Sherryl Woods - After Tex

“To start looking for alternative space. Then find a hole in my schedule and pencil her in sometime before the millennium.”

“I’ll write it in pen,” he countered. “Otherwise, you’ll just erase it and write in something else. I will not listen to another one of that woman’s perfectly justifiable tirades. You hired her to find new space so we wouldn’t all be crawling over top of each other. The least you can do is look at what she finds.”

Megan grinned at his testiness. “I thought you enjoyed crawling all over the staff, especially Micah.”

Micah Richards was a bright, ambitious producer who was responsible for whipping Megan’s TV production into shape in record time. With her close-cropped black hair, angular features and long legs, she was stunningly beautiful in an unconventional way. Mere mention of her was enough to bring color to Todd’s cheeks.

“Micah’s the kind of woman who’ll slap me with a harrassment suit if I sneeze in her general direction,” he protested. “I do not crawl anywhere near her.”

“But you want to, don’t you?”

Todd gave her a jaundiced look. “My private yearnings are none of your concern.”

“Sure they are. It makes up for having absolutely none of my own.”

“I thought you had a date last night.”

“It was a business meeting,” she countered emphatically. “No yearning involved.”

“How many so-called business meetings does that make with Peter? Your finances must be very complicated if you need to see your accountant that often.”

That was the trouble with an efficient assistant. He knew her habits all too well. “Do I pay you to keep tabs on my social life?”

“You pay me to keep tabs on everything.”

True enough, she acknowledged, but only to herself. “Okay, then, tell me what’s on the agenda for today.”

Todd ticked off a daunting schedule that was already running late, thanks to his penchant for scheduling nine o’clock meetings when he knew perfectly well Megan refused to be civil to anyone before ten. Too many years of ranch living and rising at dawn had made her rebellious. Fortunately, most of those nine o’clock meetings were with staffers who knew her habits. They worked steadily until she called for them, she crammed an hour’s worth of talk into fifteen minutes and Todd got to enjoy his little game. It was a small price to pay for his otherwise incredible efficiency.

Her first meeting was with her food editor, who wanted to do a feature on edible flowers. She littered Megan’s desk with bright nasturtiums and encouraged her to sample them to prove her point. Megan eyed the perky little flowers with distaste and agreed to take the woman’s word for it.

That was followed by a quick session with a freelance photographer hoping to do an architectural photo shoot on the new waterfront home of a man who’d made megabucks in the computer industry. Megan had to tell him they’d been there and done that—months ago, in fact.

She had lunch with her editor to talk about the next book, followed by nonstop meetings to cover every facet of the magazine, as well as the topics for the next four tapings of the TV show.

“Are you satisfied with these?” Megan asked Micah, who was pacing around the room with an edginess that was typical of the woman’s nervous energy.

“All but that last one,” she said. “To be honest, I’m not sure anyone gives a fig about figs.”

“Isn’t it our job to show them the possibilities?”

Micah nodded. “Okay, I’ll buy that, but consider this. The people watching this show have to go to their neighborhood market later to get the ingredients. Just how many varieties of figs do you think the stores in Middle America will carry?”

“In other words, we’ll excite them, then frustrate them,” Megan said thoughtfully.

“Exactly. It’s all well and good to suggest new, trendy foods, but if we do, we’d better be sure there’s a mail-order link or something for the hard-to-find ingredients. See what I mean?”

Megan nodded. “Mail order, huh? Maybe a catalog?” She beamed. “I love it. Put somebody on developing it. Let’s not just offer exotic gourmet foods, but a sampling of everything we talk about on the show. Anything else?”

“Nope. I’ll take care of this and get back to you.”

“Thanks, Micah.” Megan regarded her hopefully. “I don’t suppose we could get the first catalog out in time for Christmas.”

“Not without having the entire staff crash and burn. Maybe next Christmas, if we want to do it right.”

“Okay, I’ll settle for summer,” Megan compromised.

“Done,” Micah said, then grinned. “I would have gone for spring.”

It was a game they often played, tempering their natural tendencies toward eagerness and excitement with reality checks.

“See you tomorrow,” Micah said. “I’ll find something to sub for the figs.”

After her meeting with the producer, Megan retreated to a test kitchen to sample the recipes slated for nine months from now, in the July issue’s feature on backyard entertaining. She prided herself on the fact that Megan’s World had never once mentioned the word hamburger in connection with such an informal social event.

She thought of her grandfather and smiled. Tex referred to her suggested alternatives as “sissy food” and refused to allow his housekeeper to put any of it on his table. Megan knew, because on her last whirlwind visit home she’d asked Mrs. Gomez if she’d ever tried any of the recipes.

“Only at my own home, niña. Your grandpapa wants only meat and potatoes, nothing so fancy as what you write about.”

“Does he even look at the magazine?” Megan had inquired, unable to hide the wistful note in her voice. For all of her claims to independence, she still craved Tex’s approval, which he gave out with stingy rarity.

“Of course he looks. He even got cable last month so the picture of you on TV would be clearer. He is very proud of you.” The older woman had shrugged. “That does not mean he understands the choices you have made or the food you write about, Sí?”

“Yes,” Megan had agreed with a sigh.

Megan was a mystery to her grandfather, just as Tex was an enigma to her. He had taken her in when she was barely nine and abandoned by a mother who no longer wanted any part of raising a difficult child. That was the last time Megan had seen Sarah O’Rourke. She had never seen her father, at least not that she could recall, and no one mentioned him. She didn’t even know his name. Given Tex’s tight-lipped reaction to her hesitant inquiries, there was some question whether her mother did, either.

Tex had been mother and father to her from that moment on. He’d done the best he could, but he was not an especially warm man. He believed in plain truths and harsh realities with no sugarcoating. He’d given her a roof over her head, food and clothes, but he thought toys and dolls were foolishness, television a waste of time and books on anything other than ranching only marginally better.

Megan had never doubted, though, that he loved her. And when the time had come to let her go, he’d railed about it, but he’d given her the wherewithal to make her dreams come true and the knowledge that home would be waiting for her if she failed.

That Megan had succeeded beyond her wildest expectations and his was still baffling to him. Not a conversation passed without him asking when she was going to “give up that damn fool nonsense” and come back where she belonged. She’d put off another visit for just that reason, because the pressure to come home—both overt and subtle—would be relentless. Seeing the hurt and disappointment in his eyes when she refused took some of the joy out of her accomplishments. Better, she’d concluded, to stay away.