by Devney Perry
I didn’t want to think about next time.
“Fine.” I held out a hand to help her up. I walked with her to the door and grabbed her coat from the floor, holding it open as she put it on.
“I’ll make breakfast. It’ll be ready when you come back.”
She nodded. “I’m not going far.”
I kissed her quickly then turned for the bedroom to collect our cold coffee mugs.
“Dakota,” she called, stopping me.
“Yeah?”
“I see it. I see it so clearly, and it’s magnificent. It takes my breath away.”
“See what, babe?”
“The future.” She turned the knob on the door. “I wish you could see it too.”
“It’s so good to see you, sweetheart.” Mom hugged me as she came into the living room at Logan and Thea’s house.
Dad was next, pulling me into his arms before letting me go to shake Dakota’s hand. “Good to see you again, Dakota.”
“You too, sir.”
“Please, call me Thomas.” Dad waved him off. “I get enough sirs at work.”
Dakota nodded, kissed my mother on the cheek and gave me a smile as Aubrey and Granny came into the living room to join us.
The chaos of their arrival had energized the whole house. Logan was busy hauling in some bags from their rented SUV. The kids were going crazy, excited to see their grandparents.
“Hi.” I hugged Aubrey. “How are you?”
“Good. I’m—ugh.” She was interrupted when her phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket, frowned, then silenced the call. “I’d be better if a certain cop stopped calling me. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
I fought a smile. “Me? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He’s relentless.”
Since I’d come to Montana, I hadn’t had a chance to catch up with Aubrey. But I was guessing that Landon had made it his new hobby to pester my sister for a date.
I was rooting for him to win her over. As she looked at her phone again, her eyes twinkled at his name on the screen. I suspected Landon wasn’t far from wearing her down.
“Nice to see you again, Aubrey.” Dakota hugged her then stood by my side as they all came and sat in the living room.
Charlie had already stolen Granny away to her room, where the pair would probably be for the next hour, reading books and catching up on their time apart. The little kids climbed all over my parents, wanting to know where their special presents were stashed while Logan and Thea looked on with happy smiles.
My heart sank, knowing there was a very good chance I’d never have that. Not if I wanted to stay with Dakota.
Since our argument last week, he hadn’t brought up his family or his issues with my money again. He hadn’t hinted I’d be his choice.
With every passing minute, the chances of me coming out of this without a broken heart were shriveling. My vibrant dreams had faded to gray.
The urge to cry came on so strong, I quietly fled from the room. I made it to the kitchen, hoping for a few moments alone to collect myself.
I didn’t get them.
I’d just made it to the island when Dakota’s heat hit my back. He wrapped me up in a hug, holding me as he bent to whisper in my ear, “What’s wrong?”
“I have a headache.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I hadn’t felt all that well since I’d woken up this morning. “A couple Advil and I’ll be fine.”
His arms banded tighter, holding me in place, until he let me go after a few seconds.
I went to my purse on the counter and took out my travel bottle of pain pills. I popped a couple, chugged down some water, and smiled, leading him back into the living room without a word.
Conversation between us had all but stopped this week. Tension and stress had chased away my desire to talk. We exchanged as few words as necessary to get through the day’s routine.
Yet we clung to each other physically. Dakota didn’t let me leave a room without following. At night, I slept burrowed into his side. While I worked during the day, he was always near. And at night, I was across from him at the bar.
We made love as often as possible, from the early morning hours until late into the night. Dakota and I soaked up every second together, savoring this time.
I’d lost track of the number of times he and I had broken apart. The number of times we’d agreed to go our separate ways only to find ourselves thrust together again.
But this time, if or when I left, there would be no coming back.
This split, the last, would devastate us both.
So here we were, struggling through the motions, forcing smiles and laughter, so our unhappiness wouldn’t ruin Thanksgiving.
As we walked out of the kitchen, the front door opened and closed. Boots stomped off the fresh snow we’d gotten last night. Hazel’s hoarse laughter carried down the hallway as she and Xavier came inside.
“Hey, bud.” Xavier clapped Dakota on the shoulder as they greeted us first. Then he bent to kiss my cheek. “How are you guys today?”
“Cold,” I teased. The air from the front door gave me goose bumps. This Thanksgiving was supposed to be the coldest the area had seen in the last two decades.
“I’ll keep you warm, babe.” Dakota put his arm around my shoulders, guiding me into the living room.
More greetings and handshakes as we piled into the space. The room full of people I loved would be my saving grace this holiday.
It made it easier to ignore the pain in my heart when there was so much to be joyous about.
“How was your trip?” I asked my parents as Dakota and I sat on the loveseat.
“We were lucky to get here,” Dad said. “They closed the airport twenty minutes after we touched down because of visibility.”
“Oh no!” Thea gasped. “What about the pilot and crew? Did they take off?”
Mom shook her head. “No. They’ll have to wait to see if things clear up.”
“But Thanksgiving is tomorrow.” Thea looked at Logan. “You better call and invite them down here, just in case. I hate to think of them in a hotel on a holiday.”
