Before You Go (YA Romance) (9 page)

The horse jerked right, and before his front legs splashed into the water, he reared.

She knew she was screwed even as her fingers brushed the saddle blanket,
then
grappled blindly with the air. She didn’t have time to scream as the trees did a flip-flop with the sky and everything smeared.

Her head hit the ground hard.
  

Her muttered curse came a little too late, and anyway, it wasn’t audible. She didn’t have any air inside her lungs.

What she did have was a comet-burst of pain, pain so harsh it was like fire, except it didn’t burn, it
incinerated
every inch of her, turning her body into a puddle of agony. She was limp with hurt, and only after an eternity of it was she able to push the ache back to a single point of origin: her head.

She opened her eyes and knew immediately that something was wrong. The sky seemed to fade in and out as it spun. Sensations shorted through her body like crossed wires; her limbs felt numb and jerky.

 
She closed her eyes, because the blue sky hurt. She shrugged her shoulder, wiggled some fingers. Whatever was wrong, her arms seemed to work. She tried to lift her right one, but it stayed where it lay, in the mud.

Mud.
Eeh
.
She had fallen in the mud again. She wasn’t paralyzed, though; she could feel the chilly, wet earth through her shirt.
 

She squeezed her eyes shut, for some reason thinking of her dad.
If he was around…
If her dad was still alive, she’d never be anywhere like this.
Her eyes teared, and just as abruptly the emotion was gone.

She tensed her shoulders and tightened her back, thinking she could hoist herself up in one roll.

A lightning burst of pain struck her right temple, forcing her to curl up on her side. She was staring at the bushy grass when something like thunder shook the ground.

It was the horse that had thrown her, coming back to finish the job.

She peeked under her arm, but she couldn’t see him. He’d run behind her, over toward the stream; maybe he was circling. She clenched her teeth and lifted her head, preparing to make herself sit up and then—

“Margo!
Margo!
Talk to me!”

Logan dropped beside her, hands landing on her side and shoulder. His deep voice shook near her ear.

 
“Don’t move. Can you hear me?
Shit
.” In a shuffle of boots on dirt, he moved around her, his hand never leaving her neck.

Margo blinked her eyes, feeling moisture there. She really shouldn’t be crying, but she just felt so weird, and Logan didn’t like her, and his hand was rubbing her arm and she liked it. She shouldn’t like it.

 
“Does your head hurt?”

She nodded, and thought she might throw up.

“Okay. Now tell me, who am I?”

“Logan.” It came out sounding small and young. How nice. “I don’t like you.” She figured since he’d treated her like h-e-double-l and now she was Humpty Dumpty, it was okay to be upfront. “This is your fault.”

Her eyes shut of their own accord, and she felt him lean down close. “C’mon, Margo, just keep talking.” His hand on her back hovered, tickling. “Tell me what hurts.”

“My head.”

His fingertips felt like butterflies on her temples. “Okay, look up at me for just one second. Tell me if my eyes look blue or brown.”

She swallowed as his eyes got wider. They looked blue…or gray. Right now, blue. “Kind of blue,” she said, gritting her teeth against a shiver as his fingers tickled the skin under her eyes.

“All right.
Does this hurt?” he asked, putting more pressure on her temples.

She started to shake her head and winced. “No. It hurts…right here,” she said, twirling her hand around over the lightning bolt just behind her left ear.

“Let me see.” He leaned over her, so his chest was by her face, so close that she inhaled him. Hay and sweat. He cupped her shoulder and squeezed.

“Do you remember what happened?”

She squinted again, shocked to find that she did not.

“We were riding…and he…” What had the devil horse done? Maybe she needed to go back a little more. She swallowed. “I got on that dark horse, and he was kind of hard to reign. Then we…” Crap. She really didn’t remember.

“It’s okay.” He swept her hair up off her forehead. “I think you can get up now.”

“How do you know?” The whole time he’d been acting like he knew what he was doing. The way he touched her…not like this—she shut her eyes as his fingers stroked her forearm, light and warm—the way he touched her earlier, he had seemed to know. “Are you a doctor?”

It seemed ludicrous to ask, but if he was really, really smart…

She opened her eyes and saw him smile. “I worked as an EMT this past year, to make some extra cash.”

He rubbed her one more time, from her elbow to her wrist. Then he went down to her legs and squeezed her ankles. “No pain here?”

“No,” she whispered.

“I’ll help you up. Your head will hurt, and you might feel kind of weak, okay?”

His hoisting grip was strong and
firm,
and his chest felt hard against her cheek. She wanted to pull away, but he was right; she did feel tired.

“Any dizziness?
You feel sick?”

“No.” She couldn’t look up at him as she answered, but she could feel him peering down at her.

“We’ve got two choices,” he said. “I can
either leave you here and
go get a truck, or I can put you on the horse with me, and the two of us can ride back together.”

