Vella Munn - The Return of Cord Navarro

“I’m trying to determine what he took with him,” she said, not looking at him. “The backpack frame you gave him is gone. So is his sleeping bag and ground cover.”

He’d given Matt all of those things.

“But not the compass,” she continued. “He didn’t understand why you’d sent it to him. After all, he said, you never use one.”

“No. I don’t.”

She spun toward him. In the shadowed room, he could barely make out her features and nothing of her thoughts. “He wants to be exactly like you, to find his way with the stars and sun. But he doesn’t have your…your instinct.”

It wasn’t instinct. At Gray Cloud’s side he’d learned to be at home in the wilderness, something he hadn’t been able to teach his son yet because they weren’t together enough. Besides, maybe Matt would never need the skills that were vital to his career. Keeping his voice level, he told her that Matt might not need a compass depending on where he’d decided to go. He didn’t say that father’s instinct was telling him Matt wouldn’t stay on the beaten path.

“What else did he take?” he asked. “Can you tell?”

“Food, a lot of it. When he was getting ready to leave yesterday, I teased him about how much he was packing.” She blinked and he thought he detected a hint of moisture in her eyes. “Cord, he had more than enough food for two boys for a couple of days. Alone…”

Alone he might be able to survive without hardship for the better part of a week, but Matt had told Kevin to let Shannon know he’d be gone only two nights. He reminded her of that now.

Shannon stood next to Matt’s bed, her fingers resting lightly on the pillow. Now that he’d gotten used to the lamplight, he was able to make out much more of her, her practical jeans and boots, the loose cotton shirt that clung damply to her generous breasts and accented her slender waist.

“I can feel him in here,” she said. “I know it shouldn’t make any difference, but it makes me feel better. He’s such a mix, part of him still my little boy, the rest trying to be a teenager.”

“That’s what growing up is about.”

“I know,” she said with something that wasn’t quite a laugh. “But if he was still a toddler, he wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

And we wouldn’t be standing here talking. I’d be out of your hair, your life. “You like challenges yourself,” he observed.

“Yes, I do. But I’m also disgustingly practical. A taxpaying member of the middle class. I’m not a rock-headed ten-year-old with more energy and dumb determination than sense.”

“Rock-headed?”

“Stubborn. Strong-willed. Whatever you want to call it. Anyway-” She looked around, as if trying to reorient herself. “That backpack frame is his most prized possession. I can’t remember how many times he’s had me watch him walk around with it on. He says the fit and balance is just right, that he…that he could hike all day with it on his back and not get tired.”

He wanted to comfort her and again reassure her that everything was going to turn out all right, but he couldn’t concentrate on that with what she’d just told him making its impact. Something he’d sent Matt was his prize possession.

“Cord, look.”

She had gone back to the closet and was pulling out a tightly wrapped tent-the domed model he and Matt had picked out together the Christmas before last.

“And he didn’t take his propane stove, either,” she continued. “No tent. No stove. What was he thinking?”

Cord leaned against the doorjamb, easily imagining Matt sleeping in this room. “I bought him the tent and stove so he could go camping with his friends, but he knows I don’t use either of those things.”

She seemed to sway a little. “In other words, he wants to do everything you do the way you do. Walk around without a compass. Sleep under the stars-or in the rain. Eat nothing but cold food. Damn you, Cord.”

There was no anger behind Shannon’s words, and he didn’t take offense. Instead, he was glad she’d been able to discharge a little of the tension she must be feeling.

“Shannon-”

“Don’t tell me he’s going to be all right. I don’t want to hear that when neither of us has any idea what he’s doing. Or where he is.”

He’d been about to ask if Matt had been wearing riding or hiking boots, but didn’t. Instead he studied her standing in their son’s room and knew he would never forget the sight. Then he turned and walked back down the dark hall. He didn’t want to leave her in there alone, but she’d lived without him for the past seven years and didn’t need him for anything anymore-except to return her son to her.

When she came out of Matt’s room, Shannon was again struck by how silent Cord could be. She’d long known he wasn’t a man for words, but it seemed that he could walk around in hiking boots without making a sound. For all she knew, he’d left the house.

A bolt of fear tore through her and she hurried outside, not taking time to close the door behind her. If Cord had left without her-

He hadn’t; hadn’t she all but tripped over the pack he’d left on her office floor? Even Cord had enough social grace and compassion and understanding not to disappear without telling her where he was going.

But he wasn’t going anywhere by himself!

A new fear, laced through with heavy determination, settled inside her. They hadn’t discussed today’s agenda. Certainly he planned to resume last night’s search; what she hadn’t told him was that she was committed to going with him. She didn’t care how much resistance he might throw at her. She was not going to endure any more of this doing nothing.

“Shannon.”

Although Cord’s voice came to her from some distance away, she still jumped. He was out in the corral, and she started toward him. The rain showed no sign of slackening, and if anything, the wind was stronger than it had been a few minutes ago. Soon she was soaked to the skin. For some unexplainable reason, she embraced the pure, lilting sound and the wind. “What?” she asked when she was close enough that she didn’t have to raise her voice.

“What horses do you want to take?”

Horses . As soon as she pointed out the two geldings she had in mind, Cord went after them. She now felt chilled in her dripping, oversize shirt and berated herself for not grabbing a jacket. Cord, however, seemed impervious to the weather.

“You knew, didn’t you?” she said as she led one of the horses into the barn to be saddled and bridled while Cord brought the other. “That I was going with you.”

“Yeah, I knew.”

Did he want her to come? It didn’t matter. “What are we going to do? I don’t know how you can possibly track him with these conditions.”

“It’ll make it harder-I won’t deny that. But I’ve done it before.” Picking up a large old towel she kept for such purposes, he started wiping off one of the gelding’s backs prior to saddling him. His movements were so practiced that she had to remind herself that he hadn’t been part of her business. He didn’t belong in this shadowed, hay-smelling barn; he wouldn’t be content spending hours in it the way she did. Still, maybe he now understood a little more of her world.

“I’ve been thinking,” he continued. His voice echoed in the high-ceilinged space. “I want to run this past you and get your reaction. Matt told Kevin that he wants to prove himself to me, right?”

“Yes.”

“If that’s his intention, then he wants to give himself as much of a challenge as possible.”

“I…guess.”

“Guess?”

“All right!” When her horse shied, she forced herself to lower her voice. “Yes, I think you’re right. But where-”