A Match Made in Montana

“Lead the way, boss.” Logan lifted his heavy rucksack onto his shoulders.

They walked along a well-worn dirt road that would lead them up the mountain to her great-grandfather’s chapel. Before they reached the tree line at the base of the mountain, the early morning sun was heating up the bright blue, cloudless sky. By the time they reached tree line, Josephine was ready to shed her outer layer of clothing.

“This road will take us about three-quarters of the way up this mountain.” She wrapped her sweatshirt around her hips and put her hat back on. “There’s an incredible view of the continental divide once you reach the peak. You’ve got to be sure to check that out while you’re here, but you’ll have to get there on foot or on horseback. Do you ride?”

Logan nodded. “All my life.”

“Well...” Josephine slid the sunglasses back into place. “Anytime you want to ride, just let London know. She’s the intern working in the foaling barn. She’ll make sure there’s a horse saddled up for you.”

Together, side by side, they walked along the gravel and dirt road that followed a winding stream up the mountain. Although she had known him for only a very short time, it wasn’t awkward hiking alone with Logan. Out of his uniform, he wasn’t uptight. Their conversation was easy, and right when a lull was about to occur, Logan would ask her another question about the history of the ranch. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking that Brice had never shown this much interest in her family’s history. Even though she hadn’t really paid much attention to that before today. But with Logan’s genuine interest as a comparison, it was pretty hard to ignore.

“Do you mind if we take a quick break?” she asked when they reached the halfway point.

Josephine found a large boulder near the stream embankment and sat down. She closed her eyes for a minute to enjoy fully the sounds of the mountains. It seemed so quiet when they were walking and talking, but right now she could hear how loud the water flowing over the rocks in the stream sounded.

“Thirsty?” Logan, kneeling nearby, had opened his rucksack. He held out a bottle of water to her, which she accepted.

She drank the water slowly, taking some time to catch her breath. Logan downed his water, stuffed the empty bottle back into his bag, and then stripped his T-shirt off. Beneath it was a ribbed tank top that clung to his chest and stomach. For a second, Josephine found herself mindlessly staring at Logan. He wasn’t tall; she typically dated tall men. In fact, when she stood next to him in heels, she was a little taller than he was.

But on the other hand, he was built like Michelangelo’s David. His body was incredible. She’d never seen anything like it in real life. His shoulders, his biceps, his chest, were covered with thick, defined muscle. His waist was tapered and she could actually see the ripples of his abdominal muscles through the ribbed material. Logan didn’t have a six-pack—he had an eight-pack. In particular, she was fascinated by the large tattoo of a dark gray wolf that covered a large portion of his upper left arm and chest. Part of the tattoo was obscured by his tank top, and Josephine wished she could move the material over and take a closer look at the design. It looked like beautiful work. Knowing that she needed to stop staring at the man, she looked at the stream instead. But, she could still see him out of the corner of her eye as he wiped the sweat off his face, neck, and arms with his T-shirt.

After a minute, she stood up and brushed the dirt off the seat of her shorts. “I’m over here huffing and puffing and you’ve barely broken a sweat.”

Logan rolled up his T-shirt and packed it back into the rucksack. “I spend a lot of time indoor rock climbing.”

“It shows.” This was blurted out without thought. Josephine inwardly cringed as she extended her empty bottle to him.

He smiled at her as he held out his hand for her bottle. She was genuinely relieved when he didn’t latch on to her comment and run with it. He just zipped up his bag, slung it back onto his shoulders, and adjusted the straps for comfort.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yep.” Now that she had caught her breath, she was eager to reach the chapel. So many years had passed by since she had laid eyes on her childhood haunt. What would it be like to see it now, through the eyes of an adult?

“There’s a fork in the road up ahead,” she told him. “If you take this road to the right, it will take you to a cave that my grandfather found.”

“A cave?”

She sidestepped a dip in the road. “It’s incredible. But it’s hard to get into. You basically have to crawl on your back along this narrow tunnel that leads to the main chamber. The main chamber is huge—completely dark. Archaeologists have studied our cave for years. There are areas all along the sides of the main area where they believe that prehistoric humans lived. And they ended up finding a lot of artifacts in the main chamber and some of the smaller chambers.”

“I’ll have to check it out.”

“I don’t like the crawling part so much... It’s a little claustrophobic. But once you get inside, you feel like you’ve been transported back in time. I haven’t been there in ages, but I can still remember how cold it was inside the cave.”

At the top of a hill, they reached the fork in the road. She stopped for a minute to catch her breath; she had put in hundreds of hours on the elliptical machine, and the climb was still tough. The change in altitude, the thinner air, impacted her mild case of asthma. Next time she came up here, she’d have to remember her inhaler.

“Up that way is the cave...” She pointed to the right.

“I suppose this isn’t the day for that?”

“I really need to get back before noon. There’s still a lot that needs to get done for the wedding. But, you can head up there after we see the chapel, if you want.”

Logan shifted his rucksack on his back to a more comfortable position. “We’ll see.”

In actuality, he didn’t intend to separate from her. This was her ranch, and she knew the territory better than he did, but he had a protective nature. He wouldn’t feel right not seeing her safely back to the house.

“It’s not too far now,” Josephine said as they started up a new hill. Her thigh muscles were burning from the hike and she couldn’t believe how much protesting her body was doing. When she had been a little girl, she could run up and down these hills without any trouble at all. Now, it was taking all of her strength, physical and mental, to hike to the chapel without taking a ton of minibreaks. If Logan hadn’t been with her, she would have taken several breaks already. But since he was pressing on, she was pressing on.

At the bottom of another steep hill, the final hill that would lead them to the plateau where her great-grandfather had built his chapel, Josephine paused. Her face felt hot and wet with perspiration. She used the sleeve of her sweatshirt to wipe the sweat from her face and then prepared to tackle the last leg of this impromptu hike.

“Doing okay?” Logan stood beside her patiently.

She nodded. “The altitude is getting to me.”

“You’ve been setting a really tough pace for this hike,” he said. “Why don’t we slow it down a bit?”

Hands on her hips, bending forward slightly, trying to catch her breath again, Josephine looked at him, surprised. “I’ve been setting the pace?”

He nodded his head “yes.”

Josephine laughed a breathy laugh, and then coughed. “And here I’ve been blaming it on you!”

Logan laughed with her. “No. I’ve had to work to keep up.”

“You’re kidding?” Josephine laughed again with a shake of her head. “Do you mean that I feel a little like I’m going to pass out and I’ve done it to myself?”

Logan’s smiled faded as he took a step toward her. “You feel light-headed?”

“A little. It’s no big deal. Asthma.”

“Here...” He pointed to a flat boulder on the side of the road. “I think you should sit down.”

“The chapel is right up that hill. I’ll rest when I get up there.”

“How long has the chapel been there?”

“A hundred years.”

Logan put his hand on her shoulder to guide her toward the boulder. “Then, chances are it’ll still be there thirty minutes from now.”

It was a point that she couldn’t argue, so she walked over to the boulder and let him help her down to a sitting position. She crossed her legs and gave herself permission to rest.

One knee on the ground, Logan knelt in front of her and opened his rucksack. He held out two high-energy protein bars for her to see.

“Take your pick.”

She chose the peanut-butter bar and gratefully accepted another bottle of water.

“What else do you have in that thing?” she asked when he joined her on the boulder. “It’s like you’re carrying a mini convenience store on your back.”