She had no words in her, nothing that could possibly express what she felt at this moment. When his breath caught as he tried to inhale, she knew the same emotion had entered him. She continued to cling, sharing in the only way she had. Their son was near; they’d soon find him; he’d feel his parents’ love.

“Do…do you want him to know?” she whispered.

“Not yet. I want to make sure he’s safe first.”

Tears built behind her eyes, but with an effort, she managed to keep them there. Cord had done the impossible, brought her to her son-their son.

“Where?”

“I can’t say for sure. From the angle of his prints, its obvious he was headed toward the spring.”

“He…he’s thinking he’ll have to follow the creek all the way to the bottom, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

A sudden sense of urgency washed over her. With all her heart, she wanted to be able to cut the bruise out of the remaining apple and feed it to Matt. She wanted to watch as Cord clutched his son to his chest.

Only two things held her back: realization that the thick brush around the little creek could accommodate a child but prove daunting to adults, and the belief that no one else in the world except Cord could possibly know what she was experiencing at this moment.

“I thought…” She shuddered. “I tried so hard not to think about it, but I couldn’t help – There’ve been times when I was terrified of what we’d find.”

“So was I.”

No. Cord wasn’t supposed to have nightmare. thoughts. Although she’d accused him of having buried his emotions so deep that he might have lost them, she needed him to be as strong and confident as her mythical Indian scout, a miracle-working machine.

“You? You were-”

What was that?

Cord started, suddenly gripping her with a strength that took her breath away.

A rifle shot!

Comprehension of what she’d heard came so close on the heels of Cord’s reaction that she couldn’t separate the two. Her blood seemed to stop in her veins; her heart skittered; her lungs screamed with the need for breath but she couldn’t remember how to accomplish that incredibly difficult task.

Another shot! A rifle blast echoing, at the same time sounding so close that if Matt hadn’t been more important than her own life, she would have dropped to the ground.

“No!” Cord’s deep scream all but shattered her senses. “Oh, God, no!”

Chapter 13

“Cord! Wha-”

“Poachers.”

How did he know? Cord didn’t give her half a second in which to ask. Whirling away, he plunged into the thick shrubbery. Alive with fear, she followed his lead. He was already deep in the underbrush and making more noise than she’d ever heard from him, but it wasn’t the sound that made her plow after him.

He’d begun yelling Matt’s name.

She shoved herself around a stunted evergreen and struggled to keep up with him. “Cord, stop it! You’ll scare-”

“Hunters! If they’ve shot…Matt! Matt! Stay where you are!”

Shot! Her legs weakened, but she refused to give in to the dread that instantly replaced all other emotion.

When they reached the narrow, ambling water, there were enough rocks on either side that brush had been unable to get much of a toehold on the bank. She could run without worrying that some sharp branch might slap her face; still she was unable to keep up. Foot by foot, Cord increased the distance between them. Still, the air felt alive with his fear.

“Matt! I’m here! Mom, too. Matt, please! Where are you?”

Once more she heard the horrible explosion of sound she so hated during bunting season. Cord stared over his shoulder at her; whatever he was experiencing had so altered his features, she barely recognized him.

What she saw terrified her.

“Cord?” she sobbed. “Cord, please!”

Instead of answering her insane plea, he yanked off his pack without losing stride and kept running. She jumped over it, nearly lost her footing, and struggled with her own burden. By the time she’d flung it off, Cord had disappeared.

A thousand emotions boiled up inside her-rage at whoever might have cost Matt his life, a desperate plea to give Cord the strength and speed to get to their son before it was too late. Prayers to God, to Gray Cloud’s Great Spirit.

Guided by a trail that might not have been one to any other eyes, she followed Cord. Her heart beat so rapidly that it robbed her of the breath she needed, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Nor did she waste time in cries Cord wouldn’t pay attention to and Matt might no longer be able to hear.

Sweat broke out on her temple. Angry, she wiped it away. The rest of the time, she kept her hands close to her body so a branch wouldn’t snag her-Indian style, the way Cord had taught her.

And she prayed to the spirit that moves in all things to shelter and protect a ten-year-old boy.

Had she lost sight of the creek? For a moment, the sudden change in terrain confused her. Then she realized she was back on rocks where precious little growth could take root. Blinking back tears of desperation, she stared at her surroundings.

She could see for a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty feet. At the far end of the unexpected clearing, she caught a glimpse of faded denim and white cotton.

Cord. Kneeling over something, eyes trained on his surroundings, body ready, not for flight, but fight.

She didn’t know she’d shoved her fist in her mouth until she tasted blood. Somehow she forced herself to stop clenching her teeth, but now she couldn’t make herself move.

She’d turn around. Walk away.

That way she’d never have to see if her son had been killed.

But she was, above everything else in life, a mother. No matter what had happened, she couldn’t leave.

When she started running again, her legs felt so heavy that twice she stumbled. Still, she couldn’t take her eyes off Cord’s hunched form now holding something-someone.

Don’t let him die, Cord. For me, for you, for the rest of our lives – don’t let him die.

“Mommy!”

Matt’s voice washed over her like a sudden, brilliant sunrise. Stripped of muscle and bone, she dropped to her knees beside father and son.

“Mommy!”

Eyes wide and deep and boiling with emotion, Cord clutched Matt tightly to his chest. All she could do was touch her son’s back, run her fingers into his hair, draw in the smell of little-boy sweat. Sob in relief.

“Are you all right? Oh, Matt…Cord?”

