When they got back from Fairplay, Cole took care of the wagon and the mules and set to splitting some wood while Mary got supper started.
He enjoyed splitting wood. It was good work, rhythmic and repetitive, almost like music. By the time he finished, he’d sweated through his shirt despite the cold breeze coming off the mountains.
He’d told Mr. Blye he’d have the barn up by first snow. Looking up now at the jagged, snowy peaks of the Mosquito Range, watching them sparkle in the blood-red blaze of the setting sun, he reckoned maybe he’d been a little optimistic in his claim.
But he’d do what he could. So would Mary.
As he so often did, Cole glanced around, smiling at what they were building here. Sure, the place was rough, a cabin of raw timbers and a makeshift stable and corral where he meant to build the barn, but it was taking shape.
Clearwater Creek flowed close by, clear as glass and cold as snowmelt, chuckling in agreement.
This was a good place. And more importantly, it was their place.
Mary came out of the house to gather laundry from the clothesline strung between aspens. A cold wind blew across the meadow. The white sheets billowed and snapped, looking pink in the crimson light of the setting sun.
Smoke rose from the stovepipe and broke apart in the wind. Some of it curled down and around, bringing Cole his favorite smell on earth: bacon. He knew the smell would grow even richer once he stepped inside, joining the smells of boiled cabbage and potatoes.
He nodded with satisfaction. This was indeed a good place, a blessing, a heavenly high meadow safe in the embrace of the stately and seemingly eternal mountains, as if God Himself had planted Cole and Mary here to make a good life and guard what little peace and prosperity a man might carve out of the world.
This spread wasn’t much, not yet, but it was theirs, a good place and more than that, a promise between Cole and Mary and a promise from them to the children they couldn’t wait to have, a promise written in sweat upon the parchment of dreams.
That evening, at dusk, after supper, Cole rose from the table, ready to go outside and tend to their animals.
“You didn’t eat much tonight, Mr. Sullivan,” Mary said with a playful smile. “I hope that fancy lunch at the Barton Inn didn’t spoil you. I wasn’t the best cook to begin with.”
“The meal was great.” Cole grinned. “Besides, I didn’t marry you for your cooking.”
Mary smiled back at him and arched one eyebrow. “No? Why did you marry me, then?”
“Because you handle your end of a saw like a Canadian lumberjack,” he joked, though she did work hard and was, indeed, a good partner when sawing thick timbers.
Mary’s mother had died when Mary was just six. Her father, a gruff but loving man, had raised Mary and her younger brothers the only way he knew how, teaching them to work and build and think.
Which was funny, because she was the most beautiful girl Cole had ever seen. She was equally comfortable in britches or gowns, and although his wife’s feminine curves filled out a dress most fetchingly, the flesh beneath those soft curves was firm with work-hardened muscle.
But she really wasn’t much of a cook, and she was the first to admit it.
Cole didn’t care. He’d eat just about anything if he got to share the meal with her.
“That is a terrible thing to say to your tender, new wife,” Mary said, pretending offense. He knew by the twinkle in her blue eyes that she was having fun.
“Well, that’s not the only reason I married you.”
“No?”
“No. There was another reason.”
“Pray tell.”
“Well,” Cole said, “I not only married you because you work like a mule but also because I love you like I never knew I could love anyone or anything in the whole world.”
Now, Mary was beaming. It made her face even prettier. And that was saying something.
“Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. I love you, too.”
“Quit interrupting me, Mary. You got me started, and now, I’m gonna have my say.”
Mary laughed. “My apologies. You go ahead.”
