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Chapter Nineteen

Dallas

It’s been another long day working at my uncle’s house, and they’re planning a big family get-together in the evening.

I’m tired, and I just want to see Sarah, but my dad suggests that I go pick Sarah up from work and bring her by.

I think it’s not a bad idea, in fact, I really want to.

It seems like a great opportunity to get to introduce her to everybody and…

well, I’m damned proud of her, I realize.

I’m proud of everything she is, everything she’s been. Everything she will be.

I’m proud of our connection.

What began with me being slightly hesitant to share our relationship and how we met around town has turned into something else. I want people to know. I want them to know that she matters to me. That she’s important. I want them to know that she’s the one who got me through everything.

She makes me feel prouder of myself. Where I came from, where I’ve gotten to now. Makes me feel like I have less to prove.

I didn’t realize that’s what I’ve been doing.

Trying to prove myself. Trying to make myself acceptable.

But in going over things with her, the way that I dropped out of college, the feelings I have when I win at the rodeo, when I go out and ride, I’ve realized the truth.

I’m always trying to prove something, and when I was in school, I didn’t feel like I could prove it, so I quit.

For some reason my soul doesn’t feel that same restlessness now.

She makes me feel more settled. Makes me feel like I’m all right. I mean, she’s here with me, isn’t she?

I roll up to the front of the store, and she steps outside, waving goodbye to Allison.

“Did you have a good day?” I ask as soon as she gets into the truck.

Just looking at her makes me lose my breath. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to her.

“Yeah,” she says.

She looks slightly distracted. But happy.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m just thinking about things. Nothing bad. Just life.”

I wait to see if maybe she’ll share some of that with me, but she doesn’t. I’m not sure if she wants me to pry or not. I don’t press.

“I know you just got off work, but there’s a big get-together over at my uncle’s ranch. I was wondering if you’d want to come by.”

She looks at me, biting her lip. “That’s a lot of Dodge.”

“It is. You don’t even know. It’s going to be the entire Dodge family, plus spouses, plus kids, and surrogate family, which includes my dad’s ex.”

“What?”

“Have I told you about Olivia?”

“No, but Kaylee did.”

“Yeah. Well, my dad dated this woman Olivia for a long while, and then she married a family friend, and I think all is well now. I mean, it’s been more than ten years.”

“I mean, it must be well if everybody all hangs out at barbecues.”

“They do. But yeah, my family is big, and it’s a lot of a lot. But they want you there. And I would love for you to come.”

She looks down. “I’ve never been invited to anybody’s family barbecue before. That’s really cool.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really. I like the idea of being included in that.”

“Well of course you are. You are family, Sarah.”

I reach across the seat and take her hand in mine, and hold it the whole drive back to my uncle’s ranch. We drive underneath the sign, and she looks up, a strange smile on her face. “Get Out of Dodge.”

“Oh yeah. That’s the name of the ranch. Punny.”

“Yeah. Very.”

“I think my grandpa named it. I wish he were here; he’s great.

He’s a livewire, even at his age. I never met my grandma, his first wife, but his wife is the best. She’s the only grandma I know, and I love her.

It’s great when they come to visit, but they live in New Mexico most of the year.

I know there was a little bit of family difficulty between Wyatt and him, especially, but they're fine. I just think they all get along better when they’re not living on top of each other. ”

“Fair enough. I’ve always imagined that family is complicated.” She laughs. “I have to imagine it, because my family’s not complicated, they just suck.”

“True.”

The grills are going when we arrive at the main house, smoke filling the air, and there are long tables with fixings, sides, and rolls laid out in a pavilion.

The ranch staff is also there for the big barbecue, and it actually looks like a giant party.

I wonder what it looks like to Sarah. I can remember how it felt to me as a kid who was so used to having nobody.

Being surrounded by so much family felt wild.

“This is… This is amazing,” she says.

“Yeah. Isn’t it? When I’m done with the rodeo, I want to buy a spread of land of my own. Maybe I’ll have cows, like my uncle. Or maybe I’ll do horses like Aunt Jamie. I don’t know. But I love the idea of having a place that’s mine. I know when I was a kid, I never even dreamed that far ahead.”

Sarah shakes her head. “I just thought I’d probably die before I turned eighteen.”

I reach across the cab and touch her cheek. “Here you are, though. They didn’t break you, sweetie.”

She puts her hand over mine and smiles at me.

Then we get out of the truck, and are immediately swarmed by a pack of small cousins. “Here we go,” I say.

I growl, and the small kids scatter; that’s what they were waiting for, after all. They want the drama.

Wyatt and Lindy’s kids hang back, a little bit too cool for all this, given that they are edging close to that deadly preteen era.

I don’t hold Sarah’s hand as we walk over to my family, only because I don’t need everybody breathing down our necks and asking about marriage or anything like that.

Some of them would behave, but a number of them wouldn’t.

I know them well enough to know that. It can be part of their charm, but not right now.

“Hey all,” I say.

“This is Sarah. She was my foster sister back when I was in care. We finally reconnected, and… She’s been staying with me.”

