Driftwood Creek Read online

  She’d love to have a horse of her own one day, one she could train herself from a foal, really bond with, but secondhand was second nature for her, and working with other peoples’ animals was better than nothing.

  She wasn’t complaining. She had it good at Sanctuary Ranch, and she knew it.

  She inhaled deeply, bringing the green-drenched air into her lungs and holding it there, imagining bright white oxygen rushing in, healing cells from the insults of daily living. She let the breath out, loudly enough for Nash to glance backwards, braced for another outburst.

  “Sorry, buddy.” She reached down and patted his wide neck. “Just trying to live life in the now. No regrets, right?”

  She was heartsick with longing for the quiet, handsome wrangler who’d somehow gone from her best friend to someone she couldn’t live without. But she didn’t regret it.

  Gideon.

  Why did he have to be so perfect? If only he were an asshole like every other guy she’d known, then she could flip him off and forget him.

  Her face burned when she remembered the look on his face after she’d kissed him last Christmas. How deliberately he’d avoided her eyes, as if even that intimacy was too much. How carefully he’d chosen his tone, his words, as if afraid she would clasp them to her love-sick bosom and interpret even the slightest kindness as an admission of adoration.

  Aw, James, no.

  And he’d given her the old slug on the arm, like she was a buddy, a pal, a chum.

  Okay, maybe he was an asshole after all.

  “A gigantic asshole,” she muttered, urging the horse into a trot, dodging low-lying branches, welcoming the cold slap of damp leaves to her overheated skin.

  So he was a little older than her, but she was an old soul, far older than her years. So they were different. She made him smile, loosened up that tight armor of his, made him laugh now and then, even. And his calm demeanor settled her somehow.

  She whacked at a dead branch, hearing a satisfying crack as it twisted and broke.

  This was his fault. He’d made her fall in love with him. So one of two things had to happen now. Either she had to fall out of love with him. Or he had to fall into love with her.

  Pigheaded persistence, here we go again.

  Suddenly the bay gelding’s muscles tightened beneath her, alerting her to the present. He reared up with a shrill whinny, sidestepping on nervous hooves, an age-old instinct for self-preservation urging him to flee.

  “Easy, boy.” Jamie gathered the reins, gripping the saddle with her thighs, scanning the shadowy depths in front of them, her nerves jumping. Nash didn’t freak out for no reason.

  She squinted against the sunlight slanting through the canopy, and then she saw it.

  Not a predator.

  It was a chocolate-colored dog, skulking at the side of the path, half hidden by ferns, ears back, eyes wide. More frightened of them than they were of it, as the saying went.

  She patted the horse’s neck, her own heart pounding. “It’s okay, Nash. It’s just a dog.” But the horse drummed a tattoo with his hooves, slipping on the rotting vegetation.

  “Easy, easy, boy!”

  She reined him in a tight circle, let him stomp and snort, hoping he wouldn’t dump her and run. Though it would serve Gideon right if she broke her neck out here, wouldn’t it? He’d be sorry then, wouldn’t he?

  “Listen to yourself,” she muttered. No wonder he didn’t take her seriously.

  Nash quivered and rolled white eyes, more dramatic than necessary. The dog whined, took a few steps toward them, and Jamie got a better look. A Labrador retriever, female, old, unkempt. Scrawny. A leather collar hung loosely from her neck. When she walked, tags jingled.

  “Hey, sweetie,” Jamie called. “What are you doing out here alone?”

  She pushed aside thoughts of Gideon and looked around for the dog’s human.

  “Hello?” she called.

  No one answered.

  “Is anyone there?”

  The dog whined again and glanced up the path. A smell drifted in, nasty, like rotten garbage or manure, then just as quickly dissipated.

  Unease lifted the hairs at the back of Jamie’s neck.

  “Talk to me, Lassie.” She spoke loudly, glancing around her. “Is Timmy in the well?”

  Or had someone abandoned the animal?

