High Country Baby

Taylor zipped herself into her small tent and stretched flat out on her back, palms upward, legs straight, eyes closed. She groaned, low and long, wishing that she could locate a place on her body that didn’t hurt. With effort, she pushed her torso upright and reached down for her boot. She had developed a donut belly over the past six months and it was a chore to reach her foot.

With fingers stiffened from holding the reins all day, Taylor tugged, eyes closed, biting her lip to distract her from the pain she was feeling as the heel of the boot scraped over her blister.

“Ahhhhh!” Taylor yanked the boot off the rest of the way.

Even the simple chore of removing her boots was made harder by the excess weight she had gained.

“Gosh darn it, you’re out of shape.” Taylor muttered as she pulled off the other boot.

She tossed the boots toward the tent flap; slowly, she peeled off her sweat-soaked socks. Her socks stank, her feet stank, and the bloody blister now covered the entirety of her right heel. Taylor wrinkled her nose while she gently prodded the blister—why hadn’t the stupid thing popped already?

After examining it, Taylor struggled out of her jeans, quickly took off her T-shirt and bra, and put on a clean T-shirt that covered a portion of her panties. Once inside of the sleeping bag built for one, she slipped on her standard eye mask to block out the light and sighed the sigh of a woman who had finally found a comfortable spot after a long day of discomfort. She wiggled farther down into the sleeping bag, the top edge tucked under her chin, and prayed for sleep. Ever since the divorce she hadn’t slept well. She was hopeful that on this journey, pushing her body to the limit, that exhaustion would force her to sleep.

“Please, God—please let me sleep.”

* * *

At first, Clint was grateful to have Taylor shut away in her tent. He didn’t want this grunt job that his stepbrother Brock, foreman of Bent Tree, had volunteered him for, but with a negative balance in his bank account and creditors trying to track him down, he didn’t have a choice. At least while she was in her tent he didn’t have to worry about her.

While Taylor was temporarily contained he built a fire, broke into the beef jerky he always took with him when he went on long camping trips, drank some cheap tequila and chain-smoked cigarettes while the sun slowly disappeared behind the taller mountains off in the distance. Dusk was his favorite time to be in the mountains—it was quiet. Peaceful. He’d had a shortage of peace in his life ever since he was a kid. Which made him appreciate moments like this one—a good fire, a full stomach and a little hair of the dog.

But, every once in a while he’d catch the tent out of the corner of his eye and it would remind him that his boss’s nutty niece hadn’t made an appearance. He couldn’t say that he was worried about her—he figured she had to still be breathing—but he was worried about his own neck. As foreman of Bent Tree ranch, Brock, who’d never really had much use for him, didn’t need an excuse to give him the boot. If he screwed up with Taylor, he’d be out of luck with Brock. No. He was responsible for Taylor now. He had to make sure she returned to the ranch unharmed. His neck was already on the chopping block, so by default, he had to be worried about her neck.

It was nighttime when Taylor awakened. After she pulled off her eye mask, it took her a couple of seconds to make sense of her surroundings. The minute she started to move the reality of her situation came sharply into focus. So very sore everywhere. With another low groan, she pushed herself upright and then toppled forward, her elbows on her thighs and her head in her hands. She stayed in that position, eyes closed, until she could face standing up and getting dressed. In the low light of the flashlight that was hanging from a cord at the highest point of the tent’s ceiling, Taylor got dressed. Instead of going through the trauma of getting back into her boots, she opted for rubber-soled slip-ons. Her stomach growled loudly at the same time she was unzipping the tent flap. When she stepped outside her eyes searched for, and found, Clint leaning back against his saddle next to a healthy fire.

Clint had been just about to get up and check on Taylor when he heard the tent flap being unzipped. He hadn’t really expected it, but he felt something that could be interpreted as relief when Hank’s niece reappeared. They stared at each other for a split second, neither of them speaking, before Taylor grabbed something out of a nearby bag and disappeared into the woods.

