Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
GRIFFIN—JANUARY
Isat on a granite bluff above the western edge of Yosemite, boots off, socks smoking, content to never move from this spot.
Below me, the valley was charred in places, but the fire was finally out.
For the first time in months, there was the wondrous sound of silence.
No pine trees rip-roaring louder than a train as they burned to the ground.
No air tankers thundering overhead, dropping red lines of slurry.
No chainsaws chewing through fallen timber. Just quiet.
It had taken everything we had, but we beat it. And sitting there, muscles spent, legs dangling off the side, with dirt in my teeth and ash on my skin, I should’ve felt more than I did.
“Feel like a freaking king, don’t you?” Boone laughed, dropping beside me.
“Sure do,” I lied.
He held out a Gatorade—still fogged with cold. “Supply crew just showed up.”
I ripped the top off and chugged it so fast it gave me brain freeze. I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my Nomex fire shirt.
We stared at the valley below, letting the light breeze cool us.
“Man,” Boone said, head tipping back. “What’re you doing here? Go be with your wife. Go be with your family. How am I supposed to meet your gorgeous sister if you’re never home to invite me?”
I snorted. “You wouldn’t want Sophie anyway. She’s too feisty. She’d have you crying before Mom even brought out the appetizers.”
“Can’t wait.” But then his lips pursed. “You’re cut from a cloth all your own, that’s for sure.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing.” I glanced over my shoulder, wondering how far I’d have to go to get another Gatorade.
Boone handed me his. “I already guzzled two. And it is a bad thing. It’s making you very, very stupid.”
I gave him some side-eye while I downed my second drink.
“It’s not just me,” he said. “Ask any of the crew. They think you’re out of your mind, leaving Juliette Serrant behind to come back and fight fires. That is the definition of insane.”
“She wasn’t all that,” I said, guilt creeping up my neck.
My “estranged” wife would be so hurt if she heard me say that.
But if my mom heard? She’d twist my ear off.
Mom despised a liar. Almost drowned Bowen once, washing his mouth out with dish soap when she caught him lying.
And saying Juliette wasn’t all that was the biggest lie I’d ever told.
Jules was everything. And every day we were apart, I felt myself dying a little more.
But I had to stay strong. Had to outlast her if I wanted her back. Jules and I were locked in an intense game of chicken, and I needed her to swerve soon. Needed her to realize that, like me, she was dying inside, too.
“Uh-huh,” Boone deadpanned. “If that’s true, why do you look so forlorn?”
“Forlorn? M’kay. What kind of word is that? Have you been watching Anne of Green Gables again?”
He jammed his elbow into my side. “Don’t knock it till you watch it.
Besides, women love a man who’s comfortable in his masculinity.
Forlorn,” he said in his thesaurus voice.
“Pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely.” He paused like he was turning a page.
“Also, unlikely to succeed or be fulfilled; hopeless. That’s exactly what you are. ”
“Unlikely to succeed or be fulfilled? Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“If the shoe fits.”
“Pfft. Tell me again why you turned down Harvard to become a hotshot.”
“Easy. Harvard was seven miles from home. This is two thousand nine hundred and fifteen.”
“Exactly.” I shoved him. “I despise home as much as you do.”
“Nah. Unlike me, you have a great family that you miss. I see you checking their socials every night. Texting James, Theo, Cash, and now Bowen.” He shook his head again. “I don’t get it. Why punish yourself out here, when you could be back there living in the lap of luxury?”
“Because.”
“Because?”
“Just because.”
“How about we trade?” He snapped his fingers. “Like in that Richard Gere movie. I’ll take your name, dye my hair red, and magically grow six inches. I’ll pass as you while you rot out here in this jail—”
“Jail?” I waved my hand over the amazing sunset.
He grabbed the back of my neck and angled my head down to the charred valley below.
“You just gave the last four months of your life to that. So yes, jail is the correct term.” He shook his head.
“As I said, you stay here, and I’ll go back to Seddledowne, eat your Granny’s pie, throw the football around with the Blue Bishop, be in a spy movie with your gorgeous aunt—”
“Who’s married and way too old for you,” I said.
“—record a song with your best friend. Or better yet, your best friend and your uncle, Ford Freaking Dupree—who has how many Grammys?”
“Four thousand three hundred and seventy-seven,” I said flatly.
“So many Grammys you’ve lost count,” he said, as if I’d never spoken.
“And listen to another aunt and uncle read their latest work in progress—sure to be a bestseller—every evening, all while sitting by a fire pit overlooking Lake A. Then, when that’s over, I’ll head home to make love to your wife who is literally a supermodel. ”
The thought of Boone making love to my wife made me want to break his face. “I thought you had a crush on my sister.”
“It was hypothetical, dweebus. And I don’t even know your sister. Yet. We already established that.”
