Colton 911: Cowboy's Rescue

Chapter 2

“I don’t like this any better than you do,” Jonah told Cody as he urged his horse on through the increasingly inclement weather.

He had been talking in a calm, steady voice ever since he and his horse had left the stable in Whisperwood. He wasn’t sure if he was talking for Cody’s benefit or his own, but it helped in both cases.

The farther away from Whisperwood he went, the more Jonah found that he had to steadily raise his voice, because not only had the wind picked up, but so had the threat of rain.

Actually, it wasn’t a threat any longer. Rain had turned into a reality, falling with a vengeance. It would recede, only to return, coming down harder than it had before.

If this kept up, the chances of floods throughout the already-beaten-down area was a given. Jonah drew in his shoulders, trying vainly to stay dry. His rain slicker and Stetson were fighting a losing battle, but it wasn’t in him just to give up. There was a woman out there who needed to be rescued.

“C’mon, where are you?” Jonah called out impatiently in his frustration.

He did his best to scan as much of the surrounding area as possible. According to his calculations, he had ridden onto the Corgan ranch about fifteen, eighteen minutes ago. Because of the rain that was still coming down, his visibility was limited. He hadn’t been able to make out anything except for an occasional tree here and there. Certainly not a person.

In any event, Maggie wasn’t near any of the trees he had made out.

“Maybe she’s not here at all,” he said to Cody. “And we’re just wasting our time—not to mention that we’re seriously running the risk of drowning out here if it gets any worse.” Cody whinnied, as if agreeing with him. Despite the situation he found himself in, Jonah grinned. “I know, I know, we’re the ones who don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain, not her. But legend has it Maggie’s as stubborn as hell and if she said she was coming out here to find answers, this is where she probably is—but where?” he asked, frustrated.

Lowering his head, Jonah shoved his hat farther down on it, hoping to keep the wind from blowing it off.

“You see her, Cody?” he asked the palomino. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”

With one hand holding on to his hat, the other one wrapped around Cody’s reins, Jonah raised up from his saddle, standing as best he could in his stirrups. He was blinking furiously to keep the rain out of his eyes as he scanned the area again, searching for a familiar shape, or some indication that Maggie was indeed out here, or at least had passed this way.

As he surveyed the area, Jonah realized that his horse had ridden in very close to this humongous oak tree. The tall, wide branches were offering him some degree of shelter from the rain—just in time, it seemed. The rain was coming down harder and harder now.

Some sort of natural reflex had Jonah glancing up over his head. It was not unheard-of for animals to go climbing up into the first available tree they could find. It was a self-preservation instinct to keep them from being swept away in a storm or a flood. The animals that he knew reacted this way were mountain lions—and bears.

The last thing he wanted was to be under a tree when a mountain lion or bear decided it wanted a snack more than it wanted to stay dry.

But when Jonah looked up, it wasn’t a mountain lion or a bear that he saw.

Maggie!

Thank God.

“A little old to be climbing trees, aren’t you?” Jonah asked her, amused despite the less than ideal conditions they found themselves in.

Startled, Maggie had been so intent on holding on, she hadn’t even realized that he was there.

“Oh lord,” she cried, “you are the answer to a prayer!”

It had taken her more than a couple of moments to convince herself that she wasn’t hallucinating. After all, she had lost track of how long she had spent up here in this tree. She could hardly believe that she was finally going to be rescued. And if that wasn’t enough, this knight in shining armor was nothing short of gorgeous.

Part of Maggie wasn’t fully convinced that she wasn’t imagining all this. That she really would be rescued. Her arms had all but gone numb from hanging on to the branch she had climbed up on eons ago. At this point, she couldn’t remember not being up here.

Jonah slowly angled Cody, as well as himself, right beneath the woman he had come to rescue. He wrapped the horse’s reins around his saddle horn, then tightened his thighs about Cody’s flanks so that he could hold his position as steadily as possible.

Having taken all the precautions he could, Jonah raised his arms. “Climb down,” he instructed the woman perched above him. “Don’t worry. If you slip, I’ll catch you.”

Maggie looked down uncertainly. She really had her doubts about his assurance. “That’s a pretty tall order,” she called back.

