“Where are you in the order?” she asked.
“Second. Olive is three years older than me at forty-three. Judy is thirty-five. Greg is thirty-two. They’re all married, with kids.”
She heard what he didn’t say—like me, once.
The lights above the garage came on as they sensed Jess and Dallas’s movement. “Have you tried talking to your dad?”
“Yes,” Dallas said. “I’ve called him three times since I’ve been here. My mother finally said he’s just not ready.”
“I’m sorry,” Jess said, thinking there was simply another thing she couldn’t relate to. She spoke to her parents and always had.
“It’s okay,” he said. “He’s stubborn, but I have to believe he’ll come around. I might go up to Temple when I go to clean out my house in Houston.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Jess said. She paused in the light of the garage. “Well, I’m this way.”
“Thanks for going out with me tonight,” he said, releasing her hand and smiling at her. “I hope we can do something again soon. Maybe without the phone call from my ex and you getting a ride back here with yours.”
She gaped at him for a moment, and then the pair of them both started laughing. “What a disaster,” Jess said. “Right?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Dallas took her into his arms, and that got her to sober right up. He was so strong, and smelled so good, and Jess closed her eyes and just let herself be with him for a few moments.
He cleared his throat, fell back half a step, and swept his lips along her cheek. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” He put more distance between them while her skin felt like something fizzy was bubbling through it.
“Okay,” she finally said, and he turned and went up the back steps to the deck at the Annex. She watched him until he went inside, a loud burst of noise escaping the door when it was opened.
She went up the few steps and into the West Wing, no noise greeting her. It wasn’t that late, but the kitchen sat in darkness, with only the light above the stove to show the path to the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
She’d just reached hers when Hannah opened her door. “Jess,” she said. “How did it go tonight?”
“Good,” Jess said, trying to keep her voice light.
“Listen, I just wanted to say that I’m an idiot.” Hannah folded her arms and leaned against the wall. “I shouldn’t have said Dallas wasn’t your type.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Jess said. “You know I do what I want anyway.” She grinned at Hannah, who smiled back. She was much more reserved than Jill, and she didn’t quite have the confidence Jess did.
“That you do,” Hannah said. “I’m still in awe of that, by the way.”
“You could do it too,” Jess said, nodding into her bedroom. She needed to get out of these jeans and into something with a more forgiving waistband, especially after all that cake she’d consumed. “Who do you want to go out with?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “I met a guy at church a couple of months ago, but I haven’t seen him since.”
“What about someone here?” Jess asked, unbuttoning her jeans.
“Here?” Hannah sounded like she’d seen a ghost. “Really, Jess?”
“Sure,” Jess said. “Spencer is great. He’d go out with you. Bill. Jack.”
“Okay, Bill is way too old for me.”
Jess laughed and pushed her jeans off her ankles. “He is not,” she said. “Spence is older than him.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Spence is almost forty,” Jess said. “How old do you think Bill is?”
“I don’t know.” Hannah sat on Jess’s bed while she pulled on a pair of stretchy pants. “Fifty?”
“Oh-ho-ho,” Jess chortled. “Don’t ever let him hear you say that. Bill is thirty-six, Hannah. He’s actually younger than you.”
“You have got to be kidding. He has a full head of gray hair.”
“It’s silver, baby, and a lot of women like that.” Jess sat cross-legged on the bed. “So Bill or Spencer? Or what about Steve-the-Swann’s-guy?”
“Steve has a girlfriend,” Hannah said, casting her eyes down. “And I can’t order any more ice cream from him, because I made a huge fool of myself to find that out.”
“Hannah,” Jess said, smiling widely. “Why haven’t I heard this story?”
“Because it’s embarrassing.” Hannah looked up and shook her head. “I’m not telling it right now.”
“All right,” Jess said. She could get the story later. “So Spencer or Bill? We can make a plan and you can ask one of them tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Hannah squeaked.
“Yes,” Jess said, deciding for her. “Tomorrow. Hannah, you want to go out with someone. You know you do. Time to be brave and do something.”
