Secret of Deadman's Ravine

He nodded, not even sure what he’d planned to say. Whatever it was, this wasn’t the time or the place to talk about the past. “I’ll be right behind you.”

They climbed out of the ravine, using the exposed rocks like steps. He could see that Eve was dead on her feet. She needed sleep, a hot shower, real food.

But she seemed to draw on some inner strength that the dry clothing and candy bar and water had little to do with. Eve was a strong woman. Isn’t that what he’d told himself so many years ago, that Eve Bailey was strong. She’d get over any pain he’d caused her.

He’d lied to himself because he couldn’t face the fact that he’d hurt Eve.

IT TOOK THE LAST of her resources to get to the top of the ravine, but Eve was bound and determined. She reached the top to cheers of the search party, making her feel even more foolish, as she apologized for wasting their time, although they all insisted it had been no trouble.

“So what happened?” Errol Wilson asked.

Whenever Eve saw Errol, she thought of Halloween night when she was five. Her father had taken her to a party at the community center. Her mother had stayed home, complaining of a headache.

In Eve’s excitement to tell her mother about the party, she’d been the first out of the truck and racing up the steps to the house when she thought she saw Errol Wilson hiding in the dark at the edge of the porch.

Startled, Eve had let out a bloodcurdling scream and tripped and fell, skinning her knees. Her father had come running, but when Eve looked toward the end of the porch, there wasn’t anyone there.

She’d tried to tell her parents that she’d seen a scary man, but they hadn’t believed her, saying she’d just imagined it.

All Eve knew was that every time she saw Errol Wilson after that he seemed to have a smug look on his face, as if the two of them shared a secret. The smugness had only intensified after he’d seen her yesterday when he was coming out of her mother’s back door.

“Eve was thrown from her horse and ended up at the bottom of a ravine,” Carter said before Eve could answer.

She shot him a withering look. “I’d prefer that story not get back to my sisters, if you don’t mind. I will never live it down.”

Everyone laughed. Except Errol.

“Eve, you should know how hard it is to keep a secret in Whitehorse,” he said.

“Eve and I are going to take it slow on the way back,” Carter said, and looked over at Eve as if wondering what Errol had meant by that. “I’d appreciate it if the rest of you would go back and let everyone know that Eve is fine.”

“I know your mother will be relieved,” Errol said. “She worries about you. I’m glad I can relieve her mind.”

Eve couldn’t suppress a shudder as she saw him look back at her as he rode off with the others.

Apparently she and Errol Wilson now shared another secret. One he worried she would tell?

CARTER FROWNED as he saw Eve’s reaction to Errol. What had that odd exchange been about, he wondered.

As Eve reached for the reins of the horse Titus had brought her, Carter saw her wince with pain.

“Here,” he said, drawing her attention away from Errol. “Let me put something on your hands.”

“I’m fine,” she snapped.

“You’re not fine,” he said, hooking her elbow and pulling her over to a rock. “Sit down. You’re limping. You need that ankle wrapped. I can tell from here that it’s swollen. You also need something on your hands.”

Evidently she didn’t want him to touch her. He couldn’t blame her. In fact, he was still surprised she hadn’t laid into him, telling him off good. He knew she wanted to, so why was she holding back? Did she think he didn’t know he’d hurt her?

Finding the plane and the dead man inside must have shaken her up more than he could imagine. Or was something else bothering her, he wondered, as he looked to where Errol Wilson and the rest of the search party had ridden off.

Eve closed her eyes and leaned back as if soaking up the sun—and ignoring him as he gently wrapped her ankle.

Her hands were bruised and scraped raw. They had to be killing her. “This is going to burn,” he said as he turned up her palms and applied the spray.

She didn’t make a sound, her eyes closed tight. If it hadn’t been for the one lone tear that escaped her lashes, he would have believed it didn’t faze her.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Her eyes blinked open. He looked into that moist deep darkness and saw the pain and anger. “You didn’t hurt me.” She pulled back her hands. “Can we please get this over with?”

He nodded and put everything back into his pack. He didn’t kid himself. He’d pay hell before ever getting back in Eve’s good graces. It would be a waste of time to even try. She’d never forgive him and he couldn’t blame her.

But as he swung up onto his horse, knowing better than to offer Eve any help getting on hers, he vowed to move heaven and earth, if that’s what it took, for the chance.

LIGHT-HEADED and beyond exhaustion, Eve found she also ached all over as she swung up into the saddle.

She’d seen Carter’s worried look and suspected she looked like a woman who’d fallen down a mountainside. She had.

But none of that was as painful as having to sit there while Carter Jackson saw to her injuries. It was the gentle way he touched her, reminding her of their lovemaking the one and only time they’d been together. It was his concerned expression. For an awful moment, he sounded as if he was about to apologize for breaking her heart.

Eve Bailey could take a lot, but she couldn’t take that.

They rode west, working their way along the top of the ridges, the land dropping precariously to the old river bottom. She could feel the piece of costume jewelry in her pocket biting into her flesh as if mocking her for feeling so righteous when it came to Carter.

She argued that the way he’d betrayed her—and her keeping the pin in her pocket from him—weren’t the same thing at all.

The lie caught in her throat like dust. But to admit she’d recognized the pin and knew who it belonged to would be to consider that her family had something to do with that plane and—worse—the dead man inside it. It was easier to lie and pray it was a coincidence that the plane had gone down just miles from the Bailey ranch.

Eve still felt chilled in the dry clothing, although the day was warm as the sun dipped toward the western horizon. Hours had passed without her even noticing it. As she rode, she watched for the ravine where she’d found the plane.

In the distance, she recognized an outcropping of rocks and knew they weren’t far now. She glanced over at Carter.

How easy it would have been to keep riding, to pretend she’d gotten turned around, to leave the plane and its secrets buried where she’d found it.

“We getting close?” he asked, as if he’d caught her indecision.

She’d been wrong about him not knowing her anymore. He knew she couldn’t pretend to have lost the location of the plane. Any more than she could pretend he hadn’t broken her heart.

CARTER REINED in his horse next to Eve’s. Below them was another steep ravine much like the others they’d passed.

He glanced over at Eve. What had her running scared? Eve wasn’t squeamish when it came to dead animals. True, seeing a body would have upset her, but it wouldn’t have her scared. So what was going on with her?

“Is it down there?” he asked. All he could see was a thick stand of junipers growing out of a rock ledge at least halfway down the steep ravine.

She nodded, looking ill.

“You went down there?” He couldn’t see anything that would have tempted him into sliding down that slope.