Page 59 of All We Carry Home

Warren had noticed. I hadn’t been quick enough to push it away. His voice was tender, patient in just the way he’d spoken my name. That gentleness threatened to rip my defenses loose.

“I’m fine.” I blinked and cleared the cloudiness around my heart and vision. I had to be fine. There wasn’t time for anything else.

I fell back into step, and we emerged through the tree line to overlook the wide, blue-green lake beyond. Dotted with trees and hills, the lake sparkled and winked at us as visitors.

“Wow,” Warren breathed.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “This was one of Gramps’s favorite spots. He was a horrible fisherman. Hardly ever caught a thing. That didn’t stop him from trying every chance he got.”

Warren chuckled.

I sat on a fallen log off the trail, and he followed suit. “We’d camp out on that ridge there when the fishing was good,” I said, pointing to an outcropping. “By good, I mean that Gramps managed to hook one or two over the course of three days.”

“Father would charter a boat at the private country club sometimes, but never dared touch a worm,” Warren said. “It was just a show of power and wealth.”

“Maybe now that you’ve grown, you can explore the forests beyond Philly for something as special as this,” I said softly.

He looked over and his jaw flexed. A mix of emotions clouded his face. It was the closest we’d come to talking about the future. Why did it feel strange? Like dangerous ground.

“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I see things through a very different perspective now.”

My breath caught. Was he talking about the lake or something else?

We soaked in the splendor a few moments longer, the warmth of the sun on my skin, the healing of Warren’s presence equally as tangible.

“Thank you for showing me this,” he said softly. “I won’t ever forget this sight.”

But would he? Would he move back across the country and leave all this behind?

Bullets, snakes, and enemy soldiers alike—I’d rather face them any day than ask him that question. I didn’t want to know the answer. From his earlier deflection, he didn’t want to tell me.

It was one day, one moment at a time. Beyond that, the pain of loss, of failure. The potential of losing Birkstrom Ranch, of a world without Warren, Lucky, Eddie, and the kids. Things changed so fast, and I didn’t want to let go.

“I bet the sunsets here are beautiful.” Warren leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

“I don’t watch sunsets,” I said. “Not if I can avoid it.”

He turned to me, his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Really?”

“Sunsets are too sad. I much prefer a sunrise. Sunrises are full of hope, promise, possibilities.”

“You mentioned the sunrise over Beacon’s Bluff.”

Pain sliced through me. The girl who had the freedom and time for sunrise rides—she didn’t exist anymore.

“Will you show me?” He straightened, turning to me, and his green eyes searched my face imploringly.

Everything in me wanted to show him the nearby ghost towns, the mountain trails, the desert plains, and especially the sunrise view from the bluff. The place I treasured and held so dearly in my heart. The place I’d die to protect.

My enthusiasm was a warning sign all its own. If I opened that door, was I inviting something more? Something I couldn’t give him?

I’d shown Keith that trail, that spot, just once. It had been a horrible mistake.

Warren? I knew he’d never treat me like Keith had. He was a gentleman through and through. He’d never betray me.

And that made it worse. I was a grenade, my secrets the shrapnel poised to tear through everyone and everything around me.

I couldn’t open the door, not even a crack.