Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

D awson's impatience began to bleed through his carefully crafted defenses. But holy tar and feathers, were all meetings this painful? This boring? This long?

He flipped his phone over again and saw that he was now late to leave to pick up Caroline by eight. You told her you'd swing by , he told himself. She's not expecting you right at the top of the hour, with flowers.

Heck, he hadn't even been home to shower yet.

He wanted to cancel, but something told him not to. He forced himself to listen as Ward Glover went over their upcoming cattle drive into the hills, something the Rhinehart Ranch participated in with Shiloh Ridge every year. If they didn't, the work would take three times as long and be an awful ordeal .

But every single Glover—and all their cowboys—pitched in during the drive, and Duke piggybacked off it. Now, Dawson was learning how this worked, and he reminded himself he needed this information.

"Preliminary information and schedules will be out by next week," Ward said from the comfort of a conference room on the second floor of the homestead at Shiloh Ridge Ranch. "Look it over, and get me and Preacher—you have to reply-all." He paused, his eyes glued to Bear, specifically. "Any changes you need by the end of next week."

"I'm not going to look at this," Bear griped. "Send it to Link."

Lincoln was in attendance, and he lifted his hand in a half-wave to indicate to Ward that yes, he should simply send him the email.

"You could still learn how to email, Bear."

"I know how to send an email."

"Yes, but do you know how to reply-all to one?" Ward cocked his eyebrows, and oh, the gauntlet had been thrown down.

"Don't teach him how to do that," Preacher teased. "Then we'll all be getting his private emails, meant only for him and Sammy or something."

Bear folded his arms, his glare positively predatory. Ward and Preacher, along with several others, chuckled, and Ward flipped off the projector. "Thanks for comin' in, everyone. Dot and Holly Ann made brownie bars. "

And Dawson saw his opportunity to still get his dessert date with Caroline—and they wouldn't even have to leave her driveway if he brought dessert with him.

Everyone started chit-chatting, and Dawson couldn't grab a pan of brownies and race out. He talked with Preacher for a few minutes about making sure his horses were shod before the drive, and he got the name of a great farrier Shiloh Ridge had been using.

That meant Chris Palms probably wouldn't have time for the horses at his ranch, but he took down the info anyway. The farrier world wasn't that big, and if Chris couldn't come do it, he'd have another recommendation.

He chatted with Link about how Valentine's Day had been for him and Misty, then something about the wedding, and then he finally picked up a paper plate and put four brownies on it. No one said a word to him about the number of them, and he almost felt like a criminal sneaking out the door and hurrying to his truck.

After sending a quick text to Caroline, so she'd know he was just-now leaving, he did just that. Sometimes he hated the long drive into town, but most of the time it brought him a sense of comfort and relief. He could calm down in this quiet time, instead of having to move immediately from one thing to the next.

So by the time he showed up at Caroline's house, his pulse had returned to normal and his irritation with the evening had fled. Thankfully.

Caroline sat on her front steps, already waiting for him, and Dawson picked up the treats and headed toward her. "Hey, you," he said, feeling bright and bubbly all of a sudden.

She looked up at him, something soft in her eyes. Something guarded too. "Hey, baby."

He handed her the plate of brownies and settled beside her. "I love it when you call me baby," he said to the dark sky. Her porch light blazed into the night, but it was above and behind them, and it didn't pierce the darkness for very long or very far.

"I love seeing you after a long day at work," he said. "And I adore getting off the ranch and seeing you on these steps."

She reached over and took his hand, but she didn't start her list of things she loved and adored. Dawson shifted and picked up a brownie. He wasn't sure what to say next, because he wasn't the one who needed to say it.

"I freaked out at your follow-up questions this afternoon," she said, her fingers oh-so-tight in his.

"Is that right?"

"You used words like proposal and marriage and fall in love , and I don't know. I wasn't ready for them."

Dawson took a bite of his brownie so he wouldn't take a leaf out of Bear Glover's book and growl. Or say something he'd regret the moment it left his mouth. Caroline leaned her head against his shoulder and cradled his hand in both of hers now.

That was definitely something he could say he loved and adored. But he said nothing.

"It's stupid, I know," she whispered. "I want to fall in love again."

"Do you?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"So what is it that scared you?"

