After Tex

by Sherryl Woods

  But what about the tapings, Dean’s threats to cancel the syndication agreement? What about her career?

  She sighed heavily. It should have been no choice at all—parental responsibilities versus a mere job—but she was so new to being a parent, so unprepared for it. Even so, she knew she couldn’t leave Tess. That terrible sensation of being overwhelmed—also new to her—came back with a vengeance.

  “I know the timing’s lousy,” Jake said, sitting down beside her. “If it would help, I could move out to the ranch so you could go.”

  She whirled on him. “Oh, you’d just love that, wouldn’t you? It would give you a foot in the door. Next thing I know you’d be claiming the house and Tess.”

  He regarded her with silent censure.

  Megan closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know that wasn’t fair. You were just trying to help.” Hating her unfamiliar sense of vulnerability, she regarded Jake beseechingly. “What am I supposed to do? It’s all closing in on me.”

  “I’ve offered one solution, but you didn’t like it.”

  “Moving everything here,” she said wearily, staring at the creek. This had always been her special place. It had brought her solace, but there was none for her here today, not even with Jake by her side offering his strength.

  “Setting up your headquarters in Whispering Wind would be an option,” Jake said. “It could be a temporary move, just until things settle down a bit. Once the facilities are fixed up, they’d become a moneymaker. There are a lot of film companies coming into Wyoming to shoot movies these days. This could become another adjunct to your media empire.”

  He made it sound so reasonable. Finally, resigned, she lifted her gaze to meet his. “As soon as Tess is home, will you take me out to see those warehouses again?”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  “Don’t gloat,” she warned.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Sure you would. Just don’t do it so I can see it.”

  He sketched a cross on his chest, then reached for the package of brownies and waved one under her nose. “Eat,” he instructed. “There’s nothing that can improve a lousy day like chocolate.”

  She’d resisted the brownies earlier, hadn’t even touched her lunch, but she grabbed one now. Jake was right. Chocolate could make up for a lot. Of course, considering the way things were going, she wouldn’t be able to fit into a single thing in her closet if she ate enough to keep her spirits up every day.

  When she and Jake got back to the house, Megan discovered that Tess and Mrs. Gomez had arrived only moments before. Tess had gone straight upstairs and locked herself in her room.

  “She is thinking that is the only way to keep her mother out,” Mrs. Gomez explained. “I could not reason with her. She would not even come into the kitchen for her usual snack. I have never seen her like this. It worries me.”

  Jake offered to talk to her, but Megan shook her head. “I’ll go.”

  For the second time in a few brief weeks, she was knocking on Tess’s door, pleading to be let in, wondering what she should say once she was admitted.

  Was Tess as conflicted as Megan would have been years ago if Sarah O’Rourke had come back into her life? She had dreamed of that happening, wanted it fiercely for months, but eventually anger and then resignation had taken the place of the yearning. All the good times she’d had with her mother—baking cookies; raking fall leaves, then jumping into the piles; hot chocolate on Christmas Eve while they listened to carols—all of those memories faded and were replaced by emptiness.

  Surely Tess had good memories, too, memories that were still fresh after only a few months of separation.

  “Sweetie, please, talk to me.”

  “Go away,” Tess said, her voice raspy from crying. “You can’t protect me. You won’t even be here. I know you’re going back to New York. You have those tapings again.”

  “I will be here,” Megan corrected. “And we need to talk about this, about what you really want to do.”

  “You’re staying?” Tess queried, her tone less defiant. “What about your show?”

  “I’m going to call New York as soon as you and I talk. I’ll make other arrangements to do the tapings.”

  “Call now,” Tess ordered, clearly not trusting the promise.

  “Why now?”

  “So I’ll know it’s a done deal.”

  Oh, Tess, Megan thought. What have we all done to you? Even Tex, who’d welcomed her into his home, made her a part of his life, had abandoned her in the end. She didn’t trust the word of any grown-up. Megan honestly couldn’t blame her.

