I turned back and pulled up to Daylight Coffee and strolled inside, removing my dark sunglasses and resting them on top of my head as I squinted to read the hand-printed chalkboard menu behind the bar.
“You can go ahead of me,” I called out blindly when I heard the bells chime on the door behind me.
“Dakota?” a woman’s voice said, drawing my name out slowly, as if she couldn’t believe it was me. I hadn’t thought about my pseudo-celebrity status being an issue in Darlington. Back home in the city, I hardly counted myself as a celebrity. I could strut the streets of Manhattan and be left perfectly alone as long as I avoided Midtown and the tourist trap areas. “Dakota, is that you?”
I spun around, pressing my lips into a cheerful smile and fully expecting to be politely asked for an autograph. Only it wasn’t a fan. Not in that sense. Silky straight hair the color of honeyed amber swung in a lobbed bob across the delicate shoulders of my older cousin, Rebecca. Her hazel eyes crinkled happily as she brought her fingertips up to her crimson lips.
“Rebecca,” I said, forcing a smile and placing my palm across my heart. “Hi!”
“Oh, my Lord, Dakota,” she drawled, wrapping her lithe arms around my shoulders and leaning in for a hug. She smelled like cinnamon potpourri and fabric softener, the way I imagined a stay-at-home mom might smell. “What are you doing back in town? I didn’t know you were coming home. We haven’t seen you in…years.”
“Just in town for work,” I said, staring over her shoulder toward a blue minivan parked in front of the store. The outline of a dark-haired little girl with ear buds hanging from her ears as she glanced down at something into her lap caused my breath to hitch.
“You don’t say.” Rebecca studied my face as if she were recalling the last time she’d seen me and all the empty promises I’d made over the years to come see them. “Mabry’s out in the car. I’m just stopping for a coffee before I drop her off at Sunday school.”
“Oh yeah?” My insides burned as I fought away a flurry of livewire anxiety. I’d always kept Rebecca at arms’ length for a reason.
“How long are you in town? You should come over for dinner some night this week!” Rebecca’s mouth danced half-open in a way that told me she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Sam would love to see you, and…”
I knew what she was going to say, and I didn’t need to hear it. It was the very thing that defined me, and I was well aware.
“Next!” the barista yelled out.
“Do you mind if I go next?” I said to Rebecca. “Kind of in a hurry. I have to be somewhere by eight.”
“Go ahead, darling.” Rebecca shooed me ahead in line and stood back as I placed my order.
I ordered my coffee, slipped a five dollar bill in the tip jar, and moved down the line.
“Coco!” the barista called out. I wasted no time grabbing my hot cup of comfort and slipping my dark glasses back over my eyes.
“Dakota,” Rebecca called as I was seconds away from the door. “Come over any night this week. We’d love to have you. Please.” She clasped a dainty hand across her chest as a polite way of silently begging. “It would mean the world to us. To her.”
“I’ll plan on it,” I said with a genuine nod before sprinting out the door. My heart squeezed into a dull ache at the thought of going over there. Over the years, I’d promised to come see them when the time was right. And then one year turned into three and then three into seven. Ten years later, I couldn’t avoid it anymore. I couldn’t keep watching from the sidelines through emails and photographs. I couldn’t keep saying, “Maybe next year I’ll be ready.”
I pulled in a lungful of clean, Kentucky morning air as my shoes scuffed the sidewalk. Rebecca’s van was parked next to my rental, and I stole another glance into the backseat where Mabry played some game on her iPad. She glanced up at me, her blue eyes matching mine, and flashed a wide smile rounded off by Beau’s dimples.
It was time.
14 years ago
I broke off a piece of cookie dough Pop Tart and shoved it in my mouth, seated in the high school cafeteria next to my best friend and partner in crime, Annelise. A faint September morning chill settled in our bones as we waited for the bell to ring that would allow us to flood the halls and give us just enough time before class to grab our books from our lockers and make first period.
