Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(10)

Look at her go. It’s like she was born to it, Miz Walton.

Watching me, Mom frowned, though I’d blushed to the roots at the old man’s praise. Used to feeling awkward and klutzy, from the moment I climbed in the saddle it was like my hands and feet took on a mind of their own. On the horse, I’d felt graceful for the first time in my life. The smells and the movement of the horse and leather beneath me was familiar, like returning to an old friend. It felt wonderful. It felt right.

After Mom died, Dad never mentioned the lessons. I could’ve said something, I suppose. But it hadn’t seemed right without her. So I’d kept quiet, and the one activity I had loved slid to the wayside.

“I’m away to the south pasture to check the flock.” Mac walked his horse over to the gate and leaned down to open it. “Ye’ll have but a few hours of peace, lass. I’d enjoy them if I were you. When Lu returns tomorrow, things may become . . . different.”

He frowned, as if he wanted to say more.

“Mac?” I nipped at a cuticle on my free hand. Moira’s warning echoed in my head, but I had to try one last time. “When was my mother here last?” I trailed off as his eyes cut away.

He clucked to his gelding, who ambled over until our knees almost touched.

“Lass,” the word came on a sigh. “I don’t pretend to understand what you’ve suffered. You’ve been through the wringer, and that’s the truth of it. But I’m knowing one thing for certain.” He placed a rough, careworn hand over mine where they gripped the reins. “Our darlin’ Sarah loved ye more than life itself. And she did her best by ye. And so too will all of us here. Ye can take to the bank, aye?”

My throat closed. “Yeah,” I whispered.

“Away with ye now,” he sniffed, and wheeled his horse. “But be careful, aye? And dinna be too long. Moira’ll have my hide if ye miss supper.”

“Thank you, Mac.”

With a backwards wave, he moved off toward the opposite fence.





The horse responded to the barest pressure of my knees as she trotted down the long valley and out onto the magnificence of the Highland moor.

Ethel splashed through the narrow burn, which twisted and turned upon itself, growing deeper and faster the closer we got to the huge mountain range that bordered the uplands to the north. These were higher, misty and still snowcapped, even in June. Weaving through clumps of gorse and thistle with ease, the mare wended her way around the waist-high boulders that sprouted up like mushrooms.

When I loosened the reins, Ethel’s powerful muscles bunched and elongated under me. Strands of hair lashed my face as the wind whipped past. The roar of the river ahead pounded and my body began to relax, to move in rhythm with the horse’s gait.

A pitted boulder appeared before us. I jerked on the reins, but Ethel apparently had a different idea. She raced straight toward the rock. My mouth opened in a scream that turned to a shout of pure joy as we soared over it.

With the horse pounding beneath me, I felt alive. I felt free.

A glint of reflected sunlight caught my eye. I reined up, squinting across the brush at a figure on horseback that had emerged from behind a large clump of rock. He—pretty sure it was a he—held something to his face that winked in the weakening sun.

Binoculars? Is someone watching me?

When I clucked at Ethel and headed toward him, the man veered his horse and raced off in the opposite direction. Curious now, I nudged the mare into an easy canter. Ahead of us, the stranger galloped away. Every once in a while he glanced back, as if gauging the distance. He was looking behind him when they crested a steep hill. His horse—apparently not in the mood for a jump—planted its hoofs. The rider went flying over the animal’s head, disappearing from view as the now-riderless horse shied and galloped away.

“Oh. Crap,” I said, and kicked my heels hard into Ethel’s flanks.





I dismounted beside a steep riverbank. Below, the clear brown water dashed against the boulders, drowning out any other noise.

“Hey!” I yelled, but the guy had disappeared.

When I edged closer, the damp earth of an overhang crumbled beneath me. Arms pinwheeling, down the slope I went, crashing through mud and brush, before I fetched up—panting—at the pebbled edge of the surging river.

I saw him then, tangled in a patch of undergrowth at the water’s edge, like a piece of driftwood. He was sprawled face-up across a flat rock, clothes splattered with mud, laces of his brown hiking boots floating in the swift current. He wasn’t moving.

My jeans wicked up the frigid water as I splashed through the shallows toward him. His head lay cocked at an angle that hid his face. I couldn’t tell if he was even alive.

“Oh God oh God oh God.” A crimson ribbon of blood trickled from his dark hair to stain the mossy rock.

“Hey,” I called. “Hey, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

The stranger’s ripped shirt lay open beneath a crumpled camp jacket, revealing a terrible scrape across a tanned chest. His visible hand hung bruised and still, the long tapered fingers dangling in the water.

What if he’s dead? What do I do?

Dread dug sharp claws into my spine as I splashed to his side. His chest moved up and down.

Thank God.

I carefully shook his shoulder. “Hey! You all right? Wake up. Can you hear me?”