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“Lead the way, boss.” Logan lifted his heavy rucksack onto his shoulders.
They walked along a well-worn dirt road that would lead them up the mountain to her great-grandfather’s chapel. Before they reached the tree line at the base of the mountain, the early morning sun was heating up the bright blue, cloudless sky. By the time they reached tree line, Josephine was ready to shed her outer layer of clothing.
“This road will take us about three-quarters of the way up this mountain.” She wrapped her sweatshirt around her hips and put her hat back on. “There’s an incredible view of the continental divide once you reach the peak. You’ve got to be sure to check that out while you’re here, but you’ll have to get there on foot or on horseback. Do you ride?”
Logan nodded. “All my life.”
“Well...” Josephine slid the sunglasses back into place. “Anytime you want to ride, just let London know. She’s the intern working in the foaling barn. She’ll make sure there’s a horse saddled up for you.”
Together, side by side, they walked along the gravel and dirt road that followed a winding stream up the mountain. Although she had known him for only a very short time, it wasn’t awkward hiking alone with Logan. Out of his uniform, he wasn’t uptight. Their conversation was easy, and right when a lull was about to occur, Logan would ask her another question about the history of the ranch. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking that Brice had never shown this much interest in her family’s history. Even though she hadn’t really paid much attention to that before today. But with Logan’s genuine interest as a comparison, it was pretty hard to ignore.
“Do you mind if we take a quick break?” she asked when they reached the halfway point.
Josephine found a large boulder near the stream embankment and sat down. She closed her eyes for a minute to enjoy fully the sounds of the mountains. It seemed so quiet when they were walking and talking, but right now she could hear how loud the water flowing over the rocks in the stream sounded.
“Thirsty?” Logan, kneeling nearby, had opened his rucksack. He held out a bottle of water to her, which she accepted.
She drank the water slowly, taking some time to catch her breath. Logan downed his water, stuffed the empty bottle back into his bag, and then stripped his T-shirt off. Beneath it was a ribbed tank top that clung to his chest and stomach. For a second, Josephine found herself mindlessly staring at Logan. He wasn’t tall; she typically dated tall men. In fact, when she stood next to him in heels, she was a little taller than he was.
But on the other hand, he was built like Michelangelo’s David. His body was incredible. She’d never seen anything like it in real life. His shoulders, his biceps, his chest, were covered with thick, defined muscle. His waist was tapered and she could actually see the ripples of his abdominal muscles through the ribbed material. Logan didn’t have a six-pack—he had an eight-pack. In particular, she was fascinated by the large tattoo of a dark gray wolf that covered a large portion of his upper left arm and chest. Part of the tattoo was obscured by his tank top, and Josephine wished she could move the material over and take a closer look at the design. It looked like beautiful work. Knowing that she needed to stop staring at the man, she looked at the stream instead. But, she could still see him out of the corner of her eye as he wiped the sweat off his face, neck, and arms with his T-shirt.
After a minute, she stood up and brushed the dirt off the seat of her shorts. “I’m over here huffing and puffing and you’ve barely broken a sweat.”
Logan rolled up his T-shirt and packed it back into the rucksack. “I spend a lot of time indoor rock climbing.”
“It shows.” This was blurted out without thought. Josephine inwardly cringed as she extended her empty bottle to him.
He smiled at her as he held out his hand for her bottle. She was genuinely relieved when he didn’t latch on to her comment and run with it. He just zipped up his bag, slung it back onto his shoulders, and adjusted the straps for comfort.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yep.” Now that she had caught her breath, she was eager to reach the chapel. So many years had passed by since she had laid eyes on her childhood haunt. What would it be like to see it now, through the eyes of an adult?
“There’s a fork in the road up ahead,” she told him. “If you take this road to the right, it will take you to a cave that my grandfather found.”
“A cave?”
She sidestepped a dip in the road. “It’s incredible. But it’s hard to get into. You basically have to crawl on your back along this narrow tunnel that leads to the main chamber. The main chamber is huge—completely dark. Archaeologists have studied our cave for years. There are areas all along the sides of the main area where they believe that prehistoric humans lived. And they ended up finding a lot of artifacts in the main chamber and some of the smaller chambers.”
“I’ll have to check it out.”
“I don’t like the crawling part so much... It’s a little claustrophobic. But once you get inside, you feel like you’ve been transported back in time. I haven’t been there in ages, but I can still remember how cold it was inside the cave.”
At the top of a hill, they reached the fork in the road. She stopped for a minute to catch her breath; she had put in hundreds of hours on the elliptical machine, and the climb was still tough. The change in altitude, the thinner air, impacted her mild case of asthma. Next time she came up here, she’d have to remember her inhaler.
