Trouble in High Heels (18 page)

Since Reese was still wound up with energy, Lori opened a big umbrella and took him for a walk to the barn. He enjoyed visiting the horses and protested when she took him back to the cabin.

Worn out from the day, Lori climbed into her bed and stared at her cell phone, willing it to ring. It remained silent, and she felt the distance between her and Jackson more than ever. She couldn’t help wondering what the future for the two of them held. She fell asleep, cradling the phone in her hand.

A knock on her door woke her in the middle of the night. “Lori, Lori,” Virginia said from the other side of the door. “We have an emergency.”

Lori immediately sprang out of bed and flung open the door. Dressed in her robe, with an expression of fear tightening her face, Virginia shook her head. “One of the children is missing. He must have left after the camp counselors fell asleep. They’ve looked all around the cabin and the barn and can’t find him anywhere.”

Him. Lori had a sinking sensation. “Reese?”

Virginia nodded. “We have to find him. It’s still raining out there. The streams are overflowing and the road is rained out. Maria and Geoffrey are stuck in town, and Cash can’t get through, either.”

“Oh, no,” Lori said, feeling helpless. “Let me get dressed so I can start looking, too.”

“I would take out one of the horses myself, but my arthritis has been giving me a fit,” Virginia said. “Lori, I know the conditions are terrible, but our best bet is if someone takes Lady to do the search. She’s sure-footed, gentle, and can always find her way back to the barn.”

Lori’s stomach clenched. Virginia needed her to step up. Virginia didn’t know what she was asking, and Lori was terrified she couldn’t deliver. “You think Lady can do this?” Lori asked at the same time she was asking herself if she could do it.

“I do,” Virginia said.

Lori knew what she had to do.

U
nderneath her jeans, T-shirt, rain cloak, and hat, Lori broke into a cold sweat as she approached the barn. Rain pelted relentlessly against her vinyl raincoat. Armed with a lantern, flashlight, first-aid kit, and cell phone that would be intermittently useless due to lack of coverage, she wished she could just have a one-minute conversation with Jackson.

Just one minute and her heart rate would settle down, her breathing would slow, and she would believe that she could do what she needed to do. She hadn’t ridden a horse alone in years.

Lanterns flickered nearby as two of the camp counselors searched for the little boy. Standing outside the barn, Lori closed her eyes and imagined Jackson ’s voice. “You can do anything you want. Anything.”

Taking a deep breath, Lori stepped inside the barn.

Virginia and another camp counselor, Mrs. Aliff, greeted her. “Try the north pasture first,” Virginia said.

Lori nodded and walked toward Lady’s stall. “Hey, Lady, I’m counting on you.” she whispered.

Mrs. Aliff came to stand beside her. “We hope you can find him. He’s a pistol, but he means so much to everyone. His parents, the other children.” The woman sniffed back tears. “He loves running games, races, tag, and hide and seek.”

Pushing her own anxiety aside for a moment, Lori covered the counselor’s hand with hers. “I know he likes to run. He ran circles around me this afternoon,” she said and mustered a smile. “I think he’s tough enough that he’ll still be running circles tomorrow.”

“I hope so.”

“Lady and I will do our best,” Lori said, feeling her nerves rise inside her again. Hauling the saddle from the tack room, she strapped it on, followed by the bridle, murmuring to the horse all along. All too aware of the horse’s size and strength, she led Lady out of the barn and prepared to mount.

Swallowing over the ball of nerves in her throat that refused to go away, she fought the urge to run. Her body still wrapped in cold sweat, she fought the urge to panic, to splinter into a million tiny, useless pieces.

“Are you okay?” Virginia asked from behind her.

“I’m good,” she lied, determined to make it the truth. Placing her left foot in the stirrup, she swung herself into the saddle and slid her other foot into a stirrup. For a second, the ground began to waver and swim. Light-headed, she gulped in deep breaths of air. She couldn’t pass out. She couldn’t. She had to do this.

No time to waste, she told herself and nudged the horse into a walk. Clinging for her life, she took it slow and moved north or, for her, right. The rain continued without abating, with the wind slapping moisture on her face every few moments. It was messy and miserable, and Lori could only imagine how frightened Reese must be.

The unpleasantness distracted her from her fear, and she urged Lady into a trot. “Not too fast,” she said in a soothing tone. “I don’t want you to slip, but let’s not poke.” Then she began to yell. “Reese! Reese!”

Two hours later, riding Lady was the least of her discomfort. Her throat hurt from yelling, and she was certain not one inch of her was dry. Worse yet, she didn’t know where she was, and there was no sign of Reese.

“Okay, let’s turn around and try a different direction,” she said to the well-mannered mare. “If you were an eight-year-old boy, where would you go in the middle of a torrential downpour?”

