After a short pause, Jake smiled and said, “Maybe I should spend some time in my sanctuary tomorrow. I did a lot of serious thinking while sitting on the top of a pile of boulders.”
“If you go, do you want to be alone, or would you like me to come along?”
“I just mentioned going there out of frustration. I actually think more clearly when I have your help. But before I left, I did promise to give you a tour of the ranch and show my sanctuary to you. So, why don’t we do that in the morning? But I do have to warn you about a potential danger. Just before I left, I told Dave that I was going to give you the tour when I returned.
“When I mentioned that I’d show you my sanctuary, he almost begged me not to take you there. He’d seen some large grizzly tracks nearby and said that I shouldn’t risk your safety. I’ve never been worried about any of the wild critters that visit my sanctuary, but if you still want to come with me, I’ll bring my Winchester. Even if the grizzly shows up, which would be very unusual during the summer, I’m sure that my ’76 would be able to stop him.”
“I’m not worried either. I’ll just depend on my husband to protect me. You wouldn’t shoot him if he just walked past; would you? I’d actually be thrilled to see a giant bear or another large hunter.”
Jake laughed then replied, “I never shoot any of the animals I see in the sanctuary. I’m just visiting their home and I consider it their refuge as well. I imagine that the wild population in that forest and the sanctuary has grown since no one has used it for hunting. Maybe we’ll see the bear, a mountain lion, or a gray wolf while we’re visiting.”
“That would be exciting. Will you still need to climb on top of your boulders to do some thinking?”
“No, ma’am. I have my pretty bride to guide me now, and I wouldn’t want her to watch me tumbling twenty feet to the ground and bouncing off of the smaller boulders on my way.”
“Thank you for your consideration, husband. Have you ever fallen from your boulder perch before?”
“No, but there’s always a first time and I wouldn’t want it to be my last. I guess it didn’t matter before I enlisted, but it surely matters now.”
“Will you go into town to check on the post office box before or after you give me the tour?”
“I think I’ll wait until the afternoon to ride to town. I’d rather spend the morning showing my wife her new home.”
Sara smiled then asked, “The sheets should be dry already. Do you want me to make the bed?”
“I’ll do it. One of the few things I learned in the army was how to make a taut bed with what they call hospital corners. I may as well use my bedmaking skills to impress you.”
Sara laughed before saying, “Be my guest, Mister Elliott,” then asked, “Are we going to keep that room as our bedroom, or will we move into the large one?”
“We’ll stay in your room for a little while. I may need to have you add your personal touch in the big bedroom before we call it our own.”
Sara had asked the question to get an indication of how much Jake had recovered from the constant barrage of troubling and still unanswered problems. When he said that he was willing to use his parents’ bedroom, even if he did ask her to do some remodeling, she knew he was doing better.
She then said, “I promise I won’t add any pink curtains when I start making changes.”
Jake grinned before he stood, kissed her softly, then walked down the hallway.
Sara watched him leave and wished that she could help him even more. While not knowing his father or the missing foreman allowed her to be objective, it also prevented her from understanding their motives. Jake would have to be the one to find his answers. All she could do was to listen and guide him.
_____
An hour later, Sara laughed as she tried to slide her feet beneath the freshly laundered sheets.
She looked at Jake and said, “I appreciate your efforts, sir. But I think I’ll make the bed in the future. I can barely get my feet all the way under the blankets.”
Jake pushed his larger feet to the end of the bed and kicked the covers into a small tent and ruining his hospital corners but creating room for Sara’s feet to move again.
After he lay beside her, he grinned and said, “The army doesn’t care about how the bunks looked while we were in them, as long as the sergeant could bounce a coin off the blankets when he did his inspections.”
Sara laughed as she rolled halfway onto Jake’s chest, then whispered, “Are you going to give me the night off, husband?”
“I’m sure you already know that I’m more than ready to ravish you again, I think that you do need to rest. I just wish that I could figure out what you are really thinking at least some of the time.”
She was smiling before she kissed him then rolled onto her back and said, “When you can, let me know. You’ll impress my parents.”
“I couldn’t even figure out what Kay was thinking, and she was much more obvious than you.”
“You were just a boy, Jake. Granted, you were a tall, handsome young man, but you were still a teenager, even when you enlisted.”
“And you’re still in your teens, Sara. But you seem to understand much more than I did when I was your age.”
“You forget that I didn’t even understand Kay as well as I believed.
