A Cold Creek Secret

When he slogged through the water and finally reached the vehicle, he yanked open the door. The driver was female, in her mid-twenties, maybe. He had a quick impression of wisps of dark curls that looked stark in contrast with her pale, delicate features.

With every passing second, her core temperature would be dropping and he knew he needed to extract her from the SUV and out of the water and the elements before he could completely assess her condition, though it went against every basic tenet of medical training each Army Ranger received, about not moving an injury victim until you knew the extent of injuries.

“Cold,” she murmured.

“I know. I’m sorry about that.”

He took it as a good sign that she didn’t moan or cry out when he scooped her out of the vehicle. If she had broken bones, she wouldn’t have been able to hide her discomfort. She didn’t say anything at all, just gripped his jacket tightly, her slight body trembling from both the shock and the cold, he guessed.

She wasn’t heavy, maybe a hundred and ten pounds, he judged, but carrying her through the ice-crusted water still took every bit of his energy. By the time he reached the bank and headed up the slight slope with her in his arms, he was breathing hard and was pretty sure he couldn’t feel his feet anymore.

He’d learned in the early days dealing with combat injuries that the trick to keeping injured men calm was to give as much information as he could about what was going on so they didn’t feel completely out of control about what was happening to them. He figured the same technique would work just as well in accident situations. “I’m going to take you back to my place on the horse, okay?”

She nodded and didn’t protest when he lifted her onto Tag’s back, where she clung tightly to the pommel.

“Hang on now,” he said when he was sure she was secure. “I’m going to climb on behind you and then we can get you warm and dry.”

When he tried to lift his icy, wet boot into the stirrup, it seemed to weigh as much as the woman had. He had to use all his strength just to raise it that two feet. Just as he shoved it in and prepared to swing the other leg onto the horse, she gasped.

“Simone. My Simone. Please, can you get her?”

He closed his eyes. Simone must be the dog. With the wind howling around them, he couldn’t hear the yips anymore and he’d been so focused on the woman that he’d completely forgotten about her dog.

“Are you okay up there for a minute?” he asked, dreading the idea of wading back through that frigid water.

“Yes. Oh, please.”

He had survived worse than a little cold water, he reminded himself. Much, much worse.

Returning to the vehicle took him only a moment. In the backseat, he found at least a half-dozen pieces of luggage and a tiny pink dog carrier. The occupant yipped and growled a big show at him.

“You want to stay here?” Brant growled right back. “Because I’d be just great with that.”

The dog immediately subsided and under other circumstances he might have smiled at the instant submission, if he wasn’t so concerned about getting them all back to the house in one piece. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

As he considered the logistics of things, he realized there was no way he could carry the bulky dog carrier and keep hold of the woman on horseback at the same time, so he unlatched the door of the carrier. A tiny white mound of fur hurtled into his arms.

Not knowing what else to do, he unzipped his coat halfway and shoved the puffball inside then zipped his coat up again, feeling ridiculously grateful none of the men in his company could see him risking hypothermia for six pounds of fuzzy canine.

The woman was still on Tag’s back, he was relieved to see when he made his torturous way back through the water, though she seemed to be slumping a little more.

She was dressed in a woefully inadequate pink parka with a fur-lined hood that looked more suited to some fancy après-ski party in Jackson Hole than braving the bitterness of an Idaho blizzard and Brant knew he needed to get them all back to the ranch house ASAP.

“Is she all right?” the woman asked.

What about him? Brant wondered grumpily. He was the one with frostbitten toes. But in answer, he unzipped his coat, where the furry white head popped out. The woman sighed in relief, her delicate features relaxing slightly, and Brant handed the dog up to her.

He caught a glimpse of the little pooch licking her face that looked oddly familiar as he climbed up behind her, but he didn’t take time to analyze it as he dug his heels into the horse’s side, grateful Tag was one of the strongest, steadiest horses in the small Western Sky stable.

“We’ll get you warmed up. I’ve got a fire in the woodstove at home. Just hang on a few minutes, okay?”

