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His laughter winged through the narrow canyon, joining up with hers when she laughed, too.
“Seriously,” he said as they began picking their way down loose rock again, “that girl scares me.”
“She should.”
“How did you two meet?”
“Grace was in school to become a makeup artist. She was already amazing, though, she just needed the certificate to get her foot in the door. I had the great idea that I’d learn to do hair, which doesn’t make any sense. I can’t even do my own hair. She came across me practicing layering on a wig and told me to give it up.”
“Ouch.”
“In a nice way, though. Well, not in a nice way, but I could tell she felt bad about breaking the truth to me like that. I dropped out and went back to work as a waitress, but I stayed in touch with Grace. She let me live with her for a month, and we’ve been best friends ever since, no matter where we lived or what we were doing.”
“Opposites attract, I guess.”
“Yeah. We take care of each other. And we’re more alike than you could know.”
Shane couldn’t see it, but he didn’t argue. Grace was all fists and fire, and Merry was like some sort of funny earth mother, if earth mother types were sexy. But he was smart enough not to say any of that to her.
“Be sure to call Grace as soon as we get out of the canyon. I hope finding that ice house was worth risking her wrath.”
“She’ll be fine. And it was!”
Shane had inadvertently triggered another enthusiastic description of a Providence story she’d heard, but he smiled as he followed her over a pile of boulders, then hopped down to put his hands around her waist and ease her down. She didn’t stop talking.
“These people were so amazing. Can you imagine coming here when it took a whole day on horseback just to run across the closest neighbor? When there were no doctors? No hospitals? They brought their children here and built these houses from scratch.”
“And then they left.”
“Oh, no. It wasn’t that simple.”
“There was a flood and they picked up and scattered. I’m not sure how admirable that is. Practical, yes. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.” No, he definitely couldn’t say that.
“No, Shane. You don’t understand. It wasn’t just the flood. Granted, that was catastrophic. Five people in Providence died, including a little girl, and three houses and a granary were destroyed. But they rebuilt. They kept going. But the flood had swept a wall of debris into the canyon. The first year, the stream’s flow was cut in half. They tried to move some of the boulders. One of the founders lost his arm in an accident when rocks shifted onto him. Then the next year, more spring flooding pushed everything farther into a narrow funnel in the rock. The water dried up. Completely. Even then, they kept the town alive for two more years. They dug wells. They tried to redirect the stream farther north. But when a drought hit, they couldn’t sustain themselves. They couldn’t do it.”
They’d finally reached the mouth of the canyon, and she stopped and spread her arms to encompass the town. It lay below them like an Old West model, like a toy.
“This was their home. These people held on as long as they could. They loved this place, and they wanted it, but they couldn’t live here without water. All but one of them moved on. Gideon Bishop’s great-grandfather held out for five more years, then he moved a few miles south near the current Bishop ranch house. There was water there. It was easier. But he never gave up. That’s why the land is still in that family.”
Shane shoved his hands into his pockets and glared at the town. He’d never heard that story before. All he’d ever heard about was the flood. Not that it made a difference. These people really had nothing to do with him. It was still just a dead town his grandfather had funded in a fit of spite. It was nothing more than a two million dollar dollhouse collection for tourists.
“I wish I could have seen what it was like when it was alive,” Merry said softly. “Kids running through the streets. Men and women plowing the fields. The houses whitewashed and flowers planted. Can you imagine?”
He couldn’t, but he could see the beauty of it on her face. The wonder. The possibility of what it could’ve been if tragedy hadn’t struck.
Shane wondered if he looked the same way when he stared at her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MERRY WASN’T IN THE RIGHT frame of mind to talk to her mom. She wasn’t even in the right mood to deal with waking up to Grace falling onto the bouncy mattress of the sofa bed. She definitely wasn’t prepared to do a video chat. But here she was.
“Say, ‘Hi, Mom!’” Grace urged, annoyingly chipper at 8:00 a.m.
Merry peeked over the covers. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, Mom!” Grace repeated, waving at the screen of Merry’s iPad.
Merry’s mom and Grace began chatting, thank God, because Merry needed a few moments to collect herself. She’d been deep in a dream involving Shane and a horseback ride and a few gymnastic-like moves that were only possible on horseback during REM sleep.
