Poetry & Life Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  SUZANNE D. WILLIAMS

  And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her. (Ge 29:20)

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SUZANNE D. WILLIAMS

  www.feelgoodromance.com

  © 2017 POETRY & LIFE (GRACE & COWBOYS) BOOK 2 by Suzanne D. Williams

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her. (Ge 29:20)

  CHAPTER 1

  She fled down the steps into the rain, anger and fear crammed in her throat. Six months of traveling, six months in almost every state but Montana, and their argument had finally detonated.

  Worried her dad would stop her from leaving, she slung her horse’s stall open, leapt on bareback, and kicked the mare into a gallop. Her disparate thoughts melted in light of the pace they set, and soon she was drenched, her shirt pasted to her chest, her hair clinging to her cheeks, the fabric of her blue jeans rubbing, abrasive, on her legs.

  The terrain worsened, seemingly in concert with the weather, forcing her to slow and pay attention to the narrow, rocky trail. She was an expert horsewoman, experienced with travel in these mountains, and knew better than to go too fast. She also calculated the hour and the general direction she was headed in.

  In about fifty or sixty minutes, it’d be dark. If she was smart, she’d find a place to turn around and retrace her steps. However, the further the horse climbed, the less likely there’d be anywhere wide enough, and soon, it became rigidly clear she was lost.

  The fear of her father took on a new form, one softer and more accepting. She’d rather be dry and inside facing him than cold and wet and ... off track like this.

  “Think, Brenna,” she said to herself. She couldn’t turn around, so she needed a spot out of the rain. Once the storm passed, maybe the skies would clear, and she could get a lay of where she was at.

  She pulled the horse to a stop and scanned the hillside. An outcropping some hundred yards distant promised shelter. If an animal hadn’t gotten there first.

  Thinking of that, she rode close, dismounted, and gathered a handful of stones. She cast them into the opening, poised to flee if something charged. When it didn’t, she patted the horse, murmuring reassurance, then bent forward and scrambled up the steep gradient.

  Brenna shivered, her knees to her chest, unable to stop her thoughts from escaping. Her angry words mixed with her dad’s frustrated responses, her accusation he’d had a motive for their extended trip that went past college and spending time with her mom. On the surface, both had seemed like him being a responsible parent. She didn’t get to see her mom that often, and she guessed looking at colleges was an okay idea. She’d suspected there was more to it than that, of course. She hadn’t wanted to admit it until now.

  It’d taken coming home and unpacking, getting back into the everyday swing of things, for him to slip up and mention Kees Butler. That’s when she’d fallen into the exact behavior he expected. He thought she was childish and immature, that she couldn’t possibly know her heart. She’d proven it to him by taking off. By ending up here. When she managed to find her way back down, there’d be hell to pay and no way to ever convince him any differently.

  Her already low mood sunk further still. Add in Kees wouldn’t give her the time of day, and the life she’d pictured became a figment, a joke. Like her mom, her dad tried to put her in a box, to force her to be what she wasn’t. But unlike her, she couldn’t simply sign a paper and move on. It was either capitulate and be miserable or dig in her feet and argue from now on.

  The rain thickened, coming down even harder, and she buried her face between her knees and willed it not to last all night.

  “The irony of Malcolm calling for your help shouldn’t be overlooked.”

  Kees resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He and Harlowe Chapman had become decent friends over the last few months, but still didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Brenna being one of them. Harlowe seemed determined to put them together when he mostly found her crush on him annoying.

  “We won’t find her in this rain.” Kees sank onto his bunk, aware it looked uncaring.

  Harlowe frowned, but didn’t argue. He knew it was true.

  “She’s smart enough to hunker down until it passes. Why not wait and see if she finds her way out?” he asked. Brenna Stratton was well able to take care of herself, which made her dad’s fears largely unfounded ... and his phone call look more like guilt.

  “Because she went west and there’s a grizzly up that way.”

  There was. He’d heard that, but even a grizzly wouldn’t go out in this. Kees lay flat, folding his arms behind his head. “I’ll go in the morning. It’s too dark now and too wet. I won’t risk it.”

  Harlowe nodded, his unhappiness showing, turned around and left.

  A half hour later, Kees knocked on the door of the main house, water dripping from the brim of his cowboy hat. Harlowe appeared in the opening, his girlfriend, Lottie, clinging to his left arm.

  Kees raised two fingers to his hat and tipped it slightly. “Evening, Miss Lottie.”

  She was Malcolm’s niece, a pretty thing with a fair complexion and light red hair. She dipped her chin in response. Kees returned his gaze to Harlowe.

  “I’m going after her.”

  Harlowe raised his brow in surprise. “I thought you said it was foolish.”

  “Gut feeling. Call Malcolm and let him know. I’ll find her. But if you don’t hear from me by noon, send out a search. Look toward the Tower.” He turned and aimed for his horse.

  Lottie called out to his back. “Thanks, Kees.”

  He glanced behind. Brenna being her cousin, it was natural for her to worry. He nodded and continued ahead.

