A Texas Rescue Christmas. Caro Carson
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the spare two-gallon gas can on the floor. The sight of that gas can sitting on the concrete slab, forgotten, chilled Trey in a way the weather could not. If the gasoline was here, then she’d run out of gas there. The only way she’d make it back to the ranch was if he went and got her.
He’d known that, too, standing in the black-and-white kitchen.
He shut the shed door against the howl of the storm and started tying supplies onto the back of the second ATV. It only took him minutes, thanks to the miracle of having his memories of the ranch. He’d gone camping with his brother, when his brother had wanted to learn how to build a campfire. Gone fishing with his father, when his biggest problem had been deciding if he liked baseball or football better. Gone riding the fence line after his last football game as a high school senior, checking all seventy-five thousand acres of the main section of the ranch with the foreman. He knew how to survive outdoors on the James Hill Ranch.
Trey rolled the ATV out of the shed, shut the door as Miss Rebecca Cargill had, sat on the ATV as she had and started the engine. Tracks led in every direction from the shed, and with the ground hard with ice, none of them look fresher than any other. Instead, he looked to the horizon and tried to view the ranch through her eyes, so he could guess which way she’d decided to go.
The strained girl in the driver’s license photo had needed to get away. She’d shown up to a wedding where no one knew she existed, and a phone call had sent her right back out the door. He couldn’t imagine what from, but she’d run. He didn’t know why, but she’d wanted to be alone. Badly. Immediately.
Straight. She wouldn’t have headed to any of the scenic spots like a visitor would, nor had she gone to check the water level in the creek like a ranch hand. She’d only needed to get away from some kind of situation that had no other solution, so she’d left her phone and her purse and her life, pointed the ATV away from the house and gone.
She’d driven as fast as she could, eating up the gas. She’d wanted space. Freedom. So as Trey drove, he chose the most obvious routes and the most level ground, keeping the last signs of civilization at his back. At every decision point, he chose the easiest path, the one that would allow him to get as far away as quickly as he could. And when his gas tank was on empty, he saw the bright blue ATV parked in the middle of one of the most remote pastures on his land.
He’d found Rebecca Cargill, because he’d known that she’d been running from a fate she couldn’t control. He understood that emotion.
The year that he’d turned nineteen, he had done the same.
The storm was getting worse. Becky’s time was getting shorter, her body getting colder, her lungs struggling as the air temperature dropped lower and lower. She wanted to sleep, oh, so very badly. Staying conscious in the constant, inescapable cold had worn her out in a way she’d never experienced. If only she could sink down among the oak’s roots and sleep...
She would die. When she finally closed her eyes today, they would not open again.
She wasn’t ready for that.
There was so much she hadn’t experienced. Her entire life, she’d been waiting to start living. Wrapped in her demure cashmere sweaters, standing still by her mother’s side, she’d been waiting for permission.
Waiting to meet a wonderful man. Waiting to have her own home, a permanent home, the kind that children would return to every Christmas, even when they were grown with families of their own. Waiting to live a life Becky knew existed for other people, one full of ups and downs, one she wanted to experience for herself.
Now, she was waiting for a miracle.
She curled her arms around herself a little tighter and slid down the tree trunk. She looked up at the little roof that had kept the worst of the sleet off her head and shoulders. She was afraid her meager attempt at shelter had only delayed the inevitable. Really afraid.
She couldn’t stay on her feet any longer, but she kept her eyes open, because she did not want to die yet. One little miracle, that was all she needed.
“Rebecca Cargill!”
She shuddered in misery as she imagined an angry male voice shouting her name. When the brain froze, did one suffer delusions before dying?
“Rebecca!”
Goodness, that sounded so real.
“Where are you, darlin’?”
It was a miracle. Somewhere close by, an angry man was her miracle.
Here, I’m here, she tried to call. Her jaw had been so tightly clenched against the cold, she couldn’t force the muscles to relax so she could speak.
I’m here, I’m here, don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave.
She hugged the tree trunk instead of herself. Using her arms as much as her legs, she hauled herself back to her feet.
“Rebecca. Good God.”
Before she could turn around, she was swept off her feet, wrenched away from her tree and held against a man’s chest instead. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck, not because it felt like he might drop her, but because she was so grateful he was here. But her whole body was so stiff, her arms wouldn’t obey her brain.
“Stay with me, darlin’. We’ll get you warmed up. Just stay with me.”
Did he think she’d rather stay with that tree? That tree had not cared that she was there. Now that she was not alone, she realized how very lonely she’d been. Hour after hour, she’d been the only living creature. Even the birds and insects had disappeared into their own shelters. It had been Becky and a tree. And ice.
His boots crunched over the ground as he carried her, and he seemed to take very long strides and move very quickly. It was disorienting, to suddenly be with another human being. She was no longer alone. Thank God, she was not alone.
“Okay, Rebecca? Are you with me?”
I’m trying to answer you. Give me a minute. Her jaw didn’t want to unclench, but she nodded.
He looked down at her then, and over the scarf that covered the lower half of his face, under the brim of his cowboy hat, she tried to make eye contact, but he wore wide ski goggles.
Goggles. The concept burst into her brain like they were a new invention. How convenient goggles would have been while riding in the cold wind. Every inch of his face was covered, which made him seem incredibly smart to her. And beautiful. The mere fact that he was here made him the most beautiful person on earth.
“Was that a nod,” he asked, “or just a shiver?”
She tried to smile at her beautiful rescuer, and she thought she’d succeeded in making her frozen facial muscles move, but he only looked away again, and kept walking.
He can’t see my face, either.
She hadn’t been smart enough to prepare for this weather, so she’d had to make do. She’d pulled her ski hat down low and her collar up high, but her eyes had been exposed, so a few hours ago, she’d taken the long strings of her ski cap and wrapped them across her eyes and tied them behind her head. She could see out through the slit in between them.
They’d reached an ATV, a black one, and the man set her on the seat. “Let me get you a blanket— Hey!”
She had no balance. She’d tried to grab for the handlebar, but her disobedient body hadn’t responded and she’d started to do a face plant into the ground. The man had reflexes like some kind of ninja, because he caught her. Keeping one hand on her, he tugged at some gear behind the seat and produced a blanket. It looked like a giant sheet of aluminum foil, but Becky knew it was a thermal blanket.
Despite the