She bit her lip as her worry intensified. Neal’s empty canteen had still been on his saddle. Unless he had another, he was without water.
The idiot! Why would he go riding in this heat when he wasn’t used to it? He’d only been out of the hospital a few short weeks. The man was in for the tongue-lashing of his life when she found him. If she found him. Half a dozen riders were spread out across the enormous ranch because no one had an idea where Neal might have gone. She had a suspicion, but it was a long shot.
She pushed the wide brim of one of Ellie’s cowboy hats back, lifted her canteen and took a quick drink, then poured some on her hand and rubbed it on her face and neck. It helped a little, but her back and shoulders were so hot it felt like someone was trying to iron her shirt with her still in it. She screwed the lid back on her canteen. She wouldn’t waste any more water trying to get cool. She might need it all.
The strong, hot breeze quickly dried the dampness on her face as it stirred the tall, drooping sunflowers beside the trail and hissed through the long brown grass around her.
Nudging the pinto forward, she rode toward a deep draw that cut a zigzag course across the prairie. She let the horse pick his way carefully down the steep trail. Decades of cattle going down to water had trod a narrow cut in the high bank. Her stirrups scraped the sides as they descended.
She turned suddenly and looked behind her. A second set of scrape marks lined the dirt just below hers. Another rider had come this way. She had guessed right. She knew now where Neal had been heading.
At the bottom of the draw, a tiny trickle of water strung together muddy puddles and filled the deep hoofprints left by thirsty cattle. Four Black Angus steers watched her warily from downstream, where they stood knee deep in the mud. Their tails swung constantly to keep away the flies that hovered over their backs. A fresh set of prints from a horse led upstream. Robyn turned to follow them. She couldn’t believe Neal was foolish enough to try to make such a long ride in his shape. He could barely walk. What would possess him to go all the way to Little Bowl Springs Canyon?
Even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew the answer. It had been their special place when they were young. It was where he’d first made love to her.
* * *
NEAL TRIPPED AND fell face-first onto the prairie. After a long moment, he opened his eye, and a forest of bluestem grass settled into view in front of him. Lifting his head off the ground, he spat out the dirt caked at the corner of his mouth.
Carefully, he pushed himself to his hands and knees. Agony pounded inside his skull and his ribs ached. The urge to lie back down was overwhelming.
Slowly, he sat back on his heels and forced himself to study his surroundings. He got his bearings again as he squinted at the rolling grassland broken by deep, narrow gullies and rocky canyons. He hadn’t made much progress.
This part of the ranch was virtually inaccessible except on horseback or on foot. And he was still on foot. His horse was nowhere in sight. Jake didn’t train ’em like he used to.
What had Robyn called him that morning? A stupid, stubborn oaf? He closed his eye against the bright light. She had the stupid part right. He’d ridden out without telling anyone where he was headed, and now he was going to pay for it. By his best guess, he had four more miles to stagger or crawl before he got near the ranch house. Since his horse wasn’t standing nearby, he could only hope the mare had gone back to the barn. If she hadn’t, it could be dark before anyone became worried enough to start a search.
He forced himself to stand. After a moment, the dizziness receded. He held on to his aching ribs with one arm and braced the other on his thigh. His hat lay a few feet away. He moved toward it with unsteady steps. Painfully, he bent to retrieve it and settled it on his head.
The shade it provided his scorched face was a relief he knew would be short-lived. He held up a hand to block the glare as he judged the time by the position of the sun. It was still high in the afternoon sky, which meant it would be three or four more hours before the temperature began to drop.
He had no water, no shade and little strength after spending much of the past month in bed. All in all, he was in a pretty tight spot. His biggest danger now was the risk of heatstroke.
He started walking in the direction of home. A small canyon cut a meandering course through the prairie a half mile away. Its high walls would provide him with some shade, and there was water at the bottom of it. The stagnant pools wouldn’t be drinkable, but they would help to cool him.
The source of the small stream lay a mile in the other direction, in a small gorge where a spring bubbled out of a rocky ledge. There, the water would be cold and clear as it tumbled out of the earth and fell into a series of small pools carved out of the limestone slabs. But that spring lay in the opposite direction of the ranch house.
He’d been headed there before his ignoble dismount. The spring held a special place in his heart. A place from his childhood and his youth, but he’d been a fool to try to ride that far his first time out.
He looked back across the grassy plateau behind him. To try to reach the spring now would add hours to his hike home later. He sighed and began to walk toward the canyon wall and the ranch beyond it.
He cursed the sweltering heat, his worthless horse and the rough ground littered with rocks that hid in the long dry grass and tried to trip him as he made his way toward the canyon and the promise of relief from the relentless sun. He was almost to the rim when he stumbled and fell to his hands and knees.
A grunt of agony escaped him. Pain lanced through his ribs, and he struggled to catch his breath. When he did, he let loose a string of swearwords that would have singed the ears off a sailor.
In the silence that followed, he heard hoofbeats. A moment later, a horse and rider clambered up out of the canyon in front of him.
“From the sounds of it, I’d say you aren’t dead, at least.”
Neal hung his head. Thankfully, someone had found him, but why did it have to be Robyn?
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, reining her horse to a stop beside him.
He stared at the ground between his hands and wished with all his heart that she had discovered him while he was still on his feet.
“Would you believe I lost a contact?” He pushed up and sat back on his heels with his hands braced on his thighs. “I guess it doesn’t matter, it was the left one.”
He peered at her face. His brother’s gaze would have slid away from his eye patch. His mother would have grown tight-lipped and told him not to joke about it. But not Robyn. She struggled to keep a smile off her face and lost as she shook her head.
“Oh, honestly!” she declared, dismounting.
He felt his own face relax when she dropped to her knees in front of him. “Honestly? I was trying to decide whether I should jump to my feet and shout for joy that someone found me before I wound up as a set of bleached bones or to pound the ground in frustration because it was you.”
“I could ride off and pretend I never saw you.”
He studied her face so close to his own. Lord, how he loved the sparkle that shimmered in her eyes, the way the sun turned her skin a warm honey-brown, the way her lips curved when she smiled. She was still so beautiful, and he had let her slip through his fingers. He really was a fool.
“No. My pride isn’t what it used to be,” he conceded. That was the truth. He leaned forward and braced one hand on the ground as he pressed his left arm against his ribs.
“Are you hurt?” Her smile vanished, and he missed it instantly.
“No, but I hope you have some water.”
“Of course.” She jumped up, grabbed the canteen off her saddle and handed