“We’ve got extra rooms at our place,” Mom said. “If they have to spend the night, we’ll have them come here.”
Mom and Dad’s Montana house was a couple of miles away on the lake. It was just as big as Logan and Thea’s, but we didn’t spend much time there. We all preferred to stay here where the kids were comfortable and had all of their things.
“I can stay here and free up a room,” Aubrey offered.
I opened my mouth to offer her Dakota’s guest bedroom but stopped myself. If she stayed with us, she’d sense the tension. I’d have a harder time hiding my feelings, and right now, I didn’t want to talk about them.
I didn’t want to talk about any of it. When I wasn’t on the verge of tears, I was numb.
“I wonder if Arthur’s son made it up,” Dakota said quietly. “He was supposed to fly in today.”
“Can you call him?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Be right back.”
I listened to the various conversations in the room as I waited for Dakota to return. Logan asked Dad and Aubrey about work. Mom and Thea talked about how Collin was doing in school. Hazel had Camila on her lap, the two of them whispering to one another in their own little game.
Xavier’s eyes kept wandering to me. He knew my smile was fake. He’d been a police officer for so long, I doubted Dakota and I were fooling him.
“Dakota’s working tonight?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes. He’s covering the bar tonight and then gets the rest of the weekend off.”
Jackson would be there on Friday and over the weekend. At first, I’d been excited for the break because it would give Dakota and me time together without a schedule.
But then everything had come out last week, and now I was dreading this weekend. Without work as an excuse, we’d have to talk.
Sooner rather than later, he
had to choose.
Maybe I should pull the pilot aside this weekend and clue him in that I might be flying back to New York next week too.
Dakota came back into the room, his face etched with concern. “Arthur’s son’s flight was canceled. I invited him here, but he said he’d rather stay home and listen to the television. He said he doesn’t even like turkey.”
“But he’ll be alone on Thanksgiving.”
“Maybe I could run up there.” Dakota looked at the time on his phone and frowned. “I’ll never make it back for work though. I don’t want to ask Thea to cover, not with everyone here.”
“I could go see Arthur,” I offered.
“Not on these roads.” He shook his head. “You’re not driving anywhere.”
“I’ll go slow. It’s not snowing hard, and it’s just a little foggy. I’ll stop at the grocery store in Kalispell and get him some of his favorite junk foods. Then I can hang out with him for a little bit.”
And I could use the break.
I could use the quiet drive to Kalispell to think. I’d asked Dakota to make a choice, but I had one of my own to make.
If he chose his family over me, would I be willing to give up my own dreams?
“Where are you going?” Logan asked, halting all other conversations in the room.
“One of Dakota’s tenants is this really sweet elderly man. He’s blind and his son’s flight was canceled, so he’s alone for Thanksgiving. I thought I would go there for a bit today and say hello.”
“You can’t drive to Kalispell.” Logan spoke first, stealing the exact words that were written on Dad’s face. “The roads are icy, and you barely drive as it is.”
He wasn’t wrong. I rarely drove my car in the city. It sat in the garage collecting dust most days. And I’d only driven Dakota’s truck a couple of times when I’d come to visit Thea while he’d been at the bar.
“I’ll drive you up there.” Xavier pushed up from the couch. “I know Arthur. Wouldn’t mind saying hello myself.”
“Thank you.” I stood too, ignoring the waves of frustration coming off Dakota.
He didn’t want me leaving, but he wouldn’t leave Arthur alone either. Since he trusted his uncle more than any other person in the world, he didn’t have any more excuses to keep me in Lark Cove.
“I’ll be back.” I went to the couch, kissed Mom and Dad, then waved to Aubrey.
They looked a bit baffled that I was leaving already, but they didn’t comment.
Before anyone could talk me out of this trip, I hurried to the kitchen, grabbed my purse and went to the door, where I’d hung up my puffer coat.
With it on, I stood by the door, waiting for Xavier and watching as Dakota stalked my way.
“I don’t like you going up there today.” He came close and planted his hands on his hips.
“It’s just a quick trip. And I need it.” The happy face I’d put on for the last week was getting heavy to wear. “Some time apart will be good for us both.”
“Yeah.” Dakota sighed. “You’re probably right.”
I stood there, wishing for a glimmer of hope on his face. But there was nothing. He looked to the floor, his hands falling to his sides. Was he even considering me as an option? Or had he already given up on us?
I swallowed down my disappointment, let Dakota kiss me on the cheek, then followed Xavier outside after he’d shrugged on his coat.
His and Hazel’s SUV was parked in the driveway. I got in, glad it was still warm. Just the short walk from the front door had frozen my ears.
Xavier climbed in and cranked up the heat.
“Thank you for taking me.”
“Glad to do it.” He reached over and patted my shoulder before backing out of the drive and getting us on the road. “You doing okay?”
“Not great,” I admitted.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.” I sighed. “Yes. I don’t like your family much.”
He chuckled. “They can be a hard bunch to love. What happened?”
