Nora Roberts - Black Hills

“I don’t want to lose you, Cooper.” She turned into his arms.

So she felt it, too, he realized, and he only held her tighter. “You couldn’t.”

“I don’t want to be with anyone but you. I don’t want anyone but you.”

He turned his head to rest his cheek on top of her head. Looked at the tracks they’d left behind. “I’ll come back. I always come back.”

She had him now, and tried to hold on to that as tightly as she held on to him. She would will him back if need be. Back to her, back to where he was happy.

One day they’d walk through this forest again, years from now. Together.

As they walked back to camp, she put everything between now and then out of her mind.

That night, while the stars seared the sky overhead, she lay in his arms, and heard the cry of the cat.

Her talisman, she thought. Her good-luck charm.

Because she couldn’t understand why she felt so weepy, she turned her face into his shoulder and lay quiet until she could sleep.

JENNA WATCHED OUT the window. The hard, hot day threatened storms with a mottled bruising in the eastern sky. There would be other storms, and more bruising, she thought as she watched her girl and the boy she loved ride back from checking fences with Joe and Sam.

Even at that distance she could see what they were. Lovers now, so young, so fresh. All they could see were the summer blue skies, and not the storms blowing in.

“He’ll break her heart.”

“I wish I could say otherwise.” Behind her, Lucy put a hand on Jenna’s shoulder and watched as she watched.

“She thinks it’ll all fall into place, the way she wants, the way she plans. That it’ll be what it is now forever. I can’t tell her different. She wouldn’t believe me.”

“He loves her.”

“Oh, I know. I know. But he’ll go, just as she will. They have to. And she’ll never be quite the same again. There’s no stopping that either.”

“We hoped he’d stay. When he told us he wasn’t going back to college, I thought, Well, that’s all right. You’ll stay here, and take over the farm one day. I had just enough time to think it-and to think how he might’ve given his education a better try if his father hadn’t pushed so hard. Then he told us what he aimed to do.”

“The police force.” She turned from the window to study her friend. “How do you feel about that, Lucy?”

“Scared some, that’s a fact. Hopeful he’ll find his feet, and some real pride in himself. I can’t tell him any more than you can tell Lil.”

“My biggest fear is he’ll ask her to go back with him, and she will. She’s young and in love and, well, fearless. The way you are at that age.” Jenna walked over to get out the pitcher of lemonade to give her hands something to do. “She’d just let her heart pull her along. It’s so far away. Not just the miles.”

“I know. I know what it was like when my Missy lit out, like there was a fire under her feet.” At home in Jenna’s kitchen as she was in her own, Lucy went to the cupboard for glasses. “He’s not like his mother, not a bit. Neither’s your girl. Missy, she never had a thought for anybody but herself. Just seemed to be born that way. Not mean, not even hard, just careless. She wanted anything but here.”

She took her drink back to the window, sipping as she looked out. “Those two might want different things, but here’s a part of it. Your girl has plans, Jenna. My boy there? He’s trying to make some.”

“I don’t know if you ever get over your first love. Joe was mine, so I never had to get over him. I just hate knowing she’s going to hurt. Both of them are going to hurt.”

“They’ll never let loose of each other, not all the way. Too much there. But, well, nothing we can do about it in the meantime but be here. Storm’s coming in.”

“I know.”

THE WIND KICKED high and hard, ahead of the rain. Lightning slashed over the hills in whips of eerie blue, blinding white. It struck a cotton-wood in the near pasture, cleaving it like an ax. Ozone burned the air like a sorcerer’s potion.

“It’s a mean one.” Lil stood on the back porch scenting the air. Inside the kitchen, the dogs whined, and were, she imagined, huddled under the table.

It could pass, she knew, as quickly as it came. Or it could beat and strike and wreak destruction. Hail to batter the crops and the stock, twisting winds to shred them. In the hills, in the canyons, animals would take shelter in lairs and dens, in caves and thickets and high grass. Just as people took it in houses, in cars.

The feeding chain meant nothing to nature.

The cannon blast of thunder boomed, rolled, echoed, and shook the valley.

“You won’t get this in New York.”

“We have thunderstorms back east.”

Lil just shook her head as she watched the show. “Not like this. City storms are inconveniences. This is drama, and adventure.”

“Try hailing a cab in Midtown during a storm. Baby, that’s an adventure.” Still, he laughed and took her hand. “But you’ve got a point. This is E Ticket.”

“Here comes the rain.”

It swept in, fast-moving curtains. She watched the wall rush through, and the world went a little mad. Pounding, roaring, slashing in one titanic roar.

She turned to him, clamped around him, and took his mouth with as much fury and power as the storm. Rain dashed them, hard pebbled drops the wind shoved under the porch roof. Thunder crashed, an ear-ringing explosion. The wind chimes and dinner bells clanged and rang insanely.

She drew back, but not before she’d added a quick, teasing bite. “Every time you hear thunder, you’re going to remember that.”

“I need to be alone with you. Somewhere. Anywhere.”

She glanced toward the kitchen window. Her parents and the Wilkses stood watch on the front porch as she and Coop had chosen the back.

“Quick. Run!” Laughing, she pulled him off the porch, into the wild rain and wind. Instantly soaked, they raced for the barn.

Lightning forked the sky, electric sizzle. Together they dragged the door open to stumble inside, breathless and drenched. In the stalls, horses shifted restlessly as the rain pounded, as thunder rolled.

In the hayloft, they stripped off wet clothes, and took each other eagerly.

IT WOULD BE their last day together. When it was over he would say his goodbyes to Joe and Jenna, and then somehow to Lil.

He’d said goodbye before, but he knew it would be harder this time. This time, more than ever before, they were each taking different directions at that crossroads.

They walked their horses as they had so many times before, to the place that had become theirs. The fast-running stream at the verge of the pines where the wildflowers danced.

“Let’s keep going. We’ll come back,” she said, “but when we stop, it’ll be the last time. So let’s keep going for a while.”

“I might be able to come out for Thanksgiving. It’s not that far away.”

“No, it’s not that far away.”

“Christmas for sure.”

“Christmas for sure. I’m leaving in eight more days.” She hadn’t started to pack, not yet. She’d wait until Coop had gone. It was a kind of symbol. As long as he was here, everything stayed. Everything was solid and familiar.

“Nervous yet? About college.”

“No, not nervous. Curious, I guess. Part of me wants to go, get started, find out. The other part wants everything to stop. I don’t want to think about it today. Let’s just be.”

She reached out, took his hand for a moment. They walked in a silence full of questions neither knew how to answer.

They passed a little falls engorged from summer storms, crossed a grassland green with summer. Determined not to drop into a brood, she took out her camera. “Hey!” He grinned when she aimed it at him. Then, with their horses close abreast, she leaned over, held the camera out.