Page 20 of Boston (Coral Canyon: Cowboys #12)

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

B oston had never been less amused about something in his life. Six-plus miles of hiking, and the accommodations had a tree through the roof? God was either trying to test him or be funny, and Boston didn’t know which was worse.

“Come on,” he grumbled. “Let’s go see what the damage is.” He had no idea when that tree had gone through the roof, as they didn’t have cameras here.

“There was a windstorm a few weeks back,” he said. “Maybe this happened then.” He tried to remember if there had been rain since then, because a tree through the roof was bad, but a tree through the roof and then rain leaking inside the cabin unchecked would be worse.

He didn’t have the supplies and tools he needed to fix this, not on this trip, and his mind worked with the possibility of loading up a couple of horses to bring up the lumber, materials, and tools he’d need to repair it.

At the bottom of the steps, he held his hand out for Cora to stop. “Let me go in first.”

“Do you think it’s going to collapse on us?”

“I don’t know what it’s going to do.” He didn’t mean to sound so grumpy, but today had been his definition of perfect, and he’d been looking forward to settling into the cabin, showing Cora around the eagle habitat, and making a big fire so that he could start their Dutch oven dinner.

Fine, he’d been fantasizing about holding her next to the fire, and laughing with her, and kissing her, and making this trip to one of his favorite places on the planet better than it had ever been.

A tree through the roof had soured everything, including his mood. He moved up onto the steps that led to the porch, his irritation burning hotly as Cora joined him.

“You don’t get to boss me around,” she said.

“Whoa.” He stopped right there on the third step. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“If you can go inside, then I can go inside.”

His heart beat faster, screaming a warning at him. “You think I’m bossing you around?”

“You went over a checklist with me before we left,” she said.

“You asked me to,” he fired back.

“You checked on me to make sure I was doing okay, like, every other second.”

“I did not.”

“There’s mud over here, Cora.” She continued up the steps to the porch, turned and faced him. She folded her arms across her chest and glared. “Put your foot right there, Cora. Did you get enough to eat, Cora? Are you staying hydrated, Cora?”

“Hey now.” Boston held up both hands. “That’s not because I think you’re incapable.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I just slipped into being a guide.” He moved up the steps until he stood eye-level with her. “Maybe I thought you’d appreciate it. Maybe I was worried about you. Is that a crime?”

That warring indecision that he’d seen on her face before ran amok. “No,” she finally said.

“None of that was to make you feel small,” he said.

“Or inferior, or like you can’t do something.

” He gestured to the cabin. “Just like me going in first to check on things, to make sure there’s not a wolverine who’s taken up residence, isn’t me passing judgment on you or thinking you’re weak and can’t handle it. ”

“All right,” she said.

“I’m frustrated,” he continued. “And I have a right to be. We’ve come all this way, and I thought it was going to be this amazing cabin that I could show you.

We could talk about this experience and excursion, and now there’s a blasted tree through the roof.

” He continued up the steps and brushed past her.

He’d installed a lock box on the door, and he quickly flipped the numbers to the four-digit code he needed to open the compartment that would release the key.

“I’m sorry,” Cora said from behind him, her voice a bit higher than normal, and definitely smaller than she’d ever spoken to him.

“It’s fine.” Boston said, his own irritation fading fast. “I didn’t mean to snap at you either.” He fitted the key into the lock and opened the door. “Let’s go see what we’ve got.”

He took one step inside, using every sense he had to assess the danger. Cora came to his side, and he reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I really am sorry.”

“Me too. I don’t know why I freaked out.”

He nodded his acceptance, because they didn’t need to apologize over and over. “Doesn’t smell like there’s been water in the cabin,” he said. “And I don’t smell or see evidence of an animal either.”

The main room of the cabin spread before him, stretching right and left. The enormous hearth with a fireplace and a pot-bellied stove sat at the end of the cabin on the left.

“This place is huge,” Cora said.

Right now, it only held a single full-sized couch, though Boston had sketched out adding at least two more, along with a foosball table right in front of the windows on the left side.

A big dining room table sat on the right, and it could seat twelve, with a kitchen behind that, complete with full size appliances and a ten-foot counter that would hold plenty of food for big groups.

A hallway sat directly across from the main entrance and led first to a bathroom just behind the kitchen.

The room right behind that was a mud room with washer and dryer hookups, as well as the outside exit to the side of the house.

The fire pit that Boston had already cleaned up this year and planned to use for their Dutch oven feast that night sat twenty feet out that side door, with towering pines and junipers surrounding the graveled area.

The smaller second bedroom sat in the back corner where the tree appeared to have punctured the roof.

Boston shrugged out of his heavy pack as he walked toward the kitchen. He lifted it up onto the counter and let it fall down, the relief in his shoulders stretching all the way down his spine and into his hips.

“You’ve only been out here a few times?” Cora asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“It’s pretty clean for that.”

“Let’s go see what it’s like in the bedroom.” He could barely look at her as he headed for the hallway. His hiking boots thunked against the hardwood floor, making an angry noise reverberate against the walls on either side.

The bathroom seemed fine, as did the mud room. The door to the second bedroom stood closed, and that alerted Boston. He slowed and put his hand on the doorknob. It felt a normal temperature, and he drew a deep breath and pushed open the door.

The outside air whooshed at him, trying to grab onto his cowboy hat the way the wind in Wyoming always did. A tree limb, probably six inches in diameter, poked down through the roof, about midway across the far wall.

“Yep, there’s a tree in here,” Cora said, and Boston actually smiled.

Plaster and organic debris had been scattered across the room and the bed. Boston stepped carefully, but the floor didn’t seem to be impacted.

“This window has a huge crack in it,” he said. “And this wall will need to be assessed for structural damage.” He stood very nearly under the limb now, and he looked up. “But I don’t see the sky through this hole, so it sure seems like that limb jammed itself in there and then stopped.”

