BENNETT HADN’T REALLY known how he was supposed to break the news to his family gently. So, he decided that he would do his best to make it quick, and to make it so he had to tell the story only once. That meant asking everybody to come for dinner at Wyatt’s house on the Get Out of Dodge property. He knew that making a cryptic command like that would cause everybody to be a little bit concerned. And he didn’t want to say anything leading like I have an important announcement either. Because then they might think he was sick, or moving to a commune or something.
Probably, they all just thought he wanted to get together to continue to process the reality of Olivia having another man’s baby.
He shook his head and laughed for no reason at all really because what the hell was funny? He kind of longed for the days when that seemed like the most shocking bit of information he could possibly get in a year.
He hadn’t really thought of Olivia at all since Dallas had showed up.
He swung into the Valley Veterinary parking lot, gripping the steering wheel tightly. He was picking Dallas up and then Kaylee was going to follow them over to the ranch. He had checked in on them at lunch, and everything seemed fine. Dallas had been—surprisingly—helping Kaylee wrangle some of the animals that had come in, and he didn’t seem overly put upon by it either.
Kaylee, for her part, didn’t seem especially put upon either. He could tell that this morning she had been a little bit irritated with him over leaving Dallas at the clinic. But it had seemed like the best option. Forcing the kid to ride around in a truck with him all day wouldn’t have worked. Though, he had expected Dallas to hole up in the break room. He certainly hadn’t expected him to engage in the goings-on of the practice.
He took a deep breath and killed the engine on the truck, getting out and heading into the little yellow cinder block building that he and Kaylee had painted themselves when they had first started out.
He pushed the door open and found Dallas sitting at the front desk, looking at the computer.
“Hi,” Bennett said.
“Hi,” Dallas returned.
“Did you have a good day?”
“Everyone is obsessed with me saying today is good.”
“The alternative is that it’s bad,” Bennett said.
“No. It’s not. It was just a day.” He let out a slow breath. “I...did stuff with animals. It was weird.”
“But not boring?”
“It wasn’t Xbox,” Dallas said, crossing his arms and leaning back in the swivel chair. The serious expression on his face was so familiar it was surreal. That same, stubborn Dodge expression he had seen on any of his brothers countless times. Or in the mirror.
“Well, nothing is,” Bennett said. “Except Xbox. Obviously.”
“True.”
Kaylee came out from one of the exam rooms, her red hair pulled back into a ponytail, her brow crinkled. She looked between them. “Everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” Bennett said, finding it strange the way that Kaylee positioned herself between himself and Dallas.
But then, he had left Dallas with her all day, and she hadn’t ignored him. Which kind of surprised Bennett in some ways. He didn’t imagine Kaylee as being particularly maternal. Not that she wasn’t. Not that she didn’t like kids, it was just that she didn’t seem to ever go out of her way to spend time with them. She never talked about longing for a husband or children or anything like that.
And yet, she seemed to have taken the reins of this situation capably.
Guilt crept up the back of his neck. He shouldn’t have left him with her today. He should have taken Dallas with him no matter what the kid said he wanted.
“He was great,” she said, smiling at Dallas. “I probably wasn’t supposed to tell you that. I mean, he was a total monster. Rebellious. Uncontrollable.”
Dallas rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure I have dog shit on my pants. There’s no protecting my street cred at this point.”
“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.
“Time for the big family dinner,” Bennett said.
“I’ve never been to a family dinner in my life. They sound horrible,” Dallas said, still sitting resolutely in the chair.
“I don’t know how it will be,” Bennett said honestly.
“Can’t we just, like...call?” Dallas asked. “Hey, surprise. I exist.”
“You have to meet them all eventually. Might as well rip the Band-Aid off.”
Dallas lost control of his face for just a moment. He looked vulnerable. Uncertain. And that made Bennett feel bad. Like there was something he should be doing differently. Except he didn’t think there was a way to navigate this that wouldn’t make people feel uncomfortable or emotional. His brothers and sister were going to have a reaction to this. He was going to have to get the news to his father over the phone, and he was going to have a reaction to it. He couldn’t protect himself or Dallas from that fact.
“It’s going to be fine,” Kaylee said, reaching out and squeezing Dallas on the shoulder. “Tonight, I have a feeling it’s going to be a little bit overwhelming. But they need you. I mean, that’s what it’s going to feel like to them. They’re going to be happy. And you need to let them have that.”
“Right,” Dallas said. “I’m going to go to the bathroom.”
He got up and walked toward the single-use bathroom at the back of the clinic, leaving Bennett and Kaylee alone.
“He doesn’t have to be strong for my family,” Bennett said. “That’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid.”
Kaylee shrugged. “I spent the day with him. He’s not comfortable needing anyone. I have a feeling the only way he’s going to get through this is to think that they might need him. I’m just trying to help.”
“Yeah, but I’m his dad,” Bennett said.
“And you left him with me today,” Kaylee said, crossing her arms. “Plus, I relate to the kid, Bennett.”