  “Are you gonna call or not?” Tess demanded. “If you’re not, just say so and I’ll go back to watching TV.”

  Megan smiled at the imperial tone. “I’ll call. Want me to do it on my cell phone right outside your door so you can eavesdrop?”

  The door opened a crack. Tess stared out at her with red-rimmed eyes. “You would do that?”

  “If it would make you feel better, yes. I want you to know that when I give you my word, I’ll keep it.” She was determined to make up for too many broken promises—in both their lives.

  Tess seemed to be considering the idea. “Okay. Do it,” she said finally.

  Megan gently touched Tess’s tear-stained cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

  When she returned a few minutes later with the cell phone, the door was still open a crack and Tess was sitting on the floor just inside, her knees drawn up to her chest. Megan settled into a similar position in the hallway. She drew in a deep breath and dialed her office.

  “Megan O’Rourke’s office,” Todd announced.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Megan? Is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sound funny. What’s wrong?”

  “Something’s come up.”

  He groaned. “Don’t tell me. You can’t get here Saturday. Okay, no problem. I’ll change the flight to Sunday. I can fax everything to you out there on Saturday. You’ll still be up to speed when you get here.”

  “Todd, stop.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Megan, I hate to tell you, but that’s not simple. Anything else is disaster.”

  “Then that’s what we’re dealing with.”

  “Just tell me.”

  She gave him a brief summary of what was going on, trying not to sound too dire for Tess’s sake. “Bottom line, I can’t leave here right now.”

  “What am I supposed to tell Dean?” He sounded more plaintive than furious, which he had every right to be after all the hoops he’d jumped through to put this schedule together.

  “Nothing.”

  “Megan, it’s not like he won’t figure out something’s up. I’ll have to ask him to put some reruns into the schedule. He’s going to hate it.”

  “No reruns,” she said decisively. That would mean the end of the syndication deal for sure.

  “What then?”

  “I want you to get on the phone and start ordering cameras and whatever else we need. Have it delivered out here by Monday. I’ll get the address for you. Put together a crew and fly them out.” She thought of Peggy’s picture-perfect kitchen. Maybe they could borrow it for a week until she could get a new studio up and running. “We’ll do a location shoot.”

  “You can’t put together a location shoot in a few days,” Todd protested, clearly horrified. “It takes weeks of planning. Micah will lose it if you drop this on her out of the blue.”

  “We have days,” Megan said simply. “Micah will have to run with it. She’s a pro. I expect her to rise to the occasion. This is important, Todd. Make it happen.”

  “You will owe me big time if I pull this off,” he warned.

  “A vacation anywhere in the world you want to go,” she promised. “All expenses paid.”

  “Two weeks,” he countered.

  “Done.” She chuckled. “Of course, it could be next year before you
get to take it.”

  “In that case, make it three weeks,” he related. “After Micah gets through with me, I may need a week of that time in a hospital.”

  “We’ll negotiate. I’ll see you this weekend, then.”

  “Yes, God help me. And I’ll get back to you before the end of the day about everything else.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Megan, wait,” Todd said as she was about to hang up. “Are you telling Micah or am I?”

  Megan knew she ought to be the one to do it, but she dreaded it. “I’ll do it. Maybe I’ll even enjoy telling her to pack her bags and head west.”

  The call to Micah was as horrible as she’d anticipated. Even so, when Megan hung up, she felt slightly better, slightly more in control. The location shoot concept had been a stroke of brilliance. Even Micah had liked the idea, if not the timing. Megan just had to convince Peggy to go along with it. Hopefully, since her kitchen was almost a replica of the one Megan used on the show, she would be thrilled with the idea of having her home on TV.

  The door to Tess’s room inched open. The next thing Megan knew Tess had crawled into her lap. Her arms crept around Megan’s neck.

