The Pioneer Woman Read online

  “You’re not asleep, are you?” Marlboro Man said with his signature chuckle.

  I opened my eyes and smiled.

  Chapter Five

  BEGONE, DESTINY!

  THE WEEK following the grisly driveway death of Puggy Sue, the ill-fated surprise visit from J, and my colossal meltdown in Marlboro Man’s kitchen was marked by intermittent are-you-sure-it’s-over phone calls from J and nightly dates with my new boyfriend. Each moment I spent with him was more wonderful than the one before, and by Day Ten of our new relationship, I was madly, ridiculously, head-spinningly in love, even as the date I’d planned to leave for Chicago was fast approaching.

  Chicago had been months in the making, and suddenly I found myself avoiding the subject like the plague. Had I lost my mind? Taken leave of my senses? Whenever I allowed myself to enter into the realm of thinking about it, I felt a terrible, uncomfortable tug. I felt guilty, like I was playing hooky or cheating on myself. Suddenly, a cowboy comes along and I can think of nothing but him. I needed only to hear his voice on the other end of the line, saying good morning or saying good night or teasing me for sleeping past six and chuckling that chuckle that made everything go weak…and Chicago—the entire state of Illinois, for that matter—would simply flitter out of my mind, along with any other lucid thought I ever tried to have in his presence. I was doomed.

  Around town I’d field the occasional question about the status of my migration. And I’d always give the same answer: Yep, I’m headed there in a couple of weeks. I’m just tying up some loose ends. What I didn’t tell them was that the loose ends were rapidly, nightly, winding their way around my waist and my shoulders and my heart. Logically I knew I couldn’t possibly allow this new man to derail me from where I really wanted to go in life. But it would take a little more time for me to work up the gumption to put the brakes on our ever-increasing momentum. I simply wasn’t finished kissing him yet.

  After a few more dates in my town, Marlboro Man invited me, once again, to his house on the ranch. Taking into account how much he’d loved the first meal I’d fixed for him, I confidently offered, “I’ll make you dinner again!” Since I’d gone the seafood route before, I decided to honor his ranching heritage by preparing a beef dish. After scouring my formerly vegetarian brain for any beef dishes I remembered eating over the previous twenty-five years, I finally thought of my mom’s Marinated Flank Steak, which had remained in my culinary memory even through all the tofu and seaweed I’d consumed in California.

  To make it, you marinate a flank steak in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, minced garlic, fresh ginger, and red wine for twenty-four hours, then grill it quickly to sear the outside. The flavor—with its decidedly Asian edge—is totally out of this world; combined with the tenderness of the rare flank steak, it’s a real feast for the palate. To accompany the flank steak, I decided to prepare Tagliarini Quattro Formaggi—my favorite pasta dish from Intermezzo in West Hollywood. Made with angel hair pasta and a delectable mix of Parmesan, Romano, Fontina, and goat cheese, it had been my drug of choice in the L.A. years.

  I bought all the ingredients and headed to Marlboro Man’s house, choosing to ignore the fact that Marinated Flank Steak actually needs to marinate. Plus, I didn’t know how to operate a grill—Los Angeles County apartment buildings had ordinances against them—so I decided to cook it under the broiler. Having not been a meat eater for years and years, I’d forgotten about the vital importance of not overcooking steak; I just assumed steak was like chicken and simply needed all the pink cooked out of it. I broiled the beautiful, flavorful flank steak to a fine leather.

  With all my focus on destroying the main course, I wound up overcooking the angel hair noodles by a good five minutes, so when I stirred in all the cheeses I’d so carefully grated by hand, my Tagliarini Quattro Formaggi resembled a soupy pan of watery cheese grits. How bad could it possibly be? I asked myself as I poured it into garlic-rubbed bowls just like they did at Intermezzo. I figured Marlboro Man wouldn’t notice. I watched as he dutifully ate my dinner, unaware that, as I later learned, throughout the meal he seriously considered calling one of the cowboys and asking them to start a prairie fire so he’d have an excuse to leave.

