Chapter Thirty-Four
The moon, already half-dark, slipped behind the clouds, obscuring the trail again.
Amelia was exhausted, her legs chafed raw despite her efforts to protect them with her skirt.
They were making slow progress, having to peer at the ground in near darkness to try to find the small signs that Logan had left them.
She glanced over at Cody, who shifted in his saddle. His own horse had dried lather on its flanks, evidence of the hard ride it had already endured. Amelia didn’t understand how Cody was able to keep going as he was, his strength not showing any sign of flagging.
A parent would go to the ends of the earth for their child, Amelia thought.
She put her teeth together and sat up a little straighter in the saddle.
She absolutely refused to be a drain on Cody, not now, and not ever—she was an asset to him.
He was right: They were better together, and she fully intended to live up to her part of the bargain.
Ahead of them, the trees showed signs of thinning.
The ground lifted sharply, forming a ridge that overlooked the prairie behind them.
The river coursed nearby, cutting through the rock to form the ridge.
On the other side of the ridge, mountains jutted up into the sky, their tops dusted with snow even in the summer.
“I can’t see anything,” Cody said. He rubbed his eyes, pulling his horse to a stop.
Amelia drew her horse to a halt next to him. The ground was giving way from dirt to bare rock, so no footprint would show. Despair nipped at the edges of Amelia’s heart, but she refused to allow it in.
“We’ll find him,” Amelia reassured Cody. “He can’t have gone far without a horse.”
“They could be anywhere up there,” Cody countered. “Moreover, he has the high ground—he’ll see us coming from a mile off.”
Amelia hadn’t considered that. She looked up at the ridge, looming over her and blocking out the stars. “Then,” Amelia said slowly, “what if we let him see us coming? Well, me, that is.”
“What do you mean?” Cody asked, peering at her in the gloom.
“Let him focus on me. I can draw his attention. You follow along behind, and when the moment is right, you spring a trap on him,” she explained.
“He’d hear me coming,” Cody argued. “Besides, I’m not sending you up there alone.”
“But I won’t be alone,” she answered back. She placed a hand on his arm. “You’ll be coming after me, and besides, Logan’s already up there alone with him.”
The moment those words were out of her mouth, she regretted them a little. Cody didn’t wince exactly, but something painful flashed across his face. She tightened her grip on his arm, squeezing him reassuringly. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she added. “It’s me he’s after.”
Cody gave her a baleful look, clearly stating that it wasn’t nearly as helpful as she thought it was.
“Besides,” Amelia continued, turning to look behind them from the direction they’d come. “Arthur should be on our trail by now, if he’s had any luck. Helen will have gone for the sheriff, too.” She turned her gaze back to the ridge. “The real question is, how do I get up there?”
“There’s an old Ute path,” Cody said. He pointed up at the ridge, tracing the bare outline of a shelf that jutted out. “See there? It makes a few switchbacks. Not wide enough for a horse, though.”
“Alright,” Amelia said, resolved. Before Cody could object, she was swinging down from her horse with a painful grunt. Her knees nearly gave out when she landed, but she recovered quickly. “Give me a quarter of an hour head start.”
She untucked her skirt and petticoat, brushing them down. When she was about to set off, she was waylaid by a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and found Cody staring down at her, his face in turmoil.
“I meant what I said,” he told her solemnly. He didn’t clarify what he was referring to, and Amelia didn’t ask him to clarify. She supposed it didn’t matter; he always meant what he said, at least in the moment.
She smiled up at him with what she hoped was a reassuring air and withdrew from him.
She approached the ridge, eyeing it dubiously still.
Being from Kansas, she had a natural suspicion of any landscape that wasn’t as flat as a kitchen table.
She emerged from under the trees, fully aware that from this point on, Dean likely was watching her.
With this in mind, she schooled her face into an expression of humility and defeat.
She let her shoulders slump and made a great show of sniffling as if she were fighting back emotion.
It was actually rather easy to play-act that last part, as all she had to do was let the careful wall that she’d built between herself and the fear and sadness of the day crack just a little.
Emotion seeped through, and though she’d never admit to it, it was all too easy to pretend to be overcome.
As she climbed the winding path, littered here and there with patches of loose gravel and flakes of stone, she felt a profound sense of loneliness.
While she’d been left alone at the ranch plenty of times over the past few months, she’d never felt truly lonely.
She knew well that help was never far away while she toiled in the kitchen or the poultry yard.
With each footstep, she was putting greater distance between herself and Cody. The protective cover of the trees was well and truly gone, and though it was still high summer, a cool breeze snaked along the ridge from the mountains. She shivered and told herself it was just the errant breeze.
She didn’t have long to contemplate hypothetical fears, though.
Just as Cody had warned her, the path narrowed considerably, leaving just enough space for her feet.
If someone were coming down the other way, she’d have to flatten herself against the ridge to allow them to pass.
She focused all of her attention on placing her feet carefully.
The path was treacherous enough in daylight hours; in the dark of night, it was plain terrifying.
She pushed her fear down, refusing to let it overwhelm her.
Somewhere above her, Logan was alone with Dean.
That thought galvanized her, and she kept it in front of her.
She ignored her sore, trembling legs, the rising altitude, and the knowledge that, for the first time in years, she was actively growing closer to Dean instead of pushing him farther behind her.
She slipped, her boot catching awkwardly on a piece of loose stone, and she went down on her knees. She winced and stifled a cry but then realized there was no point in that. The whole idea was for Dean to know that she was coming.
No doubt he’d be thrilled by my suffering, she thought bitterly. She could just see him now, his face sneering down at her. Probably nothing would delight him more than if I were to literally come crawling to him. She felt her lip curl in disgust and hauled herself back up to her feet.
It didn’t matter; she wasn’t about to put her own pride before Logan’s safety. If crawling across gravel or broken glass or even hot coals was what it took to bring him back safely, then that’s what she would do. Determined, she resumed her climb, one hand on the rock face for stability.
The sky hadn’t even begun to lighten by the time she reached a sort of hollow near the top of the ridge.
The path widened, the ground trampled flat by hundreds of feet over the centuries.
While the sky was dark, the recess in the rock was darker still, a shadow within a shadow.
A fire, banked and reduced to embers, was smoldering in one corner.
This wasn’t what drew Amelia’s eye, however.
It was a movement within the dark that had her stiffening. Despite her determination, she still felt herself faltering; her instinct was to turn and run. She fought the impulse, rooting her feet to the spot and refusing to budge.
The movement coalesced into a shape as a familiar figure emerged into the scant moonlight.
Amelia would know that face anywhere: the hard, chiseled cheekbones, the cool gray eyes, the mouth that twisted up cruelly on one side into a permanent leer.
He was as tall as she remembered, but lankier.
Despite the situation, she couldn’t help but feel a small twinge of satisfaction that maybe the last few years had been hard on him, too.
She had little time to feel triumphant. Dean was in front of her, loosely holding a gun. A grin spread on his lips, curling them like a snake. He gave a sweeping gesture with his arm.
“Why, dear Amelia,” he said, his voice dripping with false honey. “How good of you to join us.”