Page 8 of Worth the Fall
Rolling my neck, I shut my laptop, knowing I wouldn’t get much work done sitting by her. She had a wealthy look to her, even in the terrible plane lighting. A short brown bob that was sharply cut off right below her chin. She was wearing a white sweater and crisp white pants. Her gold jewelry was obviously real, as heavy as it looked. “What takes you to Arizona?” I tried to steer the awkward conversation away from her apparent terrible marriage.
“Checking on the other house.”
Harrison always wanted multiple houses. He said he used to “summer” in North Carolina and “winter” in Nevada. As if “summer” and “winter” were verbs. When I asked if they had to move their dishes and furniture every season, he scoffed androlled his eyes. So apparently, there were already dishes and furniture in both houses.
Another reason I could look forward to marrying him.
“Are you married?” The woman asked as if reading my thoughts.
I pulled my hair off my neck and tied it back with an elastic. “Not yet.”
“Yet?”
“We’re talking about getting engaged,” I explained. We still had almost three hours left in the flight. All I wanted to do was put on my playlist and become half-conscious.
“Living together?”
“No.”
“What’s his name? How long have you been dating?” She was slowly turning her body towards me, signaling that this conversation was nowhere near over.
I might as well give up the one-word answers and indulge myself with this stranger on a plane. “His name is Harrison, and we’ve been together for a year now. He’s a venture capitalist, and we met through mutual friends.” I hoped I had covered any future questions with my long answer.
“Harrison,” she nodded to herself. After a moment of silence, she threw a look at her husband. “You can tell how much a woman loves her man by the way she says his name.”
I tilted my head. “Really? How?” I wondered how I said Harrison’s name.
“Like this,” she sat herself up straight. “This is my husband…George.” She said his name longand boring, as if it was an effort to get it out without a yawn.
I couldn’t help but smile. “What did you learn about me?”
“Oh, you mean you andHarrison,” she said in the same flat drone she said, “George.”
I tried not to be offended and sighed. “No, it’sHarrison,” I tried to force his name to be cheerful and fun, but with such a proper name, it came out laughable.
She pursed her lips, taunting me again before pointing to my laptop. “I must ask what kind of job makes you look so important, with your badges and itineraries. What takes you to Arizona?”
The subject I had been avoiding. “I’m a marketing executive working on the rodeo tour.”
The woman gave a visible shiver. “I love a good rodeo. Sweaty men, adrenaline pumping, the sounds, the smells, it’s enough to drive a single woman mad. You should consider yourself lucky.”
I chuckled, reminding myself of what Martha had said not that long ago. “I’m engaged, remember?”
“Not yet.”
Chapter Four
Dragging my big white suitcase behind me, I wandered through the airport, toward the exit. The blazing sun piercing through the floor-to-ceiling windows made my headache tighten. The woman on the plane hadn’t stopped talking for three hours, and I was exhausted.
But I didn’t have time to be exhausted. I had a meeting in half an hour and a rodeo in two hours. Thanks to my company’s poor time management planning skills, I needed to hurry.
Mr. Sterling’s itinerary had said I was going to be picked up and driven to my first meeting. It did not specify who or what was going to be picking me up, but the muddy black truck waiting right outside was not what I was expecting.
The automatic doors opened, and the heat of the Arizona sun hit me like a train. I took a breath, making sure I wasn’t having a hot flash, and it was in fact just that hot. My blue button-up shirt was already sticking to my blazer. I regretted every article of clothing I had chosen this morning.
“Legra?” A deep voice said as soon as I had come to my senses.
I raised my eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”
