DAKOTA JONES PULLED right up to the barn that was now a house, and parked beside his brother’s truck. He left his duffel in the Jeep SUV and went to the door. He stood in indecision for a moment—they had a six-month-old baby. He knocked rather than ring the bell, just in case the child was sleeping. A few moments later, he knocked again. And a third time. Finally the door opened.
“Dakota!” Cal said with a grin. “What are you doing here?”
“I came by way of Australia. It’s a long story—”
“I can’t wait to hear what that’s about,” Cal said. “Want to come in or stand out there awhile longer?”
“I don’t want to wake the baby,” Dakota said.
“The baby is in Denver with Maggie. They’ll be back tonight.”
“That sounds like an interesting arrangement,” Dakota said.
“Like a tug-of-war, my friend. Something to drink?” Cal offered. “Food?”
“A cold beer would be nice.” He looked around. The place was beautiful, but that came as no surprise. Cal’s house with his first wife had been a showplace. Given the way the Jones siblings had grown up, something like a good, solid house that a person was proud to come home to would fill a need that had been neglected when they were kids. Cal put a beer in Dakota’s hand. “The place looks great,” Dakota said.
But Cal didn’t respond to that. Instead, he said, “What were you doing in Australia?”
“I’d never been there,” he said. “I wanted to walkabout. That’s when—”
Cal cut him off with a laugh. “I know what a walkabout is.” He tilted his beer toward Dakota in a toast. “I’ve never seen you with that much hair. On your face and everything.”
Dakota stroked his beard. “I could probably use a trim.”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on before Maggie and Elizabeth get home.”
“Well, in Australia I visited one of the Rangers I served with years ago and together we checked in on another one. Then, with some input from them, I hit out on the trail for about a month, seeing some of the country, camping, fishing, practicing the identification and avoidance of snakes and crocodiles—”
“I meant, the Army! You’re out? I knew you weren’t happy there anymore. You said we’d talk about it someday.”
“I wasn’t sure where I’d end up but I was sure I’d get out here for a visit. With you and Sierra here and a new baby—I wanted to at least drop by.”
Cal sighed. “Dakota. The Army.”
“Well, I’m a little surprised I was in as long as I was. I never intended to make it a career. I wanted their offer of free travel and education.”
Cal just lifted one brow. Free travel? To a variety of war zones?
Dakota grinned. “I had a small disagreement with a colonel. We didn’t see things the same way. Apparently I was insubordinate. It was time to think about doing something new.”
“Were you honorably discharged?” Cal asked, pushing him.
Dakota shook his head. “But I wasn’t dishonorably discharged.”
He was simply discharged, but that said something. You had to screw up pretty bad to not get an honorable discharge.
“What’d you do?” Cal asked.
“I disagreed with his forward action and told him it would get people killed. Rangers—it could get Rangers killed. I had ten or a hundred times the experience he had but he was in competition with me or something because he was hell-bent to drive five of our best Rangers right into the known hotbed of ISIS training and it was going to get people dead. I think they plucked that idiot out of the motor pool and put him in charge of a unit. I overrode his orders and he threatened me with jail. I thought that it was probably time for a career change.”
“They sent you home?” Cal asked. “You must have done something even worse than disagree for them to send you home!”
Dakota squirmed. “I was acting in the best interest of my men.”
“What’d you do?” Dakota didn’t answer. “You hit him or something?”
“No, my guys wouldn’t let me do that,” he said. Then he hung his head briefly. “I let the air out of the tires until I could get in touch with another colonel I know who could try to intercede with the orders that would put us directly in harm’s way.”
“Jeeps?” Cal asked.
“No. MRAPs.”
“MRAPs?”
“Mine resistant assault protective vehicles. The big ones.”
“Those big mammoth desert beasts with tires taller than I am?” Cal asked. “How the hell do you let the air out of those?”
“With a .45,” he said softly. “Or M16.”
“You shot out the tires? How is it you’re not in jail?”
