by Liz Isaacson
“Wait,” he said. “You’ve gotta let go right at the top of the swing, all right?”
Taya’s face scrunched up in concentration.
“Now!” he said, and the little girl launched herself out of the swing. She landed and ran forward a few steps until McDermott swept her off her feet and back into the air. They laughed together, and he set her back on the ground. “This is my friend, Dawn.” He pointed to where she stood off to the side.
“Ooh, I like her dress.”
“She likes your dress,” McDermott said, his eyes skating over the garment and down to her feet. “What about those shoes?”
“Mom had some shoes like that. ‘Member I tried to wear them for Halloween last year?”
He chuckled and waved Dawn closer. “I remember, baby. Dang near broke your ankle.”
“I clean your dad’s office,” Dawn said when she stood next to Taya. “He likes sour cream and onion potato chips and the German special from Gigi’s. Did you know that?”
Surprise crossed the little girl’s face, then she scrunched it up in disgust. “Nana Reba tells him he can’t bring anything home from Gigi’s.” She waved her hand in front of her nose. “Says it smells sour.”
Dawn laughed, grateful this tiny human wasn’t shy. She’d spoken of her mother easily too, and Dawn wondered if having an instant family with McDermott and Taya wouldn’t be the nightmare she’d envisioned.
“It’s just sauerkraut,” McDermott said, shrugging. “I like it.”
“I agree with Taya. That stuff stinks.” Dawn gave him a look she hoped was fun and flirty, and they started back toward the church parking lot. She waved at them and got behind the wheel of her own car, though she only lived four blocks from the church and should’ve walked.
Her phone chimed and McDermott had sent a message. See? Not so bad, right?
Dawn smiled at her screen, her thumbs already flying. Definitely not so bad.
You sure you don’t want to come to lunch?
She looked up, feeling a bit weird to be texting him when he sat a couple of rows over in his cruiser. She wanted to spend more time with him, but the thought of meeting his parents the day after their first date didn’t sit right inside her.
So she texted, Another time. I think I’m going to go visit my great-grandfather.
Putting the car in gear, she left him and Taya sitting in the lot. She felt better today than she had in a long, long time, and she wondered what the difference was. Maybe the fresh summer air. Maybe that she believed Pastor Peters when he said she was all right by God. Or maybe, just maybe, holding hands with a handsome man had anchored her soul and alleviated her loneliness.
An hour later, she showed up at her great-grandfather’s cottage across the street from the giant house where she’d been raised. “I come bearing deviled eggs,” she called as she entered the house without knocking.
“Dawn?” he called from the sunroom on the back of the house. It had been a porch for fifty years before her father had screened it in. “Is that you?”
She walked through the living room and kitchen and into the sunroom, the plate of his favorite treat in front of her. “Sure is. How are you, Gramps?” She bent down to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Mom said you weren’t feeling up to church today.”
“Oh, my old bones are tired,” he said. “I’m trying to warm them up so we can get something done today.”
She sat in the wicker chair on the other side of the table and put the deviled eggs between them. “What do you need to get done today?”
“Bailey needs a walk.” The old English bulldog lifted her head and looked at her master, a baleful expression on her face.
“I don’t think Bailey likes to walk,” Dawn said with a chuckle. “I think she’s just fine right there.”
“Are these deviled eggs?” He reached over with shaking fingers and plucked an egg half from the plate, eating the whole thing at once. “Mm. You make the best deviled eggs.”
Satisfaction flowed through Dawn. “Don’t let Mom hear you say that.”
“Oh, I’ve told her.” He patted her hand and took another egg. Dawn looked past the screen to the yard beyond. Her father or brothers had obviously been here, because everything was trimmed and troweled and terrific. The breeze lifted through the centuries-old trees, and peace filled Dawn’s soul.
“I went out with someone,” she said, not quite sure when she’d decided to tell her great-grandfather about McDermott.
“That’s nice,” he said.
And that was why. He wouldn’t ask a million questions. His eyes wouldn’t sharpen. He wouldn’t assume she’d been up to no good, or that the guy was a bum.
“It was nice,” Dawn said, accepting that she’d had a good time with McDermott. The rest of the afternoon was equally nice, as she dozed in the sunroom, her dreams filled with the scent of McDermott’s woodsy cologne and the warmth of his hand consuming hers.
When she woke, she found her great-grandfather asleep too, Bailey snoozing at his feet. A smile filled her whole soul, and she put the deviled eggs in the fridge on her way out.
She made it through Memorial Day without obsessively texting McDermott. It was harder than she’d thought it would be, especially as she didn’t have to work that evening. After all, the banks had all been closed, and the police department cleaning went quickly as they’d mostly been out monitoring the holiday activities, the same way McDermott had been.
She half-expected him to show up in his office, as he sometimes did, but he stayed away, her phone not receiving any messages from him either.
Tuesday morning came, and she woke just after seven. She hadn’t gotten up this early in years, but her nerves were hopping around her bloodstream, making sleep impossible. She ran over to the bakery to pick up an assortment of treats for their excursion to the strawberry fields, then back home to shower, primp, and waste time online until it was time to go to McDermott’s.
