Chapter One
Dawson Rhinehart pulled into the parking lot at the Three Rivers community center, coming to a stop right beside his parents. He got out and opened the back passenger door to collect the two pans of breakfast casserole his mama had made for this morning’s New Year’s Day breakfast fundraiser.
His father labored to get out of the truck only a pace away, and Dawson fought the desire to abandon the food and help his daddy. He succeeded, and he moved at the pace of a sloth behind his father as he took slow, stilted steps up to the sidewalk. He used the hood of the truck to help him get up that step, and then Daddy looped his arm through Mama’s and used her strength to stabilize himself.
Inside, a flurry of activity told him where to take thefood, and he handed it off to Ramona Whitely, who smiled and said, “Thank your mother, Dawson.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, wishing he could turn around and walk right back out to his truck. He didn’t care about this fundraising breakfast for the fire department, and he figured they’d already gotten the money for his ticket whether he ate or not.
He did want a bigger, nicer truck, as sometimes the wildfires out here in the Texas Panhandle could throw flames twenty feet in the air, if the summer season was long and dry and people didn’t take proper precautions around their homes, farms, ranches, and vehicles.
Stuffing down his irritation at something that hadn’t even happened yet, Dawson paused in the doorway and waited for a family to go by him. He had some errands to run after this breakfast, and because he couldn’t put it off any longer, he joined the flow of people moving past the entrance to the kitchen and into the big gymnasium where he’d played basketball as a child.
His sports career had lasted until third grade, when he’d realized he didn’t have the greatest hand-eye coordination—and his daddy wasn’t going to drive him down to town for multiple practices each week, plus games on Saturdays.
He’d stuck to farm work after that, inventing games with his younger brother in the equipment shed, the barns, the stables, and simply the wide open land on the Rhinehart Ranch. Technically called Hidden HillsRanch, Inc for the taxes, Dawson loved working his family land that they all called the Rhinehart Ranch.
They had good neighbors and good soil, and Dawson would rather be up there than down here. He wasn’t exactly a people-person.
Still, he moved to the doorway of the gym and looked inside. People teemed around the long tables set up for the breakfast buffet. People moved along all the circular tables set up for eating. People laughed; people talked; people people people.
Dawson took a steeling breath and took the first step into the gymnasium. He couldn’t see his mama or daddy, but he figured they’d saved him a spot. Perhaps if he just wandered around, they’d find him.
He nodded to family friends, then Judge Glover and his wife, then he veered over to Micah Walker. He was a decade older than Dawson, but they’d worked on building Mama’s cabinetry together, and Micah had rebuilt the barn on the ranch after the summer flooding from a couple of summers ago.
“Howdy,” he said to perhaps the one person he’d call a friend in Three Rivers. He had brothers, and Duke was married to a Glover, so Dawson had never hurt for company if he wanted it.
“Dawson.” Micah half rose and shook his hand. “Are you looking for a place to sit?” Each table held eight, and Micah and Simone only had three children. No one else had sat with them, and Dawson nodded over to theiroldest. Trap had finished high school last spring, but he’d been working with his father for years even before that.
“My folks are here,” he said, glancing around. “Somewhere.” He looked at Micah for a moment. “I was just wondering if you got that new cherry wood in. I want to try a cutting board with it.”
“Not yet,” Micah said. “Simone’s been selling a lot of our checkerboard charcuterie boards at her shows lately.”
“Yeah?” Dawson glanced over to Trap, who nodded.
“Cherry and oak,” he said. “One lady bought one to use as a checker board.”
“Light and dark,” Dawson said, smiling at the younger man. He knocked on the table and straightened. “Good to see you guys.”
He looked over his shoulder and found his mom with her hand in the air. “There’s my mama. Enjoy breakfast.”
“It’s cold pancakes and burnt bacon,” Micah said, to which Simone swatted him and said, “Shh.”
Dawson chuckled as he walked away, because Micah had just vocalized his feelings about the breakfast. He moved over three tables and took his seat beside his daddy. “You’re in the back,” he said, working hard to keep the question mark off the last word. He managed too, in his mind.
“Yep,” Daddy said. No further explanation. Henever said more than necessary, and Dawson had definitely inherited that trait from his father.
No buffet ever had the back tables start first, and Dawson settled into his seat and folded his arms, ready to deal with his grumbling stomach until he could get it some flaccid bacon and cold pancakes.
“You savin’ any of these?”
Dawson shook his head at the Bellamores while Daddy said, “Nope, all yours.” He immediately started engaging Brit Bellamore in conversation about their winter crops, and Dawson listened with vague interest.
“We’re ready to begin,” someone said into a microphone. “Please raise your hand if you have seats at your table, as we have more people coming in.”
Dawson dutifully raised his hand, and a woman pointed toward him. She turned a little girl in that direction, and another woman came behind her. He put his hand down and nodded at the woman, whom he didn’t recognize.
“These are open?” she asked.
