Cowboy Valentines

by Liz Isaacson

  The man’s hands steadied her by her elbows. “Hey,” McDermott said. “Where are you going? Is everything okay?”

  The sound of his voice soothed her, but not enough to stick around. “I can’t.” She tried to shake herself free, but dang, McDermott was strong.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice carrying a definite note of panic. “Where’s Taya?”

  “They’re inside,” she said, looking up at him. Tears filled her eyes, and she hated the weakness she felt in every cell of her body. “I can’t do this, McDermott. I’m not the woman you need in your life.”

  He clearly wasn’t expecting her to say that, because he frowned and squinted at her. “What?”

  “I have to go.”

  He let her go, and she spun away from him, her desperation today as strong as it had been in that women’s clinic all those months ago.

  Maybe she wasn’t as healed as she thought. Maybe she would never be ready to be a wife and mother. Maybe she should just focus on repairing her family relationships before branching out to men.

  She’d been making good progress there, and had attended the Fuller family dinner for the past few weeks. No one had made a big deal about her sudden reappearance, but she’d stuck to her closest allies—Berlin, Wren, and Kyler.

  She hadn’t really had a conversation with her mother yet, and Dawn wasn’t looking forward to that. She somehow got behind the wheel of her car and started driving. The last time she’d driven with this level of emotion, she’d gone off the road. This time, she hurried home and barricaded herself in her apartment, her tears her only companions.

  Chapter 9

  McDermott stared after Dawn, who had a surprisingly long gait when she was determined, and then turned back to the emergency room he’d been about to enter. He had no idea what was going on with any of the women in his life, and he hated this level of helplessness.

  He also hated hospitals. The last time he’d been here, it was another frantic, frustrating experience that ended with a doctor coming out of those awful plastic doors and telling him his wife was dead.

  With Dawn gone, he had no way to communicate with Nana Reba, who’d surely left her phone at home, as he’d tried to call her several times without getting an answer.

  He swiveled his attention back to Dawn, but she’d gotten in her car already, because he couldn't’ find her blonde head.

  “Taya comes first anyway,” he muttered to himself. He knew it had to be so. Taya should and would always come first. He couldn’t put his own selfish needs above those of his six-year-old daughter’s. He wouldn’t.

  She needed him to be there for her, be strong, put her first. He didn’t need Dawn Fuller. Though as he walked into the emergency room and scanned the seats for his grandmother, he sure would’ve liked her by his side. Sometimes it was hard being the strong one all the time. Sometimes he wanted to have a bad day, break down and let someone take care of him.

  And not just someone. Dawn. He wanted Dawn to take care of him. And he wanted to take care of her.

  His eyes met Nana Reba’s at the same moment he realized he’d fallen in love with Dawn. Shoving that aside for the moment, he went to his grandmother. “How’s Taya? What happened?”

  “We haven’t heard from the doctor yet.” She related to him the same thing Dawn had texted. In short, she didn’t know.

  He said, “Stay here. I’m going to go ask,” and he crossed the room to the reception desk. “Hey there, Terra. My daughter was brought in a while ago. I just got here. I need to see her. Can you check where she is for me?”

  Terra clicked and tapped on the keyboard. “She’s with Doctor Blanken,” she said. “But McDermott, you know you can’t go back there.”

  “Taya’s six,” he said. “And she’s alone, and I’m all she has.” His chest lifted with the effort it took to breathe. Why couldn’t he have been in town today? Filling out July’s paperwork? Anything but an hour and a half away, in Dinosaur National Park, when his daughter needed him.

  Terra put her hand on McDermott’s and eased his fingers out of the fist they’d cinched themselves into. “Doctor Blanken is our pediatric specialist,” she said. “Taya’s going to be all right.”

  That was what he’d been told about Amelia too. His mother had said it over and over. His dad too. Her parents. And nothing in that situation had turned out all right. Flustered and panicked, McDermott turned away from Terra. “Can you go check and see how close they are to coming out?” he asked. “Maybe just find out what’s wrong? We don’t know anything.”