The yellow light of a flashlight confirmed what she was going to do—and yet, he found his entire focus turned to the dark edge of the woods. When he saw the light grow brighter, signaling Taylor’s return to the campsite, the muscles in his arms, legs and jawline relaxed simultaneously. It was at that exact moment that his body connected with his mind and he realized how important this stranger’s safety was to him. He didn’t want the job of protector—he had a reputation of putting his own hide above everyone else’s. A well-deserved reputation.

What were Brock and Hank thinking?

At the edge of the woods, Taylor considered her options. She could go back to the tent or she could join the cowboy. It seemed a little ridiculous to avoid him—for better or worse, they were joined together on this journey for the next several weeks. No time like the present to start making the best of it. Taylor walked slowly over to the campfire, allowing herself to take her time. Even in the slide-on shoes, every step was a miserable one. Once she reached the fire, she switched off the flashlight and carefully lowered her body to the ground. Beneath the brim of his black cowboy hat, Clint’s darkened eyes watched her.

“You’ve got a limp.” His voice was a little raspier now.

Yes, Captain Obvious! She stifled her sarcasm for a more congenial “Nasty blister.”

Clint stood up and tossed his cigarette into the fire. On his way upright Taylor noticed that he paused with a noticeable wince. The cowboy walked over to her side of the fire to kneel down beside her.

“Let me take a look.”

Caught off guard, Taylor pulled her foot back. “What?”

“Let me take a look—see how bad it is.”

“No, thank you.”

Clint grabbed her by the ankle, pulled her shoe off and bent her leg backward so he could get a closer look at her right heel in the firelight.

“Hey!” Taylor tugged against him. “Hey!”

“Hold still.” The cowboy issued an order.

Clint pulled a knife out of a small sheath on his belt. When Taylor caught a glimpse of the silver blade, she yanked her ankle out of Clint’s hand and pushed backward away from him.

“Don’t even think about it!” she snapped at him.

He had touched her smelly, sweaty foot! She didn’t like people touching her feet. She didn’t get pedicures because she didn’t want anyone touching her feet. She left her socks on during a massage because she didn’t want anyone touching her feet!

“It needs to be popped.” Clint waved the blade quickly over the flames of the fire.

“No it doesn’t. Everyone knows you aren’t supposed to pop a blister.”

“We need to pop this one.” Clint rested his forearm on his bended knee. “It looks like it’s on its way to being infected. We’ll pop it, drain it—I don’t doubt you’ve got all manner of first aid in that mountain of stuff you packed...” He nodded toward her supplies. “Pour a little alcohol on it, let it dry out overnight—you’ll feel a heck of a lot better.”

The man looked as though he’d spent most of his life healing something—she was inclined to believe him.

“Are you sure?” Taylor asked.

He nodded his response, so she said, “Go ahead then—but do it quick, please.”

“It’s done.” The cowboy wiped the blade of his knife onto the leg of his jeans.

Taylor opened her eyes and craned her neck to the side to get a look at her heel. “Huh—that didn’t even hurt.”

She told Clint where he could find her first-aid kit. Popping the blister hadn’t hurt, but draining it and then dousing it with alcohol hurt like all get-out. The cowboy was clinical and unsympathetic. He expected her to sit there, quietly—take it like a woman. It was a silent challenge that she decided to accept. She could only imagine what this man thought of her—a soft, socialite city girl without the faintest clue about how to make it in the Montana wilderness. She was a city girl, and proud of it, but she wasn’t soft.

The procedure was done and the cowboy returned to his side of the fire. He began to play a harmonica that he had retrieved from his saddlebag. He wasn’t just producing random sounds—he really knew how to play. He filled the cool night air with a slow string of pretty notes and those notes blended with the crackling of the fire and the sound of an owl in the distance.

It was at that moment when Taylor felt as if she had really arrived in Montana. No, she wasn’t alone on the journey. But it didn’t seem to matter anymore. The experience she was having now, sitting by a campfire, beneath a blackened sky dotted with a smattering of white stars, listening to a real cowboy play the harmonica, made her feel like woman of the wilderness. An adventurer in her own right.

