High Country Hero. Lynna Banning

back. Mama cried and cried, thinking she wouldnever see me again.”

      “I allus know you vill come back, Miss Sage. Cal, he said you’d marry some back East man vat talks funny, but I know better.” He tapped his forehead. “I t’ink to myself that daughter of Billy West and your pretty mama never be happy anywhere but here.”

      Cord noticed that she waved until she could no longer see the liveryman. It was obvious they were friends. She was known here. Respected. Even loved.

      He scanned the length of the main street. Hotel, newspaper office, mercantile, saloon, marshal’s office. Nice little town, the kind where everybody knew everybody else, where kids grew up together and got married and raised kids themselves.

      He tried to swallow, but something hard was stuck in his throat.

      Before they had traveled three-quarters of a mile, Sage decided she didn’t like him. He set a pace she couldn’t match, and then he leaned back in the saddle and tipped his face into the breeze as if he’d never smelled wild honeysuckle before. As if he’d been starving and here was nourishment in the scent of the air. He stayed that way, looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world, while she pushed her mount to keep up.

      She rode well. Her father had put her up on a pony before she was out of pinafores, and when she could jump three flour barrels without losing her seat, he taught her Indian tricks. How to grip with her knees and fire a rifle at a dead run. How to swing sideways out of the saddle and snatch up a hat off the ground.

      She sucked her breath in and wished she could stop to rest, just for a minute. When she realized she couldn’t, at least not without losing her guide, she blew the air out and straightened her shoulders. What she needed on this trip was not Indian tricks but stamina. Could she be getting soft at twenty-five?

      How could he ride that way, sitting the dark mare in that slouched, lazy manner, one hand resting on his thigh, the other holding the reins so loosely the leather barely moved? She’d laugh if a prairie dog spooked his horse; he’d topple off in one second flat. She kept her eye on him. If it happened, she didn’t want to miss it.

      For the next four hours their route followed the west bank of the Umpqua as it looped and curved its way around stands of Douglas fir and house-high piles of granite boulders. She knew the river, loved every inch of its swift-flowing, emerald waters. She’d learned to swim near her uncle John’s place, where the river slowed and widened to lap a sandy beach.

      She never liked swimming much. She preferred wading in the shallows, where she could see the stones on the river bottom and knew exactly where to place her feet.

      Her mouth felt dry as a dish towel and tasted the same. Would that man never slow down? She was panting for breath, her mouth open; by nightfall her teeth would be black with trail dust.

      Nightfall? She eyed the sun, just tipping behind the treetops on the ridge ahead of them. She’d never make it till nightfall.

      “Mr. Lawson?” she gasped.

      He twisted to look back at her but kept his horse moving.

      Oh, the devil with the man! She reined in, brought the mare to a stop and reached for her canteen. She’d downed a single swallow of water when it was wrenched out of her grasp.

      “You stop when I stop. Drink when I drink. Someone who’s been shot might not have much time.”

      “I am going as fast as I can.” She’d like to fling the contents of the canteen in his face, but she’d be thirsty later if she did. Blast the man. The worst part of it was that he was right—a person with a bullet wound was looking death in the face.

      He screwed the cap back on and handed over the container. “Let’s ride.”

      Well, of all the… What if she had to urinate? Would he stride back into the bushes and yank up her drawers? The thought was so bizarre she laughed out loud.

      He turned in the saddle and pinned her with a questioning look in those hard, gray-green eyes.

      “It’s nothing,” she said quickly.

      But what if her bladder were ready to burst? What would she have to do to make him stop?

      She kneed the horse forward and studied the man’s back. Cordell Lawson wasn’t as easygoing as he appeared. He was driving himself hard and dragging her along with him. Her thighs burned. Her neck hurt from tipping her head against the sun. This was, she realized, a perfect example of mismatched traveling companions. She was human, and he was not.

      The trail narrowed and began to climb. Halfway up the steep path she knew she couldn’t make it. Rocks jutted above her, and below, the river glinted silver. If the horse stumbled…

      She drew rein and stopped.

      Cord heard the horse’s steps cease. What now? He kept on, hoping she would resume her pace, but no sound came from behind him. Clenching his teeth, he turned his mount.

      She had halted in the middle of the trail and was sitting there, slumped in the saddle, with that ridiculous feather drooped over her face. But her hands told him all he needed to know. She wore deerskin riding gloves, and while he couldn’t see her knuckles, he knew from the way she gripped the saddle horn that her hands would ache come sundown. Especially if she hadn’t sat a horse in—what had she said?—six years. And they’d been on the trail for a full seven hours. Hell, she wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week.

      Of all the doctors in Oregon, why did he have to find her? She was prim and proper and saddle-green. Too slim and willowy to be very strong. And female. Very definitely female—moods and all. Probably enjoyed herself only once a year, at Christmas.

      He’d bet she’d never taken a bath in the woods, either. In two days she’d smell like a rotting cabbage. If there was one thing that spoiled the pleasure of the mountains and the sky and the sweet, fresh air it was a partner who smelled bad.

      For a long minute he sat still and watched her. Just when he thought maybe he ought to say something, she kicked her mare and it jolted forward.

      She moved toward him, still bent over the saddle horn, her head down, not even watching where she was going. Her shoulders were hunched tight with exhaustion.

      But she was moving. She had sand; he’d say that for her.

      Chapter Three

      Cord watched the exhausted woman pry her fingers off the saddle horn and lay the mare’s leather reins in her lap. For the last three hours, as they’d climbed the slope to where the trail leveled off at Frog Jump Butte, she’d hung on by sheer force of will, and her face showed it. Beneath the brim of that sad-looking gray felt hat her eyelids were almost shut.

      He let loose an irrepressible snort. No wonder. She was fighting to stay awake, clinging to the hard leather pommel like she’d been glued there.

      “Let’s make camp,” he called.

      There was no response.

      He dismounted and peered through the darkness at her form, still hunched so low in the saddle the purple feather in her hatband brushed the mare’s ear.

      “You all right?” he ventured.

      After a long silence, a gravelly voice drifted out of the shadows. “Do you always travel like this? Of course I am not all right. I’m half-dead.”

      “Travel like what? You’re not half-dead. You can still talk, can’tcha? I hate a woman who exaggerates.”

      She straightened, groaned and tried to swing her leg over the horse’s back to dismount. “I know your friend is in need of medical help, but you travel like someone is breathing down your neck.”

      She gave up, hefted her bottom over the cantle and slid off the mare backward. When her feet hit the ground, she grasped the animal’s tail to keep from staggering and leaned her forehead against the mare’s hindquarters.

      “Maybe someone is,” he said.

      She