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Heart of a Soldier

Page 15

by Belle Calhoune


  Dylan suddenly stopped in his tracks. When she looked up at him, his entire face had been transformed. His jaw was tight. Stress lines had formed around his eyes. Her eyes quickly skimmed over him. A few moments ago he’d been having a wonderful time. What had caused such a drastic change in him?

  “What is it? Is something wrong?”

  “It’s nothing. I just want to get out of here,” he said. His tone was abrupt. His face had an ashen look. It seemed as if he might snap in two.

  “Something happened. Tell me. It’s written all over your face.” She wasn’t letting this go, not when she sensed something was terribly wrong.

  “Dylan.” At the sound of the deep masculine voice, Holly swiveled her head just in time to see a man reach out and grab Dylan by the arm. She watched as Dylan violently jerked away from the man’s grip, his face contorted in anger. The older man was tall, broad shouldered, with a full head of sandy-brown hair. Tension crackled in the air as they faced each other, both holding fierce expressions.

  Holly reached out and gripped Dylan by the wrist, pulling him toward her in the process. When he turned toward her, his eyebrows were furrowed, his cheeks reddened.

  “What’s going on? Who is this?” She darted a look at the man, who was still standing a few feet away, his expression as tension filled as Dylan’s. Matter of fact, he bore a strong resemblance to Dylan—same eye color, a similar build, the exact same dimple in the chin. Suddenly, bells were clanging in her head.

  “Nothing. Nobody.” Dylan’s tone was clipped and riddled with barely suppressed rage. An angry vein thrummed above his eyebrow. He looked as if he was coming undone.

  “Dylan. Please. Tell me the truth. What’s got you so twisted up inside?” She was begging him now, filled with fear and uncertainty about his state of mind. Something had to have happened to create such a change in him. What in the world was going on?

  Dear Lord, please hear my prayer. Whatever war is raging inside Dylan, please give me the tools and the wisdom to help him through it. I care so deeply for him, and it hurts me to see him so torn up inside. With Your guidance, we can get through this.

  His face hardened into a mask of granite. His eyes were bristling with anger, his teeth gritted. He jerked his chin in the man’s direction as he spit out, “That’s R. J. McDermott, owner of the Bar M Ranch.” He shoved his fists into his pockets and looked away from her. “He also happens to be my father.”

  * * *

  Tension crackled in the air in the wake of his announcement. He swung his gaze back toward Holly, needing to see her reaction to his admission. The look of shock and pity on Holly’s face made him want to turn on his cowboy-booted heel and leave the fairgrounds. Even though he wanted to get as far away from R. J. McDermott as humanly possible, he couldn’t very well leave Holly behind. And he was sick and tired of running away from things. So far, it hadn’t done him any good.

  “Son, please just give me a few minutes.” He couldn’t remember ever hearing such a pleading tone in his father’s voice. He almost sounded human. For a moment he almost thought R.J.’s expression was one of humility. Surely he must be seeing things, since there wasn’t anything humble about his father.

  He left out a harsh laugh. “Why should I? That’s a lot more than you ever gave me.” He pointed his chin in his father’s direction. “What do you want?”

  “I’ve been trying to find you for years, ever since you left Madden. I heard you were in the service, but your mama wouldn’t give me any information about where you were stationed.”

  “Don’t talk about my mother.” His voice rang out sharply. “You don’t have the right.”

  R.J. held up his hands as if warding off an enraged bull. “I know you’re angry at me. And you have every right to be. For a very long time I didn’t do the right thing. I’m hoping to change all that.”

  Seeing his father after such a long time was a shock to the system. It rocked him to his core. He hadn’t expected it in a million years. Not here of all places. Not in West Falls, miles and miles away from Oklahoma. He’d believed his father had written him off years ago.

  What was he doing here? How had he tracked him down?

  “Dylan. Son. Hear me out.” Hearing the word son roll off his father’s tongue made him grit his teeth even harder.

  Looking at R. J. McDermott was like staring into a mirror. They shared the same sea-green eyes, a similar rugged build, the exact dimple in their chins and identical noses. Because of the striking resemblance, his paternity had become a hotly debated topic in his hometown. Although his mama’s advice had been to hold his head up high and ignore the petty gossip and whispers, it hadn’t been easy.

  Seeing his father again forced him to relive those soul-crushing moments. It reminded him of every slight, every snub, every father-son event he’d missed out on as a kid. It brought back the pain of having to witness his father sitting with his wife and other kids in the front pew at church while he’d hidden himself in the back. And he’d never forget all the fights he’d waged in his mother’s honor when some kid had called her a foul name. It had all been because of R. J. McDermott and his shaky moral compass.

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. His stood up tall, steeling himself against the onslaught of painful memories. He wanted to appear as impenetrable as granite. “There’s nothing you could ever say to me to make up for everything you put me through.”

  R.J.’s mouth twisted. “But I’d like to try. That’s why I hired a private detective to find you. Because I want to be in your life. I want to build a relationship with you.”

  “Since when?” he demanded.

  His father winced. “Son, I’ve always loved you. I may not have shown it in the ways that mattered, but I’ve loved you since the day you were born.”

