Jake (Downton Cowboys #2) - Miley Maine Page 0,67

with laughter and tears, stories, and anecdotes from the past, wine and iced tea, and Nicholas’ dutiful service as Aunt Diane repeatedly sends him out to buy us drinks or clean the backyard.

I cannot remember the last time I spent such a day with extended family. Nonetheless, I am eternally grateful for their presence and support.

When Betty pulls me aside and asks me about Jake, I shrug with a straight face.

“I don’t want to hear from him,” I lie.

“Don’t you wanna know what happened?” She raises an eyebrow.

“Will it change anything? He lied to me.”

Shrugging, she whispers, “That’s how you feel now,” before walking away to rejoin the group in the living room.

On the third day, just as my depression starts sinking in, I hear a knock on the door. Mom is out in the backyard reading, so I turn off the stove and go to open it.

“Ms. Frances? This is for you.” The mailman hands me a sealed envelope.

“Uh—thank you?” I flip it over. There is no return address. “Do you know who it’s from?”

“No.” He casually shrugs. “Sometimes folks just drop things by the office with only the recipient’s address.”

“I see. Well, thanks again.”

Closing the door, I examine the handwriting on the back. It does look a lot like Jake’s, but it can also be anyone’s. It says, ‘Ms. Belle Frances’ and I am certain that my father would never write it like that. He would use ‘Miss.’

I open the letter to realize that it is quite lengthy. My eyes instinctively skip to the signature.

Jake.

Do I want to read this? What can he possibly say that would make me feel better?

I march over to my room and toss it on the bed, closing the door and deciding that I am in no mood to read it right now.

I spend all day in my nightgown eating popcorn and reading a sappy romance classic. Mom, equally depressed, checks in on me from time to time. She is busying herself with tending to a new flower bed in the garden with Aunt Diane and knitting through the evening.

We are both quietly mourning our relationships. Hers, I am sure, hurts a thousand times more. Despite my desire to comfort her, I simply fail to find the words.

And so, the day passes in silence.

Finally, I decide to call it a night and retire to my room. The moment I open the door and turn on the light, my eyes land on Jake’s ominous envelope and the unread letter on the covers.

Sighing, I flop down, feeling the mattress bounce beneath me. I pick up the letter and force my eyes to look at the words, in spite of the tears instantly filling them.

Belle… my love,

I need to start somewhere and I’m failing miserably… so here it goes.

I’m sorry.

I’m awfully and terribly sorry for not telling you about my previous marriage. I was far too blinded by my happiness to have found you, and far too scared to destroy it.

But here we are, nonetheless. You can’t escape fate, I guess.

My first wife’s name was Lola Thorman.

When we met, she never spoke of her family. She said it all hurt too much, and that she would rather forget… and I respected that, knowing all too well what it’s like to have a traumatic life with a family that is less than perfect.

In retrospect, I now realize that she must have changed her last name or taken her mother’s from the start. At any rate, we got married, and she became Lola Downton.

Soon enough, Lola gave birth to a boy… Gus. He looked a lot like her, and much less like me.

I loved him to death.

A few years later, I found out that she had been cheating on me with my ranch manager at the time. When I confronted her, she confessed, saying that they were in love and that she best be gone.

Naturally, she wanted to take Gus. And naturally, I wanted to keep him. After days of fighting and negotiating, I offered her a substantial sum of money in return for the boy. She accepted it.

On the night she disappeared with her lover, she broke into my house and took Gus anyway, leaving me the most painful note I ever had to read. She wrote that he was not my son. That he belonged to the manager. Apparently, their affair had been going on for much longer than I had thought.

It was very clear that I would never see either one of them again.

I won’t