The vehicle rolls to a stop. My heart that had been beating so furiously also comes to a stop, like my whole body is holding its breath.
Dakota gets out of the car, her eyes zeroing in on me. She bites down on the side of her lower lip, her chest rising and falling with a deep breath. She stands there, staring at me, and the whole world melts away. It’s only me and her and the electricity crackling between us.
Dakota’s eyes stay locked on me. I get up from my chair, my eyes falling to the ground for just a moment’s reprieve from the intensity.
“She looks gorgeous,” Jessie comments wistfully. Somewhere in my brain, I realize I should tell Jessie she is beautiful too, but I have the confusing feeling that I’m underwater. Somehow, in the landlocked state of Arizona, I’m drowning in an ocean.
“I’ll be right back,” I murmur, walking across the porch and down the stairs.
“Hey,” I call out, meeting Dakota halfway between her car and the front steps. She’s wearing a dress, something that stops mid-thigh and swishes around her legs when she walks. I swallow hard, trying to get rid of the lump of embarrassment in my throat. She had every right to tell me to go fuck myself.
“Nice to see you again.” My tone is too rigid. The words are almost laughable, because they barely skim the surface of how I feel about her.
“You too, Wes.”
My chest swells when she says my name. I’ve never liked the sound of it more than when it slips from between her lips. Dangerous. So incredibly dangerous.
I can’t help my smirk. “Is it? I believe your last words to me were something along the lines of go fuck yourself.”
She shakes her head. “It wasn’t ‘along those lines’. Those were my exact words.” She gives me a sweet but challenging look. “I’ve had some time to calm down.”
“Hi, Dakota!” Jessie’s voice breaks through, sailing like a harpoon through the water I’m drowning in.
Dakota waves and smiles. She starts for the porch where Jessie’s leaning a forearm on the railing and trying to rein in her excitement. I fall in step beside her.
“I love your dress,” Jessie says as we’re climbing the steps.
“Thank you.” Dakota runs a hand across her torso. “I stole it from my sister’s closet. She’ll never miss it.” She winks, and Jessie laughs.
“I wish I had a sister.” Jessie glances guiltily at me. “Not that having three brothers a million years older than me isn’t great, but…”
Dakota places a hand on her shoulder. “I get it. Sisters are something special. Mine came to visit last weekend and I miss her already.”
I step forward, opening the front door for Dakota and Jessie. They walk in, and Jessie starts telling Dakota all about school, and the 4H club, and a guy she thinks is cute. She’s talking at a lightning-fast pace and saying more to Dakota than she has to me in the past four months.
My mom walks into the living room and says hello. She and Dakota spend two minutes making small talk, but my mom isn’t one for trivial exchanges. It’s probably why she and my dad have been married for forty years.
Mom motions out to the backyard. “Everyone’s out there, Wes. Why don’t you take Dakota out back and let your brothers scare her away from Sierra Grande?”
Dakota’s worried gaze slides over to me. I chuckle. “Don’t worry. What my mom means is that Warner likes to tease, and Wyatt… Well, Wyatt is a bit of an enigma right now. He’s still finding his footing in life.”
“Needs to find it pretty damn soon,” my mom mutters. “Before he finds his ass on the sidewalk with a suitcase beside him.”
“She says that once a week,” I whisper, leaning in closer to Dakota. Immediately, I straighten back up. She smells too good for me to be that close to her.
Out back, Warner and Wyatt halt their game of cornhole when they spot Dakota by my side.
“How’d this guy talk you into coming back here?” Warner asks, slinging an arm around me. I fight the urge to push him off.
Dakota smirks. “Your dad invited me.”
“Is that your way of saying you’re here because my dad asked, not Wes?”
Dakota pins him with a shrewd gaze. She knows he’s trying to lure her into saying something about me. Her eyes drop down to his hand and she points. “I haven’t met your wife yet. I’m assuming you’re married?” Her subject change isn’t at all subtle, and I know it’s on purpose.
He flinches, just barely, the question as painful as the answer. Not that he’ll show it. He lets me go and steps over to Dakota, throwing the same arm that was around my shoulders over hers. “Only by a technicality. You interested?” He points from himself to Dakota with one finger and looks at me. “We look good together, yeah?”
I stare him dead in the eyes, and he laughs. “Can you believe this guy?” he asks Dakota. “So serious all the time.”
Her lips purse together and her shoulders shake with suppressed laughter.
My eyebrows lift. “Don’t you have a game to play, Warner?”
“Yeah, Warner,” Wyatt calls, annoyed. “I need to finish kicking your ass.”
Warner makes a face, but Wyatt’s threat is enough to get Warner to unwind his arm from around Dakota and stalk away.
“I’m sorry about him,” I tell her in a low voice. “He’s an ass.”
“He means well,” Dakota says, shrugging. She watches Warner and Wyatt gather the bean bags from the ground.
With my brothers out of earshot, now’s as good a time as any to apologize to her. “About last weekend after dinner—”
“It’s fine, Wes. Really. I get it.”
Does she though? Does she get that it’s not that I think so little of marriage, but that I think so little of myself as a partner? When I was younger, I had big plans to spend four years in the military and then get out and live a normal life. A normal life included marriage and kids. Running this ranch. I could see it all in front of me as if I were following a map. One deviation from the path was all it took to change everything. I didn’t want to leave behind men I’d fought with, the friends I made who began to feel more like brothers. I re-upped, and after I’d done it once, it was easy to do again.
It changed me. It took away the man who thought he’d put in his time serving his country and then fade into the civilian world, living the good life of being a husband, a father, and a rancher. It made me what I am now—a man with a beating heart who is capable of feeling love but incapable of letting love penetrate.
Dakota is here, right here in front of me, so close I can run my fingers over her collarbone and kiss her pink lips, a woman who filled my entire world the first time I saw her. I tried. I tried to get over the feeling in my chest, the one that told my brain I could never give her what she deserves. I attempted to let her in, to talk about what happened. The result? Tears. Total inability to get past them. I couldn’t do it.
The only way I could survive my feelings was to turn away from her, return to the ranch, and work tirelessly. It was an imperfect solution, and that was never clearer to me than it is now.
I know that to solve my problem, I’m going to have to face the even bigger problem I deal with every day. But who would want to? Who would want to go back there? It’s bad enough I have to relive it in my nightmares.