Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 233

Chapter 233: Runaway child
By the time the sun broke the horizon, Ford was satisfied they were far enough away from the farm to not be in immediate danger of being caught. The light was welcome as it let him see the terrain ahead, but it was also their enemy since it made the two riders more readily visible.

Mia was guiding them steadfastly in the same direction, and Ford hoped that the woman truly knew where they were headed.

After some time, she reined her horse in and dismounted.

“We should let them rest, they’ve done well,” She told him, and then looked at his injured leg with some consternation.

He felt the same. If he were able to get down, was there any guarantee he could get up again?

Nearby was a creek, which likely ran towards the river separating nations. Mia took the reins of the horse she’d ridden and tied the creature on a bush within reach of the water.

Ford’s horse, or rather, Mia’s, followed the woman, disabusing him of any impression he’d had that he had been steering or controlling the beast at any point during the night. She tossed her head to pull the reins loose from his grasp and began drinking alongside the other.

“May I help you down?” Mia approached Ford and lifted her arms. Apparently the involuntary reaction on his face was insulting, because she glared at him in response. “I’m stronger than I look.”

“I know that already,” He told her, though he still didn’t like the idea of being helped around by this slim girl. It was embarrassing.

But he probably couldn’t do it alone without injuring himself, so he sighed.

“Lean forward and swing your opposite leg backward, until you’re sideways across the saddle,” Mia instructed. “I’ll help you lower yourself down slowly after that.”

Ford clenched his jaw and complied, performing the maneuver she suggested and finding himself dangling his legs towards the seemingly distant ground.

“Grip the saddle with both hands and lower yourself as slowly as you can,” Mia’s voice rang out from behind him confidently, and he couldn’t exactly refuse at this point.

His progress at first was tightly controlled, but the angle and muscle groups required for lowering himself this way weren’t ones that had seen a lot of recent use. They began to feel the strain far more quickly than Ford would have liked.

He grunted with the effort, and then felt Mia’s hands find his waist. The sensation of her dainty hands on him was startling, and he jumped, sliding more than he planned and barely managing to bend the knee of his injured leg before it touched the ground.

Taking the brunt of the controlled fall on his good leg was helpful, but not entirely without consequence as it left him off balance. Though he still gripped the saddle, he swayed and wavered.

The horse apparently didn’t like this, and she stepped away from him. The sudden change in position of the main source of his stabilization threw Ford off.

Just as he thought he would fall on his face, Mia slid in front of him in place of the horse, wrapping her arms fully around his waist, one shoulder against his chest, braced to support his weight.

In reflexive response, his arms came around her as well.

As she said, she was surprisingly strong, and her effort provided him with enough stabilization not to hit the ground.

But now, they stood in an embrace. His heart thundered against his will, probably a consequence of nearly falling. Despite her strength, however, Mia was surprisingly slim and soft.

She must have felt him regain his balance, for her hold loosened slightly and she looked at his face, searching it.

“Did that hurt too much?” Mia asked with concern.

Her perfect blue eyes in her perfect oval face focused on him. He wanted to be angry.

Angry he had to rely on this slip of a girl to not fall on his face. Angry that her perfection extended beyond the circumstances that raised her. Angry that she’d slipped past his shield of hatred and made him care about whether he’d hurt her or not.

“I’m fine. Did I hurt you?” He breathed.

A pretty blush crept into her cheeks, and she bit her lower lip slightly before answering.

“No… no, I’m fine. Are you stable?”

He realized he still held onto her rather tightly. He shivered, and shifted his weight to balance more fully on his good leg, while using the other as a touch point. He loosened his arms and she stepped away.

He suddenly felt rather chilled, but kept the thought to himself as Mia turned to untie his crutch from its place behind the saddle.

As she handed it to him, their eyes met, and she smiled shyly.

“I don’t know if I’ve thanked you–for coming,” Mia said quietly as he took the crutch and leaned on it. “I would have come alone otherwise, and that didn’t seem wise.”

“Running away in the middle of the night with an almost-stranger seemed wise to you?” Ford asked incredulously.

Mia seemed stumped by the question. “Comparatively, I suppose it did.”

Ford resisted the urge, not for the first time, to talk her out of her crazy decision.

“Well, all right,” He turned his attention towards more pressing matters, “how long do the horses need to rest? What is your plan for how quickly we’ll arrive?”

Trusting the entire journey to her was not his ideal way of tackling this journey, but she was his compass and his guide; camping trips with her family already put her ahead of him in skill when it came to overland travel.

She also, hopefully, had a pretty good grasp of how vehemently her family would pursue her and would adjust pace accordingly, though he guessed that she underestimated just how fervently they would seek her out.

“We’ll rest here for a time,” Mia decided, “An hour, maybe, while we have some breakfast, and then press on, if you can, until late in the day with intermittent breaks for the horses. We’ll make camp tomorrow night for some proper rest.”

As if any rest out here could be properly had.