A Family for a Week

by Melissa Senate

  Sadie couldn’t help laughing, and suddenly Evie was laughing, too, then she sobered up and let out a sad sigh. A little noise and minigrunt came from the porta-crib, which meant Danny had woken from his nap. “Perfect timing, Evie. Let’s go raid the cafeteria. I hear the cook makes incredible gooey desserts. There has to be something out now for hungry new arrivals.” It was two thirty, and the cafeteria wouldn’t open for full service until four thirty for dinner. However, Daisy, the nice guest relations manager, and Sara, the ranch forewoman, had greeted the family at check-in and said there were always goodies and refreshments on the tables near the door in the cafeteria and in the lodge beyond it.

  “Good idea,” Evie said, getting up.

  If Sadie were being honest, she’d admit that she wouldn’t mind clapping eyes on Axel Dawson again. She’d see him tonight, but there were hours to go. Do not build some fantasy around him, she warned herself. He doesn’t do commitment. You are looking for commitment. Do. Not. Go. There.

  There was falling ridiculously in love-lust with the man who’d changed her entire life, made happiness possible, made her future possible by finding her son when he’d been missing for hours. She owed Axel and his partner, that heroic Lab who would not leave that certain spot on the mountain, despite it seeming to lead to nowhere a toddler could get into, everything. Dude, the dog, knew his job, and Axel, the handler, knew his dog. Because of that, Danny had been found. They were heroes. No other word for it.

  Which meant Sadie’s inability to stop thinking about Axel was hero worship. That’s all it is. Toast the guy tonight and then emotionally move on.

  So easy to say. Doing so would be another story. Which was why she would not give her sister any dumb platitudes about broken hearts and time or changed minds or even her dear great-gram’s you never know, though that one was true. Sadie would just listen and be there. But gooey desserts always helped, as did Danny’s adorable ways, so Sadie got up, scooped her son out of the crib and let his huge hazel-brown eyes work their magic on Auntie Evie, who played five rounds of giggling peekaboo before they headed out of the room.

  * * *

  “The Winstons asked permission to make a bonfire by the river tonight,” Axel heard his sister say, “so if you see big plumes of smoke in that direction, the cabins aren’t burning down.”

  Axel looked up from where he sat at his kitchen table. Daisy Dawson, the ranch’s guest relations manager, was outside on his porch, bent over with her face close to the screen. “Actually, I was invited to the bonfire,” he said. “I’m practically the guest of honor.”

  She made an ooh face—Daisy loved being in the know—and seconds later she was in the kitchen, pouring herself a mug of coffee and joining him at the table. He was already on his second mug since returning from the petting zoo. He’d been going over notes he’d taken at the staff meeting this morning about the ages of the guests, safety issues, special requests—one woman used a wheelchair, one teenager had a broken wrist and another kid was deathly afraid of snakes and would scream at the top of his lungs if he saw one, garter or not, and go running blind, potentially off a cliff. Otherwise, the group members were in good general health, enjoyed light hikes and were used to the setting. Most weren’t riders, so he’d have to be vigilant when they were on horseback. He and several of the ranch hands would constantly patrol the trails.

  “Remember when I was sent home on enforced R&R after rescuing a kid on Badger Mountain back in May?” Axel asked.

  Daisy sipped her coffee and nodded. “Of course I remember. It’s what brought you home finally. I owe that rescue everything.”

  Axel smiled inwardly with a matching head shake. His sister had been trying to get her brothers to come home to the ranch they’d grown up on. The youngest Dawson sibling, Noah, had rebuilt the guest ranch their grandparents had started over fifty years ago, and he ran the entire operation, his wife the forewoman. Daisy had come back in the spring because Noah had needed help with a baby left on his doorstep, a crazy story that had turned into their brother becoming the proud married father of twin babies. Daisy had been pregnant then, and when her baby’s father left her at the altar—literally—she’d ended up marrying the man who’d delivered her baby on the side of the road. That was also a crazy story.