“There he is.” I nudged Annelise and nodded toward the chocolate-haired boy walking in with a pair of tight blue jeans and a pressed, plaid button down. His neatly combed mane was still damp, as if he were still fresh from his morning shower. “I bet he smells like fresh hay and a million bucks.”
“He’s a junior,” Annelise said. “I found out his name. Beaumont Mason. His parents own that big farm outside of town.”
“I wonder if he has a girlfriend?” Not that it would matter anyway. I was an invisible freshman with a penchant for sticking close to my studies. Some may have even called me nerdy. I preferred bookish.
“Probably.”
The morning bell rang three times. I tugged on my shirt, which was a little tight on me since my boobs had decided to double in size over the summer, and stood up to fling my backpack over my shoulders.
“See you at lunch?” Annelise called out, and I nodded in return.
I traipsed down the hallway to the freshman lockers, pulled out my AP-English book, and slammed the orange door shut. Hurrying toward the second floor, I stopped short at a drinking fountain to wash down the Pop Tart crumbs that still stuck to my teeth.
Ice cold water streamed across my lips as I gulped down small metallic sip after sip. Without any sort of warning, someone pummeled into me, smashing my mouth against the rusty metal spout. Warmth spread from my lips, as if they’d been stung, and my teeth radiated with pain.
“Ow!” I yelled out, pulling away. My hand flew to my mouth to make sure my teeth were still all intact. When I pulled my hand away, I saw red. Literally. Blood coated my fingers.
“I’m so sorry,” a boy drawled. A warm, steady hand palmed my shoulder.
I glanced up into a fantastically golden pair of brown eyes that belonged to the boy whose name I’d only learned that morning.
“Jackson, you asshole,” he yelled out toward a group of guys climbing the stairs in the distance. His free hand flew to the back of his neck, massaging it as his dark brows lifted in apology. “My buddy shoved me into you. I’m so sorry.”
I dabbed the back of my hand against my mouth and checked it. The bleeding seemed to have subsided, but only slightly. My cheeks burned hot with crimson embarrassment. The boy I’d been crushing on from afar since the first day of school was standing in front of me for the first time ever, and he was going to forever remember me as the dorky freshman with the bleeding lips.
“You need me to walk you to the nurse?” he offered. “Looks like you got cut there. Maybe we should make sure you don’t need stitches?”
“Is it that bad?!” I frantically reached into my purse and pulled out a mirror, examining my lips and panicking when they seemed to be growing more swollen, throbbing harder by the second.
“Nah, it’s not that bad,” he said with a half-smile, his eyes pausing on my mouth and making me a million times more self-conscious. “Here, come with me.”
That day began like any other day – boring and ordinary. But then it all changed the second he took my hand and pulled me down the hall. Electric currents ran from his hand to mine, chasing up my arm and settling in my heart before flurrying around in my stomach. Beaumont Mason was touching me. Taking me with him, wherever we were going. Taking care of me: a nobody freshman.
“What’s your name?” he asked in his slow Southern drawl.
“Dakota,” I said, before pretending I didn’t know his. “Yours?”
“Beau.”
The tardy bell rang as we ran down the empty halls. Normally I’d have been freaking out about being late for class, but in that moment, I couldn’t have cared less.
“Where are w
e going?” I giggled like the shamelessly giddy schoolgirl I was.
He stopped us short of a side door to the cafeteria kitchen. Everyone knew students weren’t allowed in there, but he just walked in there like he owned the place.
“Gramma,” he twanged. His full lips twisted into a mischievous smile, suddenly showcasing the slanted scar above his upper lip. “You still here?”
“Beau, baby, is that you?” A hairnet donning woman with a jovial smile and generous plump curves appeared from behind a prep counter. She appeared to be more amused than anything else. “What are you doing in here, boy?”
“Need some ice, Gramma.” He nodded toward me, and I suddenly realized we were still holding hands.
The white-haired woman grabbed a plastic sandwich baggie and went to the freezer, filling it full of ice and handing it to him.
