The Last Goodbye (The Women of Independence) by Ingram Mona

Author:Ingram, Mona [Ingram, Mona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

“Where are we going?” They’d been riding in comfortable silence for about twenty minutes.

Jake had been wondering when his friend would ask. “We’re going to check on those cattle.”

Sean raised his eyebrows. “Can’t you phone your foreman? What’s his name? Sam?”

Jake dug out his phone and looked at it. “Sure. But this is a lot more fun.”

They’d been climbing steadily and Jake stopped. A huge flat-topped rock jutted out from the hillside and he motioned to it. “We’re in no rush. Let’s wander over there. You can see a lot from this point.” He smiled to himself. “I used to bring Danielle up here when she was young.”

They left their horses to graze on the sparse grass and wandered over to the lookout point. Softly carpeted with pine needles, it had the footprint of a small house. Below them, the valley stretched to the right and the left, lushly green in the bottom where the creek wandered aimlessly but steadily south. Jake sat down near the edge, pulled up his legs and draped his arms over his knees.

Sean took a deep breath and sat next to him, copying his position. “Love that fresh air.”

Jake looked off into the distance “You know, the first time I flew into Los Angeles and saw that layer of orange/brown smog, I didn’t know what I was looking at. I thought there’d been a fire or something. How do you stand it?”

Studying his friend, Sean didn’t answer for a moment. “You didn’t bring me up here to talk about the smog in LA. What’s bugging you, Flynn? Is there something I should know about?”

Jake picked up a cluster of pine needles. “Three needles,” he pointed out needlessly. “Ponderosa.”

“Thanks for the horticultural lesson.” Sean’s tone was caustic.

“I don’t know what to do, Sean.” Jake’s voice was uncharacteristically subdued and Sean recognized that they’d come to the reason for this trip.

“I’ve never felt this way about a woman before.” He shot a quick glance in Sean’s direction. “I’m forty-seven, for crying out loud, and I feel like I’m nineteen.” He picked up more pine needles, crushed them and smelled the familiar fragrance. “I’m almost afraid to say it out loud, but I’m in love with her.”

Sean looked at him long and hard. “Never be afraid to say that, my friend. Especially to her.”

Jake stilled. He’d never heard Sean speak in quite that tone before. “I thought that after your divorce, you stopped believing in love. But you mean that, don’t you?”

It was Sean’s turn to pick up some pine needles. He rolled them between his thumb and forefinger, his thoughts far away.

“You know about my marriage to Serena.” His tone implied that he didn’t expect a response. “The best thing about that marriage was the divorce. I tried, but I couldn’t make it work.” He tossed the pine needles over the edge and watched them fall. “I was in love with someone else.”

Jake tried to hide his shock. He thought he knew everything about his friend, but this was news.

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