Jonah could appreciate why she was so uneasy. There were several feet of space separating her from his outstretched arms.

He reassessed the situation. “Are you going to make me climb up there and get you?”

It was more of a challenge than a question. Or maybe she was just interpreting it that way. Maggie didn’t know. But she had never been the type of woman who would willingly cleave to the “damsel in distress” image. She wasn’t the type to be rescued, either. She preferred doing the rescuing, the way she had tried to come through for her parents.

“Just hang on to your patience,” she told him, slowly shifting her weight so that she could start to make her way down.

It took a second for her to release her grip on the branch, but she knew that it was either this or just staying where she was, clinging to a branch like some helpless female while this tall, dark and gorgeous specimen of a man played superhero. While that did intrigue her, it just wasn’t her way.

Holding her breath, Maggie inched her way down.

The branch swayed and groaned with every move she made—or maybe that was the wind that was groaning. She didn’t know. The only thing she did know was that she had to move slowly because there was no way in hell that she was going to come tumbling down out of this tree and wind up on the ground right in front of Mr. Magnificent’s horse.

Watching her progress, Jonah grew steadily more uneasy. He continued to hold his arms up and opened. The wind yanked at his Stetson, then ripped it right off his head.

“Damn,” he muttered.

Maggie thought the remark was meant for her, but the next second she saw the cowboy’s dark Stetson fly by her and then it disappeared into the darkened distance.

“I owe you a hat,” she told her rescuer, raising her voice so that he could hear her above the howling of the wind.

“Just get down here,” Jonah ordered, reaching up even higher. “We’ll settle up later.” His shoulders were beginning to ache. “You sure you don’t want me climbing up there to get you?” he offered, watching Maggie’s painfully slow descent.

“I’m sure!” she snapped, irritated that it was taking her so incredibly long to reach him.

It certainly hadn’t felt as if it had taken her this long to climb up into the tree. But then, at the time, she’d been propelled by a dire sense of urgency. Maggie had been convinced that the floodwaters would just keep rising to the point that she would be in danger of being swept away.

Mercifully, they had receded and even though the rain kept falling, it didn’t do so with anywhere near the intensity that the weather bureau had initially promised.

If it had, all of Texas would have been submerged by now, Maggie thought, inching her way down. And then she managed to reach the man who had come to her rescue.

“Sorry,” Maggie apologized just as she finally reached Jonah’s arms. “I really didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“Did you yell?” he asked, feigning ignorance. “I didn’t notice.”

Having succeeded in lowering her into the saddle, Jonah shifted so that he could position himself right behind Maggie.

Seated snugly, he closed his arms around her as he took hold of the reins again.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Other than feeling stupid and having my pride wounded because I had to be rescued out of a tree? No,” Maggie answered.

Taking a moment longer to remain under the tree and somewhat out of the direct path of the storm, Jonah considered her answer.

“Could have been worse,” he told her.

Maggie found that she had to rouse herself in order to keep focused. Right now, she was losing herself in the warm feeling generated by having this hero’s arms wrapped around her.

“How?” she asked, her voice sounding almost hoarse. She coughed, clearing her throat.

“You could have not known how to climb a tree,” Jonah answered. He began to urge Cody to start heading away from the tree. The rain was just not letting up. “It looks like the floodwaters rushed through here before they receded back to a decent level.”

“They did,” she told him. “That’s why I was up in the tree. I lost track of time,” she ruefully admitted. “Do you have any idea how long I was up there?” Maggie asked.

“A long time,” Jonah deadpanned. “Your sister and Donovan just had their first baby a week ago. It was a boy,” he told her with a totally straight face, although she couldn’t turn around to see it. “They named him Jonah, after me.”

That was when Maggie laughed. “You know, you had me going there for a second,” she told him.

“Oh?” he asked innocently. He kept his head down, talking close to her ear so that she could hear him. “What gave me away?”

“Because after what we’ve just been through,” she told him, almost shouting so that he could hear her and not have the wind whip her words away, “Bellamy wouldn’t have gotten married without me there. Really,” she asked more seriously, “how long have I been out here?”

He thought back to what Rae Lemmon had said to him. “By my best estimation, probably close to twenty-four hours.”