“Be brave,” Hannah said, reaching up to tuck her brown hair behind her ear. “Do something.”
“Spencer or Bill?”
“You know what?” Hannah asked, a new spark entering her eyes. “Let’s go with Bill.”
Jess raised her eyebrows but kept her smile in place. “Wow, Bill. I was not expecting that.”
“Really?”
“You just said you thought he was fifty years old,” Jess said.
“Yeah, well, you said his hair was silver, not gray, and maybe I am one of those women who like that.” She grinned then, and all Jess could do was laugh and shake her head.
“Okay, so we just need a good plan for you to talk to him alone….”
Chapter Eleven
Dallas grabbed as many bags as he could carry from the trunk, telling Thomas and Remmy to do the same. They’d been to the store three times that day already, and he was not going back for a fourth time. Whatever they didn’t have, they could survive the night without.
He never wanted to unpack another box, but he knew he had a lot more boxing, taping, and moving in his future. He’d signed the agreement to sell his house in Houston three weeks ago, and he only had eight more days before the buyer would close.
Ted and Nate were going with him to go through the whole house in just two days, and they were planning to get it done in a weekend. Dallas hadn’t exactly told them how big the house was, nor what condition it was in. The first item he knew; the second he did not. Martha could’ve packed everything they owned and taken it with her, but somehow Dallas doubted it.
She’d called him twice more since his date with Jess, and wisely Dallas hadn’t answered the phone unless he was alone. She’d asked for money both times, and Dallas hadn’t known what to tell her. He’d asked her where she was living; she wouldn’t tell him. He’d asked her who Josh was; and she’d clammed right up. He’d asked her what she was doing for a job, and she’d actually scoffed, as if working was far beneath someone like her.
Dallas heaved a sigh as he lifted the grocery bags he carried onto the countertop in the new house he’d rented for him and his kids. “Oh, boy,” he moaned. “That was a lot of cans.”
Thomas put his sacks up on the counter too, and Remmy came in toting a gallon of milk and a bunch of bananas.
“Let me, Smalls,” Dallas said, taking the gallon of milk from her before she dropped it. He’d seen what happened to the plastic containers milk came in when they hit a hard floor, and it wasn’t pretty.
He looked around the house, starting to feel like it was coming together. They’d brought over the majority of their stuff last night, and he’d let Thomas pick which bedroom he wanted. All three of them sat down a hall that dead-ended into a linen closet, and forked left into the master bedroom and right into two other, smaller bedrooms. Thomas had taken the one at the back of the house, and Remmy had come into Dallas’s room in the middle of the night, claiming to be afraid of being the closest one to the front door.
He’d let his daughter sleep in his bed with him, because it was a new place, and he could. In the end, Thomas had been in the big bed in the morning too, and Dallas didn’t know when he’d come in.
They’d spent today at school and work, and once Dallas had picked them up from school, they’d started shopping.
He started unpacking the groceries and telling Thomas what to put where in the pantry. He gave Remmy the things she could put in the fridge, his mind on Jess. They’d gone out twice more too, and his children had started horseback riding lessons with her as well. Dallas loved walking out to the corrals about five to watch them dismount.
Remmy especially loved the lessons, and she gave Jess a big hug around the middle every time she got off her horse—aptly named Princess. Remmy skipped everywhere on the ranch, and Dallas’s heart had started to heal a little bit with his daughter’s joy.
Hannah had offered for both of them to be in the after-school honeybee program, and Dallas had readily accepted. Any time he could keep the kids out on the ranch until he finished work was a win in his book. They seemed to enjoy the ranch even without an activity to do, and Dallas could often find them playing in the fields surrounding the homestead or in Ted’s cabin with Missy and Stockton.
“What do we want for dinner?” he asked as he started folding up their recyclable grocery bags.
“Pizza,” Thomas said. “Can you order, Dad?”
“Not pizza,” Remmy said, making a face. “We had that last night. There’s still some in the fridge.”
