The Last Goodbye (The Women of Independence) (12 page)

Jake’s eyebrows drew together. “I hope
so.”

Sean set down his pen. “What does that
mean?”

“I don’t know.” Jake started to pace.
“I’ve never seen Danielle quite like this. She’s either floating on air, or
down in the dumps. I just spoke to Esperanza and she says Dani drove out of
here this morning with a face like thunder.”

Sean lifted his shoulders. “I’ve seen her
with Grayson a few times, but other than that...”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve never interfered in
her life before, and I’m not about to start now.” He turned to leave, then
stopped. “I’m going for a ride. Want to come?”

Sean looked at the piles of papers and
his face brightened. “You don’t have to ask me twice. Just let me put this back
in my room and I’ll be right with you.”

“Okay. See you at the stable.”

“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.

“We met a couple of months before the
wedding. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen and I was crazy
about her. She was involved with someone as well; she never actually said, but
I think he was a wise guy. She was terrified of him, I know that much.” He
turned to Jake, his eyes bleak. “I asked her to leave him, said we could go
away together, but she said no, and like an idiot, I accepted that. I should
have backed out of my wedding, and taken her away from him. She was afraid, but
I know she would have come with me, if only I’d pursued it.”

“What happened?”

Sean blinked, as though coming out of a
trance. “Serena must have sensed that there was something going on. Anyway, she
announced that she was pregnant. We moved the date up, got married, and I’ve
regretted it every day since.”

Jake felt as though he’d landed in a
minefield. “But you don’t have any kids.”

Sean waved away the comment. “An old
ploy. She wasn’t pregnant.” He turned to Jake, his expression intense. “I’m
telling you this so you don’t make the same mistake. Don’t give up the best
thing that’s ever happened to you.” He sat back, and a soft smile of
remembrance played around his lips. “I looked for her for a long time after
that, but she’d disappeared. Even today, I sometimes think I see her walking
down the street and my pulse spikes, but it’s never her. I’d give anything if
she came back into my life now.”

“Is that why you’ve never re-married?
You must have had lots of opportunity.”

Sean nodded. “Opportunity, yes. Incentive,
no.” He stood up and coughed self-consciously. “Jeez, man. It must be the fresh
air. You’ve got me telling you stuff I’ve never told anyone else.” He brushed
the debris from the back of his jeans. “Come on, let’s go find those cattle.”

* * *

“Nice work, everyone.” Grayson thanked
the actors and crew and huddled with his DP. “What do you think?” he asked
anxiously.

“Beautiful.” Dean Ansell was known to be
a man of few words. “The dailies will confirm.” He looked at Grayson with new
appreciation. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure about using the natural light the way
you did, but it worked.”

Was it really only two days ago that
Danielle had stood in this same spot, sunlight turning her hair to gold? That
day she’d also been lit from within; her fiery, tempestuous nature coming to
the fore. He’d enjoyed being challenged by her, enjoyed her take-no-prisoners
attitude when it came to sticking up for Nick.

And then this morning had happened. In
one heart-wrenching moment, as they looked at each other across the yard, the
light had faded from her eyes. But then what had he expected?

“Enough!” he said aloud, not caring if
anyone heard. “I need to see her.”

* * *

Grayson left his car on the main street
in Silverton and walked between the buildings, taking advantage of the cool
shade. He heard her before he spotted her. She was singing along with that
ridiculous song... something about a sexy tractor. Standing in the shadows, he
watched her adjust the harness around her waist, dip the roller in paint and
move stiff-legged across the roof. Half way finished the first side, she
appeared to be enjoying herself, and he smiled as she stopped to do an
abbreviated bump and grind to the music. The harness emphasized the sweet
curves of her buttocks, and her braid flopped against her back.

He stepped out into the sun and she
spotted him immediately. She pulled out her ear buds.

“Go away, Crawford... or do you prefer
Don Juan?” She tossed her braid. “I’m busy here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

God, she was cute when she was mad. He tried
not to smile. “I’d like to talk to you, Danielle. Could you come down?”

“I don’t think so.” She walked back
across the roof, replenished her roller, then came back and started painting
again.

“Come on, Danielle. Please. I’d like to
talk to you about this morning.”

She managed to look defiant. “Forget it.
I don’t want to hear your lies.”

“Danielle!”

She looked down at him, all wide-eyed
innocence.