Taylor stared into the fire, watching one particular piece of wood glow bright orange right before it broke apart and crumbled into smaller bits of red embers. She didn’t have the need to fill the silence with aimless talk as she normally would, which was helpful, because it took energy to talk and she didn’t have much of that to spare. Clint would take a break every now and again from playing the harmonica and she would catch the flash of something out of the corner of her eye. Curious, she glanced up to see Clint take a quick swig of something from a bottle. He was leaning down, his head turned away from her. He didn’t want her to see him drinking, but she already had.

“What’s in the bottle?”

Clint twisted the cap down and tucked the nearly empty bottle back into his saddlebag.

“Tequila,” he told her reluctantly.

“Enough to share?”

Those weren’t the next words he had expected to hear. Taylor Brand didn’t strike him as the type of woman who would drink anything straight from a bottle, much less cheap tequila. Clint tilted his chin up enough so he could see her face beneath the brim of his hat. In the firelight, the natural prettiness of Taylor’s oval face caught his attention for the first time. She wasn’t model pretty, but she had the kind of face that a man could look at for the rest of his life. And, he was a man, so he had noticed that Taylor had a curvy body, on the thicker side, with round hips, a smaller waist and larger than average breasts. He preferred women who looked as though they wouldn’t blow over in a windstorm. Other than the fact that she was as city as a person could be, Taylor Brand was his type of woman.

Clint pulled the bottle out of his saddlebag, twisted off the cap and stretched his arm to bridge the space between them. When Taylor took the bottle from his hand, he saw the flash of a large, round diamond and a platinum band on the ring finger of her left hand. Now, what was a married woman like Taylor doing trying to ride the Continental Divide by herself? When Brock had assigned him to this task, he’d been too angry and too hungover to think, much less consider anything from Taylor’s point of view. But even though there was part of him that was curious, he’d discovered early on in life that it was best to mind his own business.

Taylor moved the bottle farther away from her face, then a little closer, so she could read the label. She really needed to get her eyes checked when she got back to Chicago. She could read the larger letters on the bottle, but the smaller letters were a chore to decipher.

“Corazon Blanco...white heart.” She read the label aloud. Christopher had always insisted on using Gran Patron on the rare occasion they had hosted a margarita party together.

She enjoyed a frozen margarita, light on the alcohol, but she had never taken a shot before. All of her friends would be shocked to see her drinking straight tequila from the bottle. But wasn’t that exactly what this trip was about? Getting out of her rut?

Taylor used the tail of her shirt to thoroughly clean the outside and inside lip of the bottle. Then she brought it up to her lips and tried to pour the clear liquid into her mouth without touching the glass. She titled the bottle a bit too far and a large swig of the clear liquid spilled onto her tongue and slipped down her throat. Taylor started to cough and her body lurched forward, chin tucked, eyes watering as if she were crying. She waved the bottle at Clint so he would take it from her. Her tongue, her gums, her lips, her throat—they all burned. The bitter taste of the tequila made her want to gag. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and shook her head several times after she managed to get the coughing under control.

“Yuck!” Taylor finally managed to get one word out.

Clint took a mouthful of the tequila, sat back and watched the show. Taylor’s face was scrunched up into a sourpuss and she was wiping her eyes every couple of seconds. The woman clearly could not handle her tequila. When she gave her critique of his drink of choice, it made him smile.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude,” Taylor said apologetically in a raspy voice. “But that’s repulsive.”

Clint held the bottle up to the firelight so he could see how much of the tequila was left in the bottle. He swirled the liquid around for a moment before he decided that there wasn’t enough to leave for later. In one long tug on the bottle, he drank the rest of it as though it was water. He’d drunk tequila for most of his life—his father had given him his first taste when he was nine. It used to burn going down; these days he didn’t feel the burn until it hit his stomach. That burn in his stomach reminded him that he was alive and it was the sensation he craved. It was a sensation he’d grown to need.

“I admit—” the cowboy stuck the empty bottle into his saddlebag “—it takes some gettin’ used to...”

“I don’t know why anyone would want to get used to that.” Taylor wiped her tongue on her sleeve.

