Finding Henderson's Ranch by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman [Buchman, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

Chapter 7

Mac kept an eye on Ama as they rode down the hill, past the big house, and along the dirt driveway.

He tried to read what she was thinking about the place. The verdict looked hopeful, but she’d always been hard to read. He was fairly sure he had it right, because when she was feeling deepest was when she was quietest. And she’d barely said a word since they’d left the high bluff lookout.

Even back at the retirement party, he’d been watching for her reaction but been unable to read it. Barty and his dad had approached Mac with an idea.

What to do after retirement had worried at him. A SEAL knew how to fight. A SEAL knew that nothing could stop him once he had a mission. Except, in retiring, Mac no longer had a mission.

“Thanks again for saving my boy’s life,” Bart Sr. had handed him a fresh beer.

“Served twenty years on the same team, seemed like the right thing to do,” Mac had earned a laugh from them both.

Bart Sr. had been a Marine in Vietnam and understood. Barty had saved Mac’s life a time or two as well over the years—though not so graphically. That’s just how it worked on the teams.

“Got a place up in Montana,” Bart had told him, while looking off into the distance over Coronado Beach and the Pacific. “Twenty thousand acres of the prettiest land you’ve ever laid eyes on. Former owners moved on a decade ago and I grabbed it. Needs tending.”

Mac could only shake his head. “I saved some. Ama’s good with money and I sent home all I could, but we can’t afford a ranch.”

“Not talking about selling it to you. If you’d like, it’s yours and your kin’s for as long as you tend it. When you’re done, I’ll buy it back for the cost of improvements. No risk. Go up there and take the family. Once you give it a good look over, I know you’ll love it. All yours if you want it. Did I mention that I’m right grateful you saved my son’s life?”

“Might have,” Mac had agreed as he had looked over at Ama standing with a few of the other SEALs. People were drawn to her, but “social” wasn’t how he ever thought of her. Ama and city life had never made sense. Not in Cheyenne. Not in San Diego. Not outside the Marine Corps base in Böblingen, Germany.

There were images, moments, that had pulled him through the worst of Hell Week when half the remaining hopefuls had rung out and quit because they couldn’t hack it. Grown men, tough soldiers, had openly wept at their failure. But each time he’d had to dig deep, there were certain memories that had let him find the resolve to stick out the training or to survive when by all rights he should have died in some foreign hole.

He always remembered her lost in the dance—the tall beauty in sky-blue deer hide dress and boots.

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