Chapter 17

Damn her smart mouth.

Just because he left her an opening a mile wide didn’t mean she had to jump through with both feet. Wyatt hadn’t said a single word since they got in the car…thank God. There was no possible segue to that insanely inappropriate remark that wouldn’t make matters worse, no matter which of them tried.

Better to bite their tongues and ignore the elephant turning pirouettes on the console between them.

The heat of the sun still lingered in the black leather seats of the Camaro, but the long shadows thrown across Main Street by the lowering sun had cooled the interior to a temperature just warm enough to magnify the scents of warm car and hot man. Melanie caught herself squeezing her knees together in response. Damn Wyatt for being even sexier in faded, grubby jeans that fit his remarkable ass to perfection and, worst of all, made him look almost normal.

Like something she could not only have, but keep.

“We’ll have to swing by and feed the horses. And can we hit a drive-through on the way?” she asked as the seductive power of the car vibrated through every fiber of her body.

“I ordered subs. And I had them put the condiments on the side so you could add what you want. Is that okay?”

That was wonderful. Efficient. And maddening, the way he was always one thought ahead of her. “Great,” she said.

The deli was located inside a convenience store. While Wyatt put gas in the car, Melanie wandered the aisles, picking out baked all-natural multigrain chips, then a bag of mini-Oreos so her system didn’t go into shock from all that healthiness. She added a couple of bottles of raspberry-flavored sweet tea and a pack of spearmint gum. As she paid the cashier and stashed everything in her pack, Wyatt came in to get his order from the deli. The bag the starry-eyed high school girl passed over the counter looked as if it held enough sandwiches to feed them for a week.

Wyatt handed it to Melanie as they walked to the car. She peeked inside. “Hungry?”

“Yes. And I don’t know what you like, so I ordered four different kinds.”

Once again, thinking of everything. “Are we allowed to eat in the car?”

“That depends.” He shot her an almost-grin as he circled the hood to the driver’s side. “How messy are you?”

Her pulse skittered, and she fumbled the bag as she reached for the door latch. If he kept that up, her self-control was gonna end up scattered like crumbs. That would be bad. Very bad. For reasons that got a little vague when she settled into her seat and inhaled another lungful of man-scent.

She tried to focus on the town as they continued east, past the towering concrete silos of Pendleton Flour Mills. “I have to stop by the Pendleton Woolen Mills outlet store. The crib blanket you gave Violet and Joe is amazing.”

“The design is called Sons of the Sky. It’s Kiowa. The stars and rainbows celebrate the child’s birth, and the turtle amulet is for protection. Its hard shell guards the child’s spirit and ensures a long, protected life.”

“That’s cool. My mother has Kiowa blood.”

Wyatt gave her face a thorough inspection as he stopped in the turning lane and waited for a grain truck to pass from the opposite direction. “I can see it. You have the bone structure.”

“Uh…thanks?”

He turned his attention back to the road. Within a few minutes, they wheeled into the driveway to his acreage. After the practice session that morning, he’d given her the full tour, showing her how to turn on the sprinklers to irrigate the small pasture the two horses now shared with the cows and providing her with a key to the storage shed where they’d stashed her tack.

When they’d tossed hay into the feeders, Wyatt and Melanie climbed back in the car, but instead of turning toward the interstate, he whipped the Camaro onto a highway headed north, his hand loose on the gearshift as he accelerated past a sign that declared they were en route to Walla Walla, Washington.

She leaned forward to scan the road ahead. “I thought we were going up the mountain.”

He twisted his wrist so she could see his watch, the hands reading just past seven. “Sunset won’t be for another hour and a half, so I thought we’d drive up to Tollgate. You can see some of the countryside on the way.”

As they drove, he pointed out anything he thought might interest her. Mile by mile, she relaxed as he carried on a running monologue. The depth and breadth of his knowledge about the area was astounding. He explained how salt brine was used to grade the sweet peas just now flowering in the fields, separating them based on whether they floated or sank, then told how the town of Athena came to be named after a Greek goddess but had a high school band that featured Scottish bagpipes—all delivered with a wry thread of affection.

Wyatt had told her one undeniable truth during their dinner. He loved this place. It shone in his eyes, and made it nearly impossible to tear her eyes off of him.

When they turned off Highway 11 toward the mountains, he gestured to the horizontal bands of dark brown that circled their flanks. “That’s basalt, laid down by lava flows when the Cascades were full of active volcanoes, then buried in silt by the massive floods at the end of the last ice age. This is some of the richest topsoil in the world. They grow close to hundred-bushel-an-acre dryland wheat here.”

