The Longest Ride

another couple hundred pair, but we don’t have enough pasture, so she’s trying to find a place for us to keep them.”

“Why? She doesn’t think she’s busy enough already?”

He shifted hands on the steering wheel before sighing. “Right now,” he said, “we don’t have much choice.”

He could feel Sophia’s questioning gaze, but he didn’t want to talk about it and he changed the subject. “Are you going to be heading home for Thanksgiving?”

“Yes,” she said. “Assuming my car makes it. There’s a loud squeaking-whining sound when I start it. The engine sounds like it’s screaming.”

“It’s most likely just a loose belt.”

“Yeah, well, it’ll probably be expensive to fix and I’m kind of on a budget.”

“If you’d like, I can probably take care of it.”

She turned toward him. “Why do I have no doubt about that?”
     

     
    It took a little over two hours to reach the camp, the sky slowly filling with clouds that stretched to the blue-peaked mountains that dotted the horizon. In time, the highway began to rise, the air thinning and turning crisp, and they eventually stopped at a grocery store to pick up supplies. Everything went into the coolers in the bed of the truck.

Luke exited the main highway after leaving town, following a road that curved steadily and seemed carved into the mountain itself. It dropped off steeply on Sophia’s side, the tops of trees visible through the windows. Fortunately there was little traffic, but whenever a car passed in the opposite direction, Luke had to grip the wheel with both hands as the trailer’s wheels skirted the very edge of the asphalt.

Not having visited in years, he slowed the truck, searching for the turnoff, and just when he started thinking that he’d gone too far, he spotted it off the curve. It was a dirt road, even steeper in places than he remembered, and he put the truck into overdrive as he navigated slowly past trees that were pressing in from both sides.

When he reached the camp, his first thought was that it hadn’t changed much, with twelve cabins spreading out in a semicircle from the general store, which also doubled as the office. Behind the store was the lake, sparkling with the kind of crystal blue water found only in the mountains.

After checking in, Luke unloaded the coolers and filled the water trough for the horses while Sophia wandered off toward the ravine. She took in the view of the valley more than a thousand feet below, and when Luke finished up, he joined her near the ravine, their vision wandering from one mountaintop to the next. Below them was a collection of farmhouses and gravel roads lined by oaks and maples, everything looking miniaturized, like models in a diorama.

As they stood together, he noticed the same wonder on her face he’d felt whenever he came here as a child. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she murmured, awestruck. “It makes me feel breathless.”

He stared at her, wondering how she’d come to mean so much to him so quickly. Studying the graceful outline of her profile, he was certain he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.

“I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

16

    Sophia
    T hey stayed inside only long enough for Sophia to put a few items in the refrigerator and notice the claw-foot tub in the bathroom, yet her initial impression was one of fraying but pleasant hominess, a perfectly cozy overnight getaway. Meanwhile, Luke busied himself making sandwiches to go with the fruit and chips and bottles of water he’d picked up from the store.

Luke packed their lunches in the saddlebags before they started off on one of the dozen trails that crisscrossed the property. As usual, he rode Horse and she was once more on Demon, whom she couldn’t help thinking was slowly but surely getting used to her. He’d nuzzled her hand and nickered contentedly while Luke saddled him, and though it might have been because he was in an unfamiliar place, only the slightest touch of the reins was necessary to direct him.

The trail climbed ahead of them, weaving among trees that were so thick in some places, she doubted anyone had ever passed through before. At other times the trail opened up into the kind of expansive vista that she had seen only on postcards. They rode through lush green meadows of tall grass, and Sophia tried to picture them filled with wildflowers and butterflies every summer. She was grateful for her jacket and cowboy hat, as the trees kept