The Cowboy Says Yes, page 15
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because I’ve said your name three times and you haven’t heard me.”
Zack keyed back in to his surroundings, their first-class cabin shimmering back to life in front of him. He’d missed it all, from everyone boarding to the round of flight instructions from the crew. “Sorry. Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You look upset. Was it the selfies?”
“What?” Her anxiety registered loud and clear. Was this really what she expected of him? That every quiet moment was an explosion waiting to happen.
If the news about his father had knocked him for a loop, that revelation threatened to drag him beneath an emotional undertow.
He laid a hand over hers, where it rested on the seat arm between them. “Of course not. It was fine.”
“They were really excited to meet you.” A merry smile settled on her face while an unholy twinkle lit her eyes. “And I love seeing how flustered people get over you.”
Zack felt the same embarrassed tug as the night before when Carter ribbed him about the pool game. “They were sweet. Although I swear they get younger all the time.”
“No, it’s just us who keep getting older.”
“Hmm, maybe, but I think they were disappointed we weren’t on the same flight.” Determined to erase her concerns, he added, “I was thinking about what you said. About my dad. About how he feels.”
“And?”
“And maybe I have been a bit hard on him.”
“You have a right to be upset. He’s been miserable to everyone and you’ve borne the brunt of it. But I don’t think he’s doing it quite as intentionally as it seems.”
“Yeah. I think you’re right about that.”
She was right, and she had also given him something to think about. A new view to a situation he thought he understood. Yet one more thing that had been missing from his life as his marriage continued its gradual decline.
Hadley was his partner, in all things. And while he had spent time thinking about what they had lost between the two of them—laughing, intimacy, sharing—this discussion about his father was one more stark reminder of all the other things they’d lost.
Marriage wasn’t just sex, or nights on the couch watching TV, or dinner dates. It was also conversations about loved ones, and the tough talks that often went with it. It was sharing anger and frustrations that, even if well-earned, meant having a partner who could objectively hold a mirror up to them.
Who could give you a new perspective.
It was just one more thing they’d lost.
And as they headed toward California, Zack had to admit that it was everything.
Hadley took a handful of the pub mix on the counter in the airport lounge and considered her options. Their layover in Salt Lake City was extended due to a flight delay and she was debating the wisdom of attempting to do some Christmas shopping in the airport. And each time she considered it, she defaulted back to how nice it was to sit with her husband for a few idle hours talking about everything and nothing in particular.
And who wanted gifts from the airport?
“Isn’t this great?” Zack dragged out a box of candy he’d beelined for on their walk through the terminal. “Carter mentioned these mint chocolates once and talked about how good they were.”
“Our Carter?” she asked as she amended the thought about airport gifts. Clearly her husband was in his glory. “The healthy and fit one?”
Zack snorted at that as he extended the box toward her. “Fit my ass. That man loves junk food more than my father.”
Hadley took one of the treats and raised her eyebrows. “Now that’s saying something. Especially since your father’s been hoarding my tater tot casseroles. I swear he stole another one last week out of my freezer.”
Zack eyed her, his gaze speculative as he chewed on a bite of his chocolate. “And you didn’t maybe happen to put a few extras in there just for him.”
Hadley sat up straighter and took a small nibble of her chocolate, avoiding Zack’s gaze. “I’d do no such thing.”
“You so did it!” Zack slapped a hand on his knee and reached for the beer before him on the bar. “Don’t play innocent with me.”
It was a bit early for drinks, but they were on vacation and she’d given it all a “what the hell” moment and ordered a Bloody Mary when Zack got his beer. Despite the lingering hangover from the prior night, the drink had gone a long way already to smoothing out any rough edges.
And sitting here staring at her grinning husband finished the job.
“Your father’s entitled to a little treat now and then.”
“I’m not sure a nine by thirteen dish of tater tots, copious amounts of cheese and a heaping of mayo qualifies as a little treat.”
A hard giggle erupted in her chest and she leaned forward, lightly punching him in the arm. “I’m an enabler, what can I say?”
Zack stared down at her, his humor fading as something more intimate took its place. With one lone finger, he brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear, the two of them sharing the same air as they faced each other on cushy bar stools. “No, you’re a temptress.”
“I don’t try to be.”
“Nope.” He sat back and reached for his beer again. “Not buying it.”
“I’m not! I just like to feed people. It makes me feel useful.”
And it did make her feel useful. Happy, too, to know that she’d put a small smile on someone’s face or given them a few moments of enjoyment with her food. That was the real reason she socked away the casseroles for Charlie. He was in a rough patch and if a few extra helpings of processed potatoes and cheese made him feel a bit better then yeah, she’d own it.
“Useful?”
She shrugged as the pointedness of his question sank in. “It’s a good skill to have. People like to eat. And they like to eat even more when it tastes good.”
“There’s more to you than being useful, Hads.”
