The words came again—Go talk to him—and Caroline noticed they were louder. More intense. Shegrabbed her phone from where she’d set it on the dresser and dialed Dawson instead. His line rang and rang, and he didn’t pick up. When his voicemail picked up, Caroline’s frustration fired through her.
His inability to do what she wanted irritated her as much now as it had when he wouldn’t file the blasted owl paperwork. She had to squash down the feelings, because Dawson might be at dinner with his parents, and he silenced his phone during such an activity. He might be out on the ranch where they didn’t have service. He might be in the shower, mere minutes away from going to bed.
She hung up without leaving a message, and the prompting came again, almost a shout in her head.
Go talk to him!
Caroline headed for the door, and she called, “I’m going to see Dawson,” as she swiped her keys from the kitchen counter. It was forty-five minutes to the ranch, and it would be dusk-bordering-on-dark by the time she arrived.
“Dust and shadows,” she fake swore as she exited the house. Dusk had already started to settle over Three Rivers, which meant she’d be showing up at Dawson’s cabin at full dark.
She hesitated, and God practically bellowed at her:Go talk to him.
Caroline made the drive, barely glancing at Duke and Zona’s house when she went by. She couldn’tbelieve she’d thought it would be a good idea to show up there an hour early, simply so she could relieve her own anxieties over becoming part of the Rhinehart family.
“That’s what it was,” she whispered to herself, the words rising slowly and serenely, the way the dust did under her tires as she drove down the dirt road.
She’d been anxious about the steps she and Dawson were taking, because they led to her becoming a Rhinehart. Truly becoming part of his family.
She thought of Zona and how headstrong she was. Then April, who definitely had her own mind and spoke it, lived it. Caroline could maintain herself while giving up some of the control that had literally saved her in the past.
“But the past is the past,” she told herself as the homestead came into view. Dawson lived a short jog around the corner, and Caroline made the drive easily, as she’d done it many times before.
Tonight felt different, because Caroline felt different. Both his and Brandon’s trucks sat in front of the cabin they shared, and she found Ruffin lying in the shade of one of the big trees in the front yard.
“Odd,” she murmured. Ruffin usually stuck close to Dawson, and if he was outside, then....
Caroline slammed on the brakes when she saw Dawson rise from a chair on the front porch. He held something in his hands, but she couldn’t quite tell what. Her heartbeat boomed at her as if God Himself hadpicked up a mallet and hit a big, bass drum over and over again. The beats told her to keep moving; she’d come this far, and Dawson had now seen her. She couldn’t just drive away.
She managed to get the car moving, and she parked it next to Brandon’s truck. By the time she got out, Dawson had come down the front steps, his hands now empty. He looked at her and tucked his hands away in his front pockets.
“Hey,” she said, and the slam from her car door closing made her flinch. “I’m a little surprised you’re not in bed.”
“And yet, here you are,” he said, stopping a healthy distance away. So there was definitely something wrong.
Caroline twisted her hands over and around one another. “Are we still together?”
Dawson opened his mouth, then quickly closed it. He looked away, his jaw jumping in a way Caroline had seen before and didn’t like.
“Because I don’t want us tonotbe together,” she said, feeling her old strength come into her body. She pushed it down, because now wasn’t the time for Caroline to be her old self.
Her chin shook as tears filled her eyes. “I hate that you didn’t text or call me today, and I hate that you’re thinking of breaking up with me, and I really, reallyloathethat you believe I won’t make room for you.”
He ducked his head in that adorable way he had, thesweetness just pouring off him. He didn’t refute anything she’d said, which meant he hadn’t texted or called on purpose. He absolutely was thinking of breaking up with her. And he one-hundred percent believed she couldn’t change and make room for him.
“I’ll just sit with you,” she said. “Is that okay? We don’t have to talk, the way we didn’t at the diner that one time.”
He lifted his head and nodded at her, then turned and went back toward the porch. She followed him, and he retook his seat, picked up a knife and a hunk of wood, and started whittling again.
Caroline took the only other seat on the porch, the small, round table between them. “I didn’t know you whittled,” she said.
“From time to time,” he said in his gruff voice. “When I need my hands busy.”
She’d learned in the past six months that sometimes Dawson said only half of what he meant. And when he needed his hands busy, it was so he could work through the troubling thoughts in his mind.
Caroline pressed her lips together, because she’d told him they didn’t have to talk. They’d never had to fill the silence with mindless chatter, and Caroline took a deep breath and clasped her hands together in her lap.
Lord, she thought.Thank You for this beautiful night.