by Liz Isaacson
“Oh, Kyler says he’s talkin’ about you all the time. Dawn this and Dawn that.”
Dawn put her fork down, unable to put another bite in her mouth. “I think I have to break up with him.”
“What? Why would you do that?” Her mom paused, her fork hanging in midair.
“He’s…it’s complicated.” She didn’t want to voice her selfishness. Tell her mother that she wasn’t ready to be a mother. All her mom had ever wanted was to be a mother—and she’d done just that nine times. Nine.
“Dawn, I get you’ve had a rough year or so, but—”
“I don’t want children, Mom,” Dawn blurted out. As she suspected, her mom’s face contorted with horror, like such a thing was unfathomable. “And he comes with a child. I’d have no choice.” Dawn hadn’t come here to tell her mom this, but all her fears and worries about McDermott and Taya spilled from her.
Her mom didn’t offer any advice, the way Dawn had been hoping she would. She didn’t tell Dawn what she should do, which Dawn desperately wanted someone to do.
“You’ll figure it out,” her mom said, patting her hand and happily munching on the last egg roll.
Dawn managed to squeeze down another couple of bites of sweet and sour chicken and then let her mom pack up the leftovers, knowing she’d never eat them. But she took them, hugged her mom—something she hadn’t done in a while—and went to get ready for work.
Out of the four buildings she cleaned, Dawn disliked the post office the most. They produced the most trash, and all the walls and floors were white, which meant they showed the most dirt.
So she cleaned the post office first each evening, just to get the worst one out of the way. She went to the police station second and saved the two banks in town for last. They had the best security systems and the brightest lights, and someone always had a sweet-smelling candle they’d been burning during the day.
As she loaded the trash from the police station all into one big can, the front door opened and someone entered. It wasn’t abnormal for that to happen, as the station had a pair of policemen on the premises, even in the middle of the night.
But Dawn knew it wasn’t one of them. Sure enough, McDermott stood there, that sexy smile on his face. They’d left things on good terms, but Dawn’s inner turmoil had been churning for twenty-four hours.
“Hey,” he said.
She positioned the huge trash can between them. “How’s Taya?”
“She’s at home, recovering.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
“I didn’t come in today, so I came to get some files.” He approached her, and Dawn’s heart leapt around inside her chest like an angry frog. He paused to kiss her, but Dawn put one hand on his chest.
“I don’t—” Dawn’s voice broke.
McDermott looked at her, his questions fading to resignation. “What can I do to change your mind?”
She shook her head, her silent Nothing this time, easily communicated to him. Because this wasn’t about him. It was about her.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “I wasn’t ready to start dating, and I said yes to you anyway. And you’re…you’re wonderful, and I’m…I’m not…ready.”
He cocked his head to the side, a look of disbelief on his face. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m done here. I’ll leave you to work.”
“You know I didn’t come here to work.”
He’d come to see her, the way he probably always had over the past fifteen months. “McDermott—”
“You can have as much time as you need. I’ve never pushed you to move faster than you want to move.”
“What if I’m never ready?” she cried, shaking her head. “Sorry, McDermott. I’m so sorry.” She pushed her trashcan toward the front of the building, expecting him to call her back, beg her to reconsider, offer her more wonderful things in his sultry, smooth voice.
He didn’t.
Chapter 11
McDermott couldn’t hide his frustration and disappointment about Dawn’s disappearance from his life. Even something as simple as making coffee in the morning required extra banging and slamming of mugs and sugar bowls.
“What’s eating you?” Nana Reba asked, placing her hands on her hips.
“Nothing,” he said darkly adding more cream to his coffee than he normally did. He spit the offending drink into the sink and sighed. “You’ll be okay with Taya today?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “She’ll be up and running with those dogs before you know it.”
“I can take another day off.” He could take a week off. Or two. He had enough vacation saved up for a month of time off.
“Not necessary. By the way you abused that coffee pot, I think you’re probably ready to get outside of these walls.”
If that was the only thing McDermott needed, he’d have agreed, kissed his grandmother’s forehead, and gone to work for half the day before coming back to take care of his daughter.
“Yeah. Gotta get outside these walls.” He turned from the window, the mended cracks in his heart opening again. She wasn’t Amelia, but he didn’t need her to be. He had room in his heart to love again, and he had, and now he didn’t know what to do with that gaping hole Dawn had left behind.
Fill the hole.
He wasn’t sure where the voice came from, or even if it was his own. He wasn’t sure what it meant, or how to do it. But he pulled out his phone and messaged Dawn. She wouldn’t be up for hours, but he couldn’t wait.
Meet for lunch?
He wanted to explain he was only working for half the day and he’d meet her anywhere. But he thought short and simple would be better, and all he could do was hope and pray that she wouldn’t ignore him.
He drove his route, pulled over people speeding, and parked next to the high school when he saw a truckload of teenagers heading up to the baseball fields. Nothing happened. Hardly anything did in Brush Creek.
