She didn’t respond for several seconds. “I didn’t say I hadn’t.”
Clint tipped his head around to meet her gaze. Her eyes still shimmered with tears. “You already knew?” He didn’t know whether to laugh or wring her neck. “Why’d you make me tell you the story then?”
“Because you needed to tell it.”
He couldn’t help but smile. She was right. He had needed to tell it. Instead of wringing her neck, he settled for placing a soft kiss on the crown of her head. Then, turning his cheek against her hair, he let his eyes fall closed. He’d hold her for just a few more minutes, he thought. Then he’d walk her back to the tent.
Her bed was vibrating. Loni frowned in her sleep, then came slowly awake, wondering how that could be. She didn’t own a vibrating bed. She lifted her lashes to stare stupidly at a sea of blue. Not her blue sheets. And the blankets lying on top of her felt way too heavy.
“Oh!”
She jackknifed to a sitting position, horrified to discover that her vibrating bed was Clint Harrigan’s chest, the expanse of blue the front of his chambray shirt. He lay sprawled on his back, legs spread wide to accommodate hers. She stared at the front of his jeans, where moments before her pelvis had been nestled. Was it only her imagination, or was the fly of his Wranglers protruding more than usual? Her gaze shot to his face. His sleep-rumpled black hair lay in lazy waves over his high forehead, and his jet-black eyelashes were fluttering as he stirred awake.
“How did I…?” She pushed a hand into her tangled hair, wincing when her fingers encountered knots. “When did we…?”
He blinked slowly awake. When he finally focused on her, his brown eyes looked confused for a moment; then they cleared. “Sorry. I only meant to sit there a few minutes more and then hustle you off to bed. I must’ve nodded off.” He pushed up on one elbow, noted the early morning sunlight that pooled around them, and said, “Well, shit. We’ve slept half the day away!” He reached for his boots. A moment later he swore again, this time even more vehemently. “My hat. Would you just look at my hat?”
He held it up for her to see. The crown was smashed flat on one side. Loni wasn’t sure how much a Stetson cost, but she had a hunch they were expensive. “Oh, Clint, I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” He pushed his fist into the bowl and the crown sprang back into shape—sort of. When he settled the Stetson on his head, he looked a little lopsided. “I’m the one who flattened it.”
That was the last time they spoke for nearly an hour. There followed a frenzied rush to break camp, get the horses saddled, and be on their way, their sense of urgency so acute that they skipped morning coffee, settling for water instead, and ate granola bars for breakfast after they hit the trail.
Loni couldn’t say getting back in the saddle was a pleasant experience. Her muscles screamed in protest, and her tender backside panged with Uriah’s first step. But after about fifteen minutes she began to feel somewhat better, able, at least, to face another long day of riding without whimpering at the thought.
The terrain began to change by midmorning. They’d passed through the gorge and come to an area where the river widened out and flowed lazily along, its green depths seeming to barely move. Instead of rising like walls only a short distance away at each side of the stream, the mountains were set farther back now, creating swaths of flatland along the riverbanks.
Clint waved to Loni, inviting her to come forward and ride abreast of him. Malachi snorted and threw his head, clearly affronted to have Uriah usurping his position as lead horse.
“Calm down,” Clint scolded, running his hand along the gelding’s neck. “You don’t always have to be in front.”
Loni reined Uriah back just a bit so Malachi could stay a neck ahead. That seemed to smooth the older gelding’s ruffled feathers. Clint flashed her an appreciative grin. “Thanks. He’s a wonderful animal, just a little arrogant around the edges sometimes.”
“Has he always been that way?”
Clint reached over to tug the bill of her cap down. “You don’t watch it, you’ll end up with a nose to rival Rudolph’s. Best to keep your face shaded. Here in the mountains the sun doesn’t feel that warm, but it’ll blister you all the same. As for Malachi, he came along when I was first getting my horse-breeding business well established. He thinks he’s the founding father of the stable. He isn’t, of course. Methuselah has that honor, but he’s a good-natured old stallion who allows Malachi his delusions.” He leaned sideways to get his canteen. After taking a drink, he passed her the canvas-encased vessel. “I miss my coffee. How ’bout you?”