  It was a beautiful spring night, and we adjourned to the porch after dinner and sat side by side on two patio chairs. Taking my hand in his, Marlboro Man propped his cowboy boots on the porch railing and rested his head against the chair. It was quiet. Cattle were mooing in the distance, and an occasional coyote would howl.

  Suddenly, inexplicably, in the black of this impossibly starry night, with no action movie or other distractions playing in the background, I began thinking about Chicago. I should be packing, I thought. But I’m not. I’m here. With this man. In this place.

  During my months back home, I’d realized more than ever how much I’d missed living in a city: the culture, the anonymity, the action, the pace. It had made me feel happy and alive and whole. That I was even sitting on a cowboy’s porch at this point in my life was strange enough; that I actually felt comfortable, at peace, and at home there was surreal.

  I felt a chill, the air getting crisper by the minute. I shivered noticeably, unable to keep my teeth from chattering. Still holding my hand, Marlboro Man pulled me toward him until I was sitting on his lap. Enveloping my upper body in his arms, he hugged me tightly as my head rested on his strong shoulder. “Mmmm…,” he said, even as the same sound came from my own mouth. It was so warm, so perfect, such a fit. We stayed that way forever, kissing occasionally, then retreating back to the “Mmmm…” position in each other’s arms. We didn’t speak, and the cool night air was so still, it was intoxicating.

  With no sounds save for the thumping of my own heart inside my chest, I was left to swim around in my thoughts. I’ve got to get going. This will only get harder. I don’t belong here. I belong in the city. God, his arms feel good. What am I doing here? I need to get that apartment before it goes. I’m calling in the morning. This has been wonderful, but it isn’t reality. It isn’t smart. I love the smell of his shirt. I’ll miss the smell of his shirt. I’ll miss this. I’ll miss him….

  I was half asleep—tipsy on his musky fumes—when I felt Marlboro Man gently nuzzle his face toward my ear. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled, his chest falling—the words I love you escaping from his mouth so quietly, I wasn’t sure whether I’d dreamed it.

  I’D KNOWN him just ten days, and it had just left his mouth in an unexpected whisper. It had been purely instinctive, it seemed—something entirely unplanned. He clearly hadn’t planned to say those words to me that night; that wasn’t the way he operated. He was a man who had a thought and acted on it immediately, as evidenced by his sweet, whispery phone calls right after our dates. He spent no time at all calculating moves; he had better things to do with his time. When we held each other on that chilly spring night and his feelings had come rushing to the surface, he’d felt no need to slap a filter over his mouth. It had come out in a breath: I love you. It was as if he had to say it, in the same way air has to escape a person’s lungs. It was involuntary. Necessary. Natural.

  But as beautiful and warm a moment as it was, I froze on the spot. Once I realized it had been real—that he’d actually said the words—it seemed too late to respond; the window had closed, the shutters had clapped shut. I responded in the only way my cowardice would allow: by holding him tighter, burying my face deeper into his neck, feeling equal parts stupid and awkward. What is your problem? I asked myself. I was in the midst of what was possibly the most romantic, emotionally charged moment of my life, in the embrace of a man who embodied not only everything I’d ever understood about the textbook definition of lust, but everything I’d ever dreamed about in a man. He was a specimen—tall, strong, masculine, quiet. But it was much more than that. He was honest. Real. And affectionate and accessible, quite unlike J and most of the men I’d casually dated since I’d returned home from Los Angeles months earlier. I was in a foreign land. I didn’t know
what to do.

  I love you. He’d said it. And I knew his words had been sincere. I knew, because I felt it, too, even though I couldn’t say it. Marlboro Man continued to hold me tightly on that patio chair, undeterred by my silence, likely resting easily in the knowledge that at least he’d been able to say what he felt.

  “I’d better go home,” I whispered, suddenly feeling pulled away by some imaginary force. Marlboro Man nodded, helping me to my feet. Holding hands, we walked around his house to my car, where we stopped for a final hug and a kiss or two. Or eight. “Thanks for having me over,” I managed.

  Man, I was smooth.

  “Any time,” he replied, locking his arms around my waist during the final kiss. This was the stuff that dreams were made of. I was glad my eyes were closed, because they were rolled all the way into the back of my head. It wouldn’t have been an attractive sight.

