Page 7 of The Mountain Echoes
We’re not in public, and Hudson has dropped the good-husband routine.
I became part of Celine’s circle about a year ago, when things between us got…friendly.
Not close, but friendly enough.
Hudson had left her and Wildflower Canyon to shack up with his mistress, only to come crawling back a few months later, hat in hand, full of regret.
I felt sorry for her then.
She made overtures—flirted, hinted—but I never took the bait. I don’t sleep with married women, no matter how messy their marital lives are.
Celine and Hudson are a strangely co-dependent couple.
I’ve told Celine more than once—usually when she’s in full rant mode about Hudson—to just divorce him already. She calls him a loser, says she deserves better. I don’t disagree. But no matter how often she swears she’s done, it always loops back to the same old cycle: hate, love, blame, need.
Like clockwork.
Like an addiction?
“You always had a soft spot for her,” Celine complains, tears filling her eyes.
She cries easily. At the drop of a nine-gallon hat, as the cliché goes.
There’s something soft about Celine that makes a man want to protect her, take care of her.
That’s not a feeling that her sister evokes. No, she looks like someone who can take care of herself. There is a hard-as-nails quality about her. And I don’t think she appreciates a man who opens the door for her or pays her tab.
“I’ve known Aria longer than I’ve known you,” Hudson remarks as he looks out of the car window.
Aria and Hudson had been friends, from what I gathered, and had come to Wildflower Canyon for a visit. She’d just been twenty and Hudson a year older. He had fallen in love with Celine, who is two years her sister’s junior.
They married in a hurry because Celine was pregnant.
After the miscarriage, she couldn’t get pregnant again. Not being able to have children has taken its toll on them. It’s another crack in a foundation already worn thin.
“You aremyhusband, not hers.”
Celine has tears streaming down her face. Of course, she does. She’s one of those women who manage to look beautiful even when they cry, like a heroine from a Jane Austen novel, delicate and tragic. When my sister Joy cries, it’s full-on blotchy skin, red nose, and hiccupping sobs. In sharp contrast, Celine’s sorrow photographs well.
I watch almost unperturbed.
I’ve been with this couple often enough over the past couple of years, since I've gotten to know them, to know that this kind of drama is part of their marriage.
Hudson says hurtful things that she probably goads him into by nagging him or being needy. Then, she cries and….
“Baby, come on.” Hudson pulls her into his arms and kisses her hair with the air of an exhausted man.
She sobs softly.
As much as I like Celine, the way she spirals whenever Hudson is around tests the limits of my patience.
I turn away from them, wishing the driver would get us to Longhorn Ranch fast so I can get a drink.
I intend to talk to Aria while she’s here, which, according to Celine, is not going to be for long. The will’s being read in two days, after which I’m hoping to finalize the deal and fold Longhorn into Kincaid Farms.
I’m going to make sure everyone who works there istaken care of. Earl can do whatever he wants—I will take care of him. Nadine, I’m hoping will stay on. She’s the reason that Longhorn has been surviving—she runs the farm and orchards with mechanical precision. She’ll be an asset across my company.
The Longhorn herd’s not as large as it used to be. It shouldn’t be hard to integrate it into mine.
