out of the water as far as
what turned out to be a thin rope around his neck would allow. He
thrust him into Delaney’s arms. “Hold him.”
Walker pulled his knife from its
sheath on his belt. She held the flashlight while he used the blade
to quickly saw through the binding. Once Bud was free, they waded
through the water to the bank. Walker opened his jacket and zipped
the sopping dog inside, his arm holding the shivering bundle
against him. “Let’s go. You light the way and head to my place. We
need to get him warmed up fast or he’ll die of
hypothermia.”
They moved quickly through the dark.
Delaney’s mind spun. How could the little dog have gotten into the
creek and with a rope around his neck? The ugly possibilities made
her more alarmed.
Once on the farm road, they moved
faster, and soon a light from Walker’s cabin shone through the
darkness. They entered the cabin, which was blessedly warm. Walker
went straight to the woodburning stove and opened the front to add
more wood from a box nearby. He nodded toward the hall. “There are
towels in the closet. Grab a couple.”
Leaving her boots at the door, she
went to the short hall between the bedrooms and pulled three towels
from a shelf, setting two by the stove to warm. Walker unzipped his
jacket, pulling out the bedraggled and pitiful-looking dog. After
shedding her coat, she wrapped Bud in a towel, dropping to the
floor in front of the stove as she rubbed the cloth over his wet
fur. The rope was knotted tight around his neck and Walker crouched
in front of her to cut it off.
“Ah—”
Her mind blanked.
She wondered if the words she’d
intended to say had seeped out of her ears.
Walker had taken off his wet shirt and
even as preoccupied with Bud as she was, seeing Walker shirtless
derailed all coherent thought. An intricately designed tattoo
illustrating one shoulder intrigued her.
She wanted to trace the design with
her lips. Or maybe her tongue. Then there was his wide, wide chest.
She had to clench her hands in the towel to keep from reaching out
to touch, from running her fingers through the wiry dark hair
spreading from well-defined pecs until narrowing to a strip,
disappearing below his belt.
His gaze caught hers as she struggled
to remember what she’d planned to say. Her situation not helped one
bit when his big hands joined hers rubbing the towel over the
little dog.
“Yeah?” He half
chuckled.
She caught the glint of humor in the
green depths of his eyes. He reached for one of the dry towels, his
corded muscles rippling.
“Um, nothing,” she
mumbled.
She shook her head and told herself
not to be an idiot.
He wrapped the warm towel around Bud,
dark brows lowering as he worked to dry his dog.
Delaney rose to spread the wet towel
near the stove to dry. The movement also helped her to get a little
distance from Walker before she gave in to temptation and licked a
swath of that gleaming skin simply to learn how he
tasted.
Apparently, her libido hadn’t listened
when her brain had been emphatic: Walker was a dangerous
risk.
Deliberately turning away from him to
avoid the distraction, she took out her phone and did a quick
internet search. After scanning a page, she asked, “Do you have a
hot water bottle? This veterinarian website suggests using a hot
water bottle to bring a dog’s temperature up if you suspect
hypothermia.” At Walker’s head shake, she kept reading. “Okay, then
wrapping him in warm towels like we’re doing is good. What about a
heating pad? Do you have a heating pad?”
“Yeah. I think Pop had