  He let out a snort. “You’ve been in and out of my life since the day I was born. We don’t even share the same last name. Any number of times you could have claimed me. You didn’t!”

  Dylan took a few steps until he was nose to nose with his father.

  “So what’s changed? Why are you so all fired up about us reconciling? Why now?”

  His father’s chin trembled. “Because I realized how wrong I’ve been. I’ve done a lot of soul-searching. I heard through the grapevine you’d enlisted. For years I’ve been filled with worry about whether you were going to make it back home alive. It killed me knowing that the only information I had about you came from a few of your high school buddies. And even then, the information was sketchy. Life doesn’t often give us second chances. I mean to make the most of mine. If you’ll let me.”

  For a moment he stood and stared into his father’s eyes, noticing for the first time how the past six years had aged him. There were tiny wrinkles surrounding his mouth, and his sandy hair was peppered with a few strands of gray.

  For his entire life R. J. McDermott had seemed larger than life. Now he seemed vulnerable. Even though he’d always seemed like a giant to Dylan, he was merely a man. The very notion had him questioning everything he thought he knew. It made his thoughts and emotions feel jumbled. Wanting to get as far away as possible from the situation, he took a step backward, coming up against Holly’s wheelchair in the process. Turning toward her, he could see the confused expression on her face. “Holly, let’s go. There’s nothing more I need to hear from him.”

  Holly looked up at him, her blue eyes wide. “Are you sure? He came all this way to see you.”

  “Son, please don’t go,” his father pleaded.

  “I’m not your son. You made that mighty clear six years ago.”

  “You’ll always be my son.”

  “Go back to Oklahoma,” he answered.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Dylan! Not until the two of us can hash things out.” The sound of his father’s deep voice was thunderous.

  Making sure Ho
lly was right beside him, Dylan charged away from his father and headed toward the exits. It wasn’t until he was a good distance away that he finally allowed himself to release the choppy breath he’d been holding.

  * * *

  Dylan’s powerful tread made it hard for her to keep up with him as he strode toward the parking lot. His steps were full of anger—an unbridled rage that might have frightened her if it wasn’t Dylan she was observing. She knew he wouldn’t take it out on her. His emotion went inward. He was a quiet storm brewing. It had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his unexpected run-in with his father.

  It was all so confusing. Dylan’s father was R. J. McDermott, the same man who’d hired him at the Bar M Ranch and mentored him in the ways of ranching. But he was also the man who’d refused to give his son the family name or any acknowledgment of his paternity. Yet he was here in West Falls after hiring a private detective, begging his estranged son to give him another chance. Even though she resented him for every scar he’d inflicted on Dylan, she couldn’t help but nurture a fragile hope about reconciliation between father and son. Judging from the mutinous expression on Dylan’s face, the likelihood of it happening was slim to none.

  The facts were still whirling all around her. She was trying to make sense of it, to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Dylan and R.J. Father and son. Six long years of estrangement.

  “Dylan, are you all right?” They’d reached her van, and instead of moving toward the passenger side, he was just standing there staring off into space. He was breathing heavily through his nose, his jaw tightly clenched. His face looked as ominous as a storm-filled sky.

  “I’m fine,” he said with a small nod of his head. “I just couldn’t stay in there a minute longer, listening to him.”

  “I have to admit I’m a little confused. You said a while back that you worked at the Bar M. That’s where you learned all about ranching and breaking in wild horses, wasn’t it?”

  Dylan nodded, which gave her the go-ahead to keep talking. “If your relationship with him was so fractured, how did all that happen?”

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he began pacing back and forth, his cowboy boots stirring up a cloud of dust. “When I was a teenager, he gave me a job, taught me about ranching. I guess you could say he took me under his wing. But he never acknowledged me as his son. He never gave me that sense of belonging, even though I wanted it more than anything. Even though the whole town knew and gossiped about the situation, he never publicly claimed me, never once offered me the McDermott family name.”

  Seeing the pain etched on Dylan’s face was agonizing. Hearing the ragged, broken tone of his voice brought tears to her eyes. She couldn’t imagine someone not claiming this wonderful, brave man. How could R. J. McDermott have denied his own son his place in the world? She didn’t have to ask what it had done to Dylan. The emotions rippling across his face and laced in the ragged tone of his voice spoke volumes.

  “Yet, you ask, why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?” The scripture from Ezekiel roared through her mind. It was so unfair the price Dylan had paid for his father’s pride and selfishness. Because of R. J. McDermott’s unwillingness to acknowledge his son, Dylan had been forced to pay for his father’s sins. And he was still paying, judging from the torment he was going through. He was still suffering. She knew from her own painful experience that some wounds might never fully heal. But she was a firm believer that with faith and love all things were possible.

  Her mouth felt as dry as sawdust. “What happened six years ago?”

  He shoved his hands in his back pockets and rocked back on his heels. She could see the tension in his jaw. “I was working at the Bar M right alongside R.J. Being together like that, day in, day out... We got real close. For the first time in my life, I thought maybe just maybe, we were building toward something real. Something lasting. A local television crew was coming to do a feature on the Bar M. He promised me I’d be part of it, that he’d introduce me as his son. He said I’d be standing right there next to Jane and Roger Jr. I felt so blessed to finally be acknowledged. It was like this huge cloud lifted and the sun was bursting through.”