“Up that way is the cave...” She pointed to the right.
“I suppose this isn’t the day for that?”
“I really need to get back before noon. There’s still a lot that needs to get done for the wedding. But, you can head up there after we see the chapel, if you want.”
Logan shifted his rucksack on his back to a more comfortable position. “We’ll see.”
In actuality, he didn’t intend to separate from her. This was her ranch, and she knew the territory better than he did, but he had a protective nature. He wouldn’t feel right not seeing her safely back to the house.
“It’s not too far now,” Josephine said as they started up a new hill. Her thigh muscles were burning from the hike and she couldn’t believe how much protesting her body was doing. When she had been a little girl, she could run up and down these hills without any trouble at all. Now, it was taking all of her strength, physical and mental, to hike to the chapel without taking a ton of minibreaks. If Logan hadn’t been with her, she would have taken several breaks already. But since he was pressing on, she was pressing on.
At the bottom of another steep hill, the final hill that would lead them to the plateau where her great-grandfather had built his chapel, Josephine paused. Her face felt hot and wet with perspiration. She used the sleeve of her sweatshirt to wipe the sweat from her face and then prepared to tackle the last leg of this impromptu hike.
“Doing okay?” Logan stood beside her patiently.
She nodded. “The altitude is getting to me.”
“You’ve been setting a really tough pace for this hike,” he said. “Why don’t we slow it down a bit?”
Hands on her hips, bending forward slightly, trying to catch her breath again, Josephine looked at him, surprised. “I’ve been setting the pace?”
He nodded his head “yes.”
Josephine laughed a breathy laugh, and then coughed. “And here I’ve been blaming it on you!”
Logan laughed with her. “No. I’ve had to work to keep up.”
“You’re kidding?” Josephine laughed again with a shake of her head. “Do you mean that I feel a little like I’m going to pass out and I’ve done it to myself?”
Logan’s smiled faded as he took a step toward her. “You feel light-headed?”
“A little. It’s no big deal. Asthma.”
“Here...” He pointed to a flat boulder on the side of the road. “I think you should sit down.”
“The chapel is right up that hill. I’ll rest when I get up there.”
“How long has the chapel been there?”
“A hundred years.”
Logan put his hand on her shoulder to guide her toward the boulder. “Then, chances are it’ll still be there thirty minutes from now.”
It was a point that she couldn’t argue, so she walked over to the boulder and let him help her down to a sitting position. She crossed her legs and gave herself permission to rest.
One knee on the ground, Logan knelt in front of her and opened his rucksack. He held out two high-energy protein bars for her to see.
“Take your pick.”
She chose the peanut-butter bar and gratefully accepted another bottle of water.
“What else do you have in that thing?” she asked when he joined her on the boulder. “It’s like you’re carrying a mini convenience store on your back.”
He opened the wrapper of his bar with his teeth. “Did you see the movie 127 Hours?”
“Uh-uh...” She wished she had time for movies, but she didn’t.
“It was about a rock climber who had to cut off his own arm.”
“Oh!” She nodded. “I remember that—the guy in Utah, right?”
“As a rock climber, first, it kind of scared the crap out of me, to be honest. But second, it reminded me that I have to be prepared because, if a freak accident like that could happen to that guy, a freak accident could happen to me.”
Then he asked, “Feeling better?”
“Much.” After eating the protein bar and taking a moment to rest, the light-headed feeling had passed.
“Ready to get back to it?”
Josephine nodded. “Sure.”
Logan stood up and offered her his hand, which she accepted.
“Thank you for talking me into taking a break—and feeding me.”
“Anytime.” He hoisted the heavy backpack onto his shoulders.
She had enjoyed it, as well. Sitting with Logan on that boulder, without another soul in sight, had been perfectly comfortable. It had taken her months to feel comfortable around Brice; he had always made her feel so nervous because he was so brilliant with the law. If she were to be honest with herself, sometimes Brice still made her feel a little anxious whenever they got into a conversation about California statutes or federal law. But with Logan, she was at total ease—not a single nerve in sight.
What did that mean?
Josephine forced her brain to stop trying to unravel meaningless life riddles, and refocus on finishing her trek up the steep hill. She leaned slightly forward, bent her knees, ignored the burning in her thighs and lungs, and willed her body to finish the last half of the hill quickly. At the top of the hill, Josephine threw back her head and let out a loud whoop to celebrate her accomplishment.
“I made it!” she exclaimed happily.
Logan joined her at the top of the final hill. She was glad to see that he was finally winded, too.
“Now, that felt good...” 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.