“I was. Good behavior,” he said. “And it was determined the colonel was incompetent and had done even worse things before. Cal, he was crazy. Homicidal. He had no idea what he was doing. He wasn’t a Ranger—he had very little combat experience. He was a joke. I wasn’t going to let him get any more people killed.”
They sat in heavy silence for a little while, each tilting their beer bottle a couple of times. Finally Dakota broke the silence.
“Listen, it happens in the military sometimes. They take a guy who just made rank and give him a unit to command and sometimes the fit is bad. A buddy of mine, a doctor, his boss had no experience in the medical corps. He was a pilot. And he was making decisions for a bunch of doctors and a hospital that were dangerous to the patients, but he wouldn’t compromise, he wouldn’t listen to reason, he wouldn’t ask for advice. According to my friend, people were left untreated, in pain, mishandled. A whole fleet of doctors mutinied and the colonel retaliated. That kind of thing doesn’t happen all that often—usually there’s at least one clear head in the game...” He took a breath. “They got my guy from the knitting battalion, I think. Jesus, I’ve worked for a few dipshits, but this one was exceptional.”
“But you got out. With three years to retirement.”
“Yeah, I have plenty of time for my next career move,” he said. Then he grinned. “I’m still a kid.”
“So you went walkabout,” Cal said with a laugh. “Proving you’re just like the rest of us?”
“You did it after Lynne’s death. And it worked. But why? That’s my question. Why do we wander? It was the wandering while we were growing up that I hated the most.”
* * *
Dakota’s parents thought of themselves as wanderers. Or hippies. Or new age thinkers, whatever. What they really were was a father who was schizophrenic, often delusional and paranoid, and a mother who was his keeper and protector. They took their four children with them as they roamed the country in a van and then later a school bus converted into an RV. They made regular stops at their grandparents’ farm in Iowa and finally lived there full-time when Dakota was twelve, Cal, the oldest, was sixteen and their two sisters, Sedona and Sierra, were fourteen and ten.
Cal was still patient and understanding with their parents, with the father who wouldn’t consider medication that would make him functional, or at least more functional. He was even tender with them. Sedona acted responsibly toward them in a kind but businesslike way, visiting regularly and making sure they weren’t in need or in trouble. Sierra, the baby of the family, was mostly confused by how they chose to live. But Dakota? He’d spent much of his childhood not going to school, taking his lessons in a bus from his mother. The whole family worked when there was work, mostly harvesting vegetables with other migrant workers. When they did settle in Iowa on his grandparents’ farm, he went to school full-time. He’d taken a lot of bullying in junior high and high school because his parents, Jed and Marissa, were so weird. Dakota was ashamed of them. They made no sense to him. Dakota was decisive and action-oriented and would have gotten old Jed on meds or kicked him out, but instead his mother coddled him, shielded him, let him have his way even though his way was crazy. So Dakota had been a loner. He’d had very few friends.
Dakota left the second he could, right after high school graduation when he was seventeen. He enlisted in the Army and had visited his parents about four times since. Each time he went back to that farm in Iowa they seemed more weird than the time before. He rarely called. They had apparently hardly noticed.
He also protected himself against anyone getting too close while he waited to see if he was going to become mentally ill, as well. At thirty-five, he was now pretty sure he was safe from that. And, after all this time, his independent and aloof behavior was accepted by his brother and sisters.
It was easy to remain unattached in the military. He had friends whose company he enjoyed but there were very few with whom he had really bonded and their bond was one of military brothers. He would join the guys for a few beers, as he was regularly included in social events—parties, outings to the lake, ski trips, whatever his group was doing—and he was called, You know, Dakota, the bachelor.
There were women, of course. Dakota loved women. He just wasn’t the type to make long-term commitments to anyone, especially girlfriends. Even if he was with a certain woman for a while, he wasn’t exactly coupled. Well, there was one, but it had been so brief, and had ended so tragically, it reminded him that it was better not to get too involved. He wasn’t the marrying kind. He was better off on his own. He was never lonely, never bored. The way he played it he didn’t have to explain where he came from, how he grew up, how bizarre his family was. In seventeen years in the Army he had never met a guy who grew up like him—essentially homeless, raised in a bus by a couple of wackos.
