Henry laughed and shook his head. "I might think of someone as the woman of my dreams one day, and if I do, I'll decide to love her and be loyal and good to her."
"So, we're both right," Josh said.
Henry smiled and nodded. "Yeah, we're both right, I guess." Henry wasn't overtaken by any magical feeling regarding Amelia Banks. She was beautiful, and he was attracted to her, but it wasn't love at first sight. There was just no such thing. He was, however, looking forward to seeing her again in a few months.
Unfortunately, that would not come to pass.
One day, out of the blue, about a month later, Alex Stockton called Henry and said the series would have to be postponed.
The first thing Henry thought of was Amelia. He had been looking forward to seeing her again. Alex promised it was still on track, but a few months had seemed to take forever, and now it was being extended another year or so.
Henry decided to make a building to bide his time. He knew of Alex's plans to go to a second location to shoot some of the scenes that were in or around old buildings. Henry had the idea of making an authentic-looking building on-site for Alex to use.
The whole idea had nothing to do with the fact that he could potentially have more time with Amelia if they did more of the scenes on site. He told himself that she had nothing to do with it. The building was its own thing. It was a good project for the ranch, and Henry sold his parents on it.
He and his dad decided to build it together. They had quite a bit of help, but they were both highly involved, and it was a fun experience for them to have together.
The new start date was set for May of the following year, and the building took up a lot of that time. Months passed, and Henry's days were full with his horses and the building project.
It was now February, and nearly a year had gone by since that day when Donna gave Amelia her Bible.
He hadn't spoken to Amelia Banks at all since then. He had thought about her, but he didn't know what to say when hereached out. He knew he'd be seeing her soon, so he didn't reach out.
He was thinking about her the whole morning, though, and he was calling her on the phone now. He had gotten Amelia's number from his mom. She answered on the second ring.
"Hello?" she said. Her voice was sweet, and he smiled at the memory of her.
"Hey, this is Henry Sutter, from the ranch in Montana."
"Yeah, of course, Henry."
"Hey, I have some sad news about Ms. Donna."
"I know," she said.
"Oh, you already heard?" he asked, feeling surprised and wondering how that would've been possible.
"Yes, I heard. We kept in touch. I would talk to Ms. Donna once a week. I left a message when I didn't hear from her, and a lady from the church called me back and told me what happened."
"Yeah, she was almost a hundred, so it's weird to say it was unexpected, but it felt unexpected."
"Yeah, her family was talking about how pneumonia gets a lot of people."
"I'm glad she didn't suffer," Henry said.
"Yeah."
"When did you talk to her family?"
"It wasn't just her family. It was other people at the visitation, too," she said.
"Did you go to the… wait… where are you? What visitation? I’m going to the visitation tonight. Tomorrow morning's the funeral."
"I know, but there was also a visitation earlier, at the church."
He cleared his throat. "Are you in Butte?"
"Yes," she said.
