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Chapter Seven

Sarah

I can’t believe this. That these wonderful people in this beautiful house are just accepting me. Like I belong. Saying I’m part of their family.

It makes me want to cry. In fact, I’m only barely holding it together. Between the pancakes this morning and now this. They’re just accepting me, and it makes no sense to me why. Nobody ever has.

Nobody except Dallas.

And now this man, who is definitely Dallas’s father, I can see it in his eyes, the way that he stands, the shape of his jaw, is telling me that I’m part of the family.

It’s like a rare gift. Certainly, for someone like me, who has felt like I didn’t have anyone for all this time. And now I have… These people.

I swallow hard, my throat going tight. “I don’t want to put anyone at risk – ”

“No one here is at risk,” Dallas’s dad says, crossing his arms. And I believe it. The same as I believed it when Dallas said he was armed. These are strong men. Men who will defend their own.

And for some reason, they’ve decided I’m their own.

“I just want to thank you,” I say, holding back an onslaught of unfamiliar emotion. Usually, I’m so contained. But everything has been dismantled over the last few months. And most especially the last few days.

Maybe it’s the fact that I feel safe that everything is coming close to the surface. I’m starting to discover I can’t hold back my feelings anymore.

“You don’t have to thank us,” says Kaylee. “I know how much you mean to Dallas.”

How much I mean to Dallas.

I suddenly feel unequal to that. We haven’t actually known each other for the last eight years. It doesn’t feel especially fair for him to be carrying around the weight of feelings he had for me when we were two lonely kids. He’s not a lonely adult.

I am.

I’ve sort of elbowed my way into his life, this rich, full life, with siblings and parents, friends, his whole wonderful career. I have aspirations. But that’s all they are.

Aspirations of a life that I should be able to have when I can devote more time to school. When I can stop running. When I can heal a little bit.

But he has those things. Maybe he doesn’t need me dragging him down. I don’t know why people being nice to me is sending me into a spiral. I guess that speaks to how unfamiliar it is to me.

“I’m going to take her down to town,” Dallas says. “Give her a tour of the place. Her old boss offered to give her a job reference with Sammy Daniels.”

“Oh,” Kaylee says. “Sammy is great. She’s a friend.”

More connections. Connections between all these lovely people.

I’m an interloper. I get that.

“Oh, and thank you for the pancakes,” I add quickly.

“Of course,” Kaylee says. “Though, I thought… Never mind.”

“Yeah,” Dallas says. “I know what you thought.”

“You have to admit,” Kaylee says, “there’s no way we could’ve guessed that you finally found her.”

“She found me,” Dallas says, looking at me, and for a moment, it’s like everything fades away. Everything and everyone. Except for him. His blue eyes.

I look away, because suddenly it’s just too much to bear.

“Oh yeah,” Dallas says. “I won. Well, I didn’t win first place, but you know, I qualified for the finals, so I’m home for the next few months.”

Kaylee shrieks and grabs him, jumping up and down while she hugs him. “Dallas. You didn’t say, which made me not want to ask.”

“It’s a superstition,” Bennett explains. “We’re not supposed to ask him about any of it, he tells us when he’s ready. It’s also why we weren’t allowed to go to the last event. He makes an exception for championships. Otherwise, he doesn’t want us traveling to go watch.”

“You don’t let your family come see you ride?” I ask, completely shocked by this information.

“It’s not that. But they traveled from out of town one time to see me, and I lost horribly. Not only that, I got pinned up against the wall, and I broke two ribs. So yeah, I decided that having them show up isn’t the best. Anyway, the girls hate it because it’s so loud.”

“They don’t hate it. We put headphones on them, and they do just fine.”

Dallas sighs. “All right. But it’s still bad luck. Except championships.”

“Why isn’t it bad luck at championships?” I ask.

“Because he never wins them,” says Lucy, who has been standing in the corner in the kitchen this whole time, and apparently has been paying closer attention than she let on.

Kaylee laughs uproariously, and Bennett covers his mouth.

“Well,” Bennett says finally. “She’s not wrong.”

“Thanks, guys.” Dallas grimaces. “You ready to go?” he says to me.

“Sure.”

“Why don’t you both come over for dinner tonight?” Kaylee suggests.

Dallas looks at me, and I nod. “Okay.”

He ushers me out of the house, and I can hear the family talking behind us, even as we step out on the porch and close the door. “So that’s them,” he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking down the steps.

I follow after him.

“Well. They’re amazing.” I find myself getting choked up again, which is just ridiculous. “I’m so happy for you. I mean, you have your family.”

