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Riley shakes her head and gives me a playful smack on the chest. “Not funny.”
“Not funny at all. Without wolves, the prairie would be overrun with deer, and that really messes with the local ecosystem.”
“Colton Walker,” she says with an exasperated sigh. “Are there any animals on the prairie that pose us a threat?”
“Besides the bison?”
She nods.
“That depends,” I say.
“On what?”
“How you feel about Jake?”
“Jake?” Riley narrows her eyes. “Do you seriously consider him a threat?”
I shrug. “He might be under the impression that we’re competing for your attention.”
“How’s that even possible? I think I’ve made it pretty clear I’m not interested in him. It’s not even a competition.”
My heart soars. “It is to him. Once he found out I was interested in you—”
“Have you been crushing on me this whole time?” she asks with a smirk.
“Not the whole time,” I admit. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment that I started falling for her.
“Fair enough. I didn’t like you very much at first, either.”
“Ouch,” I say, laying a hand over my heart.
“Please.” She rolls her eyes. “You thought I was a spoiled Prairie Princess.”
She has a point.
“It wasn’t fair for me to make that assumption.”
“And I assumed you were an inflexible, know-it-all jerk with no sense of humor.”
I force my mouth into a playful scowl. “I think irksome was the term you used.”
“We were both wrong.” She leans forward and kisses me softly. “I’m glad.”
Her smile falters. She takes a deep breath, as if she’s going to tell me something, but the coyotes howl again, reminding me that I can’t just lie here kissing Riley all night, as much as I’d like to. “I should tend the fire,” I say, easing my arm out from under her.
“Will it help keep them away?”
“I don’t think so. But it will keep the chill away. It’ll get even colder out here before the sun comes up.”
Riley watches me as I toss a few handfuls of sticks and branches on the coals. Although she gathered quite a bit, at the rate it’s burning, it won’t be enough to get us through the night.
I grab a small hatchet from my saddlebag and slide it into my belt loop. “I think I saw a dead tree over by the edge of the creek. Would you mind helping me drag it over?”
“I’ll grab my flashlight,” she says.
When I wake a few hours later at dawn, sore and cold, Riley’s curled up against me, her face buried in my shirt. My arm tingles with pins and needles. I try not to jostle her awake as I shift, hoping to find a more comfortable position that doesn’t involve stones poking into my back. She shivers and I tuck the aluminum blanket tighter around her shoulders.
Chance flicks his tail and puffs out a greeting. Thankfully, he and I have spent enough nights on the prairie that he’s used to being out in the elements. Still, yesterday’s run was taxing on him, and I’m sure he’d like something more filling to munch on than prairie grass and an apple. When I checked him over yesterday, it didn’t look like he’d torn any ligaments or gotten hurt, but I might have missed something. We’ll have to take it slow on our way back to Fort Bellows and then Mack can give him a more thorough checkup.
