I blink, shaking myself out of my thoughts. Dad’s in the middle of another round of his favorite story, the one about the old bull he once tried to rope when he was younger, and Sophie’s looking at me with a raised eyebrow, clearly amused by how spaced out I’ve been.
I feel my cheeks flush a little. It’s hard to pretend I’m not lost in my own head when my whole family’s staring at me.
“Sorry, Mom,” I mutter, reaching for my plate. “Just… thinking.”
“About the ranch?” she asks. “Clint has you busy, right?”
“There’s always a lot to do at this time of year.”
I hope that’s the end of it. I don’t want to explain the ranch situation to my family. I don’t want them to worry when it really might be nothing.
Clint has a tendency to get too in his head about the ranch. I think he’s still trying to impress his stoic father, even though the man died years ago.
Thankfully, that seems to put an end to it. Soon, gossip surrounds me. My family loves a good gossip, and apparently, a lot is going on in the town. Not that any of it is very interesting to me.
“…I overheard Riley McCarter talking to Margaret O’Hara at the Buckhorn, and let me tell you, it’s causing a bit of a stir.Apparently, Jesse’s been spending a lot of time with this woman from out of town…”
“…I think she’s gunning for the Rodeo Queen title this year, I mean, she has had a glow up for it…”
“…The shop is struggling because of Buck Realty, trying to buy up all the real estate in town, which is going to put Colter Creek in a real bad place…”
But I can’t focus on any of it.
Now I have Dakota on the mind, and after Sophie talked about her, I can’t shake off the idea that perhaps I should just take the bull by the horns and ask her on a date.
A real one.
I want to. I’ve been wanting to. Especially since our night at the Silver Bit Tavern. It isn’t my way to put things off, but I have been.
Maybe it’s time to just go for it already. To just walk to her place once all of this is done, and to just speak to her.
See how she feels about me, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Dakota
It’s beena long time since I had a Thanksgiving that wasn’t just me and Charlie.
Okay, there was the one year we were invited to a Friendsgiving with my neighbors in one of the apartment buildings we lived in. But that was more awkward than anything else.
I remember Charlie sitting quietly in the corner, his little eyes wide with uncertainty, while I tried to make small talk with people I barely knew.
It felt like a performance. A forced act of normalcy when everything else in our life felt far from it. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day.
But this? This is family.
Alice’s house smells of cinnamon and turkey, with a hint of something sweet and spicy. Probably from the pumpkin pie cooling on the counter.
The warmth from the oven fills the kitchen, and the soft chatter of Violet and Alice talking about their plans for the winter just feels… right.
It’s simple. And it’s comforting.
We all gather around the table. Alice, with her soft eyes and a laugh that can fill a room, is passing around a bowl of mashed potatoes. Violet’s a few seats down, slouching in her chair, looking like she could probably live off pie and coffee.
The table is bustling with good-natured banter, and all I can hear is the clink of glasses and forks and the sound of food being passed around.
Charlie’s over in the corner with a pile of napkins, coloring what he calls “wild horses” with his crayons. His concentration is fierce, and I swear, he’s already determined to turn every single napkin into a masterpiece.