  “It’s going to be okay, sweetie,” Megan murmured, rocking her. “You’ll see.”

  “If you’re going to be here, will you go to parents night with me?” Tess asked in a small voice.

  “When?”

  “Next week.”

  “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “I figured you’d say no, or you’d be gone or something.” She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal if you can’t go.”

  Megan looked into her eyes and saw that it was a very big deal, indeed. “I’ll put it on my calendar,” she promised, and wondered why she felt like crying. Could it be that she was actually beginning to feel just a little bit like a mom? Or was she thinking of all the parents’ nights her own mother had missed?

  “Hey, you guys,” Jake called from the foot of the stairs. “Everything okay up there?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Megan called back.

  “How about a hot game of Scrabble before supper?”

  Tess scrambled up. “You know too many words and you cheat. Let’s play Monopoly instead.”

  “Okay by me,” he agreed. “Are you in, Meggie?”

  “Are you kidding? There’s nothing I like better than buying property and putting big ol’ hotels on it.”

  She followed Tess down the stairs. At the bottom, Jake held her back as Tess ran on into the living room to set up the game board.

  “Is everything really okay?” he asked quietly.

  “It will be,” she said.

  “Do you still want to see those warehouses this afternoon?”

  “Tomorrow morning will be soon enough. Right now, let’s just concentrate on Tess.”

  Jake tucked a finger under her chin and tilted her face up. “You’ve done the right thing, darlin’. I’m proud of you.” He pressed a quick kiss against her lips.

  It wasn’t quite the same as having Tex here to grant his approval, Megan concluded. In some ways, it was even better.

  “You want to do your show right here in my kitchen?” Peggy asked, staring at Megan incredulously.

  “I’m in a real bind,” Megan told her. She explained about Tess. “There was no way I could go to New York, not this next week, anyway. But if I don’t get those shows done on schedule, there’s a good chance I can kiss my syndication deal goodbye. I’m going to look at some possible space for a studio later this morning, but there’s no way to get a facility equipped overnight. Then I remembered what you’ve done with your kitchen. It’s almost exactly like the set in New York.” She watched Peggy worriedly. “So, what do you think? Could we do the tapings here?”

  “All day for three days?”

  “I’m afraid so. How would Johnny feel about it? We’d put everything back exactly the way we found it at the end of each day. Of course, I couldn’t promise that we’d be out in time for you to fix supper. We’d pay for all of you to go out to dinner those nights.”

  Peggy looked hesitant. “I don’t know. If it were just up to me, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. You know I would. But Johnny, he’s used to a certain routine.”

  “You could be on the show,” Megan suggested, ignoring her hesitation and trying to sweeten the deal so it would be irresistible. “You could help with one of the segments. Just imagine how proud he’d be.”

  Peggy was clearly tempted. “Me? I don’t know anything about TV.”

  “But you know about cooking and all sorts of other things. It would be fun. We could talk about the things we did way back when. You could share all my dirty little secrets,” she said, knowing that there were none that would be too embarrassing. She’d been a model kid, partly out of fear that Tex would abandon her if she weren’t. Loving Jake had been her only rebellion.

  “You mean like the way you were head over heels in love with Jake Landers?” Peggy said, as if she’d picked up on Megan’s thoughts.

  Megan’s cheeks burned. “Maybe not that one.”

  “Too close to real life today, right?”

  “Don’t be silly. Jake and I are nothing more than old friends.”

  “It didn’t look that way to me the other night when you came to dinner.”

  “I am not discussing Jake with you. I’m here to talk about borrowing your kitchen for a few days. Can I do it?”

  “Oh, what the hell, why not?”

  “Do you need to talk it over with Johnny?”

  “He’ll live with it,” Peggy said with an odd touch of defiance. “Or he’ll take off in a snit.” She shrugged. “If he does, it can’t be helped. It won’t be the first time. Besides, this is an emergency.”

