Overdue for Love - A Long Valley Romance: Country Western Small Town Romance Novella

by Erin Wright

  It was endless and yet only moments, and then he was collapsing onto her with a happy sigh, nuzzling her neck, smiling against it.

  He was finally home, and he was never going to leave again.

  Chapter 12

  Chloe pulled up to Adam's farmhouse, unable to wipe the happy grin off her face. She felt…amazing. On top of the world. Better than ever. She felt…whole.

  She knocked on the front door out of politeness but then let herself in with a, “Hello!” This being Adam's mother's house, it had that certain grandma feel to it – lace and watercolors and porcelain cats abounding. Her house “fit” Adam much better, but Chloe sent up a silent thanks to the heavens that Adam was taking care of his mother and needed someone to stay in his house. She didn't know how she would've survived if she'd had to pay full rent on top of everything else.

  “Mom!” Tommy cried, rounding the corner. He launched himself at her and she scooped him up into her arms, nuzzling his hair as she did so. Since he'd gotten older, he didn't let her hug him as much, but apparently, staying the night with Adam knocked down his “I’m a big boy” philosophy just a smidge.

  “Hey, Chloe,” Adam said, coming in from the kitchen. She heard his mom warble, “Hi, Chloe!” and she shouted back, “Hi, Ruby!” Adam searched her face and then…his face dropped and she could tell something was wrong. “Adam?” she asked hesitantly. “What's wrong?”

  He forced a smile onto his face that was so patently fake, it was pretty much the smile version of turf grass. “Oh nothing!” he said with a chuckle that sounded like it got stuck in his throat. Tommy, who'd wiggled his way out of Chloe's arms, began tugging on her.

  “Mom, let's go!” he said excitedly. He was obviously over his stomach bug, that was for damn sure.

  “Well, thanks again for watching Tommy last night,” Chloe said to Adam, feeling weirdly formal with her best friend. He was just acting so…stiff.

  “Anytime,” Adam said, and he almost sounded like he meant that statement. He turned to Tommy and his whole face brightened, his golden brown eyes lighting up from within like she was used to seeing. It was…disconcerting. “I want you to come over soon and ride horses with me. Ladybug really needs some time with children if I'm going to get my special needs camp up and running.”

  “Oh yes!” Tommy crowed excitedly. Adam might as well have handed Tommy a giant three-layer cake and told him to eat the whole thing by himself.

  “Anything further on that front?” Chloe asked, ignoring the tugs on her arm.

  “Just trying to find a bank to help with the backing of it,” Adam said, his face stiff again, his turf grass smile firmly plastered back into place.

  “Well, once it gets closer, tell me what I can do to help with the launch of it. I’d love to help you out however I can.”

  “Thanks,” he said, nodding his head.

  As they headed out the front door and into the bright morning sunshine, Tommy went on about everything they'd done together, which included eating dinner, brushing the horses, and playing a card game Adam taught Tommy. Apparently, Tommy was a whiz at the game and won every single round they played. Chloe hid her grin. That was Adam, all right – a good guy to the very last drop. So why was he so weird this morning?

  When they got back home, Tommy bounded out of the car in search of Dawson, and found him in the chicken coop, fixing that old hinge that had been broken for the last three months. She'd kept meaning to say something to Adam but it wasn't a huge deal and Adam had a lot on his plate. She really should've just tackled the job herself but, well, she also had a lot on her plate. As she watched him work the screwdriver, listening to Tommy tell him all about his night with Adam, she couldn't help smiling. It was…nice. It was like they were a real family. As if Dawson could hear her thoughts, he looked up at her and winked, “ummming” and “ohhhing” to Tommy all the while.

  “Can I put the next screw in?” Tommy asked excitedly.

  “Let me get it started for you,” Dawson said, pushing the tip of the screw into the wood and then rotating the screwdriver a few times to push it into place.

  Stepping away, Chloe headed to the house. Someone had to make breakfast 'round here, and Dawson had already taken his turn. She needed some way to thank him for all of his hard work and patience and…lovemaking.

