Blackwolf's Redemption

When she finally drove into the canyon, it was eleven o’clock. She put her foot down on the gas pedal until the Jeep was damned near airborne.

She had to reach the mountain, reach the ledge; she had to be there when the shortest daylight hours of the year became the longest hours of darkness even though she didn’t know why….

And, God, she wasn’t going to make it. The dashboard clock read three minutes to midnight.

“Come on,” Sienna said, her voice shaking, “come on, come on, come—”

Thunder roared overhead. She cried out; the Jeep skidded on the icy grass as the thunder roared again. There it was. The mountain, a dark, menacing hulk straight ahead.

Lightning, green lightning, slashed the sky.

Sienna stood on the brakes. Flung open the door. Her lips were moving in silent prayer. She didn’t know what it was, what she was saying, only that she wanted the green lightning to strike again, to hit her squarely as she raised her face and arms to the sky.

It struck.

Not her.

It struck all around her and she screamed as the world tilted….

“Sienna?”

Her heart stood still. That voice. That beloved voice, husky and deep and so wonderfully, magnificently familiar.

The sky lightened. The moon appeared. The stars, a billion of them, blazed down on Blackwolf Canyon….

“Sienna,” Jesse said, and when she spun around she saw him running toward her, arms open and waiting.

“Jesse? Oh, God, Jesse!”

She flew into his embrace, weeping, sobbing, tasting the salt of their commingled tears as they kissed. He held her that way for a long, long time and then, at last, she drew back and looked up into his beautiful face.

“How?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “I found something my father had written. And I knew, I just knew it meant I could find you.” He lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his throat. “Never leave me again,” he said fiercely.

“Never. Never, never, never…”

He kissed her. She clung to him. Suddenly, a big, velvet muzzle intruded between them.

“Cloud,” Jesse said, and laughed. The stallion whinnied; gently, Jesse pushed him away. “I love you, Sienna,” he said softly. “I always will.”

“Until the end of time,” she whispered.

“Until the end of time,” he echoed, because as long as he had this woman in his arms, time had no end. The year, the place didn’t matter.

Jesse Blackwolf was, at long last, home.