A Family for a Week

by Melissa Senate

  Maybe. Or maybe the truth would make everyone uncomfortable during a family reunion. He could practically hear them coming at Sadie, disapproval tingeing their voices: Why didn’t you correct Izzy in the moment? Why didn’t you say something first thing the next morning? Why’d you pretend to be engaged during the bridal shopping trip? Then faces would register understanding, and it would be Poor Sadie. She probably wanted to be engaged like her younger sister so bad she didn’t want to explain the misunderstanding.

  The one thing Axel did know for sure in this world was that when he opened that letter from his father, he’d have to deal with whatever was in it. Just like he was having to deal with being hugged and congratulated and told not to elope to Vegas, that just because it was a second wedding for Sadie didn’t mean the whole family didn’t want to watch her walk down the aisle to a real hero.

  Actually, we’re not really engaged, he’d wanted to scream about five times today. Ninety-nine-year-old Izzy misunderstood and no one corrected her or anyone when word spread like wildfire.

  In fact, he was the one who’d told Sadie to let it go, to not correct, to let the “engagement” stand for this and that reason. Yeah, yeah, he was doing Sadie a favor and keeping the peace in her family, but was that all that had been about? Axel felt like there was something else poking at part of him deep down, demanding his attention.

  Ugh. Like he wanted to analyze himself? That was his sister’s job and she was annoyingly good at it. Maybe he’d go visit his baby nephew Tony and see what Daisy had to say about the why and what of his brain.

  “Yoo-hoo!” called out a woman’s voice. “Axel? You around here somewhere?”

  Axel’s eyes widened and he stared at his brother in horror. “Save me,” he whispered.

  Noah laughed. “He’s in the big barn,” the traitor called. “We’ll be right out, ma’am.”

  “Well, aren’t you a dear,” whoever it was called back.

  Noah smiled. “Your in-laws are calling. Shall we?”

  “I’ll get you,” Axel said, shaking his head at his brother.

  Outside, Noah lifted his hat at Sadie’s grandmother and great-grandmother and headed toward the petting zoo, which had a good crowd. The Winston clan sure loved those animals. They spent more time petting the goats and marveling at the alpacas and miniature pigs than they did at any other activity, such as riding or hiking.

  “Oh, good, we found you,” Vanessa said. “Someone said they thought they saw you head into the red barn. Axel, with all of us right here at the ranch, I can see you and Sadie aren’t getting any time to yourselves, so Izzy and I thought the two of you would like to go into Bear Ridge for dinner and a movie. Just get away for a bit. You tell Sadie we’ll watch our precious grandbaby.”

  Dinner and a movie?

  “You go ahead and let her know right now,” Izzy said with a nod. “Oh, she’ll be so glad to have a night out on the town. Our Sadie-girl works so hard and then takes care of that little one on her own, then is always seeing to what we need. She deserves a night out away from all the hoopla.”

  Both women, with eyes so much like Sadie’s, stared at him. And stared some more.

  Axel pulled out his phone. “I’ll, uh, text her.”

  Your gram and great-gram think you deserve a night out away from “all the hoopla.” Dinner?—A

  “What’s he doing?” Izzy asked Vanessa.

  “Texting,” Vanessa told her mother. “Remember, it’s like a letter over the phone.”

  “Like email?” Izzy asked.

  “But faster,” Vanessa said.

  “So fast she already responded,” Axel said, swallowing. “Her answer was Yes, please.”

  The women beamed. “Have a wonderful time, Axel.”

  As he watched Vanessa push Izzy’s wheelchair, two girls with blond braids coming flying at them and talking excitedly about the miniature pigs, he wondered just what had happened to his life.

  Chapter Six

  Almost like a real date but not, Sadie thought as she eyed herself in the mirror above the bureau in her cabin’s bedroom. Based on Axel’s text, he’d obviously been ambushed by Vanessa and Izzy. He’d probably felt cornered into texting her about the date right then and there. But Sadie could use a night away from her family—despite the fact that the reunion had barely gotten underway. Plus, she and Axel could figure out how exactly they were going to pass as engaged when they’d never spent any time together. Though, of course, her gram and great-gram had fixed that tonight.