But recently, something had changed for him. It was slow. Subtle. Cal lost his wife and then, two years later, remarried. Maggie, a neurosurgeon of all things, was awesome. Now they had a baby, were a family. Cal had never shied from commitment, as if very confident he’d be a better family man than his father was. Their little sister had joined Cal in Timberlake and was also settling down. Sierra had hooked up with a firefighter, a fantastic guy. Connie, short for Conrad, was smart, physical, loyal, the kind of guy he admired. Dakota knew in five minutes that Connie had integrity. And watching the way Sierra was with him almost made Dakota long for something like that. Sedona had been married since right after college, had a couple of kids, was by all accounts living a normal life. So far none of them had decided to live in a bus like their parents had. Little by little it had begun to tease his mind that possibly he could have a normal adult life. Maybe he could actually have friends and family and not have to protect himself from being himself.
But he was damn sure taking it slow.
* * *
Cal called everyone. Sierra and Connie came straight over with their golden retriever, Molly. Maggie’s father, Sully, came after he had closed up the general store at his campground, Sullivan’s Crossing. Maggie arrived with the baby and walked into a party atmosphere.
Since Dakota’s arrival was unannounced and Cal wasn’t prepared, everyone brought something to the table. Sierra had a platter of chicken breasts swimming in barbecue sauce and a big seven-layer salad, Connie brought beer and some of the cold green tea Sierra favored. Sully brought some broccoli sealed in a foil with garlic, olive oil, onions, mushrooms and pepperoncinis. They put it on the grill with the chicken. Cal supplied baked potatoes.
“How long are you staying?” Sierra wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” Dakota said. “I’ve been using the last few months to explore.”
“Unfortunately, ain’t nothin’ to explore around here,” Sully said.
“Oh, Cody,” Sierra said, using his nickname from when they were kids. “Don’t listen to Sully! I think I got my brain back hiking around here. Cal did the CDT for a month.”
Dakota raised his eyebrows. “Did I know that?” he asked.
“I can’t remember. But yes, I took the Continental Divide Trail north from Sully’s place. I walked and camped for about two and a half weeks, then turned around and came back.”
“Because I was here,” Maggie said with a smile and lift of her chin. “And he wanted me. Bad.”
“I wish I could do that,” Connie said. “Longest I’ve been out there is four days. Sierra, we gotta do that. Go out there for a couple of months.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m so addicted to daily showers...”
“I have to decide where I’m going to stop exploring,” Dakota said.
“As in, settle down?” Cal asked.
“I don’t know if that’s possible,” he said. “After the Army? I might not have the temperament for staying in one place.”
“Are you going to hang around at least awhile?” Sierra asked hopefully.
“You bet,” he said. “I’ll be around awhile. Maybe I can help out.”
“You can babysit,” Cal said.
“Now, that’s one thing I’m pretty sure I can’t do,” Dakota said. “I’m good with kids, but it’s best if they’re college graduates.”
There was a round of moans and laughter.
By nine o’clock Sully had gone back to the Crossing, Maggie and Elizabeth had gone to bed and it was only Sierra, Connie, Cal and Dakota. The men were having one more beer. Sierra, in recovery, a year and a half sober, was drinking her green tea.
“I’ll have to go to two meetings tomorrow after spending the night with you big drinkers,” she said.
Cal laughed at her. “Three of us had eight beers in six hours. As celebrations go, it was pretty tame.”
“If it bothers you...” Dakota began.
“It doesn’t,” she said. “But I’m going to feel a lot better than you tomorrow morning.”
“Since you’re going to feel so good tomorrow, want to take me out on the trail?” Dakota asked. Molly rose from her sleeping spot, shook herself awake and leaned against Dakota’s thigh. Waiting. “Does this one go hiking?”
