Page 22 of Then You Happened
“Seriously, Fi. What is being said?”
She smiles tightly, the lines at her eyes crinkling in a way that tells me she isn’t going to tell me because she’s protecting me. It’s the same look she’d give me when she’d come out for her house calls to do my hair and knew what was being said about Fletcher in town but didn’t want to let me know.
She holds her finger up before switching on the blow-dryer, and I know the moment is lost. There’s no way she can shout over the sound and not let everyone else in the salon hear her.
So, I sit with my thoughts. I let the doubt own me, and the want to just get the hell away from here is just as strong as my need to prove them all wrong. That I’m nothing like my husband. That I’m nothing like the woman they’ve made me out to be.
The question is, do I believe it or am I turning a blind eye because I’m afraid to know the truth?
“And voila!” she says as she switches the blow-dryer off and unfastens the cape from around my neck. “As good as new.”
I laugh. “Far from it, but—” I stare at myself in the mirror. At my hair, which is a couple of inches shorter but looks completely different. At the shiny color that has replaced the dull flatness I walked in here with. At the little bit of life in my eyes. “It’s a start.”
“Damn right it’s a start.” She pulls me into a hug so that her lips are close to my ear as she whispers, “I miss you. I gave you space because you asked for it, but I’m sick of giving it. Next time I come visit you at the ranch, I’m not going to let you pretend not to be there. I’d love to see your gorgeous face more than once every few months as you pass through town.”
My cheeks flush with emotion as I struggle with how to respond. “You might, but no one else does.”
“Pshaw.” She waves her hand my way. “So what? Between the article and your husband, you’re doomed for life? Don’t give them the satisfaction, girl. Get out and live, Tate, or life is going to pass you by.”
I meet her eyes and wish that taking her advice was as easy as she makes it seem, but it isn’t. It never has been. I walked away from everything I’d ever known for a man who I thought would be my everything. And he walked us into a town, a life, and a lifetime that I’m now stuck in alone.
“It’s easier than it seems.”
“Everything is.”
“How much do I owe?” I ask to try to change the topic.
“It’s on the house.”
“Thank you, but that’s not necess—”
“You can pay me back by introducing me to your new ranch manager.” She laughs and wiggles her eyebrows.
“My new—what?” I look around as if the crystal chandelier above holds the answer to her question.
“Long. Lean. Hotter than fuck. That Jack is a nice piece of eye candy to admire . . . and, uh, imagine other things about too.”
The image of Jack standing on my porch, arms crossed over his chest, and a smirk on his lips flashes through my mind.
“He’s not my manager—”
“Why the hell not?” She smacks a hand against the counter. “Everyone knows why he’s in town. Even the women who hate you are rooting for you—if not a little bit jealous—and the men are hating him already.”
“I doubt anyone is rooting for me,” I counter. “And he isn’t my—”
“That’s not a good enough reason.” She props her hands on her hips and really hears me for the first time. “If you’re not coming into town because you’re afraid of what they’re going to say, you sure as hell can be coming at home.”
“Jesus, Fi.” I cough the words out.
“We’ve established that Fletcher screwed you. Sure, you loved him, but I’m pretty damn sure he ruined that after you found out what he did to you. Why is it a bad thing to hire a man who might work you just as good in the sheets as he works on the ranch?” She raises her eyebrows as I sputter for a response. “C’mon. You know that passed through your mind. Then you got angry for thinking it. Then you denied that you ever thought it.”
I stare at her with my jaw lax and my eyes wide.
“It’s called moving on. We’ve all been there. Hell, I’ve been there six times,” she says, referring to her failed marriages. “I know everything you went through was a hundred times worse than what I did so the guilt must be astronomical, but screw the guilt. Have some fun. Ride the cowboy.”
I bite back my laugh and suddenly turn sober. “Wait, is he telling people he’s working at the ranch?”
She just smiles and shrugs. “It isn’t what a man says”—she winks— “but what a man does that matters.”
