TO FALL OR TO FLY

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CHAPTER ONE

She sat in a silver silk simple dress. An unearthly beauty that accentuated her haunted eyes as she stared at the world beyond the boulder she sat upon and the halo that could’ve danced around her invisible wings.

Cheyenne Emerson wasn’t an angel, but she glided as one and spoke to horses and creatures as one. She’d given the birth of hope to teachers throughout her high school years. She’d endured family strife with it’s foundation still buried and needing to be unearthed. And she’d been the only soul to silence Jordan Emerson, her stepbrother, who reigned chaos where he walked upon.

Different and an aura to soothe the irrational, Cheyenne Emerson wasn’t at home among the extravagant materials that her family thrived in purchasing or the current lily-scented field where the white silk wedding tent perched upon.

The sun had depleted, enough to chill the perspiration that clung to everyone dressed in suit or dress alike. And to the fortunate, their bodies had warmed naturally from the frenzied dancing that had just conspired after the cello was packed away and the DJ had arrived.

With a champagne goblet resting in her slim fingertips, Cheyenne mused the questions of the universe.

Her best friend, Timothy Rankins, had just married Caitlyn Powers. And Caitlyn Powers had sent away Cody Phillips with a bleeding heart on the eve of the wedding.

Cheyenne knew all this, not because she naturally knew everything, but because Cody had woken her up to bid her farewell and to confess his sins.

He had fallen in love, as so many others, with Caitlyn Powers, only to realize on the last hour that she wouldn’t change her mind.

As Cody had professed his love and the unbearable burden of loving someone who couldn’t be with you in body and soul, he had spoken to one who experienced the same unbearable burden for him.

Cody Phillips had awoken Cheyenne’s human serenity.

Not long ago, she would’ve been content hearing the wedding music perched atop her Mustang white mare, Ethereal, and seven miles in the mountain wilderness that surrounded them, but Cody had slowly anchored Cheyenne’s slipping soul back to earth and she had consented to being a bridesmaid for Tim’s wedding—her best and only friend.

Tim was her friend while Cody had been her love, but he had loved another and was ignorant of the weight his words bared.

So what natural rule of law could produce her chilled soul back to it’s primitive element, among the Mustang herd in her natural environment? What answer in the universe could explain the sudden repelling yearning of her heart?

Tim had asked her to stand for him as a bridesmaid in the wedding party. Cody had asked for her to do it and so she had because both men in her life wanted her to stand among them, and yet; the one who had caressed her at times, kissed her, and loved her had left her in the end. And he hadn’t left her for another woman, but because of another woman’s unreturned love.

If she could’ve flown, she would’ve grown her invisible wings then and there.

And even as the urge to leave for her wilderness terrain rose within her, Ethereal nickered in the distance, as if feeling her companion’s heart-splintering pain.

Cheyenne glanced behind her, her back now to the wedding festivities of alive emotions, and she studied the woods that was just beyond two log mansions and another three stable barns.

A path of woodchips and red bricked stones led the way. It led from underneath the boulder she sat on.

It wasn’t the white clothed chairs that all the other guests enjoyed in comfort. The boulder was stark gray, off the path from the wedding tent to the outside grill and bar, and even from the bathroom facilities.

Cheyenne had sought out a perch in the shadows where she blended to invisibility and where she could escape the reproachful and aghast expression of the southern belles who would inevitably notice when such fine fabric was being demolished from her boulder of stone.

Ethereal nickered again, calling for her companion, and without thought Cheyenne stood to answer.

Her best friend now had a new family and wife. Caitlyn Powers Rankins would be a demanding wife and Timothy hadn’t the assertive bone to withstand the natural timid temperament that his wife adored.

The only other person that would notice was already gone.

Cheyenne would’ve stayed if Cody had remained. She would’ve hoped for a dance, to be held in his arms again, and perhaps for the night to follow. She would’ve longed to share her love as he had professed his to another, but that was all over with.