“Just the kind with nothing on it,” Thomas said, shooting a dark look at his sister. Dallas didn’t particularly want pizza again either, and he wouldn’t eat the plain cheese leftover in the fridge. He also didn’t want to cook, and he’d literally stage a riot if he had to leave the house again.
He looked from his son to his daughter and back, wanting them both to be happy. “What about—?” Before he could finish, the doorbell rang, and someone knocked a moment later.
“I’ll get it,” Dallas said, and he left his kids standing in the kitchen at the back of the house while he went past the dining room table and a couple of loveseats to the front door. He opened it, pure surprise mingling with happiness when he found Jess standing there. “Well, howdy, pretty lady.” He reached up to tap his cowboy hat, a grin forming on his face instantly. “What are you doin’ here?”
She lifted a baking dish, and he reached to take it from her, because she also had a bag of groceries hanging from her wrist. He caught the scent of garlic and chicken as she said, “I brought dinner. I figured you guys would be hungry and not have much in the house.”
“We’ve been the store three times today,” Dallas said. “But somehow, I didn’t buy anything that was ready to eat.”
“Now you don’t have to.” She smiled at him as she squeezed past him and into the house. She looked around, taking in the floors, the furniture, the fine craftsmanship in the beams in the ceiling. “Dallas, this place is amazing.”
“You found it,” he said, following her. “So thanks, by the way. It is pretty amazing.” It wasn’t the seven-thousand-square-foot monstrosity he had in Houston, and Dallas had thanked the Lord for that every night since he’d seen this place.
He certainly didn’t need all that space, and this three bedroom, two and a half bathroom house with half an acre of land was perfect for him and his kids. They had a yard to play in, and Remmy was already asking for kittens. Thomas was violently opposed to that, and he wanted a dog, of course.
Dallas sided with Thomas on that one, but he didn’t think any of them were ready for a pet. He was still trying to make sure he sent his children to school on time looking like they had someone who cared about them.
“Jess brought dinner,” he said, taking the baking dish into the kitchen.
“Bread,” she said, finally abandoning her scrutiny of the house. “Salad. Brownies. That’s chicken Alfredo.”
Dallas took the tin foil off the dish to the sight of the creamiest, cheesiest pasta he’d ever seen. His mouth watered, and he knew his kids would like this. “Did you make this?” he asked.
“It’s the one thing I know how to cook.” Jess beamed at him and started fiddling with the buttons on his stove. “This bread needs five minutes to toast, and dinner is served.”
“Tommy, get us some plates,” Dallas said. “Remmy, you get the punch out.” He busied himself with opening the bagged salad and drooling over the brownies. He got out silverware and set it next to the plates his son had retrieved. He took out a knife and cut the brownies, putting big pieces one each plate.
Jess turned from the stove and paused. “What is going on here?”
“We’re having dessert first,” Dallas said, picking up two of the plates. He nodded to the other two before he moved to the table. “Who wants this one?”
“Me!” Remmy danced over to him and climbed into the chair. He set her brownie in front of her and left the other one on the table. He returned to the kitchen to finish the salad and make the punch. He took everything to the table, as his momma had taught him how to have a family meal at a real table. Growing up, all Dreyer’s were expected to be at the dinner table at six-thirty, barring an emergency.
Dates and jobs had been exceptions. Hanging out with friends was not. His mother simply said to bring them along, and she’d often fed twice as many children as she’d actually given birth to. Dallas had loved having his friends over for dinner, because his momma was a good cook.
His heart squeezed at the thought of her, and he knew it was a sign that he needed to call her. He should probably get up there with the kids one of these weekends, and he decided he’d call her after dinner that night.
“Let’s say grace,” he said, glancing at Jess. She’d mentioned church before, but Dallas had never actually seen her attend. He swiped his hat from his head and looked at Thomas. “Your turn, Tommy.”