He looked at his friend, at her eyes sparkling with conviction. Kaylee wasn’t an emotional person. She was coolheaded and steady. The one you wanted on your side in any situation. But she didn’t look cool and steady now. She looked...she looked like fire. And it made him wonder if she would be that hot if he were to touch her.
“Why?” he asked.
“My parents are drunks,” she said baldly, shifting position. “I know I make jokes and stuff, and I know you know I’m not close to them. But it’s more than that. I just... I don’t like talking about it.”
“You won’t talk about,” he said. “Not beyond small comments here and there. I’ve asked you and...”
“Why do you think I never had you over? It’s not just because my house is small or I was embarrassed. It’s because it was a mess, and my mother was probably passed out somewhere. I didn’t want you to know. I wanted to leave my house for the day, close the front door and go out into a world that wasn’t about that. I don’t want to think about it now, or talk about it. We built a better life and I want to live it, not think about a past I didn’t choose and never wanted to be part of.”
“Kaylee,” he said. “If it hurts you then I care about it. I want to know about it.”
She gritted her teeth, her eyes glittering with that stubborn fire that was essentially Kaylee. When that woman dug in, there was no getting her to move. “It’s not important. You know who I am. The details of my home life don’t change that. We’ve been best friends since we were thirteen. The life I had at Get Out of Dodge...that’s what I chose to let shape me. Your family was real to me, they mattered. Your dad. The ranch, the animals, you.”
He imagined Kaylee at Dallas’s age, all elbows and knees and boldness. He hadn’t known that her home life was quite so bad. He’d have thought something like that would make a person shrink, and Kaylee was anything but small.
But he could see it in Dallas. That hot, burning anger that flared up sometimes in his dark eyes. The stubborn set to his chin. And the occasional surprising and wicked sense of humor. It was strange to see a reflection of her in his son. But he did.
“I relate to Dallas,” she said. “He’s been through a hell of a time. He was neglected. Left at home sometimes from when he was seven years old, Bennett. It’s going to take him a long time to admit that he might need somebody. To admit that he deserves love. I’m just trying to put it in a way that it would have made sense to me when I was his age. So that he can... I don’t know. Accept your family now instead of spending years being too afraid to let them close.”
His heart turned over in his chest, and he wanted to...do something. Reach out to Kaylee. Touch her. Offer comfort. She had never said that she was neglected. She had never seemed like she was.
Kaylee had always been a practical, self-contained force of nature. He knew her parents weren’t involved. She didn’t see them all that often, and she seemed okay with it. But people were varying degrees of close with their families.
And now he was justifying. Justifying how he hadn’t realized that she wasn’t simply distant from her parents. That it was more.
“Kaylee, we need to talk about this.”
“No, we don’t. You have enough going on without worrying about me and ancient history. It’s stuff I’ve sorted out, Bennett. But like I was telling your son today, I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t learned that sometimes needing people, letting people be in your life, is important. Is necessary. You mean the world to me. You always have. You showed me that people were good. You taught me to ride horses and run barefoot in fields and...and that depending on someone doesn’t always end in disappointment. But it takes a lot of years to undo the kind of hurt that I went through. I assume it will be the same for him.”
She looked uncertain then. Vulnerable and young. Which Kaylee never did. She’d never admitted she didn’t have a single thing handled as long as he’d known her. He was always proud of her, his brash, pretty friend who attacked the world like it was a bull coming at her horns first. She went straight for those horns, grabbed them, took control. Always. It was who she was. Right then she looked uncertain.
He wanted to shoulder it for her. Wanted to fix it. If he’d had any idea that she’d been in need back when they were kids he would have...he would have done anything to give her what she needed.
She didn’t like that, his Kaylee. Didn’t like asking for anyone’s help. Didn’t like leaning on anyone. He wished she could have confided in him. He wished she’d let him take care of her. Even just for a moment.
Without thinking, he reached out and brushed his fingertips along the edge of her jaw. She drew in a sharp breath, looking up at him, her blue eyes going wide. It was like last night. When everything had gone sideways for a minute when he had touched her. When they had talked about the fact that no man had ever made her lose control. When he had been forced to imagine what it might look like if she did lose control.
He had shoved all that down deep, buried it underneath the uncertainty and the general enormity of having to cope with having a son. Because dealing with this strange, electric sensation he felt in these quiet moments with her was the only thing that came close to being as unsettling as what was happening with Dallas.
“Ready to go?”
They turned and saw Dallas standing there, eyeing them with a speculative expression on his face.
He was a teenager. He was not supposed to be perceptive. But Bennett had a feeling that the kid was being far too perceptive at this moment about what had just crossed through Bennett’s mind.
“Ready,” Bennett said.
“Hey.” Kaylee touched his arm. “Why don’t I ride with you? We can all squeeze in.”
For some reason, he was more than ready to take her up on that. He shouldn’t. He should let there be some distance. He shouldn’t lean on her quite so hard.
But she had just spent the entire day with Dallas, and having her on the ride over to the ranch was a comforting thought.