“Sure, but—” She broke off, not sure where the direction of their conversation had come from or why she’d even used a word like that.
Was that how she saw herself?
A useful tool that got things done on behalf of others? A conduit for other people’s needs with very little focus on her own?
It was a silly thought and she wanted to wave it away before she got too far down a weird path. They were having a good time. Why mar it with something heavy and forlorn? Hadn’t they spent way too many months acting that way?
Yet as she sat there, she had to admit that much of her life was about being useful to others. The way she’d helped her father and sister after her mother died. And the way she’d helped Zack with feeding the ranch hands when they first got married. Even now, she wasn’t under any illusions that the Cooking Network found her to be anything more than a means to an end. That end being their ratings and profitability.
They’d made her a successful woman because of it, but she well knew anything that tarnished the image they projected on their TV programs and on their website would make her the next network casualty faster than she could say “boo.”
So yeah, she might see herself through a rather utilitarian lens, but she was honest and realistic about it all.
“But what?” Zack pressed his question again, and she realized that this was her real chance to tell him how she felt. To put to words all the things she hadn’t been able to say these past few years.
“I don’t think being useful’s a bad thing. I never saw it as a problem or as something I resented. Or I didn’t until you and I stopped finding a way to talk about stuff.”
“Why’s that?”
Hadley pushed on, suddenly determined to get it out. “With you I’ve always felt valuable just being me. No other reason needed.”
“That’s still true, you know.”
“Is it?”
“Of course it is. You don’t need to be anything for me or try and be something you’re not. You just need to be yourself.”
His words were honest and in them Hadley heard his genuine conviction and belief in her. He was such a good man. For as mad as she’d been over the past few years, nothing had ever diminished that belief in his innate goodness and decency as a human being.
But as his gaze sought hers, seemingly trying to will her to understand, Hadley knew the truth.
Zack might believe he didn’t need her to be more, but that was only because she’d been hiding a large part of herself for the past two years. A part he’d clearly sensed based on the increasing distance between them, even if he couldn’t put it into words.
The woman he loved lived in his mind as a wife and a mother.
And she had no desire to be both any longer.
Chapter 12
“I owe you big time, Zack.” Bryce Donnelly had said something similar about five times already, but Hadley just smiled through it, already expecting the effusive praise when he turned to her. “You too, Hadley. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to juggle your schedule.”
“I wouldn’t miss it, Bryce.”
With their shopping plans derailed by the flight delay in Salt Lake City and significant traffic snarls on their drive from the airport to the hotel, Hadley had taken the glass of wine Zack poured from the minibar and raced off to get ready for the evening. Bryce’s arrival to their suite had kept her from saying much else to Zack, but she hoped their discussion of something as pedestrian as usefulness didn’t make a return trip.
As for her and Zack?
Hadley took a fortifying sip of wine and vowed to worry about her somber thoughts about the two of them later.
“So, Bryce, tell me a bit more about the people we’re having dinner with.”
Even though she’d already had a full overview of who they were meeting with, as well as the plans for the entire trip, the shift in direction was enough to get Bryce onto a new topic. And what a topic it was. If she had tried to script it, she would never have come close to the drama that was promised for the evening.
“Susan Edgar is the chief marketing officer of Total Foods and her brother, Louis, is the president, CEO and de facto head of the chain. Louis’s wife is about twenty years younger and Susan is not a fan.”
“Why would his sister care who he’s married to?” Zack asked, the ice in his own glass clinking as he gestured at Bryce.
Bryce shrugged. “Family dynamics? Worries about the family money? Irritation the wife can sit back and bask in all the family hard work? Total Foods has been on a hot trajectory in the past five years and Susan is responsible for most of it. What started out as a family business that catered to a certain customer has hit the big time with its organic approach to food sourcing and curated shopping experience inside the store. Her marketing work has driven that.”
“Sounds like Louis is no slouch, though. He’s obviously known how to run the business to keep up with the promise of marketing,” Zack said, adding in another option to Bryce’s list. “You can run as many commercials as you want, but if the operations aren’t behind it, that shit falls flat.”
“Total Foods is her business,” Bryce stressed. “And the woman misses absolutely nothing.”
“We’ll just make sure the women are at opposite ends of the table,” Hadley suggested, envisioning the intimate dinner Bryce had planned for tonight. It would be her and Zack, Bryce and two of his team members, and then Susan and Louis and Louis’s wife, Madelina.
“It doesn’t help that Susan isn’t married,” Bryce added. “Total workaholic.”
Although she had built a particularly unfavorable impression of Susan Edgar due to the woman’s disdain for her younger sister-in-law, the discussion Hadley had with Bea at the Branded Mark the night before came back in full force. “Maybe she likes what she does.”
“Sure, maybe.” Bryce shrugged again. “Maybe work fills the time. Who knows? If my wife and I didn’t have any kids, we’d have a hell of a lot of time.” He grinned broadly at Zack and Hadley. “Like you two. You’re jet-setting in here together, not a care in the world.”