Loni normally drank tea, but she did miss her morning caffeine. Her cell phone rang just then. Startled, she handed back the canteen, fished in her jacket pocket, glanced at the caller ID, and opened the communication device.
“Hi, Mom.”
Annabel MacEwen wasted no time on greetings. “What in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing? And why haven’t you been answering your phone? You hare off into the wilderness with a total stranger without even showing me the courtesy of discussing it with me first?”
Loni had forgotten to readjust the phone volume, which she’d set on high while she worked at the shop, where workmen were making noise. She poked futilely at buttons, trying to turn it down.
“What’s that beeping noise?” Annabel cried. “Are you trying to hang up on me?”
Loni stopped pushing buttons. “Of course not. Can you just calm down?”
“Calm down? I have been worried absolutely sick. Do you think I don’t know what’s happening out there? You’re not the only one with second sight, you know. I can’t believe you slept with him. He’s a total stranger, young lady. At least have a care for your safety—if not for your own sake, then for mine. How will I live with it if something happens to you? What if he’s a homicidal maniac? You have no way of knowing, not for sure.”
Loni held the phone away from her ear. Her gaze locked with Clint’s. His firm mouth quirked at one corner, his eyes dancing with laughter.
“Even if he doesn’t murder you in your sleep, what about the new life you’re trying to make for yourself? When I told you to talk with your grandmother, I thought you’d have the good sense not to take all her advice! I saw you speaking to a policeman this morning. Oh, Loni, what are you thinking?”
Loni pressed the phone back to her ear. “Mom. Mom? Mom!”
“What?” Annabel asked crossly.
“You’re shrieking. Clint can hear every word you’re saying.”
“Good.” Annabel took an audible breath to refuel. “That’s my daughter you’re playing fast and loose with, young man. Isn’t it bad enough that you’ve dragged her out into that wilderness area, and on horseback, no less? She’s never ridden a horse in her life! What if she falls? What if it bucks her off? And then you compound it by seducing her the second night out? You’ll have my husband to deal with when this trip is over; mark my words. From this point forward, I highly recommend that you comport yourself like a gentleman.”
Loni drew the phone from her ear again. Clint arched an eyebrow, studying the silver apparatus as if it were a strange object that had just dropped into her hand from outer space.
“Noo-noo-noo-noo, noo-noo-noo-noo,” he sang softly.
Loni recognized the sound track of her favorite old TV show, The Twilight Zone. She nearly choked trying to stifle a startled giggle, and she wasn’t successful enough by far.
“Are you laughing?” Annabel’s voice had gone from shrill to piercing. “Can you share the joke? I fail to see what you find so amusing.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just…Never mind. If you’d let me get a word in edgewise, I’ll—”
“A word from you would have been much appreciated before you made the decision to seek out Mr. Harrigan. A word from you would have been even more appreciated before you took off into the wilderness with a complete stranger.”
Loni sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t discuss it with you first, Mom. I just took it fo
r granted you knew what was going on without my calling you.”
“Ha! Deirdre blistered my ears so bad a couple of months ago for innocently dropping in on her and Michael that I swore off touching things to look in on either one of you. And how am I repaid for trying to be a courteous mother? My daughters cut me totally out of the loop.”
Now that Loni came to think of it, her mother hadn’t called to scold her about not taking her vitamins in over a month. “Oh, Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d sworn off.”
“Yes, well, I’ve seen the error of my ways, and I’ll never do it again. If I’d been checking on you as I should, I could have stopped you from pulling such a crazy stunt.”
“No, you’re wrong about that. This is something I had to do. And that’s the main reason I didn’t call you, because I already knew exactly what you’d say.”
“That you’d lost your mind, perhaps? That’s exactly what I would have said!”
“But I haven’t. I can’t run from this, Mom. A little boy’s life is on the line.”