Eleven o’clock came and went and he still didn’t have a text from Dawn. By noon, he’d have eaten anything just to get the jittery feeling out of his gut. He chose Ruby’s Roost, because he could sit at the bar and pretend like he wasn’t alone. He’d see locals and old friends, and he could make believe that his girlfriend hadn’t left him for seemingly no reason.
What if I’m never ready?
Her words haunted him, and he took an extra moment in his cruiser before going into the Roost to pray that the Lord would heal Dawn’s heart, erase her past, help her see that McDermott wasn’t the enemy.
He’d just sat down and ordered his bacon cheeseburger when his phone buzzed. I’m at the office today. It’s so boring here and I had to be here at nine.
Though he could hear her displeasure just from reading the words, a smile bloomed on his face.
I can bring you something.
Not necessary. A picture came through—a brown sack lunch that she’d drawn a purple smiley face on. I’ll text you later.
And that was that.
McDermott stared at his phone, wondering what he should do. He knew where she was. He knew she liked cinnamon more than chocolate. He knew the bakery made the best oatmeal raisin cookies on the planet, and that they satisfied her cinnamon craving.
“This seat taken?”
He glanced over as Kyler slid onto the stool. He stared at this new version of his best friend, one with a short, military-style haircut and a clean-shaven face. “What happened to you?”
Kyler chuckled and looked at the menu though he had it memorized. “Starlee happened to me.”
“You’re going out with Starlee Riggs?”
“No, she cut my hair.” Kyler shook his head. “Starlee’s engaged.” He cut McDermott a look out of the corner of his eye. “You didn’t know?”
McDermott cleared his throat and lifted his root beer to his lips. “I don’t keep up with town gossip as well as you.”
Kyler ordered the ham and triple cheese omelet and twisted toward McDermott. “I think I’m ready to…I
don’t know. My mother says ‘move on’. Guess I’m ready to do that.”
“That’s great,” McDermott said, wishing his smile was a little more genuine. “Did you meet someone that sparked your interest?”
“Not yet.” He cocked his head at McDermott. “How do I do that?”
McDermott laughed. A real, actual laugh and not a forced one. “I have no idea.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’ve had your eye on my sister for a while.”
McDermott shook his head, a chuckle coming out despite his miserable conditions. “She broke up with me.”
“She—what?”
“Last night.”
“Why?”
“Your sister had a baby and my daughter broke her leg.”
Kyler blinked, the two obviously not adding up to a break-up. McDermott didn’t want to explain. His food came, and he dug into it.
“I’ll talk to her.”
“I don’t need you to do that.” McDermott shook his head. He didn’t know what he needed anyone to do. But Dawn had texted him back, and he held onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, she’d figure out that she needed him too, whether she was ready for it or not.
McDermott learned how to survive without a guarantee of hearing from Dawn on a daily basis. His daughter’s leg healed, and summer faded into fall. Taya skipped off to first grade happily, hardly a stitch in her stride, and McDermott squeezed Nana Reba’s hand.
“So, what are you gonna do all day?” he asked her.
“Oh, those two mongrels of yours take so much energy.”
McDermott tossed his head back and laughed. “I’ll give you Louise. She’s a big troublemaker. But Thelma? She’d feel bad if she knew what you’d just said.”
Nana Reba grinned at him. “I’m headed up to the fields this morning. We’re doing the recycling of the old boxes today.”
McDermott had never been happier that he had another job to go to, that he couldn’t go help with the recycling. He’d done it more times than he could count as a boy growing up, and walking through the fields to collect old, wet, and partially decomposed cardboard was definitely not fun.
“I heard something at church yesterday,” Nana Reba said as they made their way back to the car.
“Oh yeah?”
“Rumors, I’m sure.”
“Well, we don’t care about rumors,” he said. “You taught me that, Nana.” It was something she’d told him every day from the time he was fourteen until the day he graduated from high school. For the most part, McDermott had managed to live drama-free, even when people whispered about him after Amelia’s death.
“Of course, of course.” She paused before getting in his cruiser so he could take her home and get to work. “And I don’t believe this anyway, because you would’ve told me.”
McDermott waited for her to say what she wanted to. She would no matter what. “Go on, then.”
“You broke up with Dawn?”
“She broke up with me.”
“When?”
McDermott sighed. “I don’t know.” But he knew the exact day. Even if Taya hadn’t broken her leg that day, he’d remember. “Several weeks ago.”
“But you still go out at night.”
“I need to meet someone else, don’t I?”
“Oh, pshaw,” she said, slapping his chest. “You don’t want to meet anyone else.”
“I can’t make her like me, Nana.”
“She likes you. And you—you’re in love with her.”
“I go to my office a lot too,” he said, ignoring Nana’s words. He’d also been meeting Kyler and discussing strategies for him to meet new women in town. Kyler had been out of the dating scene for three years, and they were still working on a plan for Kyler to get introduced to one of the new third grade teachers who’d come to town.
