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My skin warms at the thought and I press my hand to my cheek. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel the soft pressure of his thumb, rough against my skin, as he traced the side of my face. He’s so different than he first seemed. Definitely not so irksome anymore.

Jake, on the other hand…

“…Dave’s in the middle of the garden, pretending to be a scarecrow when…” Jake starts laughing to himself. “This is the best part. A whole flock of crows swoops in and lands on his outstretched arms. There must have been ten of ’em, at least. Scared Dave so bad he started jumping and waving his arms around, and damn near gave Joe McTavish a heart attack. Hilarious, right?”

Um…sure?

“Right,” I mumble, because what else can I say when the humor isn’t just lost on me, it’s hidden like buried treasure I’m not about to hunt for.

“Hey,” Jake says, his shadow nearing the tent. “I can borrow a set of wheels tonight. Want to go for a late-night drive?”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“But I haven’t even told you where we’re going yet.”

It really doesn’t matter, because the only place I want to be tonight is with Colton. Still, I’m curious. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, um, there’s the overlook at Silver Lake. Or we could drive out to Cattleman’s Pass.”

“Are the views any different than what we’ve seen on the trail so far?”

“No.”

“Is there anything particularly special about them?”

“It’s where everyone goes,” Jake replies.

“I think I’ll hang back at the fort,” I say, flipping the page to find a gorgeous pen-and-ink illustration of a meadowlark, its breast tinted a vivid yellow with watercolor. The image is so lifelike I half expect the bird to hop right off the page and take to the skies.

Jake keeps talking, but I’m finally too distracted to pay him any attention. I turn to the accompanying article—a story about the artist, Marybeth Shelton, who runs a bird sanctuary and rehabilitation center in Kansas. I get lost in the details: how she was always into science and nature, spending her school days creating drawings in the margins of her notebooks; how she majored in biology and minored in art; how she started selling portraits of the birds she takes in to help fund the sanctuary. Now she sells pieces on commission.

Commission.

A girl can dream.

The next page is a spread of more of her artwork. Like me, she switches between pencil, ink, pastels, and paints. Some of the images are simple, like an American kestrel in flight, the quick pencil marks blurring as the bird dives across the page. Others are more complex, filled with fine brushstrokes and masterful shading, like the great horned owl with golden eyes that practically pierce the page.

Her feature gives me hope that I can find a way to meld my love for science and art, too. Now I just have to convince my parents that minoring in art is a viable career choice and not a waste of time. At least the whole waste-of-money part of the equation won’t be relevant in that discussion, since tuition isn’t a concern anymore now that I can attend Alden University for free. Maybe I can subtly leave the magazine open to this article on the bed in their room tonight to soften them up to the idea.

The wagon shifts around a corner and a whoop rings throughout the caravan. “Fort Bellows ahead.”

Dad does an excited wiggle in the front seat. “Isn’t this great?” He glances over Mom’s head to find Caleb snoozing away.

When our eyes meet, I offer a reserved smile. This is me testing the waters to see if I can float the truce wagon across the raging river between us. Dad beams at me in return. There’s still a ways to go to make it to the other side, but at least I have oars in the water.

I loosen the fastenings of the canvas window flap and roll it up so I can get a better view. Jake leans forward in his saddle and tips his hat to me. “There you are. I missed seeing your beautiful face.”

I’m sorely tempted to drop the canvas back down just so there’s something to separate us again, but I catch a glimpse of the fort out of the corner of my eye.

It’s not that I was expecting a scale model of a fort or anything, but this place is way bigger than I imagined it would be. It’s practically the size of a small village. A thin cloud of smoke rises behind the giant wooden posts that separate the buildings inside from the surrounding prairie.

“Do you know how Fort Bellows got its name?”

Jake settles his hands on the pommel, reins tucked loosely underneath, and begins.

“Alfred Bellows owned this land all his life. He was descended from some of the first settlers to come this way, and this particular spot had been in his family for generations. Before his untimely death…”

Jake keeps right on talking while I lean across the wagon’s aisle and poke Caleb in the side. He swats my hand away.