Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley, #2)(63)
“Oh, Oscar.” I sighed, leaning my head on his strong arm, feeling the power that was still there, humming beneath the surface. So strong.
“Anyway, that was it. I had the surgery, went to rehab, tried liked hell to not see the signs that were so clear, but in the end it was obvious, I was done.”
“I bet that was rough.”
“You know what?” His expression lightened surprisingly. “It was rough, but it was kind of a relief. I couldn’t play anymore, so I could actually breathe for a bit, think about what else I wanted to do. Neither one of us wanted to stay in Dallas; big cities were never our thing. So we went home. I’d saved most of my signing bonus, and money went much further in rural Wisconsin than it did in the big city, so we went home and started over.”
“And that’s where the cheese comes in?”
“Exactly. I knew an old guy who lived in town, made cheddar. He used to buy his milk from our dairy, and I’d been interested in the process. I started working with him, learning the business, and when Missy and I talked about what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives, we started thinking about where else in the country we might like to live. She’d always wanted to live somewhere different—and it’s crazy when an idea takes hold, how fast things can change.”
I shook my head. “It’s not crazy, it’s just you. Anyone who can overcome an injury like that is tough. You’re determined as hell, Oscar. I’m not at all surprised you figured out a way through it.”
He blushed a bit, shrugging his shoulders. “Anyway, that’s how we ended up here. There was a farm for sale, there were several outbuildings on the property for me to get my cheese-making thing going; it was almost too easy. But once we got here and settled in, things changed.”
“Between you and Missy?”
“Yep. Away from family and friends, away from everything we’d always thought we’d do together, we started to . . . I don’t know . . . drift apart, I guess? Not right away, but luckily it happened before we had any kids. So when the split came, it was clean.”
“And she didn’t go back home.”
“Oh no, she loved the area. She lives in the next town over, as you know. I admit, I didn’t get to know many people here when we first moved. You might have noticed I tend to be a little . . . standoffish?”
“Noooo,” I mocked, and he kissed me on top of the head.
“But then the cheese started coming together, literally and figuratively, and I’d invested the money I’d earned well enough to really give it a go. And there we are.”
“And there we are,” I said, stopping on the sidewalk. We’d walked around the town square nearly enough times to wear a path in the concrete. I wrapped both arms around him, leaning into a hug. “And your family?”
“They’re back home. They do their thing. My dad’s grooming my nephew to be the next Brett Favre.”
“Who?”
“Oh, Natalie.” He sighed and hugged me back just as tightly.
So now I knew the story of Oscar.
I spent the rest of the day with him, helping him move the cows around, enjoying the day, kissing him whenever I could manage it. And when he kissed me good-bye at the train station that night, it was all I could do to not throw my arms around him and stay another night.
He was under my skin now.
Chapter 16
Back in the city, I worked my ass off, spending ten hours a day in the office, focusing my attention on work to keep my mind from wandering to what was waiting for me just a train ride away. But I had work, and work I did.
The T&T campaign was coming along marvelously, sharp and witty and exactly how I had envisioned it. Dan had made a few suggestions about how to beef up the coverage a bit, including some witty copy that would play really well on the radio ads the client had agreed to purchase.
The best part of the week? My friend Clara was in town, working on a hotel remodel in the Flatiron District. She traveled all over helping to rebrand hotels, specializing in historic hotels that were on the verge of going under. Sometimes it was as simple as bringing in a new manager, changing out some staff, or brightening up the rooms, but sometimes it was a complete overhaul. That was the case with the Winchester, a pre-WWI hotel that had hosted presidents and kings, movie stars and countless starlets. It had fallen on hard times, and in a last-ditch effort the family that owned it had hired Clara’s firm to try and rebrand it for the new batch of stars and starlets.
“You should see the dining room—heaven! It’s still got the original windows, hidden behind miles and miles of awful draperies, but the windows are still there.” Clara was sipping her sparkling water, hands flashing about as she talked a mile a minute. Clara moved almost constantly, her sleek runner’s frame seeming almost incapable of keeping still. Running ten miles a day four days a week (on the fifth day she’d push herself to fifteen if she had a race coming up), she competed in marathons and triathlons around the globe. She traveled a lot, was always on the move, although her schedule had been slowing down of late, as she took more projects that seemed to be based in the United States than abroad as was her norm.
Which was fine with me, because it meant I got to see her more often. And now that we had Roxie firmly ensconced in upstate New York, we were even all planning a weekend get-together just as soon as we could pin Clara down. Which was proving almost impossible.