by Maisey Yates
He had wanted to comfort her then, but now he kind of wanted her to touch him to offer him something.
He shook that off.
He and Kaylee didn’t touch unnecessarily. They were friends. And it had never mattered that she was a woman and he was a man. Their friendship was deeper than that. He wasn’t going to go reducing her now. Wasn’t going to try to seek physical comfort in her softness just because she was a woman.
She was better than that. More than that.
She was the kind of friend that picked you up off the side of the road at two in the morning if your truck got a flat at the wrong place and time. The kind of friend who came right over when you found out you had a secret son.
The best kind of friend. The most important kind.
She’d been there for him when his grief had hit him hard at high school graduation, when he’d looked around and seen mothers watching their children, and he’d become so acutely aware his had missed so much.
They’d sneaked beer out of his dad’s fridge and run barefoot through the field behind the house. Lying under the stars and getting buzzed and talking about what college would be like. A celebration that they’d both been accepted into the same program, and a memorial for his loss, all in one.
She made him pumpkin pies every year at college on his birthday because they were his favorite, and were impossible to find in the store in February. In return he drove to the bakery outside town and got her favorite—filled, salted caramel cupcakes—for hers.
They’d watched each other grow up. The only other people in his life who knew him half as well was his family. And in many ways, she knew him better.
She was the kind of friend who’d lasted. This was real stuff. Hard stuff. The kind of stuff that didn’t even seem possible to have happen in real life. Off-the-wall, crazy ridiculousness. She was here for it.
He took a deep breath, and opened the door, nearly colliding with Luke Hollister when he did.
“Oh,” Luke said. “I was just heading out.”
Considering that Luke was Bennett’s ex-girlfriend’s new fiancé, he wasn’t exactly the person that Bennett wanted to see right now. Only because he couldn’t possibly deal with one more layer of complication. It had nothing to do with Olivia or lingering feelings for her. It was just that...
He saw the exact moment that Luke’s eyes collided with the young man standing next to Bennett.
“Who is...”
“Luke,” came a voice from behind him.
It was Olivia.
She ran into Luke’s broad back and then froze, her eyes connecting with his. Then, she looked at Dallas.
“Hi, Bennett,” she said very carefully. Very, very carefully.
He had seen Olivia plenty since they had broken up. There had been a space of time when she had actively tried to make him jealous by throwing Luke in his face. But it was his understanding that at the time their relationship hadn’t been real. But that through attempting to make him jealous, it had become real.
He had interacted with them both since then, though, not since the pregnancy revelation. There weren’t hard feelings. Just weird ones.
“We were just leaving,” Olivia supplied.
“And we’re just getting here,” Kaylee said, looking a little bit combative.
Kaylee was more protective of him than she needed to be. He was a grown-ass man, and he could more than handle running into an ex.
“This is Dallas,” he said, not seeing any point in delaying introducing the kid. It would seem weird if he didn’t.
“Nice to meet you,” said Olivia. “I’m Olivia. This is Luke.”
And none of them told any of the others how they were all connected. All things considered, it was probably for the best.
But then, Wyatt showed up.
“There’s kind of a bottleneck at the door,” Bennett said drily.
“Apparently,” Wyatt said. “Who is this?”
“Dallas,” Bennett said.
“I’m your long-lost nephew,” Dallas said, completely unhelpful and at completely the wrong time.
Damned kid.
“What?” Wyatt looked like he could easily be pushed over with a feather. Luke was frozen, his eyes fixed on the situation, and Olivia’s eyes were darting back and forth, clear confusion written on her delicate face.
“I’m assuming you’re the family that I’m supposed to meet?”
“We’re not family,” Luke said, jerking his thumb between Olivia and himself. “Not officially.”
“My bad,” Dallas said. “But nice to meet you anyway.”
“Long-lost nephew?” Wyatt asked, clearly trying to do the math here.
“Yes,” Bennett said, his tone grave. “It’s kind of a long story, and I only wanted to tell it once tonight, but it looks like it’s not going to go that way. This is my son.”
The eruption of profanity around him would have been funny if it weren’t so tense. Dallas seemed to find it hilarious. He was obviously enjoying the fact that none of the adults around him seemed to have any clue what to make of the situation.
“Come in,” Wyatt said, ushering everybody back into the house, including Luke and Olivia.
“Where are Grant and Jamie?” Bennett asked.
“On their way,” he said.
“Well, maybe we should wait for the full explanation until they’re here.”
“How detailed is the explanation going to be?” Dallas asked. “Because if we’re going to go over my conception I would like to skip that. I want to be able to eat dinner tonight.”
“He’s funny,” Bennett said. “He doesn’t get that from me.”
“I’m not surprised by that revelation,” Dallas said.
“I didn’t know about him,” Bennett said, turning his focus to his brother.
“How is that possible?” Luke asked. “I was a pretty big manwhore.” He looked over at Olivia. “Sorry, honey, but you know it was true. And even I don’t have random kids.”
“That you know of,” Kaylee said, her tone weighted.
