Chapter 40

Chapter Forty

S ix Months Later:

Dawson ducked under the fence and strode toward the starter burrows he'd gotten permission to develop on the state land bordering the ranch. The burrowing owls had left the ranch in August, after their chicks had been born and taken flight.

But since they normally returned to their nests to lay their eggs during breeding season, Dawson expected them to return. Caroline did too, and while they hadn't been that big of a problem for the eight months they'd called the Rhinehart Ranch home, Dawson had petitioned the state to build "starter burrows" on the state land only twenty yards from the border of the ranch.

When Link had added his name to the petition, it had gone through, and Dawson expected his friend to show up at any time with his horse and a shovel. They needed to loosen the dry, baked dirt out here in order to make the ideal burrowing holes the owls liked.

Dawson had already installed the tree-like structure that would provide the perches for the owls, and it looked like a winter-time tree: leafless and barren, with craggly branches reaching up, left, and right in strange angles.

He'd taken the branches from his mother's contorted Filbert bush at the house, and he'd used wooden nails to attach them to a pole similar to what they used for their fences on the ranch.

The sun shone overhead despite the New Year's holiday. He'd skipped the firemen's fundraising breakfast in favor of working on the burrows this morning, and he planned to see Caroline at his cabin within the hour.

He looked up into the sky, searching for his crows. Thankfully, he didn't see them, and while he had his head tipped back, he prayed, "Lord, I've got a lot riding on Rocks. Can you please guide him to the beads I left out?"

Foolishness filled him, because Dawson realized in that moment that he'd literally planned a proposal around a crow . A flighty bird that he hadn't seen in at least a couple of days.

He put his head down and got to work on the burrows, glad when Link showed up only a few minutes later. He tethered his horse to the fence, then came over it and toward Dawson .

"Hey, brother." He clapped hands with Dawson, pumped his hand, and then pulled him into his chest for a quick bump-hug. Link radiated joy, and Dawson fed off of it. "How's it going?"

They both surveyed the man-made burrows, and Dawson thought it looked like the Taj Mahal for owls. The nearby scrub brush provided some shade and additional camouflage from predators, and if the owls would nest out here, neither Dawson nor Link would have to alter their ranching operations.

"It looks amazing," Link said.

"I'm just roughing up the land," Dawson said. "Because Caroline said if it's too hard, the owls can't dig their own burrows."

"You've got the pipe?"

"Yep, in the back of the truck."

Lincoln nodded, and they got back to work in softening the ground. Dawson then went to retrieve the four-inch drainage pipe he'd use to create the entrances to the future burrows. He gloved his hands and rejoined Link with the pipe.

They only had one, but Link helped Dawson get it in position, and then Dawson jammed it into the ground as far as he could. Then he pulled it out, and Link scraped the earth out, leaving a forty-five-degree angle entrance for the owls.

After a half-hour, Dawson wiped the sweat from his forehead and reseated his cowboy hat. "I think this is enough."

"It's amazing," Link said. "Better than where the owls were on the ranch, I think."

"I agree," Dawson said. "I'll bring Caroline out later today and get her opinion."

"Let me know if I need to come back." He turned and started back toward his horse, and Dawson turned away from the built burrows to go with him.

"Today's the day," he said to Link, who glanced over to him. "I'm going to ask Caroline to marry me." He couldn't keep the smile from his face, and he didn't have anything to hide from Link anyway.

"That's amazing, Dawson," Link said. He laughed and added, "You're going to love being married."

"Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah," Link said. "It's amazing to come home to your wife after a busy day on the ranch." They went over the fence, and Dawson put the pipe in the bed of his truck. "Where are you going to get married?"

"I'm not sure what Caroline has in mind," Dawson said. "I'm gonna leave it up to her."

"Smart. I can ask about using True Blue if you want."

"I mentioned that to her," Dawson said. "And I said we can just get married here, outside. I don't know what exactly she wants." Mostly, Caroline didn't know exactly what she wanted, so though they'd talked about it, Dawson couldn't say for sure where they'd get married.

"How are you askin' her?" Link asked.

Dawson sighed and ran his hand up the back of his neck, bumping his cowboy hat forward. "Well, I'm hoping this crow friend of mine will find the gold Mardi Gras beads I left on the side of the road near my cabin," he said. "I've attached a diamond ring to it, and she's coming for breakfast this morning." He shrugged, feeling stupider and stupider with every word he spoke.

"I don't know."

"She's gonna say yes," Link said as he came to a stop next to his horse. "I've seen the two of you, and she's totally in love with you."

"Yeah," Dawson said with a sigh. "I love her too, but I'm worried this proposal is going to be a nightmare." He should've just put the diamond in his pocket, gotten down on both knees the moment Caroline pulled up to the cabin, and asked her to be his.

"Well, Uncle Bishop says the house is coming along real nice. I didn't ride up the road, but I'm gonna go back that way to look at it."

Another smile sprang to Dawson's face. "Yeah," he said. "The house is looking real good."

Link grinned at him and pulled him into another brotherly hug. "I'm really happy for you, Dawson."

"Thanks, Link."

Link pulled away, his grin as contagious as his happiness. " Stay in touch with the owls and the wedding venue."

"You'll be the first to know on both," Dawson said.

Link stepped up and swung himself into the saddle, pulled his horse around, and said, "Good luck, Dawson," as he rode away, his shovel balanced horizontally in front of him on the saddle.

"Thanks," he called after his friend, and he once again found himself looking up into the sky.

Still crow-less.

"This is so going to be a disaster," he muttered to himself as he moved to get behind the wheel of his truck. "But I'm doing this today, with or without the help of a silly crow."

And with that, Dawson headed back to the cabin where he'd only live for another couple of months. Then his house would be finished, and he'd move in there ahead of his marriage to Caroline.

"If she says yes," he growled as he drove. "She has to say yes first."