“Great,” Dallas said. “I can talk to her tomorrow.”
“She works with the calves in the mornings,” Jess said. “Then out of an office in the barn in the afternoons. Emma runs all the operations on the ranch. Hiring, which is why she has your paperwork. She oversees the overall budget on the ranch, and big-ticket items have to go through her. She might have records on the ATVs, tractors, trucks, and all the other vehicles we have here.”
“Perfect.” He had a notebook and scrawled something on it. When he looked up again, Jess forgot what they’d been talking about.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
Dallas blinked, his surprise evident on his face. Foolishness raced through Jess, but the words had been spoken.
“The Houston area,” he said, his voice somewhat strained. “That’s what I need to do in the morning. Call my realtor and put my house up for sale.”
“Oh.” Surprise wound through Jess now.
“Do I have to live on the ranch?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
He nodded and made another note. “Once I sell my house, I’ll probably find something better for me and the kids.”
“Where’s your wife?” she asked.
Dallas flinched, his eyes shooting back to hers again. “You ask blunt questions, don’t you?”
“I mean, I’m assuming you have a wife,” Jess said. “Or had one.” She shrugged though she wanted to tape her mouth shut. She did have a bit of a blunt streak, and she obviously needed help with censoring the things that came out of her mouth.
“I did.” He cleared his throat. “I’m assuming you’re going to have to clear all of the things I asked for with Ginger?”
“Yes,” Jess said. “And Emma and Hannah. Computers aren’t free, you know.”
“Yeah, well, writing down the minimal maintenance you’ve done on three hundred thousand dollar vehicles—in handwriting no one can read—is ridiculous.” His eyes flashed with something fiery, and wow, Jess wanted to get burned by it.
“If you want me to do this job,” he said. “I need a computer. It’s non-negotiable.”
“I’ll get it for you,” Jess said. She leaned forward as he nodded and went back to his notebook, where he’d clearly put a list of questions.
“Okay—”
“Dallas?” she asked, interrupting him.
He lifted his eyes back to hers, and she sure did like the light gray depths of his. “Yeah?”
“Sorry,” she said, her pulse hammering into her ribs, her throat, and her back. “One more question: Would you take me to dinner one night?”
Chapter Seven
“Dinner?” came out of Dallas’s mouth before he could even think.
“Yeah.” Jess looked at him with those big, brown eyes, and he couldn’t see straight. His thoughts jumbled, and he had no idea what was happening.
Several seconds passed, and finally, he seized onto something he hoped would get him out of this situation. “I have Thomas and Remmy,” he said.
Jess nodded, ducked her head, and said, “Okay.”
Instantly, Dallas wanted to explain everything about Martha. She’d asked about his wife—who was really an ex—but Dallas hadn’t wanted to talk about her. He barely knew Jess, and in fact, they barely got along all that well. She had been circling in his mind all day, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t find her attractive.
Perhaps he’d even staged this meeting tonight, because he knew there’d be less people around. He pushed that thought away, because it would take hours to determine if it was true, and Dallas didn’t have that kind of time.
“Listen,” he said, resigning himself to saying some things he might not otherwise. “I just got out of prison. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” she said, still refusing to look at him.
“I did thirty months for insurance fraud and medical malpractice.” His throat closed, but he swallowed and breathed and forced himself to continue, even when Jess looked up and met his eye. “Thankfully, the wrongful death suit was dropped.” He looked away, but this office had no window to pretend to look out of.
“My wife’s name is Martha. She came like clockwork to the facility, though it was a long drive for her. She brought the kids. Then…one day….” He shrugged, aware his voice had taken on a haunted quality. “She was gone. I got a message from her sister that said Martha had dropped the kids off at her place, and that she wasn’t coming back.”
A beat of silence filled the office before Jess said, “You’re kidding.”
“That was three months ago,” he said. “The divorce is final, because I didn’t contest it, and she didn’t want custody. Very clean.” He hated that with every fiber of his being. But how could he contest a divorce from behind bars? Martha had known he’d have no choice but to give her what she wanted, or he could lose the kids.
He drew in a deep breath and looked at her again. He’d learned to face his issues and problems head-on while in prison. He’d had a counselor work with him to do just that. “I hate to say it, but I’m not sure I’m over her yet. I don’t think it would be fair to you to you know, go to dinner together.”
“Okay,” she said, those lovely eyes crinkling as she smiled. She reached across the desk and covered his hand with hers. “Thanks for telling me.”
Sparks fanned through his fingers and up his arm. He hadn’t been touched in a loving, kind way by a woman in far too long. That was all this chemistry between him and Jess was. His deprivation of affection. Nothing more.
He told himself that again and then again as he nodded. As the sparks caught into flames, he shifted his hand, and she moved hers back. Relief spread through Dallas, as did a heavy weight of disappointment. He wasn’t sure what to make of either emotion, and he looked back at his notepad of questions. They suddenly didn’t seem so important.
“If you can just get me a computer, I can get this all organized and up and running,” he said. “It’ll take a while, though. I want you—and everyone—to know that. I’m basically starting at zero here.” He looked at the mess in the office. “Less than zero.”
“I know,” Jess said.