  “You’re not wearing that, are you?” her mother asked from the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest with a tsk-tsk expression. “You’re going out on the town with your husband-to-be! Doll up a little!”

  Inward sigh.

  “I think your yellow sundress would be perfect for tonight,” Viv added with a firm nod.

  Sadie glanced at her pink T-shirt and her favorite jeans, soft and worn. “Bear Ridge is a casual town, Mom.” She was planning to change, not into a dress, though.

  Sadie had brought two dresses for just-in-case situations while at the dude ranch, but even the more casual sundress was too much for tonight. “I’m going with the white jeans and the floaty blue-and-white peasant top Evie gave me for Christmas last year. I love that blouse.”

  “Fine,” her mother conceded. “But with those cute metallic wedge sandals—not sneakers!” Viv added. “A little makeup would be nice, too.”

  Viv Winston would definitely win any Pushy Mother of the Year award. But maybe Sadie could glam up a little. At the ranch, she just put on sunscreen and lip balm, but she was going out to dinner. Even if her grandmother and great-grandmother had commandeered her “fiancé” into it. Sadie really did want to get out of Dodge—for a few hours.

  “Don’t forget a light dab of perfume,” her mom said as she stood and headed for the bureau. “I’ll take the tags off the new bra and undies—”

  Okay, there was a line and her mother had crossed it. Sadie’s cheeks were hot—either from embarrassment or disappointment that no, she would not be wearing the sexy bra and underwear tonight. Even if she wanted to lead her “fiancé” to bed, this was way too soon. Sadie had left her things on the shelf at Your Special Day, but apparently her mother had bought it along with Evie’s.

  “I’ll save those for the honeymoon,” Sadie said, about to tell Viv to leave her be before Sadie lost her mind.

  Thankfully, her mother’s phone pinged with a text and Viv skedaddled to meet four of her cousins for smoothies and sunset yoga at the lodge.

  Sadie put on some makeup, gave herself a once-over and had to admit she did look like she was going on a date. Oh, what the hey, she thought and dabbed her favorite perfume on her wrist and behind her ear.

  She headed through the quiet cabin onto the porch to await Axel. Vanessa and Izzy, babysitting Danny, were with a big group of relatives on a sunset river walk, and her sister was actually in Prairie City for the night since she was having dinner with the Ackermans and staying over at their house tonight. Sadie breathed in the quiet, random voices and laughter and crickets in the background. She could hear a car coming, and her heart sped up.

  A navy SUV pulled up beside the cabin and there was Axel in dark gray pants and a button-down shirt, rolled at the forearms. Seemed he got the memo about tonight, too.

  He opened the passenger door, which got the evening off to a very date-like start. When he got in, she was too aware of him so close to her. He smelled delicious.

  “Have a craving for any type of food in particular?” he asked.

  “Hmm, I could go for Mexican. Enchiladas or sizzling fajitas, maybe. And a margarita. I really need one of those.”

  “Me, too,” he said with a smile. “Mexican it is. There’s a place right in town that I’ve always heard was good or we could go to Prairie City—I think there are two Mexican restaurants there.” />
  “I’d love to try the Bear Ridge one since I’ve never been. But you haven’t either?”

  “It was one of my dad’s hangouts so I tend to avoid it, but he always raved about the food. Let’s give it a try.”

  “If you’re sure,” she said, trying to give him an out. Based on what he’d told her about his father, she wasn’t sure he’d want to be reminded of the man. But as she sneaked a glance at him, his expression was tension free as he started the car and drove off. “So, my grandmother and great-gram cornered you, did they?”

  He laughed. “Izzy is very persuasive.”

  “That she is. I think the generations got even pushier. Well, except for my generation. Evie and I are pretty mellow.”

