The Cowboy's Wife For One Night

Mia scrambled into her shoes.

“No, no, I’m Mia Alatore. I’m Jack McKibbon’s wife.”

“Oh!” The woman smiled and reached out to shake her hand. “Sorry, we don’t get a lot of women in fancy dresses hanging out in the engineering lounge.”

Mia laughed, but it was awkward and lame, and after the man and woman got coffee they were out of there pretty quick, leaving her alone, feeling foolish and even more out of place.

She looked up at those headlines, all those pictures of Jack smiling, looking worn-out but satisfied.

Was he really going to give up all that to work the Rocky M?

She looked sideways at her reflection in the stainless steel fridge.

He’s going to give up all that for me? she wondered. Someone who didn’t even come close to fitting into his world.

But it doesn’t matter, she told herself, closing her eyes and turning away from the clippings. It’s a world Jack is leaving behind.

But it was a thought she was having more and more trouble believing.

Mia wasn’t sure how long this meeting was going to take so she kept her shoes on and sat down with her coffee and an ancient People magazine she found in the couch cushions, determined to keep her chin up.

More people came and went. Lots of men in suits, and she tried to be invisible. For the most part it seemed to work. But when one crowd seemed to linger she couldn’t help but overhear them.

They were talking about Jack.

“If he would accept the research position, we could keep him in the field for years at a time,” one man said, taking a sip of coffee and then making a face before setting it down on the counter. “We just need to get to him before MIT does. And,” he turned to a woman at his left, “I heard Matt Damon was kicking around, hoping to talk to him about contract positions with NGOs.”

Mia slumped down in the couch, her heart turning to lead.

The small group of people kept talking about Jack, discussing the possibilities they could offer him, but she tuned them out. Her head was buzzing.

She had been right to doubt. Jack’s world was going to come calling again. It was going to find him and he could only hide out on the Rocky M for so long.

So whether it was now, or five years from now, Mia had no doubt that he’d leave. Again.

But he said he loved me, she reminded herself, holding the words like a talisman.

Mia set aside her coffee cup, doubt like rocks weighing her down, and she waited. She waited long past when Jack said he was going to be done. The sun shifted across the sky, sending long shadows across the quad below.

She took off her shoes again.

Still she waited.

She crept back down the hallway. The conference room doors were shut but she heard rumblings from inside. Male voices and laughing.

Not a reckoning then, she thought, her stomach slipping down to her feet. Mia looked down at her coffee-splattered dress, her bare feet covered in blisters, and felt like a fool.

Hope, foolish and misguided, had led her far from where she belonged and it was time to go back.

She was an afterthought, again.

Mia was done waiting for Jack to come for her.

Jack hurried across campus toward his condo, and even though he was only a few minutes away he dialed Mia’s cell phone number.

“I’m so sorry,” he said when she answered. “I had no idea the meeting would take so long and then…when it was over, there were all these people. You are not going to believe what I’ve been offered—”

“It’s okay,” she said, and Jack paused as a bicycle whizzed across the bike path in front of him.

“There’s no way it’s okay,” he said. “I’ve been gone eight hours.”

“Just come back to the condo,” she said, and the cool levelheadedness in her voice made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “We need to talk.”

Now he was really worried.

Five minutes later he was there and it was worse than he’d thought. The black dress was gone; instead, she wore a baggy long-sleeved tee-shirt, the sexy heels replaced by cowboy boots.

Her duffle bag sat beside the couch, her denim jacket tossed over it.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, looking at all the signs of her imminent departure and feeling panicked.

“It’s okay,” she said, standing up from the couch.

“Clearly, it’s not,” he said, pointing to her bag. “What’s going on, Mia?”

“I think I’m going to end this now,” she said, the shaking in her voice resonating through his chest. “Coming here was a mistake.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Come on, Jack, it’s been a disaster. You’ve been tense, I’ve been awkward.”

Anger ignited in his chest. “Did you think it would be easy?” he asked. “This is the end of my career here—”