Something touched his arm, jerking him out of his trance and back to the canyon floor. He spun, braced for attack.
Kat stood with her arms crossed, the red scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth and her jacket hood pulled up over her hair. Buried in all those layers, her pale face peeked around the edges of clothing, her eyes as wide as icy-blue saucers. “I am r-ready,” she said, her voice muffled by the wool scarf.
“Then we leave.” He reentered the cave, making quick work of rolling up the sleeping bag. Flashlight in hand, he led the stallion through the entrance and out into the windy gray of predawn.
Kat waited at the cave entrance, stamping her boots in the snow, rubbing her hands along her arms, her gaze darting from side to side as if she feared venturing out for more reasons than the cold wind. “Are you sure we shouldn’t stay here?”
One look at Kat and the memories of the night before hit Maddox like a sucker punch to the groin. “We move.” He didn’t ask permission or warn her. With little effort, he grabbed her around the waist and swung her up into the saddle.
Kat squealed and held on to the saddle horn as Bear reared and danced to the side.
She sat the horse well, despite his nervous dance, as though she’d ridden before. A woman with soft hands who could ride.
Maddox tucked that little bit of insight away in the back of his mind. He’d get to the bottom of Kat Evans when they were safe from the weather. With gentle hands, he pulled on the reins, running gloved fingers over the horse’s nose, speaking to him in Lakota, calming him.
Then he set out at a quick pace, leading the horse along the base of the bluffs, searching for a suitable path to climb out of the canyon.
“Aren’t you going to ride with me?” Kat called out, hunkered down as low as she could get in the saddle to escape the full force of the driving wind. Her voice barely carried over the roar of wind bouncing off stony cliffs.
“Not until we’re out of the canyon.” Finally, a break in the sheer rock wall revealed a narrow path zigzagging up the side of the canyon, probably left by elk or big horn sheep. Maddox climbed the hill, the horse close behind him. Kat clung to the saddle horn as they rose from the riverbed up the treacherous trail.
Several times Maddox’s boots slipped on loose rocks, sending a tumble of gravel and stones toward the horse. Bear sidestepped and almost lost his footing. Kat’s hand flailed out for balance, her face even more pale and pinched than when they’d started up the incline.
Maddox found that the less he looked at her, the better he felt. Only when he had to did he turn to make sure that she hadn’t lost her grip and fallen from the horse.
Kat’s fingers and cheekbones burned with the cold. Not long after they left the cave, she started shivering and could not seem to stop. She could not afford to waste all her energy, not when she had to use all her strength just to hang on.
She cast a look over her shoulder to the canyon floor, wondering where the man who had been following her had gone. Had he headed back when the storm struck? Or had he holed up as she had? In which case, he would be out looking for her again.
A shiver shook her so hard her teeth rattled. If not for Maddox, she would have died out there, saving the man following her the trouble of killing her.
Where would that leave her country? Without a ruler, without anyone to lead them into democracy, her people would fall back into chaos and warlords would take over. She needed to find out who was behind her father’s death. No matter what the news reports said, that car crash had begun with a bullet. A deliberate attack by a skilled assassin.
Whoever was after her did not plan on holding her hand and escorting her back to her country. He had taken several shots at her before she had lost him. Skimming through streams and across barren rocks had taken their toll on her snowmobile, but had bought her much-needed time to escape in an otherwise snow-covered landscape.
She had taken a huge risk crossing Minnesota and North Dakota in a car. The open farm fields and grasslands left little cover and concealment. But she kept moving just to escape the law and the predator tailing her. Only he had been persistent and tracked her every move. She was tired of running, tired of always looking over her shoulder, completely cut off from everyone who could possibly help.
As they climbed higher, the terrain became increasingly more treacherous and their footing more precarious. The more Kat looked back at the canyon floor, the dizzier she got. The canyon wall inclined at more than a forty-five-degree angle, the path they followed less than six inches wide in most places. How she longed to be on foot, rather than perched high on a horse’s back, even that much farther from the ground.
Nausea fought with vertigo, making her head spin. Kat squeezed her eyes shut and clung to the saddle horn. Because the stirrups were so long, her feet did not quite reach the footrests, giving her no way to balance her weight on the big animal. With her hands quickly freezing and the possibility of a frightening fall making her hold tighter, she thought the ride to the canyon’s rim would never end.
With one mighty lunge, the horse nearly unseated her, clearing the edge of the canyon and arriving on the plateau above.
Kat opened her eyes, the wind whipping her scarf across her face. For as far as she could see, semi-barren rolling hills stretched before her.
Behind her, the canyon cut a long, jagged swath out of the prairie walls blown free of snow, glowing a ruddy red in the increasing light from the muted sun. Every breath of the wickedly cold air stung her lungs and bored through her thick clothing. Chills shuddered across her body and she huddled lower in the saddle, praying for the journey to end, preferably in a hot tub. She groaned. How she would love to sink neck deep into a warm bath and stay there until her skin shriveled.
All the while she had been perched atop the giant stallion, Maddox had been climbing the hill. He had to be tired by now. Was he as cold as she was? Did he wish to be done with this trek—and her?
Several hundred feet from the rim of the canyon, Maddox stopped to catch his breath and speak to the horse in a language Katya did not understand. She assumed he spoke the language of the Lakota Nation.
In the light, she could finally see him. Dark skin, black eyes and straight, thick black hair falling to his shoulders. He tugged his fur-lined parka up around his face and turned to face her.
With the ease of one born to ride, he placed one foot into the stirrup and swung up onto the horse’s back, landing behind the saddle.
His arm wrapped around her waist and he lifted her, easing himself into the seat beneath her, settling her onto his thighs.
Immediately she could feel his warmth through her clothing. Just blocking the wind on one side made a difference. She sank back against him, glad for his presence and the balance he provided on the moving beast.
He did not say anything and with the wind so strong it could steal her breath away, Kat did not speak either.
For several miles, they rode in silence, curled into each other.
The gentle rocking motion of the horse, plus the constant cold, lulled Kat into a dull, half-sleep state. Snow turned to sleet, the tiny hard pellets slung sideways by the approaching storm.
“Don’t go to sleep, Kat Evans,” a voice said over the roar of the wind.
“Why?” she leaned against him, her eyelids dropping over snow-stung eyes. “I am exceedingly tired.”
“If you fall asleep, who will I talk to?”
She snorted softly. “You were not talking.” She turned her face into his jacket. “I am so cold.”
“We’ll be there in less than half an hour.”
“I need to sleep.”
“Talk to me, Kat,” he said, his chest rumbling