She felt a bit odd, going to pick him up, but thankfully, he was in the front yard when she arrived. He waved to her but maintained his grip on the hose as he watered a tree that looked like it was already dead.
Gripping the steering wheel, she waited until he finished the task, took the stairs two at a time to the front door, yelled something inside, and grabbed a cowboy hat from the banister on the porch.
Dawn pulled in a long breath at the sight of him striding toward her. Tall, lean, dark, handsome, and that cowboy hat? Downright sinful. She schooled her thoughts, reminding herself that they were still in the friends category and friends didn’t fantasize about removing the other’s hat and sweeping their fingers through miles of dark hair moments before kissing each other.
“Mornin’,” he said, bending himself into the passenger seat. “Okay, yeah. I’m not going to fit here.” He reached below the seat and slid it back as far as it would go. “That’s better.” He turned toward her and flashed her a brilliant smile. It was a miracle this man had not been snatched up very soon after his wife had died.
For a moment, Dawn considered telling him the truth about herself. Confessing why she’d been so distracted that day, a year ago, coming home from Vernal. Revealing to him that she’d once had a life very different from the one she lived now.
Pastor Peters had assured her and reassured her that she could shed old skins. Become new through the atonement of the Savior. Repent and be whole again.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asked.
“What? Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” She got the car moving out of the cul-de-sac where he lived and back to the main road that would take them up to the strawberry fields. If she wanted a real relationship with McDermott—one that went beyond friendship—she’d have to tell him eventually.
But it didn’t need to be today.
Chapter Five
McDermott could tell Dawn was distracted, but he let her be. He’d find it annoying if she were always pushing him to talk, to say something he might not want to say. By the time they pulled into th
e you-pick lot at his family’s fields, she seemed almost back to her fun, flirty-yet-serious self.
“So, have you done this before?” he asked as he got out of her tiny car. He didn’t remember sedans being quite so small in the past.
“A long time ago.” She rubbed her hands up her arms and surveyed the landscape before them. “Tell me about these fields. Your family’s owned them for a long time, right?”
“As long as Brush Creek’s been on the map,” he said. “They’re on my mother’s side of the family, and my dad says he had no idea what he was getting into when he met her at the fair in Vernal.” He chuckled at the story he’d heard dozens of times. “He was a banker before he met her, and well, strawberries are a far cry from currency.”
He started toward the shed where they could get their cartons and crates, glad when Dawn, in all her grapefruit and powder glory, stepped to his side. She wore sneakers—sensible for their activity that morning—and a pair of cutoffs that left him with such a great view of her legs. She wore a blue T-shirt with black ribbing along the sleeves and collar, with a big black heart on the front of it.
“It probably helped, didn’t it?” she asked. “His knowledge of money and finances and stuff.”
“A little, I guess.” McDermott stepped right up to the booth to find Kassidy there. He’d gone out with her once, almost a year ago. There’d been no spark, and he’d thought he’d done a decent job of keeping things professional and relatively normal between them.
“Hey,” she said, leaning on the small shelf that separated her from the customers. “What are you doin’ here?”
“We want to pick our own berries,” he said. “The best ones, Kass. Don’t put us in any of those puny rows, all right?”
She giggled and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Dawn stepped to his side and took his hand in hers. He wasn’t sure why, but the gesture surprised him, and he tilted his head to look at her. “How many do you want?”
“I think half a flat,” she said, never taking her eyes off Kassidy.
“Same for me,” he said. “We can share one,” he added as Kass bent to get the containers and boxes they needed. “We’ll be on the same row.”
She set one flat and twelve pint baskets on the shelf, her smile gone. “Row H.”
“That’s a good one?”
She gave him a saucy smirk. “If you don’t like it, pick a row, McDermott. You own the place.”
Confusion raced through him, but he picked up the box and headed to the right, behind the shed. Technically, he didn’t own the place. He’d pay for his fruit just like everyone else who came to pick their own berries.
“She likes you,” Dawn singsonged once they were several rows away from the shed.
“What?”
“What? You didn’t notice how all flirty and hair-tossy she was? Please.” Dawn laughed, the sound of it making the air taste better, the sky bluer, his soul lighter.
“Oh, so that’s why you stepped right up and held my hand.” He watched her, the pieces clicking into place at the guilty look on her face. “I get it now. You were jealous.”
“So what if I was?” She sniffed as if she had every right to be jealous. He shook his head and chuckled, wondering why she’d turned him down for a solid year if she was going to get all jealous after only going out together once.
She was an enigma, a puzzle he hadn’t quite figured out yet. She didn’t seem like the type to play games, and she’d admitted she was scared of his previous marriage and that he had a child.
But he couldn’t change those things about his past. He didn’t want to. Every experience he’d had had shaped him into who he was today. And if she didn’t like that, he didn’t know what else to do.
“So I just pluck them off the vines?” she asked, staring down into the bushes.
He laid out the green plastic baskets. “Pretty much. It’s not rocket science.”
She nudged him with her elbow and said, “Don’t make fun of me. I’d like to see you clean a bank in under an hour.”
Laughter burst from his mouth. “I guess we all have different skill sets.” He picked three strawberries from the bush and set them in the basket. They moved down the row together, the conversation easy, light, revolving around things that didn’t really matter.
And while McDermott had never really enjoyed the bend-and-stand, stand-and-bend nature of picking strawberries, he enjoyed his time with Dawn immensely. He hoped Taya wouldn’t come between them. Prayed for guidance about what to say, what to do, how to act when it came to Dawn.
In the end, all he needed to do was be himself. That seemed like enough for Dawn, and as they paid for their strawberries and held hands on the way back to town, McDermott had never been happier that he’d listened to Walker and Tess and tried a different tactic with Dawn.
He’d asked her out in a different way this time, and when she’d turned him down, he’d called. Refused to give up. Been honest. When Walker had suggested it, McDermott had almost laughed in his face.
Gotta do something different to get something different, Tess had said. And it had worked.
“So, when’s your next day off?” Dawn had delivered him right back to his house, but he wasn’t ready to part ways with her yet.
Do it anyway, he told himself. He didn’t want to come on too strong. He’d told her he wasn’t in a hurry, and though she’d seemed to enjoy herself whenever they were together, he knew something lurked just beneath her pristine surface. He wanted to crack that ice, dive into her life, and find out everything about her.
“Saturday,” he said. “Horse farm? Horseback riding?”
“You take Taya with you, right?”
“Yep.”
She focused out the windshield, clearly in a battle with herself. He was just about to say, “It’s fine. We’ll get together in the evening,” when she said. “Yeah, sure. The three of us.” She faced him, a smile as glorious as the sunrise lighting her face. “Sounds fun.”
“Do you own any boots?” he asked. “Or a hat?”
“I can get some.”
He nodded, returning her smile. “You probably should. Walker’ll make you wear some of his boots if you don’t have any. He’s real particular about horseback riding safety.”
Quickly, before he could overthink anything, he reached over and cradled her face in his palm. He pressed a kiss to her temple, glad when she leaned into his touch. And was that a sigh?
“See you Saturday.” He forced himself out of the car and all the way up the sidewalk to the front porch before he turned around. She hadn’t moved, and her expression was still a bit dazed. Glad to know the attraction between them wasn’t one-sided, he waved and disappeared into the house, where he flopped onto the couch with a big sigh leaking from his mouth.
“That good, huh?” Nana Reba said, peering through the cutout the connected the kitchen to the living room. “She must be something special to make a man like you go all soft.”
McDermott couldn’t stop smiling, the only confirmation he was willing to give at the moment. Truth was, he’d been crushing hard on Dawn ever since he’d pulled her from her wrecked car. The fact that she seemed to finally be reciprocating those feelings had his heart tap-dancing as if for the first time.
It’s not the first time, he thought, and his smile slipped. He missed Amelia with a fierceness he’d never understand. Some days he didn’t think about her at all. And some days, she crept into his thoughts as easily as if she were still alive and he’d just kissed her good-bye that morning.
“Nana Reba?” He got up and went into the kitchen, where she kneaded dough for her famous honey wheat bread. “I’m not being disloyal to Amelia, am I?”
“Oh, honey,” she said in her raspy voice. “Of course not.”
He nodded, but his stomach felt a little knotted when it had been fine before. “Where’s Taya?”
“Next door with Rosie. She just barely went over after lunch.”
“I’ll take Thelma and Louise
down to the river.” They dogs loved to swim, and though they had more hair than McDermott knew how to take care of, the sun was shining hot today, and they could lay in the backyard until they dried. And walking and watching dogs swim didn’t require much mental effort on his part, leaving him plenty of time to plan his next date with Dawn. Think about Dawn. Daydream about kissing Dawn.
By the time he got home, all remnants of his earlier feelings of disloyalty had completely disappeared. McDermott didn’t know if he should be glad or sad about that, but he couldn’t change the past.
All he could do was look forward to a hopefully brighter, better future.
The month of June melted into July, with McDermott seeing Dawn a couple of times each week. They went to dinner sometimes, lunch once, and up to the horse farm to ride horses once. Dawn hadn’t seemed particularly keen on that, but McDermott had a hard time deciphering what she liked and what she didn’t.
She kept saying yes when he asked her to do something with him, and she even suggested some of their activities. He was being patient with her, and he really enjoyed her company, holding her hand, and listening to her talk about her life, her family, and her hopes.
He drove the highway between Brush Creek and Vernal, went out to Dinosaur National Park every week, and helped with anything the police department in town needed. His job wasn’t anything too taxing, especially since he mainly handed out speeding tickets and kept the peace by his very presence.
One evening, as he drove north from Vernal when his radio crackled. “Trooper Boyd, come in.”
He lifted the receiver and said, “Go for Boyd.”
“A 10-50 was just reported six miles south of Beaverton, with PI. 10-52 en route, and be advised, it may be a 10-55. ETA?”
Six miles south of Beaverton? McDermott pushed down the button and said, “ETA ten minutes.” He flipped on his lights and siren, pressing on the accelerator to ensure he arrived in ten minutes.
“10-4,” the dispatcher said. “Bus coming from Brush Creek.”