“So was Cheryl Blain’s, and you nearly destroyed yourself trying to save her. Now you’re about to do the same thing again. You could end up having to leave Crystal Falls. Where will you go next? And what of the thousands of dollars you’ve spent remodeling that shop? You don’t have the money to start over again somewhere else.”
Loni sobered, for she shared all the same concerns. “I don’t have any answers. I only know this is something I have to do. If it blows up in my face I’ll have to trust in God to bail me out somehow.”
That took the wind out of Annabel’s sails. “Sometimes God can’t bail us out, Loni. We mess up so badly His hands are tied.”
“I’ll face that when it happens. For now all I can do is go where He leads me.”
Annabel sighed. Loni knew by the sound that her mother’s rant had finally ended.
“He’s very good-looking,” she continued, but in a calmer tone. “When you used to describe him I couldn’t get a clear picture in my mind. In my opinion he’s a little too handsome, though, the kind who’s undoubtedly broken a lot of female hearts. Have a care, Loni. Don’t end up being another notch on his belt.”
Clint arched an eyebrow again.
“Mom, he can still hear you.”
“Oh.” Annabel lowered her voice. “Be careful. That’s all. I don’t want to see you get hurt, physically or emotionally. I’m sorry for carrying on so, but I truly have been frantic.”
“I should have called, so I’m the one to apologize. I just…well, I wanted to avoid a quarrel, I guess. As for not answering the phone, it hasn’t rung.” Loni thought of the mountains that had hemmed them in on all sides until a few minutes ago. “No reception, I suppose. We’re in a more open place now.”
“Please be safe, sweetheart. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too. And try not to worry. Not everything you saw was exactly how it seemed.”
“Meaning you didn’t sleep with him?”
For the first time in her life Loni finally understood why Deirdre sometimes grew so upset with their mother. It was unsettling to be spied upon during one’s most private moments. “Not in the biblical sense, no.” Loni frowned slightly. “Which of my possessions have you been holding to zoom in on me, anyway?”
“Your blankie.”
“My what?”
“Your blanket. Remember? You couldn’t be without it when you were small.”
“Do me a favor and put it away,” Loni said firmly. “I’m thirty-one years old, Mom. I’m entitled to some privacy. Put it back in the cedar chest and communicate with me the normal way, like other mothers do.”
“And how might that be?”
“By phone.”
“Ha. You just said it yourself, no reception. I’m hugging this blanket until you’re safely out of there.”
After ending the conversation, Loni rode beside Clint in silence for several minutes. She couldn’t be certain how much he’d overheard, only that he’d gleaned enough to probably be full of questions. She wasn’t really surprised when he finally spoke.
“What did she mean when she talked about how you used to describe me? I didn’t get the impression she was referring to the recent past.”
Loni briefly considered lying to him. It wasn’t something she did often, though, and she feared lack of practice would have her mucking it up. “I, um…had dreams about you.”
“Dreams about me,” he mused aloud. “What kind of dreams?”
“Uneventful ones, mostly. I just dreamed of you is all.”
“When?”
Loni shifted in the saddle to give herself a moment to formulate an answer. “Now and then.”
“Now and then when?”
She wasn’t very well practiced at evasion, either. “All my life.”
Silence, a very long silence. He angled her a questioning look. “You’ve dreamed of me all your life?”
“Mostly. Not when I was really tiny, I don’t think, but then, maybe I just can’t remember back that far. Since I was about five, for sure. I called you my dream cowboy. That was part of the shock for me when we met at the grocery store. I’d dreamed of you all my life, and suddenly there you were, a real, live man.”
“That is weird. I mean…that is really weird. Did I always look like I do now, or did we grow up together without me knowing about it?”
Loni gnawed her bottom lip, trying to imagine herself in his shoes. Correction, in his boots. After he’d heard her mother’s tirade she thought he was handling all of it pretty well. “You looked just as you do now. I’ve always known, way deep down, that I was destined to meet you someday. I just never thought it would be under these circumstances.”