  He shuddered, his whole body heaving with the effort. “Mama tried to warn me. Told me he wouldn’t follow through.”

  He hung his head, focusing on the ground as he drew circles in the dust with the toe of his boot. A wild chuckle burst from his lips. “On the day of the shoot, he pulled me aside and told me he couldn’t go through with it, that his wife wouldn’t let him publicly acknowledge me. He said it would hurt his other children. I left that day and never went back. I haven’t seen him since... Not till this evening.”

  “Not once in six years?” She couldn’t hide the shock in her voice.

  Although Dylan had told her about being estranged from his father, she’d had no clue about the reasons. The circumstances behind it were devastating. Again and again, his father had wounded him, and even when he’d given him another opportunity to get it right, he’d broken his promise and shattered the last vestiges of Dylan’s belief in him. She felt a strong urge to turn back around and give R. J. McDermott a piece of her mind.

  “Not once. Not a call or a letter or an email. He tried to reach out to me, said he wanted to make things right, but I wasn’t interested. Not after what he did.” His voice sounded raspy, and she sensed he was fighting against a tide of emotion.

  “Do you think there’s any way the two of you could—” she began.

  “No,” he said sharply. “Too much water has passed under that bridge. I’m not some little kid looking for his father’s love and approval.”

  She wanted to remind Dylan about what he’d said to her about forgiving her mother, but she stopped herself. The situation wasn’t the same, not by a long shot. Dylan had suffered a lifetime of not feeling good enough due to his father’s actions. Over and over again, he’d been hurt. That wasn’t a simple fix. There were so many layers to the situation, so many undercurrents swirling around.

  As she drove back to the ranch, she couldn’t help but notice the strained vibe between them. Dylan’s body language had closed him off. He sat in the passenger seat and stared out the window. A few times she tried to make light conversation, but he wasn’t giving her anything more than monosyllabic answers. When they arrived back at Horseshoe Bend Ranch, Dylan saw her to the door, then brushed a quick kiss across her forehead. She stuffed down her feelings of disappointment that the kiss wasn’t as romantic as she’d hoped for. In a perfect world they would have sat down together on the porch and held hands or kissed underneath the stars.

  When Dylan headed off into the night he didn’t once look back at her. She willed him to turn around, to give her one last, lingering look to let her know that nothing had changed between them. There was no look, nor a goodbye wave as he heaved himself into the truck and started its engine. A chill ran down her arms as his truck roared off into the onyx night, leaving her staring after him with a strong sense of foreboding settling over her.

  Chapter Eleven

  I’m not going anywhere, Dylan. Not until we can hash things out.

  His father’s parting words had thundered in his ears all through the night, resulting in a fitful sleep. He’d given up trying to get some shut-eye, knowing his turbulent thoughts would keep him awake. The simple truth was he didn’t want to hash anything out with his father. He didn’t want to listen to what he had to say.

  Why not? a little voice inside him nudged. What are you afraid of? That you still care? That you still have love for him even though you don’t want to? That he still has the power to make you feel like that wide-eyed child who cried his eyes out when Daddy didn’t show up on Christmas morning?

  He shrugged off the torturous thoughts as he headed toward the ranch for a full day’s work. West Falls had been his safe haven, his brand-new
shiny start. Now it had been tainted by his father’s unexpected arrival. More and more as of late, he’d begun to like the man he was becoming. A man who wasn’t bogged down by past disappointments and family dysfunction. A man who knew that his worth wasn’t determined by his last name.

  Right now he felt as confused as he’d been six years ago. In the span of a few minutes in R. J. McDermott’s presence, all his confidence had been shattered. All his doubts had returned. About himself. And his father. And Holly. A half dozen times last night, he’d had to stop himself from throwing his things into a suitcase and taking off for parts unknown. The only thing stopping him was Holly. He owed her more than that. More, probably, than he’d ever be able to deliver.

  She didn’t deserve to pin her hopes and dreams on someone like him. Cullen’s image popped into his head. Solid, dependable Cullen. He was a deputy. He was part of the fabric of this town. Her brother’s right-hand man. A man like Cullen wouldn’t disappoint Holly. He’d be as sturdy as a brick wall.

  It wouldn’t be fair to lead Holly on without knowing for certain if he could go the distance with her. Memories of his mother came into sharp focus. Her face puffy from lack of sleep. Her eyes red rimmed from crying. All because she’d never gotten over loving his father. Pain seared through him at the notion that he could inflict such damage on Holly. Like father, like son. Hadn’t that always been his worst fear?

  Spunky, amazing Holly. She was too good for him and the uncertainty that plagued him. She didn’t deserve to be with someone who was filled with so much indecision. After all she’d been through, he couldn’t be the person who hurt her. He wouldn’t! It was far better to slightly wound her now than to devastate her further down the road. As loving as she was, he knew it was only a matter of time before she surrendered her heart to him. If she hadn’t already.

 

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