“They didn’t hit him. Thank God, they didn’t…” Cord gaped at her, then stared at his surroundings.

Her heart ached. Only embracing Matt would take away the pain. Yet Matt had his arms around Cord’s neck, his face buried against his father and was crying a little, muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over, and she knew that no other sound on earth would ever mean as much as hearing his voice at this moment did.

Hot tears burned their way down her cheeks. She should wipe them away, blunt a little of her fear and relief so Matt would recognize her as his mother and not a half-insane woman, but she couldn’t take her hands off him long enough for that.

“I tried. Dad, I wanted you to be proud of me.”

“I know you did.”

“But I got lost. You’re never lost.”

All too soon she became aware of the cadence of silence. Cord should say something to his son, some words of reassurance and love. Instead, he simply knelt on dirt and rocks and held Matt. She couldn’t see his face now, could only guess at what was going on inside him.

“It’s all right.” She spoke for her ex-husband. “You did a wonderful job, honey. You were so brave, so strong, so -”

“Mommy?”

Matt hadn’t called her “Mommy” since he’d started school. Wise in the way of growing boys, she’d learned to respond to a casual “Mom.” Now he was taking her back to when a little boy needed his mother’s loving reassurance.

That’s what she’d think about-not the bullets that had nearly ended his life.

“What, honey?”

“You’ve been looking a long time, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” She ran her hand over his small, wiry shoulders, down his straight back. His shirt was torn and filthy. The warmth beneath the ruined fabric made it possible for her heart to go on beating.

“Just you and Dad?”

“Yes.”

Matt lifted his head off his father’s chest to look at her. His face was wind-chapped and sunburned, and she wasn’t sure any shampoo would repair the damage to his hair. He had a few mosquito bites and two parallel scratches near his right eye.

This wasn’t the ten-year-old boy she’d been going to make pizza for a few days ago. Dirt and tangled hair and chapped skin made him look older.

Only, it wasn’t the outward signs of his ordeal that had matured him. His eyes-Cord’s dark eyes-were different somehow. Wiser. Experienced.

“I’m proud of you,” she whispered when he did nothing except stare at her with those newly mature eyes that so reminded her of the man she’d made love to last night. “So very proud.”

“You aren’t going to punish me?”

“No. Oh, no. Did you think I would?”

Instead of answering, Matt planted his hands on his father’s chest and pushed back just enough so he could look into Cord’s eyes. The very forest seemed to pause, almost stop its rhythm. From where she knelt, she was privy to the emotion going through her son and understood it in a way she’d seldom understood anything else. He might have called her “Mommy” and asked if she was going to punish him, but it was his father’s reaction he sought and needed. She had no will or strength to fight her tears; Matt would simply have to see them. If he was as wise as she now believed, he’d understand that her tears traced the depth of her love for him.

Cord’s hands were at Matt’s waist; maybe Matt could feel something intangible and vital through that silent contact, and maybe Matt hadn’t stopped staring at his father because he didn’t know enough.

Please, Cord. Say something.

“Just you and Mom?” Matt’s voice was still that of a little boy’s. “There’s no search and rescue?”

“No.”

She thought Matt would ask why not. He simply nodded. “You followed my tracks?”

“Your dad did, yes.”

“All-I didn’t do so good. I got pretty lost.”

Cord didn’t speak, didn’t move. His eyes still locked with his father’s, Matt slowly pulled free and pushed himself to his feet. He glanced down at his dirty boots. “Mom? I’m sorry I scared you.”

A thousand words rolled through her, but she didn’t try to sort through them. She stood and held out her hands. Cord, please! Say something!

“It’s all right,” she managed as Matt buried himself against her. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

He felt wonderful! A dirty, tired bundle of bone and muscle now pressed against her. His arms slid around her waist; she gripped his shoulders, buried her face in his matted hair, and wondered how much longer she would be able to look down at him.

Matt, alive and well.

Matt, not a victim of some hunter’s gun.

Matt, given back to her by Cord.

Cord, who now stood a few feet away looking as if he didn’t know what to do with his body.

Talk to him, Cord. Tell him you love him.

Cord spun and stalked away from them. She nearly screamed at him before she spotted what had caught his attention. Standing at the edge of a bushy thicket were four men, all of them armed with rifles. Cord! No, don’t! They might-

He couldn’t hear her silent warning, and even if he had, his long, purposeful stride told her he was beyond listening. Without saying a word, he walked up to them and grabbed the rifle from one of the men before slamming it to the ground.

“Damn you! Damn you! You almost -”

The rifleless man turned toward one of his companions, a shorter man in a faded red-and-white checked shirt and a face like sun-dried leather. “Chuck! You said it was an elk!”

“That ‘elk’ was my son.” Cord’s strong fingers had become fists. He kept them at his side, just barely. “You’re hunting out of season, shooting at anything that moves. If you’d been a decent shot…” Although close to a hundred feet separated her and Matt from the others, she saw Cord shudder. He concentrated on the man with the checkered shirt. “Chuck?” he asked. “Chuck Markham?”

“Yeah?” To her horror, instead of lowering his rifle, the way the other two men were doing, Chuck kept it firm and steady in his arms-aimed at Cord’s chest. “What of it?”

“Nothing matters to you except getting what you want, does it?” Cord stalked closer.

“What’s it to you? Your kid’s safe, isn’t he?”

What’s it to you? If she hadn’t been so focused on the weapon and her ex-husband, she might have flung the words at the horrible man.