“You should’ve told me that,” he said, looking back at her. “I feel a little tricked.”
She nodded, her dark hair swinging with the motion. “I can understand that.” She stood up and gave him a sober look. “That wasn’t my intention, Dallas, honestly.”
“I know,” he said, because he believed she was being genuine. He still felt like he’d been presented with this amazing job that wasn’t so amazing.
A smile appeared on her face, and it screamed of flirtatiousness. “When you’re feeling up to it, you’ll have to let me take you to dinner to make up for it.” With that, she walked out of the office, leaving Dallas to wonder why he couldn’t go to dinner with her right then.
Ted had the kids, and he’d told Dallas to take his time at the equipment shed. A quick text, and Dallas could drive into town with Jess and eat something besides a peanut butter sandwich or something that came out of a box.
He looked at his phone, his eye catching on the folder he’d pulled at random from the filing cabinet. By the time he stood up and moved to the doorway, Jess was long gone.
“Another time,” he muttered to himself. He turned back to the office and surveyed it. He could sweep his eyes across the room in less time than it took to inhale, and he didn’t see anything he couldn’t leave until tomorrow.
He left the office too and walked through the insufferably hot equipment shed to the door. Outside, it was actually a little cooler, because a breeze played with itself as it raced around the ranch. He walked the distance back to Ted’s cabin, where he’d left his car and his kids.
Ted had them all on the front lawn—Thomas, Remmy, Connor, and Missy—and he was currently putting on a show with the four blue heelers that liked to follow him around the ranch. Dallas had heard all about Paula, Simon, Randy, and Ryan in letters Ted had written him, and
instantly his mood improved.
Ted had always been a fun-loving man with a big laugh, and Dallas had wondered how he could maintain that while in prison. Of course, Ted hadn’t been beaten on his first day in River Bay, and he hadn’t had to suffer with those injuries to this day.
Dallas groaned as he sat down on the front steps to watch Ted demonstrate how Ryan could sit, shake, and spin. He clapped along with the kids, and Ted grinned around at everyone.
“Done already?” he asked, taking up the other half of the steps as he sat beside Dallas.
“Yep,” he said.
“Teddy,” Connor said. “Can I get out one of those lemon pops?”
“Sure thing, bud,” Ted said, standing up. “Take everyone with you and eat them on the back porch, okay?”
“Okay.” Connor led the way inside the cabin, and Ted sat back down.
Dallas glanced at him, his feelings of inferiority rearing up and choking him. He wanted to ask Ted how he knew what to say and how he could deliver it with such happiness. Dallas had nearly snapped at Thomas that morning, and he’d had to apologize later.
“Now what?” Ted asked.
Dallas didn’t look at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are you going to do now?”
“I got a job here,” Dallas said. “Was that not obvious?”
“No, I know that,” he said, his dark eyes finally hooking into Dallas. “Is that what you want?”
“Sure,” Dallas said. “It’s a mechanic job, which is exactly what I wanted.” He didn’t mention that he’d been considering opening his own shop. “I need to sell my house in Houston and get out of that cabin, though.”
“Yeah, those birdwatching cabins aren’t the nicest.”
That was the understatement of the year, but Dallas didn’t say more. The silence stretched between him and Ted, but it wasn’t awkward. His back ached, though, and Dallas had to get up and get his kids to school in the morning.
He groaned as he stood up. “Thanks, Ted, but I better get going. Lots to do tomorrow.”
“Yeah, sure.” Ted stood too, his keen eyes missing nothing. “Do you have painkillers in that cabin?”
“No.”
“Take some with you.”
Dallas didn’t argue; he simply followed Ted inside and accepted the pills. Ted smiled as he handed them over. “Must be bad.”
“Why’s that?”
“You didn’t even argue.”
Dallas swallowed the pills and met Ted’s eye again. “I can do this, right, Ted?” He let so much vulnerability seep into his voice, and he knew he wore it on his face too.
“Of course you can,” Ted said. “Listen, you lived in a dorm with fifteen other men. That was no picnic. You had to watch your back more than others, and it was already practically broken.” He didn’t smile or make light of what Dallas had been through. “This is fixing some tractors and driving your kids to school. You can do this.”
There was so much more going on than just the surface things of fixing vehicles and taking care of his kids. He wasn’t sure he knew how to do either of those things either, but they were certainly easier than trying to untangle the complex emotions surrounding Martha, his feelings of failure when it came to Thomas and Remmy, and this whole new attraction to Jess.
“Okay,” Dallas said, because what else was there to say? He went out to the back porch, gathered his kids, and they made the ten-minute drive back to the cabin they could call home for now.
Dallas sat at his desk, the laptop already open and waiting for him. He’d been working in the equipment shed at Hope Eternal Ranch for two weeks now, and Nate and Ginger were set to return that evening. He couldn’t wait to show them both what he’d been doing.
Every vehicle the ranch owned had been put into a master spreadsheet. He’d found manuals and help pages online, and each one had a link for such things. He’d taken two of Jess’s horse trainers to help him do the inventory on the parts, and he had a sheet for that too. He knew what he needed to order, and what they had on the shelves, for every machine on the ranch. All the vehicles. All the air conditioners. All the lawn mowers. Literally everything.
