It had been all over the fairgrounds. Every committee person had come up to ask why she was selling the company. And she didn’t have an answer. She’d have told them to see Ty, but he hadn’t come. And she was glad he hadn’t.
Tears clouded her sight. She wondered if she was so emotional because of the baby. The thought made her smile, bittersweet as it was. Of course she was thrilled, beyond rational measure, at the thought of being pregnant. She hadn’t told anyone yet, not even her mother. Not until it was confirmed. She carried her secret close to her heart, though right now it was so hard to focus on what should be the happiest moment of her life.
She was losing Prescott. And it was more than a business. She was losing the place where she belonged and the families who had touched her life since she was a little girl. Fathers, sons, mothers, sisters. She knew them all, and they knew her.
As she walked into the white and granite kitchen, lighted only by the nightlight Mrs. Jenkins had undoubtedly left on for her, she felt empty, abandoned, betrayed. Ty should be sharing this moment with her. They should be planning for the NRF. For next season. Instead, her horses and bulls would be going to the NRF under the name of another contractor. And she would not.
How could she go as a mere spectator when she’d always been an integral part of the fabric of the ten-day event? She had never missed an NRF. Not even after her father had passed away and it was especially difficult. The Prescott community, the rodeo community, had gotten her through it. People had come together and held a special dinner in her father’s honor. The stories they had told… She couldn’t help but smile at the memory of it.
She spied the blinking light on the answering machine and, hoping it wasn’t another call from Ty she’d have to delete, hit the button. She was surprised when she heard Trace’s deep voice asking her to call him tomorrow because he wanted to talk to her about a housekeeper for Delanie. Last Ty had said, Delanie was settling into preschool and, aside from asking after her mother, seemed to be accepting Trace as her father. The psychologist thought that Delanie had trust issues but nothing more, and that had been a small blessing. Of course Mandy would call tomorrow. Even though Ty was a double-dealing hypocrite, she would do everything she could for his niece.
She walked down the hall and past her bedroom, right to the baby’s room. She flicked on the overhead fixture, and the crib and dresser Ty had bought were bathed in light. The toy airplane still sat on the dresser. Nothing had been disturbed since he’d put it together, and yet everything in her life had been disturbed. She leaned against the wall.
Despite her exhaustion, sleep would elude her tonight, she knew, as it had for the past few nights since Ty’s announcement. Tomorrow she had an appointment with the doctor. If he confirmed the pregnancy, she would tell her mother.
And then she would have to tell Ty. She’d have to speak to him. To be in the same room with the man who had betrayed her and everything she stood for.
And why did her traitorous heart speed up at the thought of seeing him? Maybe it was just the baby sending her a signal of some sort.
“What kind of daddy will he be to you?” she wondered aloud as she swept a hand gently over her tummy. “You will always have me, baby, to lean on. I promise you that.”
*
It went against every rational argument. And still Ty did it.
“Now what?” Brian asked as he looked over the papers set before him.
“Now I tell Mandy.”
Brian leaned forward on the desk, his hands pressing down on the polished surface as if bracing for the worst.
“Will she even speak to you?”
Ty shook his head. “Hasn’t since she stormed out of the meeting. Hasn’t returned my calls. Hasn’t come into the office. Hell, it’s like a morgue in there. No one wants to get within ten feet of me, it seems. Karen, JM’s former assistant, is as frosty as a freezer. Guess they are all waiting for the official ax to fall.”
“You know, given you voided the provision by not sleeping in the same room with your wife, you would have had another six months at least as head of Prescott if you hadn’t done this. You might have been able to work it out with Mandy and avoided taking this step. It’s a lot of money just to make a point.”
Ty braved a smile. “It’s the right point to make. And I’m hoping for more than just her agreement.”
“JM has a letter he wants read to both you and Mandy at the end of the six-month period. I could call a meeting about it, and you can tell her the news then?”
Ty shook his head. “I think I’d best do this in private. If I have any hope of getting through to her, of convincing her to stay married to me, I think it has to be just her and me.”
“You thought about how you are going to get her to meet with you? She’s stubborn. Like her grandfather.”