“You sure?” he asked.
Sam looked out toward the mountains.
Quiet stretched for a while before he finally spoke.
“She used to ride through that lower field.”
Grant didn’t need to ask who.
“Clara?” he said carefully.
Sam nodded once.
For a while, he just stood there looking toward the ridgeline.
Then finally?—
“I waited seventeen years for her to come back.”
The words landed heavy.
Grant looked over at him.
No anger.
No bitterness.
He just looked tired all the way through.
Sam huffed out something that almost sounded like a laugh.
“Hell,” he muttered. “I dated.”
Grant stayed quiet as Sam looked back out at the grass. “But nobody ever measured up to her.”
Then Sam finally looked over at him.
“Land’s easier,” he said.
Grant frowned.
“What?”
Sam nodded toward the mountains.
“Land stays. Horses stay. Work stays.”
A long pause.
“Give your heart to the ground, it’ll hold steady.”
His eyes drifted upward toward the open sky beyond the ridge.
“But give it to a bird…”
He shrugged once.
“Eventually it flies.”
