“You look familiar,” Jill said to Red.
Red told her about the ranch and that he’d eaten at the restaurant several times since they opened.
“Thanks for coming back,” Jill smiled, looking back and forth between the two. “How’s our buddy Jace? Since you’re at a table for two, I assume he isn’t with you.”
“He’s well,” Bree answered.
“We were just talking about him,” Red smirked.
“Sorry to interrupt. It was nice seeing you again, Bree.”
“You, too.”
Bree glared at Red and was about to tell him how little she appreciated the position he was putting her in, when a waiter approached the table, asking if they were ready to order.
“Not yet,” answered Red. “But we’re in no hurry.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Bree once the waiter walked away.
“Now where were we?”
“Your wife.”
“That’s right. Let’s circle back to your husband first.”
“What about him?”
“There is an edge in your voice when you talk about him. Did you realize that?”
“There is today, because I’m mad at him.”
“Something in the journal made you mad. From what you said, it made you wonder if you’d made a mistake.”
“Not that exactly. It just made me wonder. I’m not sure I ever really knew him.”
Red sat back in his chair. “Tell me what’s in the journals, Bree. Get it out.”
“A few of the journals were written before he met me.”
“What about the one you were reading earlier today?”
“After he graduated from the Air Force Academy, Zack, like all the other new lieutenants, had sixty days before they had to report to their first assignment.” Bree told him that, in Zack’s case, he had to report to pilot training in Texas. He proposed the day he graduated, they were married less than a month later, and the trip they took to Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho was their honeymoon.
Free from the anxiety of being in school, Zack was light-hearted and fun. Some days they knew what they would do, and some days they let the day lead them to their next adventure. It was the most uninterrupted time they’d ever spent together.
They fly-fished, and got to know Annie and Dave, who were the outfitters in Salmon. At the ranch, they rode, and fished, went for long walks, and sat on the porch of the main lodge, and talked.
Two days after they got back from Idaho, Zack left for Texas. Between then and the time he died, they were apart more than they were together. When he completed pilot training, he was stationed in Colorado Springs. Bree completed her bachelor’s degree during that time and was thinking about graduate school.
Zack encouraged her to do it. She remembered thinking how good it felt to know he believed in her. “Do it now,” he’d told her. Had he said “before we start a family,” or was that just the way she remembered it?
With both of them focused on their individual pursuits, Bree didn’t feel as though they saw each other much more than they did when he was in Texas. The only difference was, they slept together every night.
She brought it up to him one day, and he told her it would soon be worse. He was being deployed to Afghanistan.
The day before he left, one of Zack’s buddies stopped by to see him.
“I can’t believe he volunteered to go,” the friend had said to Bree.