Cowboy Christmas Rescue: Rescuing the Witness / Rescuing the Bride. Beth Cornelison

He’d have a hard enough time navigating in this wretched weather and getting them both back to the Wheeler Ranch safely.

      As he traveled deeper into the path of the thunderstorm, the pounding rain and whipping winds obscured visibility. The trail of hoof prints got harder and harder to follow as the storm washed the impressions away. But since Kara had seemed to be traveling a straight path, logic said his best bet was to forge ahead in the same direction the trail had been going.

      Flat land gave way to sloping rock and ravines. Small streams of runoff filled every dip and crevice in the increasingly steep terrain. Surely Kara hadn’t ventured into such dangerous terrain alone, especially not during a thunderstorm...

      Within seconds of that thought, a movement to his right caught Brady’s attention. The gray mare Kara had ridden away on trotted out from the shallow end of a ravine. Without a rider.

      * * *

      Okay, Kara thought as the mare disappeared down the arroyo, so you lost the horse. You’re stranded. The gully is filling with swift water. It looks bad, but you can’t panic.

      Fruitlessly wiping water off her face, Kara drew a slow, deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. Stay calm and think.

      The first thing she had to do was get out of the arroyo. Seeing as how she didn’t know how far the horse had come up the arroyo—damn it, why hadn’t she paid attention where she was going?—and seeing as how her most immediate danger was the rapidly rising level of runoff water, her priority was getting up. The mare couldn’t have climbed the steep rocky walls of the arroyo, but she had to try. Squinting against the sting of wind-driven rain, she eyed the ravine walls and picked a spot that seemed easiest to ascend.

      Scrabbling to find toeholds and rocks or roots she could pull herself up with, she started the awkward climb. Her waterlogged dress clung to her legs, encumbering her movement, and the rough rocks scraped her hands and cut into her bare feet. But she struggled on, trying to ignore the pain. The wind made it difficult to keep her balance, and the rain left the rocks slick. The rapidly dropping temperature chilled her to the bone, and shudders of cold soon racked her muscles, hastening her fatigue. Thank you, Texas crazy weather.

      She made it within a few feet of the top ledge, still too far to hoist herself up to level ground, before she knew she had to stop. She had to rest or risk losing her grip and falling. Glancing around her, she spotted an indentation in the wall of the arroyo. The space was too shallow to be called a cave but deep enough for her to sit and have limited protection from the howling wind and precipitation.

      Mustering the last of her strength, she reached for the low-hanging branch of a cottonwood tree. The first limb she grabbed broke off in her hand. Losing that anchor shifted her balance, and with a gasp, she teetered precariously.

      She grasped frantically for another branch. The new branch dipped and stretched from her weight...but held. The moment of panic fueled her muscles with a spurt of adrenaline. Heart racing, she used the new energy to edge toward the small outcropping of rock and dirt.

      When she reached the narrow ledge beneath the protective rock angling out of the bluff, she sank tiredly to her bottom and leaned back against the wall of red clay stone. Shutting her eyes against the continuing rain and wind, she allowed her muscles to relax and her shoulders to droop. She’d take just a moment to catch her breath and regroup before she planned her next move.

      Stranded. The word filled her with frustration and self-censure. She’d panicked when the sniper fired at her and allowed herself to get lost by indulging her shock and fright. She’d done exactly what her father had taught her not to, what went counter to her training as a bullfighter. Wrapping her arms around herself, struggling for a shred of warmth, she castigated herself for her gut-level, amateurish reaction. If she hadn’t been so wrapped up in her misery over Brady, would she have had more rational wits about her? She gave herself a little shake. The question was moot. She was stuck here, and she had to deal with it.

      Behind her closed eyes, the disturbing images of the sniper’s glowering face returned and filled her with an odd sense of déjà vu. Dark eyes narrowed. Wide, flat nostrils flared. He’d had a birthmark or mole high on his cheek, just under his right eye. The man was the stuff of nightmares. He had the look of a man with no compunction about killing.

      A shiver raced through her that had nothing to do with the growing chill ushered in by the storm. She blew out a shaky breath, knowing how close she’d come to being the man’s latest victim. The idea was terrifying. Surreal.

      A sniper. At April and Nate’s wedding. Given a moment to reflect more calmly, she realized the significance. And the mystery.

      It didn’t make sense. Why would someone shoot into a wedding party? Was this a random act of violence by a lunatic or had the man been a hired gun with a specific target? And if the gunman had been hired, who was the sniper trying to kill? And why couldn’t she shake the idea she’d seen him before?

      Her gut roiled. As the new sheriff of Trencher County, Brady would be in charge of the investigation. She bit her bottom lip and squeezed her eyes tighter, fighting the swell of anxiety that stirred deep inside her. She conjured her last sight of Brady, his arms raised, trying to flag her down as she charged out of the barn on the gray mare and galloped away from the ranch. The concern in his eyes, the questions in his furrowed brow hadn’t stopped her then, but now they reverberated through her soul. After the shots rang out, had he been coming to look for her? Would he come out on the Texas plains, searching?

      An ember of hope, a tiny warmth deep in her chilled body, flickered to life. She knew Brady could find her. Hadn’t she been bemoaning his keen tracking skills, his uncanny ability to find her wherever she went in town? But with a gunman at the ranch and possible casualties—Lord, let her friends be all right!—where would Brady’s sense of duty lie?

      A crack of thunder jolted her from her thoughts and back to her current crisis. She angled a glance to the rushing runoff below her. The arroyo was already half full of swift water. Dread punched her in the gut. Determined not to become a statistic because of stupidity and her rash reaction, she gritted her teeth and forced herself back to her feet. Legs shaking from cold and fatigue, she willed herself enough strength to start her climb again.

      * * *

      After tying the reins of the mare to a scrub tree on high ground, Brady tugged the brim of his cowboy hat down against the brisk northern wind. If only the mare could talk. Where’s Kara? he wanted to demand of the horse. Why did you leave her?

      If Kara wasn’t with the horse anymore, did that mean she was hurt? Or sick? Was she even now bleeding out, unable to breathe or lying unconscious in the harsh storm?

      He huffed his frustration as he pulled out his phone again to text the horse’s location to his deputies. He turned a disgusted look to the sky where black clouds still roiled, spitting frigid rain. As long as the storm produced battering gusts of wind and lightning, assistance from a helicopter search team was not an option.

      Climbing back astride the ATV, he revved the engine and considered his path. He needed to check the arroyo where the horse had appeared, but he needed to do it from high ground. As if to remind him of the urgency of finding Kara quickly, lightning struck close enough to cause an almost simultaneous clap of thunder. Yes, the conditions were dangerous. Lightning was a worry, but he couldn’t give up his search. The wandering mare was evidence that Kara was stranded out here in the storm. And she could easily be in more peril than he dared imagine.

      * * *

      Kara tried multiple times to pull herself off the small ledge and onto the safe ground at the top of the arroyo. But her feet slipped on the wet rock, and she couldn’t find secure handholds along the inverted angle of rock above her. The same overhang that provided a modicum of shelter from the downpour also made ascending the last seven or so feet nearly impossible.

      Shivering from cold and fatigue, Kara sank back onto the small outcropping and fought the dejection that tugged at her. She wasn’t a quitter, and even though her circumstances seemed bleak, she couldn’t give up.