by Maisey Yates
In fairness, she felt like one.
Bennett looked over his shoulder and quickly dropped a hard, firm kiss on her lips, leaving her standing there in the barn reeling.
Bennett Dodge was making sensual promises to her. Bennett Dodge seemed to want her.
Bennett Dodge was coming after her.
Kaylee was starting to be afraid that she had woken up in a parallel universe and everything was going to go back to normal a lot sooner than she wanted it to.
But until then... She would have this. Yes. Until then.
Bennett was right. They’d had seventeen years’ worth of nights between them. Seventeen years of friendship.
This wouldn’t destroy them.
It couldn’t.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT WAS TYPICAL of his family to be having noisy, boisterous discussion over food. And tonight was no different. Though, what wasn’t quite so typical was that Dallas was joining in the discussion. He was laughing and joking, and talking about Lucy, the horse that he had ridden earlier in the day. Jamie was of course thrilled to have another enthusiast in her midst.
And then, Bennett couldn’t decide if he wanted to hug his brother Wyatt or smack him on the back of the head when he started to talk about his experience riding bulls in the Pro Rodeo circuit.
“It’s like riding on top of a freight train. Except the freight train wants to kill you,” Wyatt announced, in typical Wyatt fashion.
“Wow,” Dallas responded.
“Wyatt is an idiot,” Bennett said. “And he probably has brain damage.”
Wyatt shot him a glare, and Kaylee laughed and stood up from her position at the table, migrating over to the counter to grab a handful of chips.
“You know,” Grant said, “a lot of bull riders wear helmets now for a reason.”
“Yeah. And do you think those guys get as much action? Helmets don’t have the same effect on women as cowboy hats, bro.”
The interaction with all of them had been easy tonight, and he was grateful for that. Wyatt knew about the change in his and Kaylee’s relationship, but apparently, as far as Wyatt was concerned the fact that it was new was the revelation, so he wasn’t acting any differently. No one else knew unless Wyatt had told them, but Bennett doubted it.
Wyatt was tough. He was brash, and he was overconfident at the best of times. He also got under Bennett’s skin like a damned weevil.
Bennett was cautious of his older brother’s recklessness as well. Wyatt ran his mouth not caring what anyone thought, all the while doing whatever the hell he wanted.
Bennett tended to keep his mouth shut. All the while doing whatever the hell he wanted.
But he didn’t like making things a discussion. Wyatt seemed to consider a healthy debate a part of a good day. But Wyatt was also loyal. The amount of blood he’d soaked into the ranch in the last couple years, all the sweat and tears that were here... Wyatt was a cocky bastard, and he ran his mouth about things that didn’t matter much.
But he was loyal to family.
“You just rode a horse for the first time today,” Wyatt said. “Leave the bulls for later.”
“Leave the bulls for never,” Kaylee said, breaking into the conversation. “You’ve got too symmetrical of a face to tempt a wild animal like that.”
“Excuse me,” Wyatt said. “He’s too symmetrical. What about me? Am I lopsided?”
“A little bit,” Kaylee said. “I mean, in that hot roguish kind of way. But...”
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “He was born that way. You can’t blame it on the bulls.”
Wyatt snorted. “Hasn’t impacted my life negatively at all.”
“Is this the part where you make great pains to let us know what a stud you are?” Jamie asked. “Because I’m gonna pass on that.”
“We’ll keep it PG,” Wyatt said. “We have a minor in our midst. Anyway, that kind of talk only gets really heated up when the other rodeo guys are here.”
Jamie made a gagging noise. “I could do without them.”
“Which is half of why having them around sometimes is interesting. It drives you nuts. And that’s endless entertainment as far as I’m concerned.”
Bennett heard the front door open and he looked around the room quickly, trying to take stock of who was here, and who would walk in without knocking. Well, Luke would. Luke spent more time at his own ranch now than he did on Get Out of Dodge, but he had lived on the property starting at the age of sixteen until he was in his twenties, so he felt pretty at home. But other than him? No one.
He was the only one who had noticed. Jamie was trying to razz a smile out of Grant and Wyatt had just turned his interest in joining in. Kaylee was downing chips and Dallas was watching the whole thing.
Bennett stood and turned toward the kitchen entryway that faced the living room and the entry hall between.
And then his heart dropped to his feet.
“This is just how I left y’all. Sitting around eating.”
Well, hell. It was his dad.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
QUINN DODGE WAS standing in the doorway, his cowboy hat fixed firmly on his head, covering his now silver hair, his petite wife clinging to his side. Freda was only about eight years younger than Quinn, but her hair had only just begun to show small flashes of silver against the inky black. Her dark eyes assessed the situation. And quickly.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“What are you doing back here?” Bennett asked, his heart sinking down low.
“We thought we would come visit,” Quinn said. “Got a wild hair. We ended up taking the drive pretty damn quickly.”
“Much more quickly than I would have liked,” Freda pointed out.
“We camped on the side of the road a couple of nights, but here we are.”
