The Day Hell Froze Over

He was not supposed to know. Never. Then he pulled out another folder and glanced through it. "You took up with him less than three months after you ended it with Charles Goodnight. He claimed he was a direct descendant of the legendary cowboy, even wore that stupid cowboy hat everywhere. What was your favorite position with him? Cowboy? Reverse cowboy, or maybe he did you doggie and rode you like a mare in heat. What ended that affair? It's a little murky there at the end, and I found I didn't care enough to find out."

I felt faint. How much did he know?

He opened yet another folder. "You fucked Yoshi Yamato for the entire time you were in Japan sealing that deal for your fathers' company. It brought international relations to a whole new level. Before that it was Barkley Hughes, but that was the first since we married, so I had the investigators stop looking. no telling how many you fucked while we were dating."

I finally got a spark back. "So then, you only brought me down here to rub my face in my affairs? maybe you hoped we could reconcile?"

His face changed and he looked like he was about to hurl. "Honestly, I don't think that would ever happen, even if hell froze over again. No, now I just feel sorry for you. You've never had a true relationship with anybody except for maybe your father, never known the true love between a man and his wife. Honestly, I don't think you're capable of it. You lied to me, Jasmine, our whole time together, and kept telling me everything was all right. In fact, I made the song by Johnny Lang my ringtone when your number popped up, just to remind me. No, this is a clumsy attempt on my part on an intervention, to maybe, just maybe, see yourself for what you are for the very first time. I don't think it would work, but I made a promise to try."

He paused, and just as I was about to talk, he started again. "I head you're engaged again, to a man you rule unmercifully. Are you fucking around on him yet, or do you have him trained enough not to care? Words to ponder here. Every person has a limit, though sometimes it takes decades to reach it. Sooner or later, he will have had enough and leave you in the dust, not caring whether he gets to touch your money or not. Remember, even bunnies will scratch and claw when they're trapped with no other way out."

His words hit me unexpectedly hard, but I rallied. "Well then, you can write off your promise to yourself. You've talked to me, made your opinion clear of me, given me advice you know I won't take. Can I go now?"

He looked at his phone and sighed. "You still owe me eight minutes, but you're right, we're done. I'd advise you to be a better person, but I'd be wasting my breath. Go back to yourself indulgent world, where only what you wants matters, and enjoy it."

He stood, shoving the folders over to me. "Here, you can have these. I only kept them so you'd know I wasn't quite the mushroom you took me for. One more thing. The promise wasn't to myself, but to someone who meant the world to me. I'd given you up for the lost cause you were a long time ago. If it hadn't been for that, I'd have been more than happy to forget you ever existed."

"Who was the promise to, then?"

His eyes went cold. "Times up. You can go away now."

He turned and walked into the house, leaving me on the porch. It took me a few minutes to gather myself, then I stood, grabbing the folders on the table, and going to my car.

I was halfway to the highway when I saw the young girl in the pasture, riding a horse that looked familiar somehow. I stopped and waited, and she trotted up to me. She just sat, and I finally broke the silence. "That horse looks familiar."

She smiled, lost in a thought. "It should. Sir Prance A Lot was your mother's last horse, and she sent him down here five months before she passed, because she wanted me to have him."

"How did you kn..."

She flicked the reins, and the silver Arabian responded, cantering off instantly. Her parting words were "Don't come back!"

And then she was gone, I watched her fading figure for a second before I got back in my car. Later, on the plane, I was unusually quiet and my entourage left me alone, lost in thought. Mom had loved Shane, and was heartbroken when it came to light he cheated on me. She was very bitter towards him while the divorce was going through, but sometime after the divorce she just stopped talking about him, except to express sadness over the lack of grandchildren.

Now I find she gave a horse to his apparent stepdaughter? The more I pondered it the more I felt I needed to know. When I got home, I found I didn't have his email address, but it was fairly simple to find it for his business, and I sent him a message that we needed another talk.

His lawyer sent me a message, saying his client agreed under the same conditions as the last. "What does that mean, exactly?"

Ben just gave a sad smile. "It means, honey, that you need to wait until hell freezes over again."