Hadley was prevented from saying anything by the knock on the door, but she couldn’t help being struck by Bryce’s casual dismissal of Susan’s life. The worst part, she admitted to herself, was that Bryce likely had no idea what he’d said was dismissive.
Sort of like skinny-pants marketing guy and his discussion of demographics.
And hell, she admitted to herself, she could complain about it all she wanted, but wasn’t Total Foods taking on Wayne and Sons grass-fed beef because they had a demographic that wanted that sort of offering?
Didn’t her show reach specific demographics? Cohorts of people who’d made her very successful, in fact.
Why did it seem so overtly obvious and maybe even necessary in business and so frustratingly one-sided when it came to thinking about actual people?
Because no matter how she spun it in her mind, that lingering conclusion that seemed to hover in the air left her feeling at odds. According to the rest of the world, if you didn’t have children, something was wrong. Whether it was how you filled your days, or how you spent your time, or even the perception of how much time you had available to you.
Zack set his glass on the small bar area of the suite before extending a hand for her wine. She gave him her glass, still stuck on the questions swirling in her mind.
Why was she so worried about this?
And why had the conversation with Bea bothered her so badly?
She should shrug it off. People thought lots of things and none of it meant they truly understood what another person was living with. Yet the threads of that conversation continued to swirl, like a frustrating storm hovering on the horizon.
It’s an acronym. Professional Aunt, No Kids.
It’s a trendy marketing term right now.
They claim these women buy a lot of the expensive toys. Clearly out of the depth of their professional pockets and the lack of buying them for the children they don’t have.
If she didn’t have Zack, she’d be a PANK. Or would be one when Harper had children. And based on the deteriorating direction of her marriage, it was suddenly a possibility that seemed starkly real and tangible.
Was that what had her so bothered?
Even as she turned that over in her mind, she admitted that the term troubled her, regardless of the current issues in her marriage. She was angry for Bea. Angry for the women who were in the same boat. Angry that their love for the children in their lives felt exploited instead of being seen as gestures of love.
Even the fact they’d been categorized as a group who liked her show and responded to her work troubled her. She wanted people watching because they enjoyed what she had to share, not because they were some sort of free bank account that could be tapped into by advertisers.
So no, it wasn’t just concern for her own future.
Because married or not, she no longer wanted children. And the world didn’t know what to do with that.
“You okay?” Zack nodded toward the door. “Looks like the car is here.”
“Yeah.” She tried to muster up a smile but didn’t think she got much past a small grimace. “I’m good.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder, his gaze direct. In his eyes she saw the shimmering truth. Zack hadn’t missed Bryce’s reference to children, either.
That knowledge hovered there between them, neither of them saying anything. Like always, neither she nor Zack were willing to put voice to the very real truth they both knew. The truth that stretched out between them like a wide-open canyon.
Because once they did put it to words, there was nothing to save them from the drop into that abyss.
The ride to dinner was relatively short, at least according to Bryce’s team members who lived in LA and were joining them for the evening, but Zack couldn’t deny the all-star views out his window. They’d left their hotel in Beverly Hills, joining up in the limo Total Foods had sent to pick up everyone from Wayne and Sons. More than a half hour later they’d passed the Hollywood Bowl and, a bit farther on, the world-famous Hollywood sign. All in a distance that would have taken him about five minutes—ten tops—at home.
Had he ever expected to see or experience things like this in his life?
A small-town Montana rancher in Beverly Hills? It sounded like the title of a slapstick comedy, not his life. Only it was.
He’d come to understand a few years before that his wife was famous. It had taken some getting used to, but they’d both had the time to ease into the situation. Hadley’s show had been a success from the beginning, but that success had built on itself, layer by layer. A core group of fans, that was then added to by those who enjoyed the show and told others, which was further added on to by those who found her through magazine articles or TV interviews or her books.
It was his own fame that had been the real surprise.
The idea that there were people enamored with him had been a strange truth to accept.
Hadley, he understood. She was warm, fun and beautiful. But him?
He spent his life around cows every day. What was so interesting about that?
Only people did find it interesting. Bea often talked about “the cowboy effect,” and what his presence on the show, along with his ranch hands, did for ratings.
It had become the strange reality and while he wanted to say he was used to it, there were definitely moments when it overwhelmed him.
“I don’t want to look like a noob”—Hadley leaned into him, her lips against his ear—“but the Hollywood sign looked really cool.”
“I know. I noticed it, too.”
“You can take the ranchers out of the country—” She left the comment hanging there.
“But you can never take the country out of the ranchers.”
“Amen.”
They sat there together as time seemed to stretch out, their faces turned toward one another on the limo’s side bench seat. Zack felt something shift in the air between them—nothing more than a moment in a day full of them—but once more that persistent sense that he had something to be hopeful about shot through him like an electric current.