“Sometimes I take Molly and Beau, Sully’s lab. But I can only stay out there a couple of hours at most if they’re with me.” She stood. “I’ll come for you at 8:20. Come on, Connie. Time to put the baby to bed.”
Dakota and Cal snapped to attention.
“Molly,” she said. “I meant Molly.”
“Shew,” Dakota said. “If there was another one, I was going to run for my life!”
“There’s just Elizabeth,” Sierra said. “And they won’t commit to whether they’ll add to the family. And I’m definitely not in the game.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“Duh. Our crazy father and his genetic code, for one thing. Come on, Connie. It’s past our bedtime.”
Dakota looked at his watch. “This is a real lively crowd,” he said, standing to say good-night. He kissed his sister’s cheek. “See you in the morning. By the way, you’re looking good.”
“Thanks,” she said, beaming. “So are you. A little shaggy, but good.”
Dakota flashed her a grin. Behind his dark beard, it was dazzling.
Sierra combed her fingers along his cheeks, through his beard. “Little gray coming in here, Cody.”
“I earned it,” he said. He kissed her forehead. “See you in the morning.”
* * *
In the seventeen years since Dakota left his family behind for the Army, the time he spent with them was infrequent and brief. Cal and Sedona tried to keep up with him. He visited them for important events—Cal’s wedding to Lynne, then his wedding to Maggie. When Sedona’s children were born, he checked in. He never stayed long. Sierra, who was so special to him, had been a wild card until she found sobriety. He had visited for a couple of days at a time, that’s all. He didn’t want to get too attached to them.
This time was different. The second, third and fourth days came and went. He hiked with Sierra, then Cal, then just the dogs. He dug out Sully’s garden for spring planting. They repaired the grills and picnic tables and talked all the while. Sully was very cool for an old guy. He admitted he came home from Vietnam with some PTSD and asked how Dakota had fared in that regard. “Oh, I’ve got PTSD all right,” Dakota said. “Probably more from my personal life than my military experience.”
“Then aren’t you one of the lucky ones,” Sully said.
Dakota cleaned out the gutters around Sully’s house and store and threw the balls for the dogs. Then he had to bathe the dogs because it had rained and they got into the freshly turned soil and compost in the garden. While hanging out at the Crossing he met Tom Canaday, the guy who helped Cal renovate the barn that was now his stunning house. Tom was Sully’s good friend and part-time handyman, a single dad with two kids in college and two still in high school. When Tom told him all the jobs he’d had while raising his kids, Dakota was inspired.
Maybe it wasn’t necessary for him to make big, permanent decisions about what to do for work or where to settle. Maybe he could coast for a little while. “Think a guy like me could work on a road crew?” he asked Tom. “Or haul trash?”
Tom laughed. “A vet who served? Who has ties to the town? Hell, Dakota, anyone would hire you. I’ll give you a recommendation. You just have to decide what you want to do. I’ve been working for the county for almost twenty years.”
“I should probably pick up trash,” he said. “Penance for all my misdeeds.”
“Misdeeds?” Tom asked with a laugh. “Cal said you were a decorated soldier.”
“I just about undecorated myself before it was all over,” he said. He scratched his beard. “I guess I should get a haircut. Do I need to lose the beard?”
Tom laughed. “This is Colorado, man. You look homegrown.”
“Good. I’ve grown kind of attached.” He grinned. “So to speak.”
“I’ll find out what they’re hiring for and get you an application.”
When he went home from Sully’s after a productive day, he found Cal in his home office, just hanging up the phone.
“So, you’re still here,” Cal said. “It’s been five days. I think that’s a record.”
“Am I getting underfoot?” Dakota asked.
“I’ve hardly noticed you,” he said. “You feeling underfoot?”
Dakota shook his head, leaning against the door frame.
“Baby bothering you?” Cal asked.
“The baby is kind of awesome,” Dakota said. “I’m not babysitting, however.”
Cal laughed. “We managed before you arrived, we’ll continue to manage.”
“So, what if I hung around?” he asked.
