Chapter 10 - The Horizon Ahead
Later that afternoon, as the golden hour set the snowy valley ablaze in shades of pink, amber, and deep violet, Claire and I walked down to the edge of our pasture near the frozen creek.
The wind was quiet. The only sound was the crunch of our winter boots in the snow and the distant call of a red-tailed hawk circling high above the pines.
We stopped at the timber fence, looking out toward the vast, open horizon of the American West.
Claire leaned her shoulder against mine, slipping her hand into my thick leather glove.
"Do you ever think about seat 31A?" she asked softly, watching the light fade over the mountains.
I smiled, pulling her closer against my side to keep her warm.
"I think about it every time I hear a plane fly over the valley," I admitted. "I think about a terrified woman who shoved a cheap silver ring onto my hand and told me I only had to be married to her for ten hours."
Claire let out a soft, beautiful laugh that carried across the snow.
"I lied to you, Mason," she murmured, looking up at me with a mischievous, loving glint in her eyes. "I knew within five minutes that ten hours wasn't going to be nearly enough."
"Is that so?"
"That's so," she whispered, reaching up to gently touch my jaw with her soft fingers. "I knew the second you told Grant that a man would have to be blind not to admire a woman standing her ground."
I looked down at her face—the woman who had turned a flat tire into a science lesson, who had fought an entire empire for her freedom, and who had chosen a lonely truck driver to stand beside her in the dark.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers, a long, sweet, lingering kiss that tasted of warm coffee and mountain winter.
When I pulled back, I held her hand up between us, the silver ring catching the last rays of the setting sun.
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"Ten hours was just the trailer, Claire," I said softly, my voice filled with endless warmth and absolute certainty. "We've got the whole highway ahead of us."
Claire smiled, resting her head against my chest as the stars began to twinkle over the Montana peaks—two souls who had found their home in the middle of a stormy sky, forever bound, forever free, and finally at peace.
