Promise Canyon (Virgin River #13)(86)

She turned Blue back toward the clinic; surely Clay would have returned by now. She wanted to get off the plateau and down the narrow trail before it was almost dark.

The horse began to dance a little beneath her. "Easy, my love," she said gently, taking a firmer hold on the reins, tightening her knees. The horse relaxed, but in a moment she danced again. Just ahead a small flock of birds shot out of a bush and Blue shied again. "Birds, baby. Nothing but birds."

The horse was spooked; she threw her head, fighting the bit, and bounced on her front legs. Blue never acted like this! She was the calmest horse in the stable. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Lilly said. She looked around for something that frightened the horse, something she hadn't seen yet, a snake or small animal, but she saw nothing. These nervous reactions went on every few moments. "Okay, it's okay, we're heading home," Lilly said. "No more acting up... Shhh. Shhh."

Lilly calmed the mare and continued down the trail. It wasn't too narrow and was made up of a series of switchbacks on the way down so if Blue was skittish, they'd still manage. They'd barely begun their descent when she noticed a white plastic grocery sack stuck to a bush and fluttering in the breeze just ahead of them. "Easy, easy," she said softly, using her legs and a calm but firm grasp of the reins.

It all happened at once. Lilly felt a shaking travel up the legs of her mount; what sounded like a distant rumble accompanied the vibration and the horizon seemed to blur. Blue began to dance backward, away, rearing slightly. At that moment a brisk gust of cool wind snapped that plastic bag off the bush and sent it flying right past Blue. The horse took a fright, whinnied and reared suddenly, unsteadily, throwing Lilly off her back.

Lilly hit the shaking ground with an ooomph! She bounced! She rolled away from the horse as quickly as she could to avoid getting trampled and in doing so rolled to the edge of the trail. Blue had trouble getting her footing and Lilly went off the edge and down the hill. She grabbed at a thorny shrub as she rolled by it, cutting her hands, but she couldn't hold on.

While the ground shook violently, she heard her horse scream in fear and take off like a shot, running from whatever danger there was.

And Lilly rolled out of control down the hill, her head bouncing off rocks, until she came to a stop against a big, thick, unforgiving tree trunk. She lay there, still, while the ground shook and gradually calmed beneath her.

Although she was banged up, her hands bleeding, and she had a big knot on her head, her first concern was Blue. If the horse lost her footing on that trail and fell down the hill she could break bones. And for a horse that could be catastrophic.

She started to make her way up the hill on her hands and knees, pulling with her injured hands on a tree or shrub here, bracing a foot against a rock or tree there. Even though it wasn't a real steep hill, her progress was very slow. It had been a long time since she'd been thrown. Her whole body hurt, though nothing seemed broken. By the time she got to the trail at the top, not even a puff of dust from her horse remained. Blue could be in Arizona by the time she stopped being terrified of the moving earth and the ghostly white bag.

The sun was lowering behind the western mountains. The temperature was already dropping. And it was a long damn walk back to the stable.

"Crap," she said. "If I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all!"

Clay had returned from the coffee shop to the clinic by 4:00 p.m., before the earthquake hit. They kept a very strict feeding schedule, but one of the first things he noticed was that Lilly's Jeep was there. His chest immediately swelled with hope that must have shown all over his face. When he found Annie in the barn the first thing she said was, "She took Blue out for a ride and will be back before long. She wants to talk to you. I hope you can make things right with her."

"I hope so, too, Annie, and I'll try. Because I love her, too."

"The last few days have been torture," Annie said, "I don't know all the details about what happened with you two, but she said you made her crazy."

He smiled. "Is that so? Well, she did her part to make me crazy, too. I went to see Dane. He helped me as much as he could without completely betraying her trust."

"Good for you," Annie said with a slight smile. "You're going to fight for her!"

"Of course I am, though she hasn't made it real easy. When do you think she'll be back in?"

"I thought by now--she knows we feed on a schedule. Soon, I would expect."

"Do you know where she went?"

"She just said she was going out on the trail. I assume one of the ones that lead around the back pasture and into the foothills, but she didn't say. You're going to hang around and wait, aren't you?"

"Absolutely," he said. "I'll finish up with these horses and turn them out. I know you want to get to the house and draw Nathaniel's bath and chill his beer mug while he lounges around tonight." Then he grinned. "Go ahead. Leave Lilly to me."

"Cute," she said, turning to go. Then she turned back and said, "Try to do something productive tonight, like get our girlfriend back!"

She was already gone when he said, "I'll do all I can."

Gabe had football practice and wasn't coming to the stable today, so Clay busied himself cleaning stalls, sweeping out an already swept barn, even organizing the tack room, waiting. He frequently looked out the back doors and down the road that led around the east pasture. The sun was setting earlier and earlier now that fall was full on the land and by five-thirty it was turning to dusk.