A Match Made in Montana. Joanna Sims

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СКАЧАТЬ He wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his forearm. He smiled at her. “You’re a maniac.”

      Pleased, she asked, “I am?” No one had ever called her that before. Cautious and tenacious, yes. Maniac? Never.

      “I nearly had to sprint up that hill just to keep up with you.” He was impressed with her. “I’d really love to take you rock climbing one day.”

      For a moment, they both considered what he had just said. It sounded like he had asked her out on a date.

      Knowing that she had a serious boyfriend, Logan added, “You and Brice...”

      “I think I can safely say that it would be a definite ‘no’ for Brice.” Brice was an avid sportsman. And he was very skilled at many things: fencing, sailing, golfing. But rock climbing? That wouldn’t turn out well for anyone involved.

      “It’s not for everyone,” he agreed, walking beside her through a small clearing to the edge of a patch of trees and overgrown brush.

      “There it is!” Josephine pushed some branches out of her path and stepped over a fallen log. “See?”

      “That is too cool.” Logan looked through the branches of the trees and spotted the old chapel, tucked away in the hillside.

      He pulled a small machete out of his rucksack. “Let me get in front of you so I can cut a path for us.”

      She shook her head, an amused smile on her face. “Really? You brought a machete?”

      “Like I told you, I need to be prepared. I never know when I might have to perform an emergency amputation.” He stepped in front of her and started whacking away at the branches.

      “We’ll have none of that, sir.” She hung back, far away from the sharp blade.

      Logan seemed to relish clearing a path for them, and in no time at all, they were standing in front of the chapel. They stood together, silently and reverently, in front of the structure that her ancestor had built a hundred years before. It was a small building—much smaller than she remembered. But, she supposed, everything looked smaller when you looked at it again as an adult. And yet, it was just as magical as she remembered.

      “It looks like a little hobbit house, doesn’t it?” She asked him quietly. She didn’t know why she was whispering—it just felt right.

      Logan put away the machete. “The construction is incredible. It still looks solid as a rock.”

      The chapel was the size of a modern day one-car garage, with a steeple roof, stone foundation, and a curved, heavy wooden door. The shallow stone steps leading up to the chapel door were covered in moss, decomposing leaves, and twigs.

      Josephine ran her hand over the pitted wood of the chapel door. “I always loved this door—I can’t really believe that it’s still here...still on its hinges.”

      Logan checked the hinges. “They’re rusted through. If you want to go inside, it’s going to take some brute force.”

      “I’m going in.” There wasn’t any scenario in the equation that didn’t include her going inside the chapel.

      Together, they used their body weight and strength to force the door open. Logan slammed the side of his body into the wood, while she used her hands to push. Finally, after several attempts of prying the hinges free, there was a loud sound and the door cracked open.

      “Keep pushing!” Logan leaned harder into the door, using his feet to brace himself in place.

      The top door hinge broke under the pressure, popped off, and flew over her shoulder.

      “Whoa!” She ducked to the side. “That was close!”

      “You all right?”

      “Yeah...it just missed me. Can we get in?”

      “Almost.” He gave the door one last hard shove with his body and pushed it open wide enough for them to squeeze through.

      Logan stepped inside the dusty, cobweb-laden chapel first. It was dirty, and there were signs that animals had been inside of the structure, but it appeared to be safe.

      When she stepped inside of the chapel, it was like stepping back in time. Her heart felt it...her brain felt it...for just a split-second, she was transported to her childhood. This was the enchanted place where she had played and dreamed with her twin. They would spend from sunrise to sunset up on this mountain, perfectly content acting out every fantasy they could imagine.

      “Look—only one of the stained glass windows broke.” Josephine slowly walked along the narrow aisle that led up to a pulpit hand-carved by her father’s grandfather.

      On either side of the aisle, roughly hewn benches were tipped onto their sides. Originally, there had been four benches on either side of the aisle. Now, there were only five benches left. Birds had flown through the broken window and had made nests up in the rafters. Much like the chapel itself, the nests seemed to have been abandoned long ago.

      “What do you think?” she asked him.

      “I love this place,” Logan said immediately. His eyes were taking inventory. He’d spent a lot of time on jobs with his uncle and he had been personally involved with moving older structures.

      The moment she reached the pulpit, she started to brush the dirt and leaves off of it. She could see herself, so clear was the memory, standing behind the pulpit pretending to preach to an enthralled congregation.

      Her fingers found what they were searching for: her initials, carved into the top of the pulpit. “Can it be moved?”

      On the other side of the pulpit, he looked up at the tin roof and the beams holding it in place. He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Yes. It can.”

      “You’re serious.”

      “It can be done,” Logan said definitively.

      Her mind started to whirl with ideas. “If we moved it closer to the ranch, we could actually restore it!”

      “Absolutely.” He would love to have a hand in restoring the chapel.

      Face-to-face, with only the pulpit between them, they stood smiling at each other as if they had just uncovered a buried treasure. Josephine, exactly at that moment, noticed Logan’s eyes. Yes, she had seen his eyes before. But, she hadn’t really noticed how incredibly beautiful they were—such a dark, rich brown that they reminded her of expensive black satin.

      “What?” He asked her, in a half curious, half amused manner.

      His single-word question snapped her out of it—she had been unintentionally staring into his eyes. Once she realized that she had been mindlessly ogling him, she started to laugh.

      “Sorry—I was just thinking about something from when I was a kid.”

      “What’s that?”

      “When I was...oh, I don’t know...seven or eight...” Josephine walked out from behind the pulpit and joined Logan where he was standing.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