Read Online The Waterfall by Carla Neggers - Free Book Online Page A

see how the dogs reacted. They didn’t jump. Possibly a good sign. “Hello,” she called out the window. “Anyone around?”
    She checked for any venomous, antisocial bumper stickers on the truck, like Vermonters Go Home. Nothing. Just rust.
    The dogs suddenly went silent. The yellow Lab mix yawned and stretched. The German shepherd mix plopped down and scratched himself. The smallest of the three—an unidentifiable mix that had resulted in a white coat with black and brown splotches—paced and panted.
    â€œYou kids hear anyone call them off?” Lucy asked. J.T. shook his head, his eyes wide. This was more adventure than he’d bargained for, out in the wilds of Wyoming with three grouchy dogs and no friendly humans in sight. “No, did you?”
    Madison huffed. “Plato should have sent us with an armed guard.”
    Lucy sighed. “Madison, that doesn’t help.”
    â€œYou’re scaring me,” J.T. said.
    â€œYou two stay here while I go see if we have the right place.” Lucy unfastened her seat belt and climbed out of the car. The air seemed hotter, even drier. The dogs paid no attention to her. She smiled at her nervous son. “See, J.T.? It’s okay.”
    He nodded dubiously.
    â€œRelax, Lucy.” The male voice seemed to come from nowhere. “You’ve got the right place.”
    J.T. swooped across the back seat and pointed at the cabin. “There! Someone’s on the porch!”
    Lucy shot her children a warning look. “Stay here.”
    She mounted two flat, creaky, dusty steps onto the unprepossessing porch. An ancient, ratty rope hammock hung from rusted hooks. In it lay a dust-covered man with a once-white cowboy hat pulled down over his face. He wore jeans, a chambray shirt with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, cowboy boots. All of it was scuffed, worn.
    Lucy noted the long legs, the flat stomach, the muscled, tanned forearms and the callused, tanned hands. Sebastian Redwing, she remembered, had always been a very physical man.
    The yellow Lab lumbered onto the porch and collapsed under the hammock in a kalumph that seemed to shake the entire cabin.
    â€œSebastian?”
    The man pushed the hat off his face. It, too, was dusty and tanned, and more lined and angular than she remembered. His eyes settled on her. Like everything else, they seemed the color of dust. She remembered they were gray, an unusual, surprisingly soft gray. “Hello, Lucy.”
    Her mouth and lips were dry from the long drive, the low western humidity. “Plato sent me.”
    â€œI figured.”
    â€œI’m in Wyoming on business. I have the kids with me. Madison and J.T.”
    He said nothing. He didn’t look as if he planned to move from the hammock.
    â€œMom! J.T.’s bleeding!”
    Madison, panicked, leaped out of the car and dragged her brother from the back seat. He cupped his hands under his nose, blood dripping through his fingers.
    â€œOh, gross,” his sister said, standing back as she thrust a paper napkin at him.
    Lucy ran toward them. “Tilt your head back.”
    The German shepherd barked at J.T. Sebastian gave a low, barely audible command from his hammock, and the dog backed off.
    J.T., struggling not to cry, stumbled up onto the porch. “I bled all over the car.”
    Madison was right behind him. “He did, Mom.”
    Sebastian materialized at Lucy’s side. She’d forgotten how tall and lean he was, how uneasy she’d always felt around him. Not afraid. Just uneasy. He glanced at J.T. “Kid’s fine. It’s the dry air and the dust.”
    Madison gaped at him. Lucy concentrated on her bleeding son. “May we use your sink?”
    â€œDon’t have one. You can get water from the pump out back.” He eyed Madison. “You know how to use an outdoor pump?”
    She shook her head.
    â€œTime you learned.” He was calm, his voice quiet if not