Rugged Cowboy

by Elana Johnson

  “Oh, boy,” he muttered. “Now I’ve got two standards to live up to.”

  She laughed with him, and the moment he parked in the parking lot of Red Light Ravioli, she knew she’d kiss him that night if he even attempted it. He was easy to talk to, and real, and handsome, and no matter what Hannah said, Dallas was exactly Jess’s type.

  “Tell me a little about prison,” she said as she took his hand and they went inside the restaurant to get a table.

  Dallas just stared at her and said nothing. He waited until they had a table and had ordered drinks before he even looked her way again. “I don’t really want to talk about my time in prison,” he said.

  “How long were you there?” Jess asked.

  “Thirty months.”

  Jess nodded, thinking of all she could do and had done in two and a half years’ time. She’d heard a couple of Nate’s stories from the River Bay facility, and she decided that if Dallas wasn’t comfortable sharing about it yet, she shouldn’t push him.

  He winced as he shifted to get his phone out of his back pocket. “I set my kids’ notification to something special,” he said. “I hope you understand that I need to have this out sometimes.”

  “Of course,” she said, admiring him and his devotion to his kids.

  “Okay.” He took in a long breath and looked at her. “So, Jess, how’s Buttermilk doing?”

  He wanted to talk about horses? She supposed he had asked her where she’d grown up and about her siblings in texts over the past couple of weeks. Still, she didn’t want to talk about her job—or anything ranch-related at all.

  “Good,” she said. “Did you get the offer?”

  “Oh,” he said, a bit of life and energy coming into his eyes. “Yes, it came through about four-thirty. It’s a full price offer, and I already accepted it.” He glanced up as the waitress arrived with their drinks. He lifted his to his lips and took a long drink of it.

  “That’s great,” she said. “Houston, right?”

  “Yep,” he said, nodding. “I’m going to have to get up there and go through everything.”

  “That doesn’t sound fun,” Jess agreed, though she honestly had no idea what it would be like to live through a divorce and have to go back to the house she’d shared with her husband, box everything up, and clean everything out. Alone.

  Moving was hard enough, and to add that emotional weight to it felt entirely unfair to her. She reached across the table and covered one of Dallas’s hands with both of hers. “I’ll go with you, if you want.”

  “Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “I’m going to ask Nate and Ted to go. With the three of us, it’ll go fast.” He nodded, keeping his head down so the brim of his cowboy hat blocked his face from her view. “But I’ll probably need help with the kids.”

  “Lots of people to help with that.”

  He lifted his eyes to hers. “Do you like kids, Jess?”

  “Yes,” she said, disliking how she had to defend herself again tonight. “I really like your kids, Dallas. They’re great.”

  “Thank you,” he said, smiling softly. “I’m still figuring out a lot of stuff. Parenthood isn’t something you learn once and you’re good to go.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” she said. “My mother sometimes says I was the easiest and the hardest to raise.”

  “Oh, I can see you being the hardest,” he said, the mood at the table lightening considerably.

  “What does that mean?” she demanded in mock outrage. She squeezed his hand and let go, pulling hers back across the table.

  “It means you have fire inside you,” he said. “That doesn’t like to be tamed.”

  Jess considered him, because he’d just spoken straight to her soul. “Do you like women with untamable fire inside them?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  The waitress returned for their orders, but Jess hadn’t even picked up the menu yet. Dallas hurried to do so, and they quickly decided on what they wanted to eat. The conversation turned to his kids, and how school was going for them. He came alive when he spoke about the mechanic work he did in the equipment shed, and he even got him to say, “I taught classes in prison for the other inmates.”

  She learned a lot about him, including that he didn’t speak too fast or too slow. He cleaned his plate, claiming that his pine nut and pesto ravioli was some of the best pasta he’d ever put in his mouth, and that he had quite the dislike for popcorn.

  “It always gets stuck in my teeth,” he’d said, and that had made him more human in Jess’s eyes.

  The waitress had just asked, “Dessert for you tonight?” when his phone rang. He reached for it while Jess considered ordering one of every dessert on the menu just to prolong the time she had with him at dinner.

  “It’s Martha,” he said, already sliding out of the booth. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back.” He swiped on the call as he stepped away, but Jess could clearly hear him say, “Hey, sweetheart,” in a tender voice he surely only used for those he loved.

  Jess sat back in the booth, dumbfounded. She managed to wave away the waitress and say they just needed the check.

  Sweetheart.

  Martha.

  She was his ex-wife, but Jess got the very real feeling that Dallas did not think of her as his ex-anything.

  In fact, everything in his life would go back to normal if he could get Martha back. Perhaps that was what he’d been trying to do these past couple of weeks when he’d been too busy to text her back.

  “He answered a call from her while on a date with you.” Jess sighed, negativity crowding into her lungs. She wanted to flee this ravioli restaurant and never come back. That was a real shame too, because it was one of the better places to eat in Sweet Water Falls.

  The check arrived and Jess quickly pulled out her card. She had to get out of there. She didn’t see where Dallas had gone but it hardly mattered.

  While she waited for her card to process, she dialed the one person she knew would come get her no matter what. No matter where.