Clint smiled a quick smile before he went back to playing the harmonica.

“Well...” Taylor rolled to the side a bit in order to lever herself into a squatting position and then to a standing position. “I’m going to try to get some sleep. So...I’ll see you in the morning...”

Clint waited for Taylor to zip herself back into her tent before he exchanged the harmonica for a cigarette. He took his hat off, slid downward and used the seat of his saddle as a pillow. He stared up at the stars scattered across the blue-black night sky. They would reach the peak tomorrow. He wasn’t certain, but he imagined Taylor would see what she had come to see and then they’d head back to the ranch. He hadn’t packed enough tequila and cigarettes for a long trip. Tomorrow he needed to do what he should have done in the very beginning—find out the particulars of the trip. Better late than never, he supposed. Clint flicked his cigarette into the fire, closed his eyes and covered his face with his hat. Taylor was greener than he had originally thought. And he had a feeling that she could turn out to be a wild card. He was going to have to keep a real close eye on her, which meant he needed to sober up a bit. Damn rotten luck.

* * *

Taylor awakened with the feeling of a sharp rock digging into her right shoulder blade. She winced and let out a low groan when she sat upright. How was it possible that this was the sorest day thus far? Shouldn’t her body be acclimating? She forced herself to stand up without giving the pain too much thought and tended to the blister on her foot, glad to see that Clint had been right about draining it. She pulled on her jeans and boots, and then rolled up her sleeping bag tightly. When she emerged from her tent she was pleased to see that Clint was already awake and kneeling in front of a small fire.

“Is that coffee?” she asked hopefully. Taylor had decided not to pack coffee. She had only packed items that she had thought were essential in order to keep her load light for her journey. How could she have ever thought that coffee wasn’t an essential?

Clint had made enough coffee for both of them—he’d already had a cup laced with a small shot of tequila. Yes, he needed to sober up, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Taylor grabbed her multipurpose cup and brought it over to the fire. Clint poured coffee into it.

“You’ll get some grounds,” he warned her.

She didn’t care. The piping hot liquid had already heated the thin tin of her cup and started to warm her cold hands. The smell of strong, black coffee filled her nose as she blew on it to cool it down enough to drink. When she took that first, grateful swallow, she ignored the bitter taste. Less than a month ago she would have turned her nose up at any coffee that wasn’t a custom blend—and it made her feel good that she could notice some change in herself, no matter how small.

Taylor took several more sips, warming her body from the inside out. She opened her eyes with a small smile.

“Thank you.”

The closer she got to the bottom of her cup, the more grounds she encountered. Oddly, it didn’t deter her. She simply picked the grounds off her tongue as they came along, and then kept on drinking until there wasn’t a drop left in the bottom of her cup. She gave herself a little extra time to enjoy the coffee—then she quickly ate a protein bar and started to break camp. It would have gone a lot faster if she had allowed the cowboy to help her. But she wanted to do it on her own. That was the whole point of this journey—to build self-reliance and self-confidence. And, to his credit, Clint didn’t interfere. He put out the fire and then smoked a cigarette downwind from her.

The entire time she was packing, she tried to figure out how she was going to get onto her horse. She looked all around the camp, but there wasn’t a good makeshift mounting block in sight. Maybe—just maybe—this would be the morning that she could manage it without standing on a large boulder or a fallen tree. She signaled to Clint that it was time to move out. He swung into his saddle with ease. She did not. After several valiant attempts at trying to get her foot in the stirrup while Honey walked in circles around her, Taylor wasn’t surprised when the cowboy appeared at her side.

Her noncompliant horse became obedient with Clint in charge—the sturdy mare stood stock-still, and the cowboy used his hands to create a step for her. She needed the help, so she took it. She put her foot into the cowboy’s hands and let him boost her up. Once she was situated in the saddle she turned to thank Clint, but he was already walking away from her toward his horse. For the second time, he swung into his saddle and waited for her to lead the way.

She steered her horse onto the narrow trail leading toward the junction where her uncle’s property met public land. There, she would finally reach the Continental Divide Trail.