She nodded, slumping back against him, and he curved his arms around her, worried she would slide off.

“Thank you,” she murmured, so low he could hardly hear above the moaning of that bitter wind.

He pulled her as close as he could to block the storm as Tag trudged toward home at a hard walk, as fast as Brant dared push him.

“I’m Brant,” he said after a few moments. “What’s your name?”

She turned her head slightly and he saw dazed confusion in her eyes. “Where are we?” she asked instead of answering him.

He decided not to push her right now. No doubt she was still bemused from the shock of driving her SUV into a creek. “My ranch in eastern Idaho, the Western Sky. The house is just over that hill there.”

She nodded slightly and then he felt her slump bonelessly against him.

“Are you still with me?” he asked with concern. When she didn’t answer, his arms tightened around her. Out of pure instinct, he grabbed for the dog seconds before she would have dropped it as she slipped into unconsciousness—surely a fatal fall for the little animal from this height. He managed to snag the dog and shove it back into his coat and his arms tightened around the woman as he nudged Tag even faster.

It was a surreal journey, cold and tense and nerve-racking. He didn’t see the lights of the ranch house until they had nearly reached it. When he could finally make out the solid shape of the place, Brant was quite certain it was just about the most welcome sight he had ever beheld.

He led the horse to the bottom of the porch steps and dismounted carefully, keeping a hand on the woman so she didn’t teeter to the ground.

“Sorry about this, Tag,” he murmured to the horse as he lifted the woman’s limp form into his arms. “You’ve been great but I need you to hang on a few more minutes out here in the cold while I take care of our guest and then I can get you into the warm barn. You deserve some extra oats after tonight.”

The horse whinnied in response as Brant rushed up the porch steps and into the house. He quickly carried her inside to the family room where, just as he’d promised, the fire he’d built up in the woodstove before he left still sent out plenty of blissful warmth.

She didn’t stir when he laid her on the sofa. As he was bent over to unzip her parka so he could check her injuries, the dog wriggled free of the opening of Brant’s own coat and landed on her motionless mistress and began licking her face again, where a thin line of blood trickled from a cut just above her eye.

A raspy dog’s tongue was apparently enough to jolt her back to at least semiconsciousness. “Simone?” she murmured and her arms slid around the dog, who settled in the crook of her arms happily.

She was soaked through from the snow’s onslaught and Brant knew she wouldn’t truly warm up until he could get her out of her wet clothing. Beyond that, he had to examine her more closely for broken bones.

“I’m going to get you some dry clothes, okay? I’ll be right back.”

She opened her eyes again and nodded and he had the oddest sense again that he knew her. She couldn’t be from around here. He was almost positive of that, but then he hadn’t spent more than a few weeks at a time in Pine Gulch for fifteen years.

The bedroom he stayed in when he was here was one of the two on the main floor and from his duffel he quickly grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of cutoff sweats that would likely probably drown her, then he returned to the family room.

“I’m going to take off your parka so I can get a better look and make sure you don’t have any broken bones, okay?”

She didn’t answer and he wondered if she was asleep or had slipped away again. He debated calling the Pine Gulch paramedics, but he hated to do that on a vicious night like tonight unless it was absolutely necessary. He had some medic training and could deal with most basic first aid needs. If she required more than that, he would drive her into town himself.

But he needed to assess her injuries first.

He would rather disarm a suicide bomber with his teeth than undress a semiconscious woman, but he didn’t have much choice. He was only doing what had to be done, he reminded himself. Feeling huge and awkward, he pulled off what seemed pretty useless pink fur boots first, then moved the tiny dog from the woman’s side to the floor. The dog easily relinquished her guard dog duties and started sniffing around the room to investigate a whole new world full of smells.

Brant unzipped the woman’s parka, doing his best to ignore the soft swell of curves as he pulled the sleeves free, not an easy task since he hadn’t been with a woman since before his last deployment. He was only a rescue worker here, he reminded himself. Detached and impersonal.

Her shirt had remained mostly dry under her parka, he was relieved to discover, but her jeans were soaked through and would have to come off.