I unpacked slowly, stiff from being on horseback for days. We had got back to Starling Ridge in the afternoon. Everyone was tired and sore, kind of sliding off their horses. It had been a successful cattle drive, though. We had got the cattle to Ryan’s Ranch on time with no major setbacks. From what Hank was telling me, a lot of things could go wrong on these drives, cattle stampeding, getting stuck in gorges. It took a lot of skill and effort to do it right. Which this team had in spades, obviously.

I glanced around. There he was, Lance. Chatting with the men, helping to unload. Just being there and helping, not afraid to get his hands dirty. I could tell the men respected him even more after the drive. He looked up, sensing my eyes on him. I quickly looked away, my face burning.

We hadn’t really spoken since that night underneath the stars. He had tried, approaching me a few times. But I just couldn’t act normally.

It wasn’t shame. God knows, I was a big enough girl to admit when I wanted to do something; I would never play the ‘you took advantage of me’ card. I wanted him just as much as he wanted me. I had enjoyed it immensely.

Maybe it was my conflict over Jack, still lingering like the smoke from a camp fire that had been doused long ago. I knew I was over him, I really did. But knowing it and feeling it were two different things, especially when I had tried to be loyal for so long. To be getting my rocks off with another man felt like betrayal. Stupid, but there it was. Especially when the man I happened to be getting my rocks off with had been his best buddy.

Another complication. Another layer of history and emotion that was so damn hard to lift. If Lance had been just a man, who had never known Jack, I might have felt lighter with it. Still a bit strange, but okay. As it was, the fact that it was Lance just complicated everything so much more.

I would have been better off sticking with my trusty vibrator, perhaps. Guaranteed satisfaction, with no awkward after effects.

I got to my quarters, collapsing across my bed. My backpack was filled with dirty laundry and I smelt like a camp fire, but I just didn’t have the heart to do anything at the moment. Opening the draw on my bedside table, I took out a photograph in a frame.

It was my favorite, always had been. There he was, slick in his uniform, smiling at the camera. His black hair was short, making his ears stick out a bit. His brown eyes stared through the photo at me, happy and carefree.

Jack. Looking back, this had been the pinnacle, of him as a person, and of our relationship. I remembered his pride the day this photo had been taken. He had just been told he had been accepted into the Special Forces. He was due to ship out for initial training in the next two weeks. Compounding his joy had been the news that Lance had been accepted as well. He and his best bud were going on the adventure of their lives together.

After the photo had been taken, the three of us had gone out for a night of celebration at the Old Coyote, the local bar in Clear Creek. I could still see the three of us, flushed with happiness.

We had walked into that bar like we owned it.

The locals had all approached the boys, of course, shaking their hands and slapping them on the back. Word had got around that they had been accepted into the SEALs. The community was so proud. Not one, but two, local boys accepted into the SEALs? Well, that didn’t happen every day in a little neck of the woods like Clear Creek.

Drinks were bought for all of us, beers and shots and God knows what else. The jukebox pumped out Shania and The Dixie Chicks, getting louder and louder as the night wore on. I remember Lance and Jack having a game of pool, or trying to. Both were lining up their shots with the exaggerated care of the very drunk trying to look sober, then missing them by a mile. Sinking the black or pocketing the white, to the hilarity of the crowd.

We boot scooted on the dance floor which was the size of a handkerchief, elbowing and jostling people. Then it switched to a slow song, Willie singing about a girl who was always on his mind. Jack grabbed me, and we stumbled together, slow dancing and grinding into each other. We kissed on that dance floor, and he whispered in my ear that he loved me. I still remember how effervescent I felt, like I was a bunch of balloons.

I don’t know why I opened my eyes at that moment, with Jack’s arms around me and his words of love still lingering in my ear. But I did. I saw him on the edge of the dance floor, staring at us. Lance. Looking as if he had just been struck in the back with a knife.

It was a raw moment, totally private, but he didn’t have the thought to cover it up. He was wrecked. Eventually he saw me, and his face changed in an instant. He stumbled away, elbowing his way through the crowd.

I didn’t see him again that night. He must have gone home. And the next day, he was carefully controlled again. I didn’t catch any lovelorn glances cast in my direction.

I looked down at the photo in my lap, thinking. It had all changed after that. This photo was the last of the best times.

Jack and Lance had completed their training, each passing with flying colors. They had always been competitive, and this was the ultimate competition. They had been shipped all over the world on missions after that, Iraq and Afghanistan and God knows where else. Jack’s emails and calls started getting fewer and further between, and the distance between us started to stretch as wide as all those goddamn oceans that he had crossed.

And now he was dead.

I stared at the photo for a while longer, trying to be that girl again. The girl who had loved Jack, who thought that he would one day put a ring on my finger. But she was gone.

Just like he was.

I remembered Lance’s pained face that night in the Old Coyote, as he stared at us entwined on the dance floor. I knew in my heart that it had never gone away, that connection between us. But I had tried to ignore it.

Now it was rearing up like a force of nature, like a tsunami that was going to wipe everything out in its wake. What did I want? Did I want that tsunami to consume me? Or did I want to retreat to higher ground, staying safe and dry locked in the prison of my memories?

I slowly opened that draw and put that photo away.

I wouldn’t be looking at it again for a long, long time.