Cody had resigned his position as the Powers’ Horse Trainer. He had packed his truck, boarded his two Arabians in the trailer, and left with a chaste kiss to Cheyenne’s smooth cheek.

There hadn’t even been a hug, just a similar sisterly kiss.

The kiss of death from what Cheyenne uncharacteristically thought with a rare passion.

But perhaps it had been a kiss of death. Perhaps that was just a natural description for the truth because there was no reason for Cheyenne to remain where she sat or who she stood with.

Humans couldn’t comprehend her. And she couldn’t speak with them.

But the one who called for her, neighed again, felt and could share her pain.

Cheyenne needed to be there with Ethereal beneath her. She needed to feel the wind chasing through her hair, her body molded to Ethereal’s sensual glide of muscles as she raced through the mountain terrain and soared over the cliff’s edges.

That’s what Cheyenne needed. That’s what made her feel alive and it had never mattered that none knew of it. That none knew where she disappeared often to or who kept her company in the wilderness.

Cody had sensed it. He told her that he felt the magic that she embodied, but he hadn’t understood it. He just knew that if there was a Horse Whisperer Protégé, it was Cheyenne, but he hadn’t thought to study it further. His love for Caitlyn Powers had overruled any majestic discoveries that galloped a mere eight miles from his bedroom window.

Ethereal called again and it hastened Cheyenne’s invisible retreat, but as she stepped into the stables, hoping for a direct shortcut among the Thoroughbred corral, she drew up short at the vision of Caitlyn Powers’ wedding dress bunched up around her waist as a male hand explored the thigh below it.

A silent gasp came to her mouth as she blinked and saw the passionate kiss that Caitlyn Powers Rankins shared wasn’t with her husband, but with Cheyenne’s stepbrother, Jordan.

And then Ethereal rang again and even the Thoroughbreds scattered, feeling Ethereal’s anxiousness. The sudden shift of stomping hooves alerted the passionate lovers, but when Jordan’s keen green eyes lifted, the doorway was empty once again, but the familiar feeling settled clearly upon him.

He smothered a curse and shoved Caitlyn from his body.

“What?” Caitlyn panted and smiled, drunkenly. She leaned close and rubbed against him.

Cheyenne had been there.

Jordan felt it and he knew that she’d seen what he wouldn’t want her to witness.

And even as he realized the comprehension, the feeling was disappearing and he knew that she had left, quickly. Distance was rapidly being covered from whatever haste had spurred in her feet. Jordan knew that he might not see her, for perhaps a week or more.

It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but in the last six months she had been around much more, almost on a regular basis, but that was gone.

Jordan couldn’t understand how he knew, but he knew. He’d always known. It was why he never dared touch his stepsister that had never grown sisterly attachments within him. As he had never grown brotherly attachments inside of her, but Cheyenne had a hard time comprehending him when he did come to share a room with her at times, even in a heated argument between himself and his father.

Cheyenne always watched the window with wistfulness as her mother and Jordan’s father tried again and again to reason with his rebellious personality that refused to become domesticated.

Cheyenne wasn’t within reach. Jordan always felt that. To be truthful, he would have to concede that he had dreamt about pursuing her in the vain hopes of damaging their parents’ relationship, but one look to her haunted eyes had told him that if he ever sought forgiveness in the end, he wouldn’t touch Cheyenne Emerson with even a thought.

And now the connection was gone. Cheyenne was beyond him now, lost to wherever she went, and the old dread had taken root in his gut.

Something had happened, something had been undone from whatever had brought her back to civilization, and she was gone again.

But Cheyenne wasn’t gone. She was just beyond where anyone else walked upon.

She wore sparkling white diamond sandals as she sprinted to find Ethereal, waiting underneath a black oak tree where the white mare sensed her companion’s quick arrival. Ethereal appeared, pushing through the foliage that was natural camouflage, and would’ve been considered a ghost from peering eyes afar.

The white mare seemed to never touch the earth, but neither did her companion as Cheyenne now sprinted with her dress held in one hand to not tear from laying twigs in wait.