Melanie settled in to enjoy the scenery outside the car as the highway was quickly swallowed up by a pine-filled canyon that wound into the flanks of the mountains. A creek splashed alongside, over more of the chunky, brown lava rock that the water had cut into sheer walls in places.

“Usually mountains are formed by an upthrust that pushes the rock to the top,” Wyatt said. “Here, the layers of soil were so thick it never made it to the surface, which is why they look like big dirt hills sitting on a rock foundation. Because of the sun and prevailing wind, the trees are almost all on the north-facing slopes, in case you need to orient yourself when you’re hiking.”

She threw him a squinty-eyed look. “Are you planning to dump me out here to see if the flatlander can find her way home?”

“I don’t even have a spot picked out to shove you off a cliff.” His voice was laced with exasperation. “It was your idea to drive up to the top of a mountain—and drag me along. If anyone should be paranoid…”

Especially when she’d managed to insult him twice in the process of inviting him. Fake it until you make it. Gah.

Since she couldn’t seem to open her mouth without something asinine falling out, she retreated back into silence. Eventually, the narrow highway emerged onto a flat where the trees were interspersed with wide meadows. Wyatt turned off before they reached the cluster of buildings that formed the community of Tollgate. In deference to the Camaro, he bumped slowly along the crumbling asphalt and then gravel as their route became less of a road and more of a track. It opened into a turnaround above a maze of canyons even steeper and narrower than the one they’d driven up.

Wyatt parked at the edge of the deserted parking area. “High enough for you?”

“It’s stunning.” As she stepped out of the car, the breeze caught her hair and feathered it across her face. The view was incredible. Intimidating.

And so not Texas.

Without waiting for Wyatt, she ducked her head, slung her pack over her shoulder, and strode off on the beaten dirt path marked Trailhead. The tight knot of homesickness loosened at the scent of pine, fresh grass, and damp earth.

Deep breath.

All in all, things were going better than she’d had reason to hope—other than the lack of progress in finding Hank, and it had only been a week since she’d officially put Wyatt on his trail. There’d also been nothing new in the way of communication from Westwind, and Violet had reported that the opinion at the warehouse was generally in Melanie’s favor with a sprinkling of derogatory comments from, in Gil Sanchez’s expert assessment, “the dickwads she wouldn’t sleep with.”

Melanie could tick them off on her fingers, which made her smile, just a little.

“How far does this go?” she called back to Wyatt.

“Ten miles.”

Oh. She slowed a little, taking stock.

“They call this Coyote Ridge,” Wyatt said, so close behind that she jumped and tripped over an exposed root.

His hand shot out to catch her elbow, steady her, then immediately let go before she could shake him off. The path was too narrow to walk abreast. She was so conscious of his gaze on her back—her butt?—that her steps felt jerky, although the stiff muscles from her adventures in cow fighting didn’t help.

“Why am I leading the way?” she asked.

“You went first.”

“What if I take a wrong turn?”

“Just stay right when the main trail switches back and heads downhill.”

Their trail continued along the narrow razorback, with enough holes, roots, and chunky, sharp-edged rock that Melanie didn’t dare let her gaze wander from where she was setting her feet. Behind her, the scuff of Wyatt’s shoes was barely audible. The man was sneaky quiet.

When the trail dead-ended at the point of the ridge, she paused, studying the two canyons that merged at the bottom of the long, steep hill at her feet, strewn with rock, hummocks of grass, and the occasional scrubby, wind-blown tree. Near the base, the slope ended abruptly in a cliff, the rock exposed and cut through by centuries of floods. The breeze had picked up, making her wish she’d tied her hair back.

Wyatt came alongside and held out the jacket she’d left in the car. “You’ll need this before long.”

“Thank you.” She tied the sleeves around her waist for the moment.

Wyatt had a larger day-hiker’s pack and the bag of sandwiches. He waved toward a table-sized flat rock. “We can sit over there.”

They did, both facing west but slightly away from each other, and lapsed into a surprisingly mellow silence, content to enjoy the murmur of pine boughs, the calls of birds she didn’t recognize, and the distant splash of water from the bottom of the canyon.

She polished off the last bite of her cold-cut combo and stood to brush the crumbs off her sweatshirt before pulling on her coat. As Wyatt had predicted, the air had cooled quickly, although the breeze had also died to a mere rustle in the knee-high bunches of grass. Beyond the broad north-south valley that held the main highway, the sun hung low over a smaller range of hills that would lie north and west of Pendleton. If she remembered correctly from her map, the massive Columbia River must be just beyond that rise, flowing east through the Tri-Cities of Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland, Washington, then making a sweeping U-turn back to the west, forming the border between the states on its way to the Pacific.

