Rugged Cowboy

by Elana Johnson

  All of that had come out in therapy, and as Dallas had prioritized his life, he’d realized just how right Jess was.

  He disliked it, but right now, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  “Ten days,” he muttered to himself. “Ten more days.”

  Martha’s eight-week treatment program ended in ten days. He had not spoken to her since taking her to the facility before Christmas, but he’d be there on February fifteenth to take her away from that place too.

  What happened after that, he didn’t know. He could see how unfair he’d been to Jess—and to himself. While he wanted Jess in his life, he simply hadn’t been ready.

  He really wanted to be ready.

  As he walked back to the equipment shed, he let his mind cast forward, something his therapist had asked him to do in their last session. “What do you see?” she’d asked. “Tell me where you are. Where you live. What your house is like. What you’re doing with your time. Who’s with you.”

  He’d talked through where he was, and that was in a big house with a lot of land surrounding it. Trees and bushes and wild grass, with a nice, cultivated yard too. The house was old, and he’d told Dr. Wood that he liked spending his time fixing it up. “I’m good with my hands,” he’d said. “Thomas helps me.”

  “So Thomas is there,” Dr. Wood had said.

  “Of course,” Dallas said. “He and Remmy are always with me.”

  “Is Martha there?” Dr. Wood asked.

  “No,” Dallas said, and his eyes had shot open at that moment. He looked at Dr. Wood. “She’s not there. What does that mean?”

  “It means you don’t want a future with your ex-wife,” Dr. Wood had said, and they’d moved on to talking more about Martha and how Dallas could deal with the termination of his marriage, something he hadn’t truly done.

  As he walked now, the ranch breeze trying to steal his cowboy hat, he saw who was in the house with him.

  Jess.

  It was always Jess when he thought about who would walk in through the back door and say, “Well, I got that silly horse to listen to me.”

  Jess.

  Dallas would smile at her and kiss her hello, his hand easy and comfortable along her waist. He’d tell her he’d made scrambled eggs and sausage for dinner, and she’d smile up at him and say breakfast for dinner was one of her favorite things.

  The fantasy faded after that, because Dallas had arrived back at the equipment shed, and he needed to focus on getting the last tractor serviced for the day. Then it would be the weekend, and maybe he could figure out the next steps he needed to take to get himself into a place where he and Jess could be together.

  “You’re sure?” he asked Amy the next day. Martha’s sister had kept in touch with him and his kids since he’d gotten out of prison, and Dallas sure was grateful for her.

  “Absolutely,” Amy said. “She’ll hate it here, and it’ll be exactly what she needs.”

  “But what about what you need?” he asked. “Martha won’t be easy, Amy.”

  “I’m well-aware of what she’ll be like, Dallas,” Amy said, a crispness to her voice that Dallas had heard before. “I’m not trying to raise two children and run a household,” she added in a much kinder tone. “I’ve thought a lot about it. Brent and I have talked about it extensively. We believe she should be here with us—that it’s the right thing to do.”

  Dallas looked out the front window to make sure Remmy got to Mrs. Clyde’s okay. He caught the last second before his daughter walked inside, and he turned back to the house. “She won’t be able to see the kids.”

  Amy and Brent lived in Louisiana, and that wasn’t a simple drive away. It was an all-day drive of just over eleven hours.

  “She shouldn’t see them anyway,” Amy said.

  “I want to be there with you when you pick her up.”

  “I’m going to ask her about it,” Amy said. “Do I have your permission to call the treatment facility and have them send me the discharge items?”

  Dallas took in the dirty breakfast dishes, the blankets that usually went on the back of the couch neatly, and the backpacks and shoes just discarded by the front door. The whole house needed to be cleaned, and he didn’t want to do it.

  “I want her to know she can see her kids whenever she wants to,” Dallas said. “Thomas told me that he’s been doing really great in therapy, and he’s not mad at her anymore.”

  Amy allowed a pause to go by. “Perhaps you should bring the kids too,” she said. “Maybe she could see them for a few minutes, and then we’ll take her home.”

