Nate leaned over so far, Dallas thought he’d surely slip from the saddle. He didn’t, though, and as they kissed, Ted led the charge by yelling, “Aye, yai, yai!”
Dallas joined his voice to the cheering, and Remmy clapped her hands over her ears and said, “Daddy.” Dallas let her down off his lap as he stood with many others. Nate and Ginger swung around on their horses, and the pastor had looped a braided rope around their wrists, which they raised up together.
Pure happiness radiated from their faces, and Dallas basked in the warm glow of it. He also really wanted it for himself, and again, he thought of Martha. He needed to call her as soon as he could find a spare moment to be alone.
Once Nate and Ginger had ridden away on their horses, the energy started to fade. Dallas suddenly felt the weight of the world descended on him again, and it was far too heavy for him to shoulder alone. But there was no one else to take even a piece of it for even a minute.
“Come on, guys,” he said to his kids, and they stuck close to him as the crowd started to move in a herd toward the flaps in the tent that had been tied back.
Behind him, Ted said. “Missy, let’s get the pool filled up, yeah? I feel like my skin is melting off.” It was such a Ted-thing to say, and Dallas swung around and smiled at him.
“Who gets married in September in Texas?”
“Crazy people,” Ted said, taking off his cowboy hat and wiping his forehead. “Em and I chose the beginning of March.”
“Smart,” Dallas said, noting that Jess veered toward another door. He watched her go, a bit of guilt straining in his stomach. He probably shouldn’t have snapped at her about the texting.
“Do you guys want to come swimming?” Ted asked, looking at Thomas and Remmy as they finally gained the doors and the crowd started to spread out.
“Can we, Daddy?” Remmy asked.
“Sure,” Dallas said. “I think Aunt Amy bought you guys bathing suits.” He refrained from tacking on the word, “Right?” as if he didn’t know. He was ninety percent sure Amy had gotten swimming suits for his kids, because she’d had them for a the bulk of the summer.
Remmy started skipping ahead of them, saying, “She did, Daddy. Mine’s purple with pink stars.”
Even Thomas looked excited about the prospect of a swimming pool, and as they approached the homestead, he went with Ted toward the cabins in the corner. A stand-up pool sat in the shade of a huge oak tree, and Ted said, “I’ll get it going now. You guys go change.” He paused and looked at Dallas. “I can take the kids for an hour or two,” he said in a much quieter voice.
Dallas wondered if he wore his exhaustion on his face. He’d learned how to smother his emotions and cover everything up with a blank mask, almost from the first day he’d entered River Bay. But he’d obviously forgotten a lot already, in only a few days.
“You sure?”
“Sure,” Ted said. “Go settle in. Shower. Whatever.” He flashed Dallas a smile and started toward the hose.
Dallas went with his kids, and he helped Remmy dig through her suitcase until they found her swimming suit. He went out into the kitchen and asked a brown-haired woman if there was any sunscreen he could use on this kids.
“Sure,” she said. “We have a cupboard we call the apothecary.” She led him over to a cupboard next to the fridge and opened it. Bottles of every height and color stood there, with sheets of pills that could be pushed out of the foil on the back, and taller canisters of bug spray and sunscreen.
“Thank you,” he said. “I forgot your name.”
“Hannah,” she said with a smile. He felt nothing for her, the way he had with Jess, and he wasn’t sure what that meant. Probably that she wasn’t texting during a wedding or yelling at him for cleaning up chocolate from the floor.
“Hannah, right.” He took the sunscreen from the shelf and sprayed his kids. Then he went out the door that led into the garage and stepped toward the back yard. He paused at the corner and watched Thomas and Remmy run toward the other kids in the pool. Apparently, Ted had been nominated as the babysitter, and when he came out to the pool, wearing a bright lime green pair of swimming trunks, it was obvious why.
