Page 57 of Bailey

They paused in the shade again, and the morning mountain air still held a crispness that had Bailey drawing it deep into her lungs, holding it, and then releasing it as pure happiness filled her. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt like this—probably when she’d graduated from vet school, but she hadn’t had anybody to celebrate with her.

She’d barely been talking to her parents at that time, and truth be told, she’d told Bryce more about her life than she had them. Yes, her healing process had been slow and painful. But as Bailey stood there while Reeves crouched down and got out the equipment he needed, she physically felt like someone was stitching her together and making her whole again.

Not just someone, she thought. But God Himself, because He cared that much about her and wanted her to be happy.

She wasn’t sure if she had felt truly forgiven for the things she’d done in her life until that very moment. When Reeves straightened and met her eyes, Bailey looked away quickly.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just…it’s stupid.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” he said quietly.

She looked up the trail but couldn’t see over the crest in the path. “I just…it’s just being up here in nature, and such a blue sky, and such crisp air.” She found the courage to look at him. “And you.”

His eyebrows went up slightly, but he simply waited for her to go on.

“I just felt the Spirit really strongly,” she said. “And it testified to me that I’ve been forgiven.”

Light came to Reeves’s face, and he leaned closer to her, skimming his cheekbone along hers. “I’m so glad, wildflower,” he said. “That must be an amazing feeling.”

She sniffled and pulled back on her emotions, irritated that she’d started crying on what had been such a beautiful morning so far. “It is,” she whispered. “So there’s nothing wrong, and I’m really glad to be here with you.”

He pulled back and took her hand again. “Me too.” He cut a look toward her as he took the first step out of the shade. “Now, listen. I’m going to narrate a little bit, and I don’t need you making fun of me or giggling in the background.”

Bailey gaped at him in mock horror. “I would never.” She pulled her hand away. “If you want to go ahead and do it without me there, I understand.”

His jaw tensed, but he shook his head. “No, I can do it with you.”

Together, they went up the hill, where the meadow spread in front of them, beautiful pops of white, yellow, purple, pink, and blue meeting Bailey’s eyes.

A soft, “Oh, wow,” fell out of her mouth, and Bailey linked her arm through Reeves’s as he started on the left side of the meadow and began to pan the camera slowly.

“And here it is, my friends,” he dictated, his voice bright and full of fondness. “The wildflower meadow I’ve been promising you for days. It’s just about nine o’clock in the morning, and you can see the sun is really bathing this meadow with heavenly light. I’ll take you through and show you some of these more close-up, but you really have to get outside and see it for yourself, whether you live in the Tetons or not. Get up into the mountains, find a place where it’s just you and your thoughts and God, and I promise that you’ll be able to find peace in your life the way I have in mine.”

He reached the right side then, and held the shot for a moment before lowering the camera. He tapped stop, turned toward Bailey, and pressed a kiss to the corner of her eye.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, turning into him and wrapping her arms around him.

“I told you there would be more than what we saw by that river overlook,” he said.

“There’s definitely more,” Bailey whispered. She couldn’t quite get her voice to speak any louder in this serene, peaceful environment. “I love this, Reeves. It’s so beautiful.”

Her heart beat slower, and the world seemed to come to a pinpoint—just her and Reeves and the wildflowers fluttering easily in the slight breeze. She wanted him to take her around to all of the flowers and introduce her to them the way he’d promised he would for his viewers, but the two of them just stood there, basking in the beauty, and Bailey let her feelings roam wild.

“See why I call you wildflower?” he murmured.

Bailey suddenly could see her own beauty, and that became another gift she’d been given in the span of the last hour. Now all she had to do was take Reeves home and introduce him to her parents, where they’d fall madly in love with him the way she was, and then today would be utter perfection.

Bailey sat back as Reeves positioned his camera and checked it four or five times before he deemed it in the right spot. He’d built a fire about forty-five minutes ago, and he’d filmed himself doing that as well, albeit from a closer angle. He’d packed in a chair for her, which Bailey currently sat in as she watched him pull a cooler into the frame.

“All right, now that we have some good coals happening here,” Reeves said as he looked down into the fire where he’d crouched, stoking it with the end of a stick. “We’re going to be making some stuffed brick chicken for lunch.” He looked up to the camera. “It sounds really fancy, but you can probably make this with ingredients you have in your fridge right now. Brick chicken is something that you’ll find in high-end restaurants. It’s cooked at a high heat, which fire works really well for.”

He opened his cooler, and to Bailey’s surprise, he pulled out a cast-iron skillet and not a package of chicken breasts. He nestled it over the coals and then reached for a bottle of olive oil, which he dripped into the pan. Bailey could barely cook like this inside her kitchen, and she marveled that Reeves could do it outside.

He groaned as he got to his feet. “Wow, I’m getting too old to crouch like that.” He pulled his chair into position and rummaged around inside his cooler again. “So the first thing I always tell people when they’re camping and need to cook is to take help from the grocery store.” He grinned at the camera as he held up a bag of what looked like veggies. “This is shredded broccoli for broccoli slaw,” he said. “I’m going to mix it with a little bit of mayo, a lot of cream cheese, and some garlic salt. That’s going to be the stuffing for my chicken breast.”

He produced a bowl from the cooler and put a whole brick of cream cheese into it, a dollop of mayo, the whole bag of shredded broccoli, and, to Bailey’s complete surprise, pulled out a little shaker of garlic salt. “Salt and pepper too,” he said. “Because salt and pepper go in everything, whether you’re cooking at home or out on the trail.” He put dashes of those into the bowl, and then stirred everything up with the spoon. He tilted it toward the camera. “This is also how I trick myself into eating broccoli.”