After the Fall

fast learner then.”
    He just smiled and continued unsaddling Tsarina. Once she was back in her stall, he hung her halter and lead rope on the door. Then he helped me to my feet, and we headed out to the parking area.
    Halfway from the door to the truck, he slowed and tilted his head back. “Wow, it’s a gorgeous night tonight.”
    I looked up. Though the barn lights were bright as hell, the stars were clearly visible, especially with no moon. “You’re right. It is.”
    “Yep. Well.” He glanced at his watch. “I guess I should probably get you home.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I kind of like being out of the house.”
    “Do you?” He shifted his gaze back up to the sky. “In that case, do you feel like going for a drive?”
    “To . . .?”
    His gaze slid toward me, and he grinned. “Do you trust me?”
    I eyed him skeptically, but then shrugged. “Oh hell. Why not?”
    We got into the truck, and Ryan drove us out onto the interstate. He took one of the exits at the edge of town and followed the highway west. Straight ahead of us, the mountains cut a jagged, lightless silhouette against the stars, and that silhouette seemed to grow taller as we drove, a wall of teeth pushing the stars further out of our reach.
    Streetlights were fewer and farther between out here. So were houses, and eventually, even the farms were behind us. The highway wound upward and became a two-lane road with faded yellow stripes down the center. After a while, those disappeared too, and a few miles later, so did the asphalt.
    A mile or so past a half-dead gas station, he turned down a gravel road. The truck bumped and bounced along the uneven terrain, though to his credit, Ryan managed to avoid the really nasty potholes.
    I gazed out at the dark ravine on the right and the steep mountainside on the left. There probably wasn’t another soul for miles. “You’re not going to dismember me and bury me out here, are you?”
    Ryan laughed. “Not while you’ve got those damned casts on, no.”
    I threw him a glance. “You know, a simple ‘no’ would have sufficed. The qualifier about the casts wasn’t necessary.”
    “Hey, I’m just saying.” He shrugged and kept his eyes on the dusty road ahead of us. “Taking limbs apart is hard enough without a plaster casing around them.”
    I smirked. “But I can’t exactly run away from you.”
    “Eh, still. I like to work smarter, not harder. Efficiency and all that.”
    “Efficiency?” I put my casted hand over my heart and sighed dramatically. “A man after my own heart.” I paused. “I mean, you know, hopefully not after it for a meal or something.”
    Ryan laughed again and reached across the console. His hand came to rest on my leg, right above the edge of my cast. “I promise, I’m not going to do anything like that.”
    “I’m going to hold you to that.”
    “Understood.”
    He kept driving for another fifteen minutes or so, and finally stopped in the middle of nowhere. The engine quieted and the lights went out, and I couldn’t see a damned thing because it was dark and, well, there wasn’t a damned thing out here. We were high up on a ridge, that much I could tell, and if the sun had been up, we’d have been able to see the mountain range extending in front of us and behind us like reptilian vertebrae.
    Right now, though, with only the stars for light, all I could see was darkness and the distant glow of Tucker Springs and a couple of the smaller towns nearby.
    “So,” I said. “I’m assuming we’re not here to go hiking.”
    “Not very far, no.”
    A strangled sound escaped my throat. “Ryan, I’m—”
    “Relax.” He squeezed my leg. “About ten steps. Fifteen, tops. I promise.”
    “All right. But no more than fifteen.”
    He laughed again, but then glanced at my leg and pursed his lips. “Hmm. With some help, you think you can get into the bed of the truck?”
    I threw him a playful glare. “Is this the part where you start sawing off my limbs?”
    Ryan groaned and rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You really think I want to get blood all over that bed liner? That shit was expensive, you know.”
    “Oh. Well. Why didn’t you say so?” I unbuckled my seatbelt. “Apparently you just wanted to get me into bed.”
    He snorted. “That’s it. Of course.” Patting my leg, he added, “Come on.”
    I got out of the truck and went around the back of the bed as Ryan lowered the tailgate.
    “Hold on for a second.” He jumped onto the