he’d left. And though she’d flashed a game smile, her hopeful, energetic warmth had been missing from the tone of her voice.
She’d thought he was abandoning her. Like her mother. Like her husband. Jolene Kannon-Angel could give happily-ever-afters to everyone she met, but she didn’t believe in them herself.
“Hell.” He should have said something. Done something. His instincts had warned him of her doubts. That’s why he’d gone back and kissed her. His heart had been trying to tell him something even then. She’d needed a promise of some kind. He’d felt the need to do it, but his brain just couldn’t get around the idea of something permanent after only three days.
And now that he’d shut off his sensible side and listened to his heart for the first time in his life, it might be too late to give her that promise.
They topped the rise that opened up onto the Double J homestead. With daylight fading and the electricity still out, it was hard to make out anything beyond the buildings themselves. Was that Rocky moving in his pen? Why weren’t the dogs running out to greet him?
He reined Checker in to a trot. “Jolene?”
A second gunshot exploded in the air to the west.
Nate whipped the horse around and followed the deadly sound. “Jolene!”
As Checker ran, other sounds reached his ears above the pounding of hooves and jingle of tack and leather. Barking. Snarling. A woman shouting. Jolene.
Then he heard a scream that cut straight to the bone.
Crazy Texas woman! “Jolene!”
They were charging right up to the rim of a shallow canyon. Where the hell was she? Why couldn’t he see her? “Jolene?”
He reined Checker to a sudden stop, tossed his bum leg over the saddle horn and jumped to the ground. Nate cursed when he hit. The impact jarred through his knee like the stab of a hot knife blade. But the pain was good. It cleared his head and made his senses sharp.
Dropping the reins to the ground, he limped toward the canyon edge at an uneven trot. He saw Shasta first, lying on the ground like a sphinx-dog, licking at a gash in his front right shoulder.
“Shasta?” Nate spared a moment to kneel down beside the beat-up terrier. Beat-up was right. “I know the feeling, boy.”
The cut needed a stitch or two, but wasn’t bleeding profusely. The dog had a few other nicks, but his eyes were clear and he welcomed a scratch behind the ears. Nate scanned 360 degrees across the horizon. “Where’s your mama, boy?”
Then he saw the gun.
The blood rushed to his feet, leaving Nate light-headed for a moment. “Oh, God, lady.”
He picked up the rifle. He could guess who’d been behind the trigger. “Jolene?”
He didn’t want to see what he might find, but Nate forced himself to walk right up to the canyon drop-off. “Oh, God. Jolene? Angel, can you hear me?”
There she was, lying flat on her back on a four-foot-wide ledge about ten feet down. No doubt unconscious or worse. Broody sat calmly beside her and looked up at him.
“Hey, boy.” Nate acknowledged the scratches and brambles in the lab’s tan coat and knew that the dogs had done something very brave to save their mistress. And she’d done something equally brave to save them.
Nate lay down on his stomach and tried to reach over the side to her. Nowhere close.
For half a second, he considered climbing down the slope after her. But the descent was too steep, the ground crumbly and loose from all the rain, and his leg too unreliable.
“Jolene? Angel? I’m coming for you, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.”
“Nate? Is that you?” Her eyes popped open, bright and clear and oh, so far away. Her precious mouth curved into half a lazy smile. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Are you hurt?” Relief, giddy and miraculous, washed through his veins. “Please don’t tell me you’re down there taking a nap.”
His heart couldn’t take it.
“Nope. I fell.” She pushed herself up on her elbows, wincing in such pain that Nate’s body jerked in response.
“Don’t move.”
But she pushed herself all the way up into a sitting position. She slipped her arms around Broody’s neck. “You okay, boy? You brave, big thing, you.”
She was using that soft maternal voice that got to him every time. “Something might be broken. You know you shouldn’t be moving.”
Tipping her face up to him, she smiled. “I am a medic, Nate. I just had the wind knocked out of me. Don’t get me wrong. It