They all piled into his truck, with Kaylee sitting in the middle and Dallas by the door. Kaylee’s thigh brushed up against his, and he did his best not to hyperfocus on it.
He and Kaylee had squeezed into vehicles like this countless times over the years. One denim-clad leg brushing against his denim-clad leg should not register on his radar.
But it was more than moving the needle right about now.
It was just because he was thrown off. He had been for days. Which was why he was experiencing these strange electrical currents when she was around.
But right now, he had two choices. To focus on the fact that he was driving over to his family ranch to announce to his brothers and sister that he had a son. Or he could focus on the fact that each bump in the road that brought Kaylee’s body into contact with his sent an electrical spark right down through him.
He opted to focus on her.
But by the time they got to the ranch his teeth were set on edge.
“It’s going to be fine,” he said, mostly to himself.
“It’s going to be weird,” Dallas said.
“Well, I didn’t say it wouldn’t be weird. I said it would be fine.”
Kaylee shook her head, the motion kicking up that scent that was uniquely hers. Soap and skin, no-nonsense. Clean, even after a day spent handling animals. It was strange to him, that the scent of her skin was so familiar, when it wasn’t as if he had ever been pressed up against that skin. But it was. He knew her. His Kaylee. Better than almost any other person in the world. And he was damned grateful to have her with him right about now.
“Should I hide in the bushes or something?” Dallas asked. “Then I can jump out and surprise everybody.”
Kaylee laughed. Bennett could barely manage to force a smile.
“We’re trying not to give anyone a heart attack. My brother is pushing forty. We have to be careful.”
Dallas shrugged. “I’m just trying to spice things up. You know, keep the whole secret family member thing interesting. We’ve got a good thing going here. I would hate for it to get too expected.”
“Believe me,” Bennett said. “Nothing about you is expected.”
The group of them walked up the steps to the front of the house, Bennett feeling increasingly tense with each step.
He looked over at Kaylee, who looked resolute. He wanted to touch her. He wasn’t sure why. Except that focusing on her on the drive over had been helpful, and maybe that was why his hands itched now to touch the soft skin on her face. He had done it earlier. A comforting gesture, when he had been thinking about her and all of the neglect that she had been through.
He had wanted to comfort her then, but now he kind of wanted her to touch him to offer him something.
He shook that off.
He and Kaylee didn’t touch unnecessarily. They were friends. And it had never mattered that she was a woman and he was a man. Their friendship was deeper than that. He wasn’t going to go reducing her now. Wasn’t going to try to seek physical comfort in her softness just because she was a woman.
She was better than that. More than that.
She was the kind of friend that picked you up off the side of the road at two in the morning if your truck got a flat at the wrong place and time. The kind of friend who came right over when you found out you had a secret son.
The best kind of friend. The most important kind.
She’d been there for him when his grief had hit him hard at high school graduation, when he’d looked around and seen mothers watching their children, and he’d become so acutely aware his had missed so much.
They’d sneaked beer out of his dad’s fridge and run barefoot through the field behind the house. Lying under the stars and getting buzzed and talking about what college would be like. A celebration that they’d both been accepted into the same program, and a memorial for his loss, all in one.
She made him pumpkin pies every year at college on his birthday because they were his favorite, and were impossible to find in the store in February. In return he drove to the bakery outside town and got her favorite—filled, salted caramel cupcakes—for hers.
They’d watched each other grow up. The only other people in his life who knew him half as well was his family. And in many ways, she knew him better.
She was the kind of friend who’d lasted. This was real stuff. Hard stuff. The kind of stuff that didn’t even seem possible to have happen in real life. Off-the-wall, crazy ridiculousness. She was here for it.
He took a deep breath, and opened the door, nearly colliding with Luke Hollister when he did.
“Oh,” Luke said. “I was just heading out.”
Considering that Luke was Bennett’s ex-girlfriend’s new fiancé, he wasn’t exactly the person that Bennett wanted to see right now. Only because he couldn’t possibly deal with one more layer of complication. It had nothing to do with Olivia or lingering feelings for her. It was just that...
He saw the exact moment that Luke’s eyes collided with the young man standing next to Bennett.
“Who is...”
“Luke,” came a voice from behind him.
It was Olivia.
She ran into Luke’s broad back and then froze, her eyes connecting with his. Then, she looked at Dallas.
“Hi, Bennett,” she said very carefully. Very, very carefully.
He had seen Olivia plenty since they had broken up. There had been a space of time when she had actively tried to make him jealous by throwing Luke in his face. But it was his understanding that at the time their relationship hadn’t been real. But that through attempting to make him jealous, it had become real.
He had interacted with them both since then, though, not since the pregnancy revelation. There weren’t hard feelings. Just weird ones.
“We were just leaving,” Olivia supplied.
“And we’re just getting here,” Kaylee said, looking a little bit combative.
Kaylee was more protective of him than she needed to be. He was a grown-ass man, and he could more than handle running into an ex.
“This is Dallas,” he said, not seeing any point in delaying introducing the kid. It would seem weird if he didn’t.
“Nice to meet you,” said Olivia. “I’m Olivia. This is Luke.”
