Warner’s not able to stay quiet after my revelation, not that I can blame him. “You knew Dakota before she came here with her dad? Fuck…” His head shakes slowly, but his eyes are glossy with hope. “This is some fate shit, Wes. Seriously.”
Fate? I don’t believe in it, not after what I’ve seen. And I’m surprised to hear Warner does, considering what Anna did to him.
“Fate doesn’t exist, Warner.”
He starts to argue, so I ask him if he believes in fairies and unicorns, too.
“Sure, why not?” He shrugs. “Anything is possible. Not to you, of course, because you’re a macho ex-soldier cattle rancher whose hide is made from steel, and the jury is still out on whether or not your heart is capable of feeling.”
My lips turn down. Warner jostles me with his elbow. “I’m just fucking with you, man. I know you’re capable of feeling. I’ve seen the way you look at Dakota.”
“Yeah.” I nearly cough on the word. How do I look at Dakota?
“It’s okay to have feelings, Wes.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Warner stands strong under my glare.
“Yes, I do.”
He shrugs again. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Knock that shit off, Warner.” I’m starting to lose my temper, but it’s really just because I feel bad for keeping him at arm’s length. “You know I love you. You’re my brother.” I shift, uncomfortable, which causes a flare of irritation to rise in my chest. Not at Warner, though. At myself. Why does it make me feel so damn uneasy to talk about how I feel?
“Aw, Wes, you love me?” Warner’s joking tone doesn’t completely cover up the happiness I hear in his voice, and it damn sure doesn’t hide the satisfaction on his face. “Now you’re making me blush.”
A few feet away, Bryce and Ham snicker. I didn’t see them there, but it’s very possible they heard everything we just talked about, with the exception of Dakota. I spoke under my breath about her.
Warner grins at me, and for a brief moment, I feel jealous. What would it be like to live like him? No pressure about the ranch, no nightmares, no cares except being a good dad and finding a woman to hold at night. No guilt about failing people in their darkest, neediest hour.
I climb back onto Ranger even though I have no plans to actually ride anywhere. I feel restless and I just want to move my body. I relax into the saddle and tip my chin to the blue sky streaked with puffy white clouds. When I was younger, I would lie in the grass and look up at the sky on a cloudless day, pretending it was the ocean, stretching on and on into oblivion.
I attempt to do the same now, but instead of seeing blue, I see hazel. Hazel eyes framed by strawberry blonde hair, and a gaze so perceptive it sometimes feels intrusive. Dakota has seen me cry. Dakota has heard me having a nightmare.
Why isn’t she running away? Why can’t she see how royally fucked-up I am? Doesn’t she have any sense of self-preservation? But, of course, I know the answer. Her debt. Our arrangement. She wants to be rid of that debt so badly that she agreed to marry me.
A niggling thought burrows into my brain, and as much as I push it away, it slips through the cracks and presents itself.
Is it possible that, despite the warning signs plastered on my body, Dakota might actually have feelings for me?
“Wes?” My mom pokes her head out of the kitchen, and I can see the top half of her favorite T-shirt, the one with the picture of three Shetland ponies on the front. She steps out when she sees it’s me coming down the hall. “Come in here and help me. There’s a leak under the sink and I’m trying to switch out the cracked section of pipe but the wrench is being a twit.”
I chuckle at the word ‘twit’, but there’s also a pang in my heart. My grandma used that word. Which makes me think of Dakota and her habit of using outdated words.
Following her into the kitchen, I head for the open cabinet under the sink and bend down to get a look. All the cleaning supplies and odds and ends that were under the sink are now in a pile in front of the oven. “Why didn’t you ask Gramps for help?” I’m joking, and she knows it.
She nudges my arm. “I’m stronger than him.”
I adjust my position so I’m sitting and turn myself around, scooting my shoulders and head under the sink. “I’d like to be there when you tell him that.”
She laughs and hands me the wrench. “Just do the job I brought you here to do.”
I fit the mouth of the wrench over the slip nut and twist. It doesn’t budge. I do it again, this time with more force. Still no movement. I try again, grunting with effort.
“See,” my mom says with unconcealed satisfaction, “it’s not easy.”
“My arms are tired. I’ve been working outside all day, Mom.”
“No you have not.” Her response is automatic and just a little too certain.
I lift my head to look at her and bump my forehead on the plastic pipe. “Mom, we moved the cows to the north pasture for fresh grass today.”
She levels me with a look. “I’m aware. But you weren’t doing that all day.”
My neck is starting to yell at me for keeping it in that position, so I lower it and give the bracket another go. This time, it moves. “Whatever you say, Ma.” I finish loosening the part and hand it to her. “Where’s the new piece of pipe?” She places it in my held out hand like we’re in surgery or at the dentist. It takes all of ten seconds to fit the pipe and tighten it into place.
She steps back as I wiggle out from under the sink and wipe my hands on a kitchen towel. They aren’t actually dirty, but it feels like something I should do.
“You’re not sick, are you Wes?”
Bewildered, I cock my head to the side. “No, Mom.”
“So you overslept today for the first time since you were sixteen?”
I understand where she’s going with this, and it rankles me. I’m a grown-ass man.
“Skip the coy questions and say what you want to say, Mom.”
“Wesley Matthew, I am still your mother and I will get out the switch if you disrespect me.”
“You never used a switch on us.”
“Don’t make me start now.”
I hide my smile. Something tells me it wouldn’t go over well for her to know I find her threats amusing. Leaning against the edge of the countertop, I cross my arms and wait for her to say what it is she really wants to say. My mom is usually a direct person, so her roundabout questions unnerve me.
She watches me for a moment, and I’m convinced she does it for theatrical effect, like she’s hoping to make me squirm.
Whatever my mom’s thinking, she decides to keep it to herself. She pats my arm and steps around me toward the fridge. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Wes.”
I nearly laugh, but in the way that shows just how unfunny something is. Of course I don’t know what I’m doing. In fact, I’m doing the only thing I can think to do.
She gives up when I don’t respond, opening the fridge and pulling out items that look like they could come together to make a meal.
“Don’t count on me for dinner, Mom. Dakota asked me to meet her in town at five.”