A soft nicker left the 17 hands Mustang and a strong neck swooped slightly as Cheyenne leapt with one hand in her mane to lift her toned body atop the Mustang.

Ethereal didn’t wait, but immediately turned and galloped back into the melting wilderness and Cheyenne leaned forward to mold her body and cheek against Ethereal’s rippling and sinewy toughened body.

Cheyenne smiled, softly, and painfully as Ethereal took her away from those she had left behind, but she hadn’t been correct when she thought none would notice her absence.

The wedding dance resumed with gusto. Hip hop beats belted out and was answered with shifting and rhythmic swaying of the hips, but the bride appeared flushed and with smeared lipstick to greet her husband who stared into the surrounding abyss.

Timothy had been looking for both women of his life.

He had found his wife, approaching from the stable’s path, and he knew immediately she had been with another.

Timothy Rankins wasn’t as foolhardy as everyone assumed and he even knew who his wife had been with, but his eyes kept scanning for Cheyenne.

As Jordan Emerson paused, once, in the pathway just down the hill behind Caitlyn’s passage, the infamous legend met Tim’s too knowledgeable eyes and looked behind him.

Both men knew Cheyenne had retreated and both, though complete opposites in life, were in perfect accordance in that moment of time.

The setting was iridescent and a stark forewarning for the future that laid just beyond it’s mocking irony.

Timothy had been the geek while Jordan was always the reluctant prom king. Timothy never led while Jordan had been born to lead, but both cared for the same reclusive soul that had left their company. And yet, both men laid hands to the woman who stomped and shrieked in laughter her way through life while neither could touch the haunted spirit of Cheyenne’s tranquility.

“Hey, honey!” Caitlyn gushed as she wrapped her thin arms around her husband’s wiry frame. Her auburn curls brushed against his smooth chin and she found his lips almost clumsily.

Timothy tasted the lingering scent of another man, but he sighed and kissed her back because, believe it or not, Timothy loved his wife and vowed to change her of her ways.

He was in love with Caitlyn, but he loved Cheyenne. There was a distinct difference.

And he was perhaps the only one to know that Cheyenne thought of herself as being in love with Cody Phillips, who had made a complete fool of himself the night prior.

“Jordan Emerson is here?” Timothy asked, huskily, as Caitlyn moved to take a breath.

“Oh. Yeah.” She turned and searched out the path she’d left.

Jordan had disappeared. A behavior that he had perfected along with his stepsister.

“He must’ve left.” She burrowed back into Timothy’s chest.

“He needs to stay gone.” Timothy warned darkly.

And Caitlyn pulled away, her sudden alert and sober eyes searched his intently. She saw the damning knowingness, but she also saw chances for hope and sighed deeply. She nodded, gravely, and leaned up for another kiss, this one not in deceit.

“I love you.” She whispered against his lips.

“Then love me.” Timothy stated.

She nodded, breathed out, and pressed her forehead against his chest in her shame.

Timothy let her. It was a unique posture for newlyweds, but as Caitlyn’s parents took it in, they saw their daughter’s true hope in a man who could, perhaps, endure the self-destructive and weak nature that they had grown with.

Timothy anchored his hands around her waist, but used one to tip her head up to meet his eyes.

Fresh tears moistened her cheeks and Timothy rubbed them away with a soft thumb.

Even though he couldn’t be seen, Jordan watched it all unravel before him.

And he turned, not disgusted with himself or even with Caitlyn, but with the man that Timothy represented. And deep down, though he’d never admit it, Jordan was in chaos, not understanding what had exactly occurred in the stables two minutes earlier.

He’d arrived to the wedding of the town, not to celebrate, but to mock. Caitlyn had found him, warned him to leave, and because he could, Jordan had taken her in his arms.

Of the Emersons, perhaps he was the angel, but a fallen angel.

Caitlyn wasn’t self-destructive, not truly. She was just weak and she still felt the old stirrings for excitement and adventure pulling at her heart strings. She knew what Timothy represented and she knew that was where she should go. To give her credit, she was trying, but Jordan had a power that no one could supersede.