And then he dropped my hand, making me realize just how quickly you could miss something you’d only had for a tiny fraction of your short little life.
I reached for the bag, but he pulled it away, opting to place it over my lip for me, as if I couldn’t do it myself.
I drew in a tight breath when the freeze burned my cut.
“You two better get to class,” his grandmother warned. “Beau, you know you can’t be in here.”
He flashed her a teasing smirk and leaned across me, grabbing two fresh cookies off a hot baking tray and slipping one into my jacket pocket.
She swatted at him with a dishrag, “Now you stop that, boy. You know darn well those are for lunch.”
I took the makeshift ice pack from him and gave my lips a break from the cold as I followed him back out to the hall.
“Where are you headed?” he asked.
“Second floor. Room twenty-three.”
“I’ve got gym.” He lingered a bit, his golden gaze dropping to my lips again. He lifted his callused, son-of-a-farmer hands to my mouth, running his fingertips over the cut and sending a shower of sparkling excitement into my every fiber. “Let me walk you to class.”
“But the gym is on the other side of the building.” It didn’t quite register that he was showing interest.
Shut up, Dakota. Let him do it.
He shrugged a single shoulder as the corner of his lip raised, showing off a single deep dimple in his cheek. “I’m already tardy. What’s another couple minutes?”
“We’re going to get detention if they see us in the hall together without passes,” I said, ever the nerdy, goody two-shoes.
“You haven’t had detention yet?” he asked as we walked toward the stairs.
“Of course not.”
“It’s practically a rite of passage. Everyone needs to get detention at least once.” He slipped his arm around me as we walked. “All the cool kids get detention.”
An inward cringe took over me. I was not a cool kid, nor would I ever be. To Beau, I was just a new face around school, but I knew how everyone else saw me. Soon enough he’d find out I was a dorky girl with clothes that didn’t fit right, and he’d move on to a cheerleader or beauty queen type who’d better suit his impossibly cool reputation. I’d seen the way everyone always looked at him. The guys wanted to be him and the girls would kill for a date with him. Even from afar, I saw how he made everyone feel like they were the only person in the whole entire world, and experiencing it firsthand, I got it.
“Thanks,” I said as we stopped outside my English class.
“Sorry about your lip,” he said.
“It’s okay.” I stared up at him through my lashes. He could’ve done a lot worse to me and I’d have forgiven him ten times over. That was the kind of power that boy had over me, and I’d only known him all of ten minutes.
“Maybe when that lip is all healed I can take you out,” he said, forcing my stomach to fall to my shoes and a Christmas morning smile to capture my lips. “What are you doing this Friday?”
Nothing.
“I don’t know,” I said, digging my toe into the linoleum tile. I’d never been asked out before, and I didn’t have the slightest idea if I was supposed to pretend to be busy or how to act like I wasn’t ten seconds from freaking out right then and there.
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Going out with you, Beau’,” he teased.
I laughed, hanging my head as my cheeks burned hot from the attention he was giving me.
“I need to get to class,” I said, lifting my eyes to meet his. My teeth raked against the cut of my bottom lip, tasting dried blood and reminding me how awkwardly uncool I probably looked right then. But I didn’t care.
Beau stood, locked in place, as he watched me disappear into my classroom. And just like that, he’d captured a part of me that would never let go as long as I lived.
Gravel crunched outside the barn as I shoveled clumps of dirt and hay to make way for fresh stuff. The sun had come up just an hour before, but I’d been working outside since just before dawn. I wiped the thin layer of sweat off my brow and headed out to the front of the house, driving my pitchfork into the earth and ambling toward Dakota.
“Surprised the place isn’t locked up like Fort Knox,” she said, climbing out of her car. She turned back, glancing at the long, tree-lined drive. “I was expecting a gate at the very least.”
I squared my jaw and shrugged. “All I need are a few cameras and a couple of ‘no trespassing’ signs. Most folks out here leave me alone. The locals are pretty protective. It’s the outsiders I’ve got to worry about.”
“You don’t worry about stalkers?” she lifted a single arched brow.
