by Arlene James
“Just how much do you know about Dean Paul Pryor? I have a few concerns.”
“Problems with his work?” Rex queried, sounding surprised.
“His work is fine, but he doesn’t really seem very fiscally sound. I can’t help wondering just how much you really know about him.”
“I know everything I need to know,” Rex insisted. “Dean’s as honest as the day is long and the hardest working young man you’ll find anywhere.”
“I know he works hard,” Ann ventured carefully. “He just seems...well, he’s awfully young to be a single father.”
“That’s true, but he didn’t have to take responsibility for the boy at all,” Rex pointed out. “The mother was a college student, same as Dean. When Dean proved to be the biological father, he took custody of the child, and that was that.
“He might have been a little wild at one point,” Rex conceded, “but everyone agrees he’s been an excellent father, especially since he became a Christian not long after his boy was born.”
“I certainly can’t argue that point,” Ann said, trying not to let her smile sneak through into her tone.
“Dean may not be the best businessman, but he’s young, and he’ll learn,” Rex insisted.
“I’m sure you’re right,” Ann agreed. In fact, she meant to make certain of it by helping Dean learn what he needed to know to solidify and grow his business, starting with a business plan. Business, after all, was what she did best, and a hardworking, loving, responsible father deserved all the expertise and help he could get.
Now she just had to figure out how to protect her silly heart while she helped this handsome single dad make the most of what he did best.
* * *
When Dean arrived at the sorghum field at dawn on Wednesday morning, Ann already stood beside her dad’s old truck, dressed in running shorts and a tank top, her hair in a ponytail. Waving, she jogged around to the passenger side of the truck and hauled out a square pan covered in a dish towel. Parking the thing on the front fender of the truck, she smiled cheerfully and pointed to it. Dean brought the dually and the combine that it was hauling to a slow, shuddering halt in the center of the narrow, rutted, red dirt road.
She looked better than she had as an eighteen-year-old, all long, slender muscles and womanly curves.
A sleepy Donovan craned his neck to see what had caught his father’s attention. His gaze went to the pan on the fender of the Straight Arrow pickup truck, and he happily exclaimed, “She brought food!”
Digger, in the front passenger seat, perked up at that. Dean had to laugh, not just because of his son’s and his dog’s interest in the food but because he hadn’t given that cloth-covered pan a second thought.
“Looks like it.”
Leaving the rig where it sat, he killed the engine and got out. By the time he unbuckled Donovan and crossed the ditch to Ann’s truck, she had folded back the cloth and the sheet of waxed paper beneath it and helped herself to the biggest sticky bun he’d ever seen.
“Meredith put these up last night,” she said around a big bite. She chewed and swallowed before adding, “Since I wasn’t about to miss these bad boys, I figured I’d better bring enough for everyone.”
Dean figured that he was grinning as broadly as Donovan, who practically soared with glee.
“Can I, Dad?”
“Sure. It’d be rude not to eat these after Miss Meredith baked them and Miss Ann brought them all the way out here.”
“There’s no clean way to do it,” Ann warned, “so I brought packets of wipes. Dig in.”
Dean used his hands to peel off a bun for Donovan then took one for himself. Tasting of butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans, the things practically melted in the mouth—and all over the face and hands. Ann had brought coffee and milk, too. Dean was not a big coffee drinker, but it had never tasted so good as it did that morning.
They ate leaning against the truck, watching the sun play peekaboo over the horizon.
“I meant what I said about the business plan,” Ann told him between bites. “If you’d let me look over your books, I think I could help you formulate a good plan and set up a line of credit.”
“I told you I’d do it,” he reminded her lightly.
“I know. I just thought we could get started sooner rather than later. Like tonight maybe?”
He wondered if she was rushing to get out of town, but then he thought of her dad and discarded the notion. She wouldn’t leave until Wes was better and Rex returned, which could be sooner than anyone realized.
“I’ll bring the books over tonight,” he decided.
She smiled and bit into her sticky bun. He ate three big buns and drank two tall cups of coffee before Donovan, Digger and Ann could finish off their own. To say that Donovan needed a wipe after he was done was akin to calling the Red River a stream.
Ann seemed a little horrified by what she had wrought with her sticky buns. She broke out the wipes and went to work. By the time she was satisfied that the entire Straight Arrow Ranch wouldn’t stick to Donovan, her wipes had been all used up. Dean poured the last of the coffee on a ragged bandanna and cleaned himself well enough to proceed with his day. He was going to be dusty and sweaty in an hour’s time, anyway. Ann, however, was another story, and her attempts to take care of herself with the used wipes only made matters worse.
She was a good sport about it, and cute as a button in the bargain. Dean could’ve stood there and watched her wipe and rewipe all day, but they both had work to do. He allowed himself just so much fun before he took her by the arm and walked her to his truck.
“Come with me. I keep a container of baby wipes under the backseat.”
“Okay, so I grossly underestimated the number of wipes needed,” she admitted, skipping along beside him to the truck.
