She went around to the back of the bunkhouse. The weeds were tall here, and she had to stand on a rock to look in one of two windows, only to find that the blinds had been closed. She hopped over to the next window, righting an old gray bucket to stand on it. The blinds were open, and she could see through to a hallway with green shag carpet. This room had bunk beds.
Just then, a man suddenly walked by the open doorway, naked except for a towel wrapped around his waist. He had long, wet hair. With a gasp of alarm, Madeline ducked. She hopped off the bucket and squatted down, looking frantically about. Someone lived here? She’d been casually peering in the windows of someone’s house? She half-crawled, half-ran from the bunkhouse, and walked briskly down the road to the main house, her heart pounding.
She saw Libby on the back porch of the main house and jogged toward it. “Libby!” she cried. “There is a man in that house!” She flung her arm out, pointing to the bunkhouse.
“Ernest Delgado,” Libby said, a little too pertly to suit Madeline. “He’s the ranch hand here.”
Libby had known a man was in that house when Madeline had gone off to have a look, and had let her go. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Madeline demanded.
Libby shrugged. “I thought you’d probably worked it out for yourself that he’d come back.”
Madeline whirled around before she said something she couldn’t take back.
“Where are you going?” Libby called after her.
“For a walk!” Madeline shouted back.
She walked for several minutes before she was able to unclench her fists and take a breath. She paused and looked around her, at sunlight sparkling through the trees, at the dense foliage and rich colors in the shadow of the forest. The scenery was truly beautiful. So serene.
She moved again, only much slower now, breathing as deeply as she could of the cool, clean air. The path was steep, but she moved slowly, pausing every now and then to catch her breath. She appreciated the steady effort, the stretch in calves as she moved up. If she lived here, she would be like Luke’s mother and walk up the mountain, into the forest, every day. This experience, at least in Madeline’s narrow world, was incomparable to anything else.
She was actually smiling as she climbed, and at first didn’t notice the sound below her in the trees. When she did, she decided she’d imagined it. But when she heard it again, she stopped and looked back. She expected to see a dog, maybe even Libby.
Madeline realized she hadn’t actually come up as far as she thought; she could still see the top of the house. She listened for the sound again, and heard nothing. She turned around to continue on when she heard it again, and this time, there was no denying it—something was in those woods. Something bigger than a squirrel.
Much, much bigger.
Whatever it was crashed through the woods, its footfall slow but so heavy that she could hear the snap of every limb and twig beneath its weight.
Bear.
Madeline’s heart climbed to her throat. She was uphill from a grizzly bear; her only escape was up.
The beast moved again, drawing closer, huge and lumbering. Panic-stricken, Madeline tried to think of all the things she’d read in the Grizzly Lodge’s local guide about what to do if one ran across a bear. She could not recall one word, and couldn’t picture anything but being mauled by a bear, her face excoriated by its enormous paws, her limbs bitten off.
Madeline lost it. Every ounce of composure, every ounce of courage, every shred of common sense flooded out of her like a levee had broken. She screamed—a bloodcurdling, piercing scream that scared even her, and began to run down the path, sliding on rocks and tripping over limbs, all the while shrieking, “Bear! Bear! Bear!”
She rounded a corner and looked back to see if the bear was on her heels, and tripped, almost stumbling to her hands and knees but managing, by some miracle, to right herself and keep running. When she was almost to the point where the trail flattened out into the clearing behind the house, she saw Luke running up toward her. Madeline launched herself at him, her arms going tightly around his neck. Luke stumbled backward but held on to her without falling, then grabbed her arms. “Madeline, what the hell!” he demanded, pulling her arms from his neck, holding her firmly.
“Bear!” she shrieked frantically at him, her fingers digging into his arms.
Luke looked past her. Madeline’s blood was pounding loudly in her ears, her skin crawling with fear.
Luke suddenly threw an arm around her, yanking her into his chest, holding her in his ironclad grip. Madeline could hear the beast coming toward them. She did not let propriety stand in the way; she buried her face in his chest.
“Brace yourself, girl,” he said softly. “We might have to fight.”
“What?” she cried, jerking her gaze up to him.