Free Cowboy Up by Vicki Lewis Thompson Page A

trunks and headed for the liquid sound the creek made as it slid over rocks and fallen branches. Somewhere she’d read that cascading water gave people a more positive outlook.
    Maybe the creek would help her mood as she considered how to broach the money subject with her dad. She’d wait until the day after his birthday, though. He’d probably be embarrassed that he’d been caught in a lie he’d been telling her for nine years.
    She wasn’t sure what had motivated him to disguise the checks as an inheritance, but she could guess. He wanted to guarantee that she’d take the money without guilt. Her dad knew all about guilt. Apparently he’d blamed himself for being an absentee father, and sending her money every month soothed his conscience.
    But when he found out that she’d touched none of it, how would that affect him? She didn’t know for sure, but she was afraid he’d take it as a rejection of his loving gesture. And all the guilt he’d sloughed off as a result of sending those checks would come roaring back.
    No, she couldn’t bring up the subject until after his birthday. Sarah had gone to a great deal of trouble to make the celebration special, and Emily would be a most ungrateful houseguest to ride in and spoil it all. That would show her to be easily as selfish as everyone thought she was.
    She reached the creek and sat down on a fallen log to take off her boots. Until today she hadn’t worn them for more than five minutes, and they weren’t broken in. Dangling her feet in the water seemed like an excellent idea.
    Leaving her boots and her borrowed hat by the log, she looked for a place on the bank that would allow her to sit, but no log or branch had fallen into a convenient position and the rocks were wet. If she wanted to put her feet in the water, she’d have to wade in. So be it. She rolled up her jeans and edged down the embankment.
    She gasped as her toes made contact with the icy creek, but as a surfer, she could take the cold. She also had excellent balance, so standing on smooth stones while the water rippled around her was child’s play.
    As she congratulated herself on solving her problem of achy, sore feet, she glanced across the creek—which was only about as wide as an average hotel room—and came eyeball-to-eyeball with an SUV-sized bull moose. At least, she assumed it was a bull moose. He looked a little bit like Bullwinkle, and his antlers could have served as a coatrack for a family of six, which probably meant this was a male.
    She stood very still, and so did the moose. He seemed as surprised to meet her as she was to meet him, but Emily thought the moose had the advantage in this encounter. She vaguely remembered news stories of people being trampled by a large moose, but hadn’t that been in Alaska?
    This was a Wyoming moose, and she could hope that they were friendlier. Maybe the only thing this guy wanted was a cold drink. So far as she was concerned, he could drain the creek dry. She would just stand there, not moving.
    The moose, however, didn’t seem willing to stay on his side of the stream. When he stepped into the water with what Emily now viewed as killer hooves, she panicked and tried to move backward on the slippery rocks. She went down in a very ungraceful sideways move that tossed her into deeper water.
    That could be a good thing. A moose might not be able to trample her to death in three feet of water. Still, she could certainly drown in that depth if she didn’t get her head out soon.
    Flailing to the surface might not be wise with Bullwinkle around, but she had this little issue of breathing. Grabbing at mossy rocks, she managed to get her head up far enough to gulp for air and take a quick moose survey. No Bullwinkle.
    Getting out of the creek while wearing soggy jeans and a T-shirt was tricky, but she managed it right as Clay appeared. Of course he’d show up while she was in the middle of making a fool of herself. He’d put his shirt on but hadn’t