A Julie Cantrell Collection: Into the Free and When Mountains Move by Julie Cantrell

Author:Julie Cantrell [Cantrell, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2016-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

We have been living at the Fortner place for less than a month, and we’ve already managed to get the house in fairly decent shape. As promised, Bump built some tables and shelves from the wood in the barn. We salvaged some chairs from the clutter, but we did splurge on ordering a brand-new bed. Mattress, too. It was delivered yesterday from Denver. After sleeping on a cot in the rodeo foaling room for more than a month, followed by nearly three weeks of tent camping and then a pallet on the living room floor, our new bed is a blessing. So soft, and clean, and comfortable. I don’t want to climb out of it.

I am awakened by Bump’s kiss, as I have been each morning since the wedding. He’s already dressed and ready to work. “How do you do it?” I mumble, closing my eyes and rolling into my soft pillow. “I always thought I was a hard worker. Then I met you.”

He laughs and says, “Sleep as long as you want.”

I pull the pillow over my face and try to will myself out of bed. Like me, Bump’s a doer. We’ve both worked ourselves to the bone and already the windows have been repaired and the doorknobs all function as they should. The house is clean from top to bottom, and except for a few spiders, nearly all the critters who made our house their home have realized they’re being booted out, including the coons in the chicken coop and a colony of bats in the barn who had no desire to leave and caused quite a fuss. Now Bump rattles dishes in the kitchen, and I can’t ignore the day any longer. The smell of fresh coffee moves into the bedroom and guilts me out of bed. I don’t know if it’s the thin air or the endless work, but I am tired beyond belief.

“It’s not like me to feel this way. I can’t keep up with you.” I smile, shuffling into the kitchen with lazy feet. “What’s your plan today?” I’m certain he has a long list of tasks to accomplish before we even break for lunch.

“Prep the cistern and the water pump. Hope to run pipes into this house before winter. But first I gotta clear that back corner where the fence has gone missin’.” He grabs a day-old biscuit from the bread bin and heads outside, taking his coffee with him.

“I admit, I look forward to tearing down that outhouse,” I say behind him. “Think we could tackle the water pipes first?”

Bump laughs again but doesn’t stop walking. “It’s on my list,” he yells back. “I promise.”

Before moving outside, I clean the kitchen, make the bed, and find the book I was reading as the sun slipped away, Tender is the Night. I open to chapter four for one last taste: “You’re the only girl I’ve seen for a long time that actually did look like something blooming.”

I can’t help myself. I think of River.

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