Return to Rainbow Rock by Susan Aylworth

Author:Susan Aylworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, family, small town, native american, series, rainbow rock
Publisher: Susan Aylworth

CHAPTER SEVEN

“No picnic tables down here by the river?” Ryan asked.

Marcie smiled. “No. We’re on private land.”

“Private?” His eyes widened. “Is some angry rancher going to show up with a shotgun to run us off his place?”

“Hardly. This land belongs to the Hunts, and I got their permission before we came.”

“Oh, okay. So what do you have to show me?” Ryan looked around. All he saw was a trickling Arizona river—little more than a creek or a stream in most of the country—and the typical riverside growth for their area—cottonwoods, tamaracks, an occasional mesquite. “This is the Little Colorado River?”

“Right. Not much of a river, is it?”

He shook his head. “I remember what summer rainstorms can be like around here, though. I’m guessing a flash flood down this water course can be pretty amazing.”

“Amazing. That’s a good word for it, yes.”

“So what’s next?”

She nodded toward the picnic blanket and basket they’d carried. “Let’s eat first.”

“Okay.” He spread the blanket and set the basket in the middle of it, waited while Marcie said grace, and started helping her serve the food.

He was just finishing a delicious chicken salad croissant sandwich, with fresh peaches and plums on the side, when Marcie spoke. “Can I ask you something?”

This sounds ominous, he thought, but fought the reaction down. “Sure. Anything.”

“What happened between you and Jessica?”

He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, swallowed the last bite of sandwich, and drank from his water bottle. “I’d like to be able to blame it all on her,” he said. “For a long time, I did. Then I began to realize that any time things go that wrong between any two people, it’s likely both had a part in it.”

He looked up, trying to gauge Marcie’s response. She was waiting for him to continue. “I realized that I’d been gone too much and hadn’t paid enough attention to home and family. Of course I told myself I was working so hard for the family’s sake, but when I thought about it, I knew I was providing adequately for our family without making partner. I wanted to be the youngest junior partner in the firm’s history for my own sake, maybe to feed the insecurity that came from all those years of being the poor Indian kid.” He let his breath out in a hiss.

“Anyway, I was ringing up more and more billable hours, winning bigger cases, getting the partners’ notice instead of my family’s.” He looked up again, waiting for her cue.

“Go on,” she said.

“Jess was thrilled when Braden was born and I promised her we were doing well enough she could give up her day job. She’d always wanted to stay home with the boys when they were little, and my long hours and rising pay gave her that opportunity, but--”

“But…?” Marcie prompted.

“But I guess it wasn’t enough for her. She wanted some time away from the boys and she didn’t much enjoy housekeeping, so she hired help. I wasn’t around to keep her company and, well, she got bored and, I guess, restless.

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