The greeting she receives is warm and boisterous, and I move her through the ranks of everyone, introducing them, but I know already that all the names are going to get lost in the shuffle.

There’s Wyatt and Lindy, Grant and McKenna, Jamie and Gabe, then Luke and Olivia, and Beatrix and Lindy’s brother Dane, who aren’t my blood family, but might as well be.

Then there are all the kids, and ranch workers besides.

Lindy is the kind of polished and poised that I can see Sarah finds a little bit intimidating.

I’m sure most people do. But McKenna is scrappy and still has all the sharp edges she had way back then.

“McKenna is one of us,” I say, because I know she won’t mind.

“In what way?” Sarah asks, looking at me.

“A foster kid,” says McKenna.

“How did you… How did you end up here?”

“Gold Valley has foster kids,” Dallas says.

“It does, Dallas,” says McKenna. “But I’m not one of them.

I was passing through, all down on my luck.

Homeless, actually, and I ended up staying in one of the cabins on the property.

Grant found me. He was a humorless piece of work back then.

But, rather than calling the cops on me, he offered me a place to stay.

A place to work. And I’m just so charming he couldn’t resist me, and he fell in love with me. ”

“Wow,” says Sarah. “That’s quite the story.”

“We kill at Two Truths and a Lie,” Grant says.

“I bet.”

And I know that Sarah has found a quick friend in McKenna, unsurprisingly. I’ve always been close to her, too. Because she gets it. She had to do some dicey things to survive, and she made it.

Food is served quickly, and it’s easy to pile too much onto the large paper plates sitting on the table. Once we’ve finished, Sarah gets absorbed into my aunts and ends up getting dragged back to the house to bring desserts back down.

That leaves me with my uncles.

“So,” Wyatt elbows me, “I hear that you and your friend have recently become friendlier.”

I turn around and give my dad a hard glare. “We just don’t have secrets now?” I ask.

My dad spreads his hands. “Can it really be called the secret when you get caught kissing on a doorbell camera you know is there?”

I snort. “I can’t say that I was really thinking about the doorbell camera at the time.”

Wyatt claps me on the back. “Fair enough, kid.”

“She seems really sweet,” says Uncle Grant, which is deeply Uncle Grant of him.

“She can be,” I say. “But you know, there’s a little bit of something wild to her.”

“Well, that’s not a bad thing.”

Grant smiles at that, and that’s something else I know he really gets. “I’m glad I got to bring her here today,” I say. “Because she just doesn’t have family.”

“And look at the family you have to give her,” says Wyatt .

“I don’t know if…”

“Come on,” Wyatt says. “You don’t know what? You don’t know that you’re in love with her? Because it’s pretty damned obvious from where I’m sitting.”

“Yeah,” my dad agrees.

“Excuse me,” I say. “What happened to letting people figure their own stuff out.”

“Have we ever claimed to do that?” Wyatt asks. “I thought it’s pretty well-documented that we are up in each other’s grills whenever possible.”

“That is, as I understand it, the blessing and curse of living in the general area of your family. And working with them,” Grant says.

“Well, all right. So yeah, that would be great if I could just give her everything. Everything. Everything she’s ever wanted, everything she’s ever… The family and all that stuff. But I don’t know what she wants.”

“Ask?” my dad suggests, sounding incredulous.

“Yeah, right. So I just say: what exactly do you want in the future?”

“Yes,” Wyatt says. “Which I get seems revolutionary to you in your twenties, but it seems a little bit more obvious when you’re in your forties.”

“Well, thanks for the tip, old man. But, I don’t want to scare her away. Like I said, she’s a little bit feral.”

“I’m not Wyatt,” Grant says. “Hell, I’m not even your dad.

My experience with women isn’t vast. But, I do know a thing or two about building trust with someone who doesn’t trust anyone or anything.

You just have to show her that you’re always going to be there.

Your words are never going to mean as much as your actions. ”

I think about that. I’ve given her a place to live.

And we have a long history together, even if there were years in between where we didn’t see each other.

She knows she can trust me physically. If the last few days have proven anything, it’s that sex works right between the two of us.

But I do feel like there’s something missing.

Romance. Something sweet and nice for once.

We have our friendship, we sit together, and watch movies.

But I want to give her… Everything. I want her to look at me and think that all the possibilities for what she wants in her life can be with me.

Oh God dammit . I am in love with her.

“Well, I need to do some kind of grand gesture, I think,” I say.

“Yes,” my uncles, my dad, and Luke and Dane all agree on that one.

“Such as?”

“You take her into the bathroom at the Gold Valley saloon,” says Luke. “You know, when you get lucky and there, you carve your name in the door.”

“My dad’s name is in there,” I say.

I look over at my dad, who looks away from me.

“That isn’t romantic,” Grant points out.

“Worked for me,” says Luke.

“I don’t need help with sex.” I stare Luke down, because I refuse to be embarrassed that I’ve gone and said that, and I know he doesn’t think I have the balls to lay claim to that here in this group.

“Good for you,” he says, giving me a grin.

“I’m just saying, that’s great. Just fine, thank you. But yeah, I might need a little bit of help with the romance.”

“Well, we can help.”