  He opened the door to my car, and I climbed inside. As I backed out of his driveway, he walked toward his front door and turned around, giving me his characteristic wave in his characteristic Wranglers. Driving away, I felt strange, flushed, tingly. Burdened. Confused. Tortured. Thirty minutes into my drive home, he called. I’d almost grown to need it.

  “Hey,” he said. His voice. Help me.

  “Oh, hi,” I replied, pretending to be surprised. Even though I wasn’t.

  “Hey, I…,” Marlboro Man began. “I really don’t want you to go.”

  I giggled. How cute. “Well…I’m already halfway home!” I replied, a playful lilt to my voice.

  A long pause followed.

  Then, his voice serious, he continued, “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  HE MEANT business; I could hear it in his voice.

  Marlboro Man was talking about Chicago, about my imminent move. I’d told him my plans the first time we’d ever spoken on the phone, and he’d mentioned it once or twice during our two wonderful weeks together. But the more time we’d spent together, the less it had come up. Leaving was the last thing I wanted to talk about while I was with him.

  I couldn’t respond. I had no idea what to say.

  “You there?” Marlboro Man asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m here.” That was all I could manage.

  “Well…I just wanted to say good night,” he said quietly.

  “I’m glad you did,” I replied. I was an idiot.

  “Good night,” he whispered.

  “Good night.”

  I woke up the next morning with puffy, swollen eyes. I’d slept like a rock, having dreamed about Marlboro Man all night long. They’d been vivid dreams, crazy dreams, dreams of us talking and playing chess and shooting each other with Silly String. He’d already become such a permanent fixture in my consciousness, I dreamed about him nightly…effortlessly.

  We went to dinner that night and ordered steak and talked our usual dreamy talk, intentionally avoiding the larger, looming subject. When he brought me home, it was late, and the air was so perfect that I was unaware of the temperature. We stood outside my parents’ house, the same place we’d stood two weeks earlier, before the Linguine with Clam Sauce and J’s surprise visit; before the overcooked flank steak and my realization that I was hopelessly in love. The same place I’d almost wiped out on the sidewalk; the same place he’d kissed me for the first time and set my heart afire.

  Marlboro Man moved in for the kill. We stood there and kissed as if it was our last chance ever. Then we hugged tightly, burying our faces in each other’s necks.

  “What are you trying to do to me?” I asked rhetorically.

  He chuckled and touched his forehead to mine. “What do you mean?”

  Of course, I wasn’t able to answer.

  Marlboro Man took my hand.

  Then he took the reins. “So, what about Chicago?”

  I hugged him tighter. “Ugh,” I groaned. “I don’t know.”

  “Well…when are you going?” He hugged me tighter. “Are you going?”

  I hugged him even tighter, wondering how long we could keep this up and continue breathing. “I…I…ugh, I don’t know,” I said. Ms. Eloquence again. “I just don’t know.”

  He reached behind my head, cradling it in his hands. “Don’t…,” he whispered in my ear. He wasn’t beating around the bush.

  Don’t. What did that mean? How did this work? It was too early for plans, too early for promises. Way too early for a lasting commitment from either of us. Too early for anything but a plaintive, emotional appeal: Don’t. Don’t go. Don’t leave. Don’t let it end. Don’t move to Chicago.

  I didn’t know what to say. We’d been together every single day for the past two weeks. I’d fallen completely and unexpectedly in love with a cowboy. I’d ended a long-term relationship. I’d eaten beef. And I’d begun rethinking my months-long plans to move to Chicago. I was a little speechless.

  We kissed one more time, and when our lips finally parted, he said, softly, “Good night.”

  “Good night,” I answered as I opened the door and went inside.

  I walked into my bedroom, eyeing the mound of boxes and suitcases that sat by the door, and plopped down on my bed. Sleep eluded me that night. What if I just postponed my move to Chicago by, say, a month or so? Postponed, not canceled. A month surely wouldn’t hurt, would it? By then, I reasoned, I’d surely have him out of my system; I’d surely have gotten my fill. A month would give me all the time I needed to wrap up this whole silly business.

