Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

I watch her disappear and look around. This isn’t a bad spot to camp but I don’t like the proximity to the forest. I’d rather keep riding and find another spot, maybe beside a creek so the horses have access to water, some place open so I can see from all angles. It’s not going to rain, so we just need a place to tie up the horses and some flat ground to spread the sleeping bag on and that’s about it.

I actually love camping under the stars. Sometimes I go on overnights just by myself. Usually there’s a purpose to them, like traveling to other ranch lands to meet with ranchers or just driving cows or checking fences and making repairs, but I’m always the one going. There’s something about lying beneath a blanket of stars, far from the comforts of home, that makes you feel immensely connected to the land. It’s that connection that keeps the love of the job going.

Polly shifts nervously underneath me, her ears flicking back and forth. Sybil does the same. Fletcher is looking alert in the direction of where Rachel disappeared.

A coldness builds in my chest and I straighten up, instinctively reaching for my shotgun at the back of my saddle. “Rachel?” I say loudly. “You doing okay?”

I wait, listen.

I hear nothing.

Then rustling.

Unease trickles through me.

“Rachel!” I yell. My hand grasps the gun and I carefully bring it forward.

No answer.

I look at Fletcher. “Go find Rachel,” I tell him urgently.

He springs into action, trotting off into the forest until I can’t see him either.

Something isn’t right.

No, not right at all.

Sybil’s head suddenly lifts and she starts backing up, as does Polly, spooked as fucked.

Fletcher starts barking and barking like crazy from somewhere in the trees.

A heavy rustling follows.

“Rachel!” I yell, ready to jump off.

Then, a growl.

No, a roar.

It makes all my hair stand on end, freezing me on the spot.

There’s a rapid onslaught of sounds.

Fletcher barks, growls, snaps.

And something large and menacing growls back, a low, guttural cry that nearly shakes the ground.

Sybil rears.

I keep Polly in place.

Fletcher keeps barking, twigs and branches snap.

So do jaws.

Snarls.

Another roar and then Fletcher’s high-pitched howl, a cry of absolute pain.

Fucking hell, not Fletcher. Not my dog.

“Rachel!” I yell. “Fletcher!”

There are no more barks.

The trees start moving.

The ground is shaking.

Yards ahead, a mammoth-sized grizzly bear comes thundering out of the trees, a big, scary fucker that comes to a stop a yard away, dirt flying around his massive body.

Sybil pulls her reins out of my grasp and gallops away and Polly wants to do the same, even though a grizzly bear can run as fast as racehorse for short distances and there’s no doubt he would charge and bring us both down. I do what I can to keep Polly in place because I’m not fucking leaving Rachel or my dog behind.

I aim the shotgun at the bear, trying to keep calm, keep steady.

The bear opens his mouth in a deafening roar, showing off a pink mouth, rows of sharp teeth, then rises up on his hind legs so he’s a beast of eight feet tall.

Jesus.

It’s the most horrifying and majestic sight I’ve ever seen. A true testament to power, to nature, to the wild.

And it can so easily kill me.

I keep the shotgun trained on his head, ready to pull the trigger.

I don’t want to. And I know that even with a shotgun blast to the head, grizzlies don’t always die on the spot and the chances of me taking him out before he can get to me are slim.

But so help me God, if he did anything to Rachel, I will blast his fucking brains out.

My finger touches the trigger but doesn’t pull it, Polly dancing back and forth beneath me as I try to keep the grizzly in my sights. The panic inside me wants to well up and scream but I can’t pay it attention, can’t feed it, I push it down and act instinctively. Having the gun in my hands like this brings me right back into the Waters’ kitchen, pointing it at Errol.

I stare at the bear. Deep brown eyes.

The bear stares back at me.

I might see my whole life in that look. Gone in a horrible flash.

The moment stretches forever and all that loss knocks at my door.

But this wasn’t like facing off with Errol.

This is something else entirely.

I take a deep breath.

Prepared. Determined. And ultimately torn.

Yet I will do what I have to do.

But, it changes. The bear lowers himself to the ground, huffing and slapping the earth with its paws, its long black claws raking the dirt before it gives another low growl.

And then, with a shake of its head, it lumbers off in the opposite direction along the lake, disappearing around the bend of the hill.

Gone.

I exhale and eventually lower the gun. Then as the reality comes back, I’m shaking, the adrenaline and fear ravaging through me.

“Rachel!” I scream and jump off Polly, running into the forest with the gun.

I look around, yelling her name over and over again but she’s nowhere to be found.

Then there’s a bark.

I whip around to see Fletcher limping toward me, tongue hanging out.

“Fletcher!” I cry out, dropping to my knees to examine him. I was so certain he was dead. Miraculously, he isn’t that hurt. He’s limping and the fur at the back of his neck is wet with saliva and blood and there’s a small wound but that’s about it. My guess is he attacked the bear and the bear got him by the back of the neck and threw him off. It could have been so much worse.

I stand back up, cupping my hands over my mouth, trying to ignore that panic but fuck it’s going to kill me. “Rachel!” I yell. “Can you hear me! Please?”

I look down at Fletcher. “Where is she? Where is Rachel?”

Fletcher whines and I’m not sure he understands but when I ask again, keeping my voice as steady as possible, he gets my intentions.

He lopes a bit further into the brush and I follow until he stops at the base of a tree.

And looks up.





16





Rachel





Help, help, help.

The words repeat over and over, screaming inside my head.

Help, help, help.

I don’t want to die.

Not now, not now. Not when I haven’t really lived.

I haven’t really lived.

I haven’t really lived.

Help, help, help.

My arms are numb, my legs too, everything. I’m not sure how much longer I can stay up here, holding onto the tree trunk. Or maybe I’m forever molded to it, like moss. Maybe I’ll never come back down.

My mind shifts back in time.

Me lying on my back amongst the hay.

Shane devouring me.

Against my better judgement, I opened my legs and let him in.

I let myself be vulnerable again, only for him.

And it was at that moment I realized I was alive.

He was trying to bring me back to life.

And it scared the shit out of me.

To open that door and stick my neck out and hope for the fucking best.

But I was alive.

And now I’m in a fucking pine tree, my limbs scraped and bleeding from the hasty climb and I’m wondering why I was so afraid to be alive when the alternative is so much worse.

“Rachel!” Shane’s voice cuts through my head.