And none of them told any of the others how they were all connected. All things considered, it was probably for the best.
But then, Wyatt showed up.
“There’s kind of a bottleneck at the door,” Bennett said drily.
“Apparently,” Wyatt said. “Who is this?”
“Dallas,” Bennett said.
“I’m your long-lost nephew,” Dallas said, completely unhelpful and at completely the wrong time.
Damned kid.
“What?” Wyatt looked like he could easily be pushed over with a feather. Luke was frozen, his eyes fixed on the situation, and Olivia’s eyes were darting back and forth, clear confusion written on her delicate face.
“I’m assuming you’re the family that I’m supposed to meet?”
“We’re not family,” Luke said, jerking his thumb between Olivia and himself. “Not officially.”
“My bad,” Dallas said. “But nice to meet you anyway.”
“Long-lost nephew?” Wyatt asked, clearly trying to do the math here.
“Yes,” Bennett said, his tone grave. “It’s kind of a long story, and I only wanted to tell it once tonight, but it looks like it’s not going to go that way. This is my son.”
The eruption of profanity around him would have been funny if it weren’t so tense. Dallas seemed to find it hilarious. He was obviously enjoying the fact that none of the adults around him seemed to have any clue what to make of the situation.
“Come in,” Wyatt said, ushering everybody back into the house, including Luke and Olivia.
“Where are Grant and Jamie?” Bennett asked.
“On their way,” he said.
“Well, maybe we should wait for the full explanation until they’re here.”
“How detailed is the explanation going to be?” Dallas asked. “Because if we’re going to go over my conception I would like to skip that. I want to be able to eat dinner tonight.”
“He’s funny,” Bennett said. “He doesn’t get that from me.”
“I’m not surprised by that revelation,” Dallas said.
“I didn’t know about him,” Bennett said, turning his focus to his brother.
“How is that possible?” Luke asked. “I was a pretty big manwhore.” He looked over at Olivia. “Sorry, honey, but you know it was true. And even I don’t have random kids.”
“That you know of,” Kaylee said, her tone weighted.
Luke looked uncomfortable at that pointed statement.
“I mean...” Olivia looked at Luke pointedly. “You did get me pregnant when you didn’t mean to.”
Luke shot Bennett a glance. “I already know,” Bennett offered.
“Oh. Okay then.”
“It got overshadowed by this whole situation. But congratulations.”
Luke appraised him, and then appraised Dallas a little bit more slowly. “Yeah, well. Congratulations to you too.”
“Who is... I mean...”
Just then, the door opened, and Grant and Jamie came in. Grant took off his cowboy hat, looking around the room. “What is happening?”
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Wyatt said. “Have a seat.”
“What?” Jamie asked.
“Just sit down,” Wyatt said. “Bennett is telling us a story.”
Jamie looked over at Dallas. “You look just like my brothers,” she said. “Oh, shit. Does Dad have a secret kid?”
“That would have been easier to believe,” Wyatt said. “Apparently, Bennett has a secret kid.”
Jamie let out a string of truly inventive swears. “Bennett?” She looked scandalized and disgusted. It probably wounded her mortally to ever have to believe he’d had sex. But that was the least of his worries at the moment.
“This is so much more fun than I thought it would be,” Dallas said. “But then, I imagined there would be a lot more hugging and crying, and I don’t like any of that. I like the swearing a lot more.”
“I’m sorry,” Jamie said. “I didn’t mean to swear because you exist.”
Dallas laughed. “Are you...”
“I’m Bennett’s sister. So I guess I’m your aunt.”
Jamie was only nine years older than Dallas, so that had to hit her a little bit funny. Dallas too, if his expression was anything to go off.
“I always imagined that aunts had lipstick on their teeth and cat-eye glasses.”
“Well, you’re out of luck,” Jamie said. “Because I don’t have glasses and I sure as hell don’t have a tube of lipstick.”
“I’m starting to see a family resemblance between all of us,” Dallas said. “The language we use.”
Bennett shook his head. “Let’s start over. I have a son. I just found out last night.”
“And who’s the mother?”
“Marnie. My girlfriend from high school.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “I remember her.”
Grant wasn’t saying much, but then Bennett had had a feeling that this would hit Grant in an especially strange way. Grant was the one who should have a son. Who should have a family. Grant had been married. Married at eighteen, widowed by twenty-six. None of his life had gone the way that it was supposed to. And here it was Bennett who ended up with a kid. When it was Grant who had been ready for that kind of thing. Who had wanted it. But it was something that he and Lindsay had never been able to accomplish. Not with her health. Even adoption had been out of the question, though he knew that Grant had looked into it several times in the hopes of making Lindsay’s dreams of being a mother come true before she passed.
And much like Olivia’s pregnancy had brought up the memories of Marnie’s pregnancy and the loss of it for Bennett, he knew that it was bringing up stuff for his older brother.
“Where have you been living?” Jamie asked, directing the question at Dallas.
“Portland, mostly. I’ve been in foster care for the past few years.”
“What happened to Marnie?” Wyatt asked.
