“Is there something on the cook stove?”
“No. The cornbread just finished and the fire has burnt out. I thought you would want to have supper right away.”
“I’m hungry, but I’d like to take you somewhere first.”
“All right,” Bonnie slowly said, her eyebrows pushing together. She gave him a look of suspicion. “Where?”
“Somewhere good. I promise.”
Feeling bold, he took her hand. After a second, her fingers closed around his. Together, they walked behind the cabin and down a little trail. Steve had lived on this plot of land since arriving in Whiteridge a year ago, and his constant treks up the side of the mountain had resulted in the thin trail.
“How far are we going?” Bonnie asked.
“We’re there.”
A few more steps, and Steve stopped along an outcropping of rock, and Bonnie gasped.
“It is beautiful,” she whispered.
In front of them, the sun set over the valley, painting a rainbow of color of reds and oranges. The overlook was Steve’s favorite spot, but one he’d never told anyone about.
“I come here all the time to watch the sunset,” he said, glancing at her profile.
Bonnie’s mouth was open in amazement. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“They don’t have views like this in Baltimore, I guess.”
“No, they don’t.” She briefly glanced at him before turning her attention back to the sunset.
For a while, they stayed as they were, watching the valley go to sleep.
“Do you think you’ll be happy here?” Steve asked, after a while.
“Yes,” Bonnie said, although Steve heard hesitation there.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She looked at her hands. “I believe I am still coming to terms with my life taking such a dramatic twist. It has been two years since my father’s death, but still...”
Steve nodded. “You had to leave college to care for him. And I imagine education was important to him.”
“One of the most important things,” Bonnie answered. “Second only to me.”
Steve’s chest ached for her. There was so much pain in her voice, and he wished he could take it all away. After the two of them had connected through a mail-order bride agency, she had revealed to him in her letters that, several years ago, her father suffered a stroke that caused him to quit teaching at the university. With her mother having been dead for over twenty years, Bonnie had been forced to leave college in order to care for him. As he’d required near-constant attention, she had not been able to work either.
A year later, a second stroke had killed him. Left with little resources and no money to return to school with, Bonnie was forced to sell the house. After that, she had moved into a boarding house and began work as a seamstress.
Those facts were probably only the bare bones of her story, but even by themselves they were enough to make Steve want to take care of her. In comparison, his own life had been so ordinary. He’d never been through the kind of pain Bonnie had. Growing up in Upstate New York had been good. Carefree. Coming West had been an adventure.
When he’d first arrived in the West, he’d harbored dreams of starting a ranch or opening some kind of business. His plans weren’t exact, though, and he’d drifted around for a bit, working on different ranches and farms before finding the mine in Whiteridge.
Working in a coal mine wasn’t a perfect jobhad , but Daniel Zimmerman paid better than the ranches could, and Steve wouldn’t be doing it forever. Once he built a nicer home, he’d start thinking seriously about what came next. Whiteridge was a growing town, and it needed many kinds of businesses. He could open a feed store. Or start farming down in the valley. In a land as plentiful as Wyoming, there was always more than one option.
Steve swallowed hard. He wanted to take care of Bonnie, to give her everything she needed and desired.
“I’m sorry there’s no college for you here,” he said.
“You do not have to say that.”
The next words hurt to say, but he had to be strong and get them out. “If it turns out you’re not happy here... If you want to go back East… I… I would understand.”
“That is not an option, Steve.”
“Why not?”
“Life in Baltimore was...” Bonnie sighed. “Hard. Not only because of the work and the living conditions. But because that town is full of memories of my old life.” She shook her head. “I buried my father there, and as much as I would like to visit his grave occasionally, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to go back. That was my old life. This is my new one.”
He nodded. They’d dropped hands when they reached the overlook, and now he took hold of hers again. Looking down at their intertwined fingers, she gave him a squeeze.
“It really is magnificent here,” she whispered.
“I hoped you’d think so.” Steve paused. “What about… school? Are you sure you’ll be all right not finishing it?”
Her jaw tightened. “Leaving it was a disappointment, but, yes, I will be fine. I lost that, but I have gained… this.” She waved at the landscape in front of them. “I never imagined it would be this beautiful out here.”
“No sunset is the same,” Steve said. “I come up here whenever I can, and I’ve never seen two that look similar.”
“Maybe you have not been coming up here enough,” Bonnie suggested, with a smile on her face.
“Maybe not,” Steve teased back. “What do you say? How about we spend as many sunsets up here as we can?”
“I would like that.”
Steve nodded in satisfaction, and they fell into silence again, watching as the colors dissipated and the night took over.
Continue on… Her Fearless Love
Her Silent Burden_Seeing Ranch series Page 36