“Yeah,” Cora said from behind him. “Come away from there, Boston. You’re making me nervous.”

He turned. “Who’s watching out for the other now?” He grinned at her as she rolled her eyes.

“Seriously, you’re standing under a broken tree limb.”

He retraced his steps back to her and slung one arm around her waist as he turned to survey the damage again. “I don’t think either one of us are sleeping in here tonight.”

“No, I don’t think so either.” Cora turned around.

“This must be the master over here.” She practically scampered away from him to the doorway directly opposite of this one.

It stood open, and sure enough, the big king bed that Boston had slept in before stood proudly unaffected by the tree limb across the hall.

“I can take the couch,” he said as he came up behind Cora.

He hadn’t packed a sleeping pad or blanket, pillow or sleeping bag, because there were beds in this cabin, and he’d seen no need for it.

“I’m going to go start the generator and unpack our food. I wanted to do Dutch oven tonight, and it takes the fire some time to burn down to coals.”

“All right.” She walked slowly over to the bed and ran her hand along the quilted bedspread. It boasted bears, pine trees, elk, and bison, and Boston wondered what she thought of it.

You’d never see that in Miami, he thought as he went back down the hall to the kitchen.

Cora joined him several minutes later, and she collapsed onto the couch with a mighty sigh. Then she said, “You’re not sleeping on this thing.”

Boston looked up from the now-humming fridge, where he’d been putting the chicken thighs he’d marinate tonight for tomorrow night’s dinner. “What do you mean?”

“Have you sat on this couch?” She bounced a little bit. “It’s as hard as a rock.” She got up and gestured to it. “Come sit down.”

Boston left the rest of the food and did what she said. He sat where she’d been, and his first instinct was a great big, Heck no, I’m not sleeping here.

“It’s fine,” he said.

“Boston.” Cora cocked that delicious hip. “You’re not sleeping there. You’ve already slept on the hard floor for a couple of nights just last week, and you had to go see your aunt to get a massage. Remember?”

“Of course I remember,” he said, grinning at her. He reached for her and laughing, he pulled her onto his lap. “You know what you’re saying, right?”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and gazed at him, her smile brilliant and lighting up her eyes.

“You’re saying that me and you are going to sleep in that bed together for two nights.”

“It’s a really big bed,” she said. “And I don’t move at all when I sleep.”

“Oh, I do,” Boston said, teasing her. “I toss and turn and kick the blankets all around. Trust me, I think we’ll both be happier if I sleep out here.”

She reached up and took off his cowboy hat and brushed her fingers through his hair in one of the most intimate gestures Boston had ever encountered. “I can’t make you sleep on this,” she said.

“It’s your funeral,” he whispered, and oh, he wanted to kiss her.

He’d been thinking about it for days, and maybe even making a plan for how it might go here at the cabin.

There had never been a tree through the roof and the two of them sharing a bed, but Boston decided right then and there that perhaps God had orchestrated this whole thing for a reason that Boston hadn’t considered yet.

“What side of the bed do you want?” Cora asked.

“I don’t care.” Boston said.

“Can I take a nap while you work on the fire? Six miles is a lot further than I thought.” She giggled, and that set Boston to chuckling as well.

The moment broke between them, and she got off his lap.

“Unless you need help.” She drew in a breath and clapped her hands against her thighs. “I can do it. I can do some more.”

Boston got up too, tension and exhaustion pulling through his low back.

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “Let me take your pack to the bedroom for you, and you can lie down while I check the exterior property, see what’s going on with the fire pit and all that.

There may be more damage from the windstorm. ”

“Sure,” Cora said. “Then you can show me around tonight.”

“Absolutely,” Boston said, and he grabbed her pack and hauled it down the hall. He set it just inside the door of the master bedroom and nodded to the left. “Bathroom through there.”

“Yeah, I already explored,” Cora said. Boston nodded as she went inside the room, and then he pulled the door closed behind her, separating them.

He ducked his head and released his breath. “Lord, I hope you know what you’re doing,” he muttered. Then he turned and walked down the hall.

He put away the string cheese, the pudding cups, the baby carrots, and took stock of the condiments still standing in the fridge—the soy sauce, olive oil, mayo, mustard, and ketchup that they’d need for the meals he’d planned.

He just started laying out the packages of buns, English muffins, and stuffing mix when he realized he had not packed any pajamas. He groaned and tilted his head back, stretching his neck and shoulders as he asked, “What else can go wrong on this trip?”

He drew in a deep breath and looked around the kitchen.

Normally, he’d take his pack down to his own bedroom at this point and then head outside.

But now he left his pack where it was, the itinerary in his head, where he showed Cora around and they built a fire together, shifting completely.

He did head outside through the mud room, making sure that door didn’t lock behind him.

The fire pit looked fairly normal, if not for blown-in organic debris that he could easily clean up.

He found the tree that had split and gone through the roof, and he walked the perimeter of the property, moving right up to the fence that had been put up by the Wyoming Wildlife Division, which marked as far as he could go before he entered the protected bald eagle habitat.

“Lord, if we don’t see eagles tomorrow….” He trailed off the threat and imagined that he could hear God laughing at him from On High.

Then the most peaceful feeling came over him and Boston once again remembered a scripture that he’d been reading and studying for the past couple of weeks.

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.

Boston was still trying to figure out how he could possibly imagine all of the things that God had prepared for him in his life. He supposed that was what Paul was trying to say: Human beings couldn’t imagine that.

And so Boston clung to a large wedge of hope that this trip would still be as amazing as he’d fantasized it to be.

“Starting with dinner,” he said, and he went to clean up the fire pit area so that everything would be perfect for Cora when she woke up from her nap.