Page 69 of Final Escape
He stood, started to walk away, his shoulders hunched, but then he turned back, his face filled with defeat and a touch of fear. “Don’t trust anyone. Not even the ones you know.”
And then he melted back into the forest.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
By the time they reachedthe last mile marker on the Liberty Ridge trail, it was late afternoon and dark clouds were boiling up over the peaks of the mountains to the west. Logan had slowed up even more on the way back, no longer able to tough it out and hide the pain radiating from his old rodeo injuries.
“Want me to go borrow someone’s four-wheeler and pick you up?” Carrie teased gently, though from the worry in her eyes, he could read her concern.
“I’m fine. We oughta be able to beat that storm if we just keep trucking.”
“So you say, old man.”
“Wait a minute. I believe we have just a year or so between us,” he teased back, though there was a lifetime of different experiences between them that made him feel a hundred years older, and he couldn’t deny that he’d become jaded over the years. Their differences ran far deeper than something as simple as a birth date. “Just when did you become such a Pollyanna?”
“Roughly at birth.” She jogged in place, waiting for him to catch up. The trail widened at the last half mile before the parking area, and there she fell in step with him. “You did a great job, Logan. This is a tough trail in anyone’s book.”
He laughed. “You were a cheerleader, right?”
“Nope. I had to get home to work horses and tend cattle, just like my brother.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “So, want to take Penny and me out for supper?”
Just you, maybe.
He reined in that errant thought, though the idea was intriguing. A night out on the town with Carrie Randall would probably eclipse every other social experience in years, bar none. But where would that lead? Wantingmoreof those evenings.
Wanting to get to know her on a much more personal level.
And between the two of them, it would be a toss-up as far as who was the most damaged and unready for any sort of deeper relationship.
He’d bantered with her on the long hike back, admiring her quick wit. Her ability to handle herself well in the wilderness. Enjoying her company a little too much. Caring...too much.
But she’d just experienced the trauma of her ex-husband’s terrible death. Had feared being stalked, whether by Danvers or someone else. Vulnerable as she was right now, any sort of deeper relationship might spring out of all of those emotions and not something real.
And she’d already made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t going to fall for another cowboy ever again, in this life or the next.
Though heaven knew he had his own issues, as well.
