“Me too,” I said. “I missed you so much.”
Reluctantly, we separated, ignoring any eyes that were on us, and the hostess led us to our seats at a small table with a beautiful view of the river. Lights sparkled outside in the darkness, twinkling against the water. Matthew immediately reached for my hand across the table, and I knew deep down in my soul that I was exactly where I was meant to be.
“I can’t really believe I’m here,” he said. “Or that you agreed to see me on such short notice.” As he smoothed his thumb over my palm, I got tingles in all the right places. This was real. He was here, and the sparks came with him, all the way across the country. It was strange to see Matthew in my natural environment, but it felt right to be together, just as it had at the ranch.
“I didn’t agree to anything,” I said with a laugh. “I didn’t know who I was meeting tonight.”
“That was part of my plan. I made Tori help me, so don’t be mad at her.”
“I can’t promise that,” I said with a teasing look. “Let’s see how the evening goes. Why didn’t you call to let me know you were on the way?”
“I wanted to surprise you. It was my turn to land on your turf and have to figure everything out for myself. Did you notice anything different about me?”
“You mean the suit? You look very handsome.” That was the understatement of a lifetime. He looked good enough to eat. In fact, who needed dinner?
“I meant my haircut.” He pulled his hand from mine and ran it through his closely shorn hair. “I figured a grown man should get his hair cut by someone other than his wrangler, so I took myself to a fancy salon I’d heard good things about, and they gave me an excellent shampoo and cut. I had no idea you could get a scalp massage.”
My jaw dropped. This man was full of surprises. “You went to Jentori?”
“I made an appointment through your sister.” He looked a little smug at having outwitted me, but what was truly amazing was that Tori had kept all of this a secret.
“Did she have a car pick you up at the airport and drive you to all these places?”
“I’m proud to say I made it from the airport to the hotel and then to the salon on my own without any problems,” he said. “I took cabs. Tomorrow I’m going to tackle the subway.”
“Hotel?” I scrunched up my face to show him how I felt about that. “You don’t need one of those. Stay with me.”
“I didn’t want to presume I could stay with you, especially since I need to talk to you about the ranch.”
Reality landed with a thud between us. “Have you put it on the market already?”
“No. I talked to my siblings about it, like you said I should.” He ran a hand over his clean-shaven jawline. “They were frustrated with me because I didn’t tell them Silver Sage was in trouble. All three want to help keep it going.”
“That’s wonderful.” Their support wasn’t a surprise to me, but Matthew had convinced himself he was alone in the fight to save the ranch. Sometimes our perceptions are more powerful than reality. “I’m so glad you opened up to them.”
“Me too,” he said. “I guess I shut them out of ranch business because I was ashamed I couldn’t fix everything by myself. I’ve had to take a hard look at my attitude toward asking for help.”
“Asking for help can be hard,” I agreed.
“Yeah, it’s not my strong suit. Turns out, my siblings are committed to keeping Silver Sage in the family. Bowie wants to move back to Wyoming to run it with me, which was a shock, and Faith wants to be more involved, too. Sam has always done his part with the horses. Obviously, we still have a cash flow problem. That hasn’t changed.”
The server delivered a bottle of Spanish wine Tori had pre-ordered for us, and I had to wait through the tasting and pouring, my curiosity ramping up with each passing second.
“What do you plan to do with the place?” I asked when the server was gone.
“That’s why I’m here.” He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders, his expression turning serious. “Lauren Cozzi, the Hart family would like to make you a business offer.”
This certainly was a night of surprises. “What kind of offer?”
He reached inside his leather bag and pulled out a plastic portfolio, which he set on the table in front of me. Under the transparent cover was a title page with a color photo of the stables. “This will tell you all the stats about our nearly four hundred acres, including the bank’s valuation of the property, our property taxes, several land surveys, and a lot of other things that I have a feeling you’re going to enjoy reading.”
That made me smile because he knew me so well. I lifted the portfolio’s cover. “I’m itching to read it.”
“We want to keep the property in our family,” he explained as I flipped through the pages, “but we can’t make that happen without an investor. Faith, Bowie, Sam and I would like to offer you part ownership of the ranch. You would buy half the ranch after we negotiate a price, based on all the information presented here. Then we’d work together to make it a great place to visit again. It would be a Cozzi/Hart family business. I told them your ideas, and they were onboard.”
“Even with the TV show filming there?” I asked cautiously. It wasn’t necessarily a dealbreaker, but it felt like the perfect way to connect the two halves of my life.
He nodded. “Yep, even the show. Turns out, Faith is a fan.”