“What if?” Cal returned.
“Would that be weird for you?”
“Nah. I actually like you. Sort of.” Then he sobered. “You’re welcome here, Dakota. And thanks for helping Sully. It’s appreciated.”
“Everyone was helping him get the grounds ready, but I think now it’s going to rain. For days.”
“That’s what I hear,” Cal said. “Every March the rain comes, every March Sully gets the campground ready for summer. Well, spring and summer. We all help out. It wasn’t expected of you, so thanks. Now what?”
“Well,” he said, scratching his chin. “I’m going to get a haircut, trim the beard a little, get a job, look for a place to live...”
“I’m not throwing you out,” Cal said. “If you can live with Elizabeth, you can stay here. The rent’s cheap.”
“Elizabeth is a hoot,” he said. “I thought I’d rent something because it’s what I do. That doesn’t mean I won’t hang out with you sometimes.”
“This sounds kind of long-term,” Cal said.
“For me,” Dakota clarified. “A few months, anyway. I like the Crossing, the trails, the lake, the people. Seems like a good place to collect my thoughts.”
“We’d love it if you were close,” Cal said. “Listen, you okay here by yourself for a few days? It’s time for Maggie to go to Denver again. Three to four days a week she operates and sees patients. She has a babysitter there but I don’t have any clients or court appearances so I’m going along this time. I won’t be back unless someone calls and needs me.”
Dakota laughed and ran a hand over his head. “All this flexibility is giving me a rash. I’m used to a strict routine.”
“Fine,” Cal said. “Have a strict routine, that won’t bother anyone. But Maggie and I have Elizabeth and two careers. Not to mention Sully and a campground. Just let me know if you’re going to be around for a meal, that’s all I need from you. Well, that and if you’re going to stumble in at 3:00 a.m. and make me get out the rifle because I think someone’s breaking in. That would involve communication, Dakota. You haven’t exactly excelled in that.”
“So I’ve been told,” he said. “You have my cell number, right?”
“You have enough money to rent your own place? Because I—”
“I got it,” Dakota said. “And I’ll be sure to call so you can throw another potato in the soup.”
Cal was quiet for a moment. “It’s been good. Having you around,” he finally said.
“I’ll do my best not to screw that up,” Dakota said.
Cal, Maggie and Elizabeth left very early in the morning for Denver. If Dakota understood things correctly, Maggie would go straight to work, seeing patients all morning, then operating all afternoon, then repeating that cycle again and again. One week it would be three long days, the next week it would be four days. Once a month she would be on call to the emergency room, adding a fifth day to her cycle. And Cal, a criminal defense attorney, was seeing clients in his home office or other meeting places—the diner, the Crossing on Sully’s porch, the bookstore—and for anything from wills to real estate deals. Once in a while he actually got someone out of jail. Dakota filed that information away in case he needed it.
That left Dakota on his own for a few days. And as Sully had predicted, it rained. And rained.
He dropped into a real estate office and picked up a flyer of local rental properties, then headed for a haircut. He looked up and down the street and found that the barbershop was closed so he dropped in to the beauty shop. Fancy Cuts. He stepped inside the door and spied six chairs and three clients with hair stylists. He flashed that million-watt smile of his and said, “I’m not looking for anything real fancy, but can you handle a head and a beard left unattended awhile?”
Less than a moment passed. A beautiful young woman took a step toward him. “I’ve got this,” she said confidently to the other stylists, both older women. “Give me five minutes. Have a seat.”
She went back to her client, an elderly woman whose hair seemed to be a mass of pink sausages. “You can’t be done in five minutes,” the client said a bit more loudly than necessary.
“Oh, yes, I will,” said the beauty. “And you’ll love it.”
“Well, it better not be—”
The stylist applied a brush and went to town. She fluffed out the woman’s hair, did a little backcombing and shaping, sprayed some spray.
Dakota picked up a magazine and idly paged through it. Good oral hygiene had never served him better. In five minutes he was in the chair with the beautiful Alyssa running a comb casually through his dark hair. “What are we doing with you today?”