That made sense, Maggie thought. “That would explain why I feel like I’m starving,” she said. And then she ventured another look up at the sky. She almost wished she hadn’t. “It looks like it’s going to rain harder,” she reported in dismay.

Without his hat to shield him, Jonah quickly glanced up and then looked down again. “That would be my guess,” he concurred.

She looked straight ahead and had no idea where they were going. She could hardly make out anything. The rain was obliterating everything around them.

“Are we going to get back to town in time?” she asked him anxiously.

That was easy enough for him to answer. “Nope, afraid not,” Jonah replied simply.

That startled Maggie enough for her to attempt to twist around to get a better look at him. She nearly wound up sliding off the horse.

Jonah immediately tightened his arms around her again. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to make any sudden moves when you’re riding double in the middle of a storm?”

“Never had a need for anyone to point that out before,” Maggie answered, feeling exasperated again. “If we’re not headed to town, then where are we going?”

“Well, we definitely need shelter so we’re going to the closest place I know of—if it’s still standing,” he qualified. He hadn’t checked on it since Hurricane Brooke had paid the area this unexpected visit.

He could feel Maggie growing antsy. “My place,” he told her. “It’s a one-room cabin, but right now, it’s probably our best bet if we want to wait out this newest wave of Hurricane Brooke,” he said.

As he answered her question, Jonah shifted ever so slightly so that he could pull the ends of his slicker apart. The second he did that, Jonah carefully tucked the two sides around the woman sitting directly in front of him.

“It’s not much,” he granted, “but at least it’ll give you some protection against this rain.”

“I’m already soaked,” she told him. “But thank you,” she added in a politer tone. Then, turning her face toward him—carefully this time so she wouldn’t slid off—Maggie added, “And thank you for coming out to look for me.”

“Hey, no big deal.” Jonah shrugged off her thanks. “As it turns out, I just happened to be in the neighborhood,” he cracked.

Maggie knew the man behind her had said something, but because the wind had increased, whipping his voice away, she hadn’t been able to hear him. “What?” she practically yelled.

Jonah started to repeat what he’d said, then gave up. Instead, he just shrugged. “Never mind.”

He didn’t think she heard that, either. Right now, it felt as if the wind was scattering his words to the four corners of the earth before they could be heard.

Leaning in over the woman he was holding tightly against his chest, afraid she would slide off if he loosened his grip even just a little bit, Jonah raised his voice and yelled, “We’ll talk later.”

She nodded, not bothering to try to answer him.

Maggie kept her face forward, searching the area for a sign of something that resembled a building or anywhere that they could take shelter until this latest onslaught of rain finally passed. There was nothing.

She had never felt this dismally wet and cold—and hungry—before.

Finally, just as she was about to give up all hope, she thought she could make out what looked to be a small cabin up ahead. For a second she fought the impulse to turn around and ask her white knight if what she saw was indeed his cabin. But considering the fact that her words would probably be lost before he even had a chance to hear them, Maggie decided that it would be in her best interest to just be patient and see if this was the actual final destination.

At this point, Maggie was grateful for any place that could keep them even moderately dry. She wasn’t picky.

When they came to a stop, Maggie saw that they were right in front of the cabin. Up close, it looked less rustic and more modern, but as long as it kept them dry, that was all that mattered.

Maggie could feel her white knight dismounting. She was right—this was their destination. At least until the storm had passed.

Holding on to Cody’s reins, Jonah faced her, waiting. “Need any help dismounting?” he offered.

She looked at him as if she debated whether or not to be offended.

“I’m Texas born and bred, so no,” she replied. The next second, she got off the horse as gracefully as possible. But when her feet hit the ground, she found that her legs were a lot less sturdy than she’d thought. The honest truth was they were downright wobbly, and she almost sank straight down to the ground.

And she would have if he hadn’t caught both her arms in an attempt to steady her.

“Careful,” Jonah cautioned.

Embarrassed, Maggie murmured a stricken, “Sorry about that.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. You spent a day up a tree. You’re lucky you still remember how to walk,” Jonah told her.

She took one tentative step only to find that her legs still insisted on buckling rather than supporting her.

