The Outer Edge of Heaven Read Free Page A

with barn wood and the counters were some kind of dull gray green stone that just fit the rustic tone of the room.
    She smiled as she touched the little button that dispensed crushed ice from the refrigerator door. What would the pioneer women have done for something like that in the eighteen eighties? A fieldstone fireplace and hearth filled one end of the room, and a hook hung down from the inside with a small cast iron cauldron suspended from it as if waiting for her to start making a homesteader’s dinner at any moment. She felt as if she should be wearing a prairie dress and high button boots as she stood there.
    The Taco Rocket was already parked out front beside Fo's SUV, and he'd brought her other bags in and set them neatly beside the queen size antique bed covered with a handmade patchwork quilt. She wandered into the bathroom and found the most unusual fixtures she'd ever seen. The sink was an old-fashioned enamel washbasin, and she wasn't sure, but the bathtub appeared to be a galvanized water trough like she'd seen in the corrals at historic museums. On closer inspection, she realized it contained a luxurious tub fitted with whirlpool jets and the barn wood cupboard next to it housed a towel warmer.
    She turned to Fo. "Check this out. It's like the Ritz Carlton gone pioneer. This is incredible! Who came up with all this, do you suppose?"
    "I don't know, but whoever did it went to a lot of trouble to make it luxurious without ruining the feel of the original cabin."
    The log ladder drew her and she climbed up far enough to poke her head over the rim of the loft and look around. It had a simple barn wood floor over log joists and contained only a set of handcrafted twin beds, a bedside table and a single rocking chair under the window. The beds were covered in the same patchwork quilts as the bed below, and she was willing to bet the rain on the tin roof would sound just as it had a hundred and thirty years ago. She let out a contented sigh as she climbed back down. This little log cabin had a peace about it that was like a thick down comforter to her soul. She mentally compared it to her parents’ huge brick Tudor that stood on its perfectly manicured estate lawn back in Waterbury, Connecticut.
    Fo laughed and seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. "It's slightly different from the Dr. Evans' estate back east, huh?"
    Shaking her head, she said, "Just a little. It's day and night from your parents’ estate as well. How did your family and your Uncle's family end up so opposite?"
    "My mother couldn't wait to get out of Montana when she was a teenager. She left the second she graduated from high school and has never looked back. She still can't understand why I like to come out here all the time. She thinks Montana is positively still in the Dark Ages."
    Looking around, Charlie mused quietly, "Sometimes there's a lot to be said for the Dark Ages. I've only been here for half an hour and my ulcer is healing by the minute." She set a suitcase up on the antique farmhouse table and began to sort through it and unpack. "What do you suppose Luke will want me to do around here?"
    Blandly, Fo replied, "I suggested roping and branding cows at four-thirty in the morning, but he looked a bit skeptical. He'll probably ask you to help in the office or the herb farm office. It's a girl thing, you know. Keep your hands clean."
    Charlie cracked right up, and Fo had the wherewithal to look sheepish as he said, "All right, all right. So I'm the clean-handed one of the two of us. That's why I'm interning at the hospital, thank you very much, and you're the ranch hand. Still, I know you. You're going to love it here."
    "I already do. Thank you for talking into coming here instead of going home. I would have been positively miserable.” She put out a hand to clarify. “But I do love my parents. I swear I do. Don’t get me wrong. This is just much more comfortable." She pulled her hair back up into its knot and resecured it