“My mom is a druggie,” Dallas said succinctly.
“I knew that Marnie was pregnant,” Bennett said. “But she told me that she lost the baby, and I didn’t have any reason to suspect otherwise. But now the state put all the pieces together and figured out that I was Dallas’s father. I can get tests done...”
“What’s the point?” Jamie asked. “He looks just like you.”
“And it isn’t like the timing is off,” Grant said, the first he’d spoken beyond the casual swear word since coming in. “Plus, you were with her.”
“I know,” Bennett said. “I don’t doubt it. Not at all. At first, I felt like I might need to confirm some things, but honestly, since I’ve had time to absorb it a little bit... I feel like there isn’t much question about any of this.”
Grant cast a worried glance in Dallas’s direction. “Sorry,” he said. “It must not be any fun to have people talk about you like you’re not there. I know how that feels.”
“You people are always trying to relate to me. That, I find weird.” Dallas stood up then. “I was promised dinner. That was the trade-off for the awkward family part.”
Wyatt stood up. “Yeah. There’s food in the kitchen.”
“He doesn’t cook,” Jamie said quickly. “He gets big batches of food from the Mustard Seed diner in town. He uses it to feed all the ranch hands, and then he feeds the rest of us with it too.”
They all started to filter toward the kitchen, and Kaylee touched his arm. He paused, hanging back for a moment.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said.
“I thought you were supposed to tell me the truth. Isn’t that friendship?”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“You can’t know how this is going to go. Not really.”
Kaylee frowned. “I can. I mean, I’m not saying that it isn’t going to be hard. I’m just saying...your family is a great family. And I know that things aren’t working out exactly the way that you imagined. I know that you expected to be engaged to Olivia by now. And that you expected to have your first child with her. And that you most definitely didn’t expect to end up single with a fifteen-year-old.”
Bennett looked toward the kitchen, where said fifteen-year-old and the aforementioned ex-girlfriend had just disappeared to. “Olivia really doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m feeling. I mean...I wasn’t happy that the relationship ended. Mostly because we’d made plans and...having a plan is important to me. But that’s the real problem. I’m not sure I have any idea what the hell is going to happen next. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t. And that’s about my least favorite situation to find myself in.”
Kaylee pressed her fingertips to his shoulder, dragged them down to his elbow. It was a completely platonic thing to do. But for some reason the touch lingered long after she pulled her hand back to her side.
“But it’s going to be okay,” she reiterated. “Whatever happens. They’re going to be here for you. I’m going to be here for you.”
She lifted her hand again, and then, Bennett heard someone behind him clear his throat. He turned, and saw Wyatt standing there. “Everything’s fine,” Wyatt said. “I just wanted to ask you a quick question while we weren’t in front of an audience.”
“Kaylee isn’t an audience,” Bennett said, taking a step back from her.
“Right.” Wyatt looked between them. “Does the kid need work?”
“What?” Of all the things that his brother could have asked him right then, that wasn’t what Bennett was expecting. But then, Wyatt was a man of action more than he was a man of words. And finding something concrete that he could offer was his way of acknowledging the situation in many ways, Bennett was sure.
“I have work on the ranch. I can pay him. It will give him something to do. Something to occupy himself. Actually, it occurred to me when Luke started asking Dallas what he does with his time. And he said he had no idea what to do around here. Well, remember Luke moved here when he was sixteen and got a job on the ranch. He credits it with keeping him out of trouble.”
“Luke knocked up my girlfriend. So, whether or not he’s stayed out of trouble is actually up for debate.”
“She was your ex-girlfriend,” Wyatt clarified. “Be fair.”
“I put him to work today at the veterinary clinic,” Kaylee said. “He was really good with the dogs. He says he doesn’t like animals, but I can tell that isn’t true.”
“I have to figure out the school situation,” Bennett said. “School is out in what...three weeks? There’s not very much point in him starting now. But I’m going to have to figure out a way to get him up to speed to start school in September. Otherwise...I think working here would be good.”
Money would give him an incentive to show up, and it would also give Bennett some assurance that during the day the kid was taken care of. Plus, Bennett was involved in Get Out of Dodge himself, spending a lot of his days off doing work on the ranch, so it would all work out nicely, really.
“Perfect,” Wyatt said. “I’ll offer it to him.” Then, Wyatt shook his head, rubbing his hand over his forehead. “Damn. If I had a kid randomly show up out of the blue I would be losing it.”
“You think I’m not?”
“You’re doing it pretty quietly.”
“No point freaking out.”
“It’s just... You seem like the kind of guy to wear two condoms at the same time to make sure nothing happens.” Bennett shot a look over at Kaylee, whose face had turned a particular shade of scarlet. “Sorry,” Wyatt continued. “But you do.”
“How do you think I became that guy?” Bennett asked. “Also, that doesn’t help, in fact, it can make it worse, because the latex rubs against it... Never mind.”
“I’m going to go get some dinner,” Kaylee said. “You can keep having this discussion without me.”
