Page 58 of Snowed In with the Rancher

She scanned the stalls and that’s when she noticed that Dare was missing, so was his saddle, bridle and halter.

Shit.

He’d gone out to ride the fence.

And he wasn’t back yet.

Worry and panic quivered inside her as she ran back to the house. She grabbed Asher’s truck keys from the hook they hung on in the entryway, then ran out to his truck.

She wasn’t a good enough rider to brave taking a horse out into this mess. Besides, if she did find Asher and Dare and they were in trouble, how did she expect to get them back if she was on Macklin or Hula-Hoop?

No, a truck made the most amount of sense.

One length of the fence, the fence they’d encountered the biggest hole from the snowmobile riding hillbillies ran parallel to the road. She’d drive the road and see if she could spot them through the bare trees. That was the practical thing to do.

If she couldn’t find them, then she’d break through the fence with the truck and drive through the field until she did.

With her plan in place, she turned over the ignition, didn’t even bother for the truck to warm up, then peeled off down the driveway.

Once she reached the road, she rolled down her window and using a flashlight she found in the glove box, shone it through the trees to the fence. “Asher!” she called out. “Asher!” She stopped the truck and moved the flashlight through the tree line. “Asher!”

Nothing.

Dread curled through her.

She had a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling.

Pressing her foot to the accelerator again, she slowly crept along the wrong side of the road, continuing to shine the light through the trees. She reached the opening where the hillbillies on their snowmobiles had to be getting through and stopped again.

“ASHER!” she cried out into the dark, shining her light. “ASHER!”

Movement.

“Triss!” It was faint, but it was there. On the wind. “Triss!” The wind didn’t say her name twice. It couldn’t. That was Asher. He was out there and he was in trouble.

Oh God!

She took the clearing that led to the fence, driving through the newly cut wire. Snow crunched under her tires, so she had to put it into four-wheel drive. She turned the truck to the left and her heart leaped into her throat when the headlights of the truck landed on Dare on his side, tangled in the barbed wire of the fence. She couldn’t see Asher, though.

Climbing out of the truck, but leaving it running, she slogged her way through the snow, panic rippling through her in nauseating waves.

“Triss!” Asher said again, his voice hoarse and low. But she heard it.

She made her way around Dare who blinked up at her with wild, terrified eyes. “Shhh,” she said, petting the horse’s neck. “It’s okay, buddy.” Dare’s nostrils flared.

Then she found Asher, pinned beneath his horse.

“Oh God, Asher! Oh God, are you okay?”

He smiled sleepily up at her, his lips blue. The buff he’d worn the last time they rode the fence had slid off his face and he probably didn’t have the energy to pull it back over. His nose was bright red, so were his cheeks.

She checked his pulse. It was slow, but it was steady.

She needed to get him into the truck and get him warm.

“You came back,” he said, his blue lips wobbling.

“I came back to tell you how big of an idiot you are,” she said, her chuckle forced. “And that I’m not giving up on what I think we both know is more than just a fling.”

---