If he had been a betting man, never ever, not even with the odds forever in his favor, would Jack have bet his afternoon would have been spent the way it had. Grateful that the winter sun had gone down mid-afternoon, Jack sat in his truck contemplating his next move. He needed to get into the house. He needed to get to his room in order to safely stash his purchase. He needed to return Mallory's tablet, or iPad as he'd been told, to the table or really anywhere where it looked like she'd just left it. He needed to do all of this sight unseen, and that was the problem. The girls were in the kitchen, no doubt working on dinner, and right now, he didn't want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to get to his room. It had been a long and somewhat of head-spinning afternoon.

Jack was returning from an afternoon in Calgary, an impromptu afternoon trip that never in a million years did he see coming. Even now, still sitting in the truck, he wasn't sure why he'd felt the urge to go to Calgary, to an electronic store of all places either. Jack didn't like electronics, hated them, to be honest. Lou had tried over and over to get him to use a laptop for the ranch business. He'd done it some; he wasn't an idiot, so if he was shown once, okay twice, well, maybe three times, he could figure it out. It just annoyed him. What was so wrong with a checkbook and a ledger? Things had been done that way for decades, and it worked. He was old school, preferring that, but Lou had been in his ear plenty of times telling him he needed to get with the times. Well, now he was, sort of.

He couldn't believe that Mallory had tried to sign him up for an online dating site. Online dating. He even huffed now as he thought about it. What was so wrong with the old fashioned way of meeting people? In his eyes, a barbecue was a great place to meet someone, and he sighed thinking about that because he had met a very special someone at a barbecue over six years ago but look where that had them now.

Jack had never given much stock to online dating or online anything. He'd heard Lou talk about it, not that she'd used it either, but before she'd met Peter, she'd complained many, may times about not being able to meet someone. Then, she'd met Peter, well, of course with Lisa's help, through emails, again something online. There her name was again, Lisa. She'd been an integral part of their lives for years, and now, when Mallory was meddling and trying to help him move on by setting up some ridiculous online dating profile, one that he didn't even approve of. It just figured that the top match to his profile was that same woman, Lisa.

Lisa, or "TheGoodLife" as her profile name was listed, well, Jack was learning a lot of new terminology with all of this technology. He'd decided to buy himself one of those gadgets, or tablets, or what had the young man at the store called them? Oh, yes, iPads. Seeing Lisa's face as his profile's top match just opened old wounds. He'd been very nonchalant about looking at that profile, especially after Tim had given him such a hard time and had laughed his way out of the house back to the barn, only after the color drained from his face when he realized Jack's top match was Lisa. With Tim out of the house, Jack had quietly moved Mallory's iPad to his room where he'd read up on this profile she had created for him. Not that he would admit it to her, but she'd pretty much nailed him. Sure, she'd asked him some questions about random, stupid things, but his profile was pretty accurate. Looking at the list she'd created of his likes, well, it was pretty accurate: fly fishing, Alberta sunsets, red wine, rodeo, and family. Yeah, that was Jack. Mallory had written a really ridiculous line about Jack looking for someone to ride off into the sunset with, but he didn't know how to change that, and on some level, yes, he would like someone to ride with around the ranch. Lisa had done that, and he cherished those rides and wanted more of them if she'd ever hear him out. He had to admit that Tim was right to laugh, Mallory listing him as athletic, but for 70, he was pretty proud of how fit he was. There were days with his arthritis he felt much older than 70, but there were plenty of times when he felt much younger. Lisa had always joked the same, telling him he didn't need any more 'bells and whistles,' as he was all the cowboy she wanted. Lisa again. His mind couldn't stop going back to her.

Those thoughts of Lisa and the recent stupid online dating profile were exactly the reasons he had gone to Calgary. While he didn't give much stock in those website matching services, he had to admit that something had to be right with them. His top match was Lisa, and while the two had 'gone their ways' as Tim kept saying, well, Jack hadn't wanted that. He wanted Lisa back in his life and wasn't sure where things had gone so wrong. She wanted France, and his admitting he hated France had promoted the, "Where do we go from here?" Conversation that had them going away from each other. He missed her. He missed her so much, and while he couldn't talk to anyone about this, he just wanted Lisa back. He was too stubborn to call her and see if they could work out something, but part of that, he wasn't sure what they could work out. He really, really hated France, and she did love it. She was young; he was old, and he knew he was holding her back from her dream life in France. It did seem crazy they were a match, both as they had dated and as the dating profile had matched them now. They seemed worlds apart, but something worked with them. He'd seen it, and now, even some stupid computer saw it too.

So, with this new iPad, or well, new to him, because Jack had bought a refurbished one, not wanting to spend a fortune on something he wasn't sure he'd really use, Jack wanted to try to talk to Lisa through the cover of this dating profile. He didn't know anything about how all this worked and was very grateful the young man who had helped him this afternoon took pity on his technology ignorance and schooled him in both the use of the iPad and also in the use of dating websites. Sure, Jack was aware this same young man was probably laughing it up in his work break room, telling his colleagues about the clueless old man he'd helped, but at least to his face, the young man had been respectful and helpful. He'd been in that store for over two hours, even slipping the guy $20 as he left, when he knew you didn't tip store salesmen. He appreciated all the guy had done and said, knowing he'd gone well above and beyond his normal job of selling iPads. Jack had explained his problem, had shown the guy Mallory's iPad with his profile up, and the salesman had helped him purchase and set up one for himself to view his own profile. It was a good thing Mallory had stored Jack's login and that the salesman had known where to find it.

Now that he was home, Jack, or LoneWrangler66, as Mallory had called him, was ready to try this experiment. It was silly, totally stupid, but there was something about hiding behind a computer profile that made him have the courage to try this. Eventually, he'd tell Lisa who he was, that is, if she even replied, but he wanted to reach out but couldn't do it as himself. There was no explanation except that with Lisa, he felt like a coward, and he didn't know where to start. He just knew he wanted her back in his life. He missed her and was lonely not talking to her.

So, yes, Mallory had been a pain in his side, going around and setting up this profile, but maybe she'd given him a way to try and talk to Lisa when he was too stubborn and cowardly to do so. Life without out her wasn't so great so far, and he didn't want to continue like this, but he didn't know how to fix it. Maybe this technology that people had been trying to get him to embrace would be a start. If anything, it made him realize he wasn't as old and washed up as Tim kept telling him he was; Jack had 12 profiles already reaching out to him, or so he'd been told by the young man helping him. Yes, he still had it, and that was something to make him smile. Problem was, he had absolutely no interest in any of those other profiles, just one profile, one in particular, and well, this might be his dumbest idea yet, but he was going to try.

Jack, or LoneWrangler66, was going to reach out to Lisa, or TheGoodLife, and see if they could talk behind the mask of this Internet thing, this modern technology, that had been a thorn in his side, but maybe, just maybe, was the way back to Lisa.