He could feel all of his siblings doing their very best not to look right at Dallas. But that concerted effort only drew attention to him. And anyway, he was the unfamiliar face. There was no chance he wouldn’t be immediately noticed by his sharp old man. And there was no way Quinn wouldn’t see the family resemblance.
“Dad,” Bennett said meaningfully, “this is Dallas. And I think you and I need to have a talk.”
Bennett began to move slowly, making his way toward his father. He gritted his teeth and gestured toward the living room. Dallas, for his part, stayed put in the kitchen. Which really was for the best. Bennett knew that his father wasn’t going to get angry. Well, except maybe about being kept in the dark for the past couple of weeks. But he also knew that it was going to be a tricky discussion that shouldn’t have an audience.
“He’s not mine, is he?” Quinn asked.
His dad looked genuinely concerned.
Bennett chuckled. He couldn’t help it. “That was the first thing Jamie asked.”
“I didn’t sow a whole lot of wild oats, but I had my moments after your mother died. I wasn’t a monk.” Quinn’s mannerisms were so like Wyatt’s in that moment it was almost funny. Except Bennett felt like his windpipe was being crushed so not much was funny.
“He’s mine,” Bennett said. “No, I didn’t know.” He took a deep breath. And then, he began to explain the entire story from beginning to end. When it was over, his father was just staring at him with those steady brown eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me at the time?” Quinn asked.
“There was so much in your life already. I would have told you eventually if Marnie had never told me she’d miscarried.”
“I would have been there for you, Bennett. Hell, an adult man shouldn’t go through that alone. A teenage boy... You needed everybody to rally around you.”
Bennett shook his head. “I couldn’t have asked that of you. You had your hands full ever since Mom passed.”
“Literally in some cases,” Quinn agreed. “She die
d and I was there holding your sister. The other boys... They were older. It was so hard... But...I wonder sometimes, Bennett, if I treated you too much like one of them. Rather than like the little one you were.”
“There wasn’t a choice,” Bennett said. “Jamie was a baby.”
“And you tried to become a man much too quickly. But it would never have been a burden to take on your worries, son. Ever.”
“I just wanted to be responsible for my own life. I didn’t want to add to your problems. Especially when there was no good news to give. The baby was gone. There didn’t seem to be a point in bringing it all up. Plus, nobody wants to...”
“Talk about sex with their dad?”
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “Particularly not back then. I didn’t want to admit to you that I’d been that irresponsible.”
“After the hell your brother put me through, that would have been nothing.”
“Which brother?” Wyatt was the wild one, but Grant up and marrying at eighteen couldn’t have been a picnic for their father either.
His father hesitated a moment. “Both of them, quite honestly.”
“But that’s the thing. I wanted to have it all under control so that...”
“There’s no shame in needing help.”
“Well, I might need some now. I’ve never raised a teenage boy before, and you raised three. Plus Jamie.”
Quinn shook his head. “The very fact that you would ask for my help...” He swallowed hard. “Hell, boy. You got me choked up. Makes me think I did something right.”
Bennett let out a slow breath. “You did a lot of things right, Dad.”
“When did you find out about him?”
“It’s been a couple of weeks. But I didn’t know how to make that phone call.”
Quinn nodded slowly. “I would’ve rather you told me then. I would rather you told me sixteen years ago.”
“I should have. But I’m telling you now.”
“Because I showed up unannounced.”
Bennett shrugged. “Yeah, that’s true. But we’re talking.”
“I think I need to go meet my grandson. I didn’t figure my first grandson would be a teenager when I met him.” There was a touch of wistfulness in Quinn’s tone.
“I didn’t figure my firstborn would be a teenager when I met him.”
Quinn paused and clapped his hand over the back of Bennett’s back. “I don’t figure you did. This must be a tough time for you.”
“Tough’s not really the right word.”
Complicated. A whole lot of things. He could mourn what he’d lost, and sometimes he did. With a kind of hideous breathlessness that would overtake him for a moment in time and make him think he was going to suffocate. But then it would pass. And he would get hold of the moment again.
He hadn’t known about Dallas. So really, any time he had with him was something. A chance to build this relationship when it had been lost to them for so many years. He could focus on one end of that equation or the other. The missing years, or the fact that he was going to have years now. It was better to focus on this end. Because it was the one he could do something about.
Then there was Kaylee.
Sweet, prickly, amazing Kaylee. Who had been through so much more than he’d realized. Who was so much stronger than he’d known.
And so much sexier.
When they walked back into the room, Freda was sitting next to Dallas, forcing affection on him. She had her copper-colored hands wrapped around his, holding him tightly as she said something intently to him. Dallas looked up, clearly at sea being the center of attention.
“These are your grandparents,” he said, gesturing between Freda and his dad.
“I figured,” Dallas said.
“Good to meet you,” Quinn said, crossing the room and sticking his hand out. Dallas stuck his hand out too, and Quinn shook it, firm like he always did.
