All the lights in the other cabins were out and it was almost midnight. Sam had stayed behind to go over some last-minute catering issues with Avery, and to take a quick look at the seating plan for the wedding luncheon. Sometimes, she still couldn’t quite believe that tomorrow she would be the one getting married. It had all happened so fast.
“January says she’ll come down and knock on the door around eight.” Cam took off her boots and left them by the front door. “I’ll set my alarm as well just so we’re covered.”
“Cool.” Sam removed her fleece and sat on the couch. “Not that I’m going to sleep at all tonight anyway.”
“You really should try.” Cam joined her on the couch.
Sam checked her messages and frowned. “My brother just texted me.”
“Which one?”
“Carter, the only one who still talks to me? He’s supposed to be out on an oil rig somewhere, and now he wants directions to the wedding.” Sam exhaled. “Talk about short notice. I didn’t even bother to send him an invite because I knew he wasn’t due back for months. Avery isn’t going to be very happy if he turns up and ruins her seating chart.”
“It’s great that he wants to come, isn’t it?” Cam asked. “Why don’t you give him the information, and if he arrives at some point it’ll be a lovely surprise for your parents, and a bonus for you.”
“As I said, maybe not so much for Avery,” Sam commented. “But I’m fairly sure she’ll just smile, wave her wand, and somehow make everything right again.”
Cam nodded. “She is amazingly good at organizing stuff.”
Sam found a copy of the invite and pasted it into her message along with driving directions, and received a thumbs-up in reply. She waited another minute, but that was all she got.
“Typical.” Sam set the alarm on her phone. “Now I have no idea whether he’s going to make it or not.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Cam yawned. “Did anyone get hold of Yvonne?”
“Lizzie said the last time she saw Yvonne, she was on the phone with Rio, and dashing off to her apartment. She’s not there anymore, but no one knows exactly where she’s gone. She left a note for Lizzie that said not to worry anyone, and she’d definitely be back in time for the wedding.”
“Maybe something happened to Rio?” Cam said. “He is a bull rider, and they do get injured a lot.”
“That’s possible.” Sam got off the couch. “I can’t deal with anything else tonight. Let’s go to bed and hope it all resolves itself by morning.”
* * *
Sam opened her eyes into complete darkness as her cell phone buzzed right in her ear. She checked the time, which was almost six in the morning, and read the series of texts from her younger brother, Carter.
Sam muttered, “How did he end up near Morgansville with a flat tire? How did he even get onto the ranch?”
Knowing her brother was a laid-back version of herself, she wasn’t surprised he’d ended up in the wrong place. Squinting at the screen, she replied.
Stay put and I’ll come to you ×.
She received another thumbs-up in reply.
Sam got dressed in the clothes she’d worn the night before and tiptoed out into the silent kitchen. Should she leave a note for Cam? Hopefully, she’d be back in an hour.
Deciding not to alarm her friend, Sam put on her boots and went out, shutting the door against the cold. The faintest hint of the approaching dawn showed up above the Sierras, illuminating the blackened snowcapped tops. Sam paused to appreciate the amazing sight, then made her way up the slope to the barn.
The route to Morgansville from the ranch was much quicker on horseback than by truck. She knew Carter could ride, because they’d learned together as kids. She decided to take one of the older horses, Sugar, with her and Dollar just to make it as easy as possible for him. The last thing she wanted was a brother with a concussion on her wedding day.
She saddled both horses and led them outside, tying Sugar’s reins to the back of Dollar’s saddle. One of her favorite things about riding a horse when it was cold was the warmth they generated. It was like having heated seats in your truck. She glanced back at the ranch house as she mounted up, but the whole place was in darkness. She pictured HW sleeping in his bed and couldn’t believe that she’d be right there with him later that night.
Smiling to herself, she clicked to Dollar, and they moved out. Luckily, she had a good sense of direction. She only had to follow the old mule road up to the ghost town. The terrain wasn’t that difficult after you crossed Morgan Creek, which wasn’t running very high at this time of year.
As Dollar splashed through the uneven rocky bottom of the creek, Sam hung on for dear life, allowing her body to move with the horse, yet avoid sliding off. As soon as they reached the other side, she took out her cell, and sent a text to Carter.
On my way. See you in 20. x
She followed the road upward and took the right-hand fork, which would take her to the highest point of the ranch where the original silver mine and the town of Morgansville had stood. After cutting down all the trees and destroying the topsoil, both the silver haul and the creek had dried up, leaving the stamping mill with not enough work or waterpower. At some point, the entire population had voted to move down the valley to the site of the current town and had never looked back.
Sam settled down in the saddle and focused on the narrowing path, and the eerie silence that pervaded the barren landscape. After her experiences in the military, she never felt comfortable in enclosed spaces, where she still feared an ambush. She concentrated on the mission at hand—finding her brother—and on how thrilled her parents would be to see their elusive youngest son.
Eventually, the ground leveled out, and Sam rode alongside what used to be the iron rail tracks that had taken the silver ore from the mine to the stamping mill to be pulverized into a thousand pieces. At one end of the ghost town there was a parking lot created by the historical society so that visitors could get out and walk along what had once been Main Street. Sam could already see a rental car sitting in the otherwise vacant lot, which she assumed belonged to her brother.
She set Dollar off down the slope and leaned back in the saddle as a figure emerged from the vehicle. Carter had black wavy hair just like hers, but his eyes were more hazel than green.
“Hey, Sis. What’s up?”
Carter sounded like he’d just popped out for a quick coffee rather than disappearing on her for three years.
“Hey yourself.” Sam grinned down at him. The last time she’d seen him, she’d just gotten out of the hospital and hadn’t been a pretty sight. “I’ll just tie up the horses.”
She dismounted and made sure the horses were secured before turning back to her much taller brother. He wore a thick ski jacket, jeans, and decent boots, so he wasn’t too underdressed for the cold.
He drew her into a hug and gave her a noogie, which was just like him.
“Long time no see, shrimp.” He drew back and looked down at her. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“I have!” Sam protested. “I have a whole new foot and everything.”