Dalton wasn’t sure he’d ever want to live that close to so many of his siblings, but he was happy the option was available for those of them that did want that. So far, living at the apartment building had been okay because no one was constantly keeping track of him. At least no one that he was aware of.
When Sierra pulled into the driveway of Makayla and Ethan’s home, Dalton immediately spotted the three girls sitting on the front steps waiting for them. Dalton climbed out of the car when Sierra did, so he didn’t miss the curiosity on the girls’ faces when they saw him.
“What are you doing here, Uncle Dalton?” Stephanie asked after she’d given Sierra a hug.
“I’m going with you to get my nails done,” Dalton told them, unable to keep from smiling when his niece’s eyebrows rose.
When the front door opened, and Makayla came out onto the porch, Sierra went to give her a hug.
“Mom! Uncle Dalton is going with us to get his nails done.”
Makayla looked at him with an expression so similar to her daughter’s that Dalton laughed before he could stop himself.
“You are?”
“Yep. I am.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Why not?” Dalton asked with a shrug.
“Why would you get your nails done?” Olivia asked.
“Because I like to. Don’t you like how your hands and feet feel after someone else takes care of them for you?”
“Sure.”
“I like it too. No matter how I try, I can never get my nails trimmed as nicely, not to mention how great my feet feel afterward.” The three girls nodded their agreement. “Your dads should give it a try.”
The girls exchanged looks, obviously trying to imagine their dads—Ethan, Levi, and Bennett—getting their nails done. When they burst out laughing, Dalton could hardly blame them.
“I think next time we should make it a family affair and have them come with us.”
“I’d pay good money to see you try and get them into a nail salon,” Makayla said, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth.
“They wouldn’t have to get polish. I mean, I’m not.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” Makayla said. “I’d be afraid the girls would talk you into getting pink or something.”
“Are there any color restrictions for them?” Sierra asked.
“Since it’s summer, we moms agreed to lift the restrictions,” Makayla said. “They can pick whatever they want.”
“Thanks, Mom!” Stephanie threw her arms around Makayla’s waist.
“I’ll have them back before supper,” Sierra told her.
“Maybe we should take them out for dinner,” Dalton suggested.
“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” The girls jumped up and down and clapped, obviously on board with the idea.
“Dalton.” Makayla’s voice held a hint of reproof, and she was giving him the mom look. “What was the rule Mom always had about asking in front of certain people?”
“Oh, is that rule still in effect? Even now that we’re adults?”
“Especially now that you’re an adult and want to do things that need parental approval without the children’s input.” She crossed her arms and sighed. “But as long as Sierra doesn’t mind, you can take them for dinner.” Her gaze flicked to Sierra. “You know the rule for food.”
“I do, and it’s fine for us to do supper too. It will probably be an early one though.”
“Perfect.” Makayla hugged the girls. “I’ll see you guys later. Be good and obey Sierra. She’s the boss.”
“What about me?” Dalton asked, spreading his arms wide.
Makayla gave him a look that was super easy to read. “Sierra knows the rules and knows how to keep the girls in line. Something tells me you’d enjoy encouraging them to have fun.”
Dalton grinned. “I guess Sierra will have to keep me in line too.”
“None of you give her any trouble,” Makayla warned, pinning Dalton with a look. “None of you.”
“We’ll be good, Mom,” Stephanie promised.
“Alright. Off you go.”
The three girls ran for the car and climbed in the back while Dalton and Sierra approached more slowly.
“Do you go to the same nail place all the time?” Dalton asked as Sierra backed out of the driveway.
“Same place, and I phoned to warn them I was bringing three girls and a guy with me.”
“Warned them?” Dalton asked. “About me?
“I think it was more the mixture of you and the girls.”
I promise I’ll be good,” Dalton said with a smile.
He was surprised at how much he was anticipating the afternoon with Sierra and the girls. The simplest things gave him pleasure in a way he’d never imagined possible. Of course, nothing replaced his music. That was something he still longed for, but since it remained elusive, he’d take simple pleasures over no pleasures at all.
Pushing aside thoughts of his music, Dalton listened as the girls chatted in the back seat. It appeared that they all thought some boy named Colton was cute, and that a girl named Maisy was mean. Olivia whined about how her parents had restricted her iPad use, while Ella complained about how loud the twins were and how they wouldn’t leave her things alone.
Dalton had always been the youngest sibling, so he’d never had someone bugging him like Ella was experiencing. If anything, he’d probably been the one annoying the older kids. But once he’d discovered music, he hadn’t had any interest in hanging out with his older siblings, except for Danica. And that was only because she enjoyed music as much as he did.
He wasn’t as close to any of them as he was to Danica, and even as an adult, he didn’t see that really changing. Not that he didn’t enjoy hanging out with his siblings, but he was still in a very different place in his life than they were. He had different interests than they had, and his life experiences were definitely different from theirs.