  Her smile to herself grew wider. She'd have to cook a lot of breakfasts to thank him for that.

  Their Saturday passed in a sweet blur. Tommy reported his screwdriver feats as they ate breakfast together, and then Dawson left with Tommy for the rodeo, simply giving Chloe a wink as they left. She appreciated his understanding in not kissing her in front of Tommy. She wanted this with him, but…she wasn't ready to jump in with both feet. Not yet. It had only been a few days and…

  Well, she just wasn't ready, that was all. Thank God Dawson seemed to understand this without her having to spell it out in giant red letters.

  Having the house to herself was weirdly thrilling and lonely. She was used to spending Saturdays with Tommy, trying to convince him that making his bed was not akin to child slavery, while she cleaned and prepped for the week. Then they'd spend their afternoons down at the creek, catching bullfrogs or going for walks in the woods or even driving over to Sawyer Lake to splash in the water. She found she was so much more efficient without an eight year old underfoot – strange how that works – but a part of her was also…sad.

  She shook her head and went back to work, scrubbing the shelves in the fridge that she'd been neglecting for a long time. She wasn't about to moon over having the day to herself, not after wishing for exactly this for years. She loved Tommy, but even moms needed breaks every once in a while.

  Chapter 13

  Bright and way too early on Monday morning, Dawson snuck out of bed and down the hallway to the guest bedroom. After Tommy had gone to bed last night, he'd come in and they'd made love for what seemed like hours. This was a habit she could easily fall into. Her body, starved of love and affection for years, soaked up his attention like a desert flower in a spring rainstorm. Considerate enough to leave her before Tommy awoke, Chloe had to be content with simply snuggling his pillow close to her and breathing in his scent. He smelled so damn good – almost as good as he kissed.

  She rolled over with a groan. She was turning into a horny teenager all over again. She hadn't truly known what being with Dawson would be like when she'd chased him for two years. She'd only known that she wanted him with every fiber of her being. If she'd known what sleeping with him would actually feel like, she would've wanted him with every fiber and breath in her body.

  With a contented smile, she drifted off to sleep.

  “Mom, wake up,” Tommy said, shaking her shoulder.

  “Wha…?” she asked, slowly opening up her eyes and trying to focus on her son's face. “What's wrong?” she slurred.

  “Dawson said to wake you up – that it was time for breakfast!” His job done, he clattered out of the room and down the stairs.

  Breakfast? He made us breakfast again? God, please don't ever let him leave. Ever.

  After an amazing breakfast of fluffy scrambled eggs and links of sausage, Chloe took Tommy to day camp and then headed to work. Her one day off a week – Saturday – was over. It was back to work for her. Dawson stayed at the farm, saying he had some projects he could work on. She'd never met anyone with such get-up-and-go before. It was…

  Blissful.

  Which was exactly how the next couple of days felt to her. Blissful. She could live in this fantasy world of Dawson playing the part of her husband for as long as the world would let her. She hadn't been this content in…well, ever, actually. This was a world she'd wanted to live in ever since she'd met Mr. Dawson Blackhorse, and after years of difficulties, she was finally seeing that dream come true.

  And then, Friday night, she came home, Tommy in tow, not finding Dawson out in the barn, fixing the roof or cleaning out the stalls, not in the kitchen with a towel slung over his shoulder, but instead
in the guest bedroom, slinging his clothes into his duffel bag.

  “What are…” Chloe ground to a halt. Whatever was going on, Tommy shouldn't be there for it. “Hey, why don't you go check on Bolt?” she told Tommy in her I’m-not-asking-I'm-telling-you voice. With a glance of confusion between his parents, Tommy wheeled around and clattered down the stairs and out the back door, the screen door slamming against the frame as he went. Chloe grimaced, making a mental note to talk to her son again about how to exit a house, and then turned back to Dawson, who was still angrily stuffing things into his bag.