  “Of course. Be right back.”

  McDermott closed his eyes and took a deep, long breath. He prayed, as he had been the whole way here, that his daughter would be okay. That she could make a full recovery from whatever had happened.

  And calm and comfort Dawn too, please, he added to the end of his pleas. Surely the Lord was tired of hearing his daily—sometimes hourly—petitions. Though Pastor Peters claimed one couldn’t utter enough prayers, McDermott was starting to feel like he better slow his down or they’d stop working.

  “McDermott.”

  He turned at the sound of Terra’s voice. “Yeah?”

  “She has a broken leg. They’ve done the x-rays, and she needs a quick surgery to reset the bones. Doctor Blanken thinks it’ll be quick, nothing major. She’ll come get you when she’s done.”

  Nothing major.

  McDermott managed to smile, noting the sad look of sympathy he got in response, and went to update Nana Reba. As she wept and apologized for not keeping a closer eye on Taya, McDermott pulled out his phone and texted Dawn.

  Broken leg. She’s going into surgery. Will probably be here for a while.

  She didn’t respond right away, and Nana Reba caught him looking at his phone for the sixth time. “She said she had to go to work, dear.”

  “Oh, right.” Of course she did. Just because his daughter got injured didn’t mean the banks, the post office, and the police department didn’t need their garbages emptied and their floors vacuumed.

  An hour passed, and it felt like a week to McDermott. His skin crawled the longer he stayed inside the walls of the hospital. “Do you want me to take you home, Nana Reba?”

  “No, dear. I’m fine.”

  He didn’t dare leave, but he couldn’t stay either. “I’m just going to go stand outside for a minute,” he said. “Get some fresh air. Come grab me if the doctor comes out.”

  Nana Reba nodded, and he escaped as fast as he could, almost colliding with Dawn for a second time that day.

  “We have to stop this,” he said, relief painting everything in his life with gold and silver. He latched onto her, the scent of freshly cooked beef meeting his nose. “I need you,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m so sorry if that freaks you out, but I need you.” He buried his face against the powdery softness of her neck, glad when she stayed firm and strong and wrapped her arms around him.

  She anchored him, and he wanted to blurt out how he felt about her, but he’d already said three little words that could blow up their relationship.

  “I brought dinner,” she finally said, her voice a touch on the strained side. He released her and backed up, noting the redness in her eyes and the way she wouldn’t look straight at him.

  “You didn’t need to do that,” he said. “I didn’t mean to take you from work.”

  She waved her hand like she was swatting a fly. “It’s your office not getting cleaned. I think you’ll survive.” She swept her eyes past him and toward the door. “Have you heard anything?”

  He sighed. “No. And I couldn’t stay in there for another second.”

  “I know how you feel,” she said, and this time when her eyes went across his face, they hooked his. They looked at one another for several long moments, until she finally thrust the paper bag from Buffalo Bills toward him. “I brought dinner.”

  He took it, and though his stomach roared for the food, he didn’t want to let her walk away from him again.
“What did you mean when you said you weren’t the woman I need?”

  A storm of emotions crossed her face, and she clenched her teeth. “I am not that girl’s mother.”

  McDermott blinked like he’d been slapped in the face. “I—”

  “I don’t know how to be a mother,” she said. “I’ve never even wanted to be one. Remember how I told you I was down in Vernal to see if I was pregnant?” She glanced around and lowered her voice, her chin shaking now. “I wasn’t relieved because it would’ve been hard to raise a baby alone. Or because I’d have to tell my mother that her ‘wild child’ had lived up to her reputation.” Tears splashed her face, and McDermott wanted nothing more than to wipe them away and hold her against his chest until the winds had raged themselves to nothing.

