The Cowboy's Wife For One Night

“She is trying to make her marriage work,” Sandra said. Mom, unlike Lucy, was helping Mia pack. No doubt saying little Catholic baby prayers over all Mia’s clothes.

“She is trying to break her own heart. Again.” Lucy stepped into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

“I think…” Mia took a deep breath and took the black dress Lucy had loaned her for the Santa Barbara trip out of her closet. “I think it’s going to be okay and I know you just want the best for me, Lucy. But I think…I think Jack is the best for me.”

“Listen to you,” Lucy said. “You’re not even convinced and you’re trying to convince me?”

Mia stared at her sister for a long time. “I know it seems crazy,” she whispered.

“Totally loco,” Lucy agreed.

“But…I can’t not do it,” she said. “I can’t let him go without trying everything I can to make my marriage work.”

“That’s my girl,” Sandra said, taking the dress from Mia’s hands. “Marriage takes work. Relationships take work. Your sister doesn’t know this because she is too busy to date.”

“Oh-ho!” Mia laughed and Lucy groaned. “Score one for Mom.”

“Fine,” Lucy said. “But if you’re going away for the weekend, you’re not taking these.” Lucy reached into Mia’s suitcase and pulled out a handful of cotton underwear.

“Hey!” Mia said, trying to grab it back.

ucy dug through Mia’s drawers for the silk and lace scraps that Lucy bought Mia every year for her birthday.

“Now,” Sandra said, zipping up the packed bag. “Since you are back on your feet and everything seems to be in hand here, I think it’s time Lucy and I headed home.”

“What?” Mia asked.

“Yeah, what?” Lucy seconded.

“We are not needed here,” Sandra said with a shrug.

“You’re kidding, right?” Mia wondered why her mother was saying this. “You’ve made this house a home again, Mom. Honestly, you can’t leave now.”

“But Lucy’s work—”

“Can keep.” Mia turned to her sister, surprised to hear her volunteer to stay. “It can,” Lucy said. “And the truth is, I want to be here when you get back,” she told Mia. “I want to see for myself that you are okay.”

“I’ll be fine,” Mia said, stroking her sister’s shoulder. “But thank you.”

Sandra was shaking her head. “I really think that it is time.”

“Mom,” Mia said, “I know Walter seems good now, but two months ago the man could barely walk and I would feel a lot better leaving for a few days if I knew someone was here to watch him.”

“I am not that man’s nursemaid,” Sandra said with more venom than Mia had heard from her mother in years.

She shot a quick glance at Lucy, who seemed just as baffled as Mia was at her mother’s sudden, adamant desire to leave.

“I know you’re not and I wouldn’t dream of asking you to be. The truth is, he’ll probably be fine, but I would feel better knowing you were here. To help if it was needed.”

Mom, the good Catholic, could not resist a call to help, but still she seemed reluctant, so Mia pulled out the big guns.

“For me.”

Sandra groaned and muttered something in Spanish that Mia couldn’t quite hear.

“She just put double the baby-making curses on you,” Lucy whispered.

“They are prayers,” Sandra said, wrapping her arms around her girls. Mia dove into the hug, hauling her family against her.

“Fine,” Sandra whispered. “Until you come back, but then we leave.”

“Okay,” Mia agreed.

The world was different today, colored in shades of hope and happiness, and she couldn’t find it in herself to doubt. It seemed like sacrilege in the face of all this love.

So she didn’t doubt. She believed, with her whole heart, that her life, right now, was beginning anew.

17

The next day, a thick tension surrounded Jack. Standing next to him made Mia feel like she was in quicksand up to her neck. She couldn’t even breathe as they stopped in front of the conference room doors.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said, trying to sound optimistic.

He nodded stiffly, running a hand over his tie. “It’s just a formality,” he said. “I’ve already resigned.”

She didn’t say anything; the argument over his resignation had nearly ruined the whole drive from the ranch. She felt like he was making a decision based on grief, and in a few years’ time he’d regret it. He’d wish for his old life back.

“Have some faith in me, Mia,” he’d said. “I know my own mind.”

It had been an inauspicious beginning to their weekend, and it had only gone downhill. Dinner the previous night had been stilted. In a college town like San Luis Obispo, everyone knew everyone, and the second she and Jack sat down to eat, it seemed like everyone in town came by to see how he was doing and express their condolences over Oliver.

Jack had sat there, a returning hero with so much grief on his face that she’d had to go to the bathroom to dry her eyes.