He laughs, a sort of short, uncomfortable sound. “Thanks. I’m happy for me too.”

We walk slowly back to the cabin. It’s beautiful, the trees are lush and green, there’s more moisture in the air here. Not quite as dry as the high desert climate to the east.

“How far away is Gold Valley from the ocean? ”

“A couple of hours,” he says. “Not far. We can go if you want.”

“I’d love that.” I look around. “So, what do you do when you’re back here?”

“Mostly, I do work on my uncle’s ranch. Wyatt has a big spread not far from here. My other uncle, Grant works there too, my Aunt Jamie has a ranch with her husband, Gabe, but they do plenty at the Dodge Ranch. My dad is the weirdo who has another career beyond ranching.”

“So, you’re all cowboys?”

He chuckles. “I guess so. Wyatt used to ride in the rodeo. He’s kind of how I got started, much to my dad’s chagrin.”

“Oh my God, I bet your dad was so mad.”

Dallas laughs at the memory. “You have no idea. Lindy, Wyatt’s wife, her brother was a bull rider too. Anyway they had some animals at the ranch – I can’t even remember why or how, but they encouraged me and Colt to give riding them a try. We were sixteen? And so dumb.”

“No way, did your dad try to murder them?”

“I think he did. He was chasing them with a Burdizzo all around the ranch. Colt and I thought it was hilarious.”

I frown. “What’s…a Burdizzo?”

“I believe the generic term is an emasculatome.”

I mouth the word and try to figure it out.

“It’s for making bulls into steers, Sarah.”

My eyes go round. “Oh!”

“But even with all the threats and yelling…you couldn’t keep us away after that, and ultimately my dad was never going to keep me from something I wanted to learn.

I think he was just glad I was outside touching grass instead of being on the Xbox all the time.

” He smiles. “Plus, it gave me something in common with my extended family. ”

“Are you guys close?”

“Yeah. Really close. My grandpa doesn’t live in the state anymore, but he and his wife come and visit a lot too.”

“You have such a big family.”

“I know. It’s still kind of strange, if I’m honest. It’s almost like two different people have lived my life. It’s hard for me to really remember what it was like to be that kid.”

“I guess having me around is kind of a strange reminder.”

“It’s not bad,” he says. He stops walking and turns to me. “I hope you know how serious I am when I say I never forgot about you. My life is great, that’s true. But it’s felt incomplete without you in it. I mean it.”

He turns away from me and starts to walk ahead, and I’m winded by what he’s just said.

I don’t fully know how to process it.

“Let’s get in the truck and go to town,” he says.

He’s eager to get past the sincere moment, as am I.

I get into the passenger side of the truck, while he gets in the driver’s seat, turns the engine on.

“This is a really great truck,” I comment as he pulls out of the driveway.

“Yeah. You’ll notice I don’t really feel compelled to spend a lot of money on motel rooms when I travel. But I want to drive in comfort.”

“I can confirm that it’s a pretty great place to sleep,” I say.

“Good to know, honestly. Maybe I can save my money and just sleep in the truck next time.”

I rest my elbow on the ledge of the window and look out at the passing scenery. I’ve never been here, and in fact, I can’t say that I’ve ever been very conscious of Gold Valley as a place .

But it suddenly feels like home to me.

I don’t know if it’s because of the man sitting beside me or his family…

I don’t know. But I’m going to go ahead and let myself just be happy for a minute.

Because when was the last time I let myself have that?

I catch a sharp breath as soon as we drive into town, the red brick buildings are so quaint and lovely.

He’s right, it’s not entirely unlike Sisters, which is another old west town with roots in Gold Rush history, but where Sisters has wooden buildings, Gold Valley is brick.

There are old ads painted on those walls, for blue jeans and coffee beans, and bronze statues of the horse, a cowboy, and a bull bucking just like in the rodeo.

“Welcome to my home,” he says, looking around as we drive slowly down the streets.

“God.” I laugh. “I’m so fucking jealous of you.”

He looks at me, a rueful smile on his face. “I don’t know what I did to deserve it,” he says. “Getting this, I mean. It doesn’t seem fair. Honestly. I’m no better than any of those other kids in care. I just happened to have a dad out there who wasn’t total trash, and…”

“No,” I say. “I don’t want you to feel bad about it. I’m glad that you have it. But I just…” I can imagine living here. I can imagine the idyllic teenage experience it must be.” There’s a lull in the conversation, until I speak again. “Tell me. Tell me about being in high school here.”