They really didn’t have a whole lot in common, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hang around with them. It just meant that most likely, given the choice, he’d still choose to spend his time with Danica, JD, Elliot, and Sierra. Even though Danica appeared to still struggle at times, they seemed to understand him the best, so that made it easier to spend his time with them.
Maybe if he stuck around long enough, his level of ease around his other siblings would grow.
Maybe.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sierra led the way into the nail shop where she always got her nails done. The girls were already discussing what colors they wanted to choose. Stephanie and Olivia seemed more interested in going for the wild colors that their moms usually denied them. Ella, however, didn’t care about the lack of restrictions because she always picked the same color, and it was an acceptable color even when the restrictions were in place.
Once inside, the lady closest to the front counter came over to greet her with a friendly smile. When Sierra had first come to the shop, she’d had some difficulty understanding the Asian women that worked there. But the more often she’d come and made a concentrated effort to speak with them while they worked on her nails, the better she was now able to understand the women.
The girls scooted right over to the wall where all the bottles of nail polish sat on narrow acrylic shelves. Once they had chosen their colors, they sat down at the small tables and compared their choices while they waited for someone to come work on their nails.
Dalton had gone to one of the pedicure chairs and already taken his shoes off and put his feet in the warm swirling water. After making sure the girls were okay, Sierra settled into the chair next to his.
“Do you know how to use that?” Sierra pointed to the controls for the chair.
“I think so.” When his chair whirred to life, a grin spread across his face, and he leaned back. “Yeah. I think I got it figured out.”
Sierra smiled as she shook her head at how much he was enjoying the massage aspects of the chair.
She had a setting she always enjoyed, so she quickly pushed the buttons to start up her chair. By the time two of the women sat down in front of them, Sierra was comfortable in her chair, relaxing as the rollers worked their way up and down her back.
She greeted the woman seated on the small stool in front of her and handed over the bottle of polish she’d chosen for her toes. When the woman in front of Dalton said something to him, he looked over at Sierra. Guessing that he was struggling with the accent, Sierra told the woman what he wanted.
The women quickly got to work, chatting quietly with each other before one of them asked Sierra if Dalton was her boyfriend.
She smiled and shook her head. “Just a friend. His sister is married to my brother.”
She’d discovered that while their accents made it hard to understand sometimes, the women had a good grasp of English and always understood her when she responded.
“He’s cute,” the woman said with a mischievous smile.
Rather than respond, Sierra just smiled. She had a feeling that Dalton had understood that little statement just fine.
“No girlfriend?” the woman asked, pushing into territory that Sierra hadn’t entered with him.
Sierra shrugged and glanced over at Dalton. When his gaze met hers, she said, “She wants to know if you have a girlfriend.”
“Uh…not at the moment.”
For some reason, Sierra wanted to ask him if he’d ever had one, but she didn’t. In all the social media stuff and interviews, there had never been any mention of him seriously dating anyone. At any of the events they were photographed attending, it only seemed that one or two of the band members came with dates. The rest were there on their own. She hadn’t recalled ever seeing Dalton with a girlfriend, but of course, that didn’t necessarily mean he hadn’t had one.
The women chatted with each other in their language, giggling and casting looks at her and Dalton. Sierra could only imagine what they were saying.
“Are you going to the monthly birthday dinner this weekend?”
“Of course,” Dalton said, sounding a bit offended that she even asked. “My mom and Danica would have my head if I didn’t show up. I’m bracing myself for a raucous event.”
“At least you’ll be prepared,” Sierra said with a laugh. “A combination of presents, sugar, and a load of kids leads to a pretty wild time.”
“How do the kids who aren’t getting presents deal with that?”
“Considering it’s usually a majority that aren’t, they’re in good company. Bennett also gave them a lecture about how it was preparing them for real life. That went over the heads of most the kids, to be honest.”
Dalton laughed in a way Sierra hadn’t ever heard him laugh before. It did funny things to her that she didn’t want to dwell on too much.
“I also got approval for the days off I asked for so I could go with the family to Hecla.”
She was happy they’d given her the days considering it was a holiday weekend in August, plus she’d just taken off the week before the wedding. The large family gathering at Hecla usually happened over Canada Day in July, but because the wedding had been so close to that time, this year they’d pushed the gathering off until August.
She wasn’t sure if Dalton would still be there, but if so, it would be the first time in years the whole family had been together. Steve and Emily would likely be thrilled to have all their kids with them again.
“Where do they put everyone?” Dalton asked. “Now that they’ve all paired up and have kids?”
“Some of them have bought their own places. Bennett and Grace. Makayla and Ethan. They each have a place not far from your folks’. Maya’s parents also bought a big cabin where she and Gabe stay along with Mitch and Belle and all the kids.” Sierra thought back to the last time they’d been out there, trying to remember where everyone else had stayed. “Tristan and his family stay in an RV as do Hannah and Ryan. Last year, Sammi and Levi stayed at the cabin with us singles and your parents, and I think Kenton and Avery stayed at the hotel.”
