Page 7 of The Love Lie
Sam suddenly gasps.
Her hand goes to her forehead.
She teeters.
Is she—
Before he can complete the thought, her eyes roll back and she gracefully crumples in on herself. Still kneeling, Cooper catches her easily…a little too easily, almost as if she planned it that way. The suspicion is confirmed a second later when she slyly peeks through a single cracked eyelid before going dramatically limp in his arms. He coughs to cover up a snort and glances to Nina. The producer rolls her eyes, clearly not fooled.
“We have an hour of filming left, Emily, and you’re not getting out of it that easily.”
The woman in his arms doesn’t stir.
Nina scoffs, but after another few seconds it turns to a sigh. “Can someone get her a glass of water, please? Now!”
While the crew scrambles to find a bottle of water, Cooper studies the freckles painted across Sam’s ivory cheeks, utterly fascinated by the woman in his arms. He shouldn’t be surprised she’s resorted to the world’s most poorly acted fainting spell—Emily described her as a fearless go-getter prone to dramatics—but he doesn’t understand what she thinks it will achieve. They already filmed the proposal. It’s done. Over.Finito.
A fact confirmed when Nina dryly announces, “Oh, well. If she doesn’t wake up, I guess we’re done filming for the day, and we’ll all have to come back here tomorrow to get the last few shots we need.”
Sam’s eyes fly open. “I’m up.”
“I thought you might be.”
“I’m ready.”
“Good.”
Sam offers him a grateful look before she stands back up and brushes the wrinkles from her dress. Simple as that, he understands why she did it. She needed a second to breathe, to plot. There’s no more panic in her gaze as the makeup team rushes over to clean them back up. There’s only stubborn determination. She has a plan—that much is clear. He just wishes he knew what the calculations spinning beneath her furrowed brow were trying to say.
Because suddenly he’s the one who’s panicking. While they kiss and hug and smile for the cameras, capturing the last few romantic shots needed to complete the picture of a happily engaged couple, his anxiety mounts. Sam is all business. They’ve switched places. The focus never leaves her eyes. The heady vixen is gone. And without that distraction, the reality of his actions finally sinks in.
Shit.Cooper grimaces.What did I just do?
The same thing he always did.
Think, son.His dad’s proud voice echoes up from the depths.For once in your life, think beyond yourself. This isn’t about you. It’s about this ranch. It’s about this family. It’s about how much your mother went through to bring you into the world so you could carry on this legacy. Show some respect. Show some gratitude. Get your ass out of the clouds and your boots back on this dirt where you belong. She doesn’t have much time left, and I’ll be damned if the last thing she sees of her son is all the opportunities he’s thrown away.
That conversation changed everything.
For better.
For worse.
And even though six years have passed since his father spoke those words, it could have been merely weeks. He knows what his father was thinking while he stood on the front porch, liftedhis mug to his lips, and silently watched his son drive away on another harebrained adventure. Why bother speaking when everything he needed to say lived in those chastising eyes?
To his father, the show is just another selfish attempt to chase a foolish dream, to put himself before the ranch, to run away.
But he’s not a kid anymore.
He made mistakes. He owns them.
This is different.
Every year, the taxes increase and the cattle become more expensive. They’re maxed out on government leases. Maxed out on investments. If something doesn’t change, and soon, they’ll have to sell some of the land. And maybe to some people, that might sound reasonable, like no big deal. As one of the largest cattle ranches in the United States they have roughly two hundred thousand acres of it, after all. But his father would rather die than lose even a foot of what’s been passed down to him. It’s not just dirt. It’s generations of blood and sweat. It’s everything his father has worked for and his father before him, back and back over a hundred and fifty years. It’s a legacy, and a burden, and a gift.
It’s everything to his father.
And though the man might not believe it, it’s everything to Cooper, too.