“Not so sure I do,” she admitted.

There was a part of him that couldn’t believe he was actually holding Maggie Reeves like this, the way he had once dreamed of doing. Usually, dreams had a way of not measuring up to long-cherished expectations. However, in this case, holding Maggie Reeves against him was everything he had thought it would be—and more.

Her heart was doing a glorious, uninhibited dance in her chest and just for one wild moment, Maggie thought that Jonah was going to kiss her.

She could feel her breath all but backing up in her throat, held perfectly still by sheer anticipation. She wasn’t sure but she thought she might have even leaned in a little to offer him a better target.

And then nature interfered.

Again.

“The wind’s picking up again,” Jonah told her, pulling his head back. “We’d better get inside before it gets any worse.”

Maggie nodded, knowing that he was right and that in all likelihood, the weather had just stopped her from making a huge mistake.

She told herself that she was relieved but wasn’t altogether sure if she was.

Chapter 3

In contrast with the chaos that was going on directly outside, the moment that Maggie walked into the cabin, she was struck by its strong, clean lines. There were no unnecessary extras visible anywhere, nothing personal that pointed to the man who lived here whenever he was in town. It could have been a rustic hotel room waiting for someone to come and inhabit it. And at least for now, it had been spared by both the hurricane and the ensuing flood that had come in its wake.

If there was any detraction at all, it was that very little light came into the cabin.

“I don’t suppose the lights are working,” Maggie said. To test her theory, she hit the switch by the door. Nothing happened when she did. “Apparently not,” Maggie said with a resigned sigh.

Jonah looked up at the living area’s vaulted ceiling. “At least the roof is intact and not leaking,” he told her.

“There is that,” she agreed with a smile as she glanced up.

Jonah made his way over to the gray flagstone fireplace. “I’ll get a fire going. That should warm us up a little.” He turned toward Maggie. His eyes slid up and down the woman and for the first time since he’d finally managed to locate her, he realized that she was drenched and dripping. “Why don’t you go look in the bedroom closet and see if you can find something to change into?”

Almost self-consciously, Maggie glanced down at herself. There was a pool of water forming on the wooden floor just around her feet. She looked up again.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’ll change my clothes, too. But first I have to go back out and put Cody up for the time being.” He could see she was about to ask him where he planned to put the horse. There was no barn on the premises. “The shed behind the house is still up.”

“That’s a piece of luck,” she remarked.

“Yeah,” he agreed with a laugh. “Otherwise, I’d have to bring Cody in here with us.” He saw the surprised look on Maggie’s face. The way he saw it, he wasn’t suggesting anything that unusual. “I can’t take a chance on losing our only means of transportation. Otherwise, we’ll be stranded.”

Made sense, she thought. “Need any help?”

Jonah sat back on his heels and watched as the bits of paper he had tucked in between the firewood began to burn. The flames spread, greedily consuming the wood that was all around them.

“No,” Jonah answered, rising once he was sure that the fire in the hearth wasn’t going to go out. “I got this covered. You just do what you need to do to get dry. The bedroom’s back there,” he added, pointing toward the rear of the cabin.

Not that it would have taken her an inordinate amount of time to find the room. The cabin consisted of the living area with a kitchenette on one side and a bedroom along with a three-quarter bath tucked directly behind the back of the fireplace.

Maggie looked after him uncertainly. “You sure you don’t mind my rummaging through your closet?” she asked just as he crossed back to the front door.

Jonah smiled, surprised that she was standing on ceremony, given the unusual situation they found themselves in. “There’re no skeletons in there if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Maggie flushed slightly. “It’s not that. I just thought that...”

Feeling awkward—after all, she didn’t know the man that well—her voice trailed off, letting him fill in the blanks for himself.

“And you won’t find anything in there to embarrass you—or me,” he assured her. Turning up the collar of the all-but-useless rain slicker, he put his hand on the doorknob, turning it. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Jonah promised.

The next second, he pulled open the door and stepped out into the gusting rain.

Maggie hurried over to the front window to watch Jonah for as long as she could before he disappeared around the side of the cabin. From what she could see, it didn’t look as if the hurricane was going to double back. With any luck, she thought, crossing her fingers, Brooke was done with them.

