Page 145 of Boston
He led her away from the falls only a few feet and sat down on a fallen log. “No reason to go too far,” he said. “Hopefully, he ambled off across the river and is somewhere else.”
Cora crowded in close to him and held his hand in hers, and then covered their hands with her other one. They’d left work early, but the sun set far earlier than it had in the summer, and they probably only had twenty minutes before dusk would start to settle. Darkness came quick after that, and Cora shivered in her sweatshirt.
She loved this place, and she loved the man at her side, and she turned toward him just as he cleared his throat. Then, right before her eyes, he slid from the log to both knees. The gravel had to be cutting into his kneecaps, but Cora’s eyes widened as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a snowy, white jewelry box.
She pulled in a breath.
“Cora,” he said, oh-so-serious—the way he usually was when he wanted to say something important. “I love you.” He smiled at her. “I love how you name your car and get excited about shoes. I love how loyal you are to your family and how you act like you like mine.”
“I do like yours,” she whispered.
He nodded. “I love how you champion me, and motivate me to be a better man, and expect me to be the best version of myself. I promise I will work as hard as I have to in order be the man that you deserve.”
He looked at the box and then cracked open the lid and turned it toward her.
Cora’s gaze dropped to the gems there, and both hands came up to cover her mouth. “Oh, Boston.”
He’d bought her a diamond ring—a large round-cut-gem right in the center of a silver band. A second band accompanied it, and it had tiny colored gems: red, blue, pink, yellow, and green.
“This ring has extra bling,” he said. “Because you bring extra bling into my life, and you love all things blingy.”
She smiled at his made-up word.
“I got to pick the gems around the top.” He glanced at her and cleared his throat. “I chose red for obvious reasons, and the blue for the sky here in Wyoming. The green is for the sage at Silver Sage, and the yellow is actually meant to represent Yellowstone and the Tetons, but I thought it could also be for Goldie, who spooked and introduced us that first time.”
Tears filled Cora’s eyes.
“The pink just makes me think of sparkly, beautiful things,” he said. “Like you are.” He lifted the ring a little bit, and Cora moved her eyes back to his. “You don’t get the colored ones until we get married, but I want you to have any date you want next summer. So I’m asking you to wear this ring, promise to be my wife, and pick a date and put it on the Silver Sage calendar.”
His eyebrows went up. “Will you?”
Cora started to nod. “Yes,” she said, and her neck felt like rubber as she nodded and nodded and nodded. “Yes, of course, yes!”
Boston took the ring out and slid it on her finger. Cora admired it for one moment, but the real prize wasn’t the ring, but the man who had given it to her. He rose to his feet, and Cora did too. Boston took her in his arms, where she’d always felt safe and cherished, and leaned down and kissed her.
She’d experienced some really amazing times with this man and some really wonderful kisses, but nothing compared to kissing the man she loved, whom she’d just promised to marry.
A whiff of wind kicked up and Boston pulled back. “We should get back to the car,” he whispered. “It’s going to be dark soon.”
“Yeah,” Cora said, but she didn’t want to leave the safety of his arms, with the rushing of the stream beside them.
In the next moment, a noise unlike Cora had ever heard before filled the air. It wasn’t loud or overwhelming, and the half growl, half roar simply sounded like someone making an announcement, like,I’m here, and I wanted you to know it.
Not someone.
A…bear?
Boston pulled in a breath, and then pulled Cora to his side and behind him. “Holy horses, there’s a bear right there.”
Cora peered over his shoulder, and sure enough, a brown bear had waded into the river from the other side.
“We should go,” Boston said. His hand in hers felt like a grip, and he eased them around the corner and back down the path, never taking his eyes off the bear. He walked backward very slowly, and Cora did the same thing, watching as the bear turned upstream and started to lumber that way.
“I don’t think he’s interested in us,” Cora said.
“No, but.” Boston kept taking measured steps backward until he put a good, healthy distance between them and the river. Then he turned and picked up the pace. “Let’s go.”
They both ran the last several yards to the car, which Cora clicked open and started at the same time. Her heart positively pounded, and the moment Boston had closed his door, she locked the car.