  If so, they’d chosen a good spot. The tiny beach town of Sunset Bay was a couple of miles southwest of her current position. The ranch was a mile behind her by trail, three by road. It wouldn’t be the first time some jerk had unloaded an unwanted dog or cat out here. Too lazy to find them a new home, too cheap to relinquish them to a shelter, wilfully ignorant enough to believe they were “setting them free.”

  Yeah, Jamie judged them.

  “Be good, Nash.” She slipped off the horse’s back and tied the reins loosely to a branch.

  “Hey, girl,” she crooned, fishing a dog treat from her pocket. “You hungry?”

  The dog’s nose quivered, but she held back. Trust issues.

  Jamie knew about a few properties along the main road to town, but logging roads, most now abandoned, crisscrossed the area and beautiful, remote land always housed more inhabitants than met the eye.

  With sufficient motivation, enough land between you and your neighbor, and the smarts to keep your nose clean and your fences mended, residents of the area were usually willing to live and let live. People came here for privacy. To start over. Sometimes to disappear.

  The dog wagged her tail and began loping up the trail, favoring her right hind leg. And for a breed that should be stocky with muscle, this one barely had enough to cover her bony ribs.

  Jamie leaped back onto Nash and nudged him with her heel, but the gelding tossed his head and tap-danced on the path. The ranch horses were well used to dogs, but something was definitely up Nash’s butt today.

  “Quit being a baby,” she told him. “She’s half the size of Hannibal and you’re not scared of him.”

  The mastiff–pit bull cross was her success story, even though Haylee had done most of the training. He was the one that had given Jamie the itch. She wanted to do it again, channel that energy and intelligence, take that kernel of potential and nurture it into something amazing.

  She could do with another Hannibal right now.

  The bay gelding snorted and tossed his head again and obeyed, grudgingly.

  “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall,” Jamie sang, glancing around her. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer.” She paused, then switched to a conversational tone. “Why are they always on a wall? Shouldn’t they be on a shelf? They’re not posters. They’re bottles.”

  They came to where the trail branched off into a lesser-used section leading farther up into the hills, or looped gently down to hug a series of inlets and eventually return to the ranch. The dog must be headed to a property in the hills somewhere.

  “Where to now?” Jamie asked the dog. “If that’s home, then good luck. Tell someone to look after that leg of yours. You probably smell like an appetizer out here.”

  But the dog didn’t exit the downward trail. Instead, she continued to lead, picking up her limping pace enough that Jamie lost sight of her waving tail a few times. Each time, the dog doubled back, as if urging her to follow and hurry up about it.

  Intriguing. What, or whom, was the dog heading for?

  When the thick cedars and pines gave way to the lower scrub and rocky outcroppings, the Labrador sped up even more, whining. Now the dog veered off the main path, onto a smaller deer trail. Nash stopped, bobbing his head anxiously.

  “Come on,” said Jamie, urging him forward. “We’ve come this far.”

  A few yards in, the forest opened up and in front of them, framed by towering evergreens, was a small pool, carved into the basalt by the restless winter runoff from one of scores of creeks that cut through the palisade of mountains separating the ocean from the state’s interior. Nurse trees, dead as the driftwood hurled inland by som
e long-ago tsunami, flanked the creek, green saplings spiking sunward from the rotting depths. With the gentle trickling of the mountain stream in the background, it was a mossy, haunting paradise.

  “You,” Jamie told the dog, “should be a tour guide.”

  Could it be a hot spring? A trail ride with this as a destination, plus Daphne’s famous picnic lunch and an hour of swimming, would be a huge hit with ranch guests. She couldn’t wait to tell Haylee and Olivia about it. They were always looking for new activities to offer.

  The skinny Lab whined again and sat down, looking first at Jamie, then down over the edge of the pool. She barked, twice. Nash, still unsettled, swivelled his ears and snorted.

  And then Jamie heard it. A second voice, yipping and crying.

  A second dog.

  A puppy.

  Chapter Two

  Success is still an option if you use Saturn’s gifts of

  patience and persistence.

