"I will put you on the ground in front of your entire family."
"You won't, your fiancée is watching?—"
"She'd help."
Dakota looked at me.
"I would," I confirmed.
He grinned. Sat back down. Picked up his fork like nothing had happened.
Forrest was the last one. He stood when I came to him, which I hadn't expected, and he looked at me for a moment with that careful face—and then he said, quietly, so only I could hear: "He's been waiting for you his whole life. He just didn't know it yet."
I pressed my lips together.
"Don't make me cry at this dinner," I said. "I'm serious."
The corner of his mouth moved. "No promises."
He sat back down. I composed myself. Peggy announced dinner was ready in a tone that brooked no argument and didn't acknowledge that anyone had been crying, which was the most dignified possible response.
We sat down. All of us, around that long table—loud and warm and overlapping, the kids and the dog and the food and the wine—and I sat between Sawyer and Millie, Sawyer's hand finding my knee under the table, the medal warm at my throat, and I looked around at all of it and thought about a craft services table in New Mexico and a wool duster in ninety-degree heat and the specific moment I'd turned around and seen someone I recognized.
Someone who knew Daniela and not Daphne.
I reached under the table and covered Sawyer's hand with mine.
He turned his palm up and laced his fingers through mine and didn't look at me, just kept talking to Gage, but his thumb moved once across my knuckles.
I've got you.
I knew.
SIXTEEN
Sawyer
When I first found out about The Far Meridian, I hadn't known how I would feel watching Daniela work again. I respected her; she was amazing. But I didn't like that she had to be Daphne Wilder, when I thought Daniela Morales was perfect.
Seeing her though?
Watching her?
God…she was so fucking sexy.
The Far Meridian was a Western. A real one—not the sanitized kind, not the kind where the women stood at windows and watched the men ride out. Rose, Daniela's character, was a woman who'd left a ranch and come back to claim it, and Ellis had dressed her accordingly.
Dark trousers. Worn boots with real miles on them. A canvas duster that moved right. Hair back, hat low, a rifle scabbard on the saddle that she actually knew how to use now because I'd taught her.
She looked nothing like a damsel.
She looked like someone who knew exactly where she was going and what she'd do when she got there.
Sexy as all hell.
The stunt was a full gallop pickup—more complex version of the cone drill we'd started with back in January, except now she was picking up a saddlebag off a fence post at speed, on camera, in costume, with Ellis watching from the monitor. Bishop knew the sequence. Daniela knew the sequence. I'd watched her run it six times this morning at half speed and she'd nailed every single one.
She didn't need me out here.
