14
CHANCE
"You can't think I'm going to let you watch," Rose said, her voice full of anger.
There had been no place to hide on the prairie with it wide open as it was. A horse and rider would have been too visible and Ivers could have panicked at seeing me and done something to Rose. After about an hour, when I recognized they were heading toward a creek, I had to assume to water the horse, I dismounted mine, left it, and followed surreptitiously up the creek toward them. The Cottonwood trees offered me some shelter, allowing me to slowly get near them, my footsteps muted by the sound of the water. I was thirty feet downstream and Rose was using all the sass. She was the most beautiful sight and the tight band around my chest lessened just seeing her whole and unharmed.
"I can't just l
