Page 3 of Let It Breathe
“No offense taken. Clearly I ruined you for other men.”
She laughed, spilling milk on the table. “Yes, Eric, that’s exactly it.” Leon leaned down to sniff the milk.
“Seriously, you should get over your issues,” he said.
“My issues?”
“Issues,” Eric repeated. “Your parents have the most perfect marriage on the planet, so you got this idea love was easy. When you realized it wasn’t?—”
“Gee, this therapy session is fun. Weren’t you leaving?”
He shrugged. “Look, I’m just saying you seem sort of miserable lately. All you’ve done since college is work at the vineyard and fix broken animals—there’s been no excitement, no change, no passion, no?—”
“Drama? I hate drama, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Eric sighed. “You just seem stuck. Stagnant. That’s all. It wouldn’t kill you to date or something.”
Reese bit her tongue and reminded herself not to be bitchy. He was trying to help. She reached up and scratched Leon again, earning a contented cluck from her pet.
“As much as I enjoy having my ex-husband advise me on my love life, I’m fine. Really. I’m happy.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
Eric buried his nose back in the wineglass and Reese watched him warily. So it wasn’t the expansion, and it wasn’t anything with Sheila. But something was definitely on his mind. She’d known Eric for fifteen years, and with the exception of the year they’d been married, they’d always been good friends. People were always surprised when Reese told them her ex-husband was the winemaker for her family’s vineyard—a vineyard she’d been managing for most of her adult life. Truthfully, the arrangement had never bothered either of them.
But something was definitely bothering Eric now.
“What’s wrong?” she blurted.
Eric sighed. “Look, there’s something I’ve gotta tell you.”
Reese felt a slither of something cold run down her spine. Dew from the overhanging tree, but still, it didn’t seem like a good omen.
“What?”
He looked at her, his hair flopping over the bandana and his expression somewhere between beaten puppy and morose hippie. Behind them, Leon hummed again.
“It’s something big,” Eric said.
Reese set her spoon down and braced herself. “Let’s hear it.”
Ten miles away, “something big” was eating an omelet at Crescent Café.
“Clay? Clay Henderson, is that you?”
Clay looked up to see June and Jed Clark headed toward his table. Jed had his hand in the back pocket of June’s jeans, while June had her arm slung around her husband’s waist like a beaming cheerleader laying claim to the quarterback.
They’d been married—what?—thirty-five years? Clay watched with a mixture of admiration and nostalgia as Jed paused to kiss June’s temple en route to Clay’s side of the restaurant.
“Haven’t seen you for ages, son,” Jed said once they arrived at the table. “Eric said you’d moved to Idaho.”
Clay nodded, swallowing a bite of omelet. “Boise. I’ve been there more than three years.”
“You still doing that environmental building stuff?”
“Yes, sir. Still with Dorrington Construction. They’ve had me working out of southwest Idaho until just a couple days ago.”
Clay watched their faces for a reaction, for some sign that Eric had told them the news. There was nothing.