  “Wanna tell me what this is all about?” she asked, arms crossed as she stared at him. She leaned against the four-poster bed, a gorgeous, antique relic left behind by Adam, and waited for Dawson to speak.

  Silence. Dawson stopped shoving things into the duffel bag but he just stared down at it, not speaking, not moving, and certainly, not looking her in the eye.

  She could outlast him though. She was as stubborn as Ivy.

  “You two don't need me,” he finally said into the silence.

  “Don't…what are you talking about?”

  “You don't need me. I am only useful when it comes to sneaking into your room at night, and fixing things around the farm. You're treating me like your dad – a farm hand, but you're kind enough to dole a little somethin' somethin' out on the side.”

  “Are you being serious right now?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level. Calm.

  Even though she really wanted to take his lasso and whack him upside the head a few dozen times.

  When he didn't answer, when he just continued staring down at his duffel bag, she asked him, “What is this really about? What's going on?”

  “Every day this week, you took Tommy to day camp. Every day after day camp ended, Adam picked him up and had him hang out with him on vet trips. Every afternoon, you met up with Adam and got Tommy from him to bring home to me. Here. Not to me – I'm an after-thought.” His voice broke and so he stopped talking for a moment, just breathing deeply, and then he continued, his voice a little softer. “Has it ever occurred to anyone that I might want to spend my day with Tommy?”

  Finally, oh God finally, he turned and looked at her, pleading. “He's my son and yet, in so many ways, he's a stranger to me. I don't even know what his favorite color is!”

  “Green,” she supplied without thinking. When he just stared at her, she shrugged. “Like grass in the springtime. He loves it.”

  “I didn't know that,” he whispered, staring at her, his eyes haunted. “I've spent this whole week, waiting for someone to notice that I can be a father, too. That maybe I can pick up Tommy from day camp. That maybe, he doesn't have to go at all. I could be teaching him so many things – how to exercise a horse. How to swing a hammer. How to milk an ornery old goat. Instead, I'm left here. By myself. Just to think and fix Adam's shit for him.”

  “Adam's…did something happen between you two?” When Dawson's eyes shifted and he stared over her shoulder at the far wall, she knew she'd hit on something. Something painful. Something he definitely did not want to talk about.

  Which just made her more determined to talk about it.

  “What's going on between you and Adam?” she asked. “Have you guys talked when I wasn't around?”

  Dawson massaged his right earlobe, a sure sign of stress and then shrugged. “He came over yesterday to fix the hinge on the chicken coop. I guess he had seen it and had been meaning to come over and do it for a while but just hadn't gotten around to it. He was surprised and…not really happy that I'd already fixed it.

  “Chloe, he's in love with you.” His voice broke and his eyes met hers as his fingers rubbed his lobe harder. “I can see it in his eyes, in his gestures…no man under the age of 100 could resist you, and I promise you, Adam is much younger than 100.”

  She couldn't help breaking out into laughter. “Adam, in love with me?” she said between gasps. “Oh, Dawson…” She wiped at her eyes and then straightened. She had to look him straight in the eye when she said this so he could see how serious she was.

  “Adam is my friend, nothing more. We have always been friends. You can't deliver a baby in a snowstorm in the back seat of a pickup truck without becoming friends for life. He saved my life that night – the life of Tommy and me. And he's saved it many times over since then, by letting me rent this house for free, by helping me take care of Tommy. I will always be in his debt.

  “But I am not in love with him. And I don't think he's in love with me. And—” she held up a hand to forestall the argument about to spill out of Dawson, “—even if he is, love is a two-way street. He and I will never be more than best friends. Period. Whatever he wants beyond that, is on him. I cannot help him out with it.

  “Not when I'm in love with you.”

  The ticking of the clock was the only noise as she held her breath, eyes searching his. What would he say? What if she'd made a fool out of herself?

