Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

C aroline shuffled paperwork around her desk, the day still two hours from being over and her headache throbbing behind her eyes. She'd been reading about a new law for the Wildlife Division that would go into effect on July first, and she then had to prepare materials for all the surrounding farms, ranches, and anyone who had honeybees in a four-hundred mile radius.

Everyone in Amarillo, all the way to the Oklahoma border, throughout Three Rivers, of course, and throughout dozens of other small towns in her region. She'd done projects like this before, and they started out messy.

She'd gotten a new yellow legal pad to take notes, and she had a blue pen—her preferred writing utensil when absorbing a lot of information she needed to distill down into bullet points—words and lines all over several pages.

When she caught herself staring at a black screen on her computer, with no idea how much time had gone by since she'd last been aware, she stood up. Her screen saver took fifteen minutes to come on, and she wondered who in the office had seen her staring at literally nothing.

She glanced over to Ivy's desk, and thankfully, she had her head bent over something probably labeled "super important" that wasn't. Caroline moved over to her desk, and said, "I'm dying here. It's so boring and slow. Do you want to go to the bakery and work the last couple hours of today?"

Ivy blinked like she'd just come out of a dark room and hadn't seen sunlight for a few years. "Yes," she breathed in the next moment. "That sounds like heaven." She slapped her folder closed and stood faster than Caroline had ever seen a human woman stand.

"Great," she said. "Let me get my stuff too. I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes?" The bakery sat only a couple of blocks from their office, and it boasted great air conditioning, big tables, and in the afternoon, it wouldn't be busy.

Caroline had learned that one of Three Rivers' great matrons—Heidi Ackerman—owned the bakery, and she was Finn's grandma. Finn, of course, was one of Dawson's good friends, and he had a one-man operation that had almost escaped the burrowing owls. Then he'd called to say he'd found a single nest on his south fence, and Caroline had accepted his paperwork and taken him the conservation supplies.

The owl sightings had slowed considerably in the past month or so, and she just had to do regular check-ins with the ranches who had them. She wasn't sure what the owls would do. They tended to be transitory birds, but not until they had their chicks and raised them.

Fifteen minutes later, she had the work items she needed to finish that day, a fresh cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant, and a renewed sense of energy and purpose. She'd arrived at the bakery before Ivy, and when her friend and co-worker got there, Caroline took a sip of her coffee and asked, "How are things going with Colt?"

Ivy grinned like she'd entered Wonderland and had taken on the form of the Cheshire Cat. "He's wonderful," she said with a sigh. "We're talking about getting married now." She looked up, a measure of fear in her eyes.

"Why do you look like you have burrowing owls in your bed?" Caroline gave her a smile and reached for another sugar packet for her coffee.

"My daddy thinks I'm too young to get married." Ivy looked out the window, an expression telling Caroline that her thoughts lingered far away. "And Colt is quite a bit older than me. He's set here, ready to take over the apple orchards when his mom retires."

"And when will that be?"

"Oh, gosh." Ivy inhaled and breathed the air all back out. "She keeps saying this year, but Colt said she did that last year too." She smiled. "These generational places. They're hard for people to let go of, you know?"

Caroline thought of Dawson and Duke. Link and his family at Shiloh Ridge. The conversation with JJ Walker about what he should do with his life—take over the ranch his daddy ran? Or do something else?

"Yeah," she said. "I'm learning that about this part of Texas."

"There are real deep roots here," Ivy said. "It's what makes the community so great, but it also makes it hard for the second generation to take over and assure their older parents that they're not going to burn everything to the ground." She grinned and dipped her spoon into strawberry pistachio tart. "And maybe in Colt's case, he will." She trilled out a laugh and said, "That man loves fire."

Caroline wasn't sure if she should laugh or not, but she did smile as Ivy took a bite of her tart. "Oh, this is good."

She didn't normally bring her personal life to work, but Caroline had seen how open Dawson was with his friends and family. Belle knew about her relationship, of course, but Caroline was ready to shout it from the rooftops.

"I started seeing a cowboy like that," she said.

Ivy nearly choked on her whipped cream. "Who?" She wore wide eyes like Caroline dating someone was akin to a small town scandal. Or impossible. She supposed she had not been all that open to dating for a long time now, and other women had a way of picking up on that.

"Dawson Rhinehart," she said, noting how soft her muscles became as she said his name. "It's going pretty well."

"Yeah, I can see that." Ivy grinned at her. "Good for you, Caroline. The Rhineharts are a great family."

"Yeah," Caroline said, parroting her friend's word back to her. "It's new—only a couple of months in—but yeah." She still hadn't decided when she could start the twelve-month period for her and Dawson, and she remembered he'd asked her to remind him of another follow-up question he had about her rule.

So, while she should be working, she quickly sent him a text instead. You were going to ask me something else about the twelve-month rule. Then she flipped her phone over and sternly told herself to work for a half-hour before checking her phone.

The man texted her most afternoons once he made it to his office-barn, and all through the evening if they weren't going out. But truth be told, at this point, they saw each other almost every night.

They had a surprise birthday party for Link coming up, and then a double-date with Duke and Zona on the calendar as well. Sometimes he stopped by with a brown bag of fast food and they ate it from the tailgate of his truck, parked right there in her driveway.