“I’m pretty sure they’ve been grooming Dakota since birth. That sounds extreme, but I can’t think of another way to describe it.”
He hummed. “Their beliefs can be hard to understand.”
“Has it always been like this?” I asked. “Has he always had this kind of pressure? I mean, it’s like when he was born they already knew how his life was going to be lived. He has to live in the right place. Work in the right job. Marry the right woman. Have the right kind of kids.”
In a lot of ways, his family’s expectations reminded me of the stories I’d read about princes and princesses of the past. If he wanted to inherit the crown, he had to toe the family line.
As a child, I’d wanted to be a princess. I was the princess.
A princess who would never get her prince.
“Like I said, it’s hard to understand,” Xavier said. “They are fiercely loyal to our family’s traditions. Which isn’t a bad thing. But it can make them too rigid. They can be closed-minded. And I’m afraid that some of what they’re putting Dakota through is my fault.”
“Your fault? How is it your fault?”
He sighed, shifting his grip on the steering wheel. He grimaced as he did, sucking in a sharp breath as his hand went to his sternum.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Just heartburn. I’ve had a hell of a time with it this week.”
“Should we stop somewhere and get some medicine?”
“I’ll be fine.” His hand drifted down his chest to his stomach, pressing in on the side. “I took a couple of Tums a bit ago, just waiting for them to kick in.”
I watched him closely. “Should we go back?”
“I’m fine.” He smiled through the pain. “It’s only heartburn.”
“Okay.” I struggled to relax in my seat. Dakota had just lost his father. If he lost Xavier too, he’d be destroyed.
“Where were we?” he asked.
“You said all of this was partly your fault.”
“It is.” He nodded. “My dad worked for the tribal authorities. It was how I got interested in becoming a cop. As a kid, I dreamed we’d get to work together when I got older. But then he got killed on duty before I graduated high school. Drunk guy traveling through the reservation stopped on the side of the road and killed his wife with a shotgun. My dad was out on patrol. He pulled up, and the guy killed him too before he turned it on himself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s a risk we all understand. Doesn’t make it easier to deal with, but it’s there. My mom, Dakota’s grandmother, had a hard time.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Mom got skittish of everything and everyone not from the reservation. In her mind, outsiders couldn’t be trusted. It became this thing with her, this belief that blinded her. I had a couple of white friends. She refused to let me spend time with them. I worked for a white rancher out of town, fixing fence in the summer; she made me quit my job.”
I blinked, watching the icy road ahead of us as Xavier drove. I hadn’t met Dakota’s grandmother, though I knew she was still alive and living in a nursing home on the reservation. My heart hurt for her, losing her husband too early.
And her son.
My heart hurt that her grief had turned into such venomous discrimination.
“My brother didn’t think the way Mom did,” Xavier said. “Joseph wasn’t a prejudiced man. But he put our people first. Above all else. When I decided to leave the reservation, he saw it as a betrayal of our culture. I was the first one in my family line to have ever left. Ever. Generations and generations, I was the one to break the chain. Joseph never understood because we had everything there we needed to live, get an education and a job. To him, leaving was unnecessary.”
“But you felt trapped.”
“That’s right.” He looked over, his dark eyes soft underneath the brim of his Stetson. “I felt trapped, so I decided to leave. I had a lot to prove back then.
Prove to myself I could make it off the reservation. Prove to outsiders that an American Indian could be sheriff in a white town. But it drove a wedge between me and my family. My mom saw it as a betrayal to my dad’s memory. My brother saw it as a betrayal to our people. I should have stayed there to serve them, to make their lives better. Not live two hours away and serve a strange community.”
“And then Dakota left too.”
“That’s right. But it wasn’t just leaving. Dakota left and came to me. Joseph never forgave me for leaving. And I made it nearly impossible for him to accept that Dakota needed to leave.”
“What about all the blood quantum stuff?”
Xavier frowned. “There’s not many families on the reservation who still think that shit matters. But unfortunately, mine is one that does.”
“Is there any hope?”
“There’s always hope.” Xavier placed his hand on my shoulder. “Our people, we are proud of our heritage. That pride is good and bad. Dakota has to learn to keep his pride and set it aside at the same time.”
“I told him he had to choose.” I dropped my eyes to my lap. “Was that wrong?”
“No. He does have a choice to make. But you have to understand how hard that choice will be. As much as you want him to choose you? They want it just as bad. They love him.”
The guilt for putting him in this position settled hard. “Why does this even have to be a choice? Can’t we all just love him?”
Xavier smiled. “That’s why he’ll choose you.”
“I don’t know if he will,” I whispered as my eyes flooded.
“He will. My nephew is his own man. He might be conflicted, but give him time. He’ll work it out.” Xavier shifted, rubbing his side again.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
He nodded. “Good as gold.”
Gold. “Can I ask you something else? If I were poor, do you think it would be easier?”
Xavier shook his head. “His family doesn’t care about the money. That’s Dakota’s own personal hang-up.”
Once again, his pride was coming between us. “I—”
“Ooof,” he grunted, stopping me from speaking as his face twisted in pain.