  “Spence,” she said when her best friend picked up. “I need you to come get me in town.” She stood up and shouldered her purse, sticking the card in her back pocket when the waitress returned with it.

  Sweetheart.

  Martha.

  “What a fool you are,” she muttered to herself as she wove through tables and toward the exit. She definitely wasn’t going to get her kiss, and she thought back through her relationships, trying to find one that had ended before the night had.

  She couldn’t think of one, and just when Jess had thought she’d experienced it all in the dating pool, she could now add the humiliation of having her date answer a phone call from his ex-wife with the words, “Hey, sweetheart,” to her list of misfortunes.

  Disasters.

  Follies.

  Unluckiness.

  Or maybe, just maybe, she had really bad taste in men, and she should never trust her own feelings again.

  Chapter Nine

  “No, Martha,” Dallas said as firmly as he could. She’d often told him that he spoke in a rough, rugged voice that made her feel like he was angry with her. She’d coached him for a decade to have a better bedside manner. So he knew he could definitely add some bite to his tone. He sincerely hoped she could hear it right now.

  “Dallas,” she slurred, and he severely regretted taking this phone call. He turned and looked down the street where he’d been slowly walking. The restaurant was only one storefront down, so he hadn’t gone too far. “I just need a little to tide me over.”

  “You’re drunk,” he said, not for the first time. “We’re not talking about money until you’re sober.” His pulse fired in his chest, because he knew exactly what Martha was like when she drank too much. It wasn’t pretty, and he was beyond grateful his children didn’t have to be with her right now.

  Guilt stung him right behind his lungs. He should be home with his children, making sure they were okay and well cared for. Helple
ssness filled him, but it didn’t change his mind. “Besides, Martha, I have no money. I’ve only been out of prison for a couple of weeks.”

  “But you sold the house in Houston,” she said, and in that sentence, she sounded almost normal.

  He cocked his head to the side. “How did you know that?” The house was in his name; she wasn’t anywhere on the title or contract, so she hadn’t had to sign anything.

  “Josh told me,” she said, adding a giggle to the words. “He takes good care of me, Dally. Like you should.”

  Ice ran through his veins, because he knew Martha was on something stronger than the wine she liked with dinner—and sometimes for a long time after eating. She only called him by that ridiculous nickname when she was completely wasted.

  He had no idea who Josh was, but everything in Dallas’s life started to collapse. For some insane reason, he’d actually thought he and Martha could fix things between them. Ridiculous, he knew. Crazy. He had no right to hope for such a thing, when she’d abandoned their children, and he’d signed the divorce papers.

  Did he really think they’d get remarried?

  The pinch that started in his chest said yes, he’d thought that. It grew and grew until a deep, dark hole had taken the place of his stomach and lungs. His heart struggled to beat against the foolishness and pain pouring from that hole, and the only things keeping him from swearing at his ex-wife, hanging up, and leaving town was Jess inside the restaurant, and his children waiting for him back at the ranch.

  “I have to go, Martha,” he said with as little emotion as he could.

  “You owe me some of that money,” she said. “That was my house—”

  Dallas pulled the phone from his ear and jabbed at the red phone button to hang up. He still heard her say, “—too, and I deserve—” before her voice muted.

  “You deserve what, Martha?” he asked bitterly. “You don’t deserve anything. You abandoned our children at your sister’s house without a word to me. No conversation. Nothing. You’re a coward who ran away. You care more about yourself than anything and anyone else.”

  His chest heaved, and a storm raged in his whole being, body and soul.

  Another couple walked past him, but he felt completely alone. He clenched his fists around the phone, wishing something would break. The case or his bones, he didn’t care which. Somewhere far away, in the back of his mind, he remembered a conversation between him and his counselor at River Bay.

  There will be times where you’re treated unfairly, Dallas. How do you think you’ll feel?

  Angry, Dallas said. I hate things that are unjust.

  You’ll be an ex-con. Some people won’t want to hire you when they find out.

  Dallas had nodded. In prison, he’d accepted that. In prison, it was easy to talk through a situation and come to a conclusion on how he’d act. In prison, he’d been safe from real-world situations, ex-wives, first dates, and science homework he thought was stupid.

  He did employ the breathing techniques his counselor had taught him, and slowly, Dallas came back to a place inside himself that wasn’t about to punch at a brick wall until it came down. He turned back to the restaurant where he and Jess had enjoyed a nice meal together and went back inside.

  The booth where he and Jess had been sitting was empty. He came to a complete stop, watching as the busboy wiped the table and stepped away. He had no idea what to do now, and he turned in a full circle, expecting to see Jess waiting for him somewhere.

  She wasn’t, and he met the eye of the woman at the counter who’d seated them. He retraced his steps to her. “Did you see where she went? Did she pay?”

  “She left about twenty minutes ago,” the woman said. “I’m sure she paid, because we don’t have any tables that left without paying.”

  Dallas just nodded, his voice suddenly gone. His throat had narrowed so much, he could barely swallow as he left the ravioli restaurant and looked up and down the street. He didn’t see Jess anywhere, and he hadn’t seen her pass him either. Of course, he also hadn’t realized he’d been gone for as long as twenty minutes, so anything was possible.