Wyatt’s gaze followed Kaylee as she walked from the room. “Sorry,” he said.
“Whatever. She’s fine.”
“She didn’t look fine.”
“It’s been a weird couple of days.”
“Seriously. How are you?” Bennett knew that Wyatt did sincerity only if he absolutely had to. Which meant that the situation must be really messed up.
“I don’t know how to answer that. I could say that I’m fine, but it’s not really true. I’m handling it. Because what else can I do? He’s mine. He’s my responsibility.”
“I just can’t imagine.” Wyatt shook his head.
“Neither can I. But I’m living it. So, there it is.”
“Have you called Dad yet?”
“No. That’s going to be...a conversation.”
“I have to tell you, I did not think you would be the one to have a skeleton in your closet quite like this.”
“Neither did I. I thought...I made a mistake. And, it seemed like it was one that resolved itself, even though the resolution was pretty traumatic at the time.”
“Did you ever tell Dad that your girlfriend was pregnant?”
“No.” Bennett scrubbed his face. “You had moved out. Grant was getting married, and I know that Dad was worried about all of that. Knowing that Grant was marrying a woman who was going to die. Dad having gone through that himself. He didn’t want that for Grant. Especially knowing that any other outcome was unlikely. I figured I’d have to tell him eventually. I figured I would have to tell everybody.”
“Well, you were right about that. It just happened fifteen years later than you imagined.”
Bennett tried to laugh. “Right.”
“Come on,” Wyatt said. “Let’s go have dinner. We’re Dodges. We’ve been through enough to handle this too. We lost enough together. It’s about time we got something instead.”
Bennett couldn’t help but admire his brother’s perspective on that. And so, on a heavy sigh, he followed him into the kitchen, and got ready to have dinner as a family.
* * *
KAYLEE WAS MOSTLY silent through dinner. She watched Jamie attempt to engage Dallas in discussion. Watched Grant sink deeper into a bottle of beer. Bennett was on edge, obviously, waiting for someone to cause offense or take offense. Or maybe just waiting for the roof to collapse.
At this point, she didn’t really blame him.
Wyatt, for his part, was trying to direct things. Because that was what he did. Bennett controlled his own life. He was steady, and responsible, while Wyatt was the wild card out of the brothers. Brash and bold, the oldest Dodge had never done anything according to convention.
But at Get Out of Dodge, he was definitely in charge. It was his place. He was the one with the vision for it. And she could see all of that reflected in the way that he kept things moving at dinner.
He was magnetic. A champion bull rider who had not only completed a record number of rides, but who had easily scored endorsement deals with his good looks. Wyatt was a force to be reckoned with. Always had been.
He was sexy as hell too. There wasn’t a single Dodge brother who wasn’t. But he had never appealed to Kaylee in the same way that Bennett did. Wyatt was much more rugged, scars on his face and body, and he possessed kind of an aggressive swagger and bravado that came with men like him. Cowboys who risked life and limb every day for a belt buckle and some money.
Bennett was rugged, but it was in a more low-key way. He had the kind of looks that almost would have been too pretty if it weren’t for his height, muscular build and the scars on his hands betraying the fact that he never shied away from manual labor.
Grant was handsome too, in that steady sort of way. Square jaw, brown eyes and a mouth that rarely smiled. The strong silent type was an understatement.
But it was Bennett, always had been, who had affected her physically. And she had gone and touched him twice in the space of the past hour. The whole drive over to the ranch had been fraught for her. Her thigh kept brushing up against his, and it...it affected her. She couldn’t pretend it didn’t.
Then in the living room...
She turned her focus back to the present.
“We are going to have a cleanup day over the weekend. I’ve enlisted the girls from Grassroots Winery to come over and share a meal with us, and then we’re going to go over the logistics of this partnership. After that, it’s going to be time to really whip the property into shape.”
“Women,” Jamie said crisply. “You will find that all of the females that work at Grassroots are women, Wyatt.”
“My mistake,” he said. “Though, if we’re going to be pedantic, a few women and a harpy.”
Grant chuckled. “Say that to her face sometime,” he said, meaning Lindy, the owner of the winery.
“No thanks,” Wyatt said. “I like my face as it is.”
“Hmm.” Jamie made a speculative sound. “Really? You do?”
“You’re awfully punchy tonight for someone whose paychecks I sign,” he said to his little sister.
She shrugged. “You need it. You need someone to keep you on your toes.”
“No. What I need is a dictatorship that goes unchallenged.”
“Sadly,” Grant said, “for you, this is a partnership.”
“We all own a piece of this ranch,” Bennett said, for Dallas’s benefit.
“Yes,” Wyatt agreed. “And it’s a pain in my ass sometimes.”
“Except that we all help you,” Grant supplied.
“Help is subjective.”
“Speaking of help,” Bennett said, looking at Wyatt meaningfully.
“Right,” Wyatt said, taking the cue. “I’d like to hire you to work at the ranch, Dallas. I’m going to pay you.”
Dallas looked surprised. “What?”
“Do you want a job?”
“Doing what?”