  —Jamie’s horoscope

  The back of Jamie’s neck tingled. Oh, God. Timmy wasn’t in the well. He was in the pool.

  And Timmy was a dog, not a kid, which rendered the metaphor useless. Like her, when she was nervous. And possibly hearing things.

  She leaped off Nash’s back, raced to the edge, and peered over. The movement startled the skinny dog, who backed away to the far side of the pool.

  “Is someone there?”

  She waited, her heart thudding.

  Nothing. It was hard to see. The dark rocky sides were veiled by moss and lichen, full of shadows, the water still and black.

  Her heart thudded.

  “Hello?” Jamie called again. The old dog whined again and pawed the soft dirt in front of her.

  Nothing. She sat back on her haunches, observing the Labrador.

  “What are you trying to tell me, girl? Did I hear a puppy, or has my brain finally scrambled?”

  She stood up, rummaging in her pockets. Yes, she had dog treats with her, though they were a little crumbly. She took a step closer, but the dog shrank back immediately.

  Jamie could clearly see a darkened, matted area on her back leg. Dirt? Or blood?

  Something was definitely wrong here.

  “I’m a friend, old girl. You can trust me. I’ve got a treat for you. You want a treat?”

  The dog’s ears perked up at the word.

  “You’ve got to come closer.”

  She wanted to get a better look at that wound. She glanced at Nash, still nodding his head anxiously. No way could she carry the dog. Maybe she could convince her to follow them back to the ranch. She needed help.

  Her skin twitched and Jamie scanned the greenery again. “Hello? My friends are right behind me. And my big dog, too. His name is Hannibal. Like Hannibal the Cannibal.”

  Just in case some psycho was on the loose and stalking her.

  Great. That’s exactly what she should be thinking about right now, alone, in the depths of the forest. Psycho stalkers.

  This was what happened when she let her emotions and her imagination run away with her.

  The dog huddled against a spray of ferns, watching but not coming near.

  Jamie took a deep breath and then listened once more.

  The muffled silence was broken only by the rustle of small creatures and the soft sounds of water. Had she imagined that sweet, puppyish yip?

  The Lab wiggled and lifted her head in a melodic bow-roo-roo.

  Nothing.

  Then, another yip-yip!

  “Damn, I knew it!”

  Jamie dropped to her belly and pulled herself closer to the slippery, sloping edge, keeping one hand on a thick tree root, peering into the shadowy depths until . . . there it was. Two bright, shining eyes blinking at her from the heavy undergrowth. In the water? No. Beside it. On a ledge or something. Trapped, by the look of it.

  “Hey, you,” she said on a breath.

  Another Labrador. Yellow, not chocolate. Around three or four months old. The most annoying stage of puppyhood but completely and utterly irresistible.

  “Hey, cutie-pie.” She snapped her fingers at him. “You okay?”

  With a flash of soft-skinned belly, the puppy—male—leaped to enormous feet, scrambling on the rough, narrow surface of the rock, a whirlwind of paws and teeth and limbs and the inability to recognize danger characteristic of adolescent males of any species.

  “Whoa, you knucklehead,” Jamie yelled. “Sit!”

  If he didn’t quit flailing around, he’d be in the water for sure, and while Labs were born swimmers, this looked like a fish-in-a-barrel situation. If there was a way out of the steep-edged pool, she couldn’t see it.

  To her relief, the pup promptly plunked his haunches onto the rock. He cocked his head and looked at her, no doubt awaiting a reward. Someone cared then, if not enough to keep him supervised, then at least enough for basic obedience.

  The older dog lowered her front legs and barked, then looked expectantly at Jamie.

  “You think this is a game, huh?” Jamie held her hand up in a stop-sign motion. “Stay. Both of you. I need to think. I can do that. I can.”

  Fractured memories of scoldings from her little-mourned grandmother returned at the damnedest times. Slow down! Think before talking! Just once, would you consider the consequences before going off on another wild hare.

  That saying had never made sense to her. If it was hare like rabbit, then shouldn’t it be after another wild hare? But if it was hair like . . . hair . . . well, what the heck did that mean?