  “I was relieved because it meant I didn’t have to be a mother. I—I—I don’t know how to do it, and seeing Wren with my niece today freaked me out, and then you called, and Nana Reba almost fell, and it’s….” She calmed as if by magic. “It’s all too much for me, McDermott. I’m not the one for you.”

  Fearing he’d lose her one way or the other, he swiped his free thumb under her right eye, then her left, drawing her tears away. He kissed her on the forehead, his heart bobbing against the back of his tongue. “You’re wrong,” he said, his voice stuck in the back of his throat. “I need you. Just the way you are, I need you.”

  She let him take her into his arms, and he dropped the bag of fast food so he could hold her close. “I get there will need to be some adjustments,” he whispered. “I come with a lot of extras other men don’t. Heck, I don’t even own my own house.” He drew back just a bit and looked into Dawn’s eyes, so beautiful and so full of agony.

  “I can get my own place,” he said. “But I’m still gonna check on Nana Reba everyday. That won’t change. And of course, I can’t erase my daughter.”

  “I know that,” Dawn said.

  “I’m not expecting you to be her mother,” he said.

  She searched his face, confusion becoming the dominant emotion in hers. “No?”

  He shook his head. “No, Dawn. If we…I mean, you know, in the far distant future, if you decide we can be together, you’d be my wife. Not her mother.”

  McDermott swallowed hard, shocked and berating himself mentally for using the word wife. Dawn was already freaked out, and he didn’t need to go throwing gasoline on roaring flames.

  Surprisingly, she didn’t turn and hightail it out of the parking lot like she had earlier.

  “I will always be her dad,” he said. “And I don’t expect you to be her mother. Will I need your help sometimes, like today? Sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s for her. It’s for me.”

  “I have no idea what I’m doing,” she said. “You know that, right?”

  “And I do?” He chuckled. “There’s no manual you get when they send you home with a baby,” he said. “Which, by the way, you didn’t mention that Wren had her baby. You went to see them?”

  “After lunch, yes.”

  “And?” She’d confessed to him that she was scared about Wren having a baby for a lot of reasons. She ran their family business, and without her, Dawn was sure everything would fall apart, or that she’d be asked to go into the office during the day.

  “They looked so happy,” she said wistfully.

  “Babies are magical,” he said. “Way different than six-year-olds.”

  “So you want more babies.” She wasn’t really asking, and while McDermott wanted to deny it, he couldn’t.

  “Yes,” he said carefully. “I’d like to have children if I get married again.”

  “McDermott.” Nana Reba’s voice came from behind him. “The doctor’s here.”

  He threaded his fingers through Dawn’s and tugged her gently to come with him. Relieved when she did, he went inside to find out how Taya was.

  Chapter 10

  “Just fine,” Doctor Blanken must’ve said a dozen times. McDermott’s relief wasn’t hard to find, and he went back with the doctor to see his daughter though she’d likely be asleep for a few more hours due to the anesthesia.

  “Come on,” Dawn said to Nana Reba in the waiting room. “I’ll take you home. He’ll stay overnight with her.” She took his grandmother home and made sure she was safely inside the house with the two dogs, McDermott’s mushroom Swiss burger and fries in her hand.

  Dawn stood on the front walk, gazing into the twilight, scenes from the future flashing before her in the darkening sky. If she kept dating McDermott, she knew she’d end up marrying him. Her pulse fluttered at the very thought.

  Then she’d have to worry about him every morning when he left, and wonder if he was going to make it home every evening. She’d have to take care of Taya when she was well, sick, hurt, and everything in between. She wouldn’t be able to work until two o’clock in the morning and sleep until eleven.

  She would have to drastically change her schedule, her day-to-day activities, her whole life.

  Can I do that, Lord? She tilted her head toward the heavens, but like most things, God left her to figure things out on her own. With nothing else to do, she headed over to the police station. She started working, and because she’d taken an hour and gone back to the hospital, she finished a bit later than normal.