He took because he could. He always had. He crumbled teachers in his wake as a teenager. He’d made his employers whimper in surrender and he had cast out his fair share of bleeding hearts.

And in the end, he wasn’t content. Nothing contented him, nor the raging beast inside of him.

The only one who could, who ever had, sought the solace of her seclusion far away.

Jordan had intended to destroy Timothy and Caitlyn’s marriage. That’s why he had driven to the Powers’ ranch around the same mountain of his parents’ home, but it was the knowledge that Cheyenne had witnessed their kiss that had stopped him. He had shoved Caitlyn away and it was Cheyenne’s presence that reverberated inside of him that beckoned him to his truck and back onto the road, away from the newlyweds’ newly birthed future.

He never had anything against Timothy Rankin. It wasn’t ever about that, about destroying the man. Jordan only knew of him as Cheyenne’s geeky buddy in high school and Caitlyn’s newest target, but that was it.

And Caitlyn wasn’t even the girl who his heart pined for because his heart pined for no one. It never had and maybe that was what his heart pined for, for that chance.

Caitlyn been his main girl for a year straight, the longest relationship he’d ever had, but Jordan was bored and he knew he could so he set about to do it.

That was done and over with. Jordan knew, without wanting to question where his resolve came from, that he’d give Caitlyn Powers Rankins a wide berth, even when he would see her at the Dancing StillLeg, as he inevitably would.

And then, just as his truck rounded one of the seventeen corners lost in the myriad of forests, he slammed on the brakes as a horse and rider materialized before him.

He stared, nearly paralyzed from shock, as he met Cheyenne’s sudden stormy eyes as she sat straight on Ethereal’s body, a horse that could’ve been in any legend book and the first time Jordan had ever set eyes to.

He read the warning in Cheyenne’s haunted silver eyes and nodded, once, deathly still.

He would adhere and stay away from the newlyweds. And then with no movement or word spoken, the horse stepped back into the forest and vanished, leaving no trail to the path it had taken.

Jordan sat still, shaken at what he had just seen, but as he caught the flash of headlights behind him, he quickly sped along down the road and turned to return to his home instead of informing his buddies at the Dancing StillLeg what had transpired between him and Caitlyn the Power.

From above, as he turned down the road, Cheyenne glanced over her shoulder and Ethereal moved for her bidding.

The northerly wind swept south. It was as if it knew that one of his had returned. Cheyenne had come home and it swept to welcome her, but it also brought turmoil with it.

They stood on a cliff, with the northerly wind racing to ricochet off their backs, but it went unnoticed. The wind was inevitable and part of the wilderness both creatures loved and thrived in. It was their wind. It rarely ventured south, to the valley below them, even to the foothills of where the Powers’ Ranch was situated and the wedding danced on.

Cheyenne sat above, seeing the lights flickering beneath her feet, and she wondered—briefly—of what was to come.

She witnessed the turmoil in Jordan. His attentions had been diverted the past six months since he was dating a girl in South Pall, Mountain Creig’s sister town to the east, but they must’ve broken up. And Jordan was at it again.

He had a tendency that none could comprehend, not fully, but it was a spirit she witnessed before, in another creature.

And in the distance, just arriving to the city lights of Raleigh, Cody turned his truck into a seedy motel, used for the hourly rates, and sighed as he turned off the engine. Sandy-brown hair that teased his ears, his mournful blue eyes mused an unseeing blinking neon sign that proclaimed ‘Hotel O-tel.’ His horses stomped nervously in the trailer behind him, their movements were felt by Cody and he wondered, briefly, if he had done the right thing or not.

All he knew is that he had to leave.

Caitlyn had made her choice. She’d been adamant and so with one goodbye given, he’d left, his heart tattered and dragging behind.

He also wondered, in bitterness, if he’d left his heart in Mountain Creig and if he’d ever be able to retrieve it again.

But until then, all he could do was wait and hope—for just the ability to believe in love once again.

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