  He was slightly the type of man to brag. Slightly because he wasn’t egotistical necessarily, nor hateful and bigheaded, but ... he was, by far, the best tracker in the area. Malcolm had asked for him, knowing that. Otherwise, he’d do what he’d done over the winter—try his hardest to keep her miles away from here. From him. He didn’t want her in Montana and he didn’t want her following him around. But as he’d told Harlowe more than once, he wasn’t interested in her romantically, so that was a moot point.

  He liked women. He was the first to admit that. He was a flirt. He admitted that, too. Contrary to popular belief, though, he planned to marry one day and have children. He’d be dedicated to his wife. Nothing was worse than a cheat, in his opinion.

  He’d designed the woman he wanted, which was the issue, someone soft and sweet. His dad would say that was foolish, but then, he’d taken the job working for Harlowe to get away from his dad.

  The rain blurred the view immediately in front of him, but instinct and a lot of hours studying this terrain told him about where he was. The gnawing in his gut said something was wrong or about to go wrong. He’d learned never to ignore that feeling.

  Kees brought his horse to a halt at the edge of the Chapman property. He glanced toward Malcolm’s land, ten miles distant, then the Towers, where it’d be natural for her to ride
. He headed straight, however, due west, picking his way up the slope of a mountain more unforgiving than most.

  “Stupid girl,” he mumbled. Why had she headed this way? Why had she run off at all?

  Brenna had a temper, and that, in itself, made her not the woman of his dreams. He was partially jealous of Harlowe over Lottie, who fit more into his predesigned mold. Not jealous enough to be miserable, though. Patience was one of his best attributes and an unwavering belief that good would happen to him eventually.

  Yet, to enjoy the good times when they came, he had to endure nights like this, slog through fetlock deep mud, up a rocky mountainside, to find a girl he didn’t really like.

  Weaving in and out of the trees, he struck continually upward, growing more and more worried at the looseness of the soil. All it’d take was the wrong amount of rain, and this entire slope would come down at once. His heart beat a little faster, his nerves strung out, on edge. The surety of the pending collapse shot down his spine, electric.

  He’d gone another quarter mile when a rumble sounded from above. Pebbles of rock tumbled downward first; then the ground freed itself, dragging trees and boulders and animals toward the bottom. He retreated, taking shelter out of its path, and stared at the aftermath, as sure as he’d ever been that Brenna was on the other side, trapped.

  Her shelter dissolved in a blur of mud, and Brenna barely managed to scrape out of its way. She barreled into the horse, the animal’s eyes wide with fear, and somehow clambered on top. She let the mare go where she would, and they stopped in a clearing she didn’t recognize. Firs and pines surrounded it in a u, the destruction she’d escaped blocking her exit. There was only one way to head, and she had no idea what she’d find or even what direction it was.

  Shaking hair out of her eyes, she gained control of the horse and picked across the flat space toward a narrow pass. It seemed as likely to collapse as the previous one, which made her halt again. There was nowhere to shelter, except in the trees. She could risk the pass, but it might end somewhere even worse.

  Her life had been like that, a series of awkward choices with uncertain endings, much of them brought about by her parents’ inability to stay married. That was unfair, she knew. Her mom simply hadn’t liked Montana. Her dad had tried to force the issue, building their huge house. He’d put in a craft room, exactly how she wanted, gone out of his way to take her to the few social events in town. But things had gradually dissolved over inescapable issues like their remoteness, something that couldn’t be solved. Her mom had longed for city parks and walking paths and ... people.

  She’d been old enough when their divorce came to choose where to live. She didn’t regret staying behind, but hated her dad’s need to control things. It hadn’t worked with her mom, so why did he think it would with her?

  An ache in her spine shook her from her daydream. She aimed for the trees, hoping to, at least, not be directly in the rain. The enclosed darkness of the tight limbs gave her trepidation. If she was thrust from shelter, then so were any other number of animals. Big and small.

  Dismounting, she clung to the horse, listening to the whistle of her breaths.

  A snuffling sound, the crunch of limbs and leaves, rose from deep in the trees. She slid beneath the horse’s neck and stared toward the noise, as if that would make the creature appear. It tormented her instead, taking its time, and, in that, told her that whatever it was, it was large. Deer or elk? She hoped so.

  She looked upward. She could climb a tree, but if it were a mountain lion or a bear—

  Her breaths hitched, her chest tightening. Her legs seemed frozen in place. It crossed her mind to pray, but the only words she could think of were the lyrics to a children’s Sunday School song.

  She dug her fingers into the horse’s mane and hoped the approaching animal would turn, but a grizzly, his shoulders thick, his great head sniffing the wind, emerged full in her view. He rose on powerful hind legs, his jaws agape, teeth bared.

  Panic sent both her and the horse running.

  The horse loped well ahead, but the bear closed on her in two long strides. He arched himself to pounce, the heat of his breath tearing a scream from her throat.