  I laughed out loud. Getting my fill of Marlboro Man? I couldn’t go five minutes after he dropped me off at night before smelling my shirt, searching for more of his scent. How much worse would my affliction be a month from now? Shaking my head in frustration, I stood up, walked to my closet, and began removing more clothes from their hangers. I folded sweaters and jackets and pajamas with one thing pulsating through my mind: no man—least of all some country bumpkin—was going to derail my move to the big city. And as I folded and placed each item in the open cardboard boxes by my door, I tried with all my might to beat back destiny with both hands.

  I had no idea how futile my efforts would be.

  Chapter Six

  INTO THE FLAMING BARN

  HE WASN’T a country bumpkin. He was poised, gentlemanly, intelligent. And he was no mere man—at least no man the likes of whom I’d ever known. He was different. Strikingly different.

  Marlboro Man was introspective and quiet, but not insecure. The product of an upbringing that involved early mornings of hard work and calm, still evenings miles away from civilization, he’d learned at an early age to be content with silence. I, on the other hand, was seemingly allergic to the quiet. Talking had always been what I did best—with all the wide-open airspace we, as humans, had been given, I saw no need to waste it. And as a middle child, I simply had a lot to say to the world.

  I’d finally met my match with Marlboro Man. It had taken all of five seconds for his quiet manner to zap me that night we’d first met over four months earlier, and the more I’d been around it over the previous two weeks, the more certain I’d become convinced that this type of man—if not this man specifically—had to be my perfect match. In the short time I’d been with him, I’d seen clear examples of just how complementary our differences were. Where I’d once been quick to fill an empty conversational void with vapid words, I now began to rein it in when I was with him, stopping long enough for the silence between us to work its magic. Where he’d never learned to properly twirl a forkful of linguine around in a large tablespoon, I was right there to show him the light. Where I’d normally be on the phone the second dinner ended, rounding up friends to go have a drink, he’d do the dishes and we’d watch a movie, maybe sit outside on the porch, weather permitting, to listen to coyotes howl, and contemplate life.

  We lived life at entirely different paces. His day began before 5:00 A.M., and his work was backbreaking, sweaty, grueling. I worked so I’d have something to do during the daylight hours, so I’d have a place to wear my b
lack pumps, and so I could fund a nightlife full of gourmet food and colorful drinks. For Marlboro Man, nightlife meant relaxation, an earned reward for a long day of labor. For me, nightlife meant an opportunity to wear something new and gloss my lips.

  At times the differences concerned me. Could I ever be with a man who’d never, in his entire life, eaten sushi? Could I, a former vegetarian, conceivably spend the rest of my life with a man who ate red meat at every meal? I’d never thought about it before. And, most concerning, could I ever—in a million years—live so far out in the country that I’d have to traverse five miles of gravel road to reach my house?

  The Magic 8-Ball in my head revealed its answer: OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD.

  And what was I doing even thinking about marriage, anyway? I knew good and well that with Marlboro Man, a rancher who lived on land that had been in his family for years, one thing was a certainty: he was where he was, and any future plans involving him would have to take place on his turf, not mine. It wasn’t as if I could take off for Chicago armed with even the faintest hope that Marlboro Man might relocate there one day. Downtown Chicago isn’t known for its abundant wheat-grazing pasture. His life was on the ranch, where he would likely remain forever. His dad was getting older, which meant Marlboro Man and his brother held the future of the ranch in their capable and calloused hands.

  And so I found myself in the all-too-familiar position of deciding whether to frame my life around the circumstances of the man in my life. I’d faced the same situation with J, when he’d wanted me to move to northern California with him. It had been difficult, but I’d held tightly to my pride and chosen to leave California instead. It had been a personal accomplishment, extricating myself from the comfortable shackles of a four-year relationship, and it had been the right decision. And so would my decision to stick to my plans to move to Chicago now, as hard as it would be to put the skids on my two-week love affair with Marlboro Man. I was a strong woman. I’d done it before—refused to follow a man—and I could do it again. It might sting for a short time, sure, but in the long run I’d feel good about it.