A couple of other women loitered on the back steps, clearly engaged in a conversation with one another. They looked a little bit like Ginger, and Dallas assumed they were her sisters. Part of him wanted to join the party in the pool, but the thought of changing his clothes and spraying himself with sunscreen made him want to sink to his knees and weep.
Ted’s bellowing laugh filled the air, and Dallas grinned. His kids would be fine.
He went back to the room he’d been given to change in, wondering where he’d really be staying that night. This was the West Wing, and men didn’t live on this side of the house. Instead of finding someone to ask, he simply closed and locked the door. He collapsed on the bed and pulled his phone from his pocket.
A sigh escaped from his mouth, and he thought about doing his best to fall asleep. In the end, though, he dialed Martha, his heartbeat bobbing into the back of his throat.
“Hey,” Martha said, her voice far too chipper.
Instant annoyance flashed through Dallas. It seemed entirely unfair that she was off enjoying her life in Florida or Georgia or wherever she was, and he was here, exhausted and hot and trying to figure out how to be a dad all over again by himself.
At the same time, Dallas wanted her back in his life. Nothing made sense. He had no idea how his life had come to this bedroom, on this ranch, on this phone call. He’d felt like this before, because his first night in prison had provided him with the same out-of-body experience as he was having right now.
“Are you there?” she asked.
Dallas let his eyes drift closed as he said, “Yeah, I’m here.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just talk to me,” he said. He’d asked her to do this many times for him in the past. When he’d lost a heart patient—the second child in a family with congenital heart failure—and he’d come home devastated, he’d collapsed on a bed very much like this one. He’d cried and cried, and Martha had simply sat with him and stroked his hair off his forehead until he quieted.
Then she’d asked, “Are you done crying?” in a kind, quiet, patient voice.
He hadn’t answered, and he’d just asked her to talk to him. She’d told him that he had to go back to work, even though he’d said he didn’t want to ever return to a hospital surgical wing again. He had to go back, because he had to help the others coming up behind him. He had knowledge others didn’t have, and they’d have to learn it all over again.
He’d picked himself up, showered and slept, and gone back to work.
“I don’t have anything to say,” Martha said.
“Where are you?” Dallas asked.
“Dallas.” She sighed. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I need you,” he whispered, wishing he didn’t. But he did. “I miss you. I—”
“Dallas,” she said again. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Are you seeing someone else?” he asked.
“I’m not doing this,” Martha said. “How are the kids?”
Anger drove out the soft feelings in his heart. He suddenly didn’t miss her at all, and in fact, if he knew where she was, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from driving over there and throttling her.
“I have to go,” he said. He hung up before she could protest, not that she would. And that would only hurt worse than telling her that the two children she abandoned were currently swimming in a pool and wondering where their mother was.
Dallas needed to figure out where he was going to go tomorrow. He needed to find a place to live, because the little money he did have would run out incredibly fast if they had to stay in hotels for long.
His back screamed at him as he stood up, and throbbed as he bent to get his laptop out of his backpack. Brent had given it to him, and gratitude streamed through Dallas. It wasn’t enough to erase the pain his
back, and he went out to the kitchen to get some painkillers from that cupboard full of pill bottles.
He’d just swallowed a few pills when someone came in the back door. Dallas really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, even someone he knew.
Jess came around the corner, and a physical groan actually came out of Dallas’s mouth. He wasn’t ready to apologize yet, and he turned away as she said, “Just the man I was looking for.”
That got him to turn around, because he couldn’t really determine her mood from the tone of her voice. She wore a smile that seemed a little predatory, and Dallas braced himself for something that would surely only add fuel to the fire already simmering in his stomach.
Chapter Four
Jess didn’t like the stance Dallas assumed. One hip slightly cocked, arms folded, that glower in his eyes. Maybe she did like it. She wasn’t sure. He definitely made something flutter somewhere inside her. She couldn’t decide if it was her stomach or her chest.