  Still, he reasoned. If she’d come outside, she’d have seen him standing on the sidewalk. He hadn’t moved that far away from the restaurant.

  He worked up enough saliva to swallow, and then enough courage to dial Jess’s number. It rang and rang, and she did not pick up. He mentally beat himself up for answering Martha’s call. What was Jess supposed to think about that?

  Dallas shook his head, irritation with his ex growing inside him again, and his annoyance with Jess multiplied too when he called her a second time with the same results as the first.

  He sent her a quick text. Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken that call. Where are you?

  She read it, and Dallas stared at the phone, willing her message to come in. Should he go back to the car? Call her again?

  “What you should’ve known,” he muttered to himself. “Is that life was going too good, Dallas. You should’ve seen this coming.”

  He disliked the negativity in the statements, and he could hear his counselor admonishing him for always expecting the worst life could give him. But Dr. Pelltri hadn’t lived Dallas’s life. He didn’t understand that life had kicked Dallas around quite a bit.

  It sure did seem like every time things started to look up in Dallas’s life, there was something or someone to pull him back down. He’d started attending religious services while at River Bay, and he honestly wasn’t sure how he felt about God.

  “Why did she have to call right then?” he asked, tilting his head toward the sky. He wasn’t sure if God could hear him, or if He even cared. “Why did I answer?”

  No one gave him any reasons or answers for either of his questions, but his next one—Where was Jess?—appeared on his screen.

  I’m back at the ranch already, Dallas.

  He tapped to call her again, praying with everything inside him that she’d answer this time. To his great surprise, the call connected though Jess didn’t say anything.

  “Hey,” he said, relief filling the three letters. “I’m sorry, Jess.” He found he didn’t have anything else to say. He wasn’t going to tell her about Martha, and that meant there wasn’t anything to tell. “I shouldn’t have answered the phone. I’m sorry.”

  She still said nothing, and Dallas’s heart wailed at him. What the message was, though, Dallas didn’t know. His brain blanked, and he simply stood in the middle of the sidewalk, the Texas heat baking him, and waited for Jess to say something.

  “What did she want?” she finally asked. “No, you know what? That’s not the question I want answered.”

  Dallas swallowed, because he’d heard Jess talk in this clipped, irate tone before—when he’d delayed her before the wedding. She hadn’t been happy then, and she most definitely was not happy now.

  “Are you over her, Dallas?”

  “Yes,” he said, believing himself for the first time. If Jess had asked him that only an hour ago, he wouldn’t have known what to say. Maybe? I hope to be one day? No, not at all, because I’m still hoping we’ll make things work between us?

  Any of those would’ve been true.

  But now he knew she had another man in her life already. One who was supplying her with drugs and alcohol, and one who’d probably put her up to calling Dallas and asking him for money.

  That was all Dallas had ever been good for when it came to Martha. Money.

  Bitterness coated his mouth and throat, and while he’d felt the emotion before, it had never been this strong and this tinged with dislike.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  “Why did you call her sweetheart when you answered then?” Jess asked. “While you were on a date with me. A date you asked me to go on, Dallas.”

  He thought for a moment. “Reaction,” he said. “Habit.”

  “Really?” Her sarcasm wasn’t that hard to hear.

  “Really,
” he said, not wanting to fight about this. “Are you really back at the ranch already?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’d you get there?”

  “I called Spencer,” she said.

  Humiliation ran through Dallas, along with a healthy dose of frustration. “Spencer, huh?”

  “Don’t say it like that,” she said.

  “Like what?” Dallas challenged as he started toward his car. No reason to stand out in the heat if he didn’t need to wait for his date.

  “I’m not seeing Spencer.”

  “Yet he’s the first one you call to come get you. Why not Hannah? Or Jill? Emma? Ginger?” Anyone who wasn’t a male she’d been out with before. Someone she hadn’t kissed before.

  “Jealousy is not a good look for you,” she said.

  “You either,” he fired back, instantly regretting the words. His head still felt too hot as he sank into the driver’s seat, but he managed to say, “I’m sorry. Okay? I made a mistake and I’m sorry,” in a kind, normal voice.

  He started the car and reached to turn off the radio. “Can I please come explain it to you in person?” He didn’t know what he’d do if she said no. Get his kids and go home, he guessed. He didn’t see Jess that much around the ranch. He could avoid her easily, especially once he moved out of that cabin.

  “Jess?” he asked above the sound of the air conditioning blowing full-blast in the car.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be in the stables.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” she said, and Dallas almost chuckled. Instead, he said goodbye and looked out the windshield at the ravioli restaurant where they’d eaten. They’d been about to order dessert when Martha’s call had come in, and Dallas sprang back out of his car and hurried inside.

  “I need one of every dessert you have,” he said. “To go, please.”

  Thirty minutes later, Dallas entered the stable, immediately wondering where Jess would be. He’d not spent much time here at all, something he needed to change. He did remember that she’d been working with a horse named Diamond Valley, because she’d gotten the horse to do what she was supposed to in a much quicker fashion than Jess had originally thought she would.