Coulda Been a Cowboy

She stepped out, leaving Tyson standing in the middle of the cramped room, adrenaline still rushing through his blood. He wanted to do something more than he’d done—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t his place to teach Mr. Brown a lesson. And Dakota’s father was obviously a sick man.

Giving him a final glare, Tyson followed Dakota outside and waited through the apology she delivered to the neighbors.

“We’re tired of this, Dakota. You need to do something about him,” the old man said before he and his wife eventually turned off the lights and went back to bed.

Tyson expected Dakota to ask what he was doing at her house in the middle of the night. He was even prepared for her to be angry. He’d seen that sort of thing on TV, where an abused wife didn’t appreciate outside interference. But Dakota didn’t bring up what had just happened.

“Where’s Braden?” she asked.

“In the car.”

“How is he?”

Tyson drew a deep breath. “He’s having a hard night.” They both were. But after what she’d been through, he didn’t feel that he could complain.

“That’s why you came?”

“I tried to call. You didn’t tell me your phone was disconnected.”

A pained expression claimed her face. “It wasn’t when I left for the cabin this afternoon.”

“Maybe I dialed wrong,” he said, reluctant to pile more stress on her.

“No. I noticed it myself just before I went to bed. But…I’ll catch up.”

He handed her the five hundred dollars he’d withdrawn at Finley’s Market. Because the ATM would only allow him to get three hundred dollars in one day, he’d had to take it from two different accounts, but he had several. “This might help.”

She said nothing as she slipped the money into her pocket.

“Any chance you’d consider coming back to the cabin with me?” He scratched his neck. “I’m…not very good with babies.” After what he’d witnessed, he couldn’t leave her behind. But he thought it better to appeal to her sympathy than challenge her pride.

A police siren sounded in the distance. Dakota tilted her head in such a way that he knew she was listening. Then she pressed her fingers to her closed eyelids. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll pay extra.”

She touched her lip self-consciously. “And if they see this, they might charge him with assault.”

He reached over and plucked the loose hairs off her shirt, being careful not to come too close to her breasts. “Maybe a good long stay behind bars would be the best thing for him.”

“No. You saw him. He’s not well. He can’t sleep lying down, reacts poorly to certain foods, has to have someone keep a close watch on his meds.”

“Is that why you stay?” he asked softly.

“That’s part of the reason,” she replied and went back inside. When she returned, she had a small bag, her purse and her keys. “Let’s get out of here.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Grandpa Garnier: You can just about always stand more

than you think you can.

DAKOTA SAT ON THE veranda of Gabe Holbrook’s cabin. Along with her purse and makeup kit, she’d already deposited her small satchel in one of the guest bedrooms, and she’d rocked Braden back to sleep when he woke up after they got home. But she wasn’t in any hurry to go to bed herself. She couldn’t unwind, couldn’t relax. She hoped to sort through her thoughts and emotions while listening to the cicadas and admiring the full moon, which seemed close enough to reach out and touch.

“You okay?”

She hadn’t heard the front door open, so Tyson’s presence surprised her. She’d assumed he’d retired for the night. “I’m fine,” she said, but her lip was numb and swelling from the whack her father had given her with his cane, and she could still taste blood from where her teeth had cut the inside of her cheek. “I’m thinking of going back.”

“What?”

She bristled at the incredulity in his voice, but she didn’t really have another option. For all she knew, her father was sitting in a jail cell. And, if not for the accident she’d caused, he’d be just like he was before—a sober, rational, good man. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“According to what your neighbors said, what happened tonight happens fairly often.”

“Not so often,” she argued.

“Once is too much.”

He was right, but there was a lot more to it than what he knew. “It’s complicated.”

“You want to explain it to me?”

The scent of the surrounding forest—wet earth, evergreen trees, cool wind—filled her nostrils as she hauled in a deep breath. “Not really.”

The floorboards creaked as he sat in the chair across from her. “You’re more guarded than anyone I’ve ever met, you know that?”

She laughed aloud. “And you’re an open book?”

He shrugged.

“According to People, you hide what you really feel behind a megawatt smile and slip out of the limelight at the first opportunity.”

“They don’t know anything about me.”

“I think that was their point. You don’t let anyone close enough.”

He seemed uncomfortable with that statement, but he didn’t argue with it. Getting up again, he moved restlessly around the porch, eventually leaning on the railing. “It’s beautiful here.”

She let him change the subject. They were employer and employee, and had only met this morning. They had no business getting into each other’s personal lives. “Gabe’s taken good care of the place.” She sank more comfortably into the chair Gabe had built when he was first learning to work with wood after he lost his football career. “He’s quite a man. Have you been to his shop, seen some of the furniture he’s building these days?”

The porch light brightened one side of Tyson’s face as he turned. Only the subtle hollow beneath his cheekbone bore any shadow. “You mean the store? In town?”

“Yeah. It’s across from his wife’s photography studio on Main Street.”

“I’ve been there, even bought a few things. It’s in a cool building.”

“An old one, built in the late 1800s. That used to be Rudy Perez’s cabinet shop before he passed away.”

“You know a lot about the people in your community.” Tyson made that comment as if he’d experienced the exact opposite, as if he didn’t know much about anyone. Which made her suspect she’d been right earlier: he didn’t let anyone close.