He’d taken his kids to school every weekday, worked as hard as he could during school hours, and drove back to town to get the kids. Sometimes Ted picked them up and that saved Dallas a forty-minute round-trip.
He really liked how all the cowboys and cowgirls at Hope Eternal Ranch helped each other, and his kids had fallen right into the group. He’d eaten at the West Wing a couple of times, and Remmy sat by Hannah and talked her ear off while the woman smiled, asked questions, and laughed.
Dallas had listed his house in Houston for sale, and the realtor updated him each day. Lots of showings. No offers. He wasn’t getting nervous yet, because the housing market was in a slump right now, and Dallas’s house was in a gated community and not something everyone could afford. It would take the right kind of buyer, and Dallas was committed to waiting it out.
He entered the paperwork from yesterday, finishing the last one just as his phone rang. To his surprise, Alicia’s name sat on the screen, and he quickly tapped the green phone icon to connect the call.
“Hey, Alicia,” he said. “Tell me the good news.” He felt more and more like his old self with every day that passed, though nothing had really been settled with Martha, and he still had a crazy attraction to Jess every time he saw her at the West Wing.
Their jobs didn’t put them in the same places on the ranch very often, and if he saw her, it was always there, with lots of other people around.
“You assume it’s good news,” his realtor said with a laugh.
“Well, you updated me two days ago,” he said, leaning back in his chair. His back reminded him that it didn’t like that position much, and he sat up straight again. “So I’m assuming good news, although it could be bad.” His heart skipped a beat. “Is it bad news?’
“No,” she said. “You’re right. Good news. I just got off the phone with another real estate agent. They took a couple through your house, and they loved it.”
“That is good news,” Dallas said, his pulse accelerating for a new reason.
“They’re putting in an offer,” she said. “I should have it by five p.m. tonight.”
“That’s amazing news.” Dallas rose to his feet. He wanted to celebrate, and in times like this, he severely missed his wife. Fifteen years they’d had together. Fifteen years of always having someone he could talk to, share his fears and worries with, and enjoy a good meal together when things went their way.
Chris poked his head into the office, saw Dallas on the phone, and held up his hand as he backed out. Alicia spoke about how if the offer was good, they’d have twenty-four hours to accept it, and everything could be signed digitally, so he didn’t need to come to Houston.
He hadn’t gone to list the house either, as he hadn’t wanted to make the trip. The furniture could stay, and Alicia had gone to make sure everything was clean and in order before her photographer had come to get the pictures for the listing.
Martha had left the house in good shape, and while Dallas knew he’d have to go to Houston to pack and move everything he owned, he’d bought himself a little time by turning the power over to his agent.
“I’ll keep in touch,” she said, and the call ended.
Dallas couldn’t help the smile as it formed on his face. He had to celebrate with someone, and he looked back at the phone in his hand. He knew who he wanted to take for an expensive dinner so he could tell her the good news.
Jess.
“Can’t do expensive,” he told himself as he started typing out a text to her. Hey, he said. Great news! My house is likely going to have an offer on it by tonight. Want to go to dinner with me to celebrate?
He didn’t think twice; he just sent the text.
He tapped the arrow back and sent a message to Nate and Ted, then one to just Ted, asking him if he could take the kids that night so Dallas could �
��go celebrate.”
What are you going to do? Ted asked. Congrats, by the way. That’s big news. I know you hate that cabin.
Dallas did hate the cabin. He had a nightly ritual of spraying for bugs, and he and the kids slept with mosquito nets over their beds. If they didn’t, they had bites and bugs on them in the morning. He needed to get his children out of that situation.
That’s great, Nate said on the group text. Ted chimed in there too, and Dallas was glad he had friends on the outside. No one else had called him, and he initiated all conversations with his family. For now, that would have to be enough, because Dallas didn’t have any more to give.
He didn’t have much in his energy reserves for a woman either, and he realized he should’ve just taken his kids to get hamburgers and French fries after school as a way to celebrate.
Jess hadn’t answered yet. He’d just text and say that he couldn’t because of the kids. He hated to use them as an excuse, but he would if he had to.
He navigated back to her text string and saw she had answered. He just hadn’t seen it. I’d love to. Seven? You’ll come pick me up?
His heartbeat slowed and thudded in his chest. He’d felt like this before, and he knew his attraction to Jess was more than the fact that he was a little starved for female attention.
Seven, he confirmed. I’ll come pick you up at the West Wing.
Perfect, she said, sending a thumbs-up emoji too.
Dallas sank back into his seat, realizing that dinner with her could be perfect. His mind started to play all kinds of fantasies, and Dallas just let them roll through his mind’s eye.
His phone rang, breaking him out of the trance he’d fallen into where he kissed Jess goodnight and floated back to his bug-infested cabin the happiest man on Earth.
“Hey, Ted,” he said, forgetting what he’d asked the man to do for him that night.
“What are you doing to celebrate?” Ted asked, and he was clearly working somewhere on the ranch. The air blew across his receiver, and Dallas thanked the Lord above that he had an inside job on sweltering days like today.
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