Chapter Three

The morning light cast a gray hue across the dark-green needles of the tall fir trees lining the trail. White fog floated over the trail ahead and dimmed the vibrant yellow and purple of the wildflowers growing sporadically in the wild grass on either side of the narrow path. There was beauty everywhere she looked. And there was beauty in the sound of the horses’ hooves—one, two, three, four—hitting the gravel on the trail.

Why had she waited so many years to come? This was the peace that she had been missing. Would she ever be satisfied by her rat-race life after experiencing this? It was difficult for her to imagine.

Midmorning, around the time that the sun had burned away the last remnants of the white fog, they reached the section of the trail that took them above the tree line. Taylor felt her spirit swell at her first glimpse of the peaks of mountains in the distance. At this height the views were unobstructed, and she could see for miles ahead. A wave of emotion—a mixture of awe and joy and even sorrow that Christopher wasn’t here to share this moment with her—overwhelmed her. She didn’t stop moving forward, but there were tears streaming down her face when she first saw the white and black metal marker sign bolted to a post that let her know she had successfully reached the Continental Divide Trail.

“Will you take my picture?” Taylor asked Clint when he rode up beside her.

She dismounted and handed him her phone. The cowboy saw the tears, because she hadn’t wiped them from her cheeks, but he didn’t question them. How had she known that he wouldn’t?

“Please take a couple so I get one with my eyes open.” Taylor stood proudly next to the sign.

After the quick photo shoot, they decided to take a break on a knoll that had knee-high green grass for the horses to graze. Clint watched the horses and smoked a cigarette while she explored on foot. Reaching the CDT was one for the bucket list, but it wasn’t the finish line for her.

On the other side of the trail was a sharp drop and then a rocky slope; the slope led down to the banks of an aqua-blue lake, which was full of freshly melted snow from the winter season.

“That’s it.” Taylor stared down at the lake. “That’s the spot.”

She turned back, surprised at how far away from Clint and the horses she had walked. Winded, with her cheeks flushed from exertion and excitement, Taylor rounded a corner that would lead her to the spot where she had left her traveling companions. When the grassy knoll came into view, it felt as if she were stepping into a scene from a movie. Clint looked like a throwback from the old West standing in the tall grass with his cowboy hat, chaps and boots, with a revolver strapped to his hip. There was something about the man that seemed more suited for a rougher, less civilized era. He was a real cowboy. The genuine article.

“Ready?” The man certainly liked his one-word utterances.

She gathered her horse’s reins with a nod. “There’s a lake up ahead. That’s my next target.”

He didn’t ask her why, just quietly helped her mount, swung into his saddle and followed the packhorse as she once again led the way. Around the bend, the lake below came into view. From horseback, it seemed a much steeper descent to the edge of the lake.

“Tricky gettin’ back,” Clint told her.

At work, she was the queen of handling tricky deals. Montana, she was learning, wasn’t much different than back home. When it came to tricky spots, you needed a good strategy and determination.

“I’ll manage,” she said, not deterred.

They secured the horses in a place where they were still visible from below and then started the twisty, rocky trip down to the lake. She lost her footing several times, slipping on loose rocks. She had to break her fall with her hand on one occasion, so her wrist was throbbing and the palm of her hand was scraped, but reaching the edge of the pristine lake was worth the mild damage to her body.

Clint stood away from her, his thoughts a complete enigma behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. Taylor stood at the lake’s edge, the ice-blue water lapping close to the toes of her barely used boots. She closed her eyes and listened. She listened to her own breath. She listened to a bird’s call in the distance. She listened to her heart. The day she had thought would never come had, indeed, arrived.

She opened her eyes to look down at the engagement ring and matching wedding band she still wore on her left ring finger. Christopher had planned such a romantic proposal the night he had given her this nearly flawless, colorless two-carat round stone. It had been everything a pragmatic, yet still romantic twenty-two-year-old could wish for in a proposal. He had arranged for private dining at her favorite restaurant. He’d had her serenaded by a classical guitarist. They danced and laughed and then he got down on one knee, took the shaking fingers of her left hand and asked her to marry him.