The old rule makes me feel controlled, like someone is putting their arms around me from behind and squeezing. One of the things I hate most in this world is being controlled, but in this instance, I don’t see a way around it.
“Unless you want the HCC to go to Warner or Wyatt, you’d better get your head in the game and get the fuck over whatever happened to you in the Middle East.” His voice is stony, the tanned skin of his face stretched over hard planes.
Is this his idea of tough love?
The thing is, I know he’s right. The only thing holding me back is me. I’m stunting myself in some form of reparation for them. The woman and child I didn’t save. The bomb I couldn’t deactivate. They haunt me, they live inside me, their terrified expressions slipping out from the cracks in that locked box I keep in my chest. Their blood is on my hands, and I will never forgive myself.
“I’m working on it, Dad.” It’s all I can say, and it’s true. If I can feel for Dakota, maybe I can also feel something inside me besides crushing guilt. She gives me hope. Hope that maybe I won’t always have to be a man followed by ghosts.
We’re almost to the restaurant, and he doesn’t say anything more. Maybe he knows he’s pushed me far enough.
He parks, and when I get out I use the privacy I have on my side of the truck to wipe the sweat from my palms. Dakota unnerves me.
I’m rounding the back of the truck when I see Dad reach into his pocket and pull a small medicine bottle from his jeans pocket. He shakes four little white pills into his palm and tosses them in his mouth. I’d be more impressed with his waterless swallow if it didn’t worry me. He’s had arthritis in his hip for a while, and it seems the longer it goes on the more anti-inflammatories he’s popping.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he growls when he sees me watching him.
“I don’t have a damn thing to say,” I inform him. Shame gnaws at me. He wouldn’t spend so much time in the saddle if I would just fucking get over my shit and get married.
As we walk into the restaurant I have the strangest desire to hug my dad. I can’t even think of the last time that happened.
Dad tells the hostess who we’re meeting and she leads us to a table where Mitch and Dakota are already seated. They both stand when we approach. She wears a pale purple dress, something that falls to just above her knees and goes up to her collarbone and shows nothing except her arms. I want to laugh at the disappointed feeling inside me, like I’m a child who has been denied a treat.
Dad and Mitch greet each other like the friends they’re becoming. Me and Dakota? Not so much. Our hello is awkward. I go in for a half-hug thing and she extends a hand at the same time, so it ends up bumping against my sternum. She apologizes quickly and takes her seat.
I choose the seat next to her and try not to be too obvious when I inhale her delicious scent. Between her perfume and the natural smell of her skin, the mixture is mind-blowing. Over the past two weeks, I picked up my phone to call her a hundred times, but could never quite make myself go through with it. I’m thirty-seven years old and I’ve done three tours with the Army in the Middle East, but I can’t quite pull up the courage to call this woman.
My palms are sweaty again and I surreptitiously wipe them on my cloth napkin underneath the table. “How have you been, Dakota?” I look her directly in the eye for the first time. Her hair is pulled back away from her face and she wears little gold studs that bring out the strawberry color of her hair.
“Good,” she answers. “I’ve been here for a few days, just getting some meetings set up with contractors. My dad flew in this morning so he can help me choose the right contractor for the job. We met with a few different possibilities this afternoon.” She glances at her dad. He’s already deep in conversation with my dad, and from the snippets of conversation I’m hearing, it sounds like they’re talking about elk hunting.
Her posture changes when she sees she’s only talking to me, not her dad or my dad. Her shoulders drop away from her ears and she twists the delicate gold band she wears on her pointer finger. “How have you been?” she asks me, looking up into my gaze.
I love how she just softened for me. How she trusts me enough to relax, to be herself.
“I missed you,” I tell her, my tone gruff, the words coming out on the louder side of a whisper. What the hell made me say that? I don’t know, but I can’t take it back. And maybe I don’t want to.
Dakota’s lips fall open, the tip of her tongue peeking out and pressing against the center of her upper lip. She regards me that way for a second, then says, “These past two weeks? Or the past five years?”
“Hi everyone, thank you for coming into Sierra Steak tonight!” A loud, falsely cheerful voice hacks directly into the center of the moment Dakota and I were sharing. Before it’s totally over, I hold up five fingers on one hand. The past five years. It’s as much a surprise to her as it is to me.
Dakota rips her heated gaze from mine and reluctantly shifts it up to the smiling server. I follow suit, frowning at my ruined opportunity.
Mitch orders a bottle of wine for the table. After that, there are no more opportunities for me and Dakota to have a private conversation. Dakota tells us she is back at the Sierra, but staying in a bigger room at the end of the same floor, and that they’re almost certain they’ve chosen a contractor. Dad tells them about our ranch, not the details anybody could find by conducting an internet search, but the stuff nobody hears about. The struggles with the price of beef, the price of hay, the hunters who trespass (some knowingly and some unknowingly). Mitch talks about how he and his wife built his firm. At the mention of his wife, Rosemary, Dakota shifts in her seat and looks away from the table and out at the restaurant. I’d bet a hundred dollars surveying the landscape is the last thing she’s doing right now. There’s something else charging through that smart mind of hers, and it doesn’t look enjoyable.
“You should bring your wife out with you the next time you come out,” my dad suggests, buttering a piece of bread from the basket in the center of the table. “I bet she and Juliette would get along.”
Dakota’s eyes flash to her dad, and they share a look. “Actually, my wife passed a couple years ago. A brain aneurysm in the middle of the night. It was the second of two. Dakota took care of her after the first one left her in need of help.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” my dad says, but to me, his voice is only background noise. I’m watching Dakota.
She blinks, long and heavy, her eyelashes pressing against her skin, and twists the napkin in her lap. When she opens her eyes, she takes her wine glass and drinks twice. Her gaze dances to me, and then away, but it was long enough for me to see the pain inside them. Maybe this is why I’m drawn to her once again. Maybe she carries pain around inside her, too.
The atmosphere is awkward for a few moments, but Mitch steers the conversation back on course. It’s obvious he’s practiced in this situation. Dakota, however, remains quiet.
Dinner finishes up. My dad reminds Dakota of the barbecue we’re hosting next weekend. Mitch orders a round of whiskey neat for the table. Dakota declines. Over her head, Mitch smiles at something near the entrance.
“Hon, I’ve got a little surprise for you.” He grins indulgently at his daughter and looks across the room again.