  Didn’t matter. No one was at home, waiting for her. She loved Brush Creek in the dead of night, when everything was closed and everyone was at home. Even the karaoke bar was closed, and Dawn took in the stillness of the darkness, the beauty of the stars.

  She hoped for clarity of thought regarding McDermott and Taya, but instead, she got the distinct impression she needed to go see her mother.

  So the next morning, she slept until eleven as usual, though she’d been out an hour later than normal. She texted her mother about meeting for lunch, and her mom called, as Dawn had known she would.

  “I’m at the hospital to see Baby Etta,” she said, and Dawn’s heart skipped a beat. “But Tate was just talking about getting lunch in the cafeteria here. You’re more than welcome to come.” She didn’t act like it was strange that Dawn had contacted her, though Dawn certainly hadn’t invited her mother to lunch in at least three years.

  She didn’t want to eat with Tate, though she had nothing against the man. She just couldn’t say what she needed to with him there. She’d barely be able to do it without him there.

  “Dawn?”

  “I don’t want to eat at the hospital,” she said, and that was true enough. “Maybe another time.”

  “Wait,” her mom said as if sensing Dawn was about to hang up. “What about dinner tonight? Your dad’s out with Kyler tonight to get caught up on the jobs they fell behind on. You know, without Brennan, he’s running himself ragged.”

  “He should hire someone to replace Brennan.”

  Her mother sighed. “He did, but Baker’s taken this week off. I mean, we didn’t know Wren would be having the baby; she was early you know.” Her mother continued to prattle on about how the family would rally around one another, and that Brennan and Cora were doing well in California, and Dawn only had to “Hm mm,” every once in a while.

  “So tonight for dinner?” she asked when her mom finally took a breath. “Just you and me. I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Well, Berlin might come, and—”

  “Just you and me, Mom,” Dawn insisted. “I don’t want to talk in front of Berlin, or Jazzy, or Fabi. Just you and me.”

  Her mom finally seemed to be listening, because a healthy pause came through the line, followed by, “All right, Dawn.”

  “I’ll bring the food,” Dawn said. “You won’t even have to cook.” With the plans in place, Dawn spent the next several hours obsessing about how to say anything to her mom. Pastor Peters had assured her that she didn’t need to confess her sins to anyone but God.

  When she showed up with Chinese food at the giant house where she’d grown up, it took all her courage and all her willpower to go inside. None of th
e children lived there anymore, but her parents would never sell the place. The Fuller mansion had been in their family since the beginning of Brush Creek history, and they planned to keep it that way.

  “Mom?” she called when she went inside.

  “In the kitchen,” her mom yelled back. Dawn maneuvered through the furniture in the great room and set the food on the dining room table.

  “The blue looks nice,” she said, noting the new color on the walls in the kitchen, where her mom pulled plates out of the cupboard. She turned, and all the blue eyes and blonde features in the Fuller family belonged to her. Of course, since Dawn’s dad was also towheaded with bright blue eyes, all the Fullers had some shade of blue and a range of blondes from dirty dishwater blonde to Fabi’s cornsilk-colored hair.

  Dawn moved the food to the kitchen counter, and they dished up the things they wanted. “So,” her mom said. “How are things with McDermott?”

  Dawn hadn’t expressly told her parents about her relationship with McDermott, but they had eyes. They could see she sat by him at church, and surely Kyler had said something about the two of them even though she’d asked him not to.

  “I don’t know.” Dawn sighed, spearing a piece of broccoli with a slice of beef.

  “He’s a nice man,” her mother said. “Very handsome. Cute little girl. Stable job, right here in town.” Her mom cast a sideways look at her, and Dawn found herself nodding along.

  “He’s all of that,” she agreed.

  “You like him, yes?”

  “Very much,” Dawn said, her food sticking in her throat. Her mom seemed pleased about that, and Dawn could only imagine how many steps up McDermott was from the other men she’d dated. Probably several stories, which made his attraction to her completely insane.

  “He’s completely smitten with you.” Her mom giggled.

  “How do you know?”