  Dallas nodded, emotion clogging his throat. “Thank you, Amy,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do with her here.”

  “She shouldn’t be there,” Amy said. “I don’t know why I feel like that, only that I do. Here, she’ll have me and Brent to help her. Daddy’s willing to help out too. She’ll be surrounded by familiar things and people, and there won’t be any stress.”

  “Okay,” Dallas said, because he couldn’t argue with a woman’s feelings. He’d been praying for a solution for Martha, and perhaps this was it.

  “Thank you, Dallas,” Amy said, as if he had any say in Martha’s life anymore. “I’ll call the center and let you know what they say.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  He set his phone on the kitchen counter and took a deep breath. The dishes wouldn’t do themselves, and if he just got started, he’d find his rhythm. He did, and soon enough, the dishwasher was loaded and the bigger pans and bowls dried on the towel next to the sink.

  He picked up backpacks and shoes and took them into the kids’ rooms. He folded blankets and straightened pillows. He paid the bills he hadn’t paid two weeks ago, and he showered so he was ready for whatever that day brought.

  “Dad,” Thomas said before Dallas could sit down on the couch and find something sporty to watch. His son came in through the front door, his blue Scout shirt untucked and too big.

  “What’s up?” Dallas asked. “Did you get all the flags in place?” The Scouts put up flags for major holidays and events, and Sweet Water Falls had been founded in February, so they put flags up for the first full week of the month.

  “Yeah,” he said. “And Milo asked if I could go to his house today.”

  “Okay,” Dallas said, trying to remember which one was Milo. “He’s the kid with the lizards, right?”

  “No, that’s Malcolm,” Thomas said. “Milo’s the one with all the telescopes and space stuff.”

  “Oh, right,” Dallas said, smiling, because his son loved anything to do with astronauts too. “He just lives a couple of blocks over.”

  “Yeah.” Thomas looked so hopeful, and Dallas couldn’t remember the last time they’d said so many words to each other. He really had come alive in the past few months since starting therapy. “So can I ride my bike over there?”

  “Right now?”

  “Yeah, right now. I’m just going to change my shirt.”

  “Oh, sure,” Dallas said as Thomas walked through the living room. A minute later, he returned, and Dallas handed him a twenty-dollar bill. “In case you guys need food or want to go do anything.” He nodded toward the big back windows. “And it looks like it might rain. You should take a jacket.”

  “I’m fine,” Thomas said, pocketing the money. “Thanks, Dad.” He left through the garage door before Dallas could insist he take a jacket. He remembered being a pre-teen and never wanting to be perceived as uncool because he had a jacket on when no one else did.

  With Remmy gone to Mrs. Clyde’s for a baking class, Dallas found himself with a decently clean house and nothing to do. He once again stepped toward the couch, thinking there had to be something on the sports channels that would steal time from him, but the doorbell rang before he could sit down.

  Someone knocked too, and then the door opened. “Hey,” Nate said as he entered with Connor and Missy. Ted followed them, and everything in Dallas’s life got a little brighter.

&nbs
p; “What are you guys doing here?” He clapped Nate on the back and did the same to Ted.

  “The kids wanted their A-doughnuts,” Ted said. “So we brought ‘em to town to get those.” He lifted up a brown box. “And some extras for you.”

  “Thanks.” Dallas grinned and took the box.

  “Connor has a birthday party in forty minutes or so,” Nate said. “So I didn’t want to drive back to the ranch. Can we crash with you for a minute?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where’s Remmy?” Connor asked, peering down the hallway.

  “She’s next door at a baking thing,” he said. “I bet you guys could go.”

  Missy’s face lit up, and she looked at Ted. He gestured for the kids to go with him. “Let’s go ask.” He looked at Dallas. “At Mrs. Clyde’s?”

  “Yep.”

  Ted took the kids, and Dallas took a doughnut from the box. He finally got to the couch and sighed as he sat down.

  “How’s the back?” Nate asked, and Dallas wondered what he’d heard in the sound to indicate that he was in pain.

