The Pioneer Woman Read Online Free PDF Page B

my phone so I could convince myself I hadn’t. “You’re here?” I asked. “You’re kidding, right?”
    â€œNo, I’m not kidding,” J said. “I’m here. I need to see you.”
    I sat there on the quiet shoulder, stunned and deflated at the same time. This wasn’t what I’d planned for that evening.
    â€œJ…” I paused and thought. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, I asked you not to come. I told you it was not a good idea for you to come.” I thought about Puggy Sue. Her soft, velvety ears.
    â€œWhere are you?” he asked.
    â€œI’m…on my way to see a friend,” I replied. Please don’t ask me any details.
    â€œWell, I think you need to change your plans, don’t you?” he asked.
    It was a valid question. And sitting there on the side of the highway, watching the sun set in front of me, I had no idea what I should do. On the one hand, I’d been very clear, as clear as I could have been, with J the day before. Don’t come; I didn’t think I’d left any ambiguity. On the other hand, J—a really decent guy under less intense circumstances—had been important to me for a long time and had, after all, traveled 1,800 miles to talk to me in person. Still, I wondered what good could possibly come from my going to see him. We could hardly get through a simple phone conversation without hitting total gridlock; how much better could that possibly be in person, particularly since I was 100 percent sure the relationship, from my perspective, was over? Plus, I’d run over Puggy Sue that day; I just didn’t have much emotional fortitude left.
    And besides…Marlboro Man was waiting for me.
    With that, I pulled off the shoulder of the highway and continued driving west toward the ranch. “J, I’m not coming,” I said. The pause on the other end of the line seemed endless. And the subsequent click from J hanging up on me was so quiet, it was almost deafening.

Chapter Four
A WOMAN CALLED HYSTERICAL
    F OR THE remainder of my drive to Marlboro Man’s ranch, I waited on pins and needles, expecting the phone to ring again and again and again. I alternated between despair over having watched Puggy struggle and yelp and wince on the street and gnawing regret over breaking up with J on a car phone. I didn’t like hearing the desperation in a voice that had always been so laid-back and cool. I didn’t enjoy causing another person pain.
    I’d deliberately gone about the breakup process slowly, compassionately, gently—taking great care not to hurt the one person who’d meant the most to me during all my years in California. But driving down that lonely highway, I realized the hard way that there was no such thing as gradually breaking someone’s heart, no matter how much you think prolonging the process might help. There was always going to have to be The Moment—that instant in which the break in breakup actually executes, when the knife finally plunges into the gut, when all the plans and hopes that have ever gone in a relationship finally die a violent, bloody death. When the real pain begins.
    Was I wrong, I wondered, not to turn around and give J an hour? Or two? But what could possibly come of the face-to-face meeting? Tears? Pleading? A proposal, God forbid? Anything was possible at that point, and I wasn’t up for any of it. Right or wrong, I just knew I had to keep driving west toward Marlboro Man. My life with J was over.
    My phone remained dead silent until I pulled into the graveled driveway at Marlboro Man’s house. Checking my eye makeup in the rearview mirror, I swallowed hard, trying to force away the grapefruit-size lump that had taken up residence in my throat. Then I thought of Puggy again. Dear Lord, I thought, I loved that dog. She doesn’t belong in the ground, she belongs on my lap. And her ears belong between my fingers. I loved