“So you see Dawn still.”
He didn’t want to admit it, but yes, he’d seen her. He hadn’t spoken to her, and if she’d seen his cruiser in the parking lot as he waited for her to finish her job at the station, she’d never texted to say so. Once, she looked right at him. Neither of them had moved, and then she’d continued taking the trash out.
He’d go in after she left, just to catch a whiff of her perfume. Just to imagine he could touch the same surfaces she had. She looked tired, and she’d started wearing her hair up.
Over the past couple of months since they’d broken up, she’d texted him back every time he’d dared send her a message. He was trying to fill the hole she’d left behind with whatever pieces of her he could find, anything she would give him.
“No, Nana,” he said. “I don’t talk to her.”
“Are you telling me you’re stalking her?”
“Sh.” He looked around and opened the door for his grandmother. “Get in.” The last thing he needed was his reputation as a state trooper being tarnished by gossip about stalking.
“I go to work, and I wait for her to leave so it’s not awkward for her,” he said once he’d slid behind the wheel and closed the door. “It’s not stalking.” He started the short drive back to the cul-de-sac so he could finish this conversation.
Nana Reba wrung her hands. “Well, I don’t know what to do now.”
“Why do you need to do anything?” McDermott pulled into the driveway and put the cruiser in park.
“I was just so sure you’d end up together.”
“I haven’t given up hope yet,” McDermott said.
“You haven’t?”
“She just needs more time. And not time while we’re together. But time where she can work through whatever she needs to.” As he spoke, he realized how right he was. And he sent another prayer heavenward that Dawn could be blessed with clarity of mind and the knowledge that she was already everything she needed to be.
“Now go on,” he said. “I’ve got to get to work.”
Nana Reba looked at him for several more seconds, then leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You’re a good boy, McDermott. She’ll come around.” She got out and moved slowly up the walk and into the house, her words sparking an additional measure of hope in McDermott.
Chapter 12
Taya’s first day of first grade.
Dawn read McDermott’s text, wishing her heartbeat didn’t zing around inside her body like a ping pong ball every time her phone chimed. She also wished she hadn’t been getting up at eight AM for the past seven weeks, but she had been.
Wren should be back to work next week in the office, and Dawn couldn’t wait. She was basically working two full-time jobs, and trying to grapple with the loneliness that had descended on her the moment she’d cast McDermott from her life.
He texted her from time to time. No set schedule. It seemed like he felt like he wanted to keep her up to date with the most important happenings in his life, like his daughter’s first day of school.
Dawn had responded to all of his messages, mostly because she had no desire to hurt him further than she was sure she had. “You want to keep the door open,” she muttered to herself, which was also selfish and unfair to him.
Still, she thumbed out a response to him. How’s her leg?
All healed, he responded. It was a light break. Easy surgery. She did just fine with it.
Dawn left the messages there, and McDermott would too. At least until next time he sent her something. Sometimes she found a bag of oatmeal raisin cookies outside her door, and she knew he’d been there. He couldn’t help running her fingers along the doorknob, wondering if he’d touched it.
And he came to the police station every night. He never came in, which she appreciated but which also drove her bananas. Was he just trying to give her breathing room? Did he not want her back in his life?
He probably just didn’t want to get his heart stomped on again. She answered the company phone when it rang, and she texted Wren when her sister asked if she could come in later that week to get caught up on everything that Dawn had done at A Jack of All Trades for the past several weeks.
It wasn’t a career change she needed. She just wasn’t sure a typical, suburban life would fit in with her job.
Maybe she didn’t want it to.
She’d tried praying and listening at church for answers. It seemed as if God had finally tired of her, and she’d taken His silence to mean Figure it out, Dawn.
But she didn’t know how.
And every day that passed, she worried that McDermott would meet someone new who was dying to be a mother, a wife, and a two-dog walker. He’d dated before her, she knew.
She’d told no one about the break-up, though she went to the family dinners every week.
On Wednesday when she showed up with a sack of chocolate chip cookies from the bakery, Wren gave her a side-hug. “The bakery, huh?”
“Well, some of us don’t have time to bake now that they’re working two jobs.”
Wren smiled, but ever since she’d had Etta, she’d seemed tired. Her hair had changed color, and the texture was more like straw than anything else. Dawn’s selfish side reared it’s ugly head once more. She didn’t want to trade in certain aspects of her life, though Etta was a cute little thing that made the sweetest noises.
Wren held the baby now and said, “I’m so glad she’s sleeping. Hopefully, she’ll be napping when I come tomorrow too.”
“Does she not sleep at night?” Their mother joined the conversation from her position at the stove, where she had three pans of potatoes frying.
“Not really, no.” Wren bounced Etta the teensiest bit. “She thinks nighttime is the best time to be awake.”
Dawn agreed with the baby, actually, but she wanted to sleep when she wanted to, not when an eight-pound human let her. She turned away from Wren, wishing she could turn away from her own thoughts as easily.