Riding Shotgun. Joanna Wayne

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СКАЧАТЬ stay alive.

      She had to stop, take a walk, or maybe a brief nap. Spotting a dirt road up ahead, she slowed to see if it was a driveway or some type of ranch road. It looked more like a road to nowhere.

      Only one way to find out. She turned right. The road was half-washed-out with deep holes and ruts so numerous they were impossible to avoid completely. The land on both sides of the road was fenced and heavily wooded.

      After about five minutes, she reached a point where she didn’t dare go farther for fear of getting stuck. She opened the door and stepped out. She felt totally isolated, as if she’d driven off the end of civilization.

      The quietness was broken only by squawking crows and the inharmonious cadence of what must be hundreds of katydids and tree frogs. A huge blue lizard rested lazily atop a weathered fence post.

      Perhaps a walk would do more to get her blood pumping than a nap. Grabbing her bright yellow cardigan, she tossed it over her shoulder.

      The weather forecast was for rain and a cold front moving in tonight, but apparently the words cold front had a different meaning here than they did in Tennessee. It was supposed to dip into the low forties tonight.

      Locking the nondescript compact car she’d traded down for from a used car dealer in Nashville, she made her way down the bumpy road, careful to avoid tripping.

      The scenery changed gradually, the woods thinning and then giving way to wide-open pastures. Clusters of cattle dotted the pastoral landscape, most grazing. At one point there were several near the fence line, much larger than they’d seemed from a distance.

      Grace loved horseback riding, but had never been on a real ranch before. She didn’t favor the idea of being up close and personal with a cow, especially one of those Texas longhorns she’d spotted over the past two days.

      The path, or what was left of it, veered right and began to climb. Grace topped a low hill and then stopped to breathe in a few gulps of the clean-smelling air. She could hear the rush of water in the distance, perhaps the river that flowed beneath the bridge she’d almost crashed into.

      She used her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the late-afternoon sun as she scanned for sight of the river. She didn’t see it, but surprisingly she spotted a white clapboard house right there in the middle of nowhere.

      It sprawled out in all directions, its dark green shutters and front door making it appear almost like an extension of the land. The place looked so homey, so welcoming, Grace felt a twinge in her heart.

      She imagined a family inside, the mother at the range preparing dinner or perhaps helping the kids with homework around a wide kitchen table. The man, tired from a day in the fields, watching the evening news. The setting cozy. Loving.

      A life Grace would never have.

      She turned to leave. A wailing noise stopped her. An animal? The screech of a bird? Surely cows didn’t make that sound.

      She heard it again. What if it wasn’t an animal? What if someone needed help? There was no way Grace could leave without checking.

      Her concern for herself taking a backseat, Grace carefully maneuvered herself through the barbwire and into the pasture, praying she wouldn’t confront a cow or, worse, a bull. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins as she raced toward the sound.

      As she got closer, the sound became more distinct. Definitely human. A child or a woman. And it was coming from the vicinity of the house.

      * * *

      ESTHER BIT BACK tears and whispered a prayer for help. She tried to stand again, pushing herself up from the hard dry earth. Pain shot through her leg, even worse than before. She fell back to a sitting position.

      The right ankle was beet red and already swelling.

      It was her own fault. Trying to save herself a trip, she’d tried to fetch too much firewood at once. She would have made it, though, if she hadn’t stepped in a hole some darn critter had dug right there by the woodpile.

      Her ankle had twisted, the heavy load had thrown her off balance and she’d toppled like a tower of kids’ blocks.

      Her fault, but how was she to know that hauling firewood was so tricky? Charlie had done all the hauling for their entire married life.

      Salty tears began to roll down her cheeks—not all from the pain in her ankle. She missed Charlie. The house was too quiet without him, her life too lonely.

      Feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to solve anything. Staying outside with the forecast of rain and a cold front coming in was unthinkable. Not to mention that the gnats and mosquitoes would eat her alive.

      She’d just have to suck up the pain and drag herself to the back door and into the house. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.

      But just in case her hired wrangler, Buck Stalling, hadn’t already left for the day, she’d yell one last time.

      “Help! Helllp!”

      “I’m coming. Hold on. I’m coming.”

      Esther almost jumped out of her skin. That was a woman’s voice, unfamiliar. She wasn’t expecting company and she hadn’t heard a car drive up.

      Maybe she was just imagining things. A sad state of affairs that would be.

      “Where are you?”

      Definitely a voice. “I’m around back,” she called.

      A young woman she’d never seen before appeared from around the side of the house. When she spotted Esther, she hurried over.

      “Are you hurt? What happened?”

      The fierce panic she’d been feeling melted away like a snowball in a sweaty hand.

      “I was fetching a heavy load of firewood. Couldn’t see where I was walking and stepped in a hole.”

      The stranger kneeled beside Esther and lightly touched the spot that radiated pain. “Looks like you sprained your ankle. Is that where it hurts?”

      “It is. Smarts right bad,” Esther said.

      “I’m sure. How long have you been out here?”

      “Seems like hours but probably only twenty minutes or so.”

      “We need to get you inside and get some ice on the ankle to slow down the swelling.”

      “I’m for that.” Esther studied the woman, still puzzled by her just showing up out of nowhere. “I’m mighty glad to see you, but who are you and where did you come from? I didn’t hear a car drive up.”

      “I was on the dirt road that borders your ranch and I heard your calls for help.”

      “That old logging road. Nobody uses that anymore except teenagers riding those racket-making ATVs or else looking for a place to make out. What were you doing there?”

      “I was just passing through the area and got too sleepy to keep going. I got out of the car before СКАЧАТЬ