Читать книгу Rocky Mountain Manhunt - Cassie Miles - Страница 9

A raindrop splattered on her forehead. Another on her cheek. Her eyelids pried open, and she stared into a gray, stormy sky blanketed with clouds.

Lying flat on her back in a sloping field, her gaze lowered slowly. She saw distant peaks, a jagged cliff side and the edge of a dense, old-growth forest. She heard the rush of wind. Where am I?

Though she had never been here before, the terrain was familiar. Her fingers tightened on a clump of sweetgrass, and she smelled wild mint. The trees were mostly ponderosa pine, but there was also a stand of aspen with lean white trunks and the round green leaves of early summer. She knew that she was somewhere in the Rockies, probably in Colorado. But why am I outdoors? How did I get here?

Her brain floated—adrift in the hazy netherworld between sleep and wakefulness. Though she tried to think, she couldn’t draw upon memory. The slate had been wiped clean.

And yet, she could identify the plants. Sweetgrass. Burdock. Snakeroot. Goldenrod. She recognized the charred stench that rose from her clothing; it smelled like an old campfire.

Instinct drove her to sit up. When she tried to stand, her body screamed in agony, and she sank back to the earth. Her legs ached from running, endless running.

Every muscle throbbed, but the pain was more intense on her left arm. She peeled off her parka to take a closer look. The upper sleeve of her blue silk blouse was shredded. Dried blood stained the fabric and there was a fresh red ooze. She’d been wounded.

Reaching up, she touched the back of her skull and found evidence of another injury. Blood matted her long, thick, blond hair. Something terrible had happened to her.

Her gaze swept the meadow. Amid the faraway line of conifers, she caught a glimpse of movement, and she focused intently. The barrel of a rifle aimed directly at her heart. They were coming for her! The hunters were coming.

A wave of terror surged in her chest, and she gasped. Her throat tightened. She was drowning in her own fear—an urgent panic that flooded every cell of her body. She had to escape. To run. To hide.

Rolling thunder echoed through the mountain cliffs and valleys, and the rain began to fall hard. Vertical sheets of water pelted her head and shoulders.

Drawing upon her last reserve of strength, she staggered to her feet. Beside her was a backpack—a big one that was suitable for weeklong wilderness expeditions. She hefted the weight onto her shoulders. She knew inherently that she needed to keep this pack with her at all times.

Stooped over, she moved as quickly as she could toward the nearby sheltering trees. Every step was torture. Inside her hiking boots, her toes cramped. Her knees and ankles creaked like frayed hinges.

At the edge of the forest, she collapsed on a carpet of pine needles. Small, gasping sobs escaped her chapped lips as she squinted through the rain toward the hunters on the opposite side of the mountain meadow.

She saw nothing. They were gone. She peered so intensely that her eyes ached. Nothing. They had vanished so quickly. Did they even exist? Had she invented the hunters? No! She knew they were out there.

Fear was her only reality, her only truth. People were after her. Faceless men, hunters, tracked her down like an animal. My God, why? What have I done?

If they found her, they would kill her. They’d tried once already. The slash on her arm. The wound on her head. She had to stay hidden, here in the forest. It was the only way she’d survive. She had to be smart. But how? How could she pretend to be clever when her brain was addled and her memory was gone?

She couldn’t do this. It was better to surrender, to lie back and accept her fate.

“Stop it,” she whispered angrily. She wasn’t a quitter. Though she didn’t remember her own name, she knew this: she wasn’t the sort of woman who gave up without a fight.

Her shoulders straightened. She would take responsibility for her own safety. She would forge a new life, a new identity. Here, in the forest.

Following the custom of Native American tribes christening a newborn, she chose her name based on the first thing she had seen when she’d awakened.

Rain. I am Rain.