Now if the rain would just let up...

Backing away from the window, Maggie glanced down at the wooden floor she had just traversed. Her entire path was marked by drops of water.

“Time to stop leaving puddles,” she murmured. “Guess I’ll go see what he does have in his closet.”

She’d thought that maybe Jonah would have some items of clothing that an old girlfriend had left behind—or perhaps even a current one. The way she saw it, it was more than possible. A man who looked like Jonah Colton couldn’t be going through life unattached for long, she reasoned. He was the kind of man that women literally threw themselves at.

But all she could find in the lone closet as well as in the tall chest of drawers were his clothes. Debating, Maggie finally decided to borrow one of his flannel shirts, but there was no way in the world that she was going to put on a pair of his jeans. Jonah Colton had a good eight inches or more on her, not to mention about eighty or so pounds—if not more. Any of his jeans that she would have put on would have come parachuting down.

She listened for a moment to make sure Jonah hadn’t come back, but only silence met her ears. Moving quickly she stripped off her utterly soaked shirt and put on one of the button-down work shirts from the closet.

Just as she thought, it fit her like a tent. She tied the ends together to make it nominally shorter.

Even so, it was way too big for her. It felt roomy enough for two of her to fit into the shirt.

Maggie had just finished assessing herself in front of the freestanding large mirror when she heard the front door open and then close again. Holding her breath, she hurried out to make sure that the person she heard was Jonah and not someone who had stumbled upon the cabin while looking for some shelter from the storm.

She released her breath when she saw it was Jonah.

“Is your horse all tucked away and dry for the time being?” Maggie asked as she joined Jonah in the main room.

“For now.” His eyes swept over her. He did his best not to laugh. “I see you found something to wear—sort of,” he tagged on, his eyes sweeping over her. “And you kept on your jeans,” he realized. “Why?” Jonah asked, tossing off the rain slicker and heading for his bedroom.

“Well, decency is the first reason that comes to mind,” she answered. “You and I aren’t anywhere near the same size and while I can get away with sporting a pup tent as a shirt, there’s no way I could wear a pair of your jeans without constantly worrying that I was about to wind up executing a pratfall.”

“Point taken,” he answered, his voice floating in from the back where he had disappeared. “Wow,” he cried, “it feels good to peel off these wet clothes.” He seemed only half-aware that she was there.

He might only be half-aware of her but that definitely was not her problem, Maggie thought. To say the least, she was exceedingly aware of his presence. So much so that she was trying hard not to envision the way he looked right now, standing in his bedroom, bare chested and who knew what else was bare—trying to decide what to put on to replace his wet clothes.

“You know,” he said as he came out, startling her, “I do have a belt that I can lend you. It would help to keep my jeans up for you,” he offered.

She couldn’t help staring at his waist. Flat and muscular, her guess was that his belt would still be way too big to her.

“You might not have noticed,” she told him, “but I’m a lot smaller than you are.”

“Oh, I noticed, all right,” he assured her.

Jonah had become keenly aware of every single inch of Maggie years ago, long before this hurricane had hit. He’d noticed her when he had still been an ugly duckling and she had been a swan. And she was right. Her waist was way smaller than his. He thought of a solution.

“I have a length of rope you could use around here somewhere,” he said, looking about the living area.

“That’s okay,” she told him, waving away his suggestion. “They’re practically dry.”

“Liar,” he teased. But he wasn’t about to push this. Jonah rolled up his sleeves one at a time. “You said you were hungry.”

Her eyes were drawn to his muscular forearms, and she remembered the way his arms had felt around her. Belatedly, she realized that he was probably waiting for her to answer.

“Starved,” she told him, still looking down at his forearms.

He rummaged through the pantry that was right next to his refrigerator. “I’m afraid all I can offer you is either a box of sugarcoated cornflakes, or half a loaf of bread. Anything else—if I had it—would require a stove and electricity to make it edible.”

Turning toward her, he held out the box of cornflakes in one hand and the loaf of bread in the other.

“Both,” she said without any hesitation. “I don’t remember the last time I ate.” Her stomach rumbled as if on cue. She flushed as she glanced down, self-consciously. “But obviously my stomach does.”