  “It’s okay,” Dallas said. “I shouldn’t have gotten under that truck last night, that’s all.”

  “You’ve got guys to do that,” Nate said, frowning.

  “They couldn’t see what I needed them to see,” he said. “As soon as I got under there, everything came together.” He couldn’t explain how he just knew where things were on the ranch vehicles. He’d been working on them and with his crew for months now, and they had everything running like the well-oiled machine it should be.

  In fact, Ginger had just given him a pretty big bonus for getting them all caught up, and she’d offered him more money to stay on as the ranch equipment manager, with the official title. He’d accepted, because he loved working at Hope Eternal Ranch, and he saw no point in trying to find another job. This way, he wouldn’t have to explain why he’d been in prison or see the doubt on an employer’s face.

  Nate leaned back and closed his eyes. It was nice to see the man a little run down, just as a reminder that he wasn’t superhuman.

  “How’s married life?” Dallas asked, and Nate’s eyes popped back open.

  A smile crossed his face. “Great.”

  “Are you and Ginger gonna have kids?”

  “Probably,” Nate said. “She’s not in a hurry, and neither am I.”

  Dallas nodded as Ted came back inside, sans kids. “The wedding is still on?” he asked Ted.

  Ted glanced at Nate and back to Dallas. “We’re doing relationship updates?”

  “I guess,” Nate said. “Mine was that married life is great, and we’ll have kids when we’re ready.”

  Ted gathered a doughnut from the box and sat in the recliner. “The wedding is still on.”

  “When is that happening again?” Nate asked.

  “March tenth,” Ted said. “About a month now.” He stuffed a big bite of doughnut in his mouth and looked at Dallas.

  Nate did too, and Dallas realized what he’d started. He wished he’d put his cowboy hat on the way the other two men had, but he hadn’t.

  “What’s going on with you and Jess?” Nate finally asked.

  “Nothing,” Dallas said, and that was the absolute truth.

  “Come on,” Nate said, sitting up and leaning his elbows on his knees.

  “Literally nothing,” Dallas said. “She broke up with me a while ago. I wasn’t ready, so she was right, and I don’t know. I’m trying to get ready, and I need a plan to get her back when I am ready.” He looked from Ted to Nate. “Any ideas for that?”

  “When does Martha get out?” Ted asked.

  “Nine days,” Dallas said. “Her sister is taking over.” Relief like he’d never known flowed through him, and he wondered why he’d thought he had to deal with Martha alone. She had other family to help, and he wasn’t even her family anymore.

  “That’s a good idea,” Nate said.

  “I agree,” Ted said. He polished off his doughnut and looked around the house. “Are you going to buy your own place?”

  “Yes,” Dallas said. “I just haven’t had the gumption to start looking.”

  “Maybe you should,” Nate said. “Get your own place for you and the kids. Somewhere Jess would really like. Then, you just go to her, Dallas. It isn’t complicated. You just go to her, and you tell her you love her, and you’re sorry for not being ready, but you’re ready now, and you see what she says.”

  Dallas hung his head, though the brim of his hat wasn’t there to hide his face. “It can’t be that easy.”

  “It is,” Nate said. “Right, Ted? Isn’t that what you did?”

  “Actually, I figured out all of Emma’s favorite things, and I gathered those all together before I went to apologize.”

  “She’s not perfect either,” Dallas said. “Not that I need her to apologize to me. It’s just…she seemed to go to Montana and listen to people who’ve never met me and make decisions based on what they told her.”

  “Did she do that?” Nate asked, his eyebrows up.

  “I don’t actually know,” Dallas said. “It just feels that way to me.” He looked up at his very best friends in the whole world. “How am I supposed to be with her now? Her family obviously doesn’t like me. Maybe it’s too hard.” He shook his head and reached for the remote control.

  He flipped on the TV and turned the sound down so they could still talk. “Then I see her, and all these kinds of doubts and fears just go away.” He could picture her perfectly in his head from yesterday, and from the dozens of other times they’d spent time together.