“My fans are good people, Dakota.” I smiled and slipped my hands into my front pockets. “I get a lot of folks that drive by, but no one’s ever come up and bothered me. I’ll put a gate in soon I suppose. Not that I particularly need one.”
She cocked her head to the side and gently closed her car door, and the heels of her fancy boots sank into the earth as she walked toward the back.
“Need help?” I offered as I watched her pull out heavy bags from her trunk. My offer went unanswered, but I took the luggage from her grasp anyway and hauled them up to the front porch.
“Thanks. You didn’t have to help me.” Her words were equal parts polite and curt as she brushed dark hair from her eyes. Dakota leaned back into her car and retrieved a purse, a notebook, and a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “You ready?”
Massaging the back of my neck and squinting toward her as the sun held a spot just above her head, I laughed. “I’ve got to clean out that barn over there first. Go on inside and get changed.”
“Changed?” She stared down at her pointy city boots and ran her hand down the frilly pink blouse she’d decided to wear to the ranch that day.
“You can’t walk around here in that.” I lifted my hat and ran my hand along the top of my head before replacing it. “Looks awfully expensive. Probably don’t want it getting dirty.”
“I’m not doing farm work, Beau,” she said. “I’m here to interview you.”
“Can’t we catch up first? You used to like watching me do chores.”
“Don’t you have people you can pay to clean out your barn?”
I pursed my lips and shrugged. “I like doing it. Makes me feel like me again. At the end of the day, I’m just a salt of the earth guy, Kota.”
“Fine,” she said, squaring her shoulders as she scanned the view over the rolling hills that surrounded us. “I’ll throw on some jeans. But I’m not shoveling manure.”
“Not a problem. No animals have lived here in years,” I said.
She scrunched her brow as if to ask for an explanation. Back when we were together, Mason Ranch was one of the biggest in the tri-county area. My father farmed corn and soybeans and raised Angus cattle and bred horses and chickens on top of it all.
“Dad died two years ago. Mom sold the livestock. I bought out the acreage. I can go on, but you’ll probably want some of this for your interview.”
“I-I had no idea,” she said, blue eyes softening just a tad. “I’
m sorry about your father.”
Dakota and Dad were close once. He looked at her as if she was his third daughter, calling her his bonus kid. She never knew her dad, so he was the closest thing she’d ever had. The day he died, I tried to find her to let her know, but all my searches for “Dakota Andrews” came up empty. I’d always chalked it up to her not wanting to be found, and a part of me never could blame her.
“Did you do any research before you came up here?” I wiped my brow with my forearm. “On me?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t have time.”
“I see.”
I retrieved my pitchfork as she headed inside, coming out a short while later dressed in fitted blue jeans and a faded University of Kentucky t-shirt. Her long, dark hair was swept up off her neck and piled high on top of her head as if she was trying to convince me she wasn’t trying.
“Go Cats.” My lips tugged into a smile. I liked this version of her – the one without the fancy clothes and stick up her ass. She lifted a digital recorder in the air and held her thumb over a red button.
“Ready?” she asked. Even dressed down, she was the epitome of professional. It appeared as though she didn’t have an “off” switch anymore.
A thousand times I’d imagined what it would feel like seeing her again, but looking at her now was like staring into the eyes of a stranger. Someone who reminded me of a woman I used to know.
“Fire away.” My hand slid up the worn wooden handle of the pitchfork as we headed back toward the horse barn. I happened to be in New York doing a show the year before when I woke early enough on Saturday morning to catch some network morning show. That’s when I saw Coco Bissett. My Dakota. Hidden in plain sight all these years.
“What are you doing with this thing anyway?” she asked as we stepped inside, peering into stall after empty stall.
“A few months from now, this’ll be a fully operational horse farm.” I glanced through the dust-specked streams of light, envisioning how it might look when it was all fixed up. “Going to breed some Tennessee Walking Horses. Maybe some Morgans and Fox Trotters.”
Never is a Promise Page 3
