Page 3 of Mountain Rancher

I grew up climbing these hills, racing my brothers to the lookout point, and earning bloody knees and scraped elbows as badges of courage. One washed-out trail isn’t going to defeat me.

I take another careful step. Then another. The ledge narrows to barely the width of my foot.

Almost there. Just a few more steps and I’ll be past the worst of it.

The ground shifts beneath me.

At first, it’s subtle. A slight tremor, a soft crumbling sensation.

Then suddenly, I’m falling.

Dirt and rocks cascade around me as I claw desperately at anything solid. My nails break against stone and my knees scrape raw against rough earth as a scream tears from my throat.

Twenty feet below, the rocks wait.

By some miracle, my flailing hand catches a stunted juniper shrub growing from the hillside. The sudden halt of my descent sends pain shooting through my shoulder, but I hang on with everything I have. My feet dangle in open air. Blood runs warm over my knuckles where bark has torn skin. Every muscle in my body strains to maintain my grip.

I try to pull myself up, but the movement causes a cascade of dirt around the shrub’s roots.

I freeze and watch in horror as the plant begins to pull loose from the hillside, roots exposed like veins against the red earth.

My phone is in my back pocket, completely inaccessible. No one knows exactly where I am. Pain shoots through my ankle, and I’m pretty sure I twisted it during the initial fall. It’s now throbbing in time with my racing heart.

The ranch house is too far away for anyone to hear me, but I scream anyway, my voice thin against the vast Wyoming sky.

“Help! Help me!”

This isn’t how it was supposed to end.

Not before I made partner. Not before I figured out if my life in Houston was actually making me happy or just keeping me busy. Not before…

Suddenly, a deep voice cuts through my panic.

“Hang on!”

I look up to see a muscular cowboy rushing down the unstable slope toward me.

The shrub shifts as the roots pull farther from the earth. I can feel my grip weakening and see my blood making my handhold slippery. My arms burn with the effort of supporting my entire body weight.

I choke back a sob. “Please! Hurry! It’s giving way!”

Right as my grip fails, the cowboy’s hand closes around my wrist.

For one terrifying moment, I think he might not be able to hold me.But then he braces himself against the hillside and pulls.

Man, he’s strong.

I scramble with my free hand and find purchase against the slope so I can help him drag me up inch by painful inch until I’m pressed against the hillside beside him. By the time I’m up, both of us are breathing hard from exertion and adrenaline.

“Are you hurt?” he demands, his eyes scanning me for injuries.

I can’t answer. Can’t think. I’m alive. I’m not splattered across the rocks below.

And this stranger saved me.

So I do the only thing my adrenaline-soaked brain can manage. I kiss him.

My lips crash against his. For a second, he freezes. Then his hand slides into my hair, and he kisses me back.

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