Protection

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Bliss stared at the lamp on her bedside table as the flame inside flickered and danced behind the glass globe. She couldn’t help smiling tonight.

Clint had fully warmed up to her. She was sure of that now, but it could be that there was more behind that smile of his than familiarity. He had smiled so many times today! It was like he was a completely different person! He had actually laughed, too. Laughed! I was so melodious to hear him actually sound happy. She wasn’t very good at reading people, but she felt that he wouldn’t have smiled like that had someone else been there, like those smiles were for her alone.

Could she be making this up? He probably didn’t even think of her as a friend.

But that smile of his!

She threw a pillow over her face and couldn’t bite back a smile. No one else had ever made her this giddy. Even her encounter with Seth merely days before couldn’t make her happiness dim down. She was completely satisfied with life at this moment.

With Thanksgiving being in two days, she tried to distract her mind with recipes long enough to plan out the day and what she and Grace would make. That only worked for about five minutes.

Every thought she had turned to the man in the room next to her. She suddenly found herself wanting to know everything about him, wanting to be the one he came to when he had a bad day. She wanted to be everything for him that Seth never was to her, someone to help carry the weight of life, someone to always be there even when he didn’t need her, and someone he looked forward to seeing.

At that moment, she knew that the feeling inside of her was endless.

I could be that maybe, just maybe, she was falling in love with Clint Slade.

*****

Clint sighed deeply. Tomorrow was the day that he would have to show up at the abandoned cabin six miles due east at twelve o’clock. He groaned and stared into the darkness at the ceiling. What was he going to do? He had no idea what they wanted or even if the Coopers had it in their house.

He would finally see what those men look like.

He rubbed at the bandage on his right hand and sighed. He wouldn’t even be able to shoot a bullet straight, and there was no telling what kind of men he was dealing with. He still hadn’t mentioned the note to Bliss. Not because he didn’t want her to know, but because he didn’t know what her father would do if he found out that she knew.

He would go to the cabin alone tomorrow, hoping that the men he was up against were interested in being peaceful.

Sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, his foot his something soft instead of the floor. He leaned down and made out the shape of the Bible he had found in the spare bedroom closet laying there. He had forgotten about it until now.

Bending down to pick it up, he lit the lamp on the bedside table and studied it.

The Holy Bible, supposedly holding everything one would ever need to know about life. He had never been much of a reader, but maybe tonight it would help him sleep. Cracking open the stiff pages, the book fell open to where an envelope had been placed inside. Clint recalled seeing it before and took it.

While he knew he shouldn’t be snooping in places he shouldn’t belong, he couldn’t help but open in envelope in his hands.

Withdrawing the contents inside, he straightened out the tri-folded paper. While he was expecting it to be a letter or something along those lines, he was mistaken.