Margo blinked. Things were starting to get weird. Like, her vision blurred, and her legs started to shake. She didn’t plan to say anything because she didn’t trust her voice, so she was shocked when her mouth opened and she said, “Don’t leave.”

“Okay,” he murmured. “We’ll go real
slow
.” With one arm still around her back, he shifted a little to wrap his other arm around her waist. “Do you think you can walk on your own?”

“Yeah.
Maybe.”
 

As they turned to face the shining stream—there was a
whiteish
horse beside it—Margo’s hair stuck to his shirt. The slight tugging on her scalp made goose bumps sweep her face. Her sensations were all off. One minute she smelled his deodorant—cool,
mountainy
—and the next, her nose was stuffy. Logan noticed her sniffle and he stopped.
 

“It’s okay,” he said lightly, but his arm on her stiffened. “Why don’t I bring her to
you.
”

He left Margo sitting on a stump, and she watched him jog to the horse. She thought how weird it was:
Now
he was nice.

She felt glad when he helped her up into the saddle. He climbed behind her, sitting so close she could feel him breathe.

He turned them out of the sun, thank God, and she asked, “Why do I feel so crappy?”

“You hit your head.” Near her ear, his voice sounded loud, and she flinched. He mumbled, “Sorry,” and, more softly, added, “Gamma here is a Peruvian Paso. They’re known for their smooth gait. Lean back against me and you can close your eyes. I’m not sure if you noticed, but your sunglasses are broken.”

She hadn’t, and she wondered what else she had missed.

“I’d lend you mine,” he was saying, “but they’re back at the barn. I left as soon as I saw you took Apollo.” He cleared his throat. “I’m really sorry about this.”

“It’s not really your fault.
At least not all of it.”

She felt him shake his head. “I should have given you the tour. Apollo’s not trained. I guess you figured that much out.”

“He’s not?”

His chest rumbled with a sort-of laugh. “I can’t believe you got a bridle on him. Did you take off bareback?”

“Bareback?” She laughed,
then
winced, trying to speak without moving her head.
“No way.
I fell off the saddle.” Her trainer back in Napa would be shocked.

“And you don’t remember what happened.”

“Yeah.”
That was embarrassing, too. It seemed that everything was. She’d gotten all upset, rushed off on a horse she couldn’t ride, and ended up flat on her back with a bump on the head.
He must think I’m an idiot.

But he didn’t act like it. His arm around her tightened, and he said, “He’s a hellion.”

“So he’s
Thirteen
and not Eleven?”

When Logan laughed, his chest vibrating pleasantly against her back.
“Apollo Thirteen.
Yeah, pretty much.” She let him take even more of her weight. “I spend a couple of hours with him every morning; he’s kicked me real good a few times. I’ve got a bruise on my thigh the size of Texas.”

Margo wished he hadn’t mentioned anything about bruises; the thought made her head throb. “
Ow
.” She hadn’t meant to say anything, but the pain was intense. It made her eyes water, and again she felt a wave of exhaustion. She leaned back against Logan, feeling his chin brush her hair.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she squeaked.

A few minutes later, that nothing was
not
nothing
. She’d started to sweat, and then she’d started to shiver, while the back of her throat got hot and slick, and she started to feel sick…like the way that she felt if she used her
iPad
in the car.

“You should stop.” She tried her hardest to keep her voice steady and loud. She didn’t want to lean on him.
Literally or figuratively.

“You feel sick?”

“Yes,” she exhaled. Then, “Stop
now
.”

She was already pulling her feet out of the stirrups and leaning forward, but his grip on her tightened.

“Hold on,” he said, as blood rushed in her ears. “Sit real still for just a second and listen to me.” She slumped, while the pasture out front tilted and slowly spun.

“That’s good.” As he murmured, he slid his arm around her waist, bringing her back to his chest and leaning up slightly, so her head came to rest in the crook of his big, warm arm. With his left hand curled around her waist and his right one clutching the reins, he nuzzled her hair with his chin; the motion was almost imperceptible, but it tickled her, and that sensation distracted Margo from the typhoon in her stomach.

“You’re not
gonna
get sick.”

 
There was strength in his voice. Margo loved it as much as she hated it.

“You’re shivering,” he murmured. “Are you cold?”

She nodded painfully, wishing she could scoot away from him.

Instead, the arm around her waist came up across her chest. “Just relax. I won’t let you fall.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”
His voice was a rumble in her ear. “Shut your eyes, okay?”

She did. Closing her eyes, she let her whole sore tired body relax.

“That’s good. I’ve got you. In just a second, you’re going to open your eyes. Do that now. Open your eyes and look down at Gamma’s back. That way the sun won’t hurt as much. It’s important to keep your eyes open, okay Margo?”