by Maisey Yates
He realized that he’d been silent for far too long, and that Lindy was staring. “I think she’s right, anyway,” Dane said. “We don’t owe him anything just because of genetics. And if he was a bad father, we wouldn’t owe him even if he’d stuck around. I don’t have to return his message just because he decided to call.”
“I guess not.”
“You don’t agree?”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean, I don’t think you owe him something just because he decided to make contact. But I would be...curious.”
Dane looked down at his half-eaten lunch for a long time. “For years I wondered if he was watching me, Lindy. He never gave me any indication that he was. No contact at all. Not since I was thirteen years old. The last time he came over, and then just didn’t come back.”
“Mom pushed him away,” Lindy said. “She wouldn’t even let him in the door that last time.”
“No one would ever keep me away from my children,” Dane said, shocked at the conviction in his words, mostly because he had never much thought about having children of his own. In fact, he’d actively avoided the thought. “Would anyone be able to keep you away from yours?”
Lindy blinked. “No. I don’t suppose.”
“I can’t blame Mom. She has her own issues, and I’m angry enough about those. But I can’t blame her for keeping Dad away. He didn’t want to come in badly enough. He didn’t want to fight for us. You know what he wanted? A son he could sit back and watch on TV without having to do anything. And he thinks... Hell, I don’t know. If he had called me a few months ago it would have reinforced everything I had always wondered. If he was watching me. And it would’ve made me feel like what I’d done was worth it. Because that’s what I wanted, Lindy. I wanted my old man to see me succeed. So much of what I did was for that. For him. A way to reach out to him and hope that I could earn this phone call. Now I have it, and I don’t know if I wanted it at all.” He shook his head. “I’m doing something here. Right now, I’m helping Beatrix set up the sanctuary. You know, if you’re on board.”
He thought of Bea again, of her soft skin and the way she had felt beneath his fingertips. He was doing more than just helping her set up a sanctuary, but that wasn’t a conversation he was ready to have with anyone else yet.
“I’m on board,” Lindy said. “I was never going to actually say no. The reality is that place belonged to Bea’s family for years and I’ve never been entirely comfortable having ownership of the whole thing. The winery itself...that feels like mine. But the rest? Anyway, if it’s something you’re invested in...you have no idea how happy I am to know that something is interesting you right now.”
She had no idea how interesting he found life at the moment. And it didn’t have much to do with the animal sanctuary so much as the delectable founder of it.
“What made you change your... I mean, you seemed pretty hell-bent on getting back out there and I didn’t want to say anything about it.”
“Bea again. She yelled some sense into me.” Among other things.
It was a strange thing, but something about being with her had thrown everything into a clearer focus. That sense of being adrift, of feeling like nothing was his was gone.
“I can’t really imagine her...yelling.”
“Oh, she’s good at it,” Dane said.
“I’ll have to...ask her to demonstrate sometime since it seems to have provided you with some clarity.”
He cleared his throat. “I spent a lot of months feeling like...nothing here was mine. But I’ve been making some changes. I don’t know where they’ll all take me. But sitting around on my ass wasn’t helping fix anything. And neither was living in denial of what these injuries mean. I haven’t even gotten close to getting on the back of a horse that won’t throw me. The idea that I was going to get back into the rodeo, and at my age... I just didn’t want to deal with the reality of it. With the fact that I couldn’t have that back. But I’m working with Bea now and I’m enjoying myself and it...it gives me hope I’ll find something else.”
“Look at you,” Lindy said, “you really are all grown up.”
“I guess I just needed to come to terms with the idea of being in one place.”
It wasn’t a mystery to him why he felt that way. And it wasn’t really the sanctuary. Or a phone call from his father bringing about clarity to why he’d done the things he had for so many years.
“Anyway,” he said, his throat dry. “Who would take care of my dog if I left?”
Lindy laughed. “I’m sure that Bea would.”
But who would take care of Bea? She tried to take care of everyone and everything around her, and people looked at her and saw it as a weakness. They gave her advice and treated her with indulgence. But who took care of her?
“Better that I’m here to do it,” Dane said.
“Well, I’m not sorry to hear you say that.”
“Lindy, I’m not sure that I’ve ever told you how much it means to me... The way that you were there for me. Not just now. But when we were growing up. We didn’t have the best parents. Hell, we barely had parents. But I had you.”
“I don’t think I was all that great.”
“You were. We made the best of life with what we had. I felt really guilty for introducing you to Damien for a long time.”
“Oh, don’t feel guilty about that. I loved him. I really did. And I got a lot of good out of that marriage, as hard as it was for me to admit that for a long time. Not just the winery. But Sabrina and Bea. Actually, Wyatt. That came through your connection with the rodeo and with Damien too. And he’s...everything. I can’t resent any of the steps that I took to get me into a relationship with him. I just can’t. Sometimes you have to take a few falls to figure out what’s worth standing up for.”
