Page 44 of Recurve Ridge

I added that last part for emphasis.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat of my raspy tone and could almost feel Miller’s eye roll from where he stood across the clearing. “You’re right. I’m not the best person to teach that. Too many memories,” I added to Mari, who still hung her head upside down like a small, dark-haired bat in front of me.

“No,” she protested, gripping my arm tighter. “I liked fighting with you.”

“And that’s the problem. Go with Miller. He’ll help you better than I can.”

“He scares me,” she whispered, her cheeks coloring. Tilting her head back down, she broke eye contact, her hair swishing over her face in a thick curtain.

“Good,” I whispered back. “Maybe you’ll listen to him. Go, then come back and kick my ass later.”

“Not going to happen,” she huffed, staring forward at some focal point beyond me.

“Not if you talk like that. You’ve got the goods, girl. Go use them.” I unhooked my arm from around her waist when she let me go and pressed my fingers between her shoulder blades. “Go. You’re safe with him, I promise.”

The shorter man had taken more than one bullet for me and saved my ass a half dozen times over the years. Maybe he had a guardian angel on his shoulder, but the kill shots never took him down. Luck, perhaps.

I headed off to a small clearing, not wanting to leave Mari wandering around the forest and getting more disoriented if she chose to seek me out after her session with Miller. If she could walk by then. Her hesitant step behind me, the subtle snap of fine twigs as she left a trail of twisted forest debris in her wake like so many breadcrumbs, told me everything I needed to know about her state of mind.

Maybe I could get Jon or Will to help her find her way around the forest, learn tracking and how to survive if she got trapped out on her own again. Not that I’d let that happen to her, but I also knew not to leave her exposed without a contingency plan.

I worked my way along a thin trail that led to the closer edges of my property nearest the house. A point well away from other seasonal residences and nowhere near my enemy. Having his perimeter bordering mine added enough stress to our lives; I didn’t need him in my backyard to boot.

At strategic points around the cabin in a quarter-mile radius, Miller and I stored an extra line of defenses. We placed some farther out as well, camouflaged at the boundary line and a select few choice spots on Gideon’s lands, but we didn’t check on those enough to make sure they hadn’t been found.

Pushing his boundaries had never been my plan until Mari dropped into my life.

Running my fingers around the harsh limbs of a dead tree, I sought the opening where the hollow exoskeleton folded back on itself. I peeled the trunk back, taking care not to crack the weathered bark, and removed a recurve bow and quiver full of hand-fletched arrows. A long bow I favored and maintained myself had been given a home on the other edge of the property.

Beyond the stump, a rocky outcrop with a perfect line of sight gave a direct shot into Gideon’s study from the cover of the tall pines that marked time as sentinels along the ridge.

I’d lined the shot up many times, and Gideon had no idea how lucky he was to still be breathing. Despite the rumors of why I left the military, murder came last on my to-do list, and the man remained attached to his heartbeat. After what we suspected he’d done to Mari, however, he might not stay in that state for much longer.

Gideon would come for me one day. That was the hard truth I lived. My boys were prepared for the day he did.

I curled my fingers around the curved bow, its familiar lines seated in my hand like an extension of myself. Slipping into the mentality ofI need to shoot something, the rippling anger that seethed deep within me as a constant companion eased back within the edges of serenity.

Turning at the southernmost point of the base of the tree, I worked my way twenty-one long paces to my right. Jon and I had measured them together using his longer gait once Miller picked out the positioning.

I stopped and turned in the opposite direction from where Mari and Miller were practicing. A dual line of trees lay before me, the distance between them less than an extended handspan. At the far end of the narrow lane, a row of three small targets hung from a broken, burned tree.

I inhaled a long, slow breath and withdrew an arrow from the quiver over my shoulder in one movement, then notched the fletched end to the bowstring. My breath whispered from between open lips, releasing tension to the forest. Another breath in, and I raised my elbow, sighted the target through the space between the trees, and breathed out.

Airless. Quiet. Floating.

No roaring, no rage.

Nothing.

I loosed the arrow, string twanging a breath from my ear.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Collect, fire, repeat until I emptied the quiver a fourth time. My breath remained hollow as sounds of the forest returned. The spaces between the line of trees darkened, though my focus pinpointed. I hadn’t noticed time slipping away. I shook out warm arms and stiff legs as I worked my way back along the trail to the clearing. Soft voices and the occasional expelled breath or groan filtered through scant underbrush.

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