His idea appealed to me, but I wasn’t sure how Lauren would feel. “We’d need to find out the value of the ranch first, and work on our offer from there. I could bring it to her.”
“Matthew needs more support from the rest of us, though,” Faith said, “even if we decide to work with Lauren Cozzi. What can we do about that from now on?”
Bowie was not the person I thought would speak up first. “I could come there to the lower forty-eight and help you run the place.”
The way he was talking completely baffled me. “You have your own life in Alaska. What about your charter business?”
“I’m ready for a change,” Bowie said. “You know what they say, with great risk comes great reward. Let’s see what we can build this ranch into.”
We all stared at him. Bowie had been refusing to come back to the ranch for decades.
“Are you serious?” Faith asked. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who found his change of heart surprising.
“Totally serious,” he said. “Silver Sage is my home too. I know I’ve been gone a long time, but that wasn’t because I didn’t care about you all or the ranch. You know I had to get away from Dad and make my own life. I like the idea of coming back now. I’m ready.”
I wasn’t sure whether I should agree to run the ranch with Bowie, whose personality had all the subtlety of a stampede. Working side by side with him every day would be the real challenge. Then again, no one worked harder than Bowie, and he had experience managing his own business. We’d have to work out our personality differences and make the best of it.
“Alright,” I told him. “Let’s do it.”
“Keep your plane,” Sam said. “We can use it to shuttle guests in and out. We’ll call it Yeti Air, and you can be your own mascot.”
“Hilarious,” Bowie said, “but also, not a bad idea about keeping the plane.”
I finally felt like I could breathe again. “Okay, we have a plan.
Sam grinned and pumped his fist. “We’re gonna save Silver Sage.”
CHAPTER28
LAUREN
On the flight back to New York, I cried quietly into a tissue while trying to ignore the critical gaze of the Pomeranian across the aisle. The woman holding the tiny dog on her lap ignored my weeping like everyone else in first class. Only the dog was judgmental.
“Boo hoo,” I whispered to myself. “Stop with the self-pity.”
There were wonderful things waiting at home. Family and friends. My beautiful apartment. A successful company and a hefty bank account that would allow me to donate to causes and candidates that were working to make a better world. On top of all that goodness, I now had a renewed love of horseback riding, and the knowledge that, yes, my body still enjoyed sex! These were huge wins.
Matthew’s face drifted through my mind and melancholy crept in again, along with a flood of guilt. How could I be anything but grateful for my life? If Matthew and I didn’t end up together, there were still thousands of single men to date in New York. I couldn't imagine anyone would measure up to him, but I needed to stay optimistic, just like we told our clients to do after a breakup. Had we broken up? Were we ever really a couple? There hadn’t been enough time to figure all of that out.
While I was at the airport, I received a text from Freddy saying that in the morning he was meeting with a reporter to tell his side of our story. It was his last ditch grab for a piece of Ms. Match, and I didn’t even bother responding to his message. Tempest and I were sending our final offer to his lawyer. If he didn’t take it, we would go to court.
When Freddy’s story was published, reporters would hunt me down again, and I’d face them head on this time. There was no more running away. According to Matthew, I was a badass, so I could handle the paparazzi. But if I was such a badass, why was I letting Freddy and the media publicly define who I was? I thought of Ella standing on the pool table with her fire extinguisher. Gigi galloping across the meadow on Loki. The older ladies of the smutty book club, laughing as they took a moonlight dip in the hot springs. What would they do in my situation?
With a rather loud, undignified honk, I blew my nose, opened my laptop and started typing. My fingers flew over the keyboard as my personal story flowed out of me. I wrote about spending years in an unhappy marriage for the good of everyone else; finally separating when my children were out of the house; and deciding to pretend Freddy and I were still a couple to protect my company and my pride. Because that’s what it came down to—I didn’t want to tell people I’d failed at marriage. Sure, I’d blamed societal expectations and protecting our brand, but ultimately I didn’t want to admit that my love story, which began so beautifully, didn’t have a happy ending. The last lines of my essay were the most bittersweet and exhilarating to compose?—
With all of this talk about relationships coming to their natural (or way past due) conclusions, please don’t misconstrue my meaning—I still believe in romantic love. I’m quite a fan of monogamous sex, and I believe matchmaking is a fantastic way to meet someone you’d never otherwise come across. Deep human connection is crucial to our wellbeing—to our very souls. I’m back out there myself, dipping my nervous toes into the dating pool, knowing that I’m perfectly imperfect, and that’s (finally) good enough for me.
As I reread my essay, I made a decision. The next morning, probably around the time of Freddy’s interview, I’d offer my personal essay toCelebritymagazine as an exclusive. I couldn’t help but delight that these two events would coincide.Celebritydidn’t have to pay me a cent for my story, but if they wanted to run it, they’d have to agree not to publish Freddy’s interview. If they rejected my offer, which I doubted they would, I’d publish my story somewhere else.
“Excuse me,” I said to a passing flight attendant, “may I have a glass of champagne? I have something to celebrate.”
He grinned at me. “Congratulations! I’ll bring some right over.” Everyone was always so nice in first class.
As we flew over western Pennsylvania, I sipped my champagne from a flute, wondering why anyone would order beer when bubbly was available. Yes, I’d fallen for Matthew Hart and his ranch, but I still had a whole lot of Manhattan in me, too.
* * *
My airplane celebrationwas only the first of several that week. The second victory occurred when Freddy and I finally signed divorce papers that didnotinclude giving him a portion of my company. He still won a sizable alimony settlement, but some things could not be helped. The following morning, he received a call from his contact atCelebritysaying they’d decided not to run his interview. They were going with my personal essay instead. I wish I could have listened in on that call and seen his face, but knowing it happened would have to suffice.