Lady gave a nod and snort as if she knew better than to wander out in this kind of weather.

“You are definitely due some serious apples after this,” Lori said and began to call for Reese.

An hour and a half later, she didn’t know whether to keep looking or head back to the barn. Out of sheer frustration, she called out, “Hide and seek, Reese. You’re it. Can you find me?” She repeated it for over twenty minutes. Her voice grew husky, breaking on every other word, and she paused and swallowed a sip from her water bottle.

She began to yell again but heard a faint sound. Rain splattered loudly on her drooping hat and vinyl raincoat. “Reese?” she croaked. “Reese?”

She heard another sound, high-pitched but indecipherable. Her pulse picked up. “Reese?”

“One, two, three on you,” a voice called. “You are it!”

Lori’s heart nearly exploded in her chest as she turned Lady toward the sound of his voice. “Reese, where are you? Come here.”

“You are it,” he called, his voice closer.

Swinging the lantern around, she spotted a tiny figure huddled under a large tree. “Come here, sweetie,” she called. “Come here and let me take you home.”

Reese began to cry, and the sound wrenched at her. Lori slid off the horse and raced toward the child, pulling Lady behind her. Reese cowered under the tree, sobbing. “One, two, three. You are it.”

“Come here, sweetie. Let me take you home.”

Reese continued to wail.

At a loss, Lori put her arms around him and held him. “You’re okay. Wet, but okay. Don’t you want a ride with Lady? She’s very nice. She likes little boys. She wants to take us home.”

“Ride?” he echoed, sniffing as he stared at the horse.

Lori nodded. “You bet. Let’s go home.”

After she got both of them on the horse, Lori tucked Reese’s squirmy, wet little body under her raincoat and let Lady lead the way.

Jackson had been awakened by the phone call two hours ago. He’d been dead asleep, but it had taken only a moment for his heart to stop in his chest when Maria explained why she was calling so early.

Jackson had been in his car within two minutes. Driving through the constant downpour, he took his SUV off-road when the lanes were flooded. Rain shimmered down his windshield faster than the wipers could push it aside. Despite the vehicles he saw abandoned and the signs warning of flash floods, he drove on. He almost stalled out once but maneuvered out of the deepest waters. Sheer luck.

All he could think about was Lori. Although Maria and Geoffrey had been barricaded from returning to the ranch by flooded roads, Maria had learned that Lori had been looking for one of the campers for hours. Now Virginia feared that Lori was lost, too.

Jackson ’s stomach churned with remorse. He should have been there with her instead of focusing on this real-estate development deal. His pride had been mortally wounded when she’d insisted she didn’t want her family to know she’d married him. Determined to make her proud of him, he’d worked night and day to pull this deal together.

She’d been the biggest headache of his life, and now she was the biggest heartache. His hands clammy as he clenched the steering wheel, he held on to a scrap of hope that her training had come back to her.

Lord help him, though, the woman was vulnerable. Her father had kept her wrapped in a cocoon, unprepared for life, let alone riding around on a horse in the middle of the night looking for a lost child.

Turning on the road to the ranch, he stepped on the gas. He would be there soon. The ranch was just three miles away. Just three miles. He saw the shiny puddle, or was it a lake stretching across the road? Swearing, he slowed. He didn’t have time for this. Damn this rain. Damn the flooded roads. Damn it all.

Jackson swerved, but the engine gulped too much water and stalled. He tried to restart the SUV. It coughed and sputtered and died. Thumping his fist against the steering wheel, he swore again. Getting out of the car, he pushed it to the side of the road and started running. Two and a half miles to go. He had to get to Lori.

Twenty-five minutes later, he jogged toward the barn. He’d spent the last mile alternately praying and swearing. The chorus of voices and whistles he heard gave him hope. Brushing the rain from his face, he sped up his pace and ran to the far side of the barn that led into the paddock.

He stopped dead in his tracks. A small figure, covered in a hooded raincoat, rode Lady, the large, gentle mare, and held a small child peeking out from the raincoat. “One, two, three, I see you,” the child called. “You are it.”

The small group of people let out yells of praise. A volunteer stepped forward, reached up to the child, a boy, and carried him down off the horse.

“Lori, you’re drenched,” Virginia said.

The small woman on the horse was Lori. His heart racing, he ran to the horse’s side and held out his arms.

“I tried to call you,” she said in a croaky voice.

Lifting her foot from one stirrup, she slid down into his arms. “Sorry I’m so wet,” she whispered, shivering.

Jackson held her close, so relieved that she was safe.

“She’s been out in that rain for hours,” Virginia said. “We should get her inside.”

Jackson picked Lori up and headed for the house. “I’m so wet,” Lori said.

“We’ll get you dry,” he said.

She lifted her hands to his face. “You’re wet, too. What happened?”