  Two Dawsons were married with children, happily settled into family life, and though Axel had made his sister’s day by moving home permanently and building a cabin at the far edge of the property for himself and his trusty partner, Dude, the greatest dog there ever was, marriage was not in his plans. Daisy kept trying to fix him up, and he kept disappointing her. At least there were three other Dawson brothers out there she could work on. Rex, Zeke and Ford were scattered across Wyoming.

  “Well, the family here for the reunion this week is that family,” he explained. “Turns out they booked the ranch as some kind of thank-you.”

  Daisy gasped. “You’re kidding! I wish they’d let me know. I would have put extra goodies in their welcome baskets or something.”

  Axel finished his coffee. “They keep calling me a hero. I’m only going to the bonfire tonight because they want to toast me. Then I’ll leave.”

  Daisy grinned. “You are a hero, Axel. Accept it.”

  He wasn’t. Heroes didn’t let people down, and Axel had let people down plenty in his day, particularly the women who’d come and gone in his life over the past few years. But no one more than his own father a week before he’d died last December. Axel had found or rescued a lot of people in his days—years—on the search and rescue team. But he’d been a clueless idiot about his own father, who’d basically drank himself to death.

  Daisy’s phone pinged. “Duty calls,” she said, popping up. “I’m meeting Sara at the river to set up the bonfire. Two of the hands will be on duty, too, so we should have a lot of eyes on the littles, especially.”

  He nodded. “I’ll come help.” He’d keep on his staff shirt, which would put some distance between him and the Winstons. He wasn’t a guest who could hang out and chat; he was an employee of the ranch.

  Dude came padding over, and Axel gave his buddy a vigorous pat and a kiss on his furry head.

  “You stay here and take a nice nap, partner,” Axel said to the dog. “Back in a couple of hours.”

  “Does he know what you’re saying?” Daisy asked, looking from Dude to Axel.

  Axel laughed. “Nope. He has a great vocabulary, natural to his former job as a search and rescue K-9, but not a string of chatty nonsense like that. He knows from the tone of my voice that it’s all good.”

  “Maybe I can talk Harrison into adopting a dog. I want two pugs, one black, one fawn.”

  Axel raised an eyebrow. “Pugs? With the smushed-in faces?”

  Daisy gave him a punch in the arm. “They’re adorable!”

  “I like big dogs, but yeah, I guess they are pretty cute. Think Harrison will agree? He doesn’t strike me as the dog type.”

  Daisy’s husband was a businessman who’d originally come into their lives with some diabolical plan to steal the ranch out from under them. Ten years ago, long before their brother Noah had rebuilt the guest ranch, their dad had drunkenly signed over ownership to Harrison’s father after losing a poker game. In the end, Harrison had let it all go and ended up with the real prize: Daisy. His sister might drive Axel nuts with her matchmaking and texts with attachments of articles about how married life improves heart health, but she and Noah were his best friends, and he was damned lucky to have gotten so close to the two of them and their spouses, for that matter.

  He and Daisy left the kitchen through the arched burnished wood doorway that led to the living room with the vaulted wood ceiling and the stone fireplace, which right now had a huge basket of dried flowers in it, a housewarming gift from the ranch hands, which had touched him. He’d been living here for only six weeks, the house taking record-fast time to build, thanks to the team h
e’d hired to work beside him. He had to say, he loved this place. The cabin reminded him of the small one he’d left behind at Badger Mountain, but he’d added luxe, modern touches. Even Daisy, who wasn’t a log cabin type, said she could happily live in his house. For a guy who’d planned to visit the guest ranch only when he absolutely had to, Axel Dawson had truly come home. His way, on his terms, which made it feel not just okay, but right. He felt like he belonged here.

  But as he walked out with Daisy, he was well aware he had some unfinished business to take care of regarding being back: a letter he was avoiding and had since last December. His father had left each of his kids a letter with their name on it inside a folder marked My Will on his kitchen table. Axel’s letter remained unopened under his socks in his dresser drawer. Eight months and counting. When Axel got low on socks, and the envelope appeared through them, he’d get an acidy pang in his chest and shut the drawer fast, reminding himself to do laundry.

  Heroes weren’t afraid of letters, and Axel would be the first to admit he was scared to know what was inside the one beneath his socks.