Dane nodded slowly. “Yeah, it took a pretty big fall for me. But I think I’m getting there.”
“Just be happy, Dane. I think that’s something neither of our parents ever managed to be. I’m happy. You be happy. Don’t let them have the final say on that. Don’t let a rampaging bull have the final say on that.”
“I won’t. I’ll figure what I want to do. I’ll...I’ll find the thing that gives me what riding used to. I know I will.”
He stood up, and the pain in his leg, his knee, it didn’t bother him so much. Not because it had faded any between yesterday and today, but because everything around him had changed. It meant something different now.
A lot like the way Lindy looked at her relationship with Damien, he supposed. It was the pain in life that sometimes brought you to the place you should have been all along.
He would prefer to walk without a limp, but without the limp he wouldn’t have ended up in Bea’s arms last night, and he couldn’t resent that at all.
He scraped up the last bite of chili in his bowl and demolished it.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, heading outside. There were dark, gray clouds teasing the edges of the mountains, creeping toward the ranch, but Dane decided that he didn’t mind the threat of rain so much.
It felt less like a threat and more like a promise.
That things left lying there on the ground would grow, no matter how unlikely it seemed.
He supposed that was another thing he’d been missing all this time. That he had a choice. He could be angry about where he was, or he could grow where he was planted.
And he was ready to grow.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WHEN DANE CAME to pick her up from the clinic Beatrix felt slightly giddy. She wasn’t sure how to respond, and Kaylee and Bennett didn’t seem to find it at all strange that Dane was coming to get her.
It did make sense, for all the reasons he had mentioned before.
The fact that the two of them lived on the same property being chief among those reasons. But she still felt strange about it. Like everyone would
be able to see the significant shift that her relationship with Dane had undergone. But of course they couldn’t. It wasn’t like it was written across her face. It wasn’t like there was a giant scrawl across her forehead that decreed she was no longer a virgin because Dane Parker had shown her what sex was all about.
The thought made her insides twist in a knot, a pang of tingling excitement blooming between her legs. She wondered if he had really shown her everything sex was about. Or if there would be more.
The idea was obsessing.
And he hadn’t said anything to indicate that they wouldn’t have sex again. In fact, he had seemed nothing if not into the idea this morning.
Well, she was basing that off the fact that he had kissed her quite a few times, and that he hadn’t turned into a grumpy asshole weirdo on her.
So she could only hope that that remained true.
He seemed happy to see her when he pulled up in his truck and that made her feel all warm inside.
“I thought after we dropped the paperwork off we could go grab some dinner at Mustard Seed.”
Dinner. Together. In public. Which was probably no weirder than him getting her from the clinic, because they were friends or something. But it felt weird. And she felt...things. So many things. “Oh, we can go to dinner together?”
“I was thinking so.”
“Do you think Joe will mind sitting in the back of your truck through that?”
“All Joe does is sit,” Dane said. “He’s going to lie down, whether he’s in the truck or not. So, he might as well lie down there. And anyway, I’ll probably end up bringing him french fries.”
“That’s very bad for him,” Bea scolded.
“Yeah, but you would give them to him anyway.”
“Probably,” she said.
They looked at each other across the cab of the truck and he smiled. Her heart turned over when those blue eyes connected with hers, that fallen angel grin like a secret between them. She scooted to the center seat and buckled in there, eager to touch him.
“Careful not to distract me,” he said, as she put her hand on his thigh.
Her heart fluttered around like a bird trying to decide which branch to land on. “Am I a distraction?”
“You have no idea.”
“Well, that’s fair enough. You’ve spent a lot of years distracting me.” The admission made her face hot.
“How many?” he asked.
“Stop it,” she said. “That’s mean.”
“It’s not mean,” he responded. “Come on, Bea, I’m a man reduced. I have a bum leg and my career is over. Tell me what I need to hear.”
“I thought you were attractive for quite some time,” she said crisply.
“How attractive?”
“Dane Parker!” she shouted.
“Beatrix Leighton,” he said, smiling. “Tell me, and later I will reward you for being such a good girl.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And what will you do if I don’t?”
His smile turned decidedly wicked. “Then I’ll punish you for being a bad girl.”
Those words made something dark and pleasant bloom inside of her stomach. “Well, I’m not sure which one I want.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “We’ll try both.”
Pleasure zipped through her, centering itself between her thighs. “I don’t hate that idea. And it might please you to know that I first thought about kissing you when I was sixteen.”
He coughed. “That makes me feel dirty somehow.”
“Why?” She was feeling cheerful because she’d finally succeeded in gaining the upper hand on him. “You didn’t think about kissing me.”
“It’s true,” he responded. “I didn’t think about kissing you until that day down at the river. We have Evan to thank for that.”
“Who knew that my raccoon was the secret to me getting laid.”
“Who knew indeed.”
