Page 58 of The Love Lie
She took a sip of coffee as he charged closer, not at all moved. “It won’t work, cowboy.”
“I have to try.”
“I know.” Nina shrugged. “Because you’re you. The six-pack savior. The hero. But she isn’t a damsel in distress, Cooper. You try to save her and she’ll just keep running. You already laid the groundwork. Now you need to give Sam the space to save herself.”
He stopped short. “You know?”
“I’ve known the whole time. It was plain on her face. Just like the way you feel is plain on yours.”
“Yeah? And how’s that?”
“You love her.”
He reared back. “It’s been five days, Nina.”
“So? You’ve spent more time together in those five days than most of the couples do on my show.”
“Ninety-five percent of the couples on your show break up.”
“Five percent don’t.” Nina grinned. “Which group do you think you belong to, Cooper?”
He ignored her. “I need her number, Nina. I need to speak to her.”
“It’s not mine to give. You just spent five days sharing a suite, and it looks like you might’ve shared a bit more than that. If she wanted you to have her number, she would have given it to you. But don’t worry, cowboy. I’ve got a plan.”
Unsurprisingly, herplandid little to comfort him. He wasted a few more minutes talking in circles with the producer before running to the front desk to schedule a new transfer. Then he spent the hours before his flight canvasing the airport, waiting at the gate of every outbound plane to the United States, and searching the crowds.
He found nothing.
She had straight-up disappeared.
Then he spent his entire thirty travel hours back to Nebraska trying to formulate a plan of his own.
Switch his flight to New York and hunt her down? It was a city of eight million people and he had no idea where she lived.
Fly to Georgia and confess to Emily? He knew the name of her mother’s flower shop. He could find someone in their family. But Sam would probably cut his balls off for trying, and breaking her trust didn’t seem like the right way into her stubborn heart.
Sit around and wait as Nina suggested? He’d rather take a bullet to the chest. It would hurt less.
Round and round his mind spun, until he was right back where he started. The moment his feet touched American soil, he opened his phone and called the producer.
“Give me her number, Nina.”
“Like I said before, Cooper. It’s not mine to give.”
He was ready to turn around and book a flight to New York right then and there, screw the odds, but then he called the ranch to check in. The housekeeper answered. Even before she spoke, he knew he was in deep shit. And everything she said just confirmed it. His father had started the roundup a week sooner than planned. Signs pointed toward an early winter so they needed to move the cattle to their cold-weather pastures, cull the herd, wean the calves, and prepare the ranch for snow.
Or so his father said.
A small part of Cooper couldn’t help but wonder if the man had done it as punishment, a way for him to prove he’d been right that his son never should have left on some Hollywood adventure in the first place, not when he was needed at home. And he was needed. Corralling the cattle was an all-hands-on-deck situation. No matter how much he wanted to chase after Sam, he couldn’t. The ranch came first—a lesson drilled in since birth.
So Cooper went home.
He found his horse and rode like a man possessed to meet up with his father, just to be greeted with a disappointed scowl. “You’re late.”
“You’re early.”
“I’m exactly on time, son. The ranch waits for no one. A lesson you’d do well to remember.”
