Page 45 of Boston
“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 beingscouldn’timagine 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.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Cora hadn’t sat around a campfire at night in a very long time. It brought on waves of nostalgia in the best way possible, and she couldn’t stop smiling, especially now that she’d had a nap and gotten rested up.
Boston had procured full size camp chairs for dinner, though he currently sat on his three-legged stool about a foot from the fire, stoking up the coals underneath a large Dutch oven. “I reckon this is done.” He turned and looked over his shoulder at her. “You hungry, Cora-Cat?”