  The discharge of a rifle drowned out the sound and tossed the bear sideways into a heap. Lightning flashed, delineating the landscape – the fallen bear, not five feet away; her horse spinning in the distance, and the lanky shape of a cowboy, his hat tilted just so, his rifle extended in his grip.

  “Kees?”

  Of course, Kees. No one else could kill a bear in one shot like that.

  He lowered the gun and approached, his horse on his heels. “You found the bear,” he said. As if that’d been her goal.

  “You found me,” she replied.

  He strolled over to the bear. He removed a folding knife from his pants pocket. “Need to take some of this with us.” With deft strokes, he slashed at the bear’s hide.

  She watched him work, for a moment, then turned aside and captured her horse.

  Sometime later, Kees remounted, a portion of the bear meat rolled in the hide and tied to the back of his saddle. He jerked his chin toward the pass. “We head north. There’s a cabin where we can wait this out.”

  He’d know. No one knew the area better than him. Brenna turned her horse’s head and fell in line behind him.

  “When we get there,” he said, his gaze on the rocks ahead. “You can explain what the hell you were thinking.”

  Kees averted his gaze from where Brenna huddled on the hearth and poked the flames, sending sparks spiraling up the chimney. The state of her clothing, her shirt, transparent, her jeans pasted to young curves sent his mind where it really shouldn’t go. She acted embarrassed, but whether through her actions or sodden appearance, he couldn’t tell.

  She’d yet to explain what’d happened to end up out there, but taking a guess ... from what her dad said and her lack of tack and proper clothing ... she’d been upset. She had to have been irrational to ride off madcap into a rainstorm.

  She sneezed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

  Expelling a breath, he crossed the room and lifted a musty quilt from the bed. He shook it out and draped it around her. She clutched the ends at her throat.

  “Your dad asked me to find you,” he said. “I planned to wait until the rain passed.”

  “You didn’t wait,” she replied. “This one of your feelings?”

  Not like he went around talking about those, but with her interest in him, she would have picked up on it.

  “I knew there was a grizzly and figured you didn’t have a weapon.” Which didn’t answer her question.

  She curled over on herself, her head in her lap. “He dragged me all around the south to get me out of Montana. I don’t want to leave Montana.”

  “Why fight now? You were gone for months.”

  She looked up. Her hair stuck to her cheeks, giving her a wraith-like appearance. Shutting off the part of him that avoided her, she was attractive enough. Simply too immature and too stubborn.

  “Because he admitted it. He practically begged me to go somewhere else. I don’t want to go anywhere else. I want to live here. The only reason he’s so caught up on it is because I’m a girl.”

  Kees snorted. Taking a seat in one of two straight-backed chairs, he reclined, his legs outstretched.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “If he had a son, he’d be all ‘take over after me’ and ‘this place is yours’, but somehow I’m supposed to follow in my mom’s footsteps. It’s not fair! Imagine if your dad forced you to ship off to some fraternity on the east coast.”

  He didn’t comment on that, though she was probably right. “Maybe he wants to make sure you’re happy,” he said instead. “Life here is harsh and lonely.”

  “You don’t care that it is.”

  He didn’t and had nothing to say after that. He fell silent, his mind wandering. Her violent shaking brought him back into the room. Kees withheld a curse a
nd stood. Crossing over to her, he pressed his palm to her forehead. Her temperature was sky high.

  “Are you sick?” he asked

  She twisted her gaze upward. “I haven’t felt right for a couple days.”

  The curse word emerged. “You have a fever, and sitting in wet clothes for hours won’t help.”

  Brenna sneezed again. “I can’t take them off. What will I wear?”

  He considered it. As much as he hated to suggest it, wisdom said she should be dry ... and warm. “I’m going to turn my back. Undress and wrap yourself in the blanket.” He pointed toward the bed.

  Her eyes widened.

  “This isn’t a come on, Brenna. I need to return you alive. Now, do it.”

  He reversed and wandered to the opposite corner, his face toward the log wall. She made rustling and grunting noises. A minute later, she cleared her throat.

  “Okay.”

  He turned in place. Though he couldn’t see anything besides her feet and calves, if her dad were to walk in with her like that, he’d be toast.

  “I’m really tired,” she said.

  He released a long breath. He could move the bed closer to the fire.

  Grasping the footboard, he dragged it across the room, shifting the chairs and a small table out of the way. He nodded for her to lie down, and she obeyed, her wet hair leaving a damp circle on the pillow.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she tucked her feet to her chest and trembled. “It’s s-so cold.”

  D*mn it. This would happen. The same gut feeling that’d sent him chasing after her, the one that’d told him to load his rifle because the bear would be there, the one that said this rain wouldn’t stop by morning, now said she was way sicker than she’d been aware.

  With nothing out here to doctor her but time.

  Her teeth clacked together, and she gave a soft moan.

  He stoked the fire higher and eyed their paltry stock of wood. The stack outside wouldn’t burn. What little bit had been left inside would only last a couple days. There might be more in the shed out back, or—