Every inch of Victoria's 19 year-old body objected to the rough horse ride she was currently enduring, but her pride stung far more than her butt did. In fact, Victoria's absorption with her own unfortunate predicament was so complete that she was paying no mind to the glorious Colorado mountain scenery she was zooming through. Never, in all of her days, did she think she would be forced to cling to back of John Turner, her sworn enemy, after he had the gall to pretend he had saved her from a grizzly bear! Who did he think he was? He had no right to blaze through her life, assume she was a damsel in need of his assistance, shoot and kill the bear she could have certainly averted on her own, and then throw her on his horse and tell her to "Hold on" with that smirk of his that made her want to kick something. She wouldn't endure much more of this.
Victoria had first met John when he had started working for her father's lumber mill when she was eleven. She had just enjoyed a particularly excellent romp through the woods that had resulted in her gown being a bit ripped around the sleeve, several bruises on her right leg and arm from falling out of a tree (and the bruises promised to turn into a very interesting shade of blue) and the bun her mother had put her hair into that morning had long since given up trying to restrain the long blonde hair that had a mind of it's own (just like the girl it resided on). Victoria was wandering about the lumber site, looking for her father when she first saw John Turner amid the chaos of working men, looking lost. He had short brown hair and hazel eyes that held a somber and somewhat cynical light to them. He was sixteen years old. Victoria's eyes grew a bit wide and she took in the boy who struck her as beautiful. She experienced an unusual sensation of shyness, but as usual, curiosity overrode all else, and she stepped up the boy and conjured up all the subtlety she was capable of, and asked him;
"Who are you?"
The boy turned to find the source of the girls' voice, and found a wild child with long blonde hair with bright blue eyes that were gazing at him with an intensity he wasn't comfortable with.
"I'm John Turner."
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm the new wood chip sweeper, I'm looking for my lodging."
"Oh. Well I'm Victoria. My dad is your boss, want me to show you where your bunk is?"