  He smiled then, a painful, happy, joyous, tortured smile. “Really?” he breathed. “But Chloe, I screwed up all that time ago. I really made a mess of it. I don't expect you to forgive me for years for that mistake, and if you need all of that time to find it in your heart to forgive me, I'll take it as penance. I just want to be in your life in the meanwhile. I want to be a father to Tommy, I want to be your one and only. I want you to think of me when it's time to make plans for the day. I want you to include me in your life. In Tommy's life. And someday, I want you to forgive me for being a jackass.”

  She pulled away from the bedpost and moved to his side, running her fingers through his long, silky hair. “And I want you to talk to me. In Arizona, nine years ago, you thought I'd done this horrible crime, and you didn't stop. You didn't ask. You just assumed. And today, you were doing the same thing. You thought that you knew how I felt about Adam. You have to talk to me, Dawson Blackhorse.”

  “But I did ask you,” he said, defending himself even as he pulled her close against him. She listened to his heartbeat through his button-up shirt, snuggling close, even as they continued to argue. I think we should fight all arguments just like this. It seemed like a damn good idea.

  “When did you ask me?” She could not remember him bringing that topic up. She would've told him.

  “The night after I ran into you at the diner. In the kitchen, remember? You wouldn't tell me anything except that you guys have a cozy relationship.”

  Okay, maybe snuggling him while fighting wouldn't work after all. She had to look him in the eye to see if he was being serious.

  Shit. He was.

  “Dawson,” she said, her voice as serious as could be, “you asked me when I was still bloody pissed at you. Of course I wasn't going to tell you anything. You were jealous of Adam with no right to be. I hadn't seen you in years and you had no right to ask me what I'd been doing or who I'd been sleeping with. I'm not entirely sure I would've told you my favorite color that night if you'd asked me. I—”

  “What is it?” he interrupted, pulling her back against his chest and stroking her hair.

  “Purple. Deep, royal purple. Like the edges of a sunset.”

  "Thank you."

  “You're welcome. And,” she added, her head snuggled against his chest, “aren’t you going to miss the rodeo world? Rex is going on to Montana, so it isn’t like the Stampede is the last event of the season. It’s only August! Even I know that rodeos last into September, at least.”

  He ran his fingers through her hair again and again, and she knew it was a mindless gesture while he thought through his answer.

  “That afternoon at the diner – I was already thinking about how this was going to be it for me, at least for a while. Being on the road is hard on a person. I didn’t know where I was going after this, and had thought I’d spend some time while here, considering my options. I have to admit, in all the options I ran through in my head, spending time with you and a long-lost son was not on my list.” His chuckle reverberated through her hea
d and she smiled contentedly, refusing to move away from his warm embrace.

  “I’ve been saving up money for a long time. With the seed money from…Arizona, I was able to parlay into cash prizes at rodeos. I have a knack for calf roping. I have a knack for goat milking.” She laughed at that.

  “But my dream is horse breeding. That’s why I wanted the Bartell Ranch so badly, I was willing to buy it from a bigoted asshole.”

  “Hey, don’t say things like that! You’re insulting the bigoted assholes of the world!”

  He burst out laughing and she pulled back in his arms to saucily grin up at him.

  “The truth is, the rodeo world was just a way for me to make money – something I knew I could do without having to put on a coat and tie every day. But it isn’t my passion. It never has been.”

  It was quiet for a moment, and then Dawson dropped a kiss on the crown of her head. He pulled away and dropped to one knee in front of her.

  Oh no, please don't do that – I'm not read—

  “Chloe Joy Bartell, will you date me?” he asked, pulling her hands to his chest. “We’ve done everything backwards so far – first we made a child together, then I made you raise that child alone, then we lived and slept together. We need to go back to the beginning. I'm going to get a place in town, I'm going to move in there, and I'm going to date you like a real man should've from the beginning. I'm not going to sneak into your room at night like an unwanted thief. We're going to date and fall in love.

  “Will you go steady with me?” His dark brown eyes stared up at her and she felt her own filling with tears.

  “Yes, Dawson Blackhorse, I will go steady with you,” she whispered, joy filling her soul.

  He stood and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against him, and began kissing her, kissing her tears away.