Mentally adding the Columbia Gorge to her must-see list, Melanie slung her pack over her shoulder and, drawn by what sounded like a small waterfall, picked her way down through the trees on the sheltered side of the ridge, only to be brought up short by one of the thick bands of lava rock. The cliff wasn’t high—ten or fifteen feet—but it extended as far as she could see in either direction. The splash of water seemed to be directly below her, so she eased as close as she dared and peered over the crumbling edge of the cliff.

“Be careful,” Wyatt said, practically in her ear.

She squeaked, startled, and jumped back, colliding with a hard male body. Her elbow caught him in the ribs. He grunted and sidestepped—directly onto one of the loose rocks. His leg buckled, and he stumbled. For a heart-stopping instant he teetered at the edge of the cliff. Just as Melanie made a grab for him, the unstable rock gave way.

She caught nothing but thin air as he fell. With a curse and a clatter, he was gone.

Melanie listened in horror to a thud, another curse, and the unmistakable sound of a body hitting something solid. And then there was silence.

“Wyatt?” She dropped to her belly to peer over the edge, but couldn’t see past the trees and shadows. “Wyatt!”

The second was on the verge of a shriek as panic clamped an icy hand on her throat. Oh God, oh God, oh God. She scooted along the cliff, squinting into the trees, but in his faded jeans and gray sweatshirt, he was invisible in the shadows beneath the trees.

“Wyatt!” she shouted again. She heard what might have been a groan—or the wind through the trees. No other sound or movement. She scrambled to her feet, glancing first up the hill, then over the cliff. Did she run back to the car and race into town for help? No. Wait. Wyatt had the keys. She doubted he had a spare set hidden inside the bumper. He was smarter than that. She clawed her phone out of her pocket. No signal, of course.

There was only one option. She had to get down there. He could be bleeding. He could be…

Melanie shook off that thought and crab-walked along the edge, looking for a likely set of hand- and footholds. A few feet from where Wyatt had gone over, a large pine grew on the edge, its roots extending down the cliff. Below, the rock face was pocked with holes and jagged points. She lowered onto her belly, took a deep breath, then grabbed the root and swung her legs over the edge. For a terrifying moment she dangled, legs flailing. Then her feet found purchase.

Slowly—too slow, dammit—she lowered herself, the rough bark of the root digging into her palms. Her descent was an agonizing crawl, fear and adrenaline pounding through her veins and accelerating her heart rate into the red zone. She had to fight the urge to rush. She’d be no good to Wyatt if she fell, too. The muscles in her toes cramped from grasping at the slippery footholds, testing each before trusting it with her weight.

And wondering—damn her self-centered mind—if Tori knew a good defense attorney, too, because no one was going to believe she’d done this by accident.

She was over halfway down when she heard another groan. Her heart leapt—and her foot slipped. For an instant she hung, cursing as her toes scratched desperately for purchase. Her shoe caught on a lip of rock. She clasped the root to her chest and flattened against the cliff face, panting from terror and exertion.

“Mel—” This groan was louder, but distinctly her name. Wyatt was alive and conscious. Relief blasted through her.

“I’m coming! I’ll be there in just a minute.”

“No, don’t—”

She eased down another step…and the rock beneath her foot gave way. She dropped, hitched for an instant, then the force of her weight snapped the root. There was an instant of Oh shit, this is gonna hurt before her butt hit the ground. The impact jarred every molecule in her body and made stars burst behind her eyes. Her legs bounced, flipping her backward down the steep incline. She threw her arms up to cushion the back of her head against rocks and branches, twisting sideways just as she crashed into a huge fallen log—and something that grunted in pain.

She lay on her stomach, eyes squeezed shut, braced for the searing pain of a broken bone. It didn’t come. As the universe slowly righted itself, she took inventory. She felt the deep throb of bruises, the burn of scrapes, but when she inhaled, her rib cage expanded right on cue. She let the breath out in a rush and opened her eyes to discover that the log under her cheek was actually a hard, denim-clad thigh.

“Melanie?” Her name was a harsh wheeze.

She lifted her head to meet his gaze. Wyatt was sprawled on his back, struggling to take in air—and her nose was buried in his crotch.

And damn his eternal soul, those blue eyes were laughing.