Chapter 1: The Rancher’s Son

 

NANCY SILVERS had felt the need for a get-away for months. Her disillusioned heart needed to gain clarity on what she really wanted the rest of her life to look like. She just couldn’t decide where to go. Then, remembering how bold and confident she had been in that summer 45 years ago when her future was all in front of her, all the good memories of Estes Park began to bubble up to consciousness. It would be the perfect place for having enough distance from Sacramento, and from Charlie, to finally make the decision on what to do about her marriage. 

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Planning to return to a place she had always thought of as special warmed her heart, and not the least because of a memorable relationship there with Vic the rancher’s son. She had never forgotten that night with him under a lone, wind-bent pine tree in the pasture out on Deer Lick Road where she had her first sexual experience. That was back before college when life seemed less complicated. Before she had embarked on a career she loved, when she had been hopeful about marriage. Way back before her optimism had turned into realization that the gulf between herself and Charlie was only growing wider.

 

There was something exhilarating about the drive up from Longmont through the forest that gave a Brigadoon quality to her arrival, creating a sense of peace paired with an underlay of excitement. Driving through town to the Bear Ridge Lodge resort, much still looked the same, but time had brought an abundance of dreadful development, she thought.  Despite the changes, she found the village and its quirks familiar for one who was otherwise a flatlander from California farm country.  Estes had been her coming of age town.  Her first job was here. It was the first place several older guys already in college had ever flirted with her high school self. Best of all, it was where her first honest to goodness love affair had begun. .......

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....... “Nancy? Nancy Silvers. I thought that was you,” he declared. “My god, how long has it been? How are you?” His enthusiasm for recognizing her caused her a new rush of light-headed, goose-bumpy sensations.

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“Hello Vic. Still here, eh?"  she asked, hoping her voice sounded more casual than she felt. “I thought you had moved away from Colorado.”

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“Yep, I spent about 30 years chasing adventures everywhere but here, until mom passed and my sister was about to sell her half of the ranch. I couldn’t let that happen so I bought her out,” he summarized his life succinctly. “Wow, it’s good to see you. What have you been up to? What are you doing in town?”

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She could feel him wanting more than these few minutes of catching up on their lives. “Oh, I traveled for years myself, as a journalist. The last twenty I’ve been mostly publishing a newspaper in Sacramento. Teaching a bit. Just retired. Thought I’d visit some old haunts and write a memoir.”

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“So you came back to the scene of the original sin,” he teased knowingly, that ever-present twinkle in his eye giving the impression he was thinking about the first night they had made love.

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“Something like that,” she smiled, not certain she was ready to revisit that memory with him even though it was still easily accessed and precious to her whenever she thought of Estes. She had heard he was married and she didn’t want to encourage something that would likely end in rejection. She tried to change the subject, “I was sad to see the Pinetree Inn was gone.”

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“Yeah, that was a big loss for the village. They’d been operating since 1940-something. The owners can’t decide what to do with the property, whether to rebuild or sell, so the lot has just sat empty for the last 5 years or so. Hey, look, we should have dinner and really catch up. How about the Glen Haven Inn tonight?” he said with such an intensely charming look in his eyes that she found it impossible to refuse.

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