“I see the youngest one often enough,” Cherilyn retorts, turning around to the kitchen window when the cook smacks the little silver bell. She lifts two plates and spins, placing them in front of me and my dad.
“Here you are.” She smiles. “Don’t let Hank scare you away from Sierra Grande with talk of the Hayden family. Their ranch was the reason this town was built and people around here would do well to remember that.” She glares pointedly at Hank before walking off, plastic water pitcher in hand.
“You know,” Hank says, leaning over to look at my dad. “This is your daughter, right?”
My dad nods, his eyes wary.
“For a second there when I saw them together this morning, I thought maybe the Hayden boy was finally going to get to take over his parents’ ranch after all.”
My eyebrows pull together as I cut into my chicken. “What do you mean?”
“It’s this old Hayden rule. The ranch can’t be handed down to an unmarried son. Beau’s getting up there in age, only a few years younger than myself. He might’ve handed it over to the oldest boy by now, but the guy’s not married. Maybe he’s a ho-mo-sexual.”
I cough on my chicken, both because of the way Hank pronounced the word and the fact that I happen to have intimate knowledge of Wes’s sexual preference.
“What?” Hank asks. “Wasn’t okay when I was young, but it’s okay now. I gotta grandson who’s gay. Has a boyfriend, too. Lovely couple. Sent me a Christmas card last year. Anyway...” Hank turns back to his dinner.
I send a wide-eyed look to my dad, who gives me the same look and shrugs. We eat our meal with a handful more distractions from our chatty seatmate, but he’s moved on from the Haydens.
I, however, have not.
Why hasn’t Wes married? Given what’s on the line for him, wouldn’t he try harder to find a woman?
It’s not a question I can spend time pondering, because I’m due at the book club. We pay our bill, and Dad whispers to Cherilyn to put Hank’s dinner on our tab. We say goodbye to Hank, and Dad winks conspiratorially at Cherilyn as she refills Hank’s iced tea.
I drop my dad at the hotel and type Ashley’s address into the GPS. It’s fifteen minutes away, so I turn on the radio and try to listen to the local country station, but I can’t stop thinking about Wes.
You wore a short jean skirt… you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Earlier today in his truck, he wastrying. Trying to do what, though? Make me feel better about letting me wake up alone after we slept together? About being nowhere to be found in his friend’s house as I crept down the stairs and through the kitchen, praying nobody would witness my walk of shame?
All I know is that today in the truck I saw a glimpse of the guy I met that carefree afternoon on the lake, the very last of all my carefree afternoons, and then he morphed into whoever that was who stomped into the place where the cowboys live and beat the snot out of some guy.
Not some guy, though.A drug dealer, from what I could tell. Someone who’d already given drugs to one of Wes’s cowboys.
Wes is protective of his crew. And of me, apparently. I think he might’ve let Dixon go without it getting violent, but then I didn’t listen when Wes told me to stay in the truck.
To be fair, why would I listen? I’m not a child. I don’t need to follow directions just because I’ve been told to.
I went to investigate, to make sure Wes was okay. The way he acted when he saw the old truck parked outside the low, long building told me there was a problem.
And then I fell into Dixon’s pockmarked arms. He smelled foul, like body odor and chew. He grabbed me, and that’s when Wes lost it.
The violence frightened me, but his command of the situation was undeniably attractive. Wes feels…safe. But there’s no denying there’s something inside of him, something raw and untamed.
My mind is still turning over the conundrum that is Wes when I pull up to Ashley’s house.
* * *
It’sa low-slung house with a gigantic, mature tree in the center of the front yard. It’s old, but well-maintained. Trimmed hedges line the front, and a porch swing dangles from two hooks in the ceiling.
I check my reflection in the rearview mirror and get out of the car. Ashley answers almost right away.
“Hi there.” She grins, pulling me inside by my forearm.
Her demeanor is much nicer than it was when I interrupted her manicure. She leads me into the living room, and when I spot the folding table covered in bottles of wine and booze with mixers, I understand why she’s more welcoming to me.
“Everyone, this is Dakota,” Ashley trills, pointing at me. “Dakota, this is everyone.”
