Becca's Baby

“Well…no. Her intelligence really attracted me.”

“She lose that somewhere along the way?”

“Of course not.”

John nodded. And suddenly Will knew what he was getting at. Focusing more completely, he was surprised to find that there was quite a list of things he appreciated about Becca.

“I love the way she carries her composure with her everywhere she goes. Like she’s some kind of damn princess entering the room.”

John pulled his five iron out of his bag. Will planned to take the next hole with a seven.

“You can always count on her manners. She knows how to act in any situation,” Will said, kind of surprised to realize he’d noticed such a thing. Or that it mattered to him.

John slid his five iron back into his bag.

“I can tell what she’s thinking by the look in her eyes.”

“I know what you mean,” John said quietly, and Will realized the other man was thinking of his deceased wife.

“She’s the most unselfish caring person I’ve ever met.”

“Does she make your blood race?” John asked.

The question was a bit personal, but… “Yeah, she turns me on as much now as she did in college. More probably,” he added. “She’s got experience now.”

“Besides sex,” John said, giving Will a sideways glance, “does she make your blood race?”

Looking out at the rolling green lawns spread before him, Will thought about that.

“She sure can make me angrier than anyone else I’ve ever met, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Yup.” John took his seven iron out of his bag.

“It was.”

“Why?”

John stood. “That’s love, man,” he said. “They make you crazy, feeling all kinds of things you don’t feel with anyone else. It’s only because they can make you feel so incredibly good that they can make you feel so incredibly bad.”

Will stood, too, pulled out his five iron. “When did you become so smart?” he asked.

John shrugged, set his ball on the tee he’d just pushed into the soft ground and assumed his position.

The game ended in a tie, but Will hadn’t been playing his best. He’d been having a hard time concentrating.

“Let me ask you something,” he said as they headed out to their respective vehicles in the nearly deserted parking lot.

“Shoot,” John muttered, lofting his bag into the trunk of his rental car.

“You’ve lived in the world—big cities, high-level jobs, faced all kinds of challenges.”

John slammed his trunk, leaned back against it, arms folded in front of him. “Yeah.”

Will stood beside the car, his bag still slung over his shoulder. “So what do you think you’ll find here in Shelter Valley to test a man’s mettle?”

“Look at you, man,” John said. “You’ve faced twenty years of disappointment, not being able to give your wife the one thing she truly wanted.”

Will didn’t need to be reminded of that.