Chapter 17: Dallas

I started throwing us some sandwiches together and pulled out a couple glass bottled Orange Crush’s. I knew that was Autumn’s next favorite drink when she wasn’t guzzling down sweet tea. I then threw some chips and salsa onto the table before making a small fruit salad. It wasn’t the nicest lunch ever, but it would do before I had to go back and tend to the animals some more. Hearing Autumn shuffling around upstairs, I couldn’t help rushing over, knowing she was about to come down.

“I can get down a flight of steps now,” she informed.

I smiled. “I know, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.” I watched her continue making her way down, marveling about how stunningly beautiful she looked. My heart thundered in my chest. She had on a pair of white linen pants and a tight pink tank top. Her feet were bare, her hair hung around her neck, and the smile on her face sent shivers down my spine. I’d completely fallen back in love with this woman—or more in love, rather, considering I had always been in love with her to begin with. It was then that I decided to try talking with her over lunch about possibly doing the long-distance thing. I didn’t know what she was doing now or where she was doing it, but I wanted her to know that I supported her and that wherever she was, we could somehow make this work.

“Come on. I got sandwiches, Orange Crush, and chips.”

“Oh God, Orange Crush. I haven’t had it in ages,” she said with an appreciative groan.

We made our way to the kitchen table, and before we sat down, she snatched up her open bottle. She chugged it back and swallowed hard, moaning and groaning while she did so, sending a small tent growing behind my pants. A small drop of orange liquid trickled out the side of her mouth and mindlessly I reached out to swipe it away. The orange drop hit my finger and pulled away from her skin. She looked at me, a hint of something in her eyes that I couldn’t put my finger on.

“Just a little drop there,” I said lamely.

Autumn cleared her throat and dropped into her seat, while I went over to the fridge and grabbed her another bottle before joining her.

“Well, one of my heifer’s looks to be ready to pop within the next week or so. I’ve gotta place a call to the vet and have him come over to take a look at her.”

“Oh, wow, how exciting! You sure you don’t want to place that call now?” she asked.

“I’ll do it after I’m done eating. Right now, she’s sleeping and I don’t wanna risk him coming over and waking her up.”

“How’re the bulls doing? Don’t you have rodeo lessons to give?”

“I canceled and moved those around, so they won’t start up for another few days. Which is fine, because those boys need a rest anyway.”

“Ah. Gotcha.”

Autumn mindlessly ate her sandwich, seeming so thoroughly preoccupied that I started growing worried. My cat prowled beneath the surface.

“You feelin’ all right? Did something happen while I was working?” I asked cautiously.

“Not at all. Why would you ask?”

“You just seem a little… off, I guess.”

She nodded slowly, but when she set her sandwich down and sighed, I knew I’d hit a nerve.

“Autumn, what’s going on?” I prodded. “Are you getting nauseous again? Is your head still hurting?”

“No, nothing like that,” she said and then sighed. Tears began to rise to her eyes. I immediately dropped my sandwich and approached her, dropping down to my knee and leaning in to her, my stomach twisting as her face crinkled up.

“Dallas, I’ve gotta tell you something, and I’m not sure how you’re gonna feel about it,” she said between sniffs.

“Autumn, I’ve got you. What in the world is going on?” I took her hand and started rubbing circles on it, but she pulled away from me and shot up from her chair.

“You remember that night in college?” she blurted out. I slowly rose from my kneeled position, my entire body growing rigid.

I could sense it; we were finally about to have this conversation…

“I’ll never forget it,” I said, my voice strained.

“Jesus…” she breathed. “I-I-I, uh… I have a confession to make,” she stammered.

I nodded. “All right,” I said, trying to keep my cool, even though my hands had involuntarily balled up into fists. I glanced down at them, afraid for a fleeting moment that I would have a repeat of earlier, when one hand accidentally shifted into a paw. But fortunately, my human hands remained intact.

I had never planned on having this particular conversation; all I wanted was to talk about us moving forward. Our future. The past was the past, and I was more than willing to leave it there, but apparently, Autumn was dead set on dredging it up.

It wasn’t much of a shocker though; Autumn had always seemed to be a bit stuck in the past.

“I got a job offer in Paris,” she began, “and, um… it was essentially my dream job, you know? They were hiring me to be an apprentice to one of the premier fashion labels that dominates that area. Dallas, I mean… they don’t pay apprentices, you know? And they loved my stuff so much they were going to pay me.”

I kept my cool and kept my mouth shut, but the tears streaming down her face told me she wasn’t done.

“They told me I was due in the office June 9th,” she said lightly.

“What?” I asked, not understanding.

“The 9th…” she whispered.

“The day after graduation,” I said, it finally dawning on me.

She nodded, but there were so many things that still didn’t make sense.

“How the hell did you get a place to stay that quickly?” I asked. She slowly panned her gaze to me and my body grew cold. “You were already researching places…” I said, my voice trailing off.

“For about a month,” she admitted.

“You knew for a fucking month, Autumn?”

She didn’t respond, but, her pause told me everything I needed to know.

“How long did you know about that job?” I asked, agitated.