Dakota was suddenly conscious of how long it had been since he’d had sex. “Nothing special,” he said. Up against the wall work for you? “Just trim it up, and can you trim the beard? Not Hollywood, just not Duck Dynasty.”
“I’ve got it,” she said, showing him a brilliant smile of her own. “Let’s start with a good shampoo. Right this way.”
He didn’t mention he’d already done that in his morning shower but instead let her lead him to the back. While she massaged his scalp and quizzed him, he just let his eyes close gently. He had a brother not so far from here, he said. He was just out of the Army and planned on exploring the country a little, starting here. He liked to fish and hike. He wasn’t making any plans for a while. He was deliberately vague. This was a small town. He didn’t want to do or say anything that might reflect badly on Cal or Sierra and all those attached. Until he got the lay of the land, he’d be a little mysterious.
But her fingers in his hair felt amazing. “You married, Alyssa?” he asked in a soft, smoky voice.
“Still waiting for the right guy, Dakota,” she whispered back. “Do you have a lot of friends around here?” she asked, smothering his head with a towel and leading him back to her station.
“My brother’s friends,” he said with a shrug. “A few nice people.”
“No girlfriend?”
He met her eyes in the mirror. “No girlfriend.”
“I take that to mean there’s no wife or fiancée, either?” she asked.
He shook his head, feeling like great sex could be minutes away. It was a feeling, not something he’d act on. This was Cal and Sierra’s town. Hit-and-run wouldn’t work. The repercussions could make life difficult for people he cared about and he wouldn’t risk it. But this Alyssa, long-legged, beautiful, friendly, ready—this held great promise. He might have found himself a woman to pass the time with. It was worth considering. And it was worth slowing down and using caution.
“You know your way around a pair of scissors,” he said, looking in the mirror. The haircut was excellent; the beard was looking good.
“You okay with the gray?” she asked. “Because if you’re not...”
“I think it’s fine,” he said. “I earned every one.”
“That’s good, because I like it. It’s very attractive.”
“Are you buttering me up for a good tip?” he teased.
“You’re kidding, right? Since you’re new to the area, could you use someone to show you around?”
“That might come in handy,” he said. “Right now I have somewhere I have to be. Maybe you’d trust me with your phone number?”
“Sure,” she said. She waited for him to get out his phone, then rattled off the digits. “I’d be more than happy to. This is a great little town. Full of possibilities.”
“I can see that,” he said. “Well, Alyssa, thanks for a good job. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon.”
He paid in cash; the tip was excellent. He put on his jacket, turned the collar up and walked out into the rain. He went down the block and across the street to the diner. Sierra was working today. He’d have lunch and show her his flyer of rental properties.
Dakota took a booth at the diner and let Sierra wait on him. He ordered a bowl of soup, half a sandwich and a coffee. It wasn’t long before Sierra slid into the booth with a slice of blueberry pie.
“Is that for me?” he asked.
She looked at it for a second. “Yes,” she said. Then she went back behind the counter and got another slice of pie, making him laugh at her.
“You’re so thoughtful,” he said.
“I am,” she said. “In the early summer we have rhubarb pie and rhubarb cobbler. I think this year I’m going to learn to bake.”
“When are you going to learn to get married?” he asked. “Seems like six months ago Connie asked us all if we would give consent and I guess I thought...”
“Well, you old fogy, you.” She grinned at him. “We keep meaning to plan something. Hey, Cal’s gone, right? Connie’s off tonight. It’s going to be cold and rainy. We’re having a fire and soup. Wanna come over?”
“I don’t know. Is there any nightlife around here?” he asked.
“Yeah—at our house. Fire and soup. Connie’s cooking. It’s amazing. Firemen are excellent cooks. Maybe if you’re very good, we’ll put on a movie. Or play a board game.”
He gave her a steady look. “I don’t think it’s going to take me long to get really bored.”
“You coming?”
“Sure,” he said with a shrug.