Rose's Mail Order Husband - A Historical Mail Order Bride Story (Montana Brides) by Kate Whitsby

Author:Kate Whitsby [Whitsby, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mail Order Bride Dept, Gold Crown Press
Published: 2014-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

They walked steadily through the canyon with the growing daylight spreading down the walls of the cliffs above them. Golden eagles screeched overhead, and scrub jays croaked in the tree branches near their heads.

Rose turned her face up to the sky and let Paddy find his own footing through the forest litter and dead branches on the ground.

“It’s awfully nice up here,” she remarked.

“Do you know,” Iris told her, “Pete and Wade camp up here and along the river when they tend the cattle in the summer. I always wished I could join them, but I couldn’t risk Cornell finding out. Now Mick says we can come up here later in the summer and spend some time up here together. I can’t wait!”

“That sounds wonderful,” Rose exclaimed. “I envy you.”

“You could come up here, too,” Iris told her. “There’s nothing stopping you.”

Rose made a face. “Somehow I don’t think that would go over very well with being a wife and mother.”

“You’re not a wife and mother yet,” Iris pointed out. “Even if you marry Jake, you won’t be a mother for a while. You’ll have time to come out if you want to.”

“I would love to,” Rose exclaimed. “I wish I could.”

“Why couldn’t you?” Iris asked.

A shaft of sunlight broke through the canopy of treetops and flashed across Rose’s face. “It would be so good for the soul, to spend time out here. I would love to. I wonder I never thought of it before.”

Iris shook her head and chuckled. “You better be careful. You might get infected with the outdoors. You might find you couldn’t live without it.”

“I’m finding that out now,” Rose remarked. “I don’t know how I lived so long without it. I spent so much time outdoors when I was young. I thought then that I never would live without it. I don’t know how I convinced myself to live so long indoors.”

“The important thing is that you know better now,” Iris replied. “You won’t go back to staring at your dressing table mirror anymore.”

“No, I won’t,” Rose declared.

They rode in silence for a while. Rose enjoyed the tranquility and beauty of the scenery so much she could almost forget what they were doing out there, miles from the ranch house, just her and Iris riding side by side through the hills.

Iris guided their horses up the main canyon along the river. Rose remembered every landmark and twist of the trail from her younger days of riding and exploring the range. She hadn’t seen that country for years, but she greeted the rocks and bushes and ripples in the water as old friends. She loved them as if she hadn’t been separated from them for more than a day or two.

Somewhere along the Bottom Run, Iris veered off the trail, and they started climbing up into a side canyon, up into the mountains. A little stream trickled along the floor of the canyon, and the horses tiptoed over rocks and tiny pools of crystal water.

After a while, Iris broke the silence.

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