“Hard to imagine how much the family has grown. Are we able to all hang out together when we’re up there?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of crowded, but we do okay.”
“Maybe I should look into buying a place,” Dalton said.
Sierra turned to look at him more directly. “Are you serious?”
Dalton shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
“That just seems like a…big commitment.”
“You don’t think I’m committed to the family? To staying around here?”
“I’m not really sure what to think, to be honest. And it’s not my place to have an opinion one way or the other.”
“You don’t have an opinion?” Dalton asked. “For real?”
“Well, it’s not that I don’t have an opinion, but more that it’s not my place to voice it.”
“Even if I asked you for it?”
“If you asked for it, I’d probably tell you my hope.”
“Your hope?” His brows rose slightly. “Okay then. What’s your hope?”
“My hope is that regardless of where you go, you stay in touch with your family. That you never lose contact with them again. That’s my hope.”
Dalton regarded her for a moment before he said, “And do you think that’s going to happen?”
“I think as long as people give you space and let you reconnect on your own terms, it will.”
His gaze shifted to a distant point that Sierra figured only he could see, then he nodded. “You’re right. I know they missed out on a bunch of years between age seventeen and where I am now, but they still need to accept that I’m not seventeen anymore. I’ve gone through stuff none of them would understand except for JD, and even he wouldn’t understand some of it.”
“Your folks were pretty upset with him for not telling them about you and also getting the apartment ready for you without their knowledge.”
Dalton sighed and ran a hand through his hair, moving it back from his face, but to no avail as the strands slid down again as soon as he looked over at her. “I told them not to blame him. I had stipulations to getting back in touch with the family, and JD had no choice but to abide by them if I was to get to this point.”
“I think JD saw both sides of the situation, so he didn’t hold any hard feelings against your parents. You did put him in an impossible situation, especially with Danica, but no doubt he figured that the end justified the means.”
Dalton sat quietly for a couple of minutes. “I owe JD a lot for what he did for me.”
“I think he probably thinks he owes you a lot because of what happened way back when.”
“He owed me nothing for that,” Dalton said. “I was going to leave anyway. Did the idea of leaving so that future relationships would be easier for Danica without me around cross my mind? Sure. And maybe that helped me to even further justify my plans to leave, but even if that hadn’t happened, I would have left anyway.”
“Were you so unhappy here?” Even as she asked the question, Sierra wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“It wasn’t that I was unhappy, I just felt restricted. Like I would never reach my full potential if I stayed here. I didn’t want to go to university like all my siblings had. I didn’t want to work for the family company. I didn’t want a nine-to-five job. Someone promised me something more. Something in line with what I wanted. The only problem was, I knew my folks would say no.”
“Would you do things differently now?” Sierra asked.
When his answer was slow in coming, a little of the hope she had for his future with his family dimmed. If he would still do the same things over again, it didn’t bode well for him to stick around.
“There are some things I’d do differently,” he finally said. “I’d obviously try to steer clear of the substance abuse, but I can’t deny that my need to have my music out there was truly satisfied.”
“But what you wrote for the band seemed to be a lot di
fferent than what you used to write here.”
“It was, but it still came to me in a way that was fulfilling.” He rested his head back against the chair. “The biggest thing I’d change if I could, is Angel dying. It was such a waste of a life. But I wouldn’t wish the rest away because of Jesse. If it weren’t for him, I’d be broke and dead.”
“JD seemed very impressed with Jesse.”
Dalton nodded. “Jesse did so much for me, including making sure my finances were in order.”
“You should invite him to the weekend up at Hecla. I think your family would like to meet him.”
“I might, though I’m not sure my family is ready for Jesse. He may be a caring person, but he’s got a mouth on him that would probably make Mom faint.”
Sierra let out a huff of laughter. “Yeah. That might not be so good.”
“I’d tell him to watch his language, but somehow I doubt that would work for more than a few hours.”
“I guess you could just warn everyone,” Sierra suggested.
“And the kids?” Dalton asked. “If they learn their first swear word from my friend, their parents will kill me.”
“Makayla will for sure,” Sierra said with a laugh.
They continued to talk about how Jesse could possibly meet the family without scandalizing a bunch of them. By the time the women had finished with their feet, the girls were sitting with their hands tucked under blowers. Sierra was glad it wasn’t a busy day. It meant that after she and Dalton were transferred to the small tables for their nails, they didn’t have to wait.
With the girls closer to them, the conversation shifted away from the more serious topics as Dalton engaged in conversation with them. It was interesting watching them all interact together. Sierra could tell that the girls weren’t quite sure what to make of him.
His long hair was gone, but he still had holes in his ears, though they were devoid of earrings at the moment. And though his clothing currently hid his tattoos, Sierra knew he had them. When he performed, he tended to wear sleeveless vests that showed off his upper arms and chest which is where his tattoos were.
When He Returns Page 10