“Whatever the hell I ask you to do. Like I said, we are going to have a big cleanup day over the weekend. I’d like to start you then. Because we’ll have all hands on deck I can train you to do a few things. But I need a basic ranch hand. I have horses and other animals to take care of. Luke here just started his own ranch, so I don’t have as much help as I used to.”
That drew Kaylee’s attention back to Luke and Olivia. It was strange how being near them wasn’t really all that strange. She was used to being near Olivia and feeling a constant burning sensation. All that jealousy. But there was nothing to be jealous of now. She was with Luke. They were happy, clearly, in a way that Olivia had never been when she’d been with Bennett. She’d always seemed a little stressed and overly serious with Bennett. With Luke, she smiled. And he smiled back. They were in love. That was the difference. And if she felt any kind of jealousy it was...different.
Well, she had that dinner date with Michael coming up. Maybe she could fall in love with him.
The idea of that felt strange. Wrong.
Her place felt secure here at this table. With this family. Making a new one wasn’t even something she was sure she wanted.
But maybe that was the problem. Maybe the problem was that Bennett’s family had always been her surrogate family. And part of her feelings for him were wrapped up in that.
That was pathetic. She didn’t want to be pathetic.
Anyway, it didn’t matter how she felt. The Dodges felt like family sometimes, but it didn’t make her family. Sometimes watching them interact with each other made her feel like a kid with her nose pressed against the window of a toy store. All that wonder and glory and none of it for her.
Pathetic.
“That sounds...not terrible,” Dallas returned.
“We have to work schooling out,” Bennett said.
“The year is almost over.”
“I know,” Bennett said. “But we’re going to do everything we can to get you caught up so that you can move on to your sophomore year. Is that the grade you should be in?”
Dallas laughed. “Yeah.”
“Well, we’re going to do that. If there has to be some summer school, then there has to be summer school.”
“I’m not failing or anything. I should just be able to do the last few weeks at home.”
“Okay. Well, you made it sound like you were failing.”
Everyone at the table was watching the exchange with rapt interest. And Kaylee couldn’t deny that she found it pretty interesting herself. To watch Bennett assume this position. The way that he was dealing with Dallas was... Well, it wasn’t doing anything to calm her feelings down.
She had always thought he was the best man in the entire world. And this was only confirming it. If only he could be decent and have feet of clay. But no.
“Not failing.”
“Well, I’ll call the school and see what we need to do.”
The meal moved on, Wyatt gleefully listing the various tasks that Dallas would probably be made to do. She could see that at a certain point Dallas was a little bit overwhelmed. Not because his uncle was promising to make him dig holes for a fence, but because he had an uncle at all. He got quiet, no longer making mouthy asides to fill the silences.
“I’m getting tired,” she said softly.
“Oh, right,” Bennett said. “We rode together.”
Whether or not he realized that she was making the excuse for Dallas, she had a feeling that he was grateful for it.
“We have to go,” Bennett said, standing. “We all rode over together.”
“I have an early appointment,” she lied. “But thanks for dinner, Wyatt.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “Thanks for...well, coming.”
She felt like he was actually thanking her for being here at all. For being there for Bennett.
Dallas’s shoulders sagged with relief once they told everyone goodbye and were outside on their way to the pickup truck.
“Are you okay?” she asked underneath the sound of their feet crunching on the gravel.
“Me?” Dallas asked.
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“Fine. Tired.”
Bennett didn’t say anything, he just got into the truck and started the engine. She and Dallas followed suit.
She had forgotten that she would end up sitting next to Bennett again. That her leg would be smashed up against his. The heat of his body seeping into hers. Suddenly, she was exhausted. It was all just...a lot. And she knew that Dallas wasn’t her responsibility, but it still felt weighty. Like something she was carrying, an extra burden, on behalf of her friend.
Bennett’s house was between Get Out of Dodge and the clinic. After making sure he was completely all right, Bennett dropped Dallas off at the house, telling him he wouldn’t be long, before heading back onto the highway to take Kaylee to her car.
“So I guess he has a job now,” Bennett said.
“Yeah,” Kaylee said, scooting all the way to the door, as far away from Bennett as she possibly could. Her leg still burned.
“I’m glad. I’m glad that he has something to keep him busy.”
“And something to give the two of you some distance?”
“It’s definitely a uniquely exhausting situation. And he’s not a toddler or anything. He doesn’t need constant care. But I feel like...I don’t know him. He’s a stranger. But I care about him. What’s going to happen to him. If he’s happy. And I don’t know how to gauge any of that. I don’t know how to control it. I hate not being in control, Kaylee. I really do.”
“Well, if it’s at all comforting, I don’t think you’ve ever been in control. I just think sometimes it’s easier to pretend that you are.”
“That’s not particularly comforting.”
“Sorry. But it’s the truth.”
“Can he come by the clinic again tomorrow?”
“Sure. He was fine today.”
“Are you going to come over for cleanup day?”
Spending the day watching Bennett do manual labor sounded like a recipe in sweet sexual torture. She wasn’t sure she was up for it. But she didn’t feel like she could leave him alone either. Not that he would be alone.
