Rancher's High-Stakes Rescue. Beth Cornelison
12
Eight-year-old Kate Carrington climbed the silo ladder, one rusty rung at a time, while her mother’s voice shouted in her head, Stay away from the old silo, Katie. It’s dangerous!
But Mama was a worrywart. That’s what Daddy called her, and Kate tended to agree.
If she were a boy, you’d call her athletic and adventurous. Don’t be overprotective just because she’s a girl, her daddy would say.
The rusty ladder creaked and wobbled as she climbed, and Kate paused. Looked down. She was pretty high. She cast her gaze around her family’s sun-drenched Missouri farm. The corn was waist high and bright green. The sky was clear blue, and the scent of tilled earth was heavy in the air after Daddy had plowed the west field, prepping it for a new planting. This kind of day filled her with the sort of excitement and curiosity to do and see and explore that Mama called recklessness.
She tried to be good for Mama’s sake. She didn’t want Mama to worry, but Kate figured she knew her limits. And today, Mama wasn’t home. She and Daddy had gone to chaperone a 4-H conference all weekend with Henry and his class. Grandma, who was her babysitter for the weekend, would never know she’d climbed up here.
And she wouldn’t be climbing the old silo if her brother’s new remote-controlled airplane, the one he’d just gotten for his birthday, hadn’t landed smack on top of the silo roof and gotten stuck upside down. Kate wasn’t supposed to be playing with it. If she lost it, she’d be in so much trouble! So she had to at least try to get it.
The ladder up the outside of the silo rattled again and swayed. She hesitated, wiping her sweaty hand on the seat of her shorts. Just a little farther...
When she finally pulled herself high enough to see the roof of the silo, she exhaled a sigh of relief. The plane was still in one piece. And it wasn’t that far in from the ladder. She could easily crawl out to get it.
She swung her legs over the top bar of the ladder and began scooting slowly up the rough slope of the sagging silo roof. She heard a snap, and her heart thumped harder. She stretched to reach the plane, but it was still just beyond her grasp. Swallowing hard, she edged farther along the rotted roof, inching her hand closer, closer...
In an instant, the roof beneath her gave way with a loud crack. Her stomach swooped as she plummeted down. The fall felt endless and lightning fast at the same time. Terrifying.
And then she hit the bottom. The abrupt stop rattled through her body with a tooth-jarring jolt. Pain worse than anything she’d ever known streaked up her leg. Her head smacked against something hard, and when she tried to scream, she couldn’t catch her breath.
Then everything went silent. Black.
Twenty years later
The Colorado terrain was breathtaking, Kate thought, as she peered out the backseat window. The tiny car belonged to the Uber driver who had picked up her and her coworker, Dawn, at the Denver airport. The owners of McCall Adventure Ranch had been scheduled to give them a ride to the ranch, but she and Dawn had managed to get an earlier flight out of Dallas and hadn’t remembered to notify the ranch staff until they were about to land.
“Here’s the turn,” Dawn said, leaning forward to direct the driver with a pointing finger as well as her verbal cue.
The driver eyed her via the rearview mirror, his look clearly disgruntled.
“Thanks,” he replied dryly and reached up to shut off the turn-by-turn directions on his cell phone in the dashboard mount.
Dawn took the hint and sat back again with a sheepish “Oh. Sorry.”
Kate hid a grin behind her hand, pretending to scratch her cheek. She was well familiar with Dawn’s bossiness but knew her coworker didn’t mean to be controlling. Dawn simply had a high-energy, highly organized, highly efficient type A personality, and she let it get the best of her sometimes. Dawn got results, because she didn’t take no for an answer. She did her research, knew her business and had a plan for everything.
If you hesitated or wishy-washed around her, you were likely to get swept along by her tidal wave of persuasion and direction. Case in point—Kate’s presence on this trip.
When Dawn had brought the public relations firm’s new client campaign to her and told her about the trip to gather firsthand knowledge and have in-depth, in-person strategy meetings with the ranch owners, Kate had balked.
“So they want us to go on one of these adventure excursions?” she’d asked, the contents of her stomach curdling.
Dawn’s eyes had been bright with excitement and enthusiasm. “Yes! No charge. Isn’t it great?”
“Um...”
“The trip includes rappelling, white-water rafting, zip-lining, camping, a hands-on ranch experience—meaning they’ll show us roping and riding—and if we want, they’ll even take us BASE jumping!” Dawn had laughed and smacked the palm of her hand on the desk. “How cool is that?”
Cool hadn’t been the word that came to Kate’s mind. Terrifying was more like it.
“Um. W-wow,” she’d stuttered as her hands began to shake.
“We leave in two weeks. It’s gonna be awesome!” Dawn had gushed.
And no excuse or expressed reluctance had convinced Dawn to find another staff member to go in Kate’s place.
“No way! I want you. Don’t be a chicken. This trip is the perfect way to shake up your staid life and get your adrenaline pumping!” Then Dawn had made Bambi eyes at her, adding, “You’re my friend. I want to experience this with you, not Frank or Hattie. We’ll have a blast.”
Gauntlet thrown down. Friend card played. Pleading look employed. Yes, Dawn was good at getting her way.
So here Kate was, in the back of a tiny Uber, her heart in her throat as they bounced down the rutted drive to a beautiful Colorado ranch. She took a deep breath and squeezed the straps of the purse she held in her lap as if they were a lifeline. Maybe she could wrangle her way out of the more dangerous activities. Even as the anxious thought crossed her mind, a niggle of something long dormant kicked in her soul.