Luke looked uncomfortable at that pointed statement.
“I mean...” Olivia looked at Luke pointedly. “You did get me pregnant when you didn’t mean to.”
Luke shot Bennett a glance. “I already know,” Bennett offered.
“Oh. Okay then.”
“It got overshadowed by this whole situation. But congratulations.”
Luke appraised him, and then appraised Dallas a little bit more slowly. “Yeah, well. Congratulations to you too.”
“Who is... I mean...”
Just then, the door opened, and Grant and Jamie came in. Grant took off his cowboy hat, looking around the room. “What is happening?”
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Wyatt said. “Have a seat.”
“What?” Jamie asked.
“Just sit down,” Wyatt said. “Bennett is telling us a story.”
Jamie looked over at Dallas. “You look just like my brothers,” she said. “Oh, shit. Does Dad have a secret kid?”
“That would have been easier to believe,” Wyatt said. “Apparently, Bennett has a secret kid.”
Jamie let out a string of truly inventive swears. “Bennett?” She looked scandalized and disgusted. It probably wounded her mortally to ever have to believe he’d had sex. But that was the least of his worries at the moment.
“This is so much more fun than I thought it would be,” Dallas said. “But then, I imagined there would be a lot more hugging and crying, and I don’t like any of that. I like the swearing a lot more.”
“I’m sorry,” Jamie said. “I didn’t mean to swear because you exist.”
Dallas laughed. “Are you...”
“I’m Bennett’s sister. So I guess I’m your aunt.”
Jamie was only nine years
older than Dallas, so that had to hit her a little bit funny. Dallas too, if his expression was anything to go off.
“I always imagined that aunts had lipstick on their teeth and cat-eye glasses.”
“Well, you’re out of luck,” Jamie said. “Because I don’t have glasses and I sure as hell don’t have a tube of lipstick.”
“I’m starting to see a family resemblance between all of us,” Dallas said. “The language we use.”
Bennett shook his head. “Let’s start over. I have a son. I just found out last night.”
“And who’s the mother?”
“Marnie. My girlfriend from high school.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “I remember her.”
Grant wasn’t saying much, but then Bennett had had a feeling that this would hit Grant in an especially strange way. Grant was the one who should have a son. Who should have a family. Grant had been married. Married at eighteen, widowed by twenty-six. None of his life had gone the way that it was supposed to. And here it was Bennett who ended up with a kid. When it was Grant who had been ready for that kind of thing. Who had wanted it. But it was something that he and Lindsay had never been able to accomplish. Not with her health. Even adoption had been out of the question, though he knew that Grant had looked into it several times in the hopes of making Lindsay’s dreams of being a mother come true before she passed.
And much like Olivia’s pregnancy had brought up the memories of Marnie’s pregnancy and the loss of it for Bennett, he knew that it was bringing up stuff for his older brother.
“Where have you been living?” Jamie asked, directing the question at Dallas.
“Portland, mostly. I’ve been in foster care for the past few years.”
“What happened to Marnie?” Wyatt asked.
“My mom is a druggie,” Dallas said succinctly.
“I knew that Marnie was pregnant,” Bennett said. “But she told me that she lost the baby, and I didn’t have any reason to suspect otherwise. But now the state put all the pieces together and figured out that I was Dallas’s father. I can get tests done...”
“What’s the point?” Jamie asked. “He looks just like you.”
“And it isn’t like the timing is off,” Grant said, the first he’d spoken beyond the casual swear word since coming in. “Plus, you were with her.”
“I know,” Bennett said. “I don’t doubt it. Not at all. At first, I felt like I might need to confirm some things, but honestly, since I’ve had time to absorb it a little bit... I feel like there isn’t much question about any of this.”
Grant cast a worried glance in Dallas’s direction. “Sorry,” he said. “It must not be any fun to have people talk about you like you’re not there. I know how that feels.”
“You people are always trying to relate to me. That, I find weird.” Dallas stood up then. “I was promised dinner. That was the trade-off for the awkward family part.”
Wyatt stood up. “Yeah. There’s food in the kitchen.”
“He doesn’t cook,” Jamie said quickly. “He gets big batches of food from the Mustard Seed diner in town. He uses it to feed all the ranch hands, and then he feeds the rest of us with it too.”
They all started to filter toward the kitchen, and Kaylee touched his arm. He paused, hanging back for a moment.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said.
“I thought you were supposed to tell me the truth. Isn’t that friendship?”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“You can’t know how this is going to go. Not really.”
Kaylee frowned. “I can. I mean, I’m not saying that it isn’t going to be hard. I’m just saying...your family is a great family. And I know that things aren’t working out exactly the way that you imagined. I know that you expected to be engaged to Olivia by now. And that you expected to have your first child with her. And that you most definitely didn’t expect to end up single with a fifteen-year-old.”
Bennett looked toward the kitchen, where said fifteen-year-old and the aforementioned ex-girlfriend had just disappeared to. “Olivia really doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m feeling. I mean...I wasn’t happy that the relationship ended. Mostly because we’d made plans and...having a plan is important to me. But that’s the real problem. I’m not sure I have any idea what the hell is going to happen next. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t. And that’s about my least favorite situation to find myself in.”