"I didn't say I was scared."

"But you were," he said, not really in the mood for games or semantics. " Freaked out is the same as scared ."

Caroline lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes cool and full of fire at the same time. He didn't normally challenge her, but Dawson wasn't going to be railroaded either. He was one-half of this relationship, and he wanted to be a full fifty percent.

"It's okay if you were scared," he said. "I'm terrified. I've never been in love. Never even thought about marriage. I don't have a house to live in with a wife. Nothing." He sighed and picked up another brownie. "It's a good thing you have this rule, so I can get my ducks in a row. You know, if I need to do that."

Caroline leaned against him again. "My grandma had this saying about ducks. She said hers were never in a row, that they didn't even know what rows were."

Dawson smiled, because that sounded like the opposite of Caroline .

"And she'd say, ‘But it doesn't matter, Caroline, because if you can't get your ducks in a row, then maybe you only have one, and he's always right where he needs to be.'" She laughed lightly for a moment. "Then, she started saying she only had geese, and geese were mean, so she just tried to stay out of their way."

Dawson chuckled with her. "Geese are mean," he said.

They both sobered, and Caroline said, "I was scared by the texts. You have valid questions I don't know the answers to, but it made me realize that this thing between us is leading somewhere."

"Mm."

"And it's either like you said—proposals and marriage—or it's not. There's only two ways it ends."

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "We could end up friends."

"Yeah, right," she said. "If you break up with me, you'll never speak to me again."

"Who says I'm going to break up with you?" He bent his head to look at her, but she kept staring out toward the darkened lawn.

"Baby, if we break up, I can guarantee it'll be because of me," she whispered. "And my insane rules, and my inability to let go of even a little bit of control, because I had so little before, you know?" She sniffled, and oh, Dawson couldn't have that.

He lifted his arm and drew her into his side, "Hey, you can't cry over this. It was just a couple of follow-up questions, mostly for myself. For the house thing, and maybe for my obsessive side to start thinking of road trip ideas. That's all. It's not a big deal."

"I can feel myself morphing all over again," she whispered. "And it's not very pleasant, Dawson. It's good. I can feel that it's good, but it's not easy for me."

"Okay," he said. "What can I do to make it easier? Not ask questions?"

"I don't know if it's something you can make easier," she said. "This is the reason I have the rule. So that I have the time I need to make adjustments, and sometimes those are just within me."

"Okay," he said. Silence poured between them now, and he wasn't sure if they were okay or not. Feeling brave, he asked, "So…road trip destinations?"

"You know what I've always wanted to do?"

"Do tell."

"A Mississippi Riverboat cruise."

"That sounds like a boat trip, not a road trip."

"A road trip first, and then a boat trip," she said. "Can you stand boats?"

"I don't rightly know," he said. "I don't think I've ever been on one."

She moved to wrap her arm across his stomach. "Will you look into it, baby?"

"Yes," he whispered. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, needing just a little bit more from her. "Caroline, tell me where we are."

"We're sitting on my front porch, talking about a road-boat trip."

"Come on," he said, perhaps a bit grumpily.

"I think I'm coming out the other side of a personal crisis," she said. "This is one of those emotional wounds you talked about. You get to see that scar, and I'm trying to patch it all back up, so it doesn't define me."

"It's just a little piece of you," he said.

"Right," she said. "I'll get there, and I'm sorry I freaked out."

"Hey, I dang near took a whole pan of brownies and fled the meeting earlier," he said. "Everything is just so slow ."

She laughed and finally picked up a brownie and took a bite. "Mm, these are good."

Dawson had already eaten two, so he didn't take a third. "So we're good?"

"Yes." She wiped brownie crumbs from her lips as she nodded. "We're good. I'm working on things, just like you are."

He studied her, those light eyes he liked so, so much. "I hope we can end up in the same place, at the same time," he murmured. "Because I sure do like you, Caroline."

She grinned and touched her lips to his. Kissing her was the absolute best thing in the world .

"I sure do like you too, Dawson."

Okay, fine, hearing her say that and then kissing her was the absolute best thing in the world. Now, all Dawson had to do was figure out the rest of his life—his role on the ranch, where he'd live with his own wife and family when those things came along, and literally everything else—so he could keep this woman with him.