“Dear Lord,” Tommy started, bowing his head as he spoke. “Bless this food. Thank you for Jess for bringin’ it. We’re glad to have our own house without the bugs. Bless Mom. Bless Dad. Help me to get a good grade on my science test on Friday, and help Remmy to forget about gettin’ a cat. Amen.”
“Amen,” Dallas said, glad Thomas had at least remembered the bit about Jess bringing the food.
“I’m not going to forget about a cat,” Remmy said, reaching for one of the toasty pieces of garlic bread.
Dallas grinned at her and then Thomas, wondering what he thought about his mother. Bless Mom. What did that mean?
Dallas hadn’t gotten any extra airtime in the prayer. Bless Dad.
He needed all the help he could get, and he looked at Thomas and asked, “What’s the science test about on Friday?”
A couple of hours later, he eased out of Remmy’s bedroom and closed the door behind him without making a sound. Exhaustion pulled through his whole body as he went back into the main area of the house and found Jess putting the rest of the pasta in his fridge.
His heart slipped between beats at the sight of her there, and he keenly remembered having a good woman in his home, helping with the kids, cleaning up dinner, and being his best friend.
He paused at the end of the hall and watched her turn toward him. “Thank you,” he said, his mouth suddenly dry as his fantasies started down a path that ended with kissing her goodnight. He’d entertained such thoughts on all of their previous dates, but he hadn’t quite pulled the trigger yet.
Their last date had been on a Sunday afternoon, and when they’d returned to the ranch, a picnic had been in full swing on the front lawn at the homestead. They hadn’t had any privacy, and Dallas definitely needed to be alone to kiss Jess.
“Of course,” she said.
They moved toward one another, and Dallas wrapped her in a hug, everything inside him sighing.
“You’re going to Houston on Friday, right?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “We’re leaving at noon to get a jump on the weekend.”
“Take me to dinner tomorrow night then?” She leaned back and peered up at him, and Dallas couldn’t look away from her deep, beautiful eyes.
“With the kids?” he asked. He was already lea
ving them with Amy and Brent that weekend, and sometimes the constant juggling of his parental responsibilities weighed on him like a noose around his neck.
He quickly dismissed those feelings, because his children were not a burden. He refused to think of them that way, even for a moment.
“Sure,” Jess said. “I’d love to go with the kids. Do you…what have you told them about us?”
“Not much,” he admitted, another sigh pulling through his body. He looked away, out the back window to the large back yard that already needed to be mowed. “I should probably say something, huh?”
“Probably,” she said. “I mean, how would you phrase that?”
He looked back to her, the feel of her arms around him suddenly registering twice as strongly in his mind. “Hmm, that’s a good question.” He smiled at her. “I think I’d use the word girlfriend if you’re not averse to that.”
Jess’s eyes sparkled, but she did not smile. “I don’t think so, cowboy,” she said.
“No?” Dallas asked, liking this game and the way she teased him.
“You haven’t kissed me yet,” she said. “It’s not the first date, and I think kissing comes before that specific label.”
Dallas didn’t waste another moment. He adjusted his hands along her waist, leaned down, and touched his mouth to hers, letting his eyes drift closed. Pure heat stole through his body, pumping out in waves with every beat of his heart.
He deepened the kiss, because he hadn’t had the soft, caring touch of a woman in a long, long time. Jess matched his movement, absolutely no complaining coming from her. Thankfully, Dallas had managed to land the kiss without making a fool of himself.
Her fingernails traced up the sides of his neck and over his ears, causing a shiver to move through Dallas’s shoulders and down his spine. He wasn’t sure if this relationship was wise or not, or if he was moving too fast after his divorce or not. All he knew was he wanted to keep kissing Jess.
So he did—at least until Thomas said, “Dad? Can you come help me with my window?”
Dallas sucked in a breath and jumped away from Jess in the same motion, his heartbeat booming in his throat, his ears, and his skull. “Sure,” he said, his voice far too high to be normal. Had his son seen them kissing? They’d been standing right there in plain sight.
Rugged Cowboy Page 10