Sometimes she brought lunch to his cabin for him, Brandon, and Ruffin. She may or may not have been tossing shiny quarters from the window of her SUV in the hopes that Rocks would have something to find on the ranch that he could then take to his friend.

Just the thought of those crows made her so happy, for a reason she couldn't name. There was something pure and simple—and so good—about Dawson and his life that Caroline really needed in her life.

Every minute passed painfully slow, and then she checked her phone to see if Dawson had replied.

Yeah , he'd said. A couple actually. Let's start with this one: Does the rule mean that you can't get engaged before the twelve months are up and the road trip has happened? Or you just can't say I-do before then?

Her heart hammered out of nowhere. Caroline's vision blurred, and she blinked, trying desperately to hold onto reality.

You're not marrying Joe , she told herself. Joe's gone. He's not Joe.

She hadn't had to revert to this level of reassurance for a long, long time, and if she were being completely honest, she wasn't sure why she'd spiraled so quickly.

"Caroline?"

She opened her eyes, not sure where she was. Then the familiar scent of yeast and sugar met her nose, and she remembered.

The bakery. Coffee and croissant. Working on a slow afternoon.

A good friend with pure concern in her eyes. "Are you okay?"

"I…think so."

"You kind of moaned." Ivy glanced down at her hands. "You're gripping your phone really hard. I thought maybe you were having a seizure."

Caroline shook her head, trying to find a logical explanation that didn't make her sound crazy. Then she remembered that her actions testified of her emotional and mental scars—and Ivy had just seen one burst wide open and start bleeding again.

Her phone buzzed, drawing her attention again.

Dawson: Like, let's say we fall in love. Go somewhere amazing this summer—that's my next question—and we want to get married. Can I propose before the twelve months and we get married after it? Or is it a strict no-diamond policy until all twelve months have passed?

Dawson again: Follow-up to the follow-up: If you could go anywhere on a road trip, where would you go?

With that last text, her vision cleared. Her mind centered, and Caroline saw the sweet, caring, gentle side of Dawson that truly epitomized him. Sure, he was gruff on the outside. No, he didn't want anyone in his barn space. True, he kept things close to the vest until he was ready to share them.

All those things made him, him, though, and Caroline liked all the pieces of him he'd shown her so far. And she knew without a doubt that if she said she wanted to go on a road trip to Hawaii, he'd find a way to pave the Pacific Ocean.

I'll have to think about the road trip , she sent him quickly. And we need to talk about what just happened when I read your other texts, but I don't want to do it with letters.

I'm meeting with Ward tonight , Dawson reminded her. I can swing by and get you about eight, and we can grab doughnuts from that place next to the fountain. A quick dessert date. Yeah?

Yeah , she sent back. I still want the walking tour of Three Rivers one day.

You're so demanding , he sent back, complete with several smiling emojis. She mimicked them, and Ivy said, "Oh, so you're falling for him already."

Caroline put down her phone, her date set up. "Maybe," she acknowledged. "And I need help with this."

"You do?" Ivy set down her pen, and they were apparently going to have a chatty-working afternoon. "Do tell."

Caroline took a deep breath. "Okay, you know how I was married before?" She waited for Ivy to nod. "Well, I actually made a pact with myself that I'd never date and get married again. So, this is obviously all blowing up in my face, and well, I think I just had a little panic attack when Dawson texted me with the words, marriage, proposal , and engagement ."

She put her head in her hands, a wail starting in her stomach and easing its way up her throat, where it would have to come out. "That's bad, right?" She looked at Ivy, hoping her friend would reassure her that it was normal to panic about these types of things.

Ivy looked like a scared jackrabbit herself, a feeling currently stomping across Caroline's lungs. "I mean, I feel like I'm about to pass out at the thought of getting married," she said. "And I've been dating Colt for ten months. So I'm the wrong person to ask."

Caroline had already broken her no-dating rule. Marriage was way down the line. Way down. Twelve months, at least.

Perhaps only ten , a tiny voice whispered, and Caroline squashed it quickly. "I just need to talk to Dawson," she said. "That's all."

"I'm sorry," Ivy said, wearing her concern in her voice. "I'm of no help to you on this." She covered Caroline's hand with hers. "I'm sorry your first marriage was so bad you don't want to try again."

"Try again," Caroline murmured. That was all she needed to do. Try again, this time in a different place, at a different time, with a different man. Heck, she was a different person.

Instant calmness came over her, and Caroline pressed her eyes closed and said, "Thank you, Lord, for this reassurance." It felt like the Savior himself had draped her in a blanket straight from the warmest source of heavenly light. She opened her eyes and looked at Ivy. "I just need to be brave for long enough to get the first sentence out."

She'd done it before, with a far harsher man and far worse consequences. This is Dawson , she told herself again. And he's not Joe.

She didn't want to lose her cowboy in shining armor, not without giving herself the time and space she needed— they needed—to come together. And if there was one thing she'd learned as she'd been reborn from the ashes of her marriage, it was that some rules should be broken.

Caroline just hadn't realized she'd made any of that kind for herself.