  “Glad to hear that, fiancée,” he said, shooting her a grin. His face lit up and so did her heart. “I figured a night to ourselves would give us a chance to talk through how we’re supposed to act around your family.”

  “So your brother and sister know the truth?” she asked. “I figured they did—just want to double-check. Your siblings haven’t welcomed me to the family.”

  “Yup, they know the whole story. They’ll nod and smile and be vague, particularly Daisy, whose entire job is dealing with guests.”

  The moment Axel drove past the open gates of the Dawson Family Guest Ranch, waving at a young woman in the forest green “Welcome” shed, Sadie felt herself relax. They were headed into a Winston-free zone, no talk of weddings and wedding night lingerie. Sadie could catch her breath.

  Fifteen minutes later, they’d arrived in the center of Bear Ridge, a small town with a teeny village center. There was an old-timey general store that also served as the post office, plus a library, town hall, various businesses like a law office and nursing home, and a few restaurants. Manuela’s Mexican Café was colorful and illuminated with many hanging lanterns. There were tables out front, separated from the street by a row of planters full of flowers.

  “Inside or out?” Axel asked as they approached the restaurant.

  “I think in,” she said. “I’d like to be in the midst of all that fun ambience.”

  He smiled and opened the door. The restaurant was low lit and more romantic than Sadie realized it would be, the lanterns casting soft glows all around. Paintings and Mexican artifacts covered the walls, and a huge cactus was by the hostess’s station.

  “Evening,” the hostess said. She wore a sleeveless red velvet dress, a ton of necklaces and bracelets and killer black patent heels. Her long silver hair was the only giveaway that she was in her sixties. “Table for two?”

  “Yes, please,” Axel said.

  The woman peered more closely at him and gasped. “Now, I know that Bo Dawson, God rest his soul, passed on last year, but my goodness, you’re his spitting image. One of his kids?”

  Axel gaped at the woman. “Axel Dawson,” he said, extending his hand.

  The hostess clasped his with both of hers. “Manuela Gomez,” she said with a smile. “Owner, hostess and keeper of history. And yup, I knew it! Bo Dawson was a regular here for years—thirty years from the week we opened. I’ll never forget the first time he came in because he fell madly in love with his waitress and came in twice a day every day during her shifts until she agreed to go out with him. Her name was Diana.”

  Surprise lit his eyes. “Diana is my mother’s name,” he said, and Sadie got the feeling he wanted the woman to keep talking and to go away. “Could it be her? I didn’t know she worked here.”

  “Definitely her because she married him a few months later and they went on to have three children, all boys, and you are one of three, no? I think he was divorced with a young son at the time.”

  Ford, Axel’s eldest brother, Sadie realized. Axel didn’t respond to that, which made Sadie wonder if Bo Dawson had been divorced at the time. Then again, if he’d married Diana after just a few months of meeting, he likely had been.

  “Diana was putting herself through college when they met,” Manuela said. “Her old clunker of a car always broke down and so he gave her his truck so she could safely get to work and school. He would walk the five miles from his ranch here to sit in her station and have tacos just to see her because she was so busy. And he never showed up without either flowers or candy. Your mom was a jelly bean addict.”

  From the look on his face, Axel definitely didn’t know about any of that either. “Still is,” he said.

  Manuela smiled. “I guess it didn’t work out between them in the long run since I know he remarried after some years and had two more kids, but while your parents were dating, I remember thinking, now that is a man in love.”

  Axel smiled tightly.

  “Well, here I am rehashing old times and you two are probably starving!” Manuela said, grabbing two menus. “Come, let me give you one of my favorite tables.” She led them to a roomy square table for two by the ornate fireplace that was festooned with tall glowing white candles inside the hearth. She looked up and snapped her fingers, and a waiter immediately appeared. “You take good care of these two,” she told the young man.

  After they ordered—margaritas, frozen, no salt for Sadie and straight up for Axel, steak fajitas for her and enchiladas suizas for him—the waiter quickly returned with their drinks and a basket of homemade tortilla chips and three kinds of salsa.