  Megan studied Peggy intently, belatedly aware that she might be adding to the already simmering tension in the Barkley household. “Are you sure? If this is going to be a problem, I’ll invade Mrs. Gomez’s kitchen at the ranch. I thought of yours because it’s more up-to-date and I thought you might get a kick out of it.”

  “No, you’ll do it here and that’s that.” Peggy got an impish gleam in her eyes. “Maybe we should make taffy.”

  “Oh, no,” Megan said with a laugh, remembering the last time all too well. “You aren’t getting me to do that ever again. We had to cut off half my hair when that inedible goo we made got tangled up in it.”

  “I’m sure we could get it right this time,” Peggy said, looking innocent. “When I make it with the kids, it turns out perfect.”

  “It must have been me, then.” Megan shook her head. “No way. I’m not taking any chances. This haircut of mine cost a fortune. I don’t want to have to take my own scissors to it.”

  They were still laughing at old memories a few minutes later when Johnny came into the kitchen. He regarded Megan with what seemed like suspicion.

  “Didn’t expect to find you here,” he said as he snagged a soft drink out of the refrigerator, popped it open and leaned back against the counter. “I figured it would be another ten or twenty years before we saw you again.”

  “Johnny, stop. Megan came by to see if she could tape some shows in our kitchen next week,” Peggy said cheerily. “Isn’t that exciting?”

  Johnny looked anything but excited. He regarded his wife with disapproval. “And you said yes, I suppose? Just like you always did when she got one of her big ideas.”

  Peggy stared right back at him, her gaze unflinching. “Well, of course I did. She’s in a bind. I knew you’d feel the same way I did, that we had to help her out.”

  Johnny shook his head. “I don’t know. Sounds like a lot of commotion to me.”

  “It’s a few days,” Peggy insisted. “We’ll survive it. The kids cause a ruckus around here all the time. This won’t be much worse.”

  “Can’t say I like the idea of a lot of strangers tromping around our place.”

  “Well, I’ve already said yes, and that’s that,” Peggy said, regarding him defiant
ly.

  Increasingly uncomfortable with the argument swirling around her, Megan rose. “Look, I’ll leave you two to talk it over. Peggy, I’ll give you a call later to see what you’ve decided, okay?”

  By the time she reached her car, she could hear voices escalating inside, and regretted ever making the suggestion. She should have been more sensitive to the undercurrents she’d sensed at dinner, and avoided suggesting anything that might give them yet another reason to fight.

  Unfortunately, it was too late to withdraw the idea. Peggy was clearly excited about it. All Megan could do would be to call her later this afternoon and give her a chance to change her mind.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be impossible to turn one of the warehouses into a studio overnight. After all, there were plenty of women across the country who thought she specialized in miracles. What was one more?

  17

  Megan stood in the center of the cavernous warehouse and listened to the sound of her own voice echoing around the building. The floor was concrete, the walls bare metal. If it had ever been used for anything, there was no sign of what. It had an abandoned, cold, dank air about it.

  “Well, what do you think?” Jake asked, as if he were showing off the Taj Mahal.

  “It’s certainly big enough,” she said, then sighed. “I don’t know. I’m not a technical person. I have no idea what it would take to make this into a working studio. I do know it couldn’t be done by next week. For one thing it’s freezing in here. It would have to be heated. Even with all the lights, it would be frigid.”

  “I didn’t think you needed it up and running by next week. I thought you were going by Peggy’s this morning to get her on board for those tapings. Didn’t she agree?”

  “Peggy’s for it. Johnny’s not so hot on the idea. They were battling it out when I left.” She regarded him guiltily. “I’m afraid I caused another rift between them.”

  “Seems to me it doesn’t take much,” Jake said.

  Megan’s gaze narrowed. This wasn’t the first little hint he’d dropped about the state of Peggy’s marriage. Megan was getting tired of his evasiveness when she asked about it. This time she wasn’t going to let him off the hook.