  Daisy headed to the buggy she’d driven over in. It was a golf cart that Noah had rigged up to be ranch employee transportation across the vast property. They all had one, though Daisy’s had yellow leaves painted on the sides. “You’d better take your own buggy,” she said, “or you’ll be trapped without a ride home since I’ll be staying till the bonfire is over.”

  “Good idea,” he said. His cabin was only five miles from the area where the guest cabins were, and he could run that in twenty minutes, but would he want to after a long day and fifteen minutes of being thanked by Winstons? Probably not.

  “See you there,” he said, waving as he got in his own buggy.

  As he drove, he was well aware that he couldn’t get there fast enough. Because he wanted to be looking at Sadie Winston. He wanted to see Danny running around in his light-up sneakers. Maybe tonight would be a way to get them out of his head, out of his system.

  Did that ever work, though?

  Chapter Three

  All thirty-eight Winstons had gathered on a rise near the river, mesmerized by the bonfire protected by a circle of rocks that the staff had set up. The children, and there were several, had been ordered under penalty of long time-outs or leaving early not to step past the rocks to get closer to the fire. Each kid had to agree, and only then had Daisy and Sara lit the bonfire.

  From where the group sat on blankets, sipping soda or wine and snacking on various treats from little cream-filled chocolates to cheese and crackers to grapes, Sadie watched Axel Dawson walking the perimeter of the fire. He was just as mesmerizing as the flames. Could he be more attractive? Tall, over six feet, and leanly muscular with thick dark hair and features that were both refined and masculine at the same time. He wore the forest green Dawson Family Guest Ranch polo shirt and sexy jeans.

  Sadie’s attention was pulled from him by the clinking of a glass. She looked toward the sound to find her grandmother Vanessa two blankets over, tapping a fork against her wineglass. Her petite grandmother stood, her wavy gray-blond bob blowing in the breeze.

  “Welcome, Winstons, to this year’s family reunion!” Gram announced. Clapping, cheers and finger whistles followed. “We’re here to have a wonderful time and relax and enjoy the guest ranch, but also to thank a very special person—Axel Dawson, the search and rescue specialist who found our Danny-boy when he was lost a few months ago during a family hike. Axel’s family owns this ranch, and he now works here. I’d like to raise a toast to Mr. Dawson, our family hero! Everyone, raise your glass or sippy cup!”

  Everyone leaped to their feet, the cheering and clapping deafening. Danny slept through all the hoopla.

  Sadie looked over at Axel and could swear the family hero was blushing, which made him more appealing, dammit.

  “I had no idea he was so hot,” Evie, sharing Sadie’s blanket, whispered. “I mean, he’s no Marshall Ackerman, but wow.”

  Sadie smiled and squeezed her sister’s hand. Marshall Ackerman was the one who hadn’t given in to the ultimatum. Sadie would describe him as attractive enough—he was a very smart tax accountant and a little buttoned-up, but Evie, who’d met him at her previous job—she’d recently become a CPA with a big firm—found him and his sweater-vests incredibly sexy.

  “I know,” Sadie whispered back. “It’s distracting. But I refuse to let his hotness affect me—the man doesn’t do commitment.”

  “That’s going around,” Evie said with a scowl. Then she raised her glass to toast. “Men—who needs ’em?”

  “I’ll clink to that,” Sadie said on a grin, clinking her sister’s wineglass.

  As the family settled on the blankets and raised their glasses and cups and sippy cups to Axel, who looked like he might flee at any moment from the attention, Sadie held her own glass up, her gaze locking with his. He nodded at her, and she nodded back.

  During the next ten minutes, Axel shook hands and hugged relatives and repeated the story of finding Danny. He gave credit to Dude, the ace yellow Lab with his excellent tracking skills, and held her family rapt. Sadie was now in a circle of relatives, including her sister and four of their cousins, near the fire, Danny still asleep in his stroller beside her. She listened to her cousin Wendy tell a funny story about the parent-teacher conference she went to last June, Sadie’s attention more on watching Axel move from group to group. She hoped he wouldn’t take off before they got a chance to talk again.

  There you go again, she thought. Wanting to get up close and personal with the anti-commitment one.