  “First,” Sadie said, raising her glass, “a toast to escaping the craziness.”

  “I’ll definitely drink to that,” he said, clinking his glass with hers.

  “So was all that Manuela had to say a surprise to you?”

  He set his drink on the table and swiped a tortilla chip through the salsa verde. “I knew that my mother put herself through school as a waitress but not that she worked here. I definitely didn’t know any of the other stuff Manuela mentioned.”

  “Sounds like your father was madly in love with your mom.”

  “In the beginning, sure. He probably swept her off her feet with his grand gestures of giving up his truck and walking five miles to see her with jelly beans. And then time ticks on and they’re married with three little boys, and is he home? No. He’s probably here, drinking at the bar and falling in love with another waitress and bringing her Kit Kats.”

  Yikes. “It doesn’t help to know he had a compassionate, loving side, despite all his faults?”

  Axel took another sip of his margarita. “Help? Not at all. In fact, it makes it harder. If Bo Dawson had been more of a complete one hundred percent jerk, I would know what to do with my—” He stopped talking and grabbed a chip.

  “Your...feelings about him?” Sadie attempted.

  He glanced at her, his blue eyes a mix of emotions. “Yeah. Sometimes it’s easier for things to be more black-and-white. You can close a door that way. Yes, he was a serial cheater and alcoholic who left my mom with three kids under six and unsteady child support and a man who’d walked ten miles there and back to see her because he’d given her his truck so she’d have reliable transportation to work and school.”

  “I like that part,” Sadie said.

  “Me, too. But Bo was also famous in the family for passing out drunk on the porch, needing his young boys and their visiting older brother to help pull him in the house. Sometimes we couldn’t budge him and just had to cover him with comforters. Toward the end, he was crashing into the barns in the buggy or his truck. He wouldn’t listen to anyone.” For a moment he seemed to be lost in a memory.

  “Oh, Axel, that sounds rough,” Sadie said, her heart constricting for the kid he was.

  He sipped his margarita and glanced out the window, then back at her. “Then there’s a memory that always comes to me when I’m thinking about my dad at his worst. A good memory.”

  Sadie wasn’t surprised there was one and probably many.

  “When I was a kid and my grandparents were still alive,” he said, “we had this Dawson Family Gues
t Ranch tradition that every time they brought home a new animal, one of us kids got to name it. The day it was my turn, my grandparents brought home a black goat with gray horns and I named it Flash. I was crazy about him. At the time, I considered him my best friend.”

  “Aw,” Sadie said, biting a chip. She could see him sharing his troubles and hopes with Flash the goat.

  “One day, Flash took off at night and got lost up on Clover Mountain. I was so upset, trying not to cry and failing. So many wild animals lived up there and I thought for sure Flash would be eaten within hours. Well, my dad took me out to look for Flash, and when we found him trapped on a ledge but had no way to call for help—this was before cell phones and my dad had lost his radio—we hunkered down because he knew I couldn’t bear to leave Flash there. Finally, well after midnight, a search party came and Flash lived a good long life.”

  “It’s clear he did care about you, Axel,” Sadie said.

  The waiter arrived with a tray of their food, and Axel seemed relieved for a reprieve from the highly personal conversation.

  “Your family seems close,” he said, cutting into his enchiladas.

  She smiled, heaping steak and vegetables onto the flour tortillas. The food smelled so good she could barely wait to take a bite. “We are. Sometimes they drive me nuts, but I know how lucky I am. My mom is super pushy, but I’ll tell ya, when you need your mama, there’s no one you’d want more than Viv Winston at your side. Sometimes I think all that fierce family love ruined me for relationships.”

  “Wait, what?” he asked, his fork paused midair.

  “Maybe I expect too much. Want too much. Think the man I’m seeing will treat me the way my family does and then be disappointed when a guy forgets something important I mentioned during the last date or doesn’t consider my feelings.”

  “Sadie. There’s no such thing as expecting too much. The man in your life should love you fiercely.”