“Just a minute!” she yelled. “Don’t you move until I get back.” She disappeared into the cabin. She felt the boat shudder again as he heaved it off. It rocked with the movement of the water as it floated free. She grabbed clothes and their spare Nikes and stuffed them into a waterproof duffel. She got the book . . . and, God help her, the gun and put them both in her shoulder bag. She stuffed that in the duffel, too, and scrambled up on deck.
“Take this. Dry clothes for you.” She tossed the duffel and he caught it and held it above his head. The bow of the boat was protecting him somewhat from the rolling surf. “Return to the boat if you can.” She wasn’t going to tell him what she had in mind until it was too late.
“Thank you, Lucy. For all you do for me.” His eyes were serious. He thought he might be going to his death. She thought so, too. Damn it, not if she could help it.
“Have done,” she corrected, because she didn’t know what else to say. She watched him turn and stagger toward the shallows. Vandal strained at his rope, whining. “Not yet,” she whispered, fondling his ears. When the waves washed shallowly at Galen’s feet, she turned aft and winched the anchor out. Not waiting to test if it caught, she slipped the rope from Vandal’s neck and let herself over the side into the water. She was enough shorter than Galen that she had to swim for it until she could find bottom. She struck out for shore. Behind her, Vandal whined and turned in circles on the bow.
“Come on,” she called. He looked for another way out and then finally scrambled through the lines and leaped into the waves. She saw him safely swimming and then turned toward shore again. Galen had spotted her. He waded out to meet her and pulled her up when they were both thigh deep.
“Lucy,” he growled. “What do you?”
She was dripping and cold. “What do you think?” she crabbed, shivering. “I’m coming with you.” Vandal splashed to the beach beyond them and shook himself violently.
“Too much dangerous,” Galen said, gripping her shoulders. She winced, still sore from Brad shaking her.
“It sure feels right to me.”
Galen froze, examining her with a frown, maybe examining his own feelings. He knew it was right that she come. She saw him give in. He finally rolled his eyes. “Woman, you are too much partner,” he grumbled.
She grinned. “Partner needs dry clothes.” She spotted the duffel where he had thrown it into dry sand.
They changed in silence. But Lucy couldn’t stop thinking. As she stood, she said, “It will take us too long to walk over the hills to the lab. I don’t think there are any roads inland in this area. Just Highway One that runs north and south. Maybe we can catch a ride up to Highway Eighty-four and around that way.”
“No roads. Not safe. But we will not walk.”
Right. Like maybe they’d fly? She didn’t question him further, because she wasn’t sure she’d like the answer. She got out her bag and he put the duffel behind some big rocks. She sure hoped they’d get back to claim it. And the boat.
He walked up into the dunes that lined the beaches here. Wispy sea grass poked up out of some of them, as though they were giant old men with sparse hair lying on the shore.
Galen stood, still, his hair ruffled by the breeze, facing into the sun. After a minute, he lifted both arms, as though praying or . . . or sacrificing himself. Vandal whimpered at her side. Galen turned and beckoned. When she reached his side, he just turned and strode off across the dunes.
“I thought you said we wouldn’t walk,” she grumbled.
“Not long, Lucy.”
Good, because struggling across the dunes was hard, slow work. They crossed the Pacific Coast Highway, not a car in sight mid-Tuesday morning, and headed out across an open meadow dotted with California oaks. The hills were green this time of year. Birds twittered in among the oaks, and they flushed a rabbit that gave Vandal a good time until he lost it. Then he discovered that the oaks were home to squirrels. Ahhh, dog heaven. Not so much for the squirrels. They had to run up their trees, scolding him, to escape.
Lucy and Galen had walked for nearly an hour. It was getting really warm. She had begun to think his promise was just wishful thinking.
Watching Vandal dash from tree to tree, she almost missed the main event. It was left to Galen to take her elbow and point to a gap in the hills where a stream wound into the meadows.
There, the thunder of their hooves faint with distance, came a herd of horses, galloping into the meadow.
Galen looked smug. “See, Lucy? We do not walk.”
“There are no wild horses around here. This isn’t Nevada. We couldn’t ride wild horses anyway.” She realized she was muttering to herself. “Where did you get these horses?”
“They live over the hills, in barns.” He said “barns” with a couple of extra syllables. “They come to me.”
Indeed, they trotted up, maybe twenty of them, and it was apparent that they were local show horses from the expensive homes in the hills of Los Altos. Warmbloods and thoroughbreds mostly, their shiny coats told their story. Some had braided manes and others wore leather halters with brass plates engraved with their names. They stopped, snorting and blowing. Vandal barked, once, until Galen shot him a quelling look.
She was . . . uh . . . really going to have to rethink the whole thing about Galen and what had happened on the night of the vernal equinox under a full moon. He wasn’t indulging in wishful thinking about being like his brother. Because if this wasn’t some kind of magic, she didn’t know what was.
“Choose one, Lucy.”
She swallowed and got hold of herself. “I’m not sure I can ride bareback, Galen. And these are hot-stuff horses. I’ll be on my butt on the ground in about a minute.”
Galen shook his head. “They want to carry you.”
She looked at the multicolored hides jostling around her and thought horses had never seemed so huge. She took a couple of steps back, shaking her head. “I don’t know. . . .”
“Pick one, Lucy. This is okay.”
The herd milled around. Not one drifted into grazing. They seemed to be waiting for her to make her choice. Dear God, was she going to do this?
She didn’t have to choose. A bay mare with a kind eye and a broad back stepped forward from the crowd and nosed Lucy’s shoulder. She had been chosen. She looked around. No mounting block in sight. But Galen came up behind her, took her by the waist, and tossed her up. She managed to get her leg over the mare’s back. Lucy expected sidling or fidgeting, but the mare stood rock steady. Oh, Lucy’s muscles would hurt tonight. She hadn’t ridden in a long time. But the mare’s broad back was easy on Lucy’s crotch. It felt funny not to have reins in her hands. She grabbed the base of the mare’s mane instead. Galen better know what he was talking about here. Lucy had no control over this horse. She was a beauty, though. Lots of thoroughbred in with the warmblood. Probably Trakehner.
Galen beckoned to a big gray with an ice brand barely visible on his haunch. A Hanoverian, seventeen hands at least. The creature trotted forward, almost prancing in anticipation. Galen ran palms over the big horse’s shoulder and back, softly, soothing him. Then Galen grabbed mane and vaulted on, pushing himself up until he could sling a leg over the horse’s back. Lucy had never seen anything quite like that.
Galen and his partner turned up the meadow and the gray broke into a gentle trot. Her bay mare followed, and the rest of the herd milled along.
“We must hurry,” Galen said. The trot turned into a canter, which was actually easier to sit. The herd followed easily. Vandal loped alongside, barking encouragement.
So they were going over the hills to the lab with a herd of horses Galen had rustled up out of nowhere. And after that . . . Well, after that, she didn’t know. Galen had magic. He had something anyway. She only wished she didn’t feel like she was being pulled along in his story. Would he use the machine to go back to his time? Maybe that was best. It would be tragedy for her. But he seemed sure of his destiny, something that eluded her. And he was a brave man. She loved him. So she would go with him now, unsure as she might be, even if it was his story and not hers they were telling.