“You’re not making love to her either. Let’s get that straight right now.”
“Oh.” He slapped his thigh. “I forgot one. And instead of being a self-sabotaging clown, I’d go ahead and make up with your other best friend Liam. Then I’d get season tickets and go to every one of his NFL games.”
“Ex-best friend,” I growled. “And you’d be yawning the entire season while you watched him sit the bench on a losing team. You know you’re about one more word from going over this cliff.”
Boone threw his hands up. “What’re you doing here, Griff? Go home.”
“I’m finding myself,” I snapped. “Not every Dupree has to live in Seddledowne, all right?” Boone opened his mouth to annoy me some more, so I cut him off.
“First of all, that Richard Gere movie is called ‘Somersby.’” His brows flicked up, impressed.
“It was filmed a half-hour from my house,” I admitted. “And second—”
“Secondly,” he corrected.
“And second,” I said, in a grating, redneck accent. “Jack Somersby, aka Horace Townsend, dies at the end of the movie—”
“Because he’s stubborn like you.”
“So,” I growled, “if that’s the fate you’re going for, go right ahead. But your death won’t be fictional. It will be 100% legit. Because if you so much as look at my wife or my sister, I’ll—”
“Kill me yourself?” he asked. “I thought you said Juliette Serrant wasn’t all that. She must be something if you’d go to jail for her.” He shrugged one shoulder like he wasn’t about to be my first victim. “Just sayin’.”
My jaw locked. But rather than kill him, I glared instead.
“Which part makes you madder?” he asked. “The image of me with your sister or the fact that I hit the nail on the head?”
It was pretty equal, honestly.
I jumped to my feet, swiped my empty Gatorade bottles off the ground, and stalked away.
“It’s the sister, right?” he called, a smirk in his voice. “Just promise you’ll take me home with you when it hits you how stupid you’re being.”
“I’m not the one being stupid!” I whirled to face him. “I’m finding myself, okay?” Lies. I’d never felt more lost. “And I’m not taking you with me, because I’m not going back!”
“Griffin Tate Dupree?” a male voice whimpered, right at my back.
I spun back around to see… nothing.
“Down here.” A hand waved in my face, way too close.
I looked down. Right in front of me stood a man barely five feet tall, with a magnificent head of white hair and an even more magnificent three-piece suit.
He shoved a legal folder toward me. “You’ve been served.”
I took the folder, my mouth parting slightly. “Served what? I haven’t done anything wrong. How did you even find me out here?”
“It’s my job to find you. Have a nice day.” Then he whipped around, shrieked when he realized the sole of his shoe was smoking, and sprinted out of view.
“Oh, I think you’re going home now,” Boone sang, barely holding it together.
“What are you talking about?” I grumbled, ripping the folder open. I stared down at the document. COMPLAINT FOR DIVORCE. My stomach dropped to the sizzling ground. I spotted a sticky note at the bottom of the first page. “What the…”
Like he thought I’d suddenly forgotten how to read, Boone narrated the handwritten message.
Not Juliette, not Jules. Just J. Like she couldn’t be bothered to write her name.
“Holden?” I said his name like an accusation. The air went out of… everything. “J-Jules is di-divorcing me?”
Boone flipped the sticky note over. “Oh, there’s a PS.”
“XOXO?” my voice cracked. “She can’t write XOXO on a sticky note and attach it to divorce papers!”
“These aren’t divorce papers,” Boone stated.
“This is just the document letting you know they’ll be coming soon.
” He flipped to the next page. “Just kidding. She included a marital settlement agreement.” He flipped another page.
“And a waiver of service.” And another. “The Consent Documents. Yup,” he said, almost admiringly.
“She’s included everything you need to end it now.
You sign that and you’re a free man in a couple of weeks. ”
I ripped the papers from his reach. “Stop talking,” I said, my lungs burning hotter than the fire we’d just fought.
Jules was divorcing me? This separation was supposed to be temporary.
A quick breather so she could realize she missed me too much to stay in Seddledowne.
But divorce? Was…permanent. Final. “No,” I growled.
“Absolutely not.” I jammed the papers back into the folder.
“Have it your way, Jules. Two can play this game.”
“Awfully hard to play a game when you’re thousands of miles apart,” Boone said.
“Shut it. We won’t be thousands of miles apart for long.”
“What was that?” He cupped his ear again. “Did someone make a complete U-turn?”
“Careful, Boonie Boy. You’re still standing awfully close to that cliff—and I’m mad enough now that I just might do it.”
He sprinted past me, face twisted in mock terror. Then he clicked his tongue like I was his puppy. “Let’s go, Ctrl-Z. I’ll drop you at the airport.”
I jogged behind him. “Thought you were coming with.”
“And look like an overeager fool?” He cut left onto the trail. “You gotta soften Sophie up for me first.”