Grayson bit back a sharp retort. “I’ve
never lied to you. Have I?”

She looked deliberately at her watch. “To
borrow a line from
City Slickers
, the day ain’t over yet.”

He held up his hands. “Okay, I can see
you’re angry, and I accept that. But at least give me a chance to explain. You
owe me that much.”

She slammed the roller against the roof
and almost spilled the paint. “How dare you say that! I owe you nothing,
Grayson Crawford.” Her voice started to wobble, and she looked as though she
might cry. “Besides, it’s hot up here, and this paint is drying faster than I
can get it on.” She rolled furiously. “Go away, please.”

She uttered the last words so softly, he
scarcely heard them. She deliberately replaced her ear buds and started to sing
again, but her enthusiasm for the song had faded.

Defeated, he retreated to his car. Maybe
it had been a bad idea to try to talk to her out here. He’d catch her tonight
at the ranch.

* * *

Danielle waited until Grayson’s vehicle
was out of sight and lowered the roller. She’d managed to stand her ground, so
to speak, even though she’d been tempted to climb down the ladder and listen to
what he had to say. She should be proud of herself for standing firm, but it
was a hollow victory. Whoever said that love hurts sure knew what they were
talking about. She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, picked up the
roller and went back to painting.

* * *

Pale green eyes watched through a gap in
the boards as Grayson drove off. “They’re crazy,” Kevin muttered to himself. He
had no idea what they were fighting about, but he could almost see the sparks
crackling between them when they talked. If anybody belonged together, it was
these two. He committed their facial expressions and their gestures to memory;
he’d describe them some day in one of his screen plays. One day when he was
famous, directors like Grayson Crawford would beg him to work with them.

The idiots didn’t recognize talent when
they saw it. They kept rebuffing him, telling him to submit through an agent,
but he knew better. If he were famous, they’d look at his screenplay in a
heartbeat. Well, he’d show them. He wasn’t without ideas, and his latest one
was sure to bring him to the attention of the people who mattered. Crawford was
here, and he’d seen Sean Elliott yesterday, coming back from town with Scott
Bailey and Marty Milner. When word of what he’d done circulated, they’d call
him in and ask how they could repay him.

It was a perfect plan.

* * *

Danielle was finishing the first side of
the roof when she smelled it. Smoke. She yanked out her ear buds and looked
around, fully alert. Nothing. But she knew she hadn’t imagined it.

There! On the far side of the building.
Black, oily smoke curled up over the corner of the roof, then was blown aside
by a rising breeze. She kept her eyes focused on the spot, hoping she’d
imagined it, but knowing better. And then she smelled it again, just before
another gust of wind fanned the flames and blew more smoke toward her.

“Help!” she called, feeling ridiculous.
She was alone, but she had to try. “Fire!”

The only response was the rustling of
the Cottonwoods along the creek and the buzzing of some wasps disturbed by the
smoke.

She needed to get down, but where was
the ladder? She blinked a couple of times, expecting it to be there when she
re-focused, but it had disappeared.

Stay calm, she told herself. Think. The
ladder had been there when Grayson was here, she was sure of that. And it had
still been there as he was driving away... she remembered seeing it. So where
was it now? She took some tentative steps toward the edge of the roof.

It was her longest extension ladder.
Rated to reach sixteen feet, if she recalled correctly. And she’d needed almost
all of it when she’d propped it against the side of the building. These old storage
buildings were only one storey, but they were tall. She estimated the drop to
the ground to be something like twelve feet. If she had to jump off, she’d
survive the fall, but she’d probably break a leg; not something she relished at
this point.

* * *

Grayson stopped the vehicle. Dammit, but
he was not going to leave it this way with Danielle. He had a million things he
should be doing, but this had been eating away at him all morning, even when he
was working. He manoeuvred the car back and forth on the narrow road until he
was facing back toward Silverton.

He didn’t know how, but he’d get her
down from that roof and tell her what really happened. Even if nothing further
developed between them, he wanted her to smile for him one more time... that
trusting, hopeful smile he’d come to love.

Just outside the ghost town, he spotted
the smoke. Too dark for a grass fire, it appeared as though someone was using
gasoline, or an accelerant of some sort to burn garbage. But how could that be?
Danielle had been alone when he left, and he hadn’t passed anyone driving in.
Something wasn’t right.

He pulled up, jumped out and ran to the
building.