“Another story,” he said, still worried about her.

She coughed. “My throat hurts. I yelled and yelled and yelled,” she whispered.

“You did good,” he said. “You rescued that little boy. You’re a hero.”

She met his gaze from beneath the hood of her raincoat and smiled. “Me? A hero?”

His heart turned inside out. “Yeah, baby. You.”

“Don’t tell Virginia, but I was afraid I was going to throw up right before I mounted Lady.”

“But you did it anyway.”

“Yeah, I kept pretending that you were there talking to me. You kept saying, you can do anything you want.”

“I would have given anything to do this for you,” he said.

“I rode a horse again,” she whispered as if she still couldn’t quite believe it. “All by myself.” She cleared her throat and winced. “My throat hurts.”

“Be quiet,” he said and carried her up the stairs into the house. He took her directly into the bathroom and turned on the hot water. He helped her strip off her clothes and dried her wet, shivering body with a towel before he ushered her into the tub.

She sighed as she relaxed in the warm water. “I could go to sleep right this minute.”

“Not yet,” he said. “I just want to get you warmed up.”

Lori felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience. So weary she could barely stay awake, she felt herself drowning in Jackson ’s tenderness.

“Am I dreaming this?” she asked him, the warm water surrounding her, his concerned gaze latched on to her. “Are you really being this nice to me?”

He chuckled. “I guess.”

She sighed. “Do you know how much I’ve missed you?” she asked. “I want you around even if you’re fussing at me.”

“Is that so?” he asked, his lips lifting in a half smile. He pushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek. “Why is that?”

Dizzy from stress, she shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know I want to be with you all the time,” she confessed. “Twenty-four seven. I’m crazy, aren’t I?” She paused, wondering if she should have said all that. “I’m so tired. I must be half-dreaming.”

“You’ve earned it, sweetheart,” he said. “Time for bed.” He coaxed her from the tub and dried her again, wrapping her in a big fluffy towel. He carried her to her room, and Maria appeared with a nightgown.

Everything blurred together after that.

“I’m sorry for every bad thing I’ve said to you,” Maria said, her eyes wide with regret.

“’s okay,” Lori said as she snuggled under the covers.

“Go to sleep,” Jackson said, and she felt his lips on her forehead.

Drifting off, she whispered, “Love you…”

Or did she?

When she woke up the following afternoon, she immediately looked for Jackson. “Jackson?”

Maria gently squeezed her arm. “He had to go back to Dallas, but he promised he’ll be back soon. How are you feeling, sweetie?”

Disappointed that Jackson had left, she closed her eyes. “My throat hurts,” she said in a husky voice.

“ Virginia has some medicine that will make you feel better,” Maria said. “I’ll go get her.”

Lori shook her head. “No, not now.”

“Why not?”

Lori just shook her head. It required too much energy to do more at the moment. She drifted off again.

Sometime later, she awakened again. Her room was dark and Maria was curled up on a chair beside her bed. “Is Reese okay?” she asked.

“Reese is fine,” Maria said. “Here, drink some water.”

Lori lifted her head and sipped the cool water through a straw. “Why is it dark?” she asked in her croaky voice.

Maria laughed. “Because it’s midnight.”

Lori shook her head. “So late. Where’s Jackson?”

“He’s gone to Dallas, but he’ll be back soon. He’s called several times to check on you.”

Lori sighed and closed her eyes.

“Drink some more before you go back to sleep,” Maria coaxed.

Lori lifted her head and took several sips. “Did I dream that you apologized for being mean to me?”

A long silence passed. “No,” Maria said. “You didn’t dream it. I was very worried about you. You spent too much time in the rain. When I heard Virginia had sent you out to look for Reese, I was afraid you wouldn’t survive.”

“I’m stronger than I look,” Lori said.

Maria laughed softly. “Yes, you are. Now you should take some of the medicine Virginia has for your throat.”

Lori shook her head.

“You must take it. It will make you better,” Maria said in a stern voice.

Woozy, but mostly cognizant, Lori recounted the days since her last period. She was late. “I need you to get something from the drugstore for me.”

“No problem,” Maria said. “I will stay with you, and Geoffrey will get it.”

Lori shook her head again. “No. You. I need a pregnancy test.”

“Dios,” Maria said.

“Yeah. I could use His help, too,” Lori said and closed her eyes.

When Lori awakened the next morning, a plastic bag waited in the chair where Maria had previously sat. She reached for the bottle of water on the nightstand beside her and drank half of it in no time.

She glanced at the plastic bag again, knowing what it held. She wasn’t that late, and her body hadn’t always operated like a Swiss watch when it came to her period. Her lateness could be due to stress. Getting married, falling in love, being apart from her husband, staying out all night in the rain…