“Trying to rescue a child, you mean.”
She nodded.
“So what circumstances were you expecting?”
Heat pooled in her cheeks. She tugged the bill of the John Deere cap lower to conceal the blush. No such luck. He saw it anyway.
“Romantic circumstances?”
Loni really, really wished he would let it drop. But she supposed that was too much to ask. “I outgrew the notion long before I met you. I’m a woman now. I realize how silly it was for me to think…”
“Think what?”
Loni shot him a resentful look. “Must we discuss this? It’s a little embarrassing. You know?”
“No, I don’t know, and yes, we must discuss this. If I’ve been the leading man in your dreams all your life, I think I have a right to know what kind of dreams they were.”
“It wasn’t like that. Nothing ever happened in the dreams. I just saw you; that’s all. As a teenager I fantasized about you a bit, thinking…oh, I don’t know, the silly things all young girls think about, I guess.”
“That we were going to fall in love?”
In truth, Loni had always believed in her younger years that Clint Harrigan would be the one great love of her life. She couldn’t bring herself to admit that to him, though. “I’m older now, and a whole lot wiser. I understand that nothing like that is remotely possible between us.”
Another long silence. Then he did the nose-rubbing thing, which she was quickly coming to realize was a nervous habit, his way of stalling when he couldn’t think what to say. “Did I miss something?”
Loni frowned at him in bewilderment. “What do you mean?”
He gestured with one hand. “Did I imagine that kiss we shared last night? What do you mean, ‘nothing like that is remotely possible’? Was it that bad?”
He looked so offended she had to laugh. “No, of course it wasn’t bad. It’s just…well, think about it. We’re nothing alike. The inside of your truck looks like a junkyard.”
“All that junk is important. Tools of my trade, so to speak.”
“Maybe so, but there’s a total lack of organization. How on earth do you find anything?”
“I manage. And I fail to see how the condition of my truck factors in. Haven’t you heard? Opposites attract.”
She shot him another look, this time a searching one. “Are you saying you’re attracted to me?”
“I don’t find you unattractive. As I recall, I told you that last night.” He thumped himself on the forehead. “Oh, that’s right. You thought I was just being nice. News flash: I don’t swap slobber with a woman I find unattractive.”
Loni wrinkled her nose. “Yuck.”
“You’ve never heard of swapping slobber?” A twinkle of devilment entered his eyes. “I don’t kiss a woman I find to be unattractive, then. Does that suit you better?”
“Much, thank you.”
“Back to the dream-cowboy thing. Why isn’t anything like that remotely possible for us? Do you dislike me?”
“No. I like you a lot. It’s just that I don’t think we suit. I was raised in the greater Seattle area, and my lifestyle is so different from yours. I know next to nothing about ranching, even less about horses, and can’t picture myself being happy, over the long term, in a rural setting. By the same token I can’t imagine you being happy in the city. There’s also my clairvoyance to consider. Everything about me is against your religion. Remember? Your words, not mine.”
“I’ve changed my mind about that, and you know it as well as I do.”
“You have, and I appreciate it very much. But the fact remains that you find it unsettling.” She hummed the sound track of The Twilight Zone as a reminder. “My mother is home hugging my childhood security blanket. For all I know she’s spying on us right now. Tell me the thought of that doesn’t bother you.”
That shut him up, but only for a moment. Then he lifted a hand as if to wave and said, “Hi, Mrs. MacEwen. She hasn’t become a notch on my belt yet, but the day’s still young.”
Loni giggled. What was it about him that made her want to laugh all the time? Especially when their reason for being here was both serious and urgent. “You are incorrigible. She’s very worried about that, you know. If she’s tuned in she’ll have fits and drive Daddy crazy all day.”
“Good. She’ll be too busy bending his ear to spy on us.” He rode in silence for a few feet. “I’m confused. I distinctly remember you saying that your abilities are much stronger than your mother’s. Yet it seems to me she has a much better handle on her gift than you do.”