“They contacted me in March. Dallas, I swear to God I tried to find a way to tell you. Every time I researched apartments and every time I choked on how expensive it was going to be to live in Paris. Every single time there was an opening in a conversation, I tried to tell you. But I thought…”

Her voice faltered and my mind began running a million miles a second.

“Don’t you dare stop right there, Autumn,” I hissed, not even bothered by the slightly inhumane tone that had crept into my voice. “You thought what?”

She looked at me, somewhat fearfully. “Dallas, please…”

“You don’t get to control this anymore, Autumn!” I yelled. “I made lunch and was gonna talk to you about how we could move forward long-distance from this point on! I wanted to talk about our future. You’re the one who had to bring up college! So talk! Finish what you were going to say!”

“You were gonna talk about a long-distance relationship?” she said, her eyes wide with shock.

“Autumn August!” I roared, not willing to let her change the subject.

“I thought you’d try to make me stay!” she shrieked. “Okay? I thought that if I told you, that you wouldn’t support me or approve, and you’d ask me to stay with you!”

It felt like the entire world had been ripped from underneath my feet. I swayed on the spot. “You left me in the middle of the night after graduation, after I laid with you and told you I loved you and that you were the one for me, because you thought I wouldn’t support you?” My voice had started to rumble threateningly throughout the house, and I knew my anger was raging out of control. My bones ached from wanting to shift and the mountain lion inside of me wanted so badly to pounce on something, not necessarily Autumn because I would never hurt her, but my attack instinct was being triggered nonetheless. My mind spun, my body felt numb, and for the first time since that morning waking up without her, I felt like throwing something it against the wall.

Taking a deep breath and forcing myself calm before things went terribly wrong, I asked in a low voice, “Who was the one who encouraged you to pursue fashion?”

“You,” Autumn whispered.

“And who was the one who fielded your parents when you switched your major from education to fashion?”.

“You,” she choked out.

“And who was the one who encouraged you to send your damn portfolio off to Paris in the first place while you sat there, night after night, crying because you didn’t think you weren’t good enough?!”

“You,” she sobbed.

“Then why the hell did you think I suddenly wouldn’t have supported you?!” I yelled, my rage mounting uncontrollably once more. I had half a mind to shift in front of her just so that she could feel as put-off as I did.

“Because I knew if you asked me to say, I would’ve!” she yelled painfully. “You wanted me to be your mate!”

“My what!?!”

“Your mate, you think I didn’t know? All these years and I was supposed to ignore that you’re a shifter. I know what mate means Dallas, forever. I didn’t know what to do!”

My rage came to a screeching halt, her statement stopping me dead in my tracks. I tilted my head, catlike, staring at her, trying to let what she’d just said sink in.

“I knew if you asked, or gave me a look, or asked me to postpone it…Or even asked to go with me…I would have went along with whatever you wanted. And I couldn’t risk any of that happening. So I just fucking left, all right?”

My chest had grown tight, making the room suddenly feel devoid of oxygen and leaving me panting for breath. My mind had come to a complete and total freeze as I stood there, watching Autumn sob in my kitchen. All this time, she knew.

“What the hell would’ve been so wrong with me goin’ with you?” I asked.

“The hell kinda rodeo farm life is in Paris, Dallas?”

I closed my eyes and shook my head before turning my back on her. My heart felt like it had been shattered and thrown into a fire to burn, and I knew I had to get out of the house before I said something I was gonna regret.

“I never would’ve made you stay,” I said. “I never would’ve made you toss your dreams out for me. Not after all the support you showed me with the rodeo.”

“Dallas, I’m so sorry.”

“But you don’t believe that, do you?” I challenged, whipping back around and catching her stare. The way she seemed to buck up just a bit told me exactly what I needed to know. “You still think I would’ve asked you to stay, after everything I did to encourage your fashion in college.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I do. It’s in your nature.”

Annoyed, I gritted my teeth and turned down the hallway, blocking out her voice yelling after me as I slammed through the front door. My hands trembled and I wanted nothing more than to yell out all sorts of nasty, disgusting things. But instead, I ripped my phone from my pocket and dialed my vet’s number.

“Yeah. Need ya to come look at one of my heifer’s,” I said. “Yeah. I’m good. Just swamped with work. See ya soon.”

I shut my phone and threw it across the yard before I made my way to the heifer’s barn. I didn’t give a shit that it was about to rain and I didn’t give a shit that I’d left a mess that Autumn would probably feel obligated to clean up. I couldn’t believe that woman. After all the fighting I did with her parents to try and convince them that she could make a living out of fashion, how the hell did she somehow think I’d try to stop her from pursuing that passion? In college, I was the one who consoled her self-conscious ass after she cried for weeks about not being good enough to submit her portfolio in the first fucking place.

And she knew about me, all these years and said nothing. Nothing.

What kind of Twilight Zone was I in?

I knew I should’ve gone back and cleaned up that kitchen. I knew I shouldn’t have left it for her to take care of—after all, she was still technically recuperating, and I was still technically taking care of her. But I was too worked up, and the animals I had around my farm always seemed to calm me down.

Plus, it was about time Autumn learned to clean up her own damn messes anyway.