I grew up on the seventh fairway of a golf course in an oil town in Oklahoma. The daughter of an orthopedic surgeon, I spent the school year submerging myself in classical ballet…and the summertime submerging myself in the chlorinated water of the country-club pool. My mother and I had season tickets to the opera in a neighboring city, and thanks to theater trips to New York, I knew every Broadway song ever written. I was a bona fide city girl.
When it came time for college, I thought my town of 35,000 was a little small for my liking. I enrolled at the University of Southern California and moved into a dorm room with a clear view (on smog-free days) of the Hollywood sign. I loved Los Angeles and vowed never again to live in a place with a population of less than five million people. I loved the pulse, the excitement, the pace. Finally, I felt like I was where I truly belonged, where I was meant to be.
After college, I decided to move to Chicago. My brother lived there, as did some good friends. So I returned home to Oklahoma for a short time to pack, refine my résumé and search for Chicago-area apartments. One night just before Christmas, a group of childhood friends invited me out for a glass of wine and some reminiscing. So I temporarily set aside my Chicago planning, threw on some comfortable jeans and met my friends.
That’s when I saw him—the cowboy—across the room. He was tall, striking, dressed in Wranglers. He was unlike anyone I’d ever seen in my hometown. Before I knew it, we were talking. My knees were weak the whole time. I’m not sure how I remained standing. Then, just like that, the cowboy left. He and his brother had to cook some Christmas turkeys for a shelter in his small town (He’s nice too, I told myself) and he was already late. I watched as he and his Wranglers walked out of the bar and, I assumed, out of my life.
One night of conversation with a cute cowboy, however, wasn’t about to derail my Chicago plans. By April, I’d made a deposit on a Chicago apartment. I planned to stay home through my brother’s wedding to one of our hometown friends later that month, then I’d be off. I was ready. I missed the gourmet coffee shops, the city, the culture.
The evening after the wedding, my phone rang. It was the cowboy. He’d gotten my number from an acquaintance and was calling on his way home from working a herd of cattle. I wasn’t sure why I was hearing from him after four months—all I knew was that as soon as I heard his voice my knees went weak again. He asked if I’d like to go to dinner the following night.
He picked me up the next evening wearing jeans, a starched denim shirt and cowboy boots. He was a vision. I was wearing clothes appropriate for a night out in Chicago, complete with spiked black boots and plenty of lip gloss. We didn’t exactly look like we belonged together. It doesn’t matter, though, I told myself. I’ll be gone soon anyway.
I don’t even remember eating dinner that night. We talked the entire time—about his family, about my family, about his ranch, about my time in Los Angeles, about his brother Todd, who’d died in an accident years earlier, and about my brother Mike, who was developmentally disabled. And all the time I found myself increasingly lost in his icy blue eyes, his gentle manner and his work-honed confidence. He was like no one I’d ever met before.
I was still flying high as he walked me to the front door of my parents’ house after dinner. Suddenly, the spiked heel of one of my snazzy boots caught in a gap in the brick driveway. I felt myself lurch forward, and I was certain I was headed for an ugly fall. But a pair of strong hands caught me. Within an instant, I found myself locked in an unforgettable kiss with the cowboy, the kind of kiss I thought only existed in movies.
Later that night, as I drifted off to sleep, I had the strangest feeling. This cowboy, whoever he was and wherever he’d come from, had infiltrated my soul. I closed my eyes and saw him, heard him, felt his strong arms around me.
We had a second date the next night, which turned into a third and a fourth. After two weeks we were spending every waking moment together—cooking dinner at his house on the ranch, watching action movies on his couch and listening to coyotes and watching the stars on his porch. All the while, my apartment in Chicago was waiting. I couldn’t imagine putting a stop to the beautiful momentum between us, but my plans were made. Still, I felt torn. If Chicago was where I truly belonged, why did it feel so right in the arms of this Oklahoma cowboy?
One evening, just days before I was to leave, the cowboy and I stood on the porch of my parents’ house—the exact spot where he’d first kissed me.
“So,” he said quietly, “what about Chicago?” It was the question I’d been trying to avoid.
I hugged him tight and buried my face in his shoulder. “I just don’t know,” I mumbled.
He pulled away slightly and cupped my face in his hands. He looked at me for a moment, then whispered one simple word: “Don’t.” He gave me a sweet kiss and walked back to his truck. I knew exactly what he was saying. Don’t go. Don’t leave. Don’t let this end.
The next morning, I called and let my Chicago apartment go. It was the craziest, most impulsive thing I’d ever done. We’d known each other only a short time. Chances were pretty good nothing would come of what we’d started. Still, the second I hung up the phone that morning, I knew I’d done the right thing. I couldn’t possibly have left.
Many months later on that very same porch, the site of so many romantic good nights and innumerable long embraces, the cowboy I’d fallen hopelessly in love with proposed to me. I said yes with the same abandon with which I’d given up my Chicago plans. I had no idea how I would or could ever marry a cattle rancher, move to the country and live miles from the nearest paved road. I just knew I couldn’t imagine life without him. Yes was simply the only answer I could have given. This was where I was truly meant to be.
When I married him and moved to his ranch, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was a fish out of water. The ranch was 25 miles from the nearest town, and there was no such thing as pizza delivery or spa treatments. I would hear noises in the middle of the night and find horses looking in at me through the window. Bobcats went through our trash. Nothing about my life was how I had pictured it. But slowly, magically, something happened. I discovered true happiness.
We’ve been married now almost 14 years, have four beautiful children, weathered some tremendous storms, and have had our share of joys, disappointments, triumphs and upheavals. And while I still sometimes marvel at how different my life is from the plans I always had for it, I’m more convinced with each passing day that this is the path that was somehow laid out for me. I don’t pretend to know all of the reasons God sent this cowboy into my life, but I cherish the life we’ve built together.
In the greatest twist of irony, this “city girl” finally found happiness in the most unlikely of places: a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere.
