“Come on in,” Nate finally said, falling back. “There’s food, and you can change.”
“The big day,” Dallas said.
“Yeah, in a couple of hours,” Nate said, ducking his head so the big black cowboy hat he wore hiding his face.
Dallas studied his friend—the man who’d literally saved his life on the inside. There was something so different about him, and yet so familiar.
“I like the hat,” he said, and Nate glanced up. He reached up and touched the cowboy hat as if he didn’t even know he was wearing it.
“It’s useful,” Nate said.
“And you like it,” Dallas said, because he may not have seen Nate for a while, but he knew the man didn’t do anything he didn’t like for very long. At least not by choice. Now that they were out, they could all choose.
“I like it,” Nate admitted. “Come meet Ginger.” He led the way up the steps and into the house, which had blessedly cool air conditioning.
Dallas immediately looked around for his children, and he didn’t have to look far. They sat at the bar with two other kids, one of whom Dallas recognized. Connor, Nate’s son. The other was a dark-haired girl who looked to be close to Thomas’s age, and he assumed that was Ted’s fiancee’s daughter.
Dallas couldn’t remember her name, though, and he paused as he took in the enormity of the kitchen.
An auburn-haired woman turned toward them, a warm smile on her face. She came over to Nate, and he took her hand in his. “Ginger, this is Dallas Dreyer.”
“One of your boys,” she said, extending her hand toward Dallas.
“I’m actually the same age as Nate,” Dallas said. “But it’s so nice to meet you.” And he was one of Nate’s boys. Nate had created a family inside River Bay, and Dallas had been lucky to be included in it.
He smiled, which was also not his default for the past couple of years. But the gesture sat nicely on his face, and he watched his kids as they stuck chocolate kisses into cookie dough.
It felt like such a normal thing to do. A normal place to be. He liked the energy in the house, and he needed somewhere like this to settle down.
He wasn’t sure where he’d go after the wedding. He had the house in the suburbs of Houston, but he wasn’t sure he could just go back there.
The man he’d been the last time he’d left that house didn’t exist anymore. He didn’t want to interact with any of those neighbors. He didn’t want to go into the bedroom he’d once shared with Martha.
So he’d sell that house and find somewhere else to build a life. He’d lost his medical license, so he couldn’t go back to that career.
He wanted to be a mechanic, and open his own shop, and take care of his kids.
He let Nate sweep him into the kitchen for a sandwich, where he met Ted’s significant other, Emma Clemson.
The girl was definitely her daughter, as they looked so much alike, and Emma introduced the girl as Missy.
Dallas met a couple of other women and cowboys, and then everyone started talking about getting ready for the wedding.
“You can use this bedroom,” Ginger said, taking him down a hall to a room with a queen bed in it. “Ted said he’d come get you guys when he goes out to the tents.”
“Thanks,” Dallas said, herding his kids into the room with him. The door closed behind him, and he just wanted to lie down for a bit. Close his eyes and just see if the world was the same when he woke up.
Instead, he hefted the suitcase onto the bed and opened it. “All right, Tommy,” he said. “Here’s your suit.”
“It’s way too hot to wear a suit,” his son complained.
“Yes, it is,” Dallas agreed. “But Nate said they have misters and fans out in the tents, so it’ll be okay.” He had to believe that, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to get himself to leave the house.
The West Wing, he told himself. Apparently, all of the women lived in the house on this side, and all of the cowboys lived in what Nate had called the Annex, the house on the other side of the garages.
After they returned from their honeymoon, Nate and Ginger were going to move into a cabin in the corner of the yard, which was apparently next door to where Emma lived with her daughter.
Dallas found that odd. Ginger owned this house and this ranch. Seemed to him that the other women living in the West Wing should have to find somewhere else to live so she and Nate could live here. But he hadn’t said anything. He didn’t know the situation, and if prison had taught him one thing, it had taught him to reserve judgement on things he knew nothing about.
He pulled Remmy’s dress out of the suitcase and told her to get changed. He then stepped out of his khaki shorts and T-shirt and started buttoning himself into the suit he’d bought off the rack at a cheap department store.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn something off the rack, and it was simply another testament of how different his life was now.
With everyone changed, Dallas told Thomas to go brush his teeth, and he pulled a hair bag out of the suitcase. Amy had put it together for him, and it had a brush, two combs, a bunch of hair ties and bows, and a spray bottle so Dallas could do his daughter’s hair.
He’d done it twice now, and he still felt like Edward Scissorhands when he touched his daughter’s fine hair to try to make it into something beautiful.
“Ponytail?” he asked her. “That’ll keep your hair off your neck, and you’ll be cooler.”
“Can you do two ponies?” she asked.
“Pigtails, sure,” he said, because he’d done those yesterday. Well, he’d done half of the hairdo. Amy had demonstrated how to do the first one, and he’d attempted to copy her on the second one. He’d only had to try twice before he got it tight enough.
Today, he sprayed and parted her hair, then began smoothing the hair on half of her head into a pigtail that sat just above her ear. The right side was easier than the left, and he secured that one on the first try.
The other side took a couple of tries, but he eventually persevered, and he grinned at Remmy. “All ready.”
“Thanks, Daddy.” She threw her arms around his neck, and Dallas’s heart swelled to three times its normal size.
“Love you, bug,” he said, calling on the familiar nickname from years ago.
“Love you too, Daddy.”
He was so grateful she did, and he hoped she wouldn’t have too many memories of his absence in her life. He adored her high-pitched, Texas-twang voice, and he threaded his fingers through hers.
“Let’s go wait for Ted out in the kitchen.”
Thomas was out there, wiping down the counter, and Dallas paused to look at him. When had he become responsible enough to clean up without being asked? Dallas barely did that.
“Thanks for doing that,” Dallas said, not sure how to relate to his son.
“There’s a bunch of chocolate on the floor right there,” he said, and Dallas went to the sink and got another washrag. He wetted it down and moved over to the floor where sure enough, chocolate had been tracked toward the door he’d entered from the garage.
He didn’t want to kneel down in his suit, so he bent over and started scrubbing the dried chocolate. After several minutes and several trips to the sink to rewet the washcloth, he got the floor clean.