“Sure. Oh. Is that Saturday?”
“Yes.”
“I have a dinner date. So, I’m going to have to leave early to shower all the...you know.”
“Right. With the dachshund guy.”
“Michael,” she said.
“Right. Not like I really have to remember his name.”
Kaylee frowned into the darkness of the truck. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It’s not like I have to remember the guy’s name, Kay. Let’s be honest. Your boyfriends don’t last very long.”
“What the hell, Bennett?” she asked, rage breaking out over her skin like hives. She could feel it. Just beneath the surface of her skin. Itchy. Hot.
“How long has your longest relationship lasted, Kaylee?”
“I don’t know. But that’s completely...asinine. I know the names of all of your girlfriends.”
That just made her sound sad.
“Sorry. I didn’t know that would be an offensive observation. I’m just saying, it’s not like you’re going to go on more than a couple of dates with him.”
“I dated Kyle for three months.”
Surely he wasn’t her longest relationship. “Ryan.” She snapped her finger in triumph. “I dated Ryan for six months.”
“When? Five years ago?”
Probably.
“Just stop,” she said. “Stop while you’re only a couple steps behind and you have a hope in hell of catching up at some point.”
“Sorry,” he said.
She stewed. The only sound the tires on the rough road. She looked out the window, the darkness concealing any view she might have been able to use to distract herself with. She looked up, the dark, ragged silhouettes of the trees and inky blur bordering the clear night sky.
She took a deep breath. “I can’t believe that you think it’s not worth remembering the name of my date.” Apparently, she couldn’t let it go. Even if he did drop the subject.
“I’m just saying that unless he puts a ring on your finger or something, it’s very likely I’m not going to need to know his name.”
“I was right in the middle of all of your Olivia drama.”
“I was with her for a year. Plus, she was somebody that you knew before I started dating her.”
“No. That’s not it. I care more about what happens in your life than you care about what happens in mine.”
“The hell I don’t care.”
“Sure. You just let me never tell you about my home life.”
“Come on, Kaylee. Because I didn’t drag the story out of you by force? You never talked about it, I had no reason to assume that what you’d told me wasn’t the whole truth of it.”
She was being petulant. She was being driven into petulance by the fact that he didn’t care she was going on a date. That was the real issue. She knew the name of every woman he had ever gone out with because those women had each hooked a manicured nail into one of her insecurities. Olivia was so petite, and Kaylee, with her Amazonian stature, couldn’t compete. Then there had been Brandy. Who had looked exactly like her name suggested. Big breasts. Small waist. The kind of butt you had to do squats to get, because nobody got it on accident.
Yes. There had been many, and they had all been different than her in some way. He had never gone out with a lean, athletic-looking redhead who was pushing six feet.
She had made a choice. A choice to keep her friendship with Bennett as it was, but it didn’t stop her from resenting every woman who was brave enough to take what she didn’t feel like she could.
She remembered all the women because it bothered her. And he couldn’t remember the men, because they didn’t matter to him.
That hurt. No matter how much she wished it didn’t, no matter that it didn’t make sense because she’d decided their friendship should never change.
The certain knowledge that no part of him harbored secret fantasies about her...
It sucked, basically.
About a second before she crawled out of her skin, and then maybe crawled out of the moving vehicle, they arrived at the clinic. As soon he put the truck in Park she basically scrambled out of the passenger seat.
She heard the driver-side door slam a second after she slammed her own door. She ignored it.
“Kaylee,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She stopped, closing her eyes. “Don’t, Bennett. I’m just tired.”
And there she was, pushing it all off like it was nothing. It wasn’t fair to get angry at him about her parents. To get angry about this. When push came to shove, when rubber met the very pothole-laden road, she always did this. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Because she didn’t think she deserved...
She didn’t even know what.
“You’re not just tired. Something’s bothering you.”
“And you just became a father. Your life is...hell, Bennett, I don’t even know what your life is right now. My stuff doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t.”
“Kaylee, if you don’t tell me, then I can’t know. This is why I don’t know all your stuff. And then it isn’t fair that you’re angry at me.”
“Bennett...”
“I hope your date goes well.”
Dammit. Now she felt like she had been stuck through the chest with an ice pick. That didn’t help. It didn’t help at all.
“Thanks,” she said.
“If you want to talk about your parents...”
“If I did I would have by now. I just wanted to give you a context for the way that I was talking to Dallas. That’s all. We’re fine. The way that we are. We don’t need to change anything.”
She turned and stomped to her car, ignoring the fact that he was still standing there watching her. They were fine the way they were. Except that they weren’t. Except that as she had realized earlier, nothing was going to change. Touching him was always going to light her on fire. Unless... She didn’t even know what.
All the deciding in the world that she wanted to be his friend wouldn’t take it away. Not forever. And when she was consumed with him it was...so awful. So hard.
She swallowed, miserable, her throat aching.
The date with Michael had to go well. He had to last long enough that Bennett would have to learn his name.
She had to do something to get a hold of herself.
She really did.