It had taken a lot of nerve for her to come here and talk to him, but she reminded herself that she’d been asking Ginger for a man like him for months. Humiliation still ran through her, and she could still hear him telling her to stop texting during the wedding.
She had, and she supposed she could see things from his point of view. He simply didn’t know that she’d been texting Emma about a salary for a mechanic. Then, after the ceremony, when she’d met Nate and Ginger in the stable, she’d gotten the go-ahead to hire him.
She’d swallowed her pride, and boy, that had been a big ball to force down her throat.
“Did you need something?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, realizing that she’d fallen into staring at him. He was pretty easy to look at, that was for sure. “I’ve been authorized to offer you a position here at the ranch.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it again.
“As our mechanic,” she said. “We’re always a couple of steps behind with our equipment, and your skill with that air conditioner told me that you could get us caught up and keep us that way.”
Dallas looked like she’d thrown her phone and hit him in the nose. He blinked a couple of times and leaned against the counter behind him.
“Do you have another job?” Jess asked. “The salary is pretty good, and it comes with a place for you and your kids to live.”
His eyes widened even further, and Jess wondered why he hadn’t changed out of his suit yet. She couldn’t wait to get out of her dress, and her bedroom was only steps down the hall. Freedom. Relief.
She was so much more comfortable in jeans, a tank top, and boots, a cowgirl hat on her head and a pair of leather gloves in her back pocket. She could talk to the horses, and tell them about the wedding, and how beautiful Ginger was.
She could whisper about her own dreams and fantasies to ride one of them down an aisle to her waiting groom—or better yet, she could ride on the front of the saddle with her husband-to-be behind her.
“How good is the salary?” Dallas asked, pulling Jess back to reality.
“Sixty thousand,” she said. “The cabin is out quite a ways, unfortunately, but it’s a quick drive in. Five, maybe ten, minutes.”
He looked like he was really considering it, and Jess wished it wasn’t such a debate for him. “The cabin is here on the ranch?”
“Yes.”
“How much of a cabin are we talking? There’s running water and stuff?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s one of the guest cabins we rent out, actually. We don’t do as much of that in the winter, and Ginger is going to build more cabins here at the epicenter of the ranch. I’m sure you’ll move into one of those once they’re done.” The ranch needed the money from the rentals, Jess knew that.
Hope Eternal was a great ranch, but it did take all the moving pieces and streams of revenue to keep everyone employed and the operation running smoothly. Ginger did an amazing job managing it all, though Jess knew each woman in the West Wing contributed mightily to the overall success of the ranch, herself included.
“Okay,” Dallas finally said. “I can do that. Are we talking full-time work?”
“In the beginning, yes,” she said. “Like, I said, we’re behind on all of our mechanical work right now.”
“Okay,” Dallas said.
“Do you have a minute for me to take you out to the cabin? Emma will have your paperwork in the morning.”
“Sure.” Dallas started toward her, and Jess scanned him from head to toe.
“You don’t want to change?”
He paused, his step slowing to a stop. “Yeah, I guess I better.” A hint of a flush crawled up his neck as he pivoted and went down the hall toward the bedrooms.
Jess felt the oxygen drain from the room as he left, and she sagged against the kitchen island in partial relief and partial annoyance. She wasn’t sure if she was irritated with herself or with Dallas, or with the day in general.
Dallas must’ve learned how to change in under thirty seconds, because he returned to the kitchen before Jess knew it. That, or she’d lost track of time while she stood in the kitchen, thinking about him.
“Ready,” he announced, and Jess straightened and led him out to the garage. “I have to tell Ted where I’ll be. Be right back.” He veered left while she went right, where she’d parked in the driveway. A sense of self-consciousness slipped through her as she got behind the wheel. Dallas would be in this truck with her, and the cab was suddenly very, very small.
She even looked over to the passenger side of the bench, and she didn’t think he’d fit on the seat. She’d once again lost time, and before she knew it, Dallas was opening the door and climbing in. He adjusted himself on the seat, and sure enough, those broad shoulders filled the whole space. “Ready,” he said again.