  “It’s not too hard,” Ted said.

  “Not everyone gets their second chance,” Dallas said. “I have kids to consider. I’ll always have to deal with Martha. It’s a lot for me to handle, and for someone like Jess? She doesn’t even know what viper nest she’s crawling into.”

  Misery ran through his veins, power-washing them out. “No wonder she broke up with me. Life would be much simpler for her if she found someone who’d never been married, never had kids, and never been to prison.” He held up three fingers, still staring at the TV screen so he didn’t have to face his friends. “Three strikes. I’m out, guys.”

  “That’s just not true,” Nate said.

  “It is,” Dallas said. “It could be, at least.” He finally tore his eyes from the screen and looked at Nate first, and Ted second. “You guys got your second chance, but you don’t have to deal with Connor’s mom. It’s easy.”

  Nate’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t argue.

  “Same for you, Ted. Missy’s dad isn’t going to try to come get her. The dude’s in prison now, and you and Emma are free to raise your family together. It will never be like that for me.” If Martha stayed clean, she’d want to see the kids, and Dallas would let her. She’d be involved in his life, and his children’s lives, and that meant Jess’s life, if she chose to be with him.

  “Maybe this is my second chance,” Dallas said. “That’s all I’m saying. I’ve got my kids. I have a great job that I like. I can get a house that’s my own, and Thomas wants a dog, and I don’t know.” He shrugged and went back to flipping channels. “Maybe I don’t get the happily-ever-after too.”

  Ted and Nate didn’t argue. They didn’t say anything, and Dallas found an NBA game and turned up the volume slightly. The three of them sat together, and it was comforting and serene.

  An alarm on Nate’s phone went off, and he groaned as he stood. “I have to get Connor to that birthday party.”

  Ted got up too. He took the box of doughnuts into the kitchen and turned to follow Nate. They both paused at the front door, where Dallas had waited to say goodbye to them.

  “Slate’s out in a couple of months,” Dallas said. “He asked me to come pick him up. I think we should all go.”

  “When?” Ted asked. “He got his release date?”

  “April sixth,” Dallas said.

  Nate and Ted both started swiping on their phones, and Ted
answered first with, “Everything should be done and over for the wedding and the honeymoon.”

  “I can go,” Nate said. “I’m going to have Ginger call about getting Luke to the ranch too. He’s within six months, and maybe he can do the same program Teddy and I did.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Dallas said.

  Nate clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. He took a step and then stopped. “Dallas, everyone has the chance for their happily-ever-after. The only way you’re not going to get yours is if you don’t take a chance and go after it.”

  Dallas didn’t know what to say. Nate nodded and left, leaving Dallas to face Ted. “Is he right?”

  “I have no idea,” Ted said. “But Nate usually is. I got Emma a teacup piglet and M&M cookies. It wasn’t fancy, but it meant something to her. All I had to do was show her I knew her, and I loved her. Everything else you can work on together.”

  Dallas nodded and held the door while Ted left too. He watched them go next door and get their kids—neither one of which actually came from their blood—and get loaded up in Nate’s truck. He watched them back out of the driveway, and he waved to Connor through the back window.

  “Daddy, look,” Remmy said in her girlish drawl. “Mrs. Clyde showed me how to make banana bread today.” She skipped toward him with two loaves, one in each hand, and pure joy on her face.

  He blinked and saw the love on Jess’s face while she’d interacted with Remmy yesterday. He’d seen it in Jess’s eyes when she spoke with Thomas too.

  “That’s great, baby,” he said, reaching for her as she came up the steps. “Bug, what’s one of Jess’s all-time favorite things?”

  “Horses,” Remmy said without even looking at him.

  “Horses,” Dallas echoed, wondering what in the world he could do with that to win her back. It certainly wasn’t as easy as baking some cookies and buying a piglet.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jess made sure she didn’t cross through the riding pavilion in the afternoons again. She didn’t need a repeat of the encounter with Dallas or Remmy. She held them both close to her heart, because she didn’t know how to make them go away.