High Country Baby. Joanna Sims

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      The closer she got to the bottom of her cup, the more grounds she encountered. Oddly, it didn’t deter her. She simply picked the grounds off her tongue as they came along, and then kept on drinking until there wasn’t a drop left in the bottom of her cup. She gave herself a little extra time to enjoy the coffee—then she quickly ate a protein bar and started to break camp. It would have gone a lot faster if she had allowed the cowboy to help her. But she wanted to do it on her own. That was the whole point of this journey—to build self-reliance and self-confidence. And, to his credit, Clint didn’t interfere. He put out the fire and then smoked a cigarette downwind from her.

      The entire time she was packing, she tried to figure out how she was going to get onto her horse. She looked all around the camp, but there wasn’t a good makeshift mounting block in sight. Maybe—just maybe—this would be the morning that she could manage it without standing on a large boulder or a fallen tree. She signaled to Clint that it was time to move out. He swung into his saddle with ease. She did not. After several valiant attempts at trying to get her foot in the stirrup while Honey walked in circles around her, Taylor wasn’t surprised when the cowboy appeared at her side.

      Her noncompliant horse became obedient with Clint in charge—the sturdy mare stood stock-still, and the cowboy used his hands to create a step for her. She needed the help, so she took it. She put her foot into the cowboy’s hands and let him boost her up. Once she was situated in the saddle she turned to thank Clint, but he was already walking away from her toward his horse. For the second time, he swung into his saddle and waited for her to lead the way.

      She steered her horse onto the narrow trail leading toward the junction where her uncle’s property met public land. There, she would finally reach the Continental Divide Trail.

       Chapter Three

      The morning light cast a gray hue across the dark-green needles of the tall fir trees lining the trail. White fog floated over the trail ahead and dimmed the vibrant yellow and purple of the wildflowers growing sporadically in the wild grass on either side of the narrow path. There was beauty everywhere she looked. And there was beauty in the sound of the horses’ hooves—one, two, three, four—hitting the gravel on the trail.

      Why had she waited so many years to come? This was the peace that she had been missing. Would she ever be satisfied by her rat-race life after experiencing this? It was difficult for her to imagine.

      Midmorning, around the time that the sun had burned away the last remnants of the white fog, they reached the section of the trail that took them above the tree line. Taylor felt her spirit swell at her first glimpse of the peaks of mountains in the distance. At this height the views were unobstructed, and she could see for miles ahead. A wave of emotion—a mixture of awe and joy and even sorrow that Christopher wasn’t here to share this moment with her—overwhelmed her. She didn’t stop moving forward, but there were tears streaming down her face when she first saw the white and black metal marker sign bolted to a post that let her know she had successfully reached the Continental Divide Trail.

      “Will you take my picture?” Taylor asked Clint when he rode up beside her.

      She dismounted and handed him her phone. The cowboy saw the tears, because she hadn’t wiped them from her cheeks, but he didn’t question them. How had she known that he wouldn’t?

      “Please take a couple so I get one with my eyes open.” Taylor stood proudly next to the sign.

      After the quick photo shoot, they decided to take a break on a knoll that had knee-high green grass for the horses to graze. Clint watched the horses and smoked a cigarette while she explored on foot. Reaching the CDT was one for the bucket list, but it wasn’t the finish line for her.

      On the other side of the trail was a sharp drop and then a rocky slope; the slope led down to the banks of an aqua-blue lake, which was full of freshly melted snow from the winter season.

      “That’s it.” Taylor stared down at the lake. “That’s the spot.”

      She turned back, surprised at how far away from Clint and the horses she had walked. Winded, with her cheeks flushed from exertion and excitement, Taylor rounded a corner that would lead her to the spot where she had left her traveling companions. When the grassy knoll came into view, it felt as if she were stepping into a scene from a movie. Clint looked like a throwback from the old West standing in the tall grass with his cowboy hat, chaps and boots, with a revolver strapped to his hip. There was something about the man that seemed more suited for a rougher, less civilized era. He was a real cowboy. The genuine article.

      “Ready?” The man certainly liked his one-word utterances.

      She gathered her horse’s reins with a nod. “There’s a lake up ahead. That’s my next target.”

      He didn’t ask her why, just quietly helped her mount, swung into his saddle and followed the packhorse as she once again led the way. Around the bend, the lake below came into view. From horseback, it seemed a much steeper descent to the edge of the lake.

      “Tricky gettin’ back,” Clint told her.

      At work, she was the queen of handling tricky deals. Montana, she was learning, wasn’t much different than back home. When it came to tricky spots, you needed a good strategy and determination.

      “I’ll manage,” she said, not deterred.

      They secured the horses in a place where they were still visible from below and then started the twisty, rocky trip down to the lake. She lost her footing several times, slipping on loose rocks. She had to break her fall with her hand on one occasion, so her wrist was throbbing and the palm of her hand was scraped, but reaching the edge of the pristine lake was worth the mild damage to her body.

      Clint stood away from her, his thoughts a complete enigma behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. Taylor stood at the lake’s edge, the ice-blue water lapping close to the toes of her barely used boots. She closed her eyes and listened. She listened to her own breath. She listened to a bird’s call in the distance. She listened to her heart. The day she had thought would never come had, indeed, arrived.

      She opened her eyes to look down at the engagement ring and matching wedding band she still wore on her left ring finger. Christopher had planned such a romantic proposal the night he had given her this nearly flawless, colorless two-carat round stone. It had been everything a pragmatic, yet still romantic twenty-two-year-old could wish for in a proposal. He had arranged for private dining at her favorite restaurant. He’d had her serenaded by a classical guitarist. They danced and laughed and then he got down on one knee, took the shaking fingers of her left hand and asked her to marry him.

      She couldn’t wait for him to slide that ring onto her finger. It was, of course, a very large stone set in platinum and purchased from Tiffany. It was bigger than she had wanted—more than she had needed—but the appearance of success had always been more important to Christopher than it had been to her. And she knew that her mom, who often didn’t approve of her choice in clothing or hairstyle, approved of Christopher, and she would definitely approve of the engagement ring.

      In her mind, without vocalizing the word, she said, Okay.

      She tugged on the rings, but her fingers were swollen and they wouldn’t budge.

      Clint wanted to give Taylor her privacy—he wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box at times, but even he could tell she was trying to have some sort of moment. When he saw her fighting to get СКАЧАТЬ