Jess nodded, her voice suddenly on vacation. She got onto the dirt road that went west, toward the stables, barns, and equipment shed. As soon as she passed the shed that held the ATVs, she said, “That’s where we keep our four-wheelers. We have a large building with our tractors and whatnot, and there’s a small office there. One of the cowboys has been keeping the records there, so hopefully it won’t be too much of a mess for you.”
Dallas simply hummed, and Jess needed to fill the silence. She kept talking, detailing the beehives where they did their honey tours, the monarch butterfly programs they ran for the elementary school children, and the horseback riding lessons that Jess oversaw five afternoons a week.
Summertime was their busiest season for horseback riding, but they were busy year-round, as kids of all ages came after school for lessons.
Jess’s truck chugged along, and she went too fast for the dirt road. She could feel the tires sliding on the loose gravel, and before she knew it, she’d taken a corner too fast and the truck slid sideways.
“Whoa,” she said at the same time Dallas grunted and reached up to press his palm against the top of the door. “Sorry.” She wasn’t a great driver, and that was the last thing she wanted Dallas to know about her. She cast him a quick look, her face heating in less time than it took to breathe.
She came to a stop and gripped the steering wheel. One deep breath later, she lifted her foot from the brake pedal. The truck should’ve moved, but it didn’t, and Jess’s heart dropped to the soles of her feet.
“Oh, no,” she said.
“What?” he asked.
“Sheila does this sometimes,” she said, glancing his way again without truly meeting his eye. “I can get it going again.” She leapt from the truck and leaned back inside to pop the hood. A wisp of smoke lifted from the seam along the front of the truck, and Jess paused.
She couldn’t touch that, because it would be boiling hot. She’d put antifreeze in Sheila just a few days ago, and she couldn’t be out already. A sweet, searing smell met her nose.
“Sheila?” Dallas asked, meeting her eyes across the hood.
“My truck.” Jess indicated the vehicle. “We go way back.”
&nb
sp; “Well, she’s on her last leg,” Dallas said, eyeing the smoke.
Jess didn’t want to believe that. She couldn’t, because if she lost her truck, she felt like she’d lose the last piece of herself that she actually knew.
“I can take a look at her,” Dallas said.
“It’s way too hot,” she said, darting around the corner of the hood to stop him. “I’ll call Hannah, and she’ll come get us.”
“I can handle the heat,” he said, nudging her out of the way. Sure enough, he fitted his fingers under the hood, released the catch, and lifted it up. He worked easily, as if working with machines was second-nature to him.
More smoke billowed out of the engine now that he’d released it, and he stepped back, waving his hand in front of his face.
“How did you do that?” she asked. “Open it when it was that hot?” She could feel the heat coming from the engine, and the hood should’ve scorched him.
“I’ve worked with a lot of hot things,” he said, stepping up to the bumper.
Jess didn’t want him examining Sheila. She had the distinct feeling she was about to be lectured for her care—or her lack thereof—of the vehicle, and she didn’t want to hear it. “Really,” she said. “I’ll call Hannah to come get us, and I can get Spence to tow me back in with a tractor.”
Dallas kept looking at the engine, but he kept his hands out. “All right.” He turned and looked at her, and their eyes met. Though it was far too hot to stand here, smoke wafting around them, staring at him, she couldn’t look away.
He finally stepped back, breaking the moment. Jess dropped her head and cleared her throat. “Right. I’m going to call Hannah.” She turned her back on him, barely remembering how to use a cell phone as her brain misfired with the nearness of Dallas Dreyer.
“Thanks a lot, Spence,” Jess said later that night. She’d ridden out with him in the tractor, every moment almost like torture. They’d broken up weeks ago, and they’d said it wouldn’t be awkward between them. She saw him around the ranch often, and when they were both working and busy, it wasn’t awkward.
Rugged Cowboy Page 3