  “Excuse me,” Daisy Dawson said as she approached their group. Sadie could see the Dawson family resemblance between Daisy and Axel—particularly the blue eyes. “I’m looking for Evie Winston.”

  “That’s me,” Evie said, turning from where she’d been chatting with two of their cousins.

  “You have a visitor at the welcome gate,” Daisy said. “A Marshall Ackerman? Shall I let him in?”

  Evie gasped. “Marshall is here?” She turned to Sadie. “Marshall is here!” she repeated. “He’s come to his senses!”

  Sadie hoped so. The man wouldn’t drive a half hour from Prairie City to return a jacket Evie had left at his place or her toothbrush, especially during a Winston family reunion.

  “The gate is a quarter mile from here,” Daisy said. “I’ll walk you over and escort you both back.”

  “Thanks,” Evie said. She turned and opened her eyes wide at Sadie, her expression so hopeful that Sadie sent up a little prayer that Marshall Ackerman had a diamond ring in his pocket. As Evie and Daisy disappeared around a curve, Sadie kneeled beside the stroller and gave her boy a kiss on the head. He was still fast asleep.

  “Everything okay?” Axel asked, coming over, gesturing at the path toward the gate. “I saw my sister walking one of your relatives away.”

  “Everything’s fine. That was my sister—Evie,” Sadie explained, straightening. “Her ex-boyfriend turned up at the gate. Evie gave him an ultimatum at her birthday dinner—they’d been together three years—and instead of proposing, he said sorry. That was two days ago, but now he’s here.”

  “To propose?” Axel asked.

  “She hopes so,” Sadie said. “And trust me, so does everyone else. My family is very marriage-minded.”

  He mock-shivered. “I’m not.”

  Yeah, she’d heard. But hearing it straight from him stung her anyway. “Why?” she asked. “If I can be so personal. I’m curious about what makes you know you don’t want to get married.”

  He glanced away for a moment, then at her. “The very thought squeezes the air out of my lungs.”

  That sting she’d felt a second ago? Now a swarm of bees attacked as a memory of her ex-husband flashed into her mind. I feel like I’m in quicksand, Sadie. Sorry, but that’s how I feel. I thought I could do this, but I can’t.
..

  “So marriage is like death?” she asked—coldly, she realized, but she couldn’t help it. “A slow, suffocating death?”

  He eyed her. “I wouldn’t go that far. It’s just not for me. I’m a lone wolf.”

  When someone tells you who they are, believe them...

  She lifted her chin. “Well, I’m excited about the idea of finding my Mr. Right,” she said, not that he asked. She took a second sip of her wine. She’d chug the entire glass if she were with her sister. “Love, partnership, sharing a life together. That’s what it’s all about.”

  He nodded. “I have a great dog.”

  She couldn’t help laughing—not that that was funny. He seemed both serious about that dog comment and not. You don’t know because you don’t know him. Keep it that way, missy—or you’ll pay!

  Sadie had that funny feeling as if someone was watching her and turned to find her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, plus her grandfather, two uncles and three cousins watching her talk to Axel. Her mom winked. Her grandmother raised a glass. Her great-grandmother was smiling and giving a little clap.

  Oh, brother. If she had a bullhorn, she’d let them know what he’d said about marriage. A slow, suffocating death, people! She was paraphrasing, but she was right on the money.

  Her grandmother pushed her own mother’s wheelchair toward Sadie. The two looked so much alike, but Vanessa was twenty-six years younger. Ninety-nine-year-old Izzy’s hair was a beautiful pure white that she always wore in a wispy bun, but she and her daughter both had colorful eyeglasses perched on their noses and hanging off beaded chains, purple for Vanessa and royal blue for Izzy. They both had the same warm, open faces and had never met a stranger. Sadie adored them both. “Izzy and I are pooped,” Vanessa Winston said. “See y’all tomorrow for breakfast. I hear the cook makes the best chocolate chip pancakes in Wyoming.”

  Axel grinned and nodded. “It’s true. The best everything. But Cowboy Joe’s pancakes are divine. The other day, I had six, and we’re not talking silver dollars.”