A Cache of Trouble: A Cassidy Callahan Novel. Kelly Rysten

I can’t watch her do it anymore. I watched her get thrown once, and the horse fell on top of her. I thought I’d lost her right then and there. But she got up, dusted herself off and got back up on the horse again.”

      “Ranch procedure, you know that.”

      “Yeah, but I’ll never understand it. One of my favorite things to do is watch Cassidy stalk deer. There is a place where we like to go camping and nearby is a meadow where deer graze. She can get into the herd and lay there with the deer all around her. She has taught me how to do it a little but I’ll never be as good at it as she is. And she knows how to be invisible in the woods. A time or two I’ve looked for her when she was trying to stay hidden and she is impossible to find if she doesn’t want to be found.”

      Chase followed all this with interest.

      “Rusty asked me to teach him how to track and we spent two days out in the hills by the ranch, me walking, him tracking. He’s getting better at it. I tend to hide my tracks without thinking about it so it has been good practice for him.”

      “Cassidy, do you mind me asking? How old are you?” Rusty’s mom interjected, “You don’t look old enough to have done all this. When I first saw you I thought you were fifteen.”

      “I’m twenty-five. Eighteen years on the ranch, four years in the Marines, one year of marriage, no kids, no messy divorce, one ugly plane crash, six months of…of, well, and then I met Rusty.”

      “It took me forever to get her to go out with me,” Rusty said.

      “No it didn’t, we went out the very first day we met.”

      “That wasn’t a date, that was an interrogation.”

      “An interrogation over pizza.”

      “If she was a date she was the sorriest looking date you ever saw. Black eye, ripped up clothes from being roughed up, tape marks from being tied up. After she went through all that, we lost the guy and she tracked him down for me. I didn’t even know she could track. There she was all bruised and beaten and she takes off after the guy that did it to her, leads me to a mobile home park, finds the trailer he’s holed up in, almost got her head blown off.”

      Rusty’s dad watched us with professional detachment. The others looked like they were listening to campfire stories. I ate and talked. Rusty’s mom didn’t say much but she listened carefully. Cody and Chase enjoyed the stories. I think Chase was trying to piece together just how a girl like me could have come about. He knew how hard it was to make a good tracker and to have one, especially of the female persuasion, land on his doorstep was particularly intriguing.

      Slowly night settled over the house.

      “You aren’t really going to make Cassidy sleep on the floor in the attic, are you?” Bev said.

      “No, I’m going to make her sleep on a mattress on the balcony. She’s used to tents and worse. In the mine… What did you do in the mine? I never thought to ask.”

      “I only had my day pack so we just slept on the ground.” There was that worried hug again. “The mattress will be fine.”

      We climbed up to the attic and Rusty pulled up the stairs from the inside. He wrapped me in a warm hug, hands straying, but more as a comfort to him than anything sensual. He was still feeling the worry and the stories over dinner hadn’t helped. He led me out onto the balcony where the night breezes were blowing lightly. The pool shimmered below in the starlight.

      “If you wake up in the night and you can’t sleep, wake me up too,” he said with a gentle kiss.

      “Okay, why?”

      “I chose the attic for a reason.”

      We lay on the mattress out on the balcony, snuggled close, watching the stars. Now I was too curious to sleep. The breeze tickled my skin. I watched as the lights in the surrounding houses slowly went out one by one until we were finally in the dark.

      “Darkness doesn’t bother you after the mine?”

      “No, it didn’t even bother me when I was in the mine. It’s like I tell kids when I speak at schools. If they are lost in the forest, the place where they are is no more dangerous than the place they intended to be. So many people get scared and panic when they get lost, but there is no need to. Wherever they are is just as safe as where they wanted to be. When it’s dark all the same things are there that can be seen in the light. If there’s nothing to fear with the light on, then why worry when it is off?”

      “You can’t sleep?”

      “How do you expect me to sleep when you’ve got me curious about something?”

      He smiled then got up and looked over the railing at the downstairs windows. All dark. He went to the little window facing the front of the house and looked out. All dark. He put his ear to a wall in the corner of the attic. He smiled again.

      “You? Curious?’ he said. “You never get curious.”

      “Ha,” I said, “you know better than that. You probably did this to me on purpose just so I wouldn’t go to sleep.”

      He smiled again. He went to a corner of the balcony and pulled out a rope ladder. “If the house catches on fire, and you’re stuck in the attic, climb down this ladder to the backyard and run, through the gate to the meeting spot. That’s what my dad always said when I was little. What I heard is, this ladder is your easy access to the pool. The ladder’s nice and quiet and, if we go down this way, the stairs won’t creak and the porch light doesn’t flash on like it would if we went out the back door. Follow me.”

      “I don’t have my swim suit. It’s drying downstairs.”

      “Who needs one when nobody’s up?”

      Skinny-dipping in Rusty’s parent’s pool? My heart rate suddenly doubled. We stepped silently down the rope ladder and padded over to the pool.

      “It’s been warming in the sun all day. I hope it’s not too warm. I’ve come out here at night and found the pool bathwater temperature.”

      “You really think I’m going to swim at your parent’s house in the nude?”

      “You don’t have to,” he said taking off his t-shirt and teasing me with it. He took off his boxers and eased into the pool. He gave me a pleading look.

      I glanced around at all the windows I could see before slipping out of my tank top and panties. I slipped into the pool, delighting in the cool caresses, scared to death the porch light would come on. Rusty motioned for me and I swam towards him, trying not to splash. It’s amazing how noisy the water was even though we were trying to be quiet. Each little drip and splash seemed magnified. I put my arms around Rusty’s neck and he waded out to deeper water. He stopped when the water became neck deep. He laughed at me as I dunked myself trying to stand up. Then he caught me around the waist and pulled me to him so I could hold on.

      “Arms around my neck. Feet around my waist. Now, if you want to float just let go with one or the other.”

      “If I stay like this, do you really think we will last ten minutes in the pool?”

      “It depends. It’s your choice.”

      Gulp, okay. I took that to mean he wouldn’t mind rushing up the ladder and making love until we crashed out. I had to admit, it was one of the more pleasant ways to get to sleep. I let go with my hands, laying back in the water.

      “Mmm,” he said softly, “I think ten minutes is stretching it.”

      I looked up into eyes full of longing. I felt hands encircle my waist, then fingers wandering up my front, fingers teasing my nipples. Shivers ran down my body and my legs tightened around his waist. Oh yeah, I thought ten minutes was definitely stretching it. He put his hands under my back pulling me up for a kiss. It was deep and sensual, with a lot of tongue. His hands on my back tightened. I wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging tight, skin to