“Baby wipes are one of mankind’s greatest inventions,” Dean told her, opening the back door of the dually and reaching inside. He felt around under the seat until he found the cylindrical container and hauled it out. “One of the first things you learn when you have a kid is that you can never have too many baby wipes.”
“Got it.”
Popping the top, he pulled out two and handed them to her so she could clean her hands. When she had that job whipped, he gave her another wipe for her face, though he really hated to see the sticky, brownish circle around her lips go. He wished he’d taken a picture with his phone. She seemed so far removed from the polished, big-city hotelier who had greeted him that first day, more like his Jolly—if such a person actually existed. She was certainly making a hash of cleaning her face.
“Hold on. Hold on,” he said, chuckling. “First of all, fold that thing so the clean side is up.”
She looked down at the wipe and folded it. “Okay.”
“Now, start here.” He touched his own face.
She wiped the wrong cheek.
“No, no. The other cheek.”
She moved her hand. “Like this?”
“Almost. To your right. Got it. Now move in. And turn your wipe over.”
Exactly as instructed, she turned the wipe over. Then her gaze came back to his, and he pointed to a spot on his own cheek. She lifted her hand to her face once more. He realized only as she slowly swept the wipe over her lips that they were still looking into each other’s eyes, and abruptly his breath seized.
Suddenly, as the sun shot golden rays across the fields, igniting tiny fires in the red-orange dirt of the road, they somehow stood apart from the rest of the world, wrapped in an intimate, electric awareness. As if in a trance, Dean lifted his hand and brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. Then he turned his hand and lightly cupped the curve of her jaw. She tilted her head ever so slightly, leaning into his palm, her eyelids growing slumberous, lips parting. Emboldened, he slid his hand to the ba
ck of her neck and felt her lean toward him.
Then Donovan slammed into his side.
“Dad, Dad! Can I go under the wire with Digger? He’s got some armerdiller or ground squirrel over yonder.”
The dog’s barking finally penetrated Dean’s consciousness. “Uh...” Blinking, he stared down at his son and found a reasonable answer. “No. Might be a skunk he’s found. Better hang with me until we get the combine into the field.”
Donovan dug a toe into the dirt. “Aw.”
Ann was already halfway across the road when Dean looked up again. “Rex tied a red flag on the section of fence that can come down,” she called. “He’s had pipe laid over the ditch so you can drive right over.” Of course, Dean could see the movable cattle guards temporarily bridging the ditch.
“Great!” Dean shouted after her, fully aware that she was running away from what had almost happened between them. He didn’t blame her. She was engaged to be married, after all. To an older, established, successful man. But Dean couldn’t escape the certainty that, given just a moment longer, she would have allowed the kiss that hadn’t happened.
In light of that, Dean had to wonder if working on a business plan with her was such a good idea, but even as he wondered, he knew he was going to do it. Somehow, with her, he couldn’t seem to help himself. So, that evening after supper, he left Donovan with his grandmother and drove back to the Straight Arrow with his account books.
Meredith answered the door. “Come on in. Annie’s on the phone, but Dad would love to see you.”
“I’ll be happy to visit with him for a few minutes. I promise I won’t tire him.”
“He’s feeling better,” Meredith told him. “It’ll be fine.”
“Thanks for the sticky buns this morning, by the way. They were great, really good.”
Meredith shot him a smile over her shoulder as he hung his hat on the wall peg and followed her into the living room. “Callie put them in the freezer before she left. All I had to do was thaw them overnight and shove them in the oven this morning.”
“Well, you did a good job of it,” Dean insisted politely.
“What you really mean is that sister-in-law of mine can sure cook.”
“That, too,” Dean admitted with a chuckle.
“Meredith has her own talents,” Wes said from his recliner. “She’s a top-notch nurse, my Meri.”
“Oh, Dad.” Meredith patted the top of his bald head affectionately on her way to the kitchen, saying, “Call if you need anything.”
Dean couldn’t say that Wes looked much improved, but his color wasn’t so gray, and something about his smile seemed brighter, healthier. Easing into the room, Dean nodded at his host, who waved him toward the comfortably worn leather sofa. Wes immediately clicked off the television with a remote controller.
Dean sat and stacked his ledgers atop his knees. Wes glanced at them but remarked only, “Ann says the sorghum looks good.”
“It does. Rex’s timing has been perfect with the harvest.”
“Boy’s a natural,” Wes proclaimed proudly. “Always suspected it, but it took him a while to figure it out. Well, everyone has to take their own path.”
“I hear he’s a really good lawyer, too.”
“Oh, yeah, he is,” Wes stated without hesitation.
Dean had to grin. He knew just how Wes felt about his son, and he was glad that the feeling didn’t necessarily fade with time.
“Ann’s done a good job for us, too,” Wes added, and Dean quickly agreed.
“She has.”
“Between you and me, I’m seeing some changes I like in her lately. Not sure that big-city fiancé of hers would approve, but she seems more her true self to me now than she has in a long time.”