“I want you to know,” she said, schooling her voice into the most pragmatic possible. “I am completely aware that what we are having is a fling. And that it won’t last forever. I’m completely willing and able to participate and go back to being friends when it’s through.”
The idea made her feel exceedingly depressed, but she wouldn’t tell him that.
“Is that so?” he asked.
She nodded. “I know that I was a... That I was inexperienced.”
“Completely,” he pointed out.
“Fine. Completely lacking in experience.”
“You were a virgin.”
She let her head fall back against the seat. “Stop it.”
“I’m enjoying it,” he responded. “Apparently, I’m possessive. I didn’t realize that until you.”
That put a total stop to her entire thread of conversation. She blinked. “You’re possessive? Of me?”
“I am,” he said, as they pulled into the parking lot for the county office. “And I can’t quite recall ever feeling this way before. You’re something else, Beatrix Leighton. And I don’t need you to make bargains with me or tell me what you can and can’t handle. You’re not going to scare me off.”
The words hit low in her stomach and twisted. She had never scared anyone off before, but she had certainly been an insufficient reason for people to stay around. She had been an obligation. And she refused to become either one to Dane.
“Thank you,” she said. “But I just wanted to make sure you knew that I’m a big girl and I can handle myself.”
“I’m well aware of that, Beatrix. But I find it a lot more fun when I’m the one handling you.”
She shoved aside depressing thoughts and followed him into the county office, where the two of them waited to drop off their paperwork and get further instruction on what they would need to do to get everything approved. It didn’t take long for them to finish, and they went back to the truck and drove a few blocks down to the Mustard Seed diner.
The building, which was routinely packed full of people and still hadn’t expanded its seating, had been part of Gold Valley since the mid-1950s. It was a popular hangout for high school students, and every year as the school year wound to a close the graduates wrote their names on the windows in dry-erase marker.
The names were beginning to go up now in early spring—a clear sign of intense senioritis hitting earlier. Bea enjoyed looking at them. She had gone to high school in Copper Ridge, and hadn’t partaken in the tradition.
“Did you write your name on the windows here?” she asked when the two of them sat down at the small white and silver flecked table.
“I sure did,” Dane said. “As one of the leading football stars of my school I got a big slot to write my name. Girls wrote their names around mine.”
“Really?”
He winked. “Really.”
Lucinda, the owner of the diner, came by their table and made casual conversation with the two of them, her dark eyes darting between them, but no leading questions hovering on her lips. Still, Beatrix could tell that the woman had questions.
She and Dane ordered cheeseburgers and french fries and milkshakes.
“Now I really do feel like I’m in high school,” he said.
“If we had gone to high school together you never would have talked to me,” she said.
Dane laughed. “Of course—about a decade separates our high school experience.”
“It doesn’t matter. Kids are all the same.” Bea looked around the diner and sighed. “I didn’t have very many friends.”
Dane frowned. “Why not?”
“I was weird. I went to science class with a vole in my backpack once.”
“I don’t believe that,” Dane said.
“I did. I sat alone at lunch.”
“Except for the vole?”
“I brought a vole o
nce, Dane. Not every day.”
A teenage waiter brought their food to the table and Bea grabbed hold of a fry and ate it quickly as a distraction tactic.
“Why is that, Bea? Because you’re beautiful. And you’re sweet. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to be your friend.”
The sincerity in his question was probably the nicest thing Bea had ever experienced.
“It isn’t like I actively went out and tried to make friends. And anyway, I was Jamison Leighton’s daughter. There was a wedge drawn between me and other people for that reason alone. People thought that I thought I was too good for them. In reality, I was just awkward and weird and I didn’t know how to talk to them. And I was going through...things.” She hesitated. “I found out something about myself when I was sixteen. And as uncomfortable as I already was, it just made it worse.”
“What?”
She had never told anyone this. The only people who knew were her mother, her father and her biological father.
Sabrina didn’t know. Damien didn’t know. She had never told McKenna or Jamie. She’d shoved it down deep and never told anyone. Never told them how much it hurt.
But she could tell Dane. She’d told him about the vole in her backpack. He hadn’t thought it was weird she was a virgin. He watched her with Evan on a daily basis, and that really would send most people running.
She could tell him this too.
They had a safe space here between them. Right now, he was here and so was she. And he was choosing to spend the time he had here with her.
She might not be top of an infinite list, but on the list of choices he had here in Gold Valley, she seemed to be in the number one spot.
That meant something.
“Jamison Leighton isn’t my father,” she said slowly.
“Bea...”
“Nobody knows this,” she said, quietly. “Nobody. Damien and Sabrina don’t know I’m their half sister.” Just saying the words made her eyes sting. She wouldn’t tell him the story. Not the whole story. Because it was pathetic and awful and just thinking about it made her feel sick to her stomach. “I just... I already felt wrong. And anyway, I wasn’t allowed to tell.”