The Man From Oklahoma. Darlene Graham
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registered little about that jolting ride off the plateau. Except for the sound of Nathan’s thudding heart and the feel of powerful muscle—both the animal’s and the man’s—she was aware of nothing.
She finally opened her eyes when she heard splashing water. She raised her head, coughing at the smoke, then felt cold water grazing her feet and found her voice. “Where are we?”
Nathan turned his head. “Hoshkahomi Creek. Unfortunately, not wide enough or deep enough to protect us. We’ll have to make it to Middle Bird Creek.”
Jamie looked around to get her bearings. Above the bare treetops, the morning sun was nothing but a weak spotlight now, shrouded in smoke.
They climbed the bank, hitting open ground, and the horse broke into a hard gallop. Jamie fumbled for a better hold, gripped Nathan’s belt buckle and clung to his middle for dear life.
It seemed forever before they stopped. She looked around at the cedars and naked sycamores that dotted the landscape. Then she leaned around Nathan’s wide back to look ahead of them. The horse stood on a rocky incline that veered toward the deep creek below. The trees on the opposite bank looked frighteningly far away. The rippling water looked too fast and deep for the horse, but as Nathan guided them down the embankment, she knew they were going to ride the stallion across.
“Where are we going?” Her voice was too loud, too anxious, and she realized she was clutching his shirtfront.
“There’s a narrow spot around the bend.” His voice reverberated through his back, making a comforting vibration against her breasts.
But the contact was also disquieting, and she attempted to ease back, creating some space between their bodies. “What will we do when we get there?”
“Cross.”
“Why don’t we hear any fire sirens?”
Silence. He was leaning around the horse’s neck to check the rocky ground ahead of them.
“Do you think the helicopter will look for us down here by the river?”
More silence.
“What will we do after we cross? Will we be safe then?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions.”
“I’m a reporter.”
The air was less smoky near the water, and she pulled the odious towel down and got a whiff of his hair, his neck, the leather jacket. He smelled like cut cedar and freshly laundered shirt—and something else purely virile and male. It was a smell that felt, at this precise moment, extremely safe. Jamie, who’d been so absorbed in her work, hadn’t been this physically close to a man in quite a while. She closed her eyes, resisting the heady intoxicating dangerous urge to collapse against him. The circumstances made her feel this way, she reasoned, not the man. This man wasn’t necessarily safe, she reminded herself. He might even be dangerous.
They came around a narrow meander in the river, and Nathan brought the horse to a stop on an alluvial wash. “This is the place,” he said as he turned the resisting animal to the river’s edge. He gave a gentle kick as he guided the stallion into the water. “Hold on tight,” he ordered.
Like I’m not already, Jamie thought. She clutched him so tightly that the hind bow of the saddle cut into her midriff.
Bird Creek in October was unpleasantly cold. Jamie couldn’t help but think of the damage to her expensive suede pumps and two-hundred-dollar silk suit. But when the horse skidded unevenly on the rocky bottom, she forgot about her ruined clothes. Nathan leaned with all his power to keep them steady. The cold water crept up and soon the horse was swimming.
When the water reached her thighs Jamie sucked in a shocked “Ahh!” and Nathan turned his head. His teeth flashed white in the first smile she’d seen from this man. “Better chilled than burned to a crisp.” But even as he said it, he pressed the warm undersides of his muscular arms over her hands. “Hang on,” he encouraged. “We’re almost there.”
Nathan and the horse handled the current masterfully, but when they bounded onto the opposite shore, the stallion turned mutinous. He tossed his head and reared, churning his forelegs high in the air as Jamie held on and again squeezed her eyes shut, plastered herself to Nathan’s back and pressed her cheek against his powerful shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Nathan asked, when he had the animal under control again.
Jamie nodded against his back. She imagined he could feel her trembling clear through the jacket.
They climbed the bank and she felt him twist the horse around. She opened her eyes to see fire snapping over the ridge in the distance.
“There goes Grandfather’s cabin,” Nathan commented sadly.
“I’m so sorry,” Jamie whispered. She didn’t even want to ask about the ranch buildings—or that grand old house. “Are your other horses here on this side of the river?” she hoped to distract him from his losses.
“Somewhere.” His answer was flat. “We can stop here for a minute.” She felt him kicking his boot free of the stirrup. “Down you go.”
Their legs bumped while she fumbled for the stirrup. Once in, she swung her other leg over the horse quickly, determined to demonstrate that she was as intrepid as he was. But her muscles were taxed and already stiffening with chills, and when she hit the ground, her legs felt weaker than water. She would have landed squarely on her behind if he hadn’t tightened his firm grip on her forearm.
“Easy,” he said as he dismounted.
Jamie nodded and found her way to an outcropping of rock and lowered herself shakily. Nathan tied the horse to a low branch.
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