Reunited With The Cowboy. Claire McEwen
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This trail wasn’t that far from the highway. Was he some kind of homeless wanderer? A serial killer?
She had to get a grip. She’d spent her entire adult life in the wilderness. Had never met a problem she couldn’t handle. But that wilderness had been remote and isolated. Not like this area, so close to cities and towns. And people.
She tried to put authority in her shaking tone. “I’m with the Department of Wildlife. Lower your weapon.”
He lowered it to his side and pointed it toward the ground.
“Is it loaded?”
“Yes.”
Maya’s blood chilled when she heard the safety click. He’d been ready to shoot. Could so easily have ended her life with just a twitch of a finger. The knowledge rippled down her spine, and one of her knees started shaking like it had a mind of its own.
The man spoke quietly. “Did you get hurt when you fell? Do you want some light?”
Her flashlight. She should have reached for it right away. Maya grabbed it now and directed its beam straight at his face.
“Hey!” He tilted his head down and brought a forearm across his eyes. “Can you shine that somewhere else?”
“Not until you put the gun on the ground.” She shoved every ounce of confidence she’d ever felt into her voice.
“Not easy to do when you’re blinding me.”
“Just put it down.” Her heart was going to pound right through her ribs if he didn’t get rid of that gun.
“Okay! Hang on.” He walked a few steps backward and slowly bent to set the gun on the ground. As he straightened, he tilted his hat back and looked right at her, squinting to protect his eyes. “Can you move the light now?”
She couldn’t move the light. Didn’t know if she’d ever move anything again, because now she could see his face, and it was Caleb. Caleb Dunne.
A metallic taste coated her tongue, and she swallowed hard. Both of her knees were shaking now, and the flashlight beam quivered with her trembling hand as if her entire body was rebelling at the sight of him. Rebelling against this homecoming, which was already turning into the disaster she’d always assumed it would be.
She had to lower the light. It was wrong to keep blinding him. But if she lowered it, he’d realize who she was. And Maya already knew what his reaction would be. Rage. Disgust. Horror. Because she was the last person Caleb would want to meet on this trail, or anywhere else.
Still, they couldn’t stay like this forever. Maya forced her hand down, every millimeter of motion triggering an exponential increase in dread. She had no hat brim to hide under, and the moon was rising higher, the pearly light bathing them. As the beam reached the ground, she heard Caleb’s sharp gasp of recognition. He took a stiff step forward. Then another.
“Maya?” His voice was hollow, as if just the sight of her gutted him.
There was nothing she could do but stand there while he stared, his dark eyes burning into her, branding her a murderer. The name he’d called her the last time she’d seen him, so many years ago.
There was nowhere to run this time, no bus to catch, no remote Colorado wilderness to hide in, as she’d done for almost a decade now. A strange, slow feeling seeped through her, resignation so strong, it was almost relief, easing the turmoil in her mind, allowing her to move a step or two toward him. This meeting she’d feared and dreaded for so long was right here upon her, and there was nothing she could do but accept whatever came next.
“Yes,” she said softly. “It’s me. Maya. I’m home.”
* * *
FOR A SPLIT SECOND Caleb wondered if Maya was actually real. Still as prey, with moonlight painting shadows around her eyes, she was almost ghostlike. Fitting, since she’d haunted him for all these years.
His hands had become fists, and he carefully unclenched them, trying to fathom her presence on this trail. “Why are you here?” It came out in a hoarse whisper.
“Work.” She twisted the light nervously in her hands, casting wild shapes across the ground between them. “And to see my grandmother. Why are you here?”
He heard the question, knew he should answer, but it was Maya, standing right here in front of him, and his words were boulders lodged in his throat. Caleb swallowed hard and tried to take her in. He’d never thought he’d see her again.
A thought skittered around his mind like a panicked rabbit. He’d almost shot her. If it had been a darker night, if she hadn’t fallen and let out that yelp, if he’d been a different rancher, less patient and more trigger-happy... There were so many scenarios in which he could have shot her. If he had, he’d be standing over her bleeding, broken body right now.
The image sent the night reeling, the moon spinning, his heart pounding through his veins. He’d wanted that mountain lion, had been looking so hard for it that a part of his brain had assumed that was exactly what she was. Fear blazed into anger. “You’re crazy, walking out here on your own.”
Her shrug dismissed his worry like it meant nothing. “I’ve spent most of my adult life outside, on my own.”
She reminded him of how little he knew her now. And how well he once had.
“I could have shot you,” he blurted out, not in control, not able to decide which of the words, dislodged now and tumbling through his head in a landslide, he should actually say out loud.
He could hear the shaky breath she drew. “Do you wish you had?”
“What?” Aghast, he took a step closer. “No. Never. I’m not a murderer.”
As soon as he’d spoken the word, he froze. Murderer. He’d called Maya that the last time he’d seen her. He’d been called that himself, a few times since. And the irony wasn’t lost on him. She hadn’t been a murderer, hadn’t even been guilty. But he probably was.
Of course the military shrink had told him different. But Caleb had made mistakes in Afghanistan that he couldn’t forgive. He’d hoped to leave them behind now that he was home for good, but he hadn’t known then that regret had no borders. How things you put aside in the daytime ran rampant in your mind at night. Another reason he was out on the trail tonight. It was easier out here, hunting, protecting his livestock, than tossing and turning, desperate for sleep, even while dreading the dreams that sleep might bring.
“I don’t wish you harm, Maya.”
She huffed out a shaky laugh. “Well, seeing as we’re alone out here, and you have a gun, I’m glad to hear it.”
“I’m after a mountain lion. It’s been killing my sheep.”
She stilled then—nothing he could see, but something he could sense.
“Really?” She gave a strange little hollow laugh. “Well, isn’t that just perfect?”
Her sarcasm baffled him. Then he remembered what she’d said moments before. That she was with the Department of Wildlife.
“I have a permit. A depredation permit. To kill the lion.”
“I’ll need to see it.”
It was like looking into a twisted carnival mirror, where nothing was as it seemed. Maya, on a trail near his ranch, in the middle of the night. Maya, suddenly sounding official and asking for his paperwork. Which, of course, he didn’t have with him.
Not for the first time, Caleb wished he’d reenlisted. Just stayed in the Marine Corps forever and never come back to Shelter Creek. Home, ranching...it was supposed to be simple. But every day brought a new complication. “I left the permit back at the ranch.”
She sighed as if she couldn’t believe his incompetence. “Okay. Well, please don’t shoot anything until I’ve seen that permit.”