“You can have a firmer grip than that,” Quinn said, smiling at Dallas. “Nothing wrong with a good firm handshake.”
And he knew that a lot of people would have found that a distant greeting for a long-lost grandson, but as far as Quinn Dodge was concerned that was the real deal. Teaching a man the value of a handshake was something his father believed in.
Well, not just a man. Jamie’s handshake was strong enough to make a bull rider cry. And she’d tried to make more than one cry more than once.
Watching his father interact with Dallas, Bennett had to ask himself what he had thought his father would do when he found out. It wasn’t like he had ever believed that Quinn wouldn’t accept his grandson. Wasn’t like he had truly thought he would disown them. But he hadn’t told him.
He had avoided it actively. Not just when he had been a teenager when that kind of behavior was somewhat excusable, but now, when he was thirty-two years old. A man who should have known better than to do something like that.
But he was used to taking care of things on his own. He didn’t like having to lean against people. He wanted to fix things, he didn’t want to break them.
The one person he’d really let close had been Kaylee. Not that they shared perfectly with each other. It wasn’t either of their strong points. But the first time he’d seen that lonely, lost-looking thirteen-year-old girl at school he’d wanted to make her look less lonely. And she’d made him feel less lonely too.
He had come to understand loss at far too early of an age to ever want to let people be pillars in his life.
That was what he had learned at the age of seven. That when you lost one of those pillars it was so easy for you to crumble.
Of course, he hadn’t thought of it in those terms then. He had been a child. And all he had known was the bright, intense pain, the inability to understand what death really meant.
That it was really an end. That it meant they were gone forever. And forever meant no bedtime stories. No being tucked in. Never hearing their voice. Never smelling that perfume. It had taken his brain so long to wrap itself around that concept. Even as an adult he wasn’t entirely sure he understood it.
What he knew was that if he had to ask for help, then it meant something had gone wrong. It meant that he had miscalculated, that he was not in control of his life, and for reasons he imagined stemmed back to being that little boy who felt like his world had been turned over on its side, the very idea was unthinkable to him.
But here he was, surrounded by family, with his father and stepmother, and he was... Well, he was leaning on them a little bit. And some of that was for Dallas’s benefit.
Quite honestly, Bennett felt like finding out that he was all the kid got was a pretty piss-poor prize. But adding his family to that equation...the uncles, the grandparents. That made it all a little bit more. That made it feel like he was really giving his son something. With all that considered, building a wall around himself was selfish. Because this safety net benefited Dallas, and while Bennett had systematically made sure he didn’t need those safety nets, while he had gone to great lengths to make sure he never used them, he could see how foolish it was when he looked at his son.
Could imagine how he would feel if Dallas came to him with news that he had gotten a girl pregnant.
He would be concerned. Maybe even upset. But he’d want to do whatever he could to help. He’d want to be there. Be involved.
This new perspective on the other side of the parent-child relationship was really something. What was actually a burden, and what wasn’t.
Basically nothing was. Hard, maybe. But he wanted desperately to carry his son’s burdens, and they weren’t burdens to him. They were blessings. Because it was what he felt like his shoulders had been made for. To carry that. To carry him.
He hadn’t understood that before now. Hadn’t understood that he wasn’t sparing his father by holding all of that back. He was denying him a chance to
be a father in the way he would want.
But it required sharing on Bennett’s part. And that he found hard. That, he didn’t find so appealing.
When dinner wrapped up, Bennett got ready to go. But after Dallas and Kaylee walked out of the house, Quinn pulled him aside.
“We’ll be around for a few weeks. We might even extend the stay. So we can get to know him.”
“That’s what I’m still trying to do,” Bennett responded.
“You’ve always been strong,” Quinn said. “But don’t forget to let him in.”
That was too close to all the raw, terrible things Bennett had been thinking about. To all the stuff he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“All right,” Quinn said, clearly reaching an end to how much he could talk about feelings. “We’ll see him around tomorrow, I guess. I hear he’s working on the place.”
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “Doing a pretty good job too. And learning to ride.”
“Definitely a Dodge,” Quinn said.
“Bye, Dad,” Bennett said, turning and walking out of the house.
Yes, Dallas was definitely a Dodge. Which meant he wasn’t going to make any of that emotional stuff easy. And it wasn’t easy for Bennett either. At this point, he just wanted to take a break for a while. Even though he knew it wasn’t possible.
But there was Kaylee. She was his port in the storm, always had been. And tonight...
He walked out onto the porch and saw her standing by the truck. She had ridden over with him and Dallas because she had known that he was going to want to spend some time with her after he got Dallas settled at the house.
She was beautiful, with the sunlight shrinking and fading behind the mountains, threading golden strands through her hair, casting her face in a glow.
He had always been proud of her. Proud to walk around with someone like her by his side. Resilient, beautiful, strong. Smart as hell. But it all felt different in that moment. She was standing with Dallas, making easy conversation with him. Dallas actually seemed a little bit more at ease around her. At least, more than he did around Bennett.