Dean said nothing, but privately he thought Ann’s fiancé a hopeless fool if he didn’t completely and wholeheartedly approve of Ann and all she was.
Maybe she wasn’t perfect, but no simple human being could be. She was, however, and had been for as long as Dean had known her, all things lovely and fine.
What man in his right mind would not approve of—and appreciate—that?
Conversation had moved to that morning’s breakfast of sticky buns, with Wes joking that he’d needed a sponge bath after finishing his, by the time Ann swept into the room. She smiled distractedly at her father and twisted the heavy diamond on her finger in a way Dean had never seen before this. He knew at once that something troubled her.
“You okay?”
She flashed a smile and waved a hand in a gesture that didn’t quite appear as careless as it might have. “It’s...” She shook her head. “A work thing.”
He didn’t like to even think about the job waiting for her back in Texas, but he could see that something weighed heavily on her mind just now.
Lifting the slender books in his hands, he suggested, “Maybe I should just leave these with you for now. You can look them over at your convenience and get back to me later.”
To his disappointment, she pressed trembling fingertips to her temple and nodded. “Maybe that would be best.”
His spirits plummeting, he got to his feet. “I’ll let y’all enjoy your evening. It was good to see you, Mr. Wes. Take care now.”
Uncertain what to do with the books, he placed them on the coffee table and moved toward the door, sliding sideways past Ann. He’d nearly reached the foyer when she suddenly announced, “I’ll walk you out.”
Surprised, he stopped then almost wrapped an arm around her waist as she came up next to him; Wes called out a farewell just in time to remind Dean that would not be a good idea. Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he tucked his elbows in tight as he stepped into the entry hall with Ann right at his side.
They skirted the stairs in silence. When they reached the foyer, he took his hat from the peg but kept it in one hand, opening the front door with the other, holding it wide until Ann pushed through the screen. She crossed the porch and stepped down onto the well-beaten pathway, but then she paused and waited for him to pull the door closed, sidestep the screen and catch up to her.
Half a dozen innocuous topics of conversation slipped through his mind, but something sat so heavily on hers that he couldn’t bring himself to start a conversation. Finally, just as they approached the edge of the trees, she spoke.
“Can I ask you something and get an honest answer?”
Even though little, if any, traffic could be expected along this private road at this time of evening, Dean had pulled his truck to the side of the road nearest the house, parking practically in the shallow bar ditch. He stepped across that narrow ditch, reached in through the open window and laid his hat on the seat of the truck. Turning, he put his back to the passenger’s door and leaned against it, folding his arms.
“Sure.”
She shook her head with obvious agitation, her eyes gleaming in the dusky light. Darkness often didn’t fall until nine o’clock at this time of year, and they had no moon this early in August, only the light of the stars and the ambient illumination from the vapor lights near the barn and the rear of the house. He wondered if the sheen of her eyes could be from tears.
“An honest answer,” she repeated sternly. “Don’t spare my feelings.”
He stilled, everything in him focused on this woman before him, this woman he had wanted for so long. His heart pounded as he imagined the questions he hoped she would ask.
“I’ve always been honest with you, Jolly. I always will be. You have my word on that.”
He’d never meant any words more than those.
Chapter Nine
Watching her face, Dean knew for certain that Ann was on the verge of tears, but he made himself stay as he was, and finally she came out with it.
“Do you think I’m feminine?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Her hands balling into fists, she practically shouted it at him. “Do you think I’m feminine?”
The question was so stupid that for a moment he still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. As a result, his tone may have been a bit sharper than he’d intended. “Of course. How could you be anything else?”
She shifted, mirroring his stance with her arms folded. “But what, specifically, is womanly about me?”
“What is—” He nearly swallowed his tongue. When she looked in the mirror, did she not see what he saw when he looked at her? Dropping his arms, Dean slapped his hands against his thighs. “What isn’t? Jolly, you’re the most—”
Throwing up her hands, she interrupted hotly, declaring, “I have no feminine accomplishments. I can’t cook. I don’t know the first thing about kids. Half the time I can’t even figure out how to dress!”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” he wanted to know, shoving away from the truck.
“I have no close female friends,” she went on. “I can’t sew. I can’t...grow flowers or make jewelry or...” She whirled her hands in angry circles. “I can’t do anything that most women do!”
Dean just stood there, still not believing what he was hearing.
“I’m not like other women,” she declared, and he could tell that she was working herself up to a real meltdown about this. Every time he opened his mouth, she spouted something nonsensical about being too masculine or broad-shouldered or tall.
Then she complained about her hair and her freckles.
“What’s wrong with red hair and freckles?” He liked red hair and freckles. That was how he’d wound up with a redheaded, freckle-faced son.
“Your face is beautiful, freckles and all,” Dean interrupted bluntly, but she couldn’t even hear him at this point, having moved on to the color of her eyes, which were apparently “washed out and faded, like old jeans.”