  Her mind was like a wild hare.

  She sucked in a deep breath, looked around again, and saw no one. “You’re too little to be out here on your own, baby doll. But what to do?”

  She never had been able to resist a stray. Even when she’d been one herself, she’d smuggled them in: injured birds; cat-caught bunnies that always died, no matter what she did; a cocker spaniel that had turned out to belong to the old lady across the street; and finally a kitten, half-dead thanks to the sociopath son of her last foster mother.

  The kitten had gone to the pound. The son had gone to the ER. Jamie had gone to a group home with yet another flag on her file, and no regrets.

  “Looks like it’s your lucky day, pup,” she said. “Our meeting in the middle of a freaking forest was meant to be. Hang tight and I’ll save you.”

  But how? She hadn’t brought rope. What else might she be able to use to pull the pup up off the ledge? She had her belt. Maybe, if she took off her jeans, she could make a kind of sling.

  Ignoring the sensation of being watched, she tossed her denim jacket over a limb, yanked off her boots, then pulled one leg out of her jeans. She recognized the misstep a split second too late, felt the moldy edge give way beneath her foot, adjusted her balance, overcompensated, and then that was it, she was flying.

  * * *

  Gideon Low nudged his heels against the barrel belly of the roan mare. She grunted into a halting run, and he made a mental note to take her out with tomorrow’s group. She needed more exercise.

  And perhaps a ride would clear his head, though searching for Jamie wouldn’t help in that regard. He should have sent someone else after her. But she’d looked so forlorn, so discouraged, so lost, so unlike herself when she’d left, that he had to see for himself that she was okay.

  Now she’d been gone too long. Daphne was worried, and there’d been rumors of a bear in the area.

  He reached out to hold a spiky branch away from his head as they rode under it and got sprinkled with tiny dry needles that smelled sharp and astringent.

  Jamie shouldn’t be on his mind at all, but things had changed between them lately. What had been a fine, workable friendship had turned into a wretched awareness that dogged him every second of every day, an attraction he hadn’t asked for but couldn’t ignore.

  “Good girl, Rosie,” he murmured, as the mare stepped over a fallen log. He could see fresh hoofprints in the soil that must belong to Nash.

  It wasn’t just
about him now, either. Or even Jamie. There was someone else, someone more important than either of them to consider.

  He’d sent the letter last week, by registered mail, so he knew Lana had received it. Anytime now, he’d have her response, and no matter what, everything would change.

  He’d had plenty of time to prepare himself, but he was teetering on a knife’s edge, headed for a fall either way, with no easy landing in sight.

  He wished he could talk it over with someone.

  He wished he could talk it over with Jamie, but he dreaded how this secret would change her opinion of him, how learning of his failure and cowardice would strip the stars from her eyes.

  “Selfish bastard,” he muttered.

  So, he put it out of his mind and focused on the breath that went in and out of his lungs. All he had, he reminded himself, was this moment.

  That was all anyone had. The trick was to accept it.

  The green woods and the damp trail soothed him, despite everything. He wasn’t an expert tracker, but he did okay. Jamie hadn’t made it difficult. She’d crashed through the woods like a bear after honey, headstrong, heedless, thoughtless. He hoped the actual bear, if there was one, was far away by now.

  The afternoon light pierced the temperate rainforest canopy unevenly, a golden ray slanting here, grey mist brightening there, the same evergreen boughs by turn yellow, jade, and black. Birds called overhead and the dull rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker sounded in the hollow of a stag.

  “Jamie,” he called. She’d left her cell phone behind, no surprise. Up here in the woods, service was unreliable, even if she had remembered to bring it. Sanctuary Ranch attempted to be self-sustaining, collecting cell phones from guests at the start of each visit, encouraging them to stay off-grid and off-line as much as possible.

  As staff, of course, they needed to be able to communicate, for safety’s sake. They’d all been on Jamie to carry her phone with her, but half the time she still went off on her own without it.