“We’ve all been there,” he said, glossing over her rumbling stomach to help her cover up her embarrassment. “Have at it,” he told her, handing her the box of breakfast cereal and the partial loaf of bread.

Maggie accepted both. If this was all he had on hand, he obviously didn’t believe in stuffing himself. “I see that gluttony isn’t one of your vices.”

Jonah laughed, appreciating that she had retained her sense of humor despite the situation she had endured.

“No, but curiosity is.” And then Jonah became serious as he asked, “What the hell were you doing out there with a hurricane about to hit the area? You were taking an awful chance with your life.”

Rather than make up an elaborate excuse, Maggie leveled with him. “To be honest, I forgot all about the hurricane. Besides, the weather bureau is usually wrong with its forecasts more than half the time, anyway.”

He watched her go at the cornflakes as if they were going out of style. She wasn’t kidding about being hungry.

“You forget about Bellamy and Donovan’s wedding, too?”

“No, I didn’t,” she answered, a little indignant that he would think she was such a scatterbrain. “I just thought I’d have enough time to get to Live Oak Ranch and then get back. When I left for the ranch, the wedding was a day away.”

He supposed she had a point. But he had another question. “And just what was so important at the ranch that you had to go right then?”

Maggie waited until she’d had consumed another handful of cornflakes before answering. “The answer to a riddle.”

Jonah frowned. She wasn’t being clear, he thought. Was that on purpose, or was she just as in the dark about her so-called “mission” as it sounded?

“What kind of a riddle?” he asked.

Rather than just give him another vague answer, Maggie leaned forward and pulled out the map she had hastily tucked into her back pocket just before the threat of being swept away by the rushing waters had her climbing up into the tree.

Then she told him the whole story, such as it was. “A couple of days ago, I got a letter from my attorney informing me that my former late father-in-law, Adam Corgan, had left instructions in his will to send this map and the note he wrote to me after he was dead.”

Well, he could see why that had aroused her curiosity. It would have aroused his, as well.

“May I?” Jonah asked, nodding at the map and note in her hand.

Maggie held out the papers for him to take. “Sure, go right ahead.”

Jonah read the note twice and was no more enlightened than he had been a minute ago.

“‘The truth shall set Elliott Corgan free.’” He read out loud, then looked up at Maggie. His brow was furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Maggie shook her head. “I have no idea. I found the tree,” she told him, indicating the map. “That was the one I was clinging to when you rescued me earlier today,” she explained. “But I didn’t find anything there that made what was in the note any clearer. To be totally honest, I have no idea why Mr. Corgan would have wanted me to have this, or what he was cryptically trying to tell me. None of it made any sense to me.”

“It’s suspicious, all right,” Jonah agreed, frowning as he glanced at the note again. Something was off here, he thought. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, like something solid that just sat there. “Maybe the police chief has some idea what your late father-in-law was trying to say,” he suggested.

“Late ex-father-in-law,” Maggie corrected. She wasn’t related to any of those people anymore. Emotionally, she never had been.

The corners of his mouth curved slightly. “No love lost I take it.”

“Adam was okay, I suppose,” she told him charitably. “But James...” she said, referring to her ex-husband. “Well, that’s another story.”

“That makes this note you were sent even more suspicious,” he said, waving the map and note.

She laughed dryly. “You won’t get an argument from me.”

He’d been watching her as Maggie made short work of the bread and cereal he’d given her. “Sorry I can’t offer you anything more than just that bread and stale cereal,” he apologized again.

“Right now, this is a feast,” she assured him—and then suddenly she realized what she was doing. “And I’m hogging it all,” Maggie said. She tilted the open box toward him. “Here, have some of your own cereal. There’s not much left.”

He held up his hand to keep her from pushing the box toward him. “That’s okay, you eat it. I can wait until we get back to town.”

Town. That sounded a million miles away, Maggie thought wistfully. “Is that going to be anytime soon?” she asked. “My sister must be worried sick about me.”

Jonah laughed dryly. “Your sister is the reason I was out here looking for you in the first place. She was pretty scared now that you mention it. She was afraid that you might have drowned—or been blown away.”