Kaylee pressed her fingertips to his shoulder, dragged them down to his elbow. It was a completely platonic thing to do. But for some reason the touch lingered long after she pulled her hand back to her side.
“But it’s going to be okay,” she reiterated. “Whatever happens. They’re going to be here for you. I’m going to be here for you.”
She lifted her hand again, and then, Bennett heard someone behind him clear his throat. He turned, and saw Wyatt standing there. “Everything’s fine,” Wyatt said. “I just wanted to ask you a quick question while we weren’t in front of an audience.”
“Kaylee isn’t an audience,” Bennett said, taking a step back from her.
“Right.” Wyatt looked between them. “Does the kid need work?”
“What?” Of all the things that his brother could have asked him right then, that wasn’t what Bennett was expecting. But then, Wyatt was a man of action more than he was a man of words. And finding something concrete that he could offer was his way of acknowledging the situation in many ways, Bennett was sure.
“I have work on the ranch. I can pay him. It will give him something to do. Something to occupy himself. Actually, it occurred to me when Luke started asking Dallas what he does with his time. And he said he had no idea what to do around here. Well, remember Luke moved here when he was sixteen and got a job on the ranch. He credits it with keeping him out of trouble.”
“Luke knocked up my girlfriend. So, whether or not he’s stayed out of trouble is actually up for debate.”
“She was your ex-girlfriend,” Wyatt clarified. “Be fair.”
“I put him to work today at the veterinary clinic,” Kaylee said. “He was really good with the dogs. He says he doesn’t like animals, but I can tell that isn’t true.”
“I have to figure out the school situation,” Bennett said. “School is out in what...three weeks? There’s not very much point in him starting now. But I’m going to have to figure out a way to get him up to speed to start school in September. Otherwise...I think working here would be good.”
Money would give him an incentive to show up, and it would also give Bennett some assurance that during the day the kid was taken care of. Plus, Bennett was involved in Get Out of Dodge himself, spending a lot of his days off doing work on the ranch, so it would all work out nicely, really.
“Perfect,” Wyatt said. “I’ll offer it to him.” Then, Wyatt shook his head, rubbing his hand over his forehead. “Damn. If I had a kid randomly show up out of the blue I would be losing it.”
“You think I’m not?”
“You’re doing it pretty quietly.”
“No point freaking out.”
“It’s just... You seem like the kind of guy to wear two condoms at the same time to make sure nothing happens.” Bennett shot a look over at Kaylee, whose face had turned a particular shade of scarlet. “Sorry,” Wyatt continued. “But you do.”
“How do you think I became that guy?” Bennett asked. “Also, that doesn’t help, in fact, it can make it worse, because the latex rubs against it... Never mind.”
“I’m going to go get some dinner,” Kaylee said. “You can keep having this discussion without me.”
Wyatt’s gaze followed Kaylee as she walked from the room. “Sorry,” he said.
“Whatever. She’s fine.”
“She didn’t look fine.”
“It’s been a weird couple of days.�
�
“Seriously. How are you?” Bennett knew that Wyatt did sincerity only if he absolutely had to. Which meant that the situation must be really messed up.
“I don’t know how to answer that. I could say that I’m fine, but it’s not really true. I’m handling it. Because what else can I do? He’s mine. He’s my responsibility.”
“I just can’t imagine.” Wyatt shook his head.
“Neither can I. But I’m living it. So, there it is.”
“Have you called Dad yet?”
“No. That’s going to be...a conversation.”
“I have to tell you, I did not think you would be the one to have a skeleton in your closet quite like this.”
“Neither did I. I thought...I made a mistake. And, it seemed like it was one that resolved itself, even though the resolution was pretty traumatic at the time.”
“Did you ever tell Dad that your girlfriend was pregnant?”
“No.” Bennett scrubbed his face. “You had moved out. Grant was getting married, and I know that Dad was worried about all of that. Knowing that Grant was marrying a woman who was going to die. Dad having gone through that himself. He didn’t want that for Grant. Especially knowing that any other outcome was unlikely. I figured I’d have to tell him eventually. I figured I would have to tell everybody.”
“Well, you were right about that. It just happened fifteen years later than you imagined.”
Bennett tried to laugh. “Right.”
“Come on,” Wyatt said. “Let’s go have dinner. We’re Dodges. We’ve been through enough to handle this too. We lost enough together. It’s about time we got something instead.”
Bennett couldn’t help but admire his brother’s perspective on that. And so, on a heavy sigh, he followed him into the kitchen, and got ready to have dinner as a family.
* * *
KAYLEE WAS MOSTLY silent through dinner. She watched Jamie attempt to engage Dallas in discussion. Watched Grant sink deeper into a bottle of beer